From Little Chapters to the Big Questions

Thispaper deals with textual transmission in pre-Tridentine Croatian Glagoliticmissals and breviaries. Previous research has demonstrated that northern(Krk-Istria) codices follow earlier translations from Greek, whereas southern(Zadar-Krbava) codices have been adjusted to Latin exemplars. However, thisdifferentiation is not clear-cut – certain codices are recognised as acombination of the northern and southern group. The paper addresses theinability to establish a stemma codicum , explaining this through both thehigh loss rate of Croatian Glagolitic codices and horizontal textualtransmission (the usage of more than one exemplar). Further insight into thegiven topic is provided through discussion of the types of Glagolitic scribes(simple scribe, scholar-scribe, redactor-like scribe, and redactor-scribe) and thedeterminants of their work, the most prominent of which is the absence ofauthorial authority. The core of the paper is the study of little chapters as textsshared between breviaries and missals. Data analysis suggests the twoliturgical books share a common origin, and that each was likely used as asource for the other. Moreover, data analysis also broadens the notion of the polygenetic origin of CroatianGlagolitic books, which should be understood not only in terms of successive contaminations,but simultaneous contaminations as well. Both types of contamination aresometimes extra-stemmatic, which means that different kinds of sources wereused by Glagolitic scribes during copying (including older Glagolitic missalsand breviaries, other Church Slavonic books such as the Prophetologion or Apostolos ,and personal memory). The paper offers an explanation as to why it is unlikely thata Glagolitic Bible and Latin exemplars were (commonly) used as sources.