The Edition

Summary

The text of this edition of the liber vitae is the work of Cecily Clark and Neil Ker. A typescript, found amongst Cecily Clark's papers, was digitised and checked by Lynda Rollason and Richard Gameson who, additionally, checked and, where necessary modified, both Ker's division of the text into scribal stints and his dating of the hands. The editions of both the fifteenth-century abbot list, on folio 11r, and the twelfth-century relic list, on folio 11v, have been prepared by Lynda Rollason and checked by Richard Gameson.

THE CONVENTIONS OF THE EDITION

The arrangement of the edition

The underlying principle of this edition is the definition and numbering of stints and the names within them. This numbering extends to persons who are referred to in the Thorney Liber vitae (ThLV) but not named, as for example, in 10v1: (22) Roger Oliuard. (et) (23) uxor ei(us). (et) (24) filii ei(us).

The dating of stints

Stints are dated palaeographically in the first instance. Palaeographical dating cannot of its nature be very precise. At any one time, for example, a scribe late on in his career might have been writing in an old-fashioned handwriting at the same time as a younger scribe had adopted a much more modern style. Or a whole scriptorium might have continued to use an old-fashioned handwriting when scriptoria elsewhere had adopted new ones. In recognition of this, the dating scheme is imprecise. Even this, however, does not take note of the full range of possibilities, and users should bear in mind that the palaeographical dating of a stint is exactly that. It is the dating most plausibly assigned to the hand on the basis of comparison with dated specimens of handwriting. It is not an absolute guide to the date of the stint itself, since (as noted above) the scribe might have been writing in an old-fashioned style. Nevertheless, it does provide a clear starting-point and a firm basis for understanding ThLV.

The palaeographical dating scheme used here by Richard Gameson is different from that devised by Michael Gullick for the edition of the Durham Liber vitae,1 reflecting the fact that, whilst names were being added to the Durham Liber vitae between the ninth and the sixteenth centuries, the majority of those in ThLV were added in the twelfth century and the scheme used had to reflect that difference.