Printed Editions and Their Interpretation
The sole surviving manuscript of The Plowman's Tale (written in a sixteenth-century hand) was inserted at the end of The Canterbury Tales in a copy of Thomas Godfrey/Godfray's 1532 printed edition of Chaucer's Works (STC 5068), edited by William Thynne. (This is MS 8 at the Houghton Library of the University of Texas at Austin.) According to Thomas Speght, John Stow had a manuscript copy that is now lost. William Thynne's son, Francis Thynne, wrote in his Animadversions that The Plowman's Tale was not printed along with the other tales in 1532 because of suppression started by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (ca. 1475-1529/30). However, Francis Thynne's views are often discounted, largely because he was only an infant when his father was working on his Chaucer editions.
Some scholars have argued that The Plowman's Tale was part of a Henrician propaganda effort. Godfrey was probably working with the King's Printer, Thomas Berthelet, and he was protected by Thomas Cromwell (c. 1485–1540), earl of Essex, who was responsible for the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536–39). But The Plowman's Tale could also be used as criticism against the king, since the Pelican marvels at the ignorance of parliament and of the lords and the king concerning the plight of the commons. In the mildest interpretation, The Plowman's Tale makes a bid for the necessity and appropriateness of heeding the concerns of the commons.
The Plowman's Tale was successfully printed on its own in an octavo edition by Godfray ca. 1533-36 (STC 5099.5). In 1542, Tyndale's New Testament and other vernacular books were banned — essentially everything printed in English before 1540 — with the exception of "Canterburye tales, Chaucers bokes, Gowers bokes and stories of mennes lieves" according to a royal statute, the Act for the Advancement of True Religion. The Plowman's Tale was printed again as a duodecimo volume in London by William Hyll ca. 1548 (STC 5100) as "The Plouumans tale compylled by syr Geffray Chaucher knyght." In the year of the ban it was printed in Thynne's second (1542) edition of Chaucer's Works, under the imprints of William Bonham (STC 5069) and John Reynes (STC 5070).
After 1542, The Plowman's Tale appeared in new and reprinted editions of Chaucer's Works based on Thynne's text for some two centuries, during which the Chaucer canon and order of the Canterbury Tales was quite fluid. Thomas Tyrwhitt finally excluded The Plowman's Tale from his 1775 edition of the poet's work.
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