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 →
Rendered as printed; nothing silently emended. Roman numerals kept verbatim throughout.
Chunk 0000
- col 1174D (anchor out of sequence). The anchor sequence runs
[1173D]→[1174D]→[1175A], skipping 1174A–C entirely. Reproduced as printed; may be a Migne plate error or a chunker artifact upstream — flagged, not corrected. - col 1174D — Matusala / Mathusalem. Migne prints genuit Matusala and then, in the next sentence, Mathusalem habens annos CLXXXVII. Both forms are merely orthographic variants of the same patriarch; kept distinct in English (Mathusala / Mathusalem) so the printed variance survives rather than being normalized to "Methuselah."
- col 1175A — first-age total. The generations as printed (CXXX + CV + XC + LXX + LXV + CLXII + LXV + CLXXXVII + CLXXII + D + C) sum to 1656, not the printed millesimus DCLXVI (1666). Rendered as printed.
- col 1175A — awkward ordinal. numerus annorum millesimus DCLXVI mixes an ordinal (millesimus) with a cardinal numeral tail; rendered "the number of years, a thousand DCLXVI."
- col 1175B — Tota / Tola. usque ad Tota in one sentence, A Tola quippe in the next; same judge (Tola). Both forms kept.
- col 1175B — Ebesan / Ebesa. usque ad Ebesan then De Ebesa autem; same judge (Ibzan). Both forms kept.
- col 1175B — third-age total. The listed intervals do not sum to the printed DCCCCXLII, nor does DCCCCXLII + the printed second-age cumulative give the printed duo millia DCCCXC. Rendered as printed.
- col 1175C — Joam / Joa. usque ad Joam then A Joa vero; same king (Joash). Both forms kept.
- col 1175C — Zesechiam / Zesechia. Migne's form for Zedekiah, with an initial Z rather than the usual Sedecias; kept as printed, and the two inflections kept distinct.
- col 1175C — Achat. For Ahaz (usually Achaz); kept as printed.
- col 1175D — fourth-age arithmetic. The intervals listed exceed the printed total CCCCLXXXIII by a wide margin, and III M CCCLXIII does not follow from the earlier cumulative. Rendered as printed.
- col 1176A — fifth-age total. Printed DLXXX and cumulative III M DCCCCLII do not reconcile with the listed intervals. Rendered as printed.
Chunk 0001
- col 1179B → 1180A (anchor gap). After
[1179B]the next anchor is[1180A]; columns 1179C–D are absent from the chunk. Reproduced as printed. - annal DCCLVIII printed twice. The annal for Pippin in Saxony is DCCLVIII, and then after DCCLXVII the death of Waifar and of King Pippin is also printed under DCCLVIII — where the sequence requires DCCLXVIII (768, the correct year for both deaths and for the anointing of Charles and Carloman). Printed year kept verbatim; not renumbered.
- col 1177A — Deo pro egente. Printed: et Deo pro egente gubernat usque in praesentem annum feliciter. Every word here is a real Latin form — Deo (dat./abl. of Deus), pro + abl., egente (abl. of egens, "needy") — so all three are rendered as printed: "and to God, for the needy one, governs it prosperously down to the present year." The clause is not construable as it stands: Deo is stranded outside the prepositional phrase and gubernat has no expressed object. The intended reading is almost certainly the ablative absolute Deo propitiante ("God being favorable"), a formula the annalistic register uses freely, with pro egente a compositor's misreading of propitiante; pro indigente is a weaker alternative. An earlier draft blended both conjectures into the running text ("by God's help … for the needy"); that has been withdrawn.
- col 1176D — unus fit annus. The chronicle's own formula elsewhere is fit annus I; here spelled out. Rendered "there comes one year."
- col 1177B — Radbodus / Radbodus obiit. Consistent; no crux, noted only because the neighboring Frankish names shift between Karolus, Karlus, Carlus, and Carolus within a few lines. All rendered "Charles"; the Latin variance is preserved in the twin chunk only.
- col 1178C — violavit Toringos. Printed: Carlus violavit Toringos pro eorum culpis. violavit is rendered by its own sense, "violated the Thuringians," though the annal plainly means a punitive expedition and the chronicle's register would ordinarily use vastavit or edomuit. An earlier draft rendered it "chastised"; that softening has been withdrawn — the loose usage is the chronicler's and belongs on the page.
- col 1178D — ille gelus fuit pessimus alius. Awkward word order ("that other frost was a very bad one"), picking up the frost of DCCLXIII; gelus for gelu is the chronicle's own form. Kept.
- col 1178D — Wulzis in Wenedonia. The Wiltzes among the Wends; place-name forms kept close to the printed Latin.
- col 1179A — hospites capitaneos mille DC. hospites here means hostages, not guests (cf. DCCLXXVII dederunt hospites); mille DC kept in the printed mixed form.
- col 1180A — ad Confflem. Doubled ff; the place is Confluentes (Koblenz). Kept in the printed form, transliterated as "Confluentes."
- col 1180B — in Fereda. Unidentified; left untranslated as printed.