Between Emendation and Error: The Use of Sources in Medieval Latin Texts and the Philologist’s Choices

Abstract

When a work is based on faulty sources, its edition poses complex questions for the philologist, who has to reconstruct the history of the text and of its auctoritas. This article gives examples from the Latin Middle Ages: specifically, with regard to the tradition of the Moralia in Iob by Gregory the Great. This exegetical work was used by Iohannes of Cluny for his Sententiae morales in Iob and by Adalbertus of Metz for his Speculum Gregorii, but studies dedicated to these latter works have not examined in depth their relationships with the codices of the Moralia, which still lack a reliable edition. An appropriate methodological approach (exemplified by Gamberini’s edition of Rabanus Maurus’ Expositio on the Lamentationes of Jeremiah) would integrate analysis of linguistic usus with analysis of the manuscript traditions of the work and of its sources, in order to clarify the interrelation between textus and auctoritates, to decide whether to amend, and to define what can be considered the original text.