of _Π_, not merely to its _scriptura continua_, a source of misunderstanding that any majuscule would present, but to the fading of the writing on the flesh side of the pages in _Π_, and to the possibility that some of the corrections of the second hand may be the private inventions of that hand.[42] We are hampered, of course, by the comparatively small amount of matter in _Π_, nor are we absolutely certain that this is characteristic of the entire manuscript of which it was once a part. But my reasoning is correct, I believe, for the material at our disposal. [Footnote 42: See above, pp. 48 f.] [Sidenote: _The probable stemma_] Our tentative stemma thus far, then, is No. 1 below, not No. 2 and not No. 3. No. 1 No. 2 No. 3 _Π_ _Π_ _X_ | | / \ | | / \ _Π¹_ _Π¹_ / \ / \ | _X¹_ _Π_ / \ | / \ _B_ \ _B_ / \ _F_ | _B_ \ | _F_ _F_ Robbins put _P_ in the position of _Π_ in this last stemma, but on the assumption that it did not contain the indices. That is not true of _Π_. [Sidenote: _Further consideration of the external history of P, Π, and B_] Still further evidence is supplied by the external history of our manuscripts. _B_ was at Beauvais at the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century, as we have seen.[43] Whatever the uncertainties as to its origin, any palaeographer would agree that it could hardly have been written before the middle of the ninth century or after the middle of the tenth. It was undoubtedly produced in France, as was _F_, its sister manuscript. The presumption is that _Π_¹, the copy intervening between _Π_ and _B_, was also French, and that _Π_ was in France when the copy was made from it. Merrill, for what reason I fail to see, suggested that the original of _BF_ might be “Lombardic,” written in North Italy.[44] An extraneous origin of this sort must be proved from the character of the errors, such as spellings and the false resolution of abbreviations, made by _BF_. If no such signs can be adduced, it is natural to suppose that _Π_¹ was of the same nationality and general tendencies as its copies _B_ and _F_. This consideration helps out the possible evidence furnished by the scribbling in a hand of the Carolingian variety on fol. 53v;[45] we may now be more confident that it is French rather than Italian. But whatever the history of our book in the early Middle Ages, in the fifteenth century it was surely near Meaux, which is not far from Paris--about as far to the east as Beauvais is to the north. Now, granted for a moment that the last of our stemmata is correct, _X_,