The Common Version to 1333 represents the earliest stage in the development of the complex Middle English Prose Brut tradition. This thesis explores the methodological implications of the use of the Anglo-Norman source for the purposes of textual criticism through the study of selected portions of the text. This survey provides a substantial investigation into the relationships between the extant manuscripts and proposes a stemma for the whole group. This thesis suggests the . need for a re-evaluation of modem critical assumptions about the text to 1333 and identifies two lexically variant versions which descend from a common ancestor. This thesis provides a study of the reception and revision of the text by the translator and early scribal copyists. It focuses upon the literal translation, the early revision of the verbal form of this text, the ongoing scribal reactions to the text, and the apparent verbatim treatment of one version of the CV-1333 text, possibly in a `professional' metropolitan setting. This thesis is divided into two volumes. Volume I contains the analysis and discussion of the data which is supplied in Volume II. Volume II consists of a line-byline collation of the text studied in each of the witnesses that were transcribed.