Capítulo 2 MARCO TEÓRICO
2.4 PROCEDIMIENTO DE PREPARACIÓN
2.4.1 Métodos Convencionales de Preparación
Appendix 6 contains a table showing corrections made to English B-Is manuscripts. I have included readings for both the original (where legible) and corrected text, as well as any instances of shared witnesses to either reading. The changes from an incorrect Latin word to a correct one are likely to be corrections of errors, rather than instances of textual variants. However, I have included these in the table to show whether any other manuscript contains the same original errors, and to show whether any manuscript contains a much higher number of errors in its text. If the original text is not an error, then the corrected text may be a variant. If either the original or corrected reading is shared between multiple manuscripts this may indicate a shared source.
None of these multiple-word omissions appears to have been corrected by the insertion of text, although in NA several errors caused by dittography are corrected through the use of subpunction (5c, 5d, 5f, 5j). However, single-word variations in the
manuscripts frequently were corrected. The manuscripts with by far the greatest number of these is R (256), then NA (76), L (38), B (22), and Br1 (11). None of B’s or Br1’s corrections are marginal compared to nineteen of L’s and five of NA’s. L’s corrections are occasionally marginal but there are no signes-de-renvoi, making it more difficult to ascertain exactly where they are intended to be. R’s corrections are found with equal frequency added in the margin with signes-de-renvoi to guide the reader to the right correction and written over erasures of the original text. Many of the corrections are to the case ending, and there are also around eight instances where a word split over two lines has had the ending re-written on the previous line so the word is not split. This does not occur to every split word, nor to only single or multiple syllable words. This might indicate that R was used for reading out loud, as having a single-syllable word divided over two lines would cause breaks in the reader’s pronunciation.
Since the number of corrections in the manuscript varies to such a great extent, I compared them to the edited text to see if any of the corrections indicated that a specific manuscript was used to correct another. Out of L’s thirty-eight corrections, eighteen are made to errors that are unique to the manuscript and are changed to reflect the usual text (i.e., none of the other manuscripts contain the same initial error as L and none of the other manuscripts contain a variation in what L’s text is changed to). Only four corrections change L from the usual text to its own variation. There does not seem to be any pattern as to what sorts of changes were made in the margin and in the text. In the cases where L’s original wording is shared with other manuscripts, three of these are changed from the usual text to a variant found in both English and French manuscripts (although not any of the group CV, L3, L4). For the remaining thirteen, L is generally changed from a text closer to NA and Br1, to one that is closer to B, R, and occasionally to Br8 or T. Unfortunately, there do not seem to be many manuscripts that L is definitely not related to, with the exception of L3, L4, and CV.
When Br1 is corrected, it is usually from individual errors to reflect the usual text; but when its original text is closer to another manuscript, it is either L, NA, or T. Most of NA’s corrections are from individual errors to the usual text, and when NA’s original variation is shared with another manuscript, it is either L, D, T, or Br1 and it is changed to the usual text – but this occurs only three times (one of these is an original
error that is shared between L and D). On six occasions NA is changed from one individual variation to another. The large number of corrections makes it difficult to spot similarities in both original text and correction, but it seems that there is no link between NA and the groups of CV, L3, L4, and R, B.
Most of B’s corrections are again from individual variations to the usual text. When either the original text or correction is found in another manuscript, B is never changed to be like L or NA, and only once like Br1 (although there are other manuscripts showing this text). B’s corrections usually result in a closer reading to T, D, Br8, and the other French manuscripts, although on one occasion the corrected text is definitely not the same as that found in CV, D, or T). Over half of R’s corrections (about 163) are changes from an individual variation to the usual text, a further twenty- nine are from the usual text to an individual variation, and fourteen are from one individual variation to another. The large number of corrections makes it difficult to spot patterns in similarities in both original text and correction, as there initial similarities between R and every other B-Is manuscript, as well as similarities in corrections between R and every other manuscript (this refers to instances where R is changed from or to a text that is particular to another B-Is manuscript or group of manuscripts). Therefore, all these corrections seem to indicate once again that L, Br1, and NA are one sub-group and B, R are another. As well, B at least seems to be closer than the others to the French manuscripts.
It may be significant in terms of manuscript audience and use that neither L, R, nor B show instances where a Biblical quotation has been abbreviated to only the first letter(s) of the words or ‘et cetera’ (except one instance of ‘et cetera’ in B). This practice occurs many times in Br1 and occasionally in NA, indicating that the reader was assumed to know the quotation. Interestingly, there is one instance in NA where such an abbreviated verse has been partially expanded.296 Abbreviations in R are limited to short, commonly used words which may also indicate it was used for reading aloud.