Editorial Principles

Throughout the edition we have expanded e to ae/oe, regularized late-medieval spelling (e.g. changing sicud to sicut) and introduced modern paragraph breaks and modern punctuation in place of late of medieval punctuation.

The choice to privilege a normalized critical text is supported by the fact that, given the possibilities of new media, we are no longer forced to choose between providing a modern normalized text and a diplomatic edition that records the variances and complications of late medieval writing practices. This edition has been prepared in conjunction with the coordinating efforts of the Scholastic Commentaries and Text Archive (https://scta.info), such that every section, paragraph, and quotation can be linked to a diplomatic transcription or multiple diplomatic transcriptions, and further linked to digital facsimiles of the manuscripts themselves. These diplomatic transcriptions are where medieval spelling and punctuation can be recorded at various levels of detail according to the discretion of the editor. For this reason, we offer here a normalized edition that can and will function as an access point to subsequent diplomatic transcriptions made available to those with an interest in this kind of textual detail.

Given that there is only one extant manuscript of Gracilis's commentary, the critical apparatus aims primarily to record editorial emendations against the text present in the manuscript as well as to identify significant scribal corrections. The encoding of the critical apparatus follows the guidelines of the SCTA, which includes a detailed classification schema of variant types. For a detailed description of these variant types see the schema documentation https://community.scta.info/pages/lombardpress-schema-critical.html . As much as possible, these variation types have been rendered according to traditional critical apparatus conventions. We hope that these rendered descriptions are clear, but we offer here a quick summary of the most common descriptions found in this rendering.

The abbreviation om. corresponds to a variation type variation-absent and indicates that the lemma in the main text is missing from the manuscript witness. The abbreviation in textu. corresponds to variation type variation-present and indicates that a word or phrase is present in the manuscript, but the editors chose to exclude this from the main text. The abbreviation add. corresponds to correction-addition indicating that the lemma in the main text is present in the manuscript but has been added as kind of correction. Finally, add. sed. del corresponds to correction-deletion and indicates that a word was added in the witness but subsequently deleted.

Nota bene: Peter Gracilis’s commentary on the borrows heavily from the commentary of John of Basel, the first volumes of which were recently published as: Iohannis de Basilea OESA. . Ed. Venício Marcolino, cooperantibus Monica Brînzei, Carolin Oser-Grote (Würzburg, Augustinus bei echter, 2016); . Ed. Venício Marcolino, cooperantibus Monica Brînzei, Carolin Oser-Grote (Würzburg, Augustinus bei echter, 2017); and . Ed. Venício Marcolino, cooperantibus Monica Brînzei, Carolin Oser-Grote (Würzburg, Augustinus bei echter, 2018). The sources Gracilis references and quotes are often the same as those of Basel, with slight modifications. As such, we have benefited greatly from the editorial work of Venício Marcolino, Monica Brînzei, and Carolin Oser-Grote. We have, of course, checked the references for accuracy.