The Use of Critical Editions in the Latinitatis medii aevi lexicon Bohemorum

Pavel Nývlt

the editors; in a huge majority of cases, readings of critical editions are simply accepted without checking the manuscripts. Quite often, even the editor’s warnings like sic are simply copied. However, the Dictionary has pointed to mistakes in editions several hundreds of times. In a majority of cases, these are simply typos. Less often, the dictionary takes into account manuscripts not known to the editor. Most interestingly but quite rarely, the authors of the dictionary correct the editor’s reading of a manuscript; they suggest emendations of their own (or of members of their redactorial board); or they point out that the correction proposed by the editor is unnecessary. These rare occurrences lead to the margins of Latin usage: The dividing line between the acceptable lectio difficilior on one hand, and an outrageous scribal mistake on the other, is often blurred, but this shadowy area of uncertainty is as hard to capture in the dictionary as it is in editions.

A few times during the decades of work on the Dictionary, the decision has been made not to use an edition, but to prefer the manuscript instead. New editions are always welcome, but they also pose a challenge to the lexicographers: They have to deal with new readings, some of which are not captured in their material, and to decide how many of the new editions are worth excerpting.

In the end, it needs to be stressed that the Dictionary does not lay a claim to infallibility; the lexicographers offer the editors their somewhat different perspective in the hope that the resulting dialogue will be mutually beneficial.