Philological Missing Links: The “*-Manuscripts” in the Stemma of the German Translation of Lanfranc’s Chirurgia magna

Although less widely circulated than the Chirurgia parva, Lanfranc of Milan’s Chirurgia magna was also frequently translated into vernacular languages. In the High German linguistic area, only one East Upper German complete version of the work is known and preserved in three manuscript copies. However, philological analysis of the textual relationships between these manuscript witnesses suggests the existence of at least three additional copies that have since been lost. These hypothetical manuscripts have been incorporated into the stemma codicum and marked with an asterisk. This study focuses on these “asterisk-manuscripts,” examining them through a philological comparison of the extant copies. By analyzing textual variations, it aims to shed light on how each of these lost manuscripts may have contributed to shaping the currently preserved German translation of Lanfranc’s Chirurgia magna.