Bibliography

Rosenbaum, Sabin H., “Evidence for transposition errors affecting the text of Gildas’s De excidio”, Peritia 31 (2020): 209–224.

  • journal article
Citation details
Article
“Evidence for transposition errors affecting the text of Gildas’s De excidio
Periodical
Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland 31 (2020)
Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí, Máirín MacCarron, and Elva Johnston (eds), Peritia 31 (2020), Brepols.
Volume
31
Pages
209–224
Description
Abstract (cited)

Scholarly consensus maintains that the British writer Gildas was effectively ignorant of fifth-century events and therefore had no idea where to properly fit the famous passage known as the gemitus Britannorum into his quasi-historical diatribe. This study found that the four distinct groupings of twenty-three, twenty-three, twenty, and twenty-two words that comprise the passage are actually palaeographical evidence of a loose bifolium. By determining the format of the autograph, it will be shown that textual corruption occurred during transmission due to factors both primary (loose folia in the exemplar) and secondary (copyist innovation). This paper also offers a proposed textual reconstruction of the displaced segment, which shall greatly affect our both our appreciation of Gildas and our ability to use his narrative as a reliable historical source.

Subjects and topics
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
October 2022