Editorial conventions

The base text is Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, MS 175. Formal or familiar scribal contractions and abbreviations have been expanded without special indication; and the letters u, v, i, and j have been regularised in accordance with modern usage. The manuscript routinely uses ‘e’ to represent ‘ae’ (or occasionally ‘oe’). Here, for ease of reading, ‘e’ is, where relevant, treated as a contraction and expanded to ‘ae’ or ‘oe’. Capitalisation and punctuation are lightly regularised. The MS has no marginal notes, but the first printed edition (no. 1) has Latin marginal notes which are presented here as footnotes, distinguished from editorial notes by being printed in italic type. They were probably added in the printshop. The second edition produced by Quentell at Cologne (no. 9) added fresh marginal notes by Johannes Cochlaeus. These too are shown here in footnotes, also printed in italics, but distinguished by the code ‘JC’. The text begins on folio 1r, and page breaks are indicated in square brackets in the text, or in footnotes where they come in the midst of a word.

The text of the manuscript (F) has been thoroughly collated against the text of the first edition printed by Pynson (P), with additional reference made to the first edition printed abroad (D, based either on F or on its lost twin). Very many discrepancies are of a merely typographical and trivial nature. These have been ignored, and the text of F has been followed. In nearly 80 cases, discrepancies between F and P make some difference to the meaning, but P is clearly or probably wrong, and the text of F has been followed. There are 32 discrepancies where P is evidently correct and the scribe of F has made some minor slip. In these cases, the correction is made in the main text and explained in a footnote. There are 10 cases in which Pynson has probably corrected an error in the text from which he worked: 5 corrections of Latin spelling; 4 corrections of scriptural texts; and 1 attempt to correct sloppy grammar.