De octo uitiis et de duodecim abusiuis

Summary

There are three manuscripts of the composite text which adds De duodecim abusiuis to the account of the eight vices and virtues: R, pp. 73-88, S, pp. 329-347, and Xⁱ, fols. 37v-45r. R and Xⁱ have already been edited by Morris and Xⁱ again in Sarah O'Brien's unpublished thesis. These three manuscripts are the only ones to have the opening paragraph, added when the composite text was put together. In addition to this, we have four further manuscripts of the vices and virtues section of the text: W, C and L all include this as part of the Sermo de memoria Sanctorum, or LS xvi, and G has the same material arranged as two separate texts, De VIII. principalibus uiciis and De VIII. uirtutibus. The second part of the text, on the twelve abuses, can be found as a separate text in P, C and G. The text, therefore, presents challenges for the editor.

R, the earliest manuscript of the composite text, has been chosen as the base text for this edition. As with the text of the stand-alone version, the other manuscripts which contain all or part of the text are treated differently in the apparatus. Full variants, apart from some excluded ones, listed below, are given from S. Only substantive variants are given from P (for the abuses only), C (for the vices and virtues and abuses, which are in two separate texts in C), G (for the vices and virtues and abuses, which are presented as three separate texts in G), W (for the vices and virtues only) and L (for the vices and virtues only). Xⁱ’s variants have been excluded from the apparatus. Xi is a very late version of the text and the number of variants would make the apparatus cumbersome to use, as it also re-writes the text to a greater degree than other manuscripts