About the Edition

Editorial principals 1: scribal profiles

A more detailed guide to scribal profiles

The Chronicle of Melrose contains a diverse range of scribal activity, all of which is important for understanding the text and the manuscript’s history. The digital images allow viewers to pursue any aspect of this that they wish (within the constraints of a web browser). In order to appreciate and discuss the creation and growth of the Chronicle, however, a framework is required which discerns different scribes’ work among all of the activity.

Other studies of manuscripts (including the Chronicle of Melrose) generally tend to focus on the ‘main text’, excluding some or all of the ‘paratext’ (i.e., anything beyond what is considered the primary text, such as marginalia or later additions). Typically this means dealing only with those scribes that contributed a substantial amount of text. This makes palaeographical analysis of their work more manageable; it also makes editing the text more practicable. This way of distinguishing a hierarchy of text inevitably impacts upon our thinking about the manuscript. It potentially feeds ideas about ‘the chronicle’ as an institutional record with a singular ‘voice’.

The approach here attempts to make no judgement about what is the ‘main text’ of the Chronicle. Neither does it make a simple physical distinction between ‘text block matter’ and ‘marginalia’. Nor does it distinguish by the date of the scribe’s work (e.g., by only including the 12^th- and 13^th-century contributions). Here, the aim is to find a way to identify and refer to as many of the Chronicle’s scribes as is feasible, regardless of the apparent ‘function’ of their contribution or their date of writing. As such, this will allow us to distinguish and refer to as much of the scribal activity in the Chronicle as possible. Importantly, this stage of distinguishing scribes is not the same as deciding what text to edit (transcribe and translate). A separate decision can be made about what, if any, scribal activity to present as edited text.

But there is a practical challenge for this ‘non-hierarchical’ approach. How can we be inclusive about all the scribes and their work without it becoming overwhelming (for the editor and reader alike)?

First, it is important to acknowledge our limitations: it is not possible to number each ‘person’. There is not enough information to distinguish every individual through their writing, and for good reason: in their performance and contributions, the scribes were not trying to be distinct and identifiable; plus, much of their work is too minimal for confident personal identifications. We have to abandon any notion that scribe numbers identify ‘people’.

What is possible is to distinguish different scribal stints using established methods of palaeographical analysis. These methods are based on identifying handwriting features which are unique, regular, and unconsciously executed (such as the scribe’s particular way of tracing the ampersand or the letter g). This work can be gruelling, and does not pretend to be objective. But it is possible to arrive at an editorial assessment of the distinct scribal stints in the manuscript.

The first question is how to label these distinct scribal appearances. It could be argued that ‘scribe’ has too strong an association with a ‘person’: it is entirely natural, for example, to assume ‘Scribe 13’ is a different person from ‘Scribe 14’. Alternatively, ‘hand’ is often used for something more like distinct stylistic performances, with one person potentially capable of multiple ‘hands’. In general, ‘hands’ tends to suggest a single and consistent ‘style’ of handwriting and so does not easily allow for variation across one person’s body of work. Applying a ‘hands’ method would mean splitting the work of a single scribe whose writing is clearly identifiable even though they vary their style (their ‘hand’).

What is it, then, that we are actually trying to describe in each case? In reality, it is a set of consistent palaeographic features and also patterns of scribal approach in terms of their placement on the page or the consistent content of their addition (for example, a repeated signpost, or foliations, or quire signatures). It is a scribal ‘profile’, meaning a combination of their distinct and regular palaeographical features and potentially also a recognisable approach in the given context. This is what we are perceiving on the manuscript pages when we differentiate between different contributors.

The digital edition will, then, distinguish between ‘scribal profiles’ in the Chronicle. These identifications incorporate analysis of the palaeographical features and a contextual reading of each one’s approach. While the term ‘scribal profile’ might jar, its virtue is that it brings to the surface the reality of analysing a multi-scribe manuscript: that we cannot categorically say that every recognisable profile is the work of a single, distinct individual.

While we may still want to identify distinct people who contributed to the Chronicle of Melrose, it must be acknowledged that one person (‘scribe’) may have been responsible for multiple ‘scribal profiles’. In this way the profiles are closer to ‘hands’ (as conventionally understood), but again it is not about conscious choice of stylistic features or script: it is primarily about unique, regular and unconsciously executed palaeographical features, regardless of style. Put simply, one profile is almost certainly one person/scribe; but one person/scribe may be responsible for multiple profiles if they were able to adapt their handwriting and approach. For example, the only profile that can with some confidence be attributed to a known individual is Scribal profile 16, which was very likely the antiquarian John Leland (d. 1552) who added a series of signposts. It may be, however, that Leland was also responsible for other palaeographical profiles, such as those responsible for various catchwords, signposts and cross references (Scribal profiles 42, 47, 51, 79, 80, 84, 86, 101, 103, 121 and 123). (Leland was not the only person in this period who interacted with the manuscript though: read more at The Chronicle’s journey: from Melrose Abbey to the British Library.)

This process of ‘profiling’ the scribal activity in the manuscripts has been undertaken by the editor, Jo Tucker (though buildng on the work of the Andersons and especially Broun in The Chronicle of Melrose Abbey, 2007). It should be remembered that this is a process of analysis, not simply description, and is therefore to an extent guided by personal perceptions and inclinations. It is likely that in future the scribal profiles will be developed as others look at the manuscript in this light. The availability of the digital images and text promises to further enable this process.

In principle, scribal profiling has been applied to everything in the manuscript. There are, however, some caveats:

• The profiling only relates to scribal activity, so it does not take into account, for example, folio prickings or British Museum ink stamps of ownership. It does, however, include all scribal contributions, even foliations or quire signatures which are usually omitted from scribal analysis (especially if they are modern).
• Some scribal activity is too narrow to allow identification as a distinct scribal profile. This includes: ruled lines; tiny additions of a single letter or word; enlarged or rubricated initials; illegible erased text; and symbols. An editor could take a maximal approach and number each of these interactions as a distinct profile; but this is likely to be overwhelming for the editor and reader. A more discerning approach has therefore been adopted here. Scale of contribution is only a criterion insofar as it affects the editor’s ability to recognise a ‘profile’. In other words, the interaction must be substantial enough in its palaeographical distinctiveness and/or approach to be considered a distinct profile. It is not about simply omitting all corrections or foliations, for example. In cases where the contribution is too narrow to allow identification, that scribal activity is omitted from the numbering process. In the transcription and translation, such ambiguous contributions are attributed to an ‘unassigned scribal profile’; they are still marked up on the digital images.
• It should be acknowledged that of course there may be some scribal activity that the editor(s) could not see in the manuscript or images (notably erased text) which has therefore been excluded from the scribal profiling.

Some of the most notable profiles are those which appear in multiple places across the manuscript. These indicate a scribe that contributed repeatedly, potentially at different times. When identifying one scribal profile in different places, there must be a clear positive case for identifying them as one. For example, Scribal profile 33 is particularly distinctive in its palaeographical style, as well as the nature of the text it was responsible for. By contrast, the quire signatures which were likely all added at a similar time while in Cotton’s library are not sufficiently similar palaeographically to be a single profile (hence, Scribal profiles 5, 11, 14, 25, 30 and 31).

Broun’s analysis and numbering of the scribes in the Chronicle of Melrose has been a vital guide in this process (Broun, The Chronicle of Melrose Abbey, chapter 7 on ‘Scribes’). On the whole, the edition’s identifications broadly match Broun’s. However, there are some differences, and moreover Broun’s scope was more limited in terms of what scribal activity was taken into consideration, hence he arrived at 66 ‘scribes’ whereas here there are 124 ‘profiles’. Also, while Broun numbered the scribes according to his assessment of their relative chronology of working, here the scribal profiles are numbered according to their position in the manuscript today (from Julius B XIII, f. 2r through to Faustina B IX, f. 75v) in order to keep editorial interpretation to a minimum. (There is one exception: Faustina B IX, f. 41 has been misplaced in the current binding arrangement, but the scribal profiles have been numbered as though this folio was in its correct position between ff. 40 and 42.) A description of each of the 124 profiles and their dating can be found under Scribal profiles.

The total number of profiles is not, therefore, the same as the total number of people involved in writing the Chronicle. There are likely to be people not accounted for (in the work attributed to ‘unassigned scribal profiles’, for example); equally, one ‘person’ may be responsible for two or more scribal profiles. What the profiles provide is a framework for referring to the manuscript’s scribal activity in a meaningful way, and beyond simply the ‘main text’. An effort has been made in the edition not to treat scribal profiles as ‘people’ with agency (such as avoiding the phrasing ‘Scribal profile 39 added a text’ or ‘the text by Scribal profile 39’) but instead to retain the sense that it is a palaeographical profile (‘the text attributed to Scribal profile 39’). As such, the appropriate pronoun for a scribal profile is not ‘he/she’ but ‘it’.

Visualising the work of scribal profiles

The next challenge is how to communicate all of this. Images now make it much easier to visualise the editor’s workings and their conclusions. The edition here exploits annotation of digital images as a methodology for formulating and communicating analysis of scribal profiles. All 124 scribal profiles have been marked up on the digital images.

Digital images are not just about transmitting ‘results’; they can also empower the editor to make distinctions that might otherwise be too difficult for a reader to follow. Because the user can browse the images independently, it is possible for the scribal profiles to be more explicitly understood as an editorial ‘layer’ of analysis, rather than the user’s only point of entry to the text.

Editing the text of scribal profiles

For the edition of the text itself, it would be possible to transcribe every scribal profile’s entry, but this is somewhat overwhelming for editor and reader alike, and potentially unnecessary. For example, many of the signposts are relatively obvious in their function and content, and are often repetitive. The same is true of the multiple layers of foliation, or the quire signatures or catchwords. Only certain textual contributions have therefore been transcribed and translated in order to enable readers to understand the text on the images: the list of Scribal profiles communicates where these have been provided. Most editions are, in some way, selective about how much ‘paratext’ they include. Here, it is simply more explicit because the images of the pages are side-by-side. For any user, it is still possible to keep an eye on the whole range of scribal activity through the images.

See the list of the 124 scribal profiles in the Chronicle of Melrose here.

Author: Jo Tucker
Last updated: 07/06/2026