ABSTRACT
The call for an Index of Middle English Prose has been growing steadily as scholars have grown to feel, with increasing urgency, the need for some bibliographical tool to assist them in this most complex of areas. The first step will be the publication of a first-line index to all Middle English prose published in printed texts from 1476. The problems of undertaking bibliographical research in Middle English prose have not ever received much general consideration. Macaronic text beginning in Middle English will be entered in the main alphabetic sequence and cross-referenced to the relevant Appendix. A related difficulty is presented by texts which begin in Latin, but are otherwise Middle English. Our aim is to index items in Middle English prose. A number of Middle English works survive solely in sixteenth-century manuscripts. Generations of medievalists have witnessed the rediscovery of treasures of Middle English prose as the manuscripts of Malory, Marjory Kempe, and The Equatorie of the Planets.
