been made to treat any phase of the broad subject exhaustively,—not
even to give a full bibliography of the literature on the subject.
But the titles of a few of the most important works of both a general
and a specific character are given, in which the eager student will
probably find virtually all the literature on the Disciplina Clericalis,
as well as on mediaeval tales and fables, recorded.
I have tried to give, in the proper connection (printed in solid type in the text, or occasionally in the footnotes) free English translations from the original Latin for all the lacunae of any consequence in the Middle English text, whether they occur as parts of, or complete, individual tales, or as omissions from the connecting dialogues. In making the translations I have had the generous assistance for corrective purposes of Professor Platner of the department of Latin, which enabled me, I trust, to retain the sense and something of the interest of the original without a superfluity of errors. One missing tale has been supplied from the Middle English Alphabet of Tales (No. VII), another from Caxton's Aesop (No. XII).
In the text an effort has been made to reduce correction and emendation to a minimum, and the essential features of the manuscript have, it is hoped, been preserved. Spelling and capitalization have been altered only when it was felt necessary for the understanding of the text. The punctuation is, on the other hand, entirely my own, that of the Ms. being such as would frequently confuse the reader and convey a wholly false meaning. The abbreviations of the manuscript have not been indicated by the usual italic type; they are comparatively few in number and include, in the main -er, -is, n (m), and u,—but all of them only occasionally. And even a large percentage of the abbreviations present occur at the ends of lines. Isolated instances of the early English thorn (for th), which occur mostly at the ends of lines, have been printed as th. Additions to the Ms. text are indicated by brackets.
In general, what was said about the word forms and language of 'The Mending of Life' (see Western Reserve Studies, vol. I, No. 4, p. 27f) applies equally well to those features of the Disciplina Clericalis. New word-forms occur from time to time which the exigencies of translation required and for the same reason the sentence structure would probably often be found different from that of 'The Mending of Life'. But these peculiarities will receive full treatment in the EETS edition.
