Orthographic Errors
One common type of error in Western MS 097 is the incorrect spelling of a word. While Latin spelling in the Middle Ages was not always uniform, and certain words could be spelled in a number of ways, there are many occasions on which the scribe wrote something unmistakably innaccurate.
These errors are often minor and involve the omission, or occasionally the additon, of a letter. For example, sometimes the scribe writes an existing Latin word whose spelling is very close to that of the word that he or she should have written, suggesting that the scribe had a non-expert level of familiarity with the language.
On fol. 4v, the scribe has written "velunt" instead of "velut." While "velunt" is a Latin word, it does not make sense within the context of the sentence ("qui deducis velut ovem Joseph").
The correct version of the text would read "sanctificatus," but here the scribe has written "sanctificauit" - a perfectly correct conjugation of the verb "sanctificare," although illogical in the phrase ("Dies sanctificatus illuxit nobis"). The extra pen stroke above the "u" might indicate that the scribe was not sure which to write.
The word at the end of the first line beginning with the decorated initial is "Virgo," a word that commonly appears in Latin prayers to Mary and various female saints. The text, however, should read "Virga." In the context of the full phrase" (Virga tua, et baculus tuus, ipsa me consolata sunt"), "virgo" does not make sense. The scribe might therefore have written "virgo" because he or she was familiar with this word while not understanding the meaning of the whole sentence.
Other times, the scribe's spelling would not have dramatically changed the way that the word was pronounced orally. Perhaps the scribe could have known how the chants would have sounded out loud and thus written down what he or she recalled hearing or singing.
"Dextera meam" should be "dexteram meam." Either the scribe forgot (or wasn't proficient enough in Latin to know) the case agreement of the two words, or he or she did not think to write the final "m" on "dextera" because the next word begins with "m," rendering both versions audibly indistinguishable.
While "supennis" is not a Latin word, its pronunciation would have been almost identical to "sub pennis," which is what should have been written here.
In some instances the error is not orthographical but rather grammatical; that is, the scribe has written the correct word but in the wrong tense, case, or gender.
Here, "a templo sancta" should be "a templo sancto;" the gender of the adjective ought to agree with that of the noun.
The text here reads "iudicium meu(m) prodeant oculi tui." "Prodeant" should be the third-person singular "prodeat," as "iudicium meum" is the singular subject. Perhaps the scribe though that this verb refers to the plural "oculi tui"?
There are also some obvious mistakes in the spelling of common words that the scribe has written correctly in other places in the manuscript. In these cases, the error appears to have arisen simply from carelessness, rather than because the scribe did not know how a word was supposed to be spelled.
For example, here the scribe has omitted an "n" in "secundum."
"Sunt" has here been rendered as "sut." There seems to be a pattern of omitting letters composed of minims, particularly n's.
At times, the error can be quite conspicuous. On the very first folio of the manuscript, the scribe has written "Glaria" instead of "Gloria," a common word which is spelled correctly elsewhere. The fact that the error occurs in the first instance of the word, however, raises questions: could he or she have initially thought the word was spelled "glaria" due to the similarity between the short A and short O sounds? Or did the mistake arise simply from a lack of attention to detail?
The word "alleluya," also occasionally spelled in the manuscript as "alleluia," occurs dozens of times. However, in this instance the scribe has written "allaluya." Many of us can relate to having to perform a repetitive action (such as writing a word) so many times that one stops paying close notice to what one is doing!