A textual détournement: from Paul the Deacon's Liber de episcopis Mettensibus to the Vita Clementis

This article considers the question of textual variation and its effects on manuscript dissemination in the Middle Ages by examining the reframing of Paul the Deacon's Liber de episcopis Mettensibus at the end of the tenth century. Originally written by Paul at the request of Angilram, bishop of Metz, to promote the leading role of Metz in the Carolingian kingdom, the monks of the abbey of Saint-Clement appropriated the text and interpolated the opening section on Clement, the first bishop of Metz, to fix his cult at the abbey and thereby prevent episcopal attempts to transfer the saint's body to the cathedral. It was in this interpolated form that the Liber found its most extensive audience. This example sheds light on the process by which, in medieval manuscript culture, the continual actualization of texts – combining reinscription and reinterpretation – created the conditions governing their circulation.