Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1996, Side 173
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Louis-Jensen in her introduction to the edition of the Icelandic text,
where it was argued that B (AM 688a 4to) has preserved a reading
doser to the Icelandic author’s archetype in a number of cases where A
(AM 685d 4to), C (BL Add 11242) and D (AM 626 4to) - or A and D in
the stretches of text not covered by C - share a secondary reading. This
relationship, together with instances of common errors in C and D not
found in A and B, was accounted for in the folio wing stemma:53
Archetype
B x
A
C
y
D
All but one of the common errors noted in C and D occur in passages
where the Icelandic author appears to have paraphrased his source text,
and CTV supplies no corroborative evidence. With respect to Spec. Pen.
240, however, the text of CTV Ill.xxvi. 117B, 11: aliena, confirms that
the readings in C (‘andliga’) and D (‘andligra’) are secondary and the
readings in AB (‘annarliga’) correspond to the Latin text. CTV offers
corroborative evidence regarding common errors in A and D in only
two cases. At Spec. Pen. 247, the parallel reading in CTV Ill.xxvi.
117B, 6: mortale, confirms that the B reading (‘daudlig’) accords with
the Latin, and the AD reading (‘andlig’) is secondary. At line 155, how-
ever, the text of C7V III.x. 100B, 23-24: venialia, supports the readings
in A (‘veniale’) and D (‘veniali’), but not the reading in B (‘mortale’).
The verbal correspondence between the Icelandic and the proposed
Latin parallel text is somewhat inexact at this point, however, and the B
reading could still conceivably render what stood in the Latin arche-
type. Considering the frequent variation in the treatise between sins
classified as alternatively ‘deadly’ or ‘venial’, there would have been
ampie opportunity for correction or corruption of this sort of reading at
any stage in the course of transmission of the Icelandic text or the
author’s Latin source.
Potentially more significant are the three readings identified by Jon-
53 Pedersen and Louis-Jensen, ‘Speculura penitentis’, pp. 199-203.