Manuscripts

Manuscript witnesses: lost and not (yet) identified

Our database entries for texts sometimes refer to manuscripts that are presumed lost, sometimes ever only in existence hypothetically, or that have not been certainly identified. One possible reason for the latter is evidently that the studies we rely on may be not perfect themselves or we simply have not managed to lay our hands on sources that are more suitable for our purposes. Older references in the literature are not always up to date and manuscripts may have been relocated from one repository to another or changed signature in the intervening time, possibly even more than once.

Whatever the reason, to keep track of these different limitations and uncertainties, we have thought it worthwhile to devise ways in which to record and present such gaps in our knowledge.

Not identified

For each relevant text, unidentified items are succinctly described. For the full context of these descriptions, follow the links in the first column.


Not yet published

Not all of our database entries have a public page, usually because there is information to be verified or added to before the page is ready to be published. The information below is therefore made available as-is.


Lost manuscripts identified

Manuscripts that have unique identifiers and records in the database.