Scribal Errors Research Articles

SKIPPING YEARS AND SCRIBAL ERRORS

Adrián Recinos's correlation of Kaqchikel Maya and Spanish dates in the Annals of the Kaqchikels contains numerous errors, and there are several scribal and calculation errors in how both the 260-day and 400-day Kaqchikel Maya calendars were used within the manuscript. These are dating problems that stem from errors by the scribes in their attempt to adapt to a European counting and documentation system and their inexperience with the Kaqchikel Maya calendars. In addition, unique citation marks and two scribal errors shed light on the existence of earlier documents and subsequent effects on the later time counts of the Kaqchikel Maya calendar system. This paper adjusts the previous correlation by Recinos and extends it from 1570 until 1603. Moreover, by highlighting and correcting the internal errors, this paper offers a caveat to scholars when reconstructing the histories, events, and social relations of past Mesoamerican peoples and scripts without regard for internal errors.

Tendenz and Textual Criticism in 1 Samuel 2–10

A dominant feature of the stories in 1 Samuel 2–10 is the striking correspondence that they share with various Tetrateuchal accounts. Correspondences exist between the houses of Eli (1 Sam. 2) and Aaron (Lev. 10; Num. 25); the ark narrative (1 Sam. 4–6) and the plagues narrative (Exod. 5–12); as well as the rejection of divine kingship (1Sam. 8) and the rebellion concerning manna (Num. 11). Commentators have failed to note that many of the textual problems of the MT in 1 Samuel 2–10 surface precisely where these Deuteronomistic and Tetrateuchal accounts are parallel. Rather than being scribal errors, many textual problems in 1 Samuel 2–10 are thus the product of Dtr’s citation of, or allusion to, corresponding Tetrateuchal accounts.

The Lilies of the Field: Saying 36 of the Gospel of Thomas and Secondary Accretions in Q 12.22b–31

An archaic form of the sayings collection Free from Anxiety like Ravens and Lilies (Q 12.22b–31) is to be found in P. Oxy. 655, Gospel of Thomas Saying 36. T. C. Skeat detected in 1938 a scribal error already present in Q 12.27a (taken over in Matt 6.28b), but still correct in P. Oxy. 655. Part I publishes Skeat's much more recent reconstruction of Saying 36 in P. Oxy. 655. Robinson had already enlarged Skeat's thesis by focusing attention on four ingredients in Q 12.22b–31 that scholarship has long since recognized as secondary, and that are significantly absent from P. Oxy. 655. Part II responds to criticisms of this thesis by J. Schröter. Part III contains concluding remarks on the archaic form of the sayings collection as a whole.

Scribal Error as Linguistic Evidence in the Peterborough Chronicle

Scribal Error as Linguistic Evidence in the <i>Peterborough Chronicle</i>

PRE-HISPANIC MAYA RELIGION

For much of this century, scholars have tended to dismiss the Madrid Codex as a resource because of the large number of apparent scribal errors in the hieroglyphic text of the manuscript. An examination of naming patterns and attribute distribution with respect to the codical deities, however, reveals that many of these so-called errors are patterned in meaningful ways. These patterns suggest that our view of the Maya pantheon as consisting of a series of discrete entities with distinct conceptual domains is a Western construct, rather than a valid representation of pre-Hispanic Maya ideology. Reference to ethnohistoric sources from both within the Maya area and elsewhere in Mesoamerica (e.g., accounts from central Mexico) provides a model for conceptualizing Maya deities as members of overlapping complexes or clusters, each composed of a small number of underlying divinities characterized by various aspects, or manifestations.

Malory: Texts and Sources by P.J.C. Field (review)

110arthuriana p.j.c. field, Malory: Texts and Sources. Arthurian Studies XL. Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, N.Y: Boydell & Brewer, 1998. Pp. x, 313. isbn: 0-85991-5360. $90. Malory: Text and Sources assembles twenty-three essays which the learned and assiduous P.J.C. Field published separately in edited collections and scholarly journals between 1972 and 1996. As one would expect from the reviser of The Works ofSir Thomas Malory cd. Eugene Vinaver, Third Edition, a concern with the texts ofboth Caxton and Winchester dominates a number of essays, including "I he Earliest Texts of Malory's Morte Darthur,' 'Author, Scribe and Reader in Malory: The Case of Harleuse and Peryne,' and 'Malory's Place-Names: Westminster Bridge and Virvyn.' Several essays are combative in tone. 'Caxton's Roman War' deals with an academic controversy initiated at the Exeter Arthurian Congress in 1975 when a paper by William Matthews proposed that Malory himself revised from a longer account the version of the Roman war which Caxton printed. Charles Moorman's defence of the theory, published in Arthuriana (5.2 Summer, 1995), Field, relying on Yuji Nakao's statistical proof, condemns as 'inaccurate,' 'implausible,' and 'false.' Claude Luttrell's complaint that the hunt associated with Arthur's wedding feast is obscure and confused in the Morte compared with its French source (Arthurian Literature IX, 1989) is countered in 'Hunting, Hawking and Textual Criticism in Malory's Morte Darthur.' Not only had the English author developed a different kind ofstory-telling technique, one that aimed at conciseness, speed, and heightened suspense, but his own expertise in hunting matters led him to add realistic details that departed from the French source. Moreover, some discrepancies can be blamed on scribal error. Medievalists are suigeneris hypothesists. Expressions such as 'perhaps,' ' suppose,' 'would have had to have been,' 'something very like it could well have appeared,' and 'a reasonable guess' are frequent throughout this collection. Sometimes the assumption of lost manuscripts and scribal additions or errors is used to support theories when mere coincidence might provide a more reasonable explanation. Consider Malory and The WeddingofSir Gawain andDame Ragnell which proposes Malory as the author of the metrical romance. In the fifteenth century when the London standard ofEnglish prevailed in written works and when the language had not yet been enriched by abundant Renaissance imports, a commonality ofdiction and expression, particularly in the romance genre, is more likely to explain the seven examples ofsimilar wording. Nor do the common motifs relating to hunting, marriage, and happy endings prove that one work was drawn from the other. One is also dubious about the number ofbooks that this impoverished knightprisoner , a military man not a scholar, is said to have known. Given that the 800 volume library ofCharles V, which the Duke ofBedford acquired in 1425, contained only thirteen Arthurian texts, it is unlikely that in addition to his five major French sources and two English metrical romances Malory could also have acquired Perlesvaus, Arthur and Merlin, The Avowing ofArthur, Lybeaus Desconus, Ywain and REVIEWS111 Gawain, the Suite de Merlin, Robert de Baron's Joseph, Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain, Lancelot and Erec, Sir Triamour, Girart d'Amiens' Escanor, not to mention Hardyng's Chronicle, Chaucer's Trodus, Knight's Tale' and 'Franklin's Talc' and other volumes as suggested in 'Malory's Minor Sources,' 'Malory and Perlesvaus! 'Malory and Chrétien de Troyes' et al—to which Field adds, Tt is unlikely that we yet have a full list.' On the subject ofwhat particular manuscripts constituted Malory's 'Frensshe bookes,' however, 'Malory and the French prose Lancelot' describes a procedure which might bring us closer to answering this perennial question. Using as his base the sixteen Lancelot manuscripts now in the British Isles along with Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MSS fr. 119-20, Field compares the Malory text, episode by episode, with the French texts and tabulates significant agreements. The results indicate that in choosing as his yardstick London, British Library Additional MS. 10293, Vinaver 'could hardly have chosen worse.' Alexander Michas Lancelot, based on Oxford, Bodleian MS. Rawlinson D.899 is closer, giving a better image ofMalory's source manuscript 'which must have stemmed from early...

Scribal Errors or Phonetic Spellings? Samuel as an Aural Text

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to establish the "phonic" nature of some of the socalled "corrupt" passages in the MT of Samuel. We are particularly interested in Samuel's "aural" characteristics which might be represented in the phonetic spellings. This aural aspect of the narrative is clearly attested in cases where the Ketib and the Qere give two variant forms of the same word or phrase. In such cases, the K. usually represent "phonic" reality by a phonetic spelling. By contrast, the Q. points to the "correct" historical spelling. Such aural features can be demonstrated in other ways in the MT of Samuel, especially when 2 Sam. xxii is compared with its duplicate text, Ps. xviii. These variant forms are caused by phonological phenomena such as assimilation, metathesis, palatalization, vowel sandhi, consonantal sandhi, and glide. These examples are not exhaustive, but they are sufficient to show that many of the often-asserted "scribal errors" are actually rather phonetic spellings and do reflect the "economy" of pronunciation. Such phonic realization in writing is attested not simply in poetic texts but also in prose sections of 1-2 Samuel. Hence, our topic is not so much a problem of literary-linguistic composition as a matter of the method of writing, i.e. graphic and graphemic representation of an aural text.

A Written Greek Sayings Cluster Older than Q: A Vestige

A scribal error has turned up in Q! This has wide-ranging implications and consequences, to which the present paper is designed to point. If there is a scribal error in Q, then Q was indeed a written Greek text, behind which stood an older written Greek text asVorlage. This, of course, finally puts to rest already outdated theories of Q being only an Aramaic text, or only a layer of oral tradition rather than a written text. It also has important implications for the current view of Q and points into the future of pre-Q research as well. The history of the synoptic tradition is no longer dependent only on the forms of oral transmission, but now has a series of written texts bridging much of the gulf back from the canonical gospels to Jesus.

The Origin of Memnon

This article endorses with substantial modifications M. Bernal's claim that the Greeks based Memnon on Ammenemes II of Egypt. An Egyptian origin for Memnon appears likely from Zeus' weighing of his fate against Achilles' in the Aethiopis, which is similar to an early spell of the Book of the Dead; from his Amazonian ally, who resembles the Nile-god, clad in a girdle with a single breast; and from his apotheosis, which is unlike Homer's usual view that the soul is witless in death, yet is reminiscent of the soteriological Osiris-cult, which was known to the Mycenaeans. Bernal's view that Memnon was specifically Ammenemes, however, rests on one word in Strabo, judged by editors to be a scribal error. Cases for two other proposed models, Khumben-numena I of Elam and Sethos I of Egypt, are too complex and fragile to accept. Since at least the first century, the Greeks themselves linked Memnon to Amenhotep III of Egypt, calling a portrait-colossus of that pharaoh "Memnon." This identification was based, I argue, on the fact that the statue faces sunrise on the winter solstice (obviously an original feature from Amenhotep's own time) and so was linked to the dawn. Amenhotep's name is too unlike Memnon's to have attracted to him a preexisting Greek figure, but, as P. Gilbert proposed, Amenhotep may have been the basis for that figure, for archaeological evidence shows his contact with the Aegean. Like Memnon, Amenhotep formed military pacts with eastern kings, was son of a solar deity, and was exceptionally handsome. Moreover, his father's name was Tuthmosis (cf. Tithonus). In short, Bernal argues well that epic based Memnon on a real person, rightly seeks him in Egypt, but fails to rule out Amenhotep.

Descartes and His Contemporaries: Meditations, Objections, and Replies (review)

694 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 35:4 OCTOBER ~997 The editions of the two works are based on all the available manuscripts, which as regards the "Ars fidei catholicae" amount to no less than fifty-four. Quite interestingly, the majority of the preserved manuscripts date from the fourteenth century. Why this comparatively pedestrian work continued to be held in such high esteem would be a question well worth looking into, but understandably the editor has refrained from addressing this issue. Due to the relatively uniform transmission of the texts the editor has been able to dispense with establishing stemmas which, according to her appraisal, would have been highly speculative. In order to give her readers an opportunity to see what a complete apparatus would amount to, Mechthild Dreyer has included two small "test passages" with complete listings of variant readings. In the editions themselves less significant variants such as nonsignificant changes in word order and obvious scribal errors have been omitted. The edition presents the two works in highly readable form, and there can be no doubt that for a long time to come Mechthild Dreyer's editions of the "Ars fidei catholicae" as well as the "Potentia est vis" will be consulted gratefully by readers of medieval philosophy and theology. LAUGE OLAF NIELSEN University of Copenhagen Roger Ariew and Marjorie Grene, editors. Descartesand His Contemporaries:Meditations, Objections, and Replies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Pp. vii + 261. Cloth, $45.oo. Paper, $17.95. Thirteen essays, by North American, French, British, and Dutch scholars, place the Meditations in a context Descartes himself had chosen: that of the seven sets of objections and replies. In the lead essay, Jean-Luc Marion recalls that in the DiscourseDescartes asked for criticism, and that in the Preface to the Meditations he replied to two resulting objections . Marion maintains that a pattern of theses, objections, and replies fits not only the Preface and Objectionsand Replies (the latter forming a proper part of the Meditations), but also the body of the work, which should be seen as a reply to (lost, save for those of Pierre Petit) objections to the Discourse (Part Four). Marion does not describe the six Meditations as direct responses to objections, but urges readers to be alert for deepenings of the 1637 position possibly stimulated by objections. The advice is good, but Marion is in danger of overgeneralizing from the dialogic or disputational character of parts of Descartes's philosophy, and so ignoring the contemplative and inward-looking aspects of the Meditations. Peter Dear's essay on the geometrically ordered Appendix to the Second Replies uses detailed knowledge of contemporary versions of Euclid to interpret Descartes's metaphysical "postulates." He shows that geometrical postulates need not be taken as "assumptions" on a par with "axioms" (as Daniel Garber suggests on 78), but might be taken as requests to carry out a construction, so as to become convinced of some basic BOOK REVIEWS 625 truths through a kind of experience. By further elaborating on the methodologically guided practice of"meditation," Dear shows how Descartes's postulates can be read as requests to consider various objects of thought, or to undertake mental procedures, so as to become convinced of crucial tenets of Descartes's metaphysics. Stephen Menn begins from remarks (in the Fourth and Sixth Objections) on Descartes 's denial of "real qualities," and goes on to compare Descartes with the earlier scholastic Su~rez on real qualities and modes. He shows that in Su~rez's terminology, a "real distinction" is between thing and thing (res and res), and that real qualities (like color) are treated as things, while modes (like figure) are not. Menn asserts that Descartes adopted this terminology and held that sensory qualities are modes not things (res). Menn's account of Su~irez is generally accurate and informative, though Su~rez sometimes primarily, sometimes equivalently, speaks of a real quality as an entity (entitas), in addition to ares. 1 But, notwithstanding Menn's frequent use of "res" to paraphrase Descartes 087, 188, 189, 19o, 195), with the exception of passages from the Third Meditation and Fourth Replies--which focus on cold as a privation or on...

Re-inking the Pen: Evidence from P. Oxy. 657 (P13) Concerning Unintentional Scribal Errors

New Testament textual critics customarily discuss scribal errors under two headings: intentional errors and unintentional, accidental, or involuntary errors. Intentional errors are those made deliberately in order to improve or correct the text and involve corrections made to spelling or grammar, harmonisation to other passages (whether in the immediate context, in a parallel passage, or in an Old Testament source), and liturgical or theological enhancement. These might all be traced to the conscious activity of the scribe.1 Unintentional errors, on the other hand, can be distinguished (in theory at least) as arising not from conscious scribal activity but from involuntary mistakes of eye, ear, memory, judgment, pen or speech.2 These errors involve accidental additions, especially dittography (writing twice something that is only once in the exemplar), omissions, either by haplography (writing once something that is twice in the exemplar) or through homoioteleuton (a confusion due to similar endings of words or lines in the exemplar), or other sorts of confusions of letters or words.3

Four minims and a quandary: Beowulf, 1382a

A statistical analysis of scribal errors presupposed by emendations proposed for the four minims that follow d in f 160v of the text of Beowulf in London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius A. XV, that shows that the reading wundini is by far the most probable. Metrical and philological evidence is considered in this context of the scribe’s practice and pattern of error.

EDITING "PIERS PLOWMAN"

EDITING PIERS PLOWMAN With the publication of this strikingly handsome parallel-text edition of Pier Plowman, textual study of the poem seems to be as far as ever from reaching a state of equilibrium. It was Skeat who first identified and named the A-, Band C-Texts of Piers Plowman, building on a suggestion made by Richard Price in 1824. Skeat took on an overwhelming task, sifting through a vast mass of largely unread manuscripts to produce three `best-text' editions (of A in 867, of B in 1869 and of C in 1873) that were to act as landmarks by which subsequent editors (and textual critics) of the poem could orientate themselves and further map out Piers Plowman territory. The dust was given a few years to settle, but was then blown away by J. M. Manly's theory of multiple authorship in 1906. Skeat's effective successor, R. W. Chambers, responded to this challenge by pointing out that Skeat's texts and collations, on which Manly's hypothesis was based, were less than satisfactory. Chambers embarked on a new edition of the A-Text, only to realize that editing A was impossible without editing B, and that in turn editing B was impossible without editing C. This is because, over many lines in the poem, all three texts read roughly the same, but many converging variants are found in manuscripts of different versions. Under these circumstances, it seemed foolish to try to determine the original reading for one version without examining the pattern of variation in the other versions, and attempting to explain the relation between the versions/manuscripts in terms of authorial revision, or scribal contamination, or scribal error. Chambers's edition, begun in Igog, progressed very slowly indeed, despite his enlisting various graduate students (including A. G. Mitchell and George Kane) to help with the B- and C-Texts. At his death in 1942 it passed into the hands of his dilatory co-editor, J. H. G. Grattan, proceeding thence (at Grattan's death) to Mitchell, and thence to Kane. Kane set aside the work of his predecessors and started editing A from scratch, publishing his substantial and acclaimed edition of this version (for the Athlone Press) in 196o. But it was not until he edited B with E. T. Donaldson, for the Athlone edition published in 1975, that he returned to Chambers's principle that the editing of the three texts must proceed side by side. This was admirable, except that the two editors did not re-think Kane's earlier editing of A in order to make it square with this new approach. This means that the Athlone A- and B- Texts rest on uncomfortably incompatible bases: A is edited on the evidence of A variants alone, while B is edited with a constant eye to the readings of (Kane's) A and of C (the text and variants as assembled by George Russell). Three years later, in 1978, the market was seized from these two formidably scholarly volumes by A. V. C. Schmidt's Everyman paperback of the B-Text (hereafter Ev 1), another critical edition, heavily based on Kane-Donaldson's theories but bodying them forth far more moderately in an accessibly sized and priced little volume. In the same year Pearsall's edition of C appeared, edited by an entirely different method. Unlike Schmidt, Pearsall could not draw on an existing edition of his text which gave a full conspectus of variants together with a thorough-going theory as to how to interpret them. So he produced a `best-text' edition based on Hm I43 (unknown to Skeat), by general agreement the most authoritative of the C manuscripts, describing his work as an interim volume to serve the student and scholarly public until such time as the Athlone C-Text should be published (an enterprise embarked upon by A. G. Mitchell before 1939, passed on to George Russell by Ig62, and apparently due for publication, under the joint editorship of Russell and Kane, in 1997). The Z-Text of Piers Plowman, edited by A. G. Rigg and myself, then followed a few years later in 1983; its claim to represent an Ur-Text of the poem, pre-dating A, has provoked strong reactions and has badly shaken one of the basic premises of all the above-mentioned editions, that Langland wrote three versions of the poem and three versions only. …

A Lexicographical Note on the Medinet Habu Inscription of Year 11

In the Medinet Habu inscription of Year 11 on the Second Libyan War a problematic word kms occurs. The author discusses previous explanations of this term and suggests that kms is merely an ancient scribal error for the well known word gns, ‘violence’.

Synderesis, the Spark of Conscience, in the English Renaissance

It is a remarkable fact that Jerome's single citation of a Greek word in his commentary in the year 415 on Ezekiel's inaugural vision led to a medieval transformation and redefinition of the European idea of conscience that would endure until the late seventeenth century. Although it has been argued that his reference to synteresis (later transliterated into Latin and English as synderesis or synteresis) was simply a scribal error, it is also possible that he appropriated the word from a now lost source when he added a fourth element to Plato's tripartite soul in his interpretation of Ezekiel's description of the throne of God. Whatever the origin of the word, however, the concept expressed by it appears to have filled a logical need, which probably accounts for its thorough development and elaboration during the Middle Ages by a series of commentators from Peter Lombard to Jean Gerson.1 Their treatment of synderesis over three centuries established its general definition, posed a set of attendant logical and psychological problems, invented a supplementary terminology, and expanded its rhetorical meaning through biblical exegesis. Synderesis played an essential role in the scholastic analysis of man's conscience, of his thinking about moral matters, and of his psychological response to conflicting impulses. Stoic and Patristic in its ancient origins and subse-

Virgil, Aeneid 2.349–50

A textual problem in Virgil, Aen. 2.349–50 has puzzled scholars since antiquity and still divides editors and commentators today. Aeneas is exhorting his comrades to join him in the final battle for Troy, but the variants audendi and audentem leave it uncertain whether he says, ‘si vobis audendi extrema cupido/ certa sequi, quae sit rebus fortuna videtis’, or ‘si vobis audentem extrema cupido/ certa sequi, quae sit rebus fortuna videtis’. The variant audendi has been discussed and defended in several commentaries and articles, whereas audentem, though often the choice of editors, has yet to receive a detailed defence. In this note, I will demonstrate that audentem is the correct reading and that the false reading audendi came about through a common scribal error.

On the Change of jat' to E after jot

A still argued, but more often ignored, problem of Russian historical phonology is whether or not the phoneme lei changed to or coalesced with lei after jot at an early date. Many of the historical phonologies and historical grammars of Russian ignore the question completely, others simply state the change as an undisputed fact, and only a minority consider the question in any detail (above all Sobolevskij 1907 and Durnovo 1924). Vlasto (1986:126) simply says, sg. fem. gen. ee ~ elf ~ with no source cited, and never considers it in terms of a general sound change. The evidence most commonly cited includes the modern Russian gen. sg. fem. eif, the acc. sg. fem. samoif, and the pronunciation of the adj. pI. as [ij;:J] rather than [ijiJ. which assumes an earlier */ijol rather than lije/. Sobolevskij (1907:65) assumes that ei/ etc. are by analogy to menif (<-mene). whereas Durnovo (1924: 182-83) argues for the change of tel to tel after [j]. Deciding the question is complicated by several factors. First of all, the combination [je] occurred only in a small number of instances. Because the jat ' after jot changed to lal (e.g., *stoyetey ~ stojati) and the diphthongs which gave the second changed to Iii after ajat (e.g., na stole but na kraUJi from a presumed locative ending *-oy), only the so-called third could occur after U]. Second, since this third jat''' was an East Slavic feature, it would not be expected to occur (except as a scribal error) in any documents which closely followed the usual rather Bulgarianized orthography of early Old East Slavic documents. Forms with jat' are clearly not rare, but the number of cases in documents of the II th and 12th centuries is very small as a percentage of the total: for a listing of some instances, see Sobolevskij 1907: 152-53. We might well expect to find more examples of the third in original East Slavic documents (as opposed to those copied directly or indirectly from South Slavic originals), but since we have a very limited number of extant original East Slavic documents from the II th and 12th centuries, we cannot expect to find a large number of attested occurrences of [je]. Third, there were a limited number of instances in which the combination of UJ + [e] could occur, because the third was restricted to a limited number of grammatical categories: the gen. sg. and nom.-acc. pI. offeminineja-stem nouns; the acc. pI. ofmasc. jo-stem nouns; the gen. sg. fem., nom.-acc. pI. fem., and masc. acc. pI. of the definite adjective; and the feminine gen. sg. pronominal forms, such as eif 'her', toe 'that one', samoe 'itself. Given the low number of categories in which we might expect to find the forms that interest us and the fact that most texts of the first two centuries were either direct copies of South Slavic originals or copies of copies. finding decisive evidence is not easy. It is made even more difficult by the fact that all of the instances where [je] might occur are grammatical endings, which are subject to analogical change, and therefore less useful for resolving purely phonological questions. A fourth complicating factor is that any attested forms must be considered within the context of the entire document, not just as isolated forms. It is well known that jat' fell together with lei in some dialects of Russian at a very early date. Sometimes the coalescence was only in unstressed position. in other cases in stressed position as well. In some cases e is used for jat' in words which were South Slavic rather than East Slavic.

An Ancient Scribal Error and its Modern Consequences: the date of the Nimrud Slab Inscription No. 1

Any attempt to reconstruct the proper chronological sequence of the military achievements of Tiglath-pileser III is greatly hampered by the fragmentary state of his annals uncovered during the century of excavations at Nimrud. Only portions of the text incised on sculptured stone slabs and designed to decorate the monarch's newly built palace have survived. Naturally, this deficiency has greatly enhanced the value of the non-annalistic records of Tiglath-pileser, namely the “summary” (or “display”) inscriptions written on stone slabs and clay tablets. Composed – like the annals – towards the very close of his reign, the texts of this genre relate the military exploits according to a geographical rather than strictly chronological sequence. The enumeration of the conquered lands usually adheres to a set order: it begins with the South (=Babylonia), proceeds to the East (=Namri and Media), then to the North (=Urartu and Ulluba), and concludes with the West (=from North Syria to the border of Egypt).

The formative stages of Beowulf textual scholarship: part I

Probably it is generally recognized that present-day apprehension of the text of Beowulf owes a great deal to scholars of the first half of the nineteenth century, for most editions carry numerous textual notes attributing readings to authorities such as Grundtvig, Kemble, Thorpe and Grein. But often realization of the debt remains only vague. Much of the achievement of the first editors is, in fact, difficult to define, because it consisted in a gradual development of editorial standards and practices through the solution of many individual problems of word and line division, the establishment of numerous particular sentence structures and the identification of a number of proper names. The readings which editors have felt obliged to supply in order to restore those lost because of damage to the manuscript or to repair scribal errors or omissions can, however, be identified and quantified, and analysis shows that well over half of all such readings adopted by editors from 1950 onwards had been proposed by 1857. It is therefore the nature and significance of the readings supplied by that date which this article aims at demonstrating.

Scribal Errors in an Autograph Manuscript

Scribal Errors in an Autograph Manuscript