Foreword to the online edition of Marcabru

The texts of the poems are given here as they appear in Marcabru: A Critical Edition, ed. Simon Gaunt, Ruth Harvey and Linda Paterson, Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2000. Full details of editorial policy and practice are given on pp. 26-34 of the introduction to the published edition, but visitors to this site may wish to note that [R] in the right-hand margin of certain lines of text indicates what in our view was an irregular authorial rhyme, and that we have often accepted irregularities in the case-system in the base manuscript.

The edition includes as «Poems of doubtful attribution» BdT 293.12 and BdT 293.27, since the arguments advanced against Marcabru’s authorship of these pieces did not seem to us to be conclusive. It also includes for several poems a secondary version of the text, where the manuscript evidence and/or identifiable allusions in the poems suggested that a significantly different version of the song enjoyed some circulation. These secondary versions – sometimes of only part of the song – are also given here, although we do not regard these as necessarily authorial reworkings. Full discussion of their status in this regard can be found in the printed edition.

Simon Gaunt, Ruth Harvey and Linda Paterson         

29.xi.2002