Complex sentence: Work began on this collection of poetry sometime after 1282-first by one main scribe, perhaps the original architect of the volume-but nearly forty different hands were involved in two further strata of scribal activity, working well into the mid-fourteenth century.
Split into simpler sentences: Work began on this collection of poetry sometime after 1282, first by one main scribe, perhaps the original architect of the volume. But nearly forty different hands were involved in two further strata of scribal activity, working well into the mid-fourteenth century.