When historians examined the medieval manuscript in 2018, they discovered that scribes ______ several pages from an even earlier version...

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• When historians examined the medieval manuscript in 2018,
  • they discovered
    • that scribes [?] several pages
      • from an even earlier version
        • dating to the 12th century.

• Where [?] = will copy / had copied / have copied / copy

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start from the beginning:

'When historians examined the medieval manuscript in 2018'

• This sets up a specific time: 2018
• Historians were looking at an old medieval manuscript

'they discovered'

• This is what the historians found out during their 2018 examination
• They learned something new

Now we reach the blank:

'that scribes ______ several pages from an even earlier version dating to the 12th century'

This is where we need to fill in the blank. Let's look at our choices:

• will copy (future)
• had copied (past perfect)
• have copied (present perfect)
• copy (simple present)

To see what tense works here, let's understand the complete timeline. Let me read the rest carefully:

'from an even earlier version dating to the 12th century'

• The pages came from a version that dates back to the 12th century
• This means the scribes were copying from something very old

Now let's think about the timeline here:

• The 12th century: when the original version existed
• Some time after that: when scribes copied pages from that 12th-century version into the medieval manuscript
• 2018: when historians examined the manuscript and discovered this copying

What do we notice about the structure here?

• We have two events, both in the past:
  • First event (earlier): The scribes copied the pages
  • Second event (later): The historians discovered this in 2018

• When we're talking about two past events, and one happened before the other:
  • We use "had + past participle" for the event that happened first
  • This shows the sequence clearly

So we need had copied - this shows that the scribes' copying happened before the historians' discovery in 2018.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Showing the Sequence of Two Past Events

When you have two events that both happened in the past, and you need to show that one happened before the other, use the past perfect tense (had + past participle, called past perfect in grammar terms) for the earlier event:

Pattern:

• Earlier past event: had + past participle
• Later past event: simple past tense

Example 1:

• By the time I arrived (later past), the concert had ended (earlier past).
• First: concert ended
• Second: I arrived

Example 2:

• The archaeologists discovered (later past) that ancient builders had used (earlier past) advanced techniques.
• First: builders used techniques
• Second: archaeologists discovered this

In our question:

• First event (earlier): scribes had copied pages
• Second event (later): historians discovered this in 2018

The past perfect "had copied" makes it clear that the copying happened before the discovery.