Editing The Scale of Perfection: Return to Recension.

The corrupt state of both the B archetype and the B manuscript used for the C revision rendered recension non-viable to K-D, who established the most likely reading at any point by determining the most likely direction of error. Conjectural emendation, however, includes emendation of unalliterative or less normatively alliterative lines and determination of appropriateness of style to context. Some B “restorations” not preserved in any manuscript were adopted because they exemplified scribal habits demonstrated elsewhere. Convergent error and conflation occur in manuscripts of the Scale of Perfection, but the presence of large sub-groups makes convergent error more easily identifiable and hence less significant.