This study examines singular readings in the Gospel of Matthew across five of the earliest extant Greek copies of Matthew: Codex Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Ephraemi, Bezae, and Washingtonianus. In each of the selected MSS, it is determined where a spelling, word, clause, phrase, sentence, or group of sentences is different from other MSS. These “singular readings” are collected in order to shine light on what such idiosyncrasies can tell us about the MS or tendencies of the scribe who copied the MS. One of the more interesting finds is that some of our MSS add text more than they omit it, which is contrary to other studies. Apart from itacistic changes, alternate spellings are not always the most frequent type of singular reading in our MSS. The MSS have similar types of singular readings, but they often go about creating them in different ways. Conclusions are that our MSS either prefer Attic Greek to Koine (Washingtonianus) or vice versa (Sinaiticus), but two MSS (Vaticanus and Bezae) fluctuate between both grammatical standards. Our MSS typically have a high percentage of error due to parablepsis, but one MS seems to skip letters within words more often than entire words (Ephraemi). Ephraemi does not transpose words, but when the other MSS create transpositions, they all record instances where the genitive pronoun is placed prior to the word it modifies and verbs are moved forward in sentences. In addition, transpositions in Sinaiticus could have resulted from corrected leaps. Context often plays a part in the creation of singular readings, but context affects each MS differently. Nearby text seems to prompt changes in all of our MSS, but remote text such as a gospel parallel, does not often influence our scribes: Ephraemi contains the only harmonization seems to be intentional. In Sinaiticus and Washingtonianus, several readings exhibit possible interpretations of the text (but typically these do not appear to be theological changes) and they both contain readings that conflate textual variants. All of the singular readings record either a textual addition, omission, or substitution, but the MSS do not end up with the same amount of text: both Codex Vaticanus and Ephraemi add more words than they omit, whereas Codex Sinaiticus, Bezae, and Washingtonianus end up with more omissions. This final element adds a counterweight to other studies that contend MSS omit text more than they add. The examination yields few singular readings of dramatic theological import. Rather, the singular readings expose grammatical currents of the 4th-5/6th centuries, currents that are more prevalent than scribal attempts to re-present the text of Matthew.

Although considerable attention has been paid to the texting practices of specific composers and certain repertoires, a comprehensive study of the practice of texting in the sacred Latin‐texted vocal works of sixteenth‐century England remains to be undertaken. How did English composers, scribes, and singers of the sixteenth century set words to music? Today, the general impression that emerges from critical apparatuses of modern performing editions, where manuscripts of vocal music copied by sixteenth-century English copyists are concerned, is negative: they are regarded as casual, often‐contradictory transmissions, replete with idiosyncrasies and arbitrary placement of text. But the detail in five hundred‐year‐old primary sources cannot and should not be so easily dismissed. Through a series of case studies drawn from the largest and most complete music manuscripts of English provenance that date from approximately 1500–90 — the Eton Choirbook, the Lambeth Choirbook, the Caius Choirbook, the ‘Forrest‐Heather’ Partbooks, the Peterhouse Partbooks (Henrician Set), the Sadler Partbooks, the Baldwin Partbooks, and the Dow Partbooks — this dissertation offers a fresh perspective on the many texting variants present in the sources, subjecting them to critical analysis to ascertain what prompted a scribe to copy a passage of music and its text in a particular way. Occasionally, a variant was indeed no more than a result of scribal error or inattention. More often than not, however, a scribe was either resolving an ambiguity that he perceived in his exemplar or deliberately infusing the copy with his own concepts of ideal texting. Three specific areas of interest are traced in the dissertation: the texting of long‐note cantus firmi, the treatment of melismata, and the relationship between music, prosody, and textual syntax. At the outset of the century, cantus firmus lines, as scribes copied them, required a certain amount of interpretation before they could be realised; melismata were an integral part of the compositional style that functioned as punctuation for the music; and textual coherence was unnecessary if it could not be achieved within the constraints of the music. By the close of the century, cantus firmus lines were copied literally with no additional interpretation required on the part of the performer; melismata were reduced to a purely decorative function; and textual integrity and correct prosody had become defining factors in how a piece of music was composed and formally organised. The specifics of what carried musicians from one extreme to the other in the interim is at the heart of this study. This dissertation is part of the growing body of research on the music of sixteenth‐century England. In enquiring into the minutiae of setting Latin text to music during this period, an area that heretofore has been relatively unexplored, it is hoped that this project will contribute to the total knowledge in the wider field of studies in text‐music relations.

This study seeks to gain an understanding about the scribal tendencies observed in the Fourth Gospel in Codex Alexandrinus using the method of isolating and classifying singular readings similar to what was first proposed by Colwell, and later modified by Royse and others. In addition to singular readings made before corrections, this study considers singular readings in relation to punctuation markers and line breaks. First, a brief introduction to Codex Alexandrinus is given. Second, the method used to undertake this study is set forth and explained. Third, each singular reading in the Fourth Gospel in Codex Alexandrinus is listed under each respective group in which it is classified, the text of the exemplar is reconstructed if possible and each singular reading is discussed. Finally, the resulting data are analyzed and conclusions are given regarding the tendencies of the scribe responsible for the Fourth Gospel in Codex Alexandrinus. In general, this thesis demonstrates that the strongest tendency of the scribe was that of omission; the scribe was reluctant to add or to harmonize. Harmonizations, when they do occur, are never corrected. Both punctuation and line breaks often afforded the opportunity for the scribe to become distracted and to commit error.

This dissertation is a study of four ancient stories about the creation and transmission of all or part of the Hebrew Bible: Moses and the stone tablets (Exodus 32-34), Josiah and the discovery of the law-book (2 Kings 22-23), the scroll of Jeremiah and Baruch (Jeremiah 36), and Ezra's legendary restoration of the entire Bible (4 Ezra 14). Each story is a variation on the common narrative pattern of textual loss and recovery, a fact that is noteworthy because this narrative theme stands in tension with one of the cardinal aspirations of scribal culture in antiquity, as it is known from colophons: the fixity, permanence, and inviolability of writing. When the scribal creators of biblical literature told stories about the texts they produced, they represented the text in its early history as vulnerable and threatened. The purpose of this dissertation is to account for that counter-intuitive choice. My central argument is that in each of the three biblical stories, the common narrative pattern of textual loss and recovery serves as the vehicle for a particular argument related to the textualization of divine revelation, and that the stories function in ways that a plotline of uninterrupted textual transmission would not. Stories of textual loss and recovery can be viewed as strategic transactions in which the ideal of the pristine text is sacrificed in order to express other arguments about divine written revelation. After discussing three texts from the Hebrew Bible, I discuss the legend of Ezra's miraculous restoration of the entire Bible after the exile, reconstructing the biblical-exegetical background of 4 Ezra 14 and tracing the meanings of the story in later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic literature. / Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

The thesis contains transliteration of 32 moralizing exempla written in 1681 by lay monk Konstantin Fridrich Levý in monastery of Zlatá Koruna. This manuscript presents a material base for our analysis of its orthography together with another 50 already transliterated exempla. The aim of our thesis is to contribute to the research of scribal orthography used in a period after the Battle of White Mountain. Results of our iquiry were summed up in statistical charts and graphs.

Cette recherche s’intéresse à un groupe de 12 scribes de Nuzi ayant écrit pour le compte d’une femme, Tulpun-naya. L’objectif de cette thèse est de conduire une étude prosopographique de ce groupe de scribes et d’identifier les processus de leur formation.Il s’agit pour chacun d’entre eux de déterminer les modalités de l’exercice de leur métier à travers l’analyse des paramètres suivants :– L’identification du cercle des personnes avec lesquelles le scribe travaille (commanditaires, témoins, juges, collègues).– La zone d’activité dans le royaume d’Arrapḫe.– Le type de textes qu’il rédige.– Les habitudes rédactionnelles (orthographe, syntaxe).– Les caractéristiques diplomatiques de la tablette (forme, « mise en page » du texte).– Les usages liés aux sceaux (prêt, transmission, partage, nombre de sceaux utilisés par un même scribe).– Sa position sociale (scribe royal, serviteur) ou son appartenance à d’autres corporations (conducteur de char).En confrontant ces paramètres par rapport à des scribes issus d’une même famille, on vise aussi à identifier les processus de formation au métier de scribe et leurs évolutions.Ces scribes travaillent également pour d’autres commanditaires, des 37 tablettes écrites pour Tulpun-naya, ce terrain d’enquête s’élargit à 460 tablettes. De plus, comme le recours au patronyme est loin d’être systématique, la présence de scribes homonymes a pu être observée parmi les scribes de l’archive de Tulpun-naya. L’étude comparative du corpus de ces différents scribes à partir des critères cités précédemment permet de résoudre ces cas d’homonymie.Une fois le corpus de chaque scribe défini, il convient de fixer la période durant laquelle il a exercé son métier. En l’absence d’indication de date, c’est la présence de membres de grandes familles nuzites dans les documents rédigés par le scribe qui permet de situer les textes les uns par rapport aux autres dans une chronologie relative. Après avoir établi ce cadre chronologique, on est ainsi en mesure de mettre en évidence les différentes phases du déroulement de la carrière du scribe. / The objective of the current thesis is to reach a better understanding of the scribe occupation and their training processes within the Nuzi documentation through the study of 12 scribes who worked for a woman named Tulpun-naya.By creating a descriptive profile for each of these scribes we develop a more precise understanding of their professional practices using the following criteria:– The professional environment (employers, colleagues) and the circle of people involved when the contract was completed (witnesses, parties, judges).– The degree of mobility: the scribe may have focused his activities within a specific city or move to other places in order to broaden his « client base ». – The level of specialization as regard written production.– The syntactical and linguistic aspects, the grammar traits and the variations in style in the scribe corpus.– The external characteristics of the medium (tablet shape and text layout).– The various practices concerning seals such as sharing and lending and transfer as well as the use of several seals by the scribe during his career.– The scribe social position and his secondary occupations if any.Furthermore, by comparing the above mentioned criteria, the present research aims to bring to light the delivery of scribal instruction, its form and evolution between scribes of a same family through several generations.The 12 scribes who worked for Tulpun-naya wrote for her 37 tablets but they were employed by other persons. In order to conduct a thorough investigation, a much vaster corpus (460 tablets) is consulted corresponding to their whole written production, from which various indicators are collected in order to create an accurate descriptive profile. This systematic approach enable to deal with the difficult problem of homonymy.Once the corpus of each scribe is defined, it is possible to identify the period during which he practiced his profession. In the absence of any date notification, the presence of members of wealthy Nuzian families in the documents written by the scribes allows us to place the texts in a relative chronology. Finally, after this chronology has been correctly established, we are able to highlight the various phases of the scribe career.

The Book of Ben Sira, written at some point between 198 and 175 BCE, is a Second Temple Jewish wisdom text which regularly echoes or quotes the Hebrew Bible. A recent area of study in biblical scholarship has been that of scribal culture, written sources and physical remains left behind by societies with manuscripts and a scribal profession. While scholarship on Ben Sira has centred on his use of texts and on his sociocultural background, these issues might be better understood by examining Ben Sira through the lens of scribal culture as understood in biblical scholarship. This thesis proposes first to study the primary data of Ben Sira closely in order to discern characteristics of Ben Sira's individual scribalism or personal compositional style. This can then be compared to other evidence of ancient scribal culture. The central argument of the thesis is that the lens of scribal culture tells us more about the complexity of this ancient composition. Chapter One introduces the thesis and covers scholarship on Ben Sira and on scribal culture. Chapter Two examines the portrayals of Noah (Sir 44:17-18) and Phineas (Sir 45:23-26), exploring how Ben Sira uses one major biblical source in each. Looking at the portrayals of Hezekiah-Isaiah (Sir 48:17-25) and Josiah (Sir 49:1-3), Chapter Three highlights the harmonization of multiple sources. Chapter Four examines Ben Sira's lines on weather (Sir 43:11-19) in order to evaluate the relationship between quotation and literary model. Chapter Five approaches the sociocultural and textual spheres on the subjects of death and the body (Sir 41:1-15). Chapter Six investigates Ben Sira's perspectives on physicians (Sir 38:1-15) in the light of ancient medicine. Each of the selected passages shed a slightly different light on the scribalism of Ben Sira.

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The Hebrew Bible is the product of scribes. Whether copying, editing, conflating, adapting, or authoring, these ancient professionals were responsible for the various text designs, constructions and text-types that we have today. This thesis seeks to investigate the many practices employed by ancient scribes in literary production, or, more aptly, scribal composition. An investigation of scribal composition must incorporate inquiry into both synchronic and diachronic aspects of a text; a synchronic viewpoint can clarify diachronic features of the text and a diachronic viewpoint can clarify synchronic features of the text. To understand the text as the product of scribal composition requires recognition that the ancient scribe had a communicative goal when he engaged in the different forms of scribal composition (e.g. authoring, redacting, etc.). This communicative goal was reached through the scribal composer's implementation of various literary techniques. By tracing the reception of a text, it is possible to demonstrate when a scribal composer successfully reached his communicative goal. Using Malachi as a test-case, three autonomous yet complementary chapters will illustrate how investigating the text as the product of scribal composition can yield new and important insights. Chapter 2: Mal 2.10-16 focuses on a particularly difficult portion of Malachi (2.10-16), noting patterns amongst the texts reused in the pericope. These patterns give information about the ancient scribe's view of scripture and about his communicative goal. Chapter 3: Wordplay surveys Malachi for different types of the wordplay. The chapter demonstrates how a poetic feature such as wordplay, generally treated as a synchronic element, can also have diachronic implications. Chapter 4: Phinehas, he is Elijah investigates the reception of Malachi as a finished text. By tracing backwards a tradition found throughout later Jewish literature, it is evident that the literary techniques employed by the composer made his text successfully communicative.

This thesis examines the production of the Middle English poetic manuscript. It analyses the mise-en-page of manuscripts created during a crucial period for book production, immediately after 1400, when there was a sudden explosion in the production of vernacular manuscripts of literary texts, when the demand for books increased, and the commercial book trade swiftly followed. It offers a close analysis of the mise-en-page of the manuscripts of three central authors: Chaucer’s, Gower’s, and Hoccleve’s manuscripts were at the heart of this sudden flourishing and were, crucially, produced when scribal methods for creating the literary page were still unformed. Previous studies have focused on the localised readings produced by single scribes, manuscripts, or authors, offering a limited examination of broader trends. This study offers a wider comparison: where individual studies offer localised analysis, the multi-textuality of this thesis offers broader perceptions of book production and of scribal responses to the new literary texts being produced. In analysing the layout of seventy-six manuscripts, including borders, initials, paraphs, rubrics, running titles, speaker markers, glosses and notes, this thesis argues that scribes were deeply concerned with creating a manuscript page specifically to showcase texts of poetry. The introduction outlines current scholarship on mise-en-page and defines the scribe as one who offers an individual response to the text on the page within the context of the inherited, commercial, and practical practices of layout. The three analytical chapters address the placement of the features of mise-en-page in each of the seventy-six manuscripts, each chapter offering three contrasting manuscript situations. Chapter 1 analyses the manuscripts of Chaucer, who left no plan for the look of his page, causing scribes to make decisions on layout that illuminate fifteenth-century scribal responses to literature. These are then compared to the manuscripts of Gower in Chapter 2, directly or indirectly supervised by the poet, which display rigorous uniformity in their layout. This chapter argues that scribes responded in much the same way, despite the strict control over meaning. Chapter 3 focuses on Hoccleve’s autograph manuscripts which are unique in demonstrating authorial control over layout. This chapter compares the autograph to the non-autograph manuscripts to argue that scribal responses differed from authorial intentions. Each of the three chapters analyses the development of mise-en-page specifically for literary texts. Focussing on the mise-en-page, this thesis is able to compare across a range of texts, manuscripts, scribes, and authors to mount a substantial challenge to current perceptions that poetic manuscripts were laid out in order to assist readers’ understanding of the meaning of the texts they contain. Instead, it argues that though there was a concern with representing the nuances of poetic meaning, often scribal responses to poetry were bound up with presenting poetic form.