This article discusses A. Varvaro’s methodological objections (MR, XXXIV 2010, pp. 145-52) against Croenen's stemmatological analysis of the textual tradition of Book III of Froissart’s Chronicles. C. argues against Varvaro that stemmatics is also useful for textual history and book history, which has implications for how stemmatological research is to be carried out. A text-historical approach to Froissart’s Chronicles is interested in all witnesses, not just in those that allow the reconstruction of authorial readings. In the case of Froissart’s Book III we have witnesses descended from two authorial redactions. Readings common to witnesses of both redactions must be authorial (original); alternative readings in these variant places are therefore non-original readings that can be used to define textual families.

A final note by A. Varvaro confirms his disagreement.