A while back I remember being horrified by a post at Vaulting and Vellum on the defacement of illuminated manuscripts. When you work on less visually elaborate and aesthetically pleasing sources, say administrative letters for the sake of argument, the chance of that kind of sin being perpetrated on your materials is much lower. What is much more common in this scenario is the source which has been damaged by the attempts of past scholars, editors and archivists to read it.
Like this:

Kew, TNA, SC 1/3/106. Apparently a letter from Thomas fitz Alan to Henry III, c. 1220. Luckily in this case the text was printed by both Prynne and Shirley, because good luck making anything of it now… Photo by Kathleen Neal
A significant number of thirteenth century letters in the SC 1 collection bear similar evidence of chemical agents having been applied at some time to increase the contrast of ink on parchment. Happily in most cases only small portions of the text are affected, typically at the edges, and often UV can help you see through the murk… if you happen to be in Kew with the original in front of you, that is. When you’re forced to rely on digital reproductions from several thousand miles away, it gets your goat to find that some element of dictaminal rhetoric vital for your argument has been obliterated, to all intents and purposes, by otherwise well-meaning predecessors, some of whom helpfully calendared the contents but failed to reproduce them in entirety. One of these days I will tabulate all the examples of this defacement in SC 1 and by correlating them with editions or scholarship of certain authors point a stern and censorious finger at likely culprits. For now I simply say, “Curse you, Oh archivists of the past!”
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December 30, 2012 at 9:03 am
Medieval, Military, and History News of Interest… « Venti Belli: The Winds of War
[…] out of this notice about Edwarrd I’s correspondence. And I completely sympathize with her lament about the damage past archivists have inflicted on documents. Also, her slide illustrating the conciliar origins of Martin Luther is definitely […]
January 8, 2013 at 9:59 am
Jonathan Jarrett
What a fabulous piece of procrastination! I recommend not even thinking about that till the thesis is being read by someone. Then it might be just the thing… Meanwhile, strength to your metaphorical pen!
January 8, 2013 at 10:00 am
Kathleen Neal
Point taken, oh voice of my conscience! 😉
January 8, 2013 at 10:18 am
Jonathan Jarrett
Good gracious, Kath, if I’m the voice of your conscience you’re in dire need of better moral guidance!
January 8, 2013 at 2:07 pm
Kathleen Neal
Perhaps I should say the Ghost of Thesis Yet to Come?
January 9, 2013 at 1:24 am
Jonathan Jarrett
<duly rattles chains>
Keep writing! oooooohhhh…