Piers Plowman in the Seventeenth Century: Gerard Langbaine’s Notes.

Langbaine’s hitherto unpublished notes on PPl, found in Bodley MS. Wood donat. 7, indicate a careful reading of the B text, most probably from one of Crowley’s editions. Langbaine’s comments on the poem’s meter and allegorical design appear independent; his identification of the author as John Malvern (apparently first made by Stow, 1580) testifies to the durability of the tradition.