TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Original spelling and grammar have been generally retained, with some exceptions noted here. Long s (“ſ”, Unicode character u+017f) have been replaced by “s”. Words that were broken at the end of a line using a word continuation mark, either hyphen or double oblique hyphen (u+2e17), have been rejoined. Supposed words that were broken at the end of a line, but without a word continuation mark, have been rejoined by inserting a vertical line (u+7c) with thin spaces between the two parts of the supposed word. For example, the word “whiche” was often broken after the i, and would then be transcribed as “whi | che”. I produced the cover image and hereby assign it to the public domain. In the text edition, italic text is marked with low lines (“_”, u+5f); small capitals text is made uppercase; and superscripted text is marked with “^” (u+5e). Original page images are available from archive.org—search for “treatyseoffysshy00bern”.
The blackletter pages of the original book had no printed page numbers. Page numbers have been inserted into these ebook editions. If a page number would properly lie within a broken word or a supposed broken word, then the whole word was moved just below the page number.
There were throughout the blackletter part of the printed book instances of a symbol that resembled a y with a smudge over it. These are likely variously e over y or t over y, i.e. abbreviations for the and that. These symbols have been transcribed according to context as ye or yt. On page [16] there was what looks like a “d” with a smudge over it, which has been transcribed as “dr”. Other abbreviations that include a smudged small letter include “wyt”, “wt”, “togydr”, etc. In all these instances, the superscripted mark is a guess based on context.
Paragraphs or sections in the blackletter part were variously marked. Sections were indicated by either capitulum or else drop cap. Sparsely supported capitulum (u+2e3f) is replaced by pilcrow (u+b6) in all editions. The text was justified, and sometimes a capitulum would be preceded by white space on the right end of a line of text and a line-break, sometimes by only a single space. Sometimes vertical white space preceded a capitulum or drop cap; sometimes not. There are three instances (see pages [3] and [9]) of white space on the right end of a line of text followed by a new sentence on a new line, but without either capitulum or drop cap. In these ebook editions, either printed vertical space or a drop cap is transcribed as the beginning of a new paragraph, i.e. as a new < p > element in the html edition. Drop caps are indicated in the text edition by “++” preceding the letter.
The colon (u+3a) is used liberally throughout the blackletter part of the book. It was usually printed with no space on either side; less often with a space only on the right side; and rarely with a space only on the left side. Examples of the latter occur at page [4] line 4 and at page [8] line 2. In this transcription, the colon spacing has been standardized in the blackletter part of the book to narrow space on both sides.
Likewise, the glyph we would call period or full stop (u+2e) was variously printed with no space on either side, or space on one or both sides. These have been standardized to modern usage: space on right side only. This glyph seems to have been used variously in the ways we would use full stop or comma. In addition, roman numerals are transcribed with the full stop as in, for instance, “wyth .xij. heeres” (example is from page [10]). In many places full stops seem to be missing from the end of a sentence; these have not been corrected.
In the following sentence from page [1], “Salamon in his parablys sayth that a good spyryte makyth a flourynge aege / that is a fayre aege & a longe.”, the “ / ” is our transcription of a glyph shaped somewhat like an abundantly distorted “3”, compressed horizontally. This glyph has been interpreted herein as punctuation, similar to our modern comma or virgule. The glyph was variously printed with no space on either side, or with space on both sides, or with space on the right side. In this ebook, the glyph has been transcribed as solidus (u+2f) with thin space on both sides.
There is one exception. On page [20], line 1, the following sentence appears: “Ye shall fede and kepe them all in generall : but euery manere by hymself wyth suche thyng
