Successful emendation requires a rare union of qualifications - insight, prudence, patience and familiarity with the author emended and the conditions of his text.
In the sense that they already existed and came ready-made to the prince's hand, it is legitimate to speak of these customs as a popular law, a Volksrecht; but it was the prince who gave them force of law, emended them, and rejected such of the ancient usages as appeared to him antiquated.
He also collected and emended valuable MSS., which his monks were instructed to copy, and superintended the translation of various Greek works into Latin.
According to this, as emended by a later Gildebrief of 1347, the existing board of seven Schepenen were to retain office for life, but the new ones, elected yearly, were in future to be chosen by the Raad either in or outside the gilds.
In 797 Charlemagne commissioned Alcuin to prepare an emended text of the Vulgate; copies of this text were multiplied, not always accurately, in the famous writingschools at Tours.