Preface

Abstract

Preface

Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile offers students and scholars a fundamental tool in the field of Anglo-Saxon studies. The project aims to produce over the next six years complete microfiche facsimiles of the nearly five hundred manuscripts containing Old English. Each issue or volume will present facsimiles and descriptions of about ten manuscripts prepared by one or more scholars. The facsimiles are in most cases produced from existing film stock provided by the holding libraries. New photography will be limited to those manuscripts not yet photo­ graphed or poorly photographed. Images provided will be up to the standards expected of a good microfilm reproduction. Each description provides in brief compass the manuscript's history, codicological features, a collation, a detailed list of contents, and a selected bibliography, as well as notes on special features and problems. The descriptions are intended to be used with the photographic images to maximize their usefulness to scholars who do not have immediate access to the originals or who may be previously unacquainted with the manuscript and its scholarship.

Manuscripts are reproduced in toto, even though the post-Anglo-Saxon

material that is found as part of many of them may demonstrate no immediate or ultimate relationship with Anglo-Saxon interests. To have edited the facsimiles, presenting only confirmed Anglo-Saxon parts, could well eliminate important material to be noticed or discovered and in any case removes the Anglo-Saxon vestiges from their actual material con­ texts. Users must decide for themselves the relevance of the images presented in this series. Several later manuscripts are included in this series even though they were not considered Anglo-Saxon by Neil R. Ker; in our view, these manuscripts seem to have clear connections with or bearings on undoubted Anglo-Saxon texts.

Each manuscript is assigned a main catalogue number for this series, which is given before the shelfmark. This catalogue number is concorded with the catalogue numbers of Ker and Gneuss. A comprehensive list of ASM numbers will be issued with the series, together with a concordance-list of Ker numbers. Cumulative indexes will be issued from time to time, and a general index and an index of incipits will be published as

the final volume of the series. The manuscript descriptions, after being revised, will also be published as a separate publication towards the conclusion of this project. The editors request that any errors, omissions, or relevant new scholarship be brought to their attention.

The editors wish to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities, Research Materials Divisions, for a generous grant in support of the project. The editors also wish to express their gratitude to the director and staff of the British Library for permission to reproduce the manuscripts, for agreeing to waive fees for rights to reproduction, and for their enthusiastic support for this project. Finally, the editors wish to thank Mario A. Di Cesare and the staff of Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies for agreeing to undertake the publication of this project and for their close cooperation throughout its production.

THE EDITORS