THE proportion of medieval manuscripts that have survived to the present day may be higher than we realise. So says a palaeontologist who has applied population growth models to the study of ancient texts.
John Cisne at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, wondered if treating manuscripts as an ancient population might help predict their survival. He studied the Venerable Bede鈥檚 blockbuster science textbook De Temporum Ratione. It was written in AD 725 but remained popular well into the 16th century.
Cisne reasoned that manuscripts, like organisms, can reproduce (by being copied) or die (by being destroyed). So he used a well-known birth-and-death model to predict the growth and decline of the 鈥減opulation鈥� of texts. Current estimates put the proportion of surviving medieval texts at 1 in 7, but Cisne鈥檚 model puts it closer to 2 in 7 (Science, vol 307, p 1305). 鈥淚t suggests that the sample is more complete than we realised,鈥� he says.
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But Eliza Glaze, who studies ancient medical manuscripts at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina, cautions that 鈥渢he history of manuscripts isn鈥檛 quite as simple as the model assumes鈥�. Texts, unlike creatures, are often only partially copied or destroyed, for example.
