ABSTRACT
ThetextsinthisanthologywerefirstproducedbeforewrittenEnglishhadbeen standardized,andwhenauthors,scribesandprintersusedconventionsstrangeto moderneyes.Thusbothmanuscriptsandoriginalprintedtextscontainunfamiliar anderraticspelling,andaresometimespunctuated(ornotpunctuated)inwaysthat canbedistractingforamodernreader.Textsalsodisplaysuchfeaturesasthe capitalizationofthefirstlettersofsomewords,italicization,andarangeofabbreviations,contractionsandelisions.Manytextslackadequateparagraphbreaks. Whilesomeofthesefeaturesquicklybecomefamiliar,otherscontinuetomake readingdifficultforthosestudyingearlymoderntextsforthefirsttime.
