Stemmatics and the Arthurian Prose Romance Editions

Stemmatics, that is the branch of philology concerned with analysing the relationship of surviving variant versions of a text to each other, is not a common tool in the study of the manuscript traditions of Arthurian Old-French Prose Romances. Moreover, the lack of faith in the method has often led to its being implemented unsatisfactorily. However, it would be possible to proceed differently in applying stemmatics to this type of textual tradition, and it could be very useful in order to understand the genesis of texts, their reconstruction, or their reception. Evidence is given from the editions of the most important romances, such as the Lancelot-Grail-Cycle, the Prose Tristan and the Guiron-Cycle.