Hussey, Matthew T.

English

SFU Library Digital Publishing (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver)

PREFACE Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile provides students and schol­ars with a fundamental tool in the field of Anglo-Saxon studies. The project aims to produce complete microfiche facsimiles of the nearly five hundred manuscripts containing Old English. Each issue or volume presents facsimiles and descriptions of about ten manuscripts prepared by one or more scholars. The facsimiles are in most cases produced from existing film stock provided by the holding libraries. New photography is limited to those manuscripts not yet photographed or poorly photographed. The images are up to the standards expected of good microfilm reproduction. Each description provides in brief compass the manuscript's history, codicological features, a collation, a detailed list of contents, and a selected bibliography. The descriptions are intended to be used with the photographic images to maximize their usefulness to scholars who do not have immediate access to originals or who may be unacquainted with the manuscript and its scholarship. Manuscripts are reproduced in toto, even though the post-Anglo-Saxon material that is found as part of many of them may demonstrate no immediate or ultimate relationship with Anglo-Saxon interests. To have edited the fac­similes, presenting only confirmed Anglo-Saxon parts, might have eliminated important material to be noticed or discovered and in any case would remove the Anglo-Saxon vestiges from their actual material contexts. Users must decide for themselves the relevance of the images presented in this series. Several later manuscripts are included in this series even though they were not considered Anglo-Saxon by Neil R. Ker; in our view, these manuscripts have clear connec­tions to undoubted Anglo-Saxon texts. Each manuscript is assigned a main index number for this series; that number is given before the shelf-mark and always appears bolded and in square brackets after the shelf-mark when a manuscript in this series is mentioned in the body of a description. The index number is concorded with the catalogue numbers of Ker and Gneuss. A complete handlist of all manuscripts included in the project has been published in Vol. 15. An interim cumulative index of VIII PREFACE volumes 1-10 has been published as a separate volume (2006). An interim cumu­lative index of volumes 1-25 is planned; a final comprehensive index will follow the completion of the volumes of descriptions, now projected as about 43 in number. The manuscript descriptions, after being revised, will also be published as a separate publication towards the conclusion of this project. Users of these descriptions (and of the indices) are requested to bring any errors, omissions, or relevant new scholarship to the attention of the publishers or the editors. The editors are grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency, for generous continuing grants in support of the project. Thanks are also due to the Evjue Foundation of Madison, Wisconsin and to the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists for generous gifts. Thanks are due to the British Library for its generous support of the proj­ect, permission to publish relevant manuscripts, and waiving fees. The support of its director and staff is greatly appreciated. The describer wishes to extend special thanks to Dr. Julian Harrison who gave permission to publish enhanced images of B.L. Cotton Vitellius D.xvii and to Michael Boggan, who answered many questions in the course of preparing this volume. All the images in this volume are the property of the British Library, are reproduced by permission, and may not be further reproduced without written permission of the British Library. The editors are grateful to Prof. Robert Bjork, Director of the Arizona Cen­ter for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University, Tempe, for agreeing to publish the project, and to his excellent staff, particularly Roy Rukkila, Todd Halvorsen, Jennifer Michaud, and Leslie MacCoull, who have been of much assistance with this and previous volumes. MATTHEW T. HUSSEY 

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https://journals.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/asmmf/article/download/5824/5030

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SFU Library Digital Publishing (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver)