Modern Editions Research Articles

The So-Called Ansbert, his ‘Historia de expeditione’ and Related Sources as a Research Problem *

Abstract The article dealing with the so-called Ansbert, his ‘Historia de expeditione Friderici imperatoris’ and related sources offers a research overview and analysis of the topic as it has evolved over the past 200 years and presents a new and more productive way to approach the narrative – the most important source documenting Frederick Barbarossa’s crusade ( 1188–1190 ). Firstly, the circumstances of the source’s reappearance in 1826 are explained, showing the troubled fate of the Strahov manuscript, where the narrative is extant in its fullest form. Secondly, the course of the academic discussion is traced, the main protagonist being Anton Chroust, the author of an edition used to this day. The main characteristics of the source are explained and the historiographical debate on the ‘Tageno-Ansbert-Frage’ is analysed, demonstrating that in almost desperate attempts to solve the question of authorship, the interconnectedness of sources and the exact manner of composition, research has gone up a blind alley, hindering more result-yielding questions from even being asked, which has not been remedied even by crusading studies that have bloomed in the past 100 years. Finally, a fresh approach to the topic is introduced: the narrative may be researched more viably through the lens of the functions and aims the source may have followed and the role the crusading idea may have played in it. Rediscovery of the ‘Historia’, p. 362. – The ‘Tageno-Ansbert-Frage’, p. 363. – Anton Chroust Enters the Scene, p. 365. – Karl Zimmert Disagrees, p. 367. – Towards the Modern Edition, p. 368. – The Edition, p. 371. – Reactions and Aftermath, p. 375. – The So-Called Ansbert in Crusading Studies and Barbarossa’s Biographies?, p. 377. – ‘Historia de Expeditione’ and its Modern Translations, p. 380. – New Horizons?, p. 385.

Making Sense of Fragmentary Qumran Aramaic Texts: Two Case Studies on Contradictory Grammatical vs. Content or Genre Considerations

Fragmentary ancient texts are notoriously difficult to interpret. In this article, I offer case studies on two short sections of Qumran Aramaic texts. Part 1 analyses the various possible syntactic parsings of 4Q242 1–3, 4 and assesses the extent to which they conform to the grammar of Qumran Aramaic. Based on this assessment, I present my interpretation of the line and offer a potential reconstruction for the end of the preceding line 3. Part 2 shows how methodological decisions of the modern editors of 4Q560 1 I, 3; 5 on the text’s similarity to later Jewish incantations (or lack thereof ) have yielded completely different interpretations. In this respect, I argue that the Aramaic is ambiguous, allowing for at least two different coherent readings.

Editing Arden: The Dramatis Personae List in As You Like It

ABSTRACT The first printed dramatis personae list for As You Like It appeared in Nicholas Rowe’s 1709 Works of Mr. William Shakespear. That list included an incomplete entry that described Rosalind’s father as the ‘Duke of ’, leaving a tantalising blank space where a geographical qualifier might be expected to appear. In a second issue of the edition of 1709, the incomplete entry was revised to read ‘Duke of Burgundy’. Yet, in a second edition of the play, printed later in 1709, the incomplete ‘Duke of ’ appeared again, and it appeared for a third time in 1714, in the revised third edition of Rowe’s Works. The 1714 dramatis personae list included another bold editorial revision: it contained an entirely new entry for a second ‘Clown’, suggesting that this second clown was distinct from the character we have come to know as Touchstone. This article traces the changes made to the dramatis personae lists of 1709 and 1714. It argues that these lists offer insights into early eighteenth-century critical responses to the play. The paper also shows that these lists, though often overlooked by modern editorial historians, anticipated later eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century debates about the play’s geography and about Touchstone.

The creed “al-‘Aqaid al-nasafiyyah” as a standard of Sunni doctrine

The subject of the article is the medieval manuscript “аl-‘Aqaid an-nasafiyya” and aspects related to its compilation. The article contains the data about the earliest version of the manuscript and its textual features. Some discrepancies with modern editions of the treatise text are revealed, the historical motive for compiling the work, as well as its connection with the main theological works of major scholars of the Hanafi madhhab are considered. The colophon of the manuscript, which provides valuable information about the date and place of composition of this theological treatise, is examined separately.

What Did Jesus Say on the Cross? A Sixteenth-Century Quest after a Biblical Transliteration

ABSTRACT Opening Matthew or Mark’s Gospels in one of the countless modern editions and translations of the Bible, one normally finds that moments before his death Jesus cried, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, and with minor changes in Mark 15:34). But what appears to be an unequivocal rendition of Jesus’s Aramaic vernacular was in fact an undecided question from the early Greek manuscripts up until the second half of the sixteenth century. This article follows the spelling of this transliteration in a number of consecutive editions of the Bible which appeared in the first half of the sixteenth century, thus revealing an often tacit but persistent debate regarding the representation of Jesus’s original language, the authority of the Greek ancient manuscripts, the relations between writing and oral speech, and the legitimacy of translation of the Bible.

New Data on Marcin Broniowski (Broniewski) and His Tartariae Descriptio (1578)

The article is devoted to the biography of the Polish traveller and diplomat Marcin Broniowski (d. 1592), author of Tartariae descriptio (1578), a classic description of early modern Crimea. While working on the article, I discovered a number of previously unknown Polish sources relating to the diplomat’s biography. This allowed me to reconstruct Marcin Broniowski’s biography and the chronology of his visits to Crimea. I also analyse the main early modern editions and translations of Tartariae descriptio, as well as its influence on the history of European geographical thought.

Himma, a Pivotal Concept between Psychology and Politics

Abstract In several passages of the Arabic commentaries on Aristotle’s Rhetoric, the Greek term hexis (gr. ἕξις, stable disposition to produce certain acts) is rendered by himma (aspiration), whose definition is taken in a politico-psychological sense. Other passages of these commentaries and other works of philosophy written in Arabic attest for the presence of himma with the same meaning, and with significant frequency and in crucial passages – despite the term’s absence from the indexes of modern editions of these texts. The present article proposes an exhaustive study of the definitions of himma employed in its politico-psychological sense and of its characteristics outside the definitions before comparing it, on the one hand, with other acceptions of himma – ṣiġar al-himma (pusillanimity), kibar al-himma (magnanimity), the himmas as different energies of the soul, the himma according to the sūfīs, the himma at the source of the himmas – and, on the other hand, with the Aristotelian hexis, with malaka, and with the Stoic hexis. Finally, we attempt to identify the origines of the concept of himma in its politico-psychological sense.

The first six propositions of Archimedes' on equilibrium of planes 1

ABSTRACT Modern commentators have doubts about the authenticity and cogency of the early propositions of Archimedes’ On Equilibrium of Planes Book 1. Ernst Mach famously said that the proof of Prop. 6, the so-called law of the lever, assumes what is to be proven. Comparing the initial text in Heiberg’s modern edition (1881, 1913) to the first propositions in Eutocius’ commentary on EP 1, J. L. Berggren ([1976]. ‘Spurious Theorems in Archimedes’ Equilibrium of Planes: Book I’, Archive for History of Exact Sciences 16.2 (1976), 87–103.) claimed that the propositions up through Proposition 3 of the standard modern edition are schoolbook additions written by an ancient author inferior to Archimedes. The present paper argues for the logical connectedness of Postulates 1–5 to Props. 1–6, by means of a detailed examination of the course of the argument and a re-examination of Eutocius’ remarks. The paper reinterprets the role of the empirical in the early propositions and offers a reading of the contribution of Archimedes’ mechanics to the method of EP 1.

The Publication of Hellas

This article considers the publication of Hellas, the last major poem of Shelley's that appeared in his lifetime. First, it focusses on the press-copy, the poem's most important textual witness (and arguably the basis of any modern edition), recovering from it a hitherto unnoticed but apparently authoritative reading. Second, it discusses Charles Ollier's unexpurgated edition, identifying passages that were removed from, or altered in, the first edition published in 1822. Third, it traces the gradual emergence of the suppressed passages in editions of the poem published between 1829 and 2002. Finally, with reference to ‘A Defence of Poetry’ and the first (authorised) posthumous edition of the poem, by Mary Shelley, published in 1839, it considers how the textual history of Hellas may illustrate Shelley's view that the meaning of a poem may not be realised in an author's lifetime. In her ‘Note on Hellas’ Mary Shelley appears to have identified the poem's awareness of itself as yet to be fully understood with a subtlety matched in the criticism of the late Michael O’Neill, one of Shelley's finest readers whose loss we continue to mourn.

The role of fairy tale publications in children's reading circle

In the article, using the example of editions of Ch. Perrault examines the peculiarities of publishing fairy tales for children as an indicator of the refraction of the traditional concept of children's books in tsarist Russia and changes in publishing policy in connection with the formation of new pedagogical and literary and artistic trends. The study is based on scientific methods, such as observation, bibliographic heuristics, historiographic, comparative-historical analysis. Editions of fairy tales by Sh. Perrault, as an object of research, is considered in the historical development of Soviet book publishing, which acted under the influence of ideological factors and social conditions that determined the subject matter, types of publications, their translations and design. The features of the stages of development of children's book publishing are characterized from the point of view of pedagogical and publishing priorities, the competencies of translators and artists, indirectly influencing printing resources. The subject area of the study includes modern editions of fairy tales by Sh. Perrault in the form of separate and special issues addressed to children with different reading abilities and aesthetic perception. The history of the publication of Charles Perrault's fairy tales is analyzed as a new type of publication that correspond to general political attitudes that make them legitimate for the perception of a children's reader. The article highlights the publications characteristic of each stage, which have developed under the influence of discussions about the combination of traditional and innovative views on the functions of a children's book: from edifying and moralizing to soviet propaganda and modern cultural and educational.

Middle English fobbere and the Critical Editing of Piers Plowman

ABSTRACT This essay examines a line in William Langland's Piers Plowman that caused the scribes considerable trouble and which involves the synonymous Middle English hapax legomena fob and fobbere. The word in question appears to differ across the three versions of the poem, “A,” “B,” and “C.” The particular textual crux opens onto a general dilemma that faces Langland's modern editors. Editors of Piers Plowman have constantly to decide whether, and to what extent, to admit into evidence the testimony of parallel versions when editing any one version. Against the drift of a tendency toward parallel editing in the poem's twentieth-century reception, it is argued that the critical editing of Piers Plowman sometimes must involve holding at arm’s length the apparently relevant testimony of parallel versions.

Fragments of Texts and Fragmentary Textual Traditions

Abstract Since the publication of the Aramaic Enochic manuscript fragments by J.T. Milik in 1976, the secondary Greek and Ethiopic versions have played a key role in how the Enochic fragments have been reconstructed and restored. In the case of the Enochic theophany (1 Enoch 1:1–9) in 4QEna (4Q201), the edges of the fragments are often retrospectively reconstructed and restored in dialogue with the Greek text-type preserved in Codex Panopolitanus and the Ethiopic text-types preserved in the manuscripts of Ethiopic Enoch. This study demonstrates the need for renewed reflection on how the Aramaic Enochic theophany in 4QEna is reconstructed and restored in modern editions of the fragments, and highlights the methodological dangers inherent in the application of a retrospective text-critical and reconstructive method.

Comparative Analysis of Contextual Usage of the Lexemes мiръ / миръ / мир and their translations into Spanish

In the critical literature devoted to the L.N. Tolstoy’s novel «War and Peace», the contradictory contexts of usage of the lexemes мiръ / миръ / мир and their relation to homonymy, were repeatedly discussed. The study is a comparative analysis of the contexts of usage of the lexems мiръ/ миръ / мир in Russian in the texts of the «War and Peace» novel by L.N. Tolstoy, as well as their translation into Spanish. The author refers to two editions of the novel - in 1912, before the spelling reform of 1918, and mid-20th century, as part of the 90-volume edition of the works of L.N. Tolstoy. The aim of the study is the comparative analysis of the semantics of the мiръ / миръ / мир in connection with the idea of the novel-epic. It is determined in what context and why L.N. Tolstoy prefers the lexemes of мiръ / миръ / мир , and also considered the use of the word глобус ‘globe’, meaning the ‘world’. The conclusions of the work are a proposal to introduce in the commentary to the novel interpretations of the meaning of the word peace in accordance with the context of the media world , in the curricula of students-philologists, as well as to take into consideration the data in translations into foreign languages, Spanish in particular,. Taking into account the specificity of semantics of words Mir and Worlds in the pre-revolutionary edition and the word world in the modern editions of the novel-epic «War and Peace» and their functioning with the literary text under the consideration contributes to revealing the idea of the multi-layered work, a special place in the artistic heritage of L.N. Tolstoy.

Mourning an Oenophile

Abstract In Petrus Nannius’ posthumously published commentary on Vergil’s Eclogues (Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1559), one section contains a forgotten mock epitaph ascribed to Erasmus. The short poem, omitted in modern editions of Erasmus’ poetry, is written for a man simply referred to as “Theodoricus”. In the present article, I offer a diplomatic transcription, translation, and contextualization of the epitaph and the commentary section in which it is imbedded. In my discussion of the epitaph, I identify “Theodoricus” as Dirk Martens of Aalst (Theodoricus Martinus Alustensis/Alostensis), Erasmus’ close friend and the publisher of many of his works.

At Grips with Romans 5:1

precis: The modern edition of the Greek New Testament, the Nestle-Aland, prints Romans 5:1 as follows: Δικαιωθέντες οὖν ἐκ πίστεως εἰρήνην ἔχομεν πρὸς τὸν θεὸν διὰ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ("Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ"). The main verb is ἔχομεν ("we have [peace]"). However, is this the right verb form? The person who copied the text (from an earlier, now lost manuscript) in the two fourth-century manuscripts, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, wrote the hortative subjunctive ἔχωμεν ("let us have"). A later, correcting, hand changed it to the indicative ἔχομεν ("we have")—present in the Nestle-Aland. The subjunctive introduces an element of uncertainty about whether Christians (already) enjoy peace with God. This question relates to the doctrine of justification—one of the most divisive topics of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. The indicative variant supports the Lutheran side, while the subjunctive conforms to the Catholic viewpoint. Instead of the exclusive choice of one variant or the other, this essay proposes that future editions of the Greek New Testament print a neologism that combines both variants into one, ἔχôμεν ("let us have" and "we have"). M. C. Escher's lithograph Drawing Hands is used to show that the correcting and the original hands (in Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) are on the same level (in a tangled hierarchy). Finally, J. Derrida's neologism "otobiography" is used to demonstrate that the omicron and the omega are interwoven in Rom. 5:1.

Schools of clerks, schools of knights: John Grandisson and Hugh de Courtenay’s French correspondence, 1329–40

Abstract The private letters within the Register of John Grandisson (bishop of Exeter, 1327–69) provide a fascinating insight into the intellectual climate of his episcopate, and attest to his strained relationship with the immensely important local magnate Hugh de Courtenay. Based on a re-examination of the manuscript Register (now held at the Devon Heritage Centre), this article offers the first modern edition and translation of a series of exchanges between the two men during Grandisson’s episcopate. Grandisson’s replies represent an assertion of clerical authority, as the two men fought over what was – in one case, literally – contested terrain.

الهيام في جنان الشام ، من قلم سليم أفندي البستاني

After 150 years buried in the archives, al-Huyām fī ǧinān al-Šām is now available in a new modern edition. The first riwāya (‘novel’) written by Salīm al-Bustānī, it ran as a serial throughout the first year of the Beiruti journal al-Ǧinān in 1870. At the end of the year, all 24 issues of the journal were assembled into a yearly collection, which forms the source material for this edition. The text has been manually digitised and the orthography has been updated to facilitate the reading experience. The edition may serve as source material for historians of the late Ottoman Levant, as a new access to early 19th century Arabic prose for scholars of literature, and hopefully as reading pleasure for the greater Arabic-speaking public. Digital edition with commentary, by Jonathan Jonsson under the collaboration of Stephan Guth

Transmission problems? An embedded approach for unification of Latin prefixes and text variants during text matching

Abstract The manuscript tradition of pre-modern texts poses a specific problem for scholars in the field of Digital Humanities: before printing made the production of standardized editions of texts feasible, copying texts by hand (and often by different people) was inherently an error-prone process, which not only led to differences in wording but also in spelling—across multiple transmitted variants. This applies especially to ancient texts, where the temporal distances to the archetypes tend to be fairly large. In computerized research, especially in the case of text matching within the field of citation research and text mining, these differences in wording and spelling—however small they might be—may prevent a successful matching of texts. This case study presents a solution for the problem of textual differences arising from (non-)assimilated prefixes in Latin, a feature where modern editions mostly differ from author to author, but sometimes even between two editions of the same text. With regard to the letters of the church father Jerome as well as Virgil’s Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid, two approaches are compared in terms of error rate and efficiency for a given set of prefixes: (1) performing and (2) reversing corpus-wide assimilation. Moreover, the broader implications of the (in-)accessibility of text-critical data in digital editions are discussed. Finally, general desiderata regarding text-critical data for computerized research on classical texts are elaborated.

Writing in the European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology Head & Neck Diseases. Dos and Don’ts!

Too many articles are still rejected by scientific medical journals due to lack of preparation of the manuscript and of knowledge of the modern editorial rules that govern scientific medical writing. Therefore, the editorial board of the European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology Heads & Neck Diseases summarized studies published by its members since 2020 in the columns of the scientific journal of the French Society of Otorhinolaryngology and the International Francophone Society of Otorhinolaryngology and data from the PubMed indexed literature dedicated to scientific medical writing in otolaryngology in the 21st century. The authors hope that this review, in the form of a list of “Dos and Don’ts”, will provide authors with a practical guide facilitating publication of rigorous, reproducible and transparent scientific studies, in accordance with the movement toward better science that society as a whole has been fighting for since the beginning of this century.

Script and Creating a Religious Identity: The Typography of the Talmud

Aim of the article. This article deals with the iconic typography of the Talmud page and focuses on the relationship between script and religious identity. It examines changes in design and typography in the modern editions of Steinsaltz, Artscroll, and Koren since the 1980s, and how they led to the removal of some of these editions from the yeshiva world, preventing yeshiva students from using them. Results. The Talmud is the central and most influential text in the world of Jewish law. Its study holds great spiritual significance, and many regard it as a means for self-expression and connection to the Torah’s oral tradition. During the second half of the 20th century, initiatives were taken to change the traditional layout of Judaic texts. The aim of these initiatives was to create a new “Israeli design” for Judaic texts while remaining loyal to the past. Designers sought to strike a balance between conservation and innovation in aspects such as book design, technological advances in the printing industry, accessibility regarding reading, studying, and prayer, and catering to broader target audiences. In most cases, new book formats were chosen, but at times, such changes generated strong opposition in certain Jewish sectors, resulting in those books being banned from study halls and synagogues. A case in point was Rabbi Steinsaltz’s project of redesigning the Talmud to make Talmud study more accessible for struggling learners. Rabbi Steinsaltz changed the format of the Talmud page to a more readable format, using new fonts, additional punctuation, and wider spacing between the lines. This change, however, was not accepted by the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) and parts of the National- Religious public. Scientific novelty. Existing research deals separately with the issue of Zionist Hebrew typography and the issue of the ultra-Orthodox society. To the best of our knowledge, so far, no research has directly linked the two issues to examine the ultra-Orthodox approach to design in general and to Hebrew typography in particular. This study contributes to previous research on Hebrew typography, emphasising its role in conveying a social, educational, and ideological message, regardless of the written text’s content. Conclusions. Judaic texts that are used in the ultra-Orthodox world are visually different in design from those used in the secular and/ or National-Religious world. While the ultra-Orthodox staunchly preserve the traditional Judaic book format (albeit with minor changes), the secular world and parts of the National-Religious public welcome books that have a variety of fonts, colorful designs and pictures, decorations, and didactic explanations to aid the reader. The Talmud is a book with a distinct typography and contains a wealth of information. The layout of a Talmud page allowed for a variety of different texts to be combined in one book, making it easier to study. The fixed template, which is exactly the same in all tractates, generates a visual representation of the text so that a large amount of information can be remembered through an “eidetic memory” of images. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s edition of the Talmud (Koren), which changed the traditional page layout to make the text more accessible, remained only partially faithful to the original but brought about a true revolution. For some audiences, this innovative edition represents a pinnacle of Hebrew literature, while for others, it is seen as a violation of the sacred literature and should be banned. There has always been a strong connection between the ultra-Orthodox world and Hebrew typography, and it is still present on a daily basis. The Hebrew letters are cornerstones in the design of the Holy Scriptures. However, the attitude of the ultra-Orthodox world toward modern Hebrew typography as reflected in this study, is one of ambivalence, some acceptance but mostly strong reservations.