Abstract
Using the example of "creative copies" of Ulricus Crux de Telcz (1434-1504), this paper addresses the theme of intervention in late medieval "editorial practice". Ulricus was a university student, teacher, priest and eventually Augustinian canon in the canonry of Třeboň (Wittingau, Southern Bohemia).
During his life he partly gathered and partly copied over 30 codices. He seems to have never simply copied a text, he always appropriated it, and the degree of his intervention is so high that in some cases it could be argued that he is actually authoring a new text.
Although treating medieval manuscript copies as editions may be easily attacked, in this case it can also be justified: Crux was a busybody who gathered all curious texts he encountered but he also added tables of contents to his codices, explanatory notes, corrections of the texts and various directions for the reader - he mediated the texts to his readers, adjusted them and tried to control their reception - just as an editor. At the same time, the degree of his intervention is striking even within the context of manuscript culture.
A particular example will be presented, that of a Latin version of the letter from heaven on keeping Sunday, which Ulricus sems to have re-written/"edited" in a particularly striking way. Although Ulricusʼs copies would be immediately discarded by modern editors as "bad" witnesses, they provide precious information on late medieval manuscript culture, particular interests and preferences of a specific individual, as well as the social, cultural and religious preoccupations and dispositions of the time.
While concentrating on this yearʼs ESTS topic, this paper also aims to present the topic of the 2018 ESTS annual meeting in Prague, "Editor as Author, and Author as Editor".