ABSTRACT
This chapter summarises editing principles and practices. Editorial interventions are intended to be both economical and transparent. The principle of economy does not, nevertheless, lead us to follow the strict conservatism which stipulates that for emendation to be made, it is necessary for the MS reading to be a definite mistake, and for the correction adopted to exclude any other solution. The Madrid fragment contains nineteen laisses consisting of approximate monorhymed alexandrines concluding with a 'vers orphelin'. The table sets out the main rhymes with their variations (including graphies), together with the 'vers orphelin'. Where emendations are shown they correspond to those in the edition. By the end of the twelfth century there probably existed an Old French version of the Canso in approximately monorhymed alexandrines, which was subsequently translated back into Occitan, leaving traces of this process in non-Occitan suffixes at the rhyme and possibly in a few other forms.
