A Digital Catalogue of the

Pre-1500 Manuscripts and Incunables of the

Second Edition

NOTATIONAL CONVENTIONS

Unsigned gatherings are so indicated by placing square brackets around the gathering’s sequential numbering (e.g., “[12]” signifies the twelfth unsigned gathering). This convention is used for all manuscripts, given that even when signatures do survive, they are often unhelpful and/or inconsistent (e.g., Dd, Hg) and do not indicate the gathering’s placement in any helpful fashion.

Leaves inserted within a gathering are signified by the symbol “χ” (“chi”: see Bowers 1949, pp. 235-243); the placement of the inserted folios is indicated by prefacing their notation with the folio number that precedes the added material (that is, the preceding folio’s structural placement within that gathering). For example, in Hengwrt, ten (or possibly eightnote) folios are inserted in Quire [22], an original gathering of six (or eight?). This is recorded as:

[22]6+10 (3+χ10) fols. 161-176

This should be interpreted as: “Quire [22] (bracketed since there is no signature to that effect) consists of an original gathering of six folios, to which are added ten folios, inserted after the third folio of the original structure.”

Lost folios are similarly indicated. For example, in Cn Quire [10], the twelfth folio is cut away and a singleton is inserted following the ninth folio in the gathering:

[10]12 (—12, 9+χ1 [i.e., the singleton leaf, fol. 109]) fols. 100-111

When missing conjuncts can be inferred, they are indicated by the convention “1.12,” for example, signifying that the first and final folios, presumed to be conjuncts in an original gathering of twelve, are wanting. Although it has not been necessary very often to indicate paper folios that are watermarked versus those that are not, when it is useful I have used boldface to distinguish the watermarked half of a bifolium, e.g., 58+60.

DATING

Following the principle articulated by Dutschke (1989, 1:xv), I use Ker’s Latin sigla to suggest the approximate date (1969). Thus, “s. XV” signifies the fifteenth century; “s. XVin” (“ineunte”) the beginning of the fifteenth century; “s. XVex” (“exeunte”) the end of the fifteenth century; “s. XV2” the second half of the fifteenth century; “x. XV3/4” the third quarter of the fifteenth century, and so on. When a more specific basis (e.g., scribal colophon, dating of texts contained in a MS other than CT) for dating is available, the date will be given and the evidence briefly set forth.

OTHER

Scribal abbreviations are expanded within square brackets; insertions are indicated through the use of angle brackets. Line breaks are signified by “|.”