Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/246

238 punctuation of the manuscripts have not been followed, and the division into paragraphs does not appear in the originals. The variants are noted, not only from B and C, but also from the later editions of the document. D is an edition in manuscript found among the collections made by Sir Simonds D'Ewes between 1623 and 1650. It now occupies folios 95 and 96 of the manuscript in the Harleian collection numbered 311. R is Biley's edition of A, S is Spelman's edition of the ordinance, L is Labbe's, and W is Wilkins's. The editions of Hardouin, Bessin, Dumont, Bouquet, and Mansi have been disregarded in the construction of the text, since they were all derived from Labbe's.

The collation, together with the other evidence adduced, establishes as probable the following relationships among the originals and the several later editions. B and C are more closely related to each other than to A. They are probably derived from a common original. A may be derived from the same original, but its variations from B and C make probable the assumption of another original. D is undoubtedly a copy of A. D'Ewes borrowed the Oriel manuscript (C), when it was in the possession of Tate, and made some transcriptions from it, but he also copied documents from a manuscript belonging to Sir Robert Cotton, which was probably Claudius D. ii (A). D has poterit in common with B and C, but it is presumably D'Ewes' independent emendation of the obviously erroneous porterit of A, since D'Ewes follows none of the other significant variants of B and C. The only other variations of D from A, which are not mere changes of spelling, such as quae for que, are two scribal errors and three slight emendations. They indicate no connexion between D and any manuscript other than A. D does not appear to have been used by any subsequent editor of the ordinance. Spelman copied A. In his time the part of the Liber Custumarum containing the ordinance was already in the library of Sir Robert Cotton, to which he had access.