The manuscript tradition of the text under discussion is scant and includes only two surviving manuscripts, namely the original notarial instrument of 1332 (Va) and a manuscript copy from around the middle of the fifteenth century (Kr). The aim of the present study is to assess both manuscripts and present a proposed scheme of their relationship. An attempt shall be made to answer two key questions: what is the relationship between the trial record from the fifteenth-century copy and the original notarial instrument preserved in the Vatican? Did the fifteenth-century copyist of Kr use the original 1332 document or another, later copy of it? Seeking answers to these questions, we shall concentrate on three elements that are essential from the point of view of textual criticism, namely contingent omissions, noncontingent omissions, and textual variants.

Contingent Omissions, Va, Kr

The technical phrase ‘omission contingent on context per homoeoteleuton (“by word ending”)’ describes each case deriving from an unconscious skipping over from one fragment of text (minimum of three words) to another while making a textual copy: the copyist is tired or lacks concentration and while copying a text his eye jumps from one place to a similar word with a similar ending elsewhere in the text; thus the repetition of a word or syllable could cause an erroneous reference. When we analyse the texts of Va and Kr we come across a group of four omissions which we may regard as contingent:

We may formulate at least three preliminary conclusions and observations which we offer for verification in the next stages of textual criticism:

• 1. The relatively small number of contingent omissions is evidence simply of the great attention paid by the scribes of both the original Vatican document (Va) and Kr;

• 2. The lack of any omissions in Va shows that the document is a fair copy of the 1332 trial record;

• 3. On the basis of analysis of contingent omissions there is no way to confirm unequivocally whether Va is the same as the base manuscript (α) for Kr. However, the following observation seems to undermine the likelihood of this. Three of the four omissions appear in the text of one testimony given by Margaret the Painter. Of course, such an accumulation of omissions may have been the consequence of some exceptional distraction on the part of the Kr scribe which is difficult to explain.