Textual editing, especially for the Middle Ages, is the starting point for a good deal of what is done in historical linguistics. Editorial methods have an importance going far beyond theoretical considerations, and are of interest to scholars over and above those who edit texts.

The aim of this volume is to present both the range of methods used, together with a number of case studies, accompanied by studies which discuss related aspects of textual editing such as glossaries or reviews of editions. The aim is to summarize modern editorial practices whilst not losing sight of their origins. Thus, the book will outline the tradition of the critical edition (the so-called Lachmannian edition), which survives particularly in Italy; the more Bédiérist method which dominates in France; and electronic editions (which can expand the concept of editing to include links to digitized manuscripts). Attention is also given to editorial instructions and to the use of variants in stemmatology, with an excursus to the seventeenth century, where modernisation continues to be practised. Finally, the volume will also discuss two difficult cases – the editing of Old French and Occitan texts in Hebrew characters.