The name given by Westcott and Hort to a type of text of the Greek NT which they felt to be near the original autograph. They distinguished the Western text as a clearly separate stream and saw the [[Neutral Text]] as sharing a common ancestor with the Alexandrian, but being free from later corruption and mixture. The two leading representatives were Codex Vaticanus (B) and Codex Sinaiticus (X), and when these two agreed Westcott and Hort thought themselves to be very near the original reading. They never rejected such readings unless there were strong reasons for preferring something else. Most textual critics today think their dependence upon these two MSS to have been excessive.