Publisher's Synopsis
Among thirteenth-century English devotional writings, the &«Ancrene Wisse», the Katherine Group and the Wooing Group are central to debate about a putative standardised English, the AB Language. This book consists of articles investigating the manuscripts, textual transmission, punctuation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary of the &«Ancrene Wisse» Group. All the contributors use data taken from the parallel manuscript editions published by the Tokyo Manuscript Reading Group. The articles exemplify ways of using such parallel-text editions for linguistic and literary analysis. They present new findings on lexical and morphological divergences, which taken together cast light on scribal variation in texts transmitted in manuscript.
