Skeat's edition of C is altogether more circumspect. He begins with a recapitulation and expansion of some of the material first presented in the previous two editions, noting that ‘the C-Text MSS. require peculiar care’. This includes an analysis of the five different forms in which Piers Plowman manuscripts are found, and a discussion of the poem's date and order of composition. Here he appeals straightforwardly to common-sense intuition:

And he explains that the only reason for raising the question at all is that Whitaker had suggested the reverse, that B came after C. ‘This may’, Skeat comments, ‘in some measure account for the difficulty which he had in seeing his way clearly, and for the extraordinary views, founded upon no premises whatsoever, which he formed respecting the respective merits of the two versions.’