Page:The Legal Code of Ælfred the Great.djvu/27

Rh however, in Canterbury rather than in Rochester concludes Liebermann from the fact that the scribe, having copied down Cnut's gift to Christ Church, Canterbury, then stops, leaving the rest of fol. 58 blank. — Lambarde used this Ms. in 1576 in the 'Perambulation of Kent'), p. 307—312, though evidently not in the 'Archaionomia' 8 years before. Thos Hearne) published 'Textus Roflfensis, Oxonii, 1720' with the omission, however, of all pieces that had already appeared in the two editions of the Arch. (and were about to appear a third time in Wilkins's Leges). Wilkins 1721 used H with E for variants and occasional Emendations, Thorpe 1840 gave more variants from it.

The Ms. is a quarto on heavy parchment, a thick volume. It alone contains the laws of Æðelbirht of Kent, as well as the two codes ascribed to Hlothar and Eadric and to Wihtræd, of Kent. Fol. 9a to 31b contain our code complete.) It is written in a very fair hand, but its neatness is marred by many erasures and numberless instances of letters or even words above the line, the customary comma being used as a sign. Like the Ms., the corrections, apparently in the same hand, are carelessly made and while they often bring the Ms. into conformity with its original, must in many instances take it farther from it. The Ms. is to be read as it stands, as the corrections are old ones and, many erasures having taken place, the original readings are undiscoverable. The margins here are of considerable width and there are but 17 lines on the page. The chapter headings are crowded into two columns on the page. The numerals are in red here and throughout the Ms., where as in other Mss. they are repeated at each chapter. There is a greater profusion of capitals here than in the before mentioned Mss. Occasionally the old y with the points toward the left appears, copied presumably from the original. H has very few accents.

This Ms. as already shown, belongs to the first quarter of the twelfth century.