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13 UN DfiBAT : LES MENTAUTES COLLBCTIVES 643

Vlad Bo(nlescu and Samuel Micu — came from another source and full-filled another function.³⁹

The modality of the interaction of the copyists with the writings called today “popular books”, suggests that they were not perceptible as parts of a unitary category. Between the manner of reproducing the pages of Arćhirie and Anadan or of Yarlaam and Ioasaf there is a diffe-rence imposed rather by their content tkań by the time and place of the execution of copies or by the copyists’ tastes.

The alterations are not limited, as we said before, to the “popular” texts; they also appear in historiography, in a representatiye way, by their freąuency and extension.

The interyentions of Simion Dascalul in Grigore Ureche’s chronicie roused the indignation of the immediate foliower, Miron Costin, and of others who came after him.⁴⁰ These interyentions and confusions provoked by the attribution of patemity have arrested the attention of observant readers, sińce they could be used by ill-intended people against the Bo-manians, and they were operating against a writer. They represented, however, only a reflection of a generaUy spread custom considered normal when examining a text without a certain authorship, formed by successive additions, as for instance the Letopisetul Cantacuzinesc (the Cantacuzino Ohronicle).⁴¹ From phonetics to the epic units, the number of yersions reaches a baffling ąuantity, the interyentions being morę freąuent than in the Alexandria text, possibly to be compared with those operated on the tale of Arćhirie and Anadan. Even when the scribe resorted to the self-same source of additions (Heltai, Mathew of Myra, Stavrinos, Gheorghe Brancovici, Badu Greceanu), he did not reproduce — mostly — the fragment taken from a forerunner; he paid attention to a certain source, no w cutting off a passage, now adding another. The lack of a uniąue signifi-cant author that might have put his unmistakable mark upon the narrative, madę the scribes sometimes alter even the very structure of the chronicie and impose, as self evident, the condition of anonymity. The additions, eliminations and inyersions in the order of fragments are only apparently chaotic. They actually derive from certain trend s which mark the cultu-ral profile of the chronological stage that have passed. Even in diverse folk genres (tale, legend, ballad), the formation of yersions is bound by certain rules which restrict the fields of intervention, only apparently unlimited.

Letopisetul Cantacuzinesc is a limit case, but not an exception. Interyentions of yarious extension and at different leyels appear in the text of all chronicles, from the annals in Stephen the Great’s time up to the

*• To the titles cited In Błbl. c.p., we must add: Felix Karlinger, Einfilhrung in die romanische Yolksllteralur, Munchen, 1969; Dan Horia Mazilu, Udrlęte N&sturel, Bucure?tl, 1974; Enzyklopddie des Mdrchtns, article hy Irmgard Lackner; Felix Karlinger, Irmgard Lackner, Romantsehe VolksbQcher. p. 23—97.

⁴⁰    We mentlon also Dumltru Velciu's monograpb Grigore Ureche, Bucureętl, 1979.

⁴¹    Isloria T&ril Romdne$ti. 1290—1690. Letopisetul Cantacuzinesc, critlcal edltlon by €. Grecescu and Dan Stmonescu, Bucuregtl, 1960; Rodlca $uiu, Letopisetul cantacuzinesc In Diet. lit. rom. (generał presentatlon and bibllography).