Adam Pinkhurst and the Copying of British Library, MS Additional 35287 of the B Version of Piers Plowman

Adam Pinkhurst, Geoffrey Chaucer, and the Hengwrt Manuscript of theCanterbury Tales

“…My recent identifi cation of Pinkhurst's hand correcting a copy of the B-text of Piers Plowman to serve as an exemplar for further copying, also hints at the collaborative nature of the commercial booktrade. 27 Th e diffi culties involved in obtaining complete and accurate exemplars of Middle English literary works must have been considerable, and it seems only reasonable to assume a degree of cooperation and sharing of exemplars of complete texts, or portions of texts, in such an environment. Th e copying of lengthy texts, such as the Canterbury Tales , would have been considerably facilitated by the sharing of portions of the text between scribes, allowing two or more scribes to produce copies simultaneously.…”