The Intimate Reader at Work: Medieval Annotators of Piers Plowman B

‘The Intimate Reader’ uses the marginalia of Piers Plowman B-text manuscripts to propose an ‘intimate’ counterpart to the medieval professional reader as defined by Katherine Kerby-Fulton. The article argues that by crediting the early readers of Piers Plowman with perceptive reception of the poem (which their notes amply demonstrate), we can question the divisions between private and public reading in the late medieval period. Likewise, our own readings of Langland might be enriched by recognizing that his readers treated his work as an encyclopedia or preacher’s handbook having not just religious and political aspirations but an interest in quotidian secular concerns as well.