John But’s Text(s) of <i>Piers Plowman</i>

PIERS PLOWMANThe best known of several non-authorial continuations to the A version of Piers Plowman, by the reader who names himself 'Johan But' (A.12.106), 1 contains reminiscences of 'at least one' of the longer versions B and C. 2 As Anne Middleton has comprehensively demonstrated, the scribal character of the whole A Passus 12 (and not just the final lines 99-117 that report the 'werkes' and death of the dreamer Will) is suggested by the way it 'mechanically' replays at once the preceding action of the A version and both the beginning and the end of the BC continuation. 3A Passus 12 describes an encounter with Clergy and Scripture that duplicates (as I discuss further below) Will's earlier conversation with Wit and Study, while simultaneously echoing Scripture's 'scorn' for the dreamer that initiates the B-version continuation.Directed by Scripture to the house of her cousin and confessor Kynde Wit (A.12.38-54), as Study had earlier set him on the road to Clergy and Scripture (A.11.100-27),Will is accosted first by Hunger (A.12.63-76) and then by Fever (A.12.77-87), a messenger of Death whose arrival recalls the assaults of Elde in the final passus of B and C (B.20/C.22.95-96,183-98).Elde there is also Death's herald, and the fear and despair he produces in the dreamer (B.20/ C.22.199-203) is answered in But's continuation by Will's desire to follow Fever (A.12.88).As Kynde in the final passus of B and C urges a desperate Will to turn to Unity and to stay there until summoned (B.20/C.22.204-6),so in John But's report, the dreamer accepts Fever's encouragement to continue to 'lyue as is lyf is ordeyned for the' (A.12.90). 4 Following this reprieve, Will is said to have 'wrousthe at here is wryten and oer werkes boe' (A.12.101)before finally succumbing to death and leaving John But to make 'is ende' (A.12.109) to his unfinished poem.Readers of John But's continuation have been in no doubt that he knew Piers Plowman well, and not only in its A version.With just how many of the three authorial forms of the text he was familiar has been less clear, however.As Ralph Hanna notes, But 'certainly knew' the B version: his reference to how he himself 'medle of making' (A.12.109)echoes in language, if not in sentiment, Ymaginatif's disparaging description of Will's poetry in B.12.16 ('And ow medlest ee wi makynges and mystest go seye i sauter'), not present in A or C. 5 Several scholars have further