Historical and Methodological Considerations for Adopting 'Best Text' or 'Usus Scribendi' for Textual Criticism of Chaucer's Poems

Author / Editor
Fisher, John H.

Title
Historical and Methodological Considerations for Adopting 'Best Text' or 'Usus Scribendi' for Textual Criticism of Chaucer's Poems

Published
Text: Transactions of the Society for Textual Scholarship 6 (1994): 165-80.

Description
Since no authorial text of CT or TC is available for a best-text edition, a combination of the habits or "uses" of the earliest scribes, with spelling normalized to accord with Equat, should be used to produce an edition. Fisher exemplifies such an editorial process for a brief section of WBP.

Chaucer Subjects
Manuscripts and Textual Studies.
Equatorie of the Planetis.
Wife of Bath and Her Tale.