23-10-2017, 11:17 AM
I don't think that he was uncomfortable with the name itself. I think he was uncomfortable with whether the source from which he copied the spell had it as "maria" or "ma ria". If there were crosses in the original, he would have just copied those without hesitation, and no doubts would have arisen. Probably the original was "plain text" - without crosses - so he just copies it "as is", and then places crosses wherever he thinks appropriate. What is a bit strange in this respect is that there is no cross after "anchiton"; if "carcere" is a single word, then "anchiton oladabas" is the only place where two words are not separated by a cross. So he sees something like "ma ria" and wonders whether there is a space in between - much like we now wonder whether there is a space between "car" and "cere". First, he thinks that "maria" is a single word, since it sounds natural. An he puts it down as such. But later he decides to correct it in order to be closer to the source, and marks them as two separate words by inserting a cross in between. To mark this "ma" as dubious, he puts those dots. Interestingly, to all appearance, "ria" is unquestioned by him, because dots clearly lead to "ma".