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Middle English Texts in Transition Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 March 2023
An item acquired in 1999 for the Takamiya collection of manuscripts and early printed books is of great significance for those interested in the history of Anglo-Saxon studies. It comprises sixty-seven handwritten leaves that include a transcription of an Old English legal text and sets of variant readings to Anglo-Saxon law codes, derived from several sources. A series of notes scattered throughout the manuscript reveals both the time period during which it was compiled and the identity of those responsible for it.
The first of these notes occurs on fol. 2v, at the end of the transcription of the Old English text known as Judex: ‘Jan. 28. 1711/12. hæc ego & soror mea unà contulimus’ (‘January 28 1711/12. My sister and I jointly collated this text’). Of immediate interest here is the reference to ‘my sister’, a female collaborator in the enterprise. Other notes are yet more informative, facilitating a more precise identification of the two collaborating scholars. On p. 26, at the end of the list of variants to the law code of King Ine of Wessex, we read:
Collatæ sunt hæ leges cum Libro impresso Wheloci clarissimi, &cum Codice Benedict. in eodem Coll. &finita collatio. Sept. die 4to. 1714. GE. EE.
[These laws were collated with the printed book of the most distinguished Wheelock, and with the Benet manuscript in the same college, and the collation was completed on the 4th day of September, 1714. GE. EE.]
Initials recur in three other notes. The first of these follows the variants to the laws
of King Edgar (p. 84; see fig. 1):
Collat. WE. EE. Uariantes hasce Lectiones ipse Transcripsi ex Manuscripto Codice Chartaceo in folio majori, Quod olim peculium erat D. Simondsii Dewesii jam vero Honoratissimi D.D. Comitis Oxon. Summi Magnæ Brit. Thesaurarii. 41.A.9. Postea ad examen Autographi membranacei in folio minori secunda cura revocavi, WE. adjuvante studiorum meorum indivisa comite EE. sorore mea dilectissima. 34.A.16. Junii die 18. 1714.
[Collated, WE, EE. These variant readings I myself transcribed from the paper manuscript of large folio size that formerly belonged to Sir Simonds D’Ewes and is now the property of the most honourable Earl of Oxford, the Lord High Treasurer of Great Britain, 41.A.9.
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