Editing Piers Plowman (section)

===19th–20th-21st centuries===
With its old language and alien worldview, ''Piers Plowman'' fell into obscurity until the nineteenth century. Barring Rogers, after Crowley, the poem was not published in its entirety until [[Thomas Dunham Whitaker|Thomas Whitaker]]'s 1813 edition. It emerged at a time when amateur [[Philology|philologists]] began the groundwork of what would later become a recognized scholarly discipline. Whitaker's edition was based on a C-text, whereas Crowley used a B-text for his base.

With Whitaker, a modern editorial tradition began, with each new editor striving to present the "authentic" ''Piers Plowman'' and challenging the accuracy and authenticity of preceding editors and editions. Then, as before in the English Reformation, this project was driven by a need for a national identity and history that addressed present concerns, hence analysis and commentary typically reflected the critic's political views.{{Citation needed|date=February 2015}} In the hands of [[Frederick Furnivall]] and W. W. Skeat, ''Piers Plowman'' could be, respectively, a consciousness-raising text in the Working Man's College or a patriotic text for [[grammar school]] pupils. ''Piers Plowman'' has often been read primarily as a political document. In an 1894 study, [[J. J. Jusserand]] was primarily concerned with what he saw as the poem's psychological and sociopolitical content—as distinct from the aesthetic or literary—in a dichotomy common to all modern humanistic studies.

In "Le temps des laboureurs. Travail, ordre social et croissance en Europe (XIe-XIVe siècle)" (Albin Michel 2012) historian of medieval labour Mathieu Arnoux devotes particular attention to "Piers Plowman" in a breakthrough attempt to identify theological causes for the growth of agricultural production from the 11th century to the 14th century.

According to the historian [[Christopher Dawson]], the poem represents “a precious and almost unique record” of medieval religious culture in the minds of the masses as opposed to that of the courts or of the [[Cathedral school|schools]] and [[Medieval university|universities]]. Langland’s poem “is a voice from the underworld of the common people, speaking their language, using their imagery and sharing their ideals”.<ref>Dawson, C. (1957) ''Religion and the Rise of Western Culture''. Doubleday, p.219.</ref>