TRANSCRIPTION OF TEXT

Spelling, punctuation and capitalisation were not standardised in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, even in printed sources. Writers of manuscripts adopted a variety of styles of symbol for a particular letter within a single document, and contractions and abbreviations were common. The approach taken to transcribing texts in this book has been to make them intelligible without unnecessarily changing the original language. Contractions and abbreviations have been expanded, with the added letters shown in italic script. Words or letters that have been added editorially to aid understanding are placed in square brackets []. Letters and abbreviations in superscript have been expanded and incorporated into the text without the use of superscript. Two obsolete symbols are found frequently in manuscript sources. The thorn (γ) is transcribed as ‘th’, and γt becomes ‘that’. The symbol often used for the plural or genitive of a noun () has been replaced throughout by ‘es’. The interchangeable use of ‘u’ and ‘v’ and also ‘i’ and ‘j’ has been modernised and long forms of ‘s’ are replaced with the modern version. Original spelling, capitalisation (that often is not clear) and punctuation have been retained. Exceptions to this approach are seen only in the transcriptions of title pages of music publications in Appendices 4 and 5, which retain the original lettering and also indicate the layout of the page.