Handbook of Stemmatology

Stemmatology studies aspects of textual criticism that use genealogical methods. This handbook is the first to cover the entire field, encompassing both theoretical and practical aspects, ranging from traditional to digital methods. Authors from all the disciplines involved examine topics such as the material aspects of text traditions, methods of traditional textual criticism and their genesis, and modern digital approaches used in the field

Incorporating syntax into theories of textual transmission : preliminary studies in the Judaean desert Isaiah scrolls and fragments

Prior to the discovery of the Qumran and Judaean Desert scrolls and fragments, text-critical scholars conducted their investigation of textual variation by means of manuscript stemma, among which ! and its associated scribal school was the golden rule. With nearly seventy years of research now complete, scholars have emended their methodological framework to account for variation by means of the scribal practices of the Second Temple era. To analyze textual variation vis-à-vis scribal practices and approaches has required that scholars incorporate historical linguistics into existing philological methods. The linguistic categories of orthography, phonology, and morphology have received a significant amount attention, mostly in Emanuel Tov's Non-Aligned theory. However, syntax has received little attention. To test the hypothesis that syntax should likewise be incorporated into transmission theory methodology, several case studies from the Judaean Desert Isaiah corpus are presented. The conclusion of the present study affirms that syntax offers a viable method to account for the extant readings witnessed in the Judaean Desert Isaiah corpus

Textual criticism and medieval Irish studies

Many textual scholars will be aware that the title of the present thesis has been composed in a conscious revisionary relation to Tim William Machan’s influential Textual Criticism and Middle English Texts. (Tim William Machan, Textual Criticism and Middle English Texts (Charlottesville, 1994)). The primary subjects of Machan’s study are works written in English between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, the latter part of the period conventionally labelled Middle English. In contrast, the works with which I am primarily concerned are those written by scholars of Old and Middle Irish in the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Where Machan aims to articulate the textual and cultural factors that characterise Middle English works as Middle English, the purposes of this thesis are (a) to identify the underlying ideological and epistemological perspectives which have informed much of the way in which medieval Irish documents and texts are rendered into modern editions, and (b) to begin to place the editorial theory and methodology of medieval Irish studies within the broader context of Biblical, medieval and modern textual criticism. Hence, the title is Textual Criticism and Medieval Irish Studies, rather than Textual Criticism and Medieval Irish Text

The Avignon Manuscript and the Transmission of Rufinus' Translation of Origen's Peri Archon

Origen’s Peri Archon was one of the most comprehensive and influential works of early Christian theology—but despite its extraordinary influence, it was condemned as heretical in the fifth century. Although the Greek original does not survive apart from a handful of quotations, it had (fortunately for us) been translated into Latin by the fourth-century theologian Rufinus of Aquileia. His Latin version, De principiis, survives, but only in a small number of faulty, lacunose manuscripts. The most authoritative edition of De principiis, Paul Koetschau’s 1913 edition, is profoundly inadequate. Koetschau had correctly determined that one family of manuscripts, the alpha branch, preserved the most accurate text, but he used only one manuscript from this branch (one from Reichenau). Four more manuscripts from the superior alpha branch have since been identified, but three have been neither collated nor cited in any edition of the work. Their existence alone would necessitate a thorough study of these manuscripts; but additionally, my research indicates that Koetschau’s edition does not cite the Reichenau manuscript systematically, nor does he identify the sources for a number of his variant readings. There is no edition of Rufinus’ text, then, that accurately incorporates evidence from all the available manuscripts from the superior alpha branch—not just the Reichenau manuscript, but also those from Avignon, Berlin, Weissenburg, and Fulda. This dissertation is the first study of all of the alpha manuscripts, and it lays the groundwork for a more complete and more accurate edition of De principiis. Scholars of theology, patristics, and ecclesial history will benefit from an improved edition of Rufinus’ work, through which they will have a better understanding of one of the most important dogmatic works of early Christianity, Origen’s Peri Archōn.Doctor of Philosoph

Digital Papyrology II

The ongoing digitisation of the literary papyri (and related technical texts like the medical papyri) is leading to new thoughts on the concept and shape of the "digital critical edition" of ancient documents. First of all, there is the need of representing any textual and paratextual feature as much as possible, and of encoding them in a semantic markup that is very different from a traditional critical edition, based on the mere display of information. Moreover, several new tools allow us to reconsider not only the linguistic dimension of the ancient texts (from exploiting the potentialities of linguistic annotation to a full consideration of language variation as a key to socio-cultural analysis), but also the very concept of philological variation (replacing the mono-authorial view of an reconstructed archetype with a dynamic multitextual model closer to the fluid aspect of the textual transmission). The contributors, experts in the application of digital strategies to the papyrological research, face these issues from their own viewpoints, not without glimpses on parallel fields like Egyptology and Near Eastern studies. The result is a new, original and cross-disciplinary overview of a key issue in the digital humanities

Digitally editing manuscript prose in Castilian: the CroˊnicaCrónica particularparticular dede SanSan FernandoFernando – a case study

This thesis accompanies the digital edition of the Crónica particular de San Fernando, and includes a rationale for and an explanation of many of the implications of the decisions taken in the preparation of this edition. The edition is used as a case study for the digital editing of medieval prose in Castilian at the present time. To this end, there is an in-depth examination of the history, context and current situation of the digital editing of medieval texts, focussing specifically on prose, and in particular prose in Castilian. The text and contact of the Crónica particular de San Fernando are also studied, to inform the preparation of its digital edition. My central thesis is that the decisions made when preparing a digital edition should take into account the perceived needs of edition users, including both contemporary users and, as far as possible, future users. These decisions should be informed by the nature of the text itself, its context, and transmission, as these will affect how and by whom the edition is used. They should also be informed by an understanding of how digital editions differ from their print counterparts, in both preparation and usage

Ars Edendi Lecture Series, vol. IV

"The Ars Edendi Lectures have been organized by the research programme at Stockholm University funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond during the years 2008-2015, with a focus on editorial methods for dynamic textual traditions of medieval Greek and Latin texts. This fourth volume gathers contributions both on the fundamentals of editing, as in Glenn Most ‘What is a critical edition?’, and looking at specifics such as marginalia (Teeuwen), errors (Maggioni), musical notation (Atkinson). Two papers focus on digital tools in editing Greek (Dendrinos) and Latin and early Romance (Robinson) texts. Richard Janko describes the challenges in making out words in Herculaneum papyri. Both traditional and innovative approaches are contemplated in this rich and varied collection by leading experts in the field of editing.

Towards a first digital edition of the oldest surviving manuscript of St Augustine's De civitate Dei

This thesis describes the creation of a pilot digital edition of MS XXVIII(26), the oldest surviving manuscript of Saint Augustine’s (354-430 AD) monumental De civitate Dei (The City of God). Also known as Manuscript V[eronensis], MS XXVIII(26) dates back to the early fifth century AD and is housed in the chapter library of Verona, Italy. As contemporary to Saint Augustine himself, it is a particularly treasured object of study. This thesis reassesses extant research about this manuscript, collecting information about its disputed provenance, historical context, materiality, tradition, and conservation. In doing so, it investigates how the manuscript can be best reproduced as a digital edition by way of two surveys designed to better understand how digital editions are respectively being created and used. The survey devoted to the study of how digital editions are being built has become a publicly available digital resource in collaboration with the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The resource, known as the Catalogue of Digital Editions, aggregates and catalogues a large number of digital editions in an effort to delineate the field’s status quo and spawn new quantitative and qualitative research. The community survey devoted to the study of how digital editions are being used is one of the very few as well as the largest in the field yet. The over 200 responses received give detailed information regarding the expectations of digital editions provided by the Digital Humanities community and point to many areas for further improvement. A comparative analysis of the results from the two surveys suggests that while creators are aware of and adhere to standards of creation, much work remains to be done to address the needs of a diverse range of users. With this information, digital editors in the Digital Humanities can better shape future projects and thus contribute to the production of ever-useful digital cultural resources. This information is also guiding the creation of a pilot digital edition of MS XXVIII(26), which remains to be user-tested but serves as the first digital reproduction of the oldest surviving manuscript of Saint Augustine’s De civitate Dei. The research described in this thesis has led to the formulation of recommendations for those embarking on the creation of a digital edition. Specifically, creators are advised to get access to the original documents and to high resolution images, to provide transcriptions of the text in multiple formats so as to enable further research and data reuse in a variety of academic contexts, to provide detailed documentation of the editorial and technological components of the project, to make as much data available under open licences and, finally, to conduct, and report on, user studies of the digital edition