Latin legend of St. Anastasia – edition by Barbora Špádová
Latin legend of St. Anastasia
Edition by Barbora Špádová <Barbora.Spadova@seznam.cz>
About the edition: The hagiography shows Anastasia the Widow as a daughter of a pagan father and a Christian mother. After mother’s death Anastasia’s teacher in religion was St Chrysogonos. Later the virgin saint was married to a debauched pagan Publius who pursued her for her faith in various ways. After her husband’s early death she used her possessions to support imprisoned Christians and accompanied St Chrysogonos on his way to Aquilea, where he was sent by the emperor Diocletianus’ order and shortly after that beheaded. Soon, Anastasia was also captured, put to torture and burned to death.
Aim of the digital edition: The main aim of the edition was to show variant readings of three manuscripts containing nearly identical texts of the St Anastasia legend. In a classic printed edition I would not be able to introduce all text varieties of the manuscript in such a clear way as in the digital edition (see the various reading chart). The digital media also enabled to show orthographic differences which would have to be avoided because of space in a paper edition. All three manuscripts differ very little (except of the concluding part which I am not presenting here), but the Wurzburg manuscript is significantly damaged and some substantial parts of the text are missing. I could reconstruct them from the Munich manuscript, which is the closest both in period and geographical origin, so it is much more similar than the Milan manuscript. In the final result the reader may not only cross-click among the three versions, but also with comfort read the damaged Wurzburg manuscript, which has become practically legible through the reconstructed parts.
Nota: Text amended in the Wurzburg manuscript is highlighted in grey colour.