ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on chronological distribution, physical appearance and textual fossilisation. However, it is necessary to set out approach to the body of surviving manuscripts. First, the nationalistic climate of nineteenth-century Germany led scholars to prejudge the central theme of the text. Second, and more importantly, the nineteenth-century edition ignores most of the extant manuscripts. The reasons behind the Tiburtina's popularity in the medieval period can be explored in various ways. Hence even in manuscripts of a highly miscellaneous nature author can still draw on the texts placed immediately around the Tiburtina for an indication of medieval approaches to the Tiburtina. By adducing additional evidence from a much wider chronological and geographical range, however, the chapter demonstrates that the early English material represents approaches to the Tiburtina which were much more widespread in the Middle Ages than previously believed.
