Who Bears the Burden of Proof? Discovering Codices Descripti in Mediaeval Latin Text Transmission

This paper addresses one of the central issues in Paul Maas’s Textual Criticism: the problem of determining the dependence of one textual witness on another. It begins by examining the three definitions of descriptus – material evidence, the exclusion of independent tradition, and latent evidence –, and then illustrates each definition with specific examples drawn from the manuscript traditions of John the Deacon’s Vita Gregorii, and Anselm of Laon’s Glosae super Iohannem.