0 a version of a text, especially a historical text, that has been revised (= changed and improved) by someone examining and judging it carefully :
The Historia Brittonum is a historical work that was first composed around 830, and that exists in several recensions.
The process of recension has reduced the number of texts having a claim to be considered authoritative.
His shorter and snappier expurgated recension became the only one known.
An alternative recension of the Translatio emphasizes the similarities between the new crypt at San Martino and that at St Peter's.
Its object was to devise a style of recension appropriate to the special circumstances under which early printed texts were produced.
The Lachmannian formula of recension was applied to texts, classical as well as medieval.
Whether the same person wrote the second, vulgate recension remains undetermined.
Commentators were using the fuller, second recension perhaps as early as 1150, certainly before 1158.
The four manuscripts that represent what he considers the first recension of the work comprise almost 2,000 canons, while the received, or vulgate, version of the text contains nearly 4,000.
There are several recensions of it, dating to between 7th and 11th centuries.
