BII. Why a database?
This is not currently part of the peer-reviewed material of the project. Do not cite as a research publication.
As explained in Skårup 1979, the quires of the original translation were muddled up at an early stage in the transmission, such that later copyists were faced with the difficulty of making sense of a muddled narrative sequence, and attempts to remedy this situation explain some of the differences between the Old Norse and the Old French texts.
The ON texts are grouped in segments in relation to the laisse of the Old French original, thus the user can choose which order he/she wishes to view the transmission, either as it is now, in a 'confused' order as it has come down to us, or in approximately the more ordered sequence which reflects the narrative sequence of the Old French. Where there are structural differences between the two main ON manuscript the user can also choose which of the two should determine the order in which segments are presented (e.g. between the equivalents of R409-R413). The database implementation also allows for a considerably improved overview of what could otherwise be a somewhat impenetrable transmission.