>>many of those old registers were written in Middle English script - which requires one to retrain how to read
I run into that a lot with the 18th century poetry. The handwriting was a real learning experience. I’ve been trying to hire a deep toned male actor for audio recordings and trying to figure out how to prepare the text for him so that he’ll pronounce the words correctly. Saved by the frustration that he never calls back when he promises and I fear I’m going to have to start a real search for a narrator.
Yes, phonetic spelling is a challenge - and all those linguistic symbols like you see in dictionaries now are for the elites - who can remember all that if you don't use it regularly? As to the voice, 25 years ago I could have been a candidate, started out on radio in the 60's - having had voice training. Now I sound like a wet dishcloth. :^/