Transcriber's Note:
- - indicates italic print;
= = indicates bold print;
+ + indicates Old English font;
^ or ^{} indicates a superscript.
[=] signifies a letter with a macron (straight line over) accent;
[~] signifies a letter, or letters, with a tilde over,
usually indicating an omitted letter (often 'n').
[°u] is small letter 'u' with ring above.
The spelling of this book is from the 14th Century, is often
phonetic, and is not necessarily consistent.
e.g., 'hear' (auditory) is also spelt 'here' and 'heare';
'here' (location) is also spelt 'heere', 'heare';
'here' has also been used to spell 'hair';
'were' is sometimes used for 'where';
'Jhon' is 'John', etc.
'y^t' usually means 'that', and 'y^e' is 'the'.
'to' is used for 'to' and 'too';
'by' for 'by' and 'buy';
'of' for 'of' and 'off';
and 'off' for 'off' and 'of'....
'li' = libre = a pound (both weight and money, depending on
context);
a groat = 4 pence; a florin = 2 shillings.
A word or name can be spelt several ways in the same paragraph,
and names capitalised and non-capitalised in the same sentence.
Apostrophes (of ownership) were sometimes present, sometimes
absent, even in the same paragraph.
Also, (e.g.):
'le IIII iour dauril' = 'le IIII jour d'avril' = the 4th day of April;
'natif dangleterre' = 'natif d'angleterre' = 'native of England', etc.
"And ye shall understande that Lothe was Arons sone, Abraham's
brother, and Sara Abraham's wyfe was Loths syster, and Sara was
xc yere olde when she gate Ysaac and Abraham had another son named
Ismael that he had gotten on his mayden Ager."
14th century spellings have not been modernised. 'u' was often,
but not always, printed for 'v'
Modern spelling rules did not apply until later in the reign of
Queen Victoria (19th century).
Many strange spellings of personal and place names have been
explained by the author in the Footnotes.
This book has many Footnotes, and the Footnotes have been placed
at the ends of their relevant Chapters.
Some missing or damaged punctuation has been repaired, though
punctuation was not always present.
Some Greek and Latin typos have been corrected.
Some illustrations which interrupted paragraphs have been moved to
more appropriate places. There are also some small 'glyphs' or
small drawings at the ends of some chapters, which have been
placed after the footnotes for the relevant chapters, thus
following the layout of the book.
Some illustrations have been re-used. One illustration has been
used multiple times. This was common practice with Chap Book
woodcuts, which would have been hand-carved.
Page xv: The inscription has a character which looks like a reversed
capital C, shown as [C], but which is actually a ROMAN NUMERAL
REVERSED ONE HUNDRED (U+2183).
The date of the inscription is given as CI[C]CCLXXXI,
i.e. hundreds, ten, (1000)
plus 200 plus 81,
or the year 1281.
Page 2: catell[5] = chattel ('goods and chattels').
Pages 5-6: Footnotes #5 and #9 each have 1 answer for 2 queries.
Page 42: 'Araham's' corrected to 'Abraham's'
(Not corrected in a Footnote).
"And two myle from Ebron is the grave of Loth[6] that was Abraham's
brother." (F. 6: Lot.)
Page 47: 'is' corrected to 'it'.
"... and that it was forbidden in the olde lawe."