Snijders, Tjamke

English

A quantitative approach to questions of rewriting entails several practical and methodological issues. This article discusses some of these issues with a study of 1,500 hagiographical texts from the Southern Low Countries, and proposes to classify a text as rewritten if at least twenty subsequent words have been changed. This method has some important drawbacks: it systematically undervalues small and semantic rewrites, and overrates the significance of stylistic changes. Nevertheless, it does point to a number of significant trends. First of all, that texts about local and regional saints, miracles and relics were rewritten far more often than the Vitae and Passiones of universally venerated saints. Secondly, that rewriting took place mostly within the monastic walls, whereas copying occurred more often between monasteries. Thirdly, that scribes did not automatically rewrite every text they copied, but only did so in very specific circumstances. Together, these observations constitute a frame of reference for further research into the high medieval hagiography from the Southern Low Countries

Ghent University Academic Bibliography

Rewriting hagiography in high medieval monasteries : towards a quantitative approach

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/3037315/file/6780157.pdf

Rewriting hagiography in high medieval monasteries: towards a quantitative approach

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Ghent University Academic Bibliography