Scribes, Printers, and the Accidentals of their Texts

The essays in this collection demonstrate that much can be learned from studying features such as word-division, printer’s type, and spelling conventions. These features – termed «accidentals» by W. W. Greg – typically receive little attention when editors discuss how a text became actualized in a particular medieval manuscript or early modern print. To study these features, it is essential to consider a text in the context of the manuscript or print housing it, rather than a modern edition. The texts discussed range in genre from religious (Ælfric’s Letter to Sigeweard, and the Gutenberg and Wycliffe Bibles) and literary (Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) to scientific (florilegia), while their material bearers range in date from the late Old English period into the Early Modern English one.