ABSTRACT
Having already dedicated a corrected version of the by now lost original manuscript of Gesta Hammaburgensis to Archbishop Liemar in 1075, Adam of Bremen continued modifying the text until 1081, possibly even until 1085. His revisionary work consisted predominantly in the incorporation of so-called scholia: additional comments, noted in the margin of the manuscript or integrated into the main text. Eventually, those earliest annotations were subject to dynamic alterations by later scribes and editors according to their own ecclesiastical and highly political agenda. In the light of their ambiguous authorship and partly contradictory content, this chapter aims to explore how medieval and modern scholarly tradition approached and perceived the scholia within a plethora of editions and translations over the course of a millennium. Through contrasting and contextualizing the manuscript transmission, special emphasis in this paper is placed on the environment in which the scholia were produced and deliberately eliminated. This, in turn, permits one to draw conclusions regarding the multi-faceted scribal motifs, intentions, and reading practices that were immanent to medieval and modern scholiastic activity.
