Langland wrote three versions of his Piers Plowman (A, B and C), all of them instantly popular among literate city tradesmen and country gentry as well as among ecclesiastics. This led to numerous inexpert copies for the reader's own use and enthusiastic "editing"; sometimes lines from different versions were mixed or even words added.

It is the modern editor's job to try to achieve the highest possible authenticity in his text by making his choice among the 54 extant manuscripts and three 16th century printings, based on manuscripts which no longer survive.

In the case of an electronic edition of the B-Text of Piers Plowman, the editors chose eight versions to establish the archetype in a reconstruction. Electronic transcriptions were made and collated by several editors; then, all of them met to discuss difficulties. Finally, their work led to the establishment of one version of the text which they all agreed upon: the reconstructed archetype. To it, annotations were compiled focussing on problems that had arisen in the attempt to determine the text. As far as schools of textual criticism are concerned, this approach would be labelled eclectic. Another possibility is best-text or diplomatic editing.

Sometimes, however, all efforts of the editors are in vain: there are cases where recovery of an original is impossible.

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