MANUSCRIPT TRADITION. In common usage, this term refers to the body of manuscripts that contribute to reconstructing an ancient literary work in a form as close as possible to the original. It must be immediately clarified, however, that the concept of manuscript tradition also applies to documentary texts, and the criteria by which manuscripts are examined and evaluated extend to early printed editions and other printed works if they reproduce lost manuscripts. Manuscript tradition is also designated as “direct tradition,” to distinguish it from indirect tradition, which is based on all complementary evidence (citations, references, parallel texts, sometimes even translations, etc.), which, in harmony or in contrast with the direct tradition, allow for the establishment of the exact reading of a passage.
A comprehensive evaluation of manuscript tradition for the purposes of textual criticism was achieved only in the last century by C. Lachmann (q.v.), who, although partly adopting criteria already developed by others—especially regarding the Greek text of the New Testament—can be considered the first legislator of the editorial method. His rules, though tainted by an excessive mechanical approach (a justified reaction to the subjectivism prevalent since ancient philology, but then almost consecrated by the teaching of R. Bentley [1662–1742]), had the merit of clearly distinguishing in the editorial process the moment of recensio from that of emendatio and of steering the former onto the path of systematic rigor. Subsequent advances in philology corrected, refined, and in part overturned Lachmann’s canons; yet the new ferment originated with him. No critical editor today can afford to ignore reconstructing the manuscript tradition of the text they publish.
I. PHASES OF MANUSCRIPT TRADITION. From the author’s original to the surviving manuscripts of a work, one normally passes through a series of intermediate links, whose reciprocal relationships vary from case to case: only in documentary tradition does it happen with some frequency that the original is preserved, or at least that copies survive which descend directly from II. In literary texts, however, which by their nature are intended for dissemination, such favorable conditions occur only exceptionally. Once a work leaves the author’s hands or those of their editor, copies multiply rapidly, reach public libraries and private collections, and in turn serve as models for subsequent copies. Historical events, chance occurrences, and shifts in taste gradually reduce the number of circulating copies over time—sometimes to total disappearance, other times to a mere handful, occasionally to a single surviving witness. New trends, changing historical circumstances, and unexpected discoveries later bring to light surviving copies, from which new exemplars are produced. The manuscripts preserved today may belong to one or another phase of these fluctuating fortunes of the work; they may derive from one or more models, stand in direct lines of descent, represent various parallel traditions, or even result from the intermingling of one tradition with another. It is clear, therefore, that each text has its own manuscript tradition, which cannot be reduced to a common factor shared with other texts. While general phenomena do influence its formation—such as, for instance, the ten
---
**Fig. 1.** Diagram of manuscript traditions. (From P. Maas, Textkritik, Italian trans. by N. Martinelli, Florence 1942, p. 8)
**Fig. 132.** Diagram of manuscript traditions. (From P. Maas
In this regard, it is useful on the one hand to reconstruct (through the examination of specific letter exchanges, the extent of lacunae, etc.) the external characteristics of the lost exemplar of each manuscript under consideration—that is, the type and layout of the script, the number of lines per page and letters per line, etc.; and on the other, to consider the successive stages through which the scribe’s work unfolds (reading the exemplar, retaining the passage in memory, mentally dictating the text, writing it out), each of which can be a source of specific material errors. Once the various groups of manuscript relationships have been accurately identified, it becomes possible to apply the principle of the eliminatio codicum descriptorum, whereby one disregards both the descendants of preserved exemplars and late witnesses of traditions already represented by older prototypes, provided that no variant readings have been introduced into them through horizontal transmission. Establishing this condition obviously requires a broad examination of the manuscripts, not limited to isolated cruxes. Lachmann’s presumption, which rejected humanistic manuscripts as deteriores on the grounds that they were certainly interpolated, has proven fallacious in many cases, and modern methodology has enshrined among its principles that the mere presence of more or less extensive interpolations is not sufficient grounds to deny authority to a manuscript or printed edition whose sources are not all preserved: “Whoever refuses to make use of interpolated manuscripts risks losing the genuine tradition as well” (G. Pasquali, cited in bibliography).
The grouping of surviving manuscripts does not exhaust the investigation of manuscript tradition: it is usually necessary to reconstruct, through its variously and significantly distorted representatives, the archetype of each family, since this is rarely preserved. Moreover, the various archetypes themselves represent as many reworkings of one or more exemplars, whose relationship to the original must be established. It is at this point that the notion of the “archetype” comes into play.
### III. THE ARCHETYPE
The use of this term among philologists is not yet sufficiently rigorous, so that a definition cannot correspond to all the meanings to which it is adapted from time to time. The most recent is that of Dain (see bibliography), who defines the archetype as “the most ancient witness of the tradition to which the text of an author is entrusted in the form in which it has been transmitted to us.” Dain, however, introduces a distinction between the archetype proper and what he calls “le plus-proche-commun-ancêtre-de-la-tradition”: the former would be a unique manuscript deposited in an official library; the latter, a copy of it that would have given rise, often through complex and more or less direct paths, to all the surviving representatives of the manuscript tradition. In reality, this clarification, which narrows the meaning of “archetype,” does not seem to be generally applicable to many authors of antiquity, especially Latin. For them, “le plus-proche-commun-ancêtre-de-la-tradition” dates back to an era when their work circulated freely, was found in the bookseller’s shop as well as in private libraries, and it cannot be presumed by definition that it was a copy of an officially deposited text. It is therefore advisable to eliminate this distinction, reserving the right to examine case by case the existence or otherwise of a “pre-archetype.”
From the definition given above, the following observations arise:
1) the archetype may be represented by a manuscript that has come down to us, but more often it must be reconstructed through its ramifications;
2) it may coincide with the author’s original: but this is an extremely rare case, especially for antiquity;
3) if the manuscript tradition cannot be reduced to a single form, that is, if its forms are multiple (open recension), then there are also multiple archetypes;
4) the archetype is the stage closest to the original that can be reached by way of recensio; beyond it, normally, only conjecture can assist in the phase of emendatio, drawing on considerations that go beyond the mere evaluation of the manuscript tradition (historical criticism, linguistics, grammar, metrics, and often subjective aesthetic sensibility);
5) these same criteria necessarily represent the only guide in choosing between one archetype or another in the case of open recension;
6) only with the concurrence of a particularly rich indirect tradition is it possible to reconstruct (partially) a “pre-archetype.”
**Manuscript tradition — Stemma codicum of the tradition of Cicero’s Cato Maior according to A. Barwick.** The descendants of $t$ represent deteriores among which those marked with dots alone are
What has been set forth so far does not coincide with the statement made by G. Pasquali in the most brilliant of his works (see bibliography), summarizing its results in the preface: “Not always does the medieval tradition of Greek and Latin texts descend from an archetype that is itself medieval or belongs to the later period of antiquity.” But the contradiction is only apparent and arises precisely from a different definition of the term “archetype”; while for Dain, as we have seen, an open recension admits multiple archetypes, for Pasquali, as already for Lachmann, the archetype is only the single source, “a single copy already marred by errors and lacunae.” What is fundamentally important is that the manuscript tradition of a text, in the earliest phase to which it can be traced, may appear as unitary (both in the case that it descends directly and at a short remove from the author’s copy or even coincides with it, and in the case that a single copy has, from a certain point onward, been productive), or as multiple, already branched into several traditions, each of which has had its own descendants.
Just as the grouping of manuscripts into families leads to the reconstruction of the ancestor, so the comparison of the various ancestors leads to the recognition of the archetype. It is therefore evident how much importance is attached to the various operations by which one attempts to establish the genealogical tree of the manuscripts, and how various attempts have been made to fix ever more precise laws to guarantee objectivity. Among the most recent, those of A. C. Clark and Dom E. Quentin should be mentioned; the former based on the numerical calculation of letters in omissions (which are not, however, due to homoeoteleuton) and in dittographies; the latter on the relationship that links the manuscripts of a ternary group with respect to the frequency of agreement or disagreement for each variant, and thus on what exists between the “intermediate” manuscript among the first three and another, and so on. In reality, both, but especially the latter, do nothing more than theorize, through a complicated mechanism, the principle of comparison in faulty reading, which remains, if used with rigor, the quickest and most reliable criterion for determining the relationships between the various manuscripts.
### IV. ANCIENT VARIANTS
Once the archetype is reached, it sometimes happens that one finds it does not represent a stable text but bears in several places the testimony of variants among which the tradition already wavered before the work of later copyists altered the text. This phenomenon occurs particularly in the case of works that from the outset had a wide circulation, in which the multiplicity of readings reflects the public’s familiarity with that text; quotations from memory, rhythmic consonances, expressions that have passed into proverbial usage easily determine unconscious changes. The fact that such variants are gathered in the archetype normally indicates that there exists a pre-archetype represented by an ancient edition that included the testimonies of parallel traditions, mostly distinguished by critical signs that have since been lost. In some cases (very rare for antiquity, more frequent for medieval or recent texts), such variants may go back directly to the author, reflecting two different redactions both sanctioned by an edition, or expressed, while the uncertainty of choice persisted, in the single original draft of which the public had taken possession before the author’s decision definitively condemned one or the other. In this case, it is not possible to choose a variant by way of recensio, and even in the phase of emendatio the choice will be objectively legitimate only if external testimonies favor one or the other.
V. The “Stemma Codicum.” — The manuscript tradition (t. m.) of a text unfolds through various stages which may be schematically summarized as follows: the author’s original, the pre-archetype, the archetype, the leading codices of the various families, and the terminal branches. On the basis of research findings, the stemma codicum is then outlined, that is, the graphic representation of the kinship relationships among the preserved witnesses and the earlier stages to which they allow us to trace back. It enables one to assess at a glance the place of each codex in the transmission of the text and thus constitutes an important criterion in the choice of readings; it does not, however, eliminate the need, case by case, for the exercise of individual critical judgment. From one stage to another of the t. m., a very brief span of time may intervene, or entire centuries may elapse; each successive copy, while rarely correcting the mechanical errors of its model, always adds new ones and sometimes consciously alters the text according to the taste of the period; it may, moreover, acquire genuine readings through another channel. Reconstructing the history of the t. m. for a given text does not therefore mean abandoning the editor’s task, but simply investigating and organizing the essential elements needed to identify the alterations of that text and their origin; it also means penetrating the tastes of the various epochs and regions that bear upon this history, delving into cultural trends, literary sensibilities, and the capacity of men and environments distant by centuries from the author to understand and relive his work. — See pl. XLII.
Manuscript tradition – Stemma of the principal codices of the Rule of St. Benedict (codices of the Textus receptus): Q = original of the Saint; 9 = copy of the original made at the behest of Charlemagne; 2 = faithful apograph of Charlemagne’s copy executed by the scribes Tattone and Grima.