The creation of texts can take various forms. One seemingly obvious method is to copy an already existing text. The material evidence of this practice in Antiquity and the Middle Ages constitutes the foundation of our knowledge of ancient textual cultures. A partial copy can also be the basis for further work on the material: shortening or adding, expanding, rearranging, or re-collecting are only a few possible ways of dealing with pre-texts. Some texts enclose their pre-texts, as we can see for instance in medieval commentary literature. Some texts quote their pre-texts, some allude to them thematically. Some texts are devoted entirely to their pre-texts, others use them only incidentally and as part of a broader scheme. With such different methods of production also comes a variety of genres in which we can find evidence of them: commentaries, compendia, collections, translations, and encyclopaedias as well as re-narrations of historical and literary material are all examples of texts that rely on predecessors although they differ in many other ways. We can identify the connecting phenomenon of these texts: they all acknowledge the norm set by another entity. We call this phenomenon heteronomy.

More information can be found in the following link: https://www.heteronome-texte.de/en/events/recreate-towards-a-theory-of-heteronomous-texts/ and in this pdf.