A2.III. Make-up of the edition
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The present text offers above all the text of L2, including those sections for which Agþ has no corresponding text.
Conversely there are passages in Agþ for which there is nothing corresponding in L2, either because a leaf or part of a leaf has been lost in L2, or because the relevant text never featured in L2.
If this concerns only one or just a few verse lines they are inserted in square brackets from other mss., but this is not done in the case of whole laisses, with the exception of laisses R343a and 343b, which are taken from P2.
In contrast to the practice of previous editions, lines are numbered separately for each laisse; the line designated as no. 3773 in Brandin's edition of W and as no. 4088 in Mandach's edition of L3 appears here as R216.11, being the eleventh line of laisse R216.
Each page of L2 contains two columns, each of which contains, except where there are illustrations, approx. 45-50 lines. The four columns of each folio are designated a, b, c, d (a and b on the recto face, c and d on the verso [*** not yet incorporated]).
In L2 all the leaves which contained text which precedes R209 are lost.
On opening the text site (see Guide to use), L2 is available alone or with its accompanying columns, L2-var (i.e. variants and apparatus comments), and L2-notes (explanations of major textual rearrangements, etc.); both of which are in French – textual notes of major importance are also available in English in the column L2-notes_E.
In Kms there is no translation of Aspr preceding R212, as this has been replaced by a translation of the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle (the relevant sections of the Codex Calixtinus text of which are given here). This replacement occurred prior to the subarchetype of the surviving mss. of Kms and of the Danish version, Karl Magnus’ Krønike. Also prior to this subarchetype the order of the quires was deranged, as can be observed by consulting the references to Kms-U which introduce each laisse (see Skårup 1979). The database arrangement of the present edition makes it possible to reproduce the original text order, see §B.II.
Povl Skårup, June 2012