Piers Plowman and the Chancery Tradition.

An inspection of the sixteen B manuscripts (counting R’ and R² as one, and omitting the Crowley print), ordered by date, reveals an increasing appearance of Chancery forms of script and orthography. B manuscripts also move toward Chancery standard in their orthography. Comparison of manuscript forms indicates that the choice of MS. W by Kane-Donaldson is of the most archaic of the three ( W, L, Y) that might have served. Introduction of Chancery scribal forms strengthens belief that manuscripts were produced to order, perhaps by a public scrivener who would copy part himself but subcontract sections to independent scribes, trained in Chancery, who would engage in simultaneous copying.