BIBLICAL CORRECTORS (Correctoria Biblica). - Critical works carried out in the 13th-15th centuries to eliminate from the codices of the Vulgate (v.) the errors that had been accumulating in them. The text of St. Jerome's version or recension, spreading widely, was easily altered by copyists, whether through negligence or because they mixed into it readings from the old Latin version or introduced arbitrary corrections, so that the Vulgate already appeared in several places interpolated and the corruptions of the text multiplied rapidly. As early as the 9th century scholars attempted to check this tendency by making corrections to the text of the Vulgate: thus Alcuin, Theodulf, Nicholas Maniacoria and others. When later in the 13th century the University of Paris became the center of theological studies, the need for a uniform biblical text was felt even more, and therefore a copy of the Latin Bible then in use was chosen and declared the normative text under the name of Exemplar Parisiense. But since this text too was corrupt and interpolated, an attempt was made to remedy this by means of the c. b. All the corrections were made on the Parisian text, and two kinds of c. are distinguished: the one kind contains the biblical text and in its margin are indicated readings to be rejected or to be retained or to be corrected; the other kind is without the biblical text and has only the said readings more extensively discussed. These c. were made by the Friars Preachers and the Friars Minor, then teaching at the University of Paris.
Of the Friars Preachers there are three c.: the Senonense (Sens in France), which was rejected by the Dominicans themselves, who replaced it with the Parisiense (1256). Another was made by Hugh of St. Cher (d. 1263), whose principal codex is the Vatican Ottobonianus 293. Since, however, in his corrections Hugh had given too much importance to the Hebrew and Greek text, instead of correcting according to the manuscripts of the Vulgate, his c. was not a correction of the text but rather a further corruption of it.
The c. of the Franciscans were: 1) the Sorbonicum, so called because the codex containing it belonged to the Sorbonne (today in the Bibliothèque Nationale, cod. 15554); it is ascribed to William the Breton (v.), and does not depart much from the c. of the Dominicans; 2) another c., whose principal manuscript is cod. Vat. lat. 3466, is attributed to William de Mara (v.), whose name is found in cod. no. 28 of the abbey of Einsiedeln; 3) the Vatican codex latinus 4240 has the c. of Gerard of Huy (v.). This one, like William de Mara, follows, unlike his predecessors, the principles indicated by Roger Bacon (v.), correcting not according to the original texts but according to the manuscripts of the Vulgate. Of special importance is Gerard of Huy's introduction to his c., in which he sets out his critical principles and treats with precision of the origin of the Vulgate and of the Greek versions. Two other c. of lesser importance are the one by Gerard of Buxo (cod. 61 of the bibliothèque Communale of Toulouse, 15th cent.), the other by John of Cologne, also in cod. 28, fol. 49 of the library of Einsiedeln. All these works, however, being of private initiative, could not effectively remedy the corruption of the biblical text. For this the authority of the Church was needed. The Council of Trent ordered an official revision of the Vulgate, which was accomplished with the Sixto-Clementine edition (1592), and Pius X (1907) entrusted to the Benedictine Order the restoration of the text of the Vulgate, which is carried out by the monks of the abbey of St. Jerome de Urbe.