Towards a theoretical model for the evolution of manuscript traditions

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Towards a theoretical model for the evolution of
manuscript traditions

• Caroline Macé (K.U.Leuven)
• Philippe Baret (U.C.Louvain)
• e-Science Institute in EdinburghOctober 16-17,
  2008

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1. Introduction the genealogical method
2. Stemmatics and phylogenetics
3. Beyond the results
4. Convergences and divergences
5. Cladistics vs. Phylogenetics
6. Conclusion is there a future for the
   genealogical method?

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1. Genealogical Method
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Searching for a method

• Textus receptus
• Best manuscript
• Best text eclectism, emendatio, divinatio

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Genealogical method stemma
P. Van Deun (ed.), Maximus Confessor, Liber
Asceticus, Turnhout, 2000.
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Result critical text and apparatus
C. Steel, C. Macé, P. dHoine (eds.), Proclus, In
Parmenidem, Oxford, 2007.
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Criticizing the genealogical method

• Bédier
• Too many equally possible stemmata misleading
• Too many bifurcating trees (bifid stemmata)
  unrealistic
• Cerquiglini, Eloge de la variante
• Living texts vs. dead (a-historical) editions

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The origin of the genealogical method
C.G. Zumpt (ed.), Cicero, Verrine Orations, 1831,
p. xxxviii (footnote)
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The origin of the genealogical method
Gaston Paris (1839-1903)
Karl Lachmann (1793-1851)
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Schleichers tree (1853)

• Winfred P. Lehmann , A Reader in Nineteenth
  Century Historical Indo-European Linguistics
• http//www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/books/read0
  8.html

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Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Charles Darwin, Notebook B, 1837, p.
36 (http//darwin-online.org.uk/manuscripts.html)
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The origin of species, 1859

• All the foregoing rules and aids and difficulties
  in classification are explained, if I do not
  greatly deceive myself, on the view that the
  natural system is founded on descent with
  modification that the characters which
  naturalists consider as showing true affinity
  between any two or more species, are those which
  have been inherited from a common parent, and, in
  so far, all true classification is genealogical
  that community of descent is the hidden bond
  which naturalists have been unconsciously
  seeking, and not some unknown plan of creation,
  or the enunciation of general propositions, and
  the mere putting together and separating objects
  more or less alike. (p. 420)

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2. Stemmatics and phylogenetics
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Two experiments

• Overabundant manuscript tradition of a Patristic
  text
• Gregory the Theologian (ca. 330- ca. 390)
• 45 homilies written around 380
• 1200 manuscripts copied between 850 and 1550
• ancient translations made between 400 and 650

• Artificial tradition
• S. Dagerman, Notre besoin de consolation est
  impossible à rassasier (transl. from Swedish by
  P. Bouquet)
• 12 copies
• No external evidences, no relative dating of the
  witnesses

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Two experiments

• Gregory the Theologian, Homily 27
• 2000 words
• 130 witnesses
• 126 manuscripts (850 - 1550)
• 4 translations (400 - 650)
• Editio Princeps Aldina (1516)
• Collation
• 556 variant locations
• 691 variant readings

• Artificial tradition
• 1015 words
• 12 copies
• Collation
• 119 variant location
• up to 4 variants on each variant location

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Two experiments

• Of Gregory was there a 18th cent. edition, but no
  complete history of the text
• The stemma of the artificial tradition had been
  documented

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Gregory the Theologian Neighbor Joining
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Gregory the Theologian Parsimony Consensus
Unrooted Tree
B
A
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Gregory the Theologian validation
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Gregory the Theologian Parsimony Consensus
Rooted Tree
B
A Sicily
A
Syria
sub-B
B
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Artificial tradition NeighborJoinining
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Artificial tradition Parsimony Consensus Tree
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Artificial tradition philology
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Artificial tradition difficult cases

• T1/T2 cime
• A scime
• J scime C (sc/n)ime U cîme
• M nime S cime copies

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Artificial tradition exemplar shift
NJ - 1st third of the file
NJ - 3rd third of the file
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Artificial tradition internalisation of nodes
?
?
?
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3. Beyond the results
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Convergences and divergences

• Convergences
• Same methodological principle shared innovations
• Similar difficulties in applying this principle
  cladistics vs. other methods in phylogenetics
• Similar problems in delimiting, describing and
  weighting characters

• Divergences
• Dichotomy vs. polytomy
• Surviving intermediates

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Phylogenetics
M. Holder - P.O. Lewis, Nature 2003, Vol. 4
(April), p. 276 www.nature.com/reviews/genetics
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Phenetics vs. cladistics

• PHENETICS
• similarities
• unrooted tree, which can be rooted on the basis
  of external evidences

• CLADISTICS
• characters states
• only derived states are informative, as we dont
  know when an ancestral state was acquired

Phylogenetic character (Vogt) position whithin
an organism where the mutation occurs, and its
corresponding transformation. () a phylogenetic
character is always a phylogenetic hypothesis.
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Recoding the information
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Recoding the information
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Cladistic approach Tree 1
Tree 2 Differences
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Cladistic approach Tree 1
Neighbour Joining
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Cladistic approach Tree 1
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4. Conclusion is there a future for the
genealogical method?
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Towards a theoretical model for the evolution of
manuscript traditions