Lancelot Andrewes's 'Orphan Lectures': The Exeter Manuscript/On the Transcriptions

On the Transcriptions I have transcribed these selections from the Exeter Manuscript with near diplomatic care. Punctuation is preserved (or its lack), as well as capitalisation, though I confront the familiar difficulty of distinguishing between majuscule and minuscule forms of such letters as L / l and C / c. I make no attempt to alter the accidentals and spelling, and have retained u and v, i and j, though the scribal copy itself is very inconsistent in distinguishing between them. I retain most superscript forms of which, yet, with, ye, our, and retain the ampersand; but I expand the common scribal abbreviations for per and pro, the tilde, and Latin abbreviations. The scribe uses italic or a mixture of italic and secretary for citations and references, with the verses cited at the beginning of each section generally in italic. I have given all such citations in italic, both at the head of each section and within the subsequent body of discussion. Most, but not all proper names appear in italic, and in this point I have attempted to follow whatever the text seems to show. Many statements run on, or are fragments; but I have not attempted any change except occasionally where great confusion might occur. In these instances, I have used square brackets to call attention to an editorial insertion. Many statements appear half formulated and sometimes there are blank spaces where whole phrases or words are missing—sometimes these gaps are noted with a + mark in the margin. The scriptural citations, which may be by verse, book, and chapter, or else by chapter, book, and verse, usually come from the Geneva Bible, or else from the Vulgate, but I have not altered incomplete or inaccurate references. A curious feature of the manuscript is the series of hatchmarks in the margins of ff. 37r through 40v (e.g. /// ). Usually, one sees two such marks together, but there may be as many as six. Their significance is not clear, but they would seem perhaps to indicate some kind of collation with other manuscripts or witnesses. Andrewes like many of his contemporaries turned especially to Genesis for extended exegetical reflections, but his comments have been largely overlooked–a notable omission, for example, in Arnold William’s Common Expositor: An Account of the Commentaries of Genesis 1527–1633 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina P, 1948). The three selections here are chosen in order to illustrate Andrewes’s unique style and purpose as well as to show different features of the manuscript in comparison with the printed text.