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.
Chunk 0
- 1098C — ad a. p. et libertatem. Migne prints an unexpanded abbreviation
a. p.; most likely ad avitam pietatem / ad antiquam patriam vel sim. Rendered "for the ancestral faith and for liberty" as the least-committal literal reading. Needs a check against another witness. - 1098C — mortuo Alexandrio Philippo Macedonum rege. Confused: Philip II and Alexander are conflated into one name, and the Maccabean setting is centuries later. Rendered literally ("Alexander Philip, king of the Macedonians").
- 1098C — xenoduna for xenodochium. Kept as the technical Latin institution-word in italic (xenodochium) per the register rule; the printed spelling is a corruption.
- 1099B — De hoc loco acenti ( sic ). Migne himself flags this with sic. Probably adjacenti ("adjoining") or a truncated accedenti. Left untranslated in the English with the sic marker preserved.
- 1099C — fideique simbolum ad duodecim factum: "the symbol of the faith was made in twelve parts" — i.e. the legend of the twelve apostles each contributing an article. The ad duodecim construction is loose.
- 1100C — retrahere de Latino in grammaticam: "draw it back from the Latin into grammar." Sense inverted from what one expects (vernacular → Latin); rendered literally.
- 1101C — Zachariae prophetae is addressed as Melchiar's brother and given a wife and son. The Zacharias of Luke 1 and the prophet Zechariah are conflated. Rendered as printed.
Chunk 1
- 1101D — Accamanus imperator Romanus: no such Roman emperor. Rendered as printed.
- 1101D — unam insulam Crethii, quae vocatur Rhochas: "a certain island of Crete which is called Rhochas" — geographically incoherent; Rhochas is likely Rhodes. Rendered as printed.
- 1103A — Philippus prothomartyr: Stephen has just been named first martyr in the same clause, so prothomartyr attached to Philip is an error (Philip is one of the seven, Acts 6:5). Rendered as printed.
- 1103A — Nichauome, Thymocenn Permanan: badly corrupt forms of the remaining names of the seven (Acts 6:5), i.e. Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas. Left as printed, untranslated.
- 1103B — Caryseni: unidentified ethnonym, possibly a corruption of Chorasmini / Chorosani (Khwarazmians). Transliterated as printed.
- 1103C–1104B — The Hospital's first master is named Conradus throughout but glossed vel Gerardus three times; the historical figure is Gerard. Both names kept in the English exactly where Migne prints them.
- 1104A — praecepit sibi, ut sine timore Christianos, ut consueverat, debellaret: the Sultan orders him to "fight the Christians" — but the whole point of the story is that he was feeding them. Almost certainly a corruption of something like ut ... Christianos pasceret / non debellaret. Rendered literally; the very next sentence contradicts it.
<!-- corpus-polarity-sweep 2026-07-28 --> ## Corpus polarity sweep — 2026-07-28
Blind Opus read of the Latin/English pair for sense-reversing defects (one word or one letter asserting the opposite of what the context requires). 4 site(s). Migne's defects are recorded here and rendered literally in the English; our own errors were fixed in place. Full context: data/sweeps/corpus-polarity/REPORT.md.
1097C — added-negative (migne, medium confidence)
Printed: sed ad rei veritatem, id quod de sacris annalibus decerpere potui, et quae conjectura et ratione assequi, non praepositae rei seriem in medium adducam.
Conjecture: nunc praepositae rei seriem in medium adducam ("I shall NOW bring forward into the open the sequence of the matter set before us") — non for nunc
The same sentence has already promised the opposite: "sed ad rei veritatem, id quod de sacris annalibus decerpere potui ... in medium adducam," against the preceding "Quorum vanas fabulas hoc loco mihi referre cura non est." He announces what he WILL set out; the trailing non cancels the very act he has just undertaken, and the English preserves the cancellation as a dangling "— not the sequence of the matter."
1102D — dropped-word (migne, medium confidence)
Printed: Et Thomas respondit et dixit. « Ego non credo. ego non tango, et video foramen clavorum manuum suarum et pedum, et misero manum meam in pectore suo. »
Conjecture: nisi tangam et videam foramen clavorum ... et mittam manum meam in pectus suum, non credam (Vulg. Joan. xx, 25: "nisi videro ... non credam") — the governing nisi has dropped out, turning the unfulfilled condition into flat assertions
The next sentence has Thomas still absent and still unbelieving: Christ must say to him "Mitte huc digitum tuum in foramen manuum mearum et mei costatus, et noli esse incredulus, sed fidelis," and only then "in illa sancta domo recognovit sanctus Thomas suum Creatorem." As printed, Thomas already touches nothing yet SEES the nail-holes ("et video foramen clavorum") and will put in his hand — he cannot both see the wounds and be the man who has not yet seen; the immediately preceding clause is "sed Thomas non erat cum illis, quando Jesus venit."
1103A — dropped-word (migne, low confidence)
Printed: sicut sanctus Stephanus, qui fuit primus martyr, et Philippus prothomartyr, Nichauome, Thymocenn Permanan, Nycholaus Antiochenus.
Conjecture: Philippus prothodiaconus / diaconus (the list is the seven of Acts vi, of whom Stephen alone is protomartyr); prothomartyr for prothodiaconus
Its own immediate neighbour in the same clause makes the contrary claim of a different man: "sanctus Stephanus, qui fuit primus martyr." Chunk 0000 says the same at 1099C — "septem viros elegerunt ... quibus Stephanum primum martyrem praepositum constituerunt." Two men cannot each be the first martyr, and the English prints both.
1104A — sense-reversing-letter (migne, high confidence)
Printed: Et quando Soldanus vidit maliciam Saracenorum, dimisit stare Conradum, et praecepit sibi, ut sine timore Christianos, ut consueverat, debellaret.
Conjecture: a verb of feeding/aiding, e.g. ut sine timore Christianos, ut consueverat, adjuvaret (or pasceret / de pane elemosinaret); the Sultan licenses the alms, not warfare
The qualifier "ut consueverat" points at a custom the same paragraph has just described twice, and it is the opposite of fighting: "quolibet die ter vel quater, ponebat de pane in suo gremio, et desuper muros terrae projiciebat panem Christianis." The very next sentence confirms what he did on the strength of this order: "Et quando Conradus, vel Gerardus, audivit istud, quolibet die projiciebat panem Christianis Dei." Conrad is a servulus Jesu Christi who has just been vindicated by the bread-into-stone miracle; "debellaret" makes the Sultan order Christ's servant to make war on Christians, and the English follows it.