The earliest publishers of Piers Plowman assumed that there was one version of the poem. By the early nineteenth century it had become evident that there are three different versions of Piers Plowman , known as the A-text, the B-text, and the C-text since Walter W. Skeat's editions of 1867, 1869, and 1873 respectively. The A-text is the earliest and shortest of the three versions, being roughly 2,400 lines long. The B-text is an extensive reworking of the A-text: the original 2,400 lines are transformed into 3,200 lines, and more than 4,000 lines of new material are added. The B-text is the most poetic of the three versions, and the majority of criticism (including this essay) is based upon it. In comparison, the C-text is more prosaic. C is almost a total revision of B, except for the last two passuspassus which are untouched (the various sections of all three versions are called by the...