Note 1.1 — THE PASTON LETTERS Edward IV
Reading edition
[From Fenn, ii. 10.] By the date of one item in the account subjoined to this letter it must have been written after the year 1468, probably in the year following.
1.2 This ‘great book’ has been identified, on evidence which at first sight seems conclusive, with MS. 285 in the Lansdowne library in the British Museum. But probably this latter is only another transcript by Ebesham of a very similar volume. See Account of this MS. in ‘Sailing Directions for the Circumnavigation of England,’ published by the Hakluyt Society in 1889.
1.3 Sir Thomas Lewis, a priest.
2.1 Here (according to Fenn) follows the account as stated more at large in the subjoined Bill.
2.2 Fenn’s modern transcript reads Lewis. Is ‘Leevys’ in the other a misprint for ‘Lewys’?
3.1 Othea means a treatise on Wisdom.—F. The name is derived from the Greek Ὠ θεὰ, but was used in the Middle Ages as a proper name. See a poem beginning
‘Othea of prudence named godesse,’
mentioned in the Third Report of the Historical MSS. Commission, p. 188.
4.1 magno, ‘mo’ in Fenn.
4.2 So in Fenn. Qu. cum diurnali challengiorum? Fenn omits the whole of this clause, unde . . . . chal’, but notices its occurrence in a footnote.