medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>>question still remains, however, *is* there any difference between these
characters and ae/AE?<<
In the sense that what you're doing is a transcription, then it should be
reproduced. Frequency of e-caudata/cedilla can be an indication of
differences of hand, or a reflection of the model. If, however, your
edition's primary purpose is as a digital entity likely to be searched or
concordanced along with other texts, then I would act as follows: if the
text abounds in -ae(-), then I would take the e-caudata to be a simple
abbreviation, and it would be entirely legitimate to expand it silently; but
if the use of -ae(-) is rare, or relatively haphazard and possibly incorrect
(and I've seen examples of that), or non-existent, then I would tend to
regularize the e-caudata as an e, plain and simple. Either course of action
destroys information, and, as I say, I would only take the option of
regularization if there were a bigger picture in which more information
could be gained by having a relatively consistent spelling.
The problem is similar to that found in the edition of medieval Spanish
texts where the use of c-cedilla is common, but not to the exclusion of c
for the same sound. So (to answer the question) e-caudata/cedilla is
essentially the same as ae. It marks where the scribe thought there should
be a dipthong, but not where it was necessarily pronounced. In printed
texts, the choice between e-caudata and ae is probably more to do with
typesetting and fitting words onto a line than anything more profound.
Anthony.
(Editor, Medium Aevum Monographs -- and always looking for interesting
editions, particularly in Latin, to publish).
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