Editing Textual criticism (section)

=== Overview ===
[[File:Howald-sigerist.png|thumb|right|250px|Scheme of descent of the manuscripts of [[Pseudo-Apuleius Herbarius]] by [[Henry E. Sigerist]] (1927)]]
'''Stemmatics''' or '''stemmatology''' is a rigorous approach to textual criticism. [[Karl Lachmann]] (1793–1851) greatly contributed to making this method famous, even though he did not invent it.<ref>Sebastian Timpanaro, ''The Genesis of Lachmann's Method'', ed. and trans. by Glenn W. Most (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) [trans. from ''Genesi del metodo del Lachmann'' (Liviana Editrice, 1981)].</ref> The method takes its name from the word ''stemma''. The [[Ancient Greek]] word {{Lang|grc|στέμματα}}<ref name="Liddell & Scott">Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). ''A Greek-English Lexicon. revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones. with the assistance of. Roderick McKenzie.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press.</ref> and its [[loanword]] in [[classical Latin]] {{Lang|la|stemmata}}<ref name="Liddell & Scott"/><ref name="Lewis & Short">Lewis, C.T. & Short, C. (1879). ''A Latin dictionary founded on Andrews' edition of Freund's Latin dictionary.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press.</ref><ref name="Saalfeld1884">Saalfeld, G.A.E.A. (1884). ''Tensaurus Italograecus. Ausführliches historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Griechischen Lehn- und Fremdwörter im Lateinischen.'' Wien: Druck und Verlag von Carl Gerold's Sohn, Buchhändler der Kaiserl. Akademie der Wissenschaften.</ref> may refer to "[[family tree]]s". This specific meaning shows the relationships of the surviving witnesses (the first known example of such a stemma, albeit without the name, dates from 1827).<ref>Collín, H. S. and C. J. Schlyter (eds), ''Corpus iuris Sueo-Gotorum antiqui: Samling af Sweriges gamla lagar, på Kongl. Maj:ts. nådigste befallning'', 13 vols (Stockholm: Haeggström, 1827–77), vol. 1, table 3; the volume is available at [https://archive.org/details/corpusiurissueo09swedgoog the internet archive] but the scan unfortunately omits the stemma. William Robins, 'Editing and Evolution', ''Literature Compass''<nowiki> 4 (2007): 89–120, at pp. 93–94,</nowiki> {{doi|10.1111/j.1741-4113.2006.00391.x}}</ref> The family tree is also referred to as a ''[[cladogram]]''.<ref name="isbn90-272-2153-7">Mulken & van Pieter 1996, p. 84</ref> The method works from the principle that "community of error implies community of origin". That is, if two witnesses have a number of errors in common, it may be presumed that they were derived from a common intermediate source, called a ''hyparchetype''. Relations between the lost intermediates are determined by the same process, placing all extant manuscripts in a family tree or ''[[stemma codicum]]'' descended from a single ''archetype''. The process of constructing the stemma is called ''recension'', or the Latin ''recensio''.<ref name="isbn0-19-814371-0">Wilson and Reynolds 1974, p. 186</ref>

Having completed the stemma, the critic proceeds to the next step, called ''selection'' or ''selectio'', where the text of the archetype is determined by examining variants from the closest hyparchetypes to the archetype and selecting the best ones. If one reading occurs more often than another at the same level of the tree, then the dominant reading is selected. If two competing readings occur equally often, then the editor uses judgment to select the correct reading.<ref name="isbn0-312-21713-7">Roseman 1999, p. 73</ref>

After ''selectio'', the text may still contain errors, since there may be passages where no source preserves the correct reading. The step of ''examination'', or ''examinatio'' is applied to find corruptions. Where the editor concludes that the text is corrupt, it is corrected by a process called "emendation", or ''emendatio'' (also sometimes called ''divinatio''). Emendations not supported by any known source are sometimes called [[conjecture (textual criticism)|''conjectural'' emendations]].<ref name="isbn0-8006-0471-7">McCarter 1986, p. 62</ref>

The process of ''selectio'' resembles eclectic textual criticism, but applied to a restricted set of hypothetical hyparchetypes. The steps of ''examinatio'' and ''emendatio'' resemble copy-text editing. In fact, the other techniques can be seen as special cases of stemmatics in which a rigorous family history of the text cannot be determined but only approximated. If it seems that one manuscript is by far the best text, then copy text editing is appropriate, and if it seems that a group of manuscripts are good, then eclecticism on that group would be proper.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol07/SWH2002/|title=The Greek Vorlage of the Syra Harclensis|website=rosetta.reltech.org|access-date=2 May 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303205218/http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol07/SWH2002/|archive-date=3 March 2016}}</ref>

The Hodges–Farstad edition of the Greek New Testament attempts to use stemmatics for some portions.<ref>[http://www.skypoint.com/members/waltzmn/CriticalEds.html Critical Editions of the New Testament] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090414211207/http://www.skypoint.com/members/waltzmn/CriticalEds.html |date=2009-04-14 }} at the ''Encyclopaedia of Textual Criticism''</ref>