These are the edition's working notes, published as they were written. They record, work by work, where Migne's plate is defective or the reading uncertain: the printed form, what the English does with it, and why. They are not a groomed apparatus. Where a note argues with itself, withdraws an earlier decision, or leaves a question open, that is the record of how the reading was actually reached, and it is left standing — a conjecture that is visible can be checked, and one that has been tidied away cannot.
The English never silently repairs the page. A construable but wrong reading is rendered literally and the conjecture is recorded here, never applied to the text. How the English is produced and checked →
Garbled or corrupt printed readings, rendered literally in the English and logged here.
Standing decisions
- This is NOT a question-and-answer / doubts collection. Despite the title Dubia alia ("further doubtful pieces"), the work is Migne's dossier of nine miscellaneous items of doubtful attribution to Alcuin — a letter, six poems, a rhythmic prayer, and one short prose exposition. There is therefore no Interrogatio / Responsio house structure to lock. The one recurring structural feature is the italic rubric introducing a set of inscription verses (In fronte sepulcri., In dextero latere., Ubi dextera Christi est picta.); these are rendered as translated italic rubrics, kept on the same line as the verse that follows, exactly as Migne prints them.
- Verse is set line for line, one English line per Latin line, so the column anchors that Migne prints flush against a verse line (
[1166A]the hosts of the saints…) stay attached to the same line they mark. - Square-bracketed verse blocks (items V.1 and V.2) are Migne's own bracketing of lines whose authenticity he doubts. The brackets and their spacing are reproduced.
- Migne's variant brackets —
[ Forte, …],[ F., …],[ Cod. Sal., …],[ Ed., …],[ Edit., …; Mabill., …], and bare corrections like[praeteritorum],[habemus],[charta],[bonitate sueta]— pass through verbatim, untranslated, placed against the English word they correct. - The bold arabic numerals 449, 450, 456, 457, 458 are Migne's volume numeration, kept italic and in place.
Chunk 0
- 1161A, Letter to Leo III — The whole letter is in rustic Latin whose syntax breaks down repeatedly. Two places especially: the opening address has no finite verb until deposcimus, so the singular ille vilissimus … servus is left grammatically stranded (rendered with a dash, preserving the anacoluthon); and quasi coram sanctissimis pedibus vestris humano is unconstruable. humano is a real word (abl. sg. of humanus) with nothing to agree with, and an earlier draft simply dropped it from the English; it is now rendered as printed — "as though before your most holy feet in human fashion." Migne's conjecture [ Forte, humi prostratus] ("prostrate on the ground") is kept in place as his bracket and is not imported into the English.
- 1161B — Printed: pia oscula ejus ostias salutare, with Migne's [ F., pio osculo . . . ostia]. ostias is a real word — the h-less spelling of hostias ("victims, sacrifices"), routine in this rustic letter — so it is rendered as printed: "to greet his victims with devout kisses." The intended reading is Migne's ostia ("doors"), which the pilgrimage context wants (kisses on Peter's doors and pavement); his fuller conjecture also makes pia oscula the ablative singular pio osculo, and the printed accusative plural is likewise left standing. An earlier draft rendered "doors"; that has been withdrawn. Bracket kept in place.
- 1161B — Printed: huc ita, ut dispositum [habemus] die pro consule habuimus, occurrere minime valuimus. Every word is a real Latin form, so all are rendered as printed — "we have by no means been able to come here in this way, as we have it arranged [habemus], we had it on the day for the consul" — including pro consule, which an earlier draft simply dropped. The clause is not construable: ita is stranded, habuimus has no object, and die pro consule has no sense the letter supports. The intended reading may be die proposito ("on the appointed day"), but this is a guess, not a conjecture with evidence behind it; a genuine crux a human should check against another witness. Migne's supplied [habemus] is kept in place.
- 1161B — veniam delictorum [praeteritorum] indulgentiam rogare. The doubled veniam … indulgentiam is either a variant pair or a broken construction; both nouns are rendered.
- 1162B, poem II, line 9 — In traject. mel, compultimque buturque ministrat. Migne prints the abbreviation In traject. unresolved (Trajectum = Utrecht); the abbreviation is kept as printed rather than silently expanded. Neither compultim nor butur is a Latin word; the intended readings are pultem ("porridge") and butyrum ("butter"), which the list of Frisian fare requires. Per Pattern 7 both non-words are carried into the English untranslated and in italics: "honey, and compultim, and butur." An earlier draft rendered the conjectures; that has been withdrawn.
- 1163A ff., poem II — Personal names are kept in the form Migne prints them where they have no settled English form (Hrotberct, Raefgot, Rado, Bassinus, Fulcrad, Dorsdrada); where a standard English form exists it is used (Albric, Willibrord, Ricwulf, Lull, Cologne, Mainz, Speyer, Moselle).
- 1163A, line 22 — Remigio postquam spatium sulcaveris amnem. spatium and amnem cannot both be direct objects; rendered "have furrowed the river's stretch with rowing."
- 1164A, line 61 — Printed: sine tempora serva with Migne's [ F., sacra]. serva is a real word (imperative of servo, "preserve"; or the feminine of servus), so it is rendered as printed — "allow this ivy to creep about your brows, preserve" — where it agrees with nothing and hangs stranded, exactly as in the Latin. The intended reading is Migne's sacra, the neuter plural adjective agreeing with tempora ("consecrated brows"). An earlier draft rendered the conjecture; that has been withdrawn. Bracket kept.
- 1164A, line 64 — Printed: Eja, age, casta [charta] cito navem conscende paratam. casta is a real word (feminine vocative/nominative of castus, "chaste"), so it is rendered as printed: "Come, on with it, O chaste one, board the ready ship at once." The intended reading is charta, which Migne supplies in his own bracket and which the poem requires — its addressee throughout is the letter/paper itself. An earlier draft rendered the conjecture; that has been withdrawn.
- 1164B, line 77 — Et cum vere rubrae . . . . . de cortice gemmae. Migne prints a lacuna of five points; the missing word is a verb or adjective. The lacuna is reproduced as printed.
- 1165A, poem IV, line 6 — Quas medici quaerit dextra salutis ope, with Migne's [ Ed., ore]. Rendered on the printed ope, the variant kept.
Chunk 1
- 1166A, poem V — Ordine quadrato variis depicta figuris / Agmina sanctorum gaudia magna vident. depicta agrees with agmina, but the sense wants the pictures on the page, not the hosts. Rendered as printed.
- 1166B — Agne Deum solio semper venerantur in alto. A vocative Agne stands inside a sentence whose subject is unexpressed ("they venerate God"). Rendered literally with the vocative preserved; the incoherence is in the printed text.
- 1166C — Illius hic codex enitet actus ope. actus has no clean construction; rendered "this book here shines forth in its doings," by his help.
- 1167D–1168B, poem VII — This rhythmic, internally rhymed prayer is the most degraded item in the work: it consists largely of nominative-phrase apposition with almost no finite verbs, and it breaks off unfinished at Decapitatus gladio, coronatus martyrio with no closing punctuation. The English preserves the appositional style, the absence of finite verbs, and the abrupt ending. Individually noted:
- Binos bisquinos … Apostolos — "twice two and twice five," i.e. the Twelve counted oddly (2 + 10). Rendered literally rather than as "twelve."
- Igne probatus vario . . . . . triumpho — Migne prints a lacuna; reproduced.
- Refulsit non videntibus clarus ceu fulgor Phoebus — Phoebus is nominative where a genitive or ablative is wanted; rendered "bright as the flash of the sun."
- Modo regnat in gloria, regni habilis Helia — Helia is unmotivated (Elijah?) and the line may be corrupt; rendered literally.
- Frater Joannis Agiae — Agiae is the Greek ἅγιος latinized and misdeclined; rendered "John the Holy."
- 1168C, item VIII — Stemmate praecelso quem Centula protulit ista. Centula is the monastery of Saint-Riquier; kept in the Latin form as a place-name.
- 1168D — Post sexagenos et centum circiter annos / Cum Domini famulus integer exstat adhuc. The cum clause hangs without a governing verb; rendered "while the Lord's servant stands whole even yet," which is the plain sense of the incorrupt-body claim the epitaph is making.
Chunk 2
- 1169B, item IX — et Dominus momordit infernum. Literally "and the Lord bit hell"; the image is Hosea 13:14 (morsus tuus ero, inferne). Rendered literally ("bit into hell") rather than smoothed to "despoiled."
- 1169B — Exsurge, Domine, tu et arca sanctificationis tuae is cited as Psal. CXXXI, 8 (Vulgate numbering); left exactly as Migne cites it.
- 1170B — Absit, ut mittam manum meum in unctum Domini. Migne prints the masculine /neuter meum against the feminine manum (meam expected, as the Vulgate has). No emendation was made and none is possible: English possessives carry no gender, so "my hand" renders the printed meum exactly and would render meam identically. The mismatch survives only in the Latin twin. Note also that Migne's mittam manum in is translated "put my hand upon," matching what the Latin prints.
- 1170B — quando Saul in speluncam introivit ventrem purgare. The episode is I Samuel (I Reg.) 24, not 26 as Migne's note gives; the citation is reproduced exactly as printed and NOT corrected — flagging it here for the citation-corrections pass.
- 1170B — Dele me de libro viventium, ubi me scripsisti. The trailing ubi me scripsisti falls outside the italic quotation in Migne, so it is treated as the author's gloss and left outside the italics in the English as well.