Christopher D King PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

II: DIPLOMATIC
- Extant Versions 59
Assuming the licence of exact equivalence of letters between Hulton's
type and the mediaeval handwriting of his model, most instances of
PNs in our sample are of this kind.
9. The next category is of what might be called subliteral
differences, that is, those in which the copy offers the same letters as
the model and in the same order but there is variation of a lesser
degree affecting the word. One such is that between upper and lower
case. Hulton sometimes supplies a capital first letter where the WCB
scribe, less rationally, has lower case, for example in SV17,24. Two
individual letters cause complications. The cartularist habitually
dispenses with capital H, as in SV14,40-2, though he sometimes uses
an elaborate version of the lower-case form, as in 44. Also his usual
version of capital F is ; Hulton inconsistently modernizes this, as
in 38-9.
The other kind of subliteral variation occurs when some sign
appears in the MS but seems to us, and to Hulton, to be strictly
ornamental. An instance of this is SV1.
10. Like other mediaeval scribes, the WCB compiler used a
partially regular system of abbreviation with use of signs that
represented particular missing letters. This system is explained by
Hector in his numbered catalogue of signs (pp. 30-3) and by Denholm-
Young and forms a third category of comparison of versions. Some of
these signs belong to Latin writing and need not detain us. Those that
affect proper names in England include Hector's sign 1. This may be
merely ornamental, as we have seen; or, where it stands for missing
letters, the abbreviation may be arbitrary, as in SV13-4. Hector's sign 2,
physically the same, signifies a nasal consonant, as in SV8,23.
11. Specific signs do substitute for associated consonants,
often recognizably from the context, even though the conventions are
fluid. Denholm-Young (p. 67) explains the origin and basic tendency of
such correspondence in terms of the signs as superscript vowels. His
treatment also shows the use of the same signs for the appropriate
vowel + . In WCB this is reflected in the use in the MS of
Denholm-Young's sign for in such cases as SV7; while this sign's
occurrence for in WCB is also common, as seen in 28,34-5. It
even occurs for in the Latin text (SV29).