Front matter

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Ȝ ȝ (yogh) ħ (h with stroke) łł (l with slash, see below) ā ē ī ō ū ȳ ǣ (vowels with macron or “long” mark) ẹ̄ ę̄ and ǭ ọ̄, each representing open/closed pairs e͞o (eo with shared macron) used as a stand-in for e᷍o

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Except for yogh, h-stroke and paired ł, unusual letters appear only in the editorial material (introduction, notes and glossary). For this e-text, the printed book’s circumflex accents have been shown as macrons—that is, ǣ instead of æ̂ and similar—except for “true” circumflexes in modern French citations and the word “rôle”. The character shown here as e͞o was printed as “eo” joined by a single circumflex. In the Trentham MS. of Floriz and Blauncheflur, and a few times in the Assumption, some letters were printed with “end flourishes” (see Introduction under “Manuscripts”). They are printed as g⁺, k⁺, n⁾ and similar. In the same passages, the double letter “ll” printed with a joining wavy line is shown as łł.

Footnotes have been numbered continuously through the Introduction, and separately for each of the three original texts. For mechanical reasons, some footnotes in the primary text will seem to be out of order. Line numbering is by multiples of 4.

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FIRST EDITED IN 1866 BY J. RAWSON LUMBY,

AND NOW RE-EDITED FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS, WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND GLOSSARY, BY GEORGE H. McKNIGHT.

Published for THE EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY by the OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO

First Published (Edited by J. Rawson Lumby) 1866 Re-edited by George H. McKnight 1901 Reprinted (1901 Version) 1962

Original Series, No. 14

Reprinted in Great Britain by Richard Clay and Company, Ltd., Bungay, Suffolk.