Table Of ContentBuilding Stemmas with the Computer in a Cladistic,
Neo-Lachmannian, Way
The Case of Fourteen Text Versions of
Lanseloet van Denemerken
Een wetenschappelijke proeve op het gebied van de Letteren
PROEFSCHRIFT
ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor
aan de Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen,
volgens besluit van het College van Decanen
in het openbaar te verdedigen
op vrijdag 18 februari 2000
des namiddags om 1.30 uur precies
door
Benedictus Johannes Paulus Salemans
geboren op 10 december 1955 te Maastricht
Promotor: Prof. dr. G.R.W. Dibbets
Manuscriptcommissie: Prof. dr. E.M.P. van Gemert (KUN)
Prof. dr. Th.F.C. Mertens (UFSIA)
Prof. dr. P.Th. van Reenen (VU)
© 2000 Ben Salemans, Nijmegen
ISBN 90-9013480-8 (Ben Salemans)
ISBN 90-3730505-9 (Nijmegen University Press)
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1. INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. SOME CURRENT GENEALOGICAL METHODS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2. A Stemma as a Historical Image and as a Tool for Text Reconstruction 12
2.3. Building a Stemma according to the (nineteenth-century) Method of
Lachmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.4. Building a Chain and a Stemma according to the (twentieth-century)
Method of Greg/Dearing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.4.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.4.2. Typology of Variations and their Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.4.3. The Importance and the Limitation of Type-2 Variations; the
Virtue of Type-1 Variations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.4.4. Building a Chain with Type-2 Variations: Dearing’s Rules for
Building Chains with Transformed into a New Algorithm; the
Notion ‘End Group’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.4.5. Orienting a Chain into a Stemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.5. Current Universal Taxonomical Principles, Biological Systematics and
Cladistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.5.1. Taxonomical Ordering Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.5.2. Ordering or Clustering Taxons with Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.5.3. Systematics and Text Genealogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.5.4. Cladistics and the Principle of Parsimony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.5.5. Demonstration of Building a Genealogical Tree with PAUP . . . . 43
2.6. Cladistic Implications for the Methods of Lachmann and Dearing . . . . 47
2.6.1. Reconsideration of the Lachmannian Notion ‘Common Error’ . . 47
2.6.1.1. Lachmann’s/Maas’s ‘Common Error Rule’ is
Only Correct as Long as the Variants are Part of
Type-2 Variations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.6.1.2. The Problem of Building Chains from Complex,
Non-Type-2 Variation Formulas like AB:CD:EF . . . . . . 49
2.6.1.3. The ‘Zwei Zeugen’ Element Reconsidered . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.6.2. A Cladistic Eye-opener for Lachmannians: Rooted and
Unrooted Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
2.6.3. Criticism of Dearing’s Way of Additioning Variations . . . . . . . 55
2.7. The Minimum Number of Three or Four Text Versions . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.8. A Simple Advice for the Study of Contamination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.9. Conclusion and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3. TOWARDS A NEW TEXT-GENEALOGICAL METHOD . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.2. The Theoretical Framework: Six Basic Text-Genealogical Principles . . 64
3.2.1. The First Basic Principle; the Definition of a Text-
Genealogical Variant; Parallelism and Contamination . . . . . . . . 64
iv Contents
3.2.2. The Second Basic Principle; the ‘Positivistic’ Apparatus of Text-
Genealogical Variants; a Short Discussion about ‘Objectivity’
and Quentin’s ‘Non-Positivistic’ Zéro Caractéristique . . . . . . . . 71
3.2.3. The Third Basic Principle; the Definition of a Variation
Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.2.4. The Fourth Basic Principle; the Type-2 Limitation, Partly
Dismantled with the Use of End Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.2.5. The Fifth Basic Principle; the Text-Genealogical Use of
Differences in Word Order; Additions and Omissions of
Words or Verses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.2.6. The Sixth Basic Principle; the Definition of Text-
Genealogical Word Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
3.3. The Formalization: Rewriting the Theory in Eleven Characteristics
of Text-Genealogical Variants; the Seventh Text-Genealogical
Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
3.3.1. The Eleven Characteristics of Text-Genealogical Variants . . . . . 90
3.3.2. The Seventh Basic Principle of the (Temporary?) Role of the
Philologist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
3.4. The Implementation: Developing Software from the Formalized
Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
3.5. Conclusion and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4. APPLICATION OF THE METHOD TO THE LANSELOET VAN
DENEMERKEN CORPUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.2. Short Description of Fourteen Lanseloet van Denemerken Text
Versions and their Contents; Bibliographical Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . 115
4.3. Demonstration of the Software Treating Verses of Lanseloet
van Denemerken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
4.4. First Computer Results: All the Detected Text-Genealogical Lanseloet
van Denemerken Variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
4.4.1. Introduction: +Comb-formulas and Obs-formulas . . . . . . . . . . 133
4.4.2. The Obs-formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
4.4.3. The +Comb-formulas concerning Characteristics 5 and 7d and
the +Comb-formulas Not Rejected by any Characteristic . . . . . 135
4.5. The Removal of Incorrect Lanseloet van Denemerken Variants by the
Philologist, Applying Non-Automated Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
4.6. Presentation of the Variation Formulas for Building the Lanseloet
van Denemerken Chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
4.7. The Development and Presentation of the Lanseloet van Denemerken
Chain with Use of Cladistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
4.7.1. First Attempt to Build the Lanseloet van Denemerken Chain;
a Handmade Sketch of this Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
4.7.2. Judgement of the Handmade Sketch of the Lanseloet
van Denemerken Tree: No Contamination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Contents v
4.7.3. Missing Values: Some Extra Variation Formulas are Needed;
a Second Handmade Sketch of the Lanseloet Tree . . . . . . . . . 155
4.7.4. The Lanseloet van Denemerken Tree as Developed by the
Cladistic Software Package PAUP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
4.7.4.1. Transforming the Variation Formulas into NEXUS
format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
4.7.4.2. Measuring Distances between Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
4.7.4.3. The Chain of the Lanseloet van Denemerken Texts as
Drawn by PAUP; the Trustworthiness of the Chain . . 174
4.8. The Development and Presentation of the Lanseloet van Denemerken
Stemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
4.8.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
4.8.2. Determination of the Point of Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
4.8.2.1. First Attempt to Find the Point of Orientation . . . . . . 180
4.8.2.2. Second Attempt to Find the Point of Orientation . . . . 192
4.8.3. Presentation of the Stemma of Lanseloet van Denemerken . . . . 195
4.9. Information Derived from the Lanseloet van Denemerken Stemma
and Text Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
4.10.Conclusion and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
5. EVALUATION OF THE LANSELOET VAN DENEMERKEN STEMMA
AND THE TEXT-GENEALOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS . . . . . . . . . . 203
5.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
5.2. Evaluation of the Lanseloet van Denemerken Stemma by Comparing
it with Lanseloet Stemmas in Other Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
5.2.1. The Part of the Lanseloet Stemma in Leendertz (1907) . . . . . . 204
5.2.2. The Part of the Lanseloet Stemma in Goossens (1973) . . . . . . 208
5.2.3. The Part of the Lanseloet Stemma in Goossens (1976) . . . . . . 216
5.2.4. The Part of the Lanseloet Stemma in Hüsken & Schaars (1984) 218
5.2.5. Results of the Comparison of Our Stemma with the Other
Lanseloet Stemmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
5.3. Evaluation of the Text-Genealogical Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
5.3.1. Evaluation of Characteristic 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
5.3.2. Evaluation of Characteristic 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
5.3.3. Evaluation of Characteristic 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
5.3.4. Evaluation of Characteristic 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
5.3.4.1. Evaluation of characteristic 4a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
5.3.4.2. Evaluation of characteristic 4b . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
5.3.4.2.1. Evaluation of the Word Category Adjectives 235
5.3.4.2.2. An Alternative Lanseloet Stemma with
Contaminated Texts 04 and 05? . . . . . . . . 237
5.3.4.2.3. Evaluation of the Word Category Adverbs . 240
5.3.4.2.4. Diachronical, Parallelistic Changes in
Flexion/Casus from 1400 to 1700 . . . . . . . . 244
5.3.4.2.5. Evaluation of the Word Category Articles . . 247
vi Contents
5.3.4.2.6. The Parallelistic Character of the
Gender of Substantives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
5.3.4.2.7. Evaluation of the Word Category Auxiliaries 252
5.3.4.2.8. Evaluation of the Word Category Conjunctions 257
5.3.4.2.9. Evaluation of the Word Category Prepositions 259
5.3.4.2.10. Evaluation of the Word Category Pronouns 260
5.3.4.2.11. Implications of the Evaluation of
Characteristic 4b for the Emendatio . . . . . . 264
5.3.5. Evaluation of Characteristic 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
5.3.6. Evaluation of Characteristic 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
5.3.6.1. Evaluation of Characteristic 6a, concerning Small
Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
5.3.6.2. Evaluation of Characteristic 6b, concerning Word
Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
5.3.6.3. Evaluation of Characteristic 6c, concerning Nonsense
Words, Slips of the Pen or Typographical Mistakes . . 271
5.3.7. Evaluation of Characteristic 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
5.3.7.1. Evaluation of Characteristic 7a, concerning Inflection . 273
5.3.7.2. Evaluation of Characteristic 7b, concerning
Differences in Vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
5.3.7.3. Evaluation of Characteristic 7c, concerning (Personal)
Vocabularies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
5.3.7.4. Evaluation of Characteristic 7d, concerning
Frequently Used Words and Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
5.3.8. Evaluation of Characteristic 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
5.3.9. Evaluation of Characteristic 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
5.3.9.1. Evaluation of Characteristic 9a, concerning Rhyming
Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
5.3.9.2. Evaluation of Characteristic 9b, concerning Duplicate
Rhyming Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
5.3.10. Evaluation of Characteristic 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
5.3.11. Evaluation of Characteristic 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
5.3.11.1. Evaluation of Characteristic 11a, concerning Added
or Missing Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
5.3.11.2. Evaluation of Characteristic 11b, concerning Added
or Missing Verses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
5.3.12. Summary of the Evaluation of the Characteristics . . . . . . . . . 296
5.4. Conclusion and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
6. FINAL REMARKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
SAMENVATTING IN HET NEDERLANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Contents vii
LISTS OF FIGURES AND PICTURED LANSELOET VERSES . . . . . . . . . . 339
List of Figures, Including their Captions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
List of Pictured Lanseloet Verses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
CURRICULUM VITAE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
APPENDICES ON CD-ROM (in file apps.pdf)
(to be read with Adobe Acrobat Reader, available for free on the Internet; see:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html or http://www.adobe.com/)
Appendix A: Description of the Eight Steps the Software Performs: from the
Fourteen Single Text Versions to the Variation Formulas
Appendix B: Guide to the Interpretation of the Computer Results and Output
Appendix C: The Computer Results: the Synoptic Lanseloet van Denemerken
Text Versions and the Variation Formulas
Appendix D: Presentation of the Variation Formulas, Ordered by Characteristics
Appendix E: English Translation of Parts of Salemans (1987) on Cladistics
Appendix F: The Fourteen Synoptic Lanseloet van Denemerken Text Versions
(or: Appendix C without the Variation Formulas)
viii Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Jan van Bakel (University of
Nijmegen) for his impressive and inspiring lectures and scientific lessons. My
promotor Prof. Dr. Geert Dibbets (University of Nijmegen) taught me the first
principles of editing old texts. I admire him for his wisdom and his patience with
me. I will always be grateful to Prof. Dr. Piet Buijnsters (University of Nijmegen)
for sharing his immense knowledge and appreciation of old books. Dr. Paul
Wackers (University of Nijmegen) opened up my heart to the beauty of medieval
literature.
Dr. Willem Ellis (University of Amsterdam), a biologist, was always willing
to answer my ‘stupid’ questions about biological ordering methods. Prof. Dr.
Thom Mertens (Ruusbroec-genootschap in Antwerp) and Dr. Ton Duinhoven
(University of Amsterdam) were always prepared to criticize preliminary versions
of my papers about text-genealogical matters, including this book. I discussed
many stemmatology matters under pleasant conditions with Prof. Dr. Pieter van
Reenen (Free University of Amsterdam) and ‘his’ group of Dutch text-
genealogists, amongst which the kind and wise mathematician Dr. Evert Wattel
(Free University of Amsterdam) and the Dutch text-genealogical pioneer Prof. Dr.
Ton Dees. I thank Prof. Dr. Vittore Branca (University of Padova) for sharing his
wise insights with me during my stay in Rome in May 1998, when I was invited
to give a lecture on automated textual criticism at the Accademia Nazionale Dei
Lincei. I am also greatful for the heartening support of Prof. Dr. R. Hauer
(University of Utrecht), Dr. D. Hertzberger (Nijmegen) and Dr. L. Bellersen
(University of Nijmegen).
Three friends followed my research and life closely with much patience. Dr.
Peter-Arno Coppen (University of Nijmegen) helped me to keep a general
methodological overview of my research, which started in 1985. Dr. Margot van
Mulken (University of Nijmegen) and I discussed during many days, evenings and
even nights, the fundamentals of text-genealogical research and life, often in ‘our’
Nijmegen pub ’t Haantje. Thank you, Margot, for these very pleasant, inspiring
and encouraging hours. Dr. Willem Kuiper (University of Amsterdam) was always
willing to lend me an ear concerning stemmatological or private affairs, no matter
what time it was; a true friend.
I am also greatful for the friendship of the editors of Neder-L, the free
electronic Internet-magazine about Dutch language and literature, which I started
in 1992 (URL: http://baserv.uci.kun.nl/~salemans/). Besides the already mentioned
Willem Kuiper and Peter-Arno Coppen, the editors are Dr. Piet Verkruijsse
(University of Amsterdam) and Prof. Dr. Marc van Oostendorp (Meertens Institute
and University of Amsterdam).
I thank Maastricht for just being there. The same goes for its football club
MVV. Thank you, Willy Brokamp, Jo Bonfrère and Erik Meijer. I thank Bob
Dylan, Green Day, Paul McCartney and Wolfgang A. Mozart for their music.
2 Acknowledgments
It is good to know that in hard times some friends stay around. Roland de
Bonth, Patrick Leijzer, Frans Schaars, Hans and Conny Schoonbrood, Peep
Stalmeijer and Remy Wolfs, thank you.
The most important people for me are my children Bart, Milou and Joost. I
could have dedicated this book to you, but that would have sounded like a cheap
excuse for not being around.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents Bart, already in heaven, and Marie-
Therèse, and my five siblings and their partners for their unconditional support;
respectively Mariëtte (and Roel), Thom (and Marij), Frank (and Beppy), Cintha
(and Jos) and Eugénie (and Pierre). I dedicate this book to my twin brother Frank,
with whom I have a very special bond.
Shortly after my supervisor prof. dr. G.R.W. Dibbets had approved of my dissertation, dr. G.A. van
Thienen of the Royal Library in The Hague reported in Neder-L 9911.16 (URL/Internet Address:
http://baserv.uci.kun.nl/~salemans/bulletin/1999/11/991116.html) that the Royal Library recently bought
fragments of a Lanseloet van Denemerken text version, so far unknown. A short study into these
fragments, together 126 verses, proved to me that it was indeed a new version. In the near future, I
hope to publish an article in Neder-L about this fifteenth Lanseloet text version and its place in the
Lanseloet van Denemerken stemma.
