ABSTRACT
The diversity evident in the surviving books and manuscripts is not, however, well represented in the editions of Sarum and York texts that were made in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Maskell's contemporary Edmund Bishop was a comparatively rare lay contributor to liturgiology, and just as opinionated about the necessity of Roman Catholic attention to the project of liturgical research. Bishop was a largely self-educated civil servant whose position allowed him a good deal of flexibility and free time with which to carry out his investigations. The origins of quantitative, evidence-based philological work for medieval texts had long been laid: Stuart Piggott writes that the necessary conditions for the scholarly study of antiquities had been produced by the seventeenth century, as a result of the 'nascent scientific disciplines'. The establishment of authoritative forms of service in the style of performing editions was a necessary condition for the success of the enterprise.
