GREEK AND LATIN PALAEOGRAPHYHANDBOOK op GREEK AND LATIN PAL^OGEAPHY bt SIR EDWARD MAUNDE THOMPSON, K.C.B., I.S.O. D.C.L., LL.D./7.P.S.A., F.B.A.; honorary fellow of university college, oxford; correspondent of the institute of france, and of the royal prussian academy of sciences; and director and principal librarian of the british museum TRIED EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS AND COBREOTIONB LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. Ltd. Dryden House, 43, Gerrard Street 1906TO MY FRIEND LEOPOLD DELISLE MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE AND ADMINISTRATOR.GENERAL OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FRANCE.PREFACE. This Hand-book does not pretend to give more than an outline of the very large subject of Greek and Latin Palasography. It must be regarded as an introduction to the study of the subject, indicating the different branches into which it is divided and suggesting the lines to be followed, rather than attempting full instruction. It in no way supersedes the use of such works as the collections of facsimiles issued by the Pal geographical Society and by other societies and scholars at home and abroad; but it is hoped that it will serve as an aid to the more intelligent and profitable study of them. Our conclusions as to the course of development of the handwritings of former ages are based on our knowledge and experience of the development of modern forms of writing. Children at school learn to write by copying formal text-hands in their copy-books, and the handwriting of each child will bear the impress of the models. But as he grows up the child developes a handwriting of his own, diverging more and more from the models, but never altogether divesting itself of their first influence. Thus, at all times, we have numerous individual handwritings, but each bearing the stamp of its school and of its period; and they, in their turn, react upon and modify the writing of the next generation. In this way have arisen the handwritings of nationsviii Preface. and districts, of centuries and periods, all distinguishable from eacli other by the trained eye. And the faculty of distinction is not entirely, but to a very great degree, dependent on familiarity. Anyone will readily distinguish the handwritings of individuals of his own time, and will recognize his friend's writing at a glance as easily as he recognizes his face; he has more difficulty in discriminating between the individual handwritings of a foreign country. Set before him specimens of the writing of the last century, and he will confuse the hands of different persons. Take him still farther back, and he will pronounce the writing of a whole school to be the writing of one man; and he will see no difference between the hands, for example, of an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Fleming. Still farther back, the writing of one century is to him the same as the writing of another, and he may fail to name the locality where a MS. was written by the breadth of a whole continent. PalEeographical knowledge was formerly confined to a few, chiefly to the custodians or owners of collections of manuscripts; works of reference on the subject were scarce and expensive; and facsimiles, with certain exceptions, were of no critical value. In these days, when photography has made accurate reproduction so simple a matter, the knowledge is within the reach of all who care to acquire it. The collections of facsimiles which have been issued during the last twenty years have brought into the private study materials which the student could formerly have gathered only by travel and personal research. And more than this: these facsimiles enable us to compare, side by side, specimens from manuscripts which lie scattered in the different libraries of Europe and which could never have been brought together. There is no longer any lack orPreface. ix material for the ready attainment of palseographical knowledge. Abroad, this attainment is encouraged in various countries by endowments and schools. In our own country, where the development of such studies is usually left to private exertion and enterprise, Palaeography has received but little notice in the past. In the future, however, it will receive better recognition. In the Universities its value has at length been acknowledged as a factor in education. The mere faculty of reading an ancient MS. may not count for much, but it is worth something. The faculty of assigning a date and locality to an undated codex; of deciding between the true and the false; in a word, of applying accurate knowledge to minute points—a faculty which is only to be acquired by long and careful training—is worth much, and will give a distinct advantage to the scholar who possesses it. I have to thank my colleague, Mr. G. F. Warner, the Assistant-Keeper of the Department of MSS., for kind help in passing this work through the press. E. M. T, British Museum, 14th December, 1892.NOTE TO THE THIBD EDITION. After an interval of thirteen years, a third edition of this Handbook is called for. I am very conscious of the imperfections of the work; and it seems to me that the time has arrived for a wider and fuller treatment of the subject. The publishers, however, are satisfied that the Handbook is still found useful in its present stereotyped form. Therefore, at their request, I have merely printed some additions and corrections at the end of the text, together with a revised list of the principal palaeographical and diplomatic works brought down to the present time. E. M. T. British Museum, 2Ath February, 1906.CONTENTS. % pa as Chapter I.—History of the Greek and Latin Alphabets . 1 Chapter II.—Materials used to receive writing: Leaves— Bark—Linen—Clay and Pottery—Wall-spaces—Metals —Lead—Bronze—Wood—Waxen and other Tablets— Greek Waxen Tablets—Latin Waxen Tablets . . 12 Chapter III.—Materials used to receive writing (continued): Papyrus—Skins—Parchment and Yellum—Paper . 27 Chapter IV.—Writing implements : Stilus, pen, etc.—Inks —Various implements ... .... 48 Chapter V—Forms of Books : The Roll—The Codex—The Text—Punctuation—Accents, etc.—Palimpsests . . 54 Chapter VI.—Stichometry—Tachygraphy—Cryptography 78 Chapter VII.—Abbreviations and Contractions—Numerals 86 Chapter VIII.—Greek Palaeography : Papyri—Antiquity of Greek writing—Divisions of Greek Palaeography . 107 Chapter IX.—Greek Palaeography (continued): The Literary or Book-Hand in Papyri......118 Chapter X.—Greek Palaeography {continued) : Cursive writing in Papyri, etc.—Forms of cursive letters . . 130 Chapter XI.— Greek Palaeography (continued): Uncial writing in vellum MSS........149 Chapter XII.—Greek Palaeography (continued) : Minuscule writing in the Middle Ages—Greek writing in Western Europe..........159 Chapter XIII.—Latin Palaeography: Majuscule writing— Square Capitals—Rustic Capitals—Uncials . . . 183 Chapter XIV.—Latin Palteography {continued): Mixed Uncials and Minuscules—Half-uncials j 196XIV Contents. Chapter XY.—Latin Palaeography (continued) : Roman Cursive writing ........ 203 Chapter XVI.—Latin Palaeography (conlinued) : Minuscule writing — Lombardic writing — Yisigothic writing — Merovingian writing—The Caroline reform . . . 217 Chapter XYII.—Latin Palaeography (continued): Irish writing—English writing before the Norman Conquest 236 Chapter XYIII.—Latin Palaeography (continued) : The Literary or Book-Hand in the Middle Ages—The English Book-Hand in the Middle Ages ..... 257 Chapter XIX.—Latin Palaeography {continued) : Cursive writing—The Papal Chancery—The Imperial Chancery —English Charter-hand — English Chancery-hand — English Court-hand............293 Additions and Corrections . ... . 321 Works of Paleography and Diplomatic . . 339 Ihdex ... . ... 353 TABLES OF ALPHABETS. Derivation of Greek and Latin Alphabets . To face page 10 Greek Cursive Alphabets . • „ >, 1-48 Latin Cursive Alphabets . » .» 216PALZEOGBAPHY. CHAPTER I. the greek and latin alphabets, Although the task 'which lies before us of investigating the growth and changes of Greek and Latin palaeography does not require us to deal with any form of writing till long after the alphabets of Greece and Rome had assumed their final shapes, yet a brief sketch of the origin and formation of those alphabets is the natural introduction to such a work as this. The alphabet which we use at the present day has been traced back, in all its essential forms, to the ancient hieratic writing of Egypt of about the twenty-fifth century before Christ. It is directly derived from the Roman alphabet; the Roman, from a local form of the Greek; the Greek, from the Phoenician; the Phoenician, from the Egyptian hieratic. The hieroglyphic records of Egypt extend through a period of from four to five thousand years, from the age of the second dynasty to the period of the Roman Empire. Knowing the course through which other primitive forms of writing have passed, we must allow a considerable period of time to have elapsed before the hieroglyphs had assumed the phonetic values which they nlready possess in the earliest existing monuments. Originally these signs were ideograms or pictures, either actual or symbolical, of tangible objects or abstract B2 Paleography. ideas which they expressed. From the ideograms in course of time developed the phonograms, or written symbols of sounds, first as verbal signs representing entire words, then as syllabic signs of the articulations of which words are composed. The last stage of development, whereby the syllabic signs are at length taken as the alphabetical signs representing the elementary sounds into which a syllable can be resolved, has always proved the most difficult. Some forms of writing, such as the ancient cuneiform and the modern Chinese, have scarcely passed beyond the syllabic stage. The Egyptians curiously went more than half-way in the last perfecting stage; they developed alphabetical signs, but failed to make independent use of them. A phonogram was added to explain the alphabetically-written word, and an ideogram was added to explain the phonogram. It has been truly said that this cumbrous system seems almost inconceivable to us, who can express our thoughts so easily and so surely by six-and-twenty simple signs. The fact, however, remains that the Egyptians had unconsciously invented an alphabet; and they had been in possession of these letters for more than four thousand years before the Christian era. The oldest extant hieroglyphic insciiption is engraved on a tablet, now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, which was erected to the memory of a pries'; who lived in the reign of Sent, a monarch of the second dynasty, whose period has been variously given as 4000 or 4700 B.C. In the cartouche of the king's name three of the alphabetical signs are found, one of which, n, has descended and finds a place in our own alphabet. The age of our first letters may thus be said to number some six thousand years. In addition, it is a moderate computation to allow a thousand years to have elapsed between the first origin of the primaeval picture-writing of Egypt and the matured Form of development seen in the hieroglyphic characters of the earliest monuments. We may without exaggeration allow a still longer period and be within bounds, if we carry -back the invention of Egyptian writing to six or seven thousand years before Christ.The Greek and Latin Alphabets. 3 To trace the connection of the Greek alphabet with the Semitic is not difficult. A comparison of the early forms of the letters sufficiently demonstrates their common origin; and, still, further, the names of the letters and their order in the two alphabets are the same. But to prove the descent of the Semitic alphabet from the Egyptian has been a long and difficult task. Firstly, in outward shape the Egyptian hieroglyphs of the monuments appear to be totally different from the Semitic letters and to have nothing in common with them. Next, their names are different. The names of the Semitic letters are Semitic words, each describing the letter from its resemblance to some particular object, as ctleph an ox, beth a house, and so on. When the Greeks took over the Semitic letters, they also took over their Semitic names; by analogy, therefore, it might be assumed that in adopting the Egyptian letters the Semites would also have adopted the Egyptian names. Thirdly, the order of the letters is different. All these difficulties combined to induce scholars to reject the ancient, though vague, tradition handed down by Greek and Roman writers, that the Phoenicians had originally obtained their letters from Egypt. By recent investigation, however, the riddle has been solved, and the chain of connection between our alphabet and the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing has, beyond reasonable doubt, been completed. The number of alphabetical signs found among the inscriptions on Egyptian monuments has been reckoned at forty-five. Some of these, however, are used only in special cases; others are only alternative forms for signs more commonly employed. The total number of signs ordinarily in use may thus be reduced to twenty-five—a number which agrees with the tradition handed down by Plutarch, that the Egyptians possessed an alphabet of five-and-twenty letters. Until late7y, however, these hieroglyphs had been known only in the set and rigid forms as sculptured on the monuments. In 1859 the French Egyptologist de Rouge made known the results of his study of an ancient cursive form of * i4 Palaeography. hieratic writing in which he had discovered the link connecting the Semitic with the Egyptian alphabet. The document which yielded the most important results was the Pnpyrus Prisse, which was obtained at Thobcs by Mons. Prisse cVAvennes, and was given by him to the Bibliotheque Rationale. The greater part of this papyrus is occupied by a moral treatise composed by Ptah-Hotep, a prince who lived in the reign of a king of the fifth dynasty—not, however, the original, but a copy, which, having been found in a tomb of the eleventh dynasty, is anterior to the period of the Hyksos invasion, and may be assigned to the period about 2500 B.C. The old hieratic cursive character which is employed in this most ancient document is the style of writing which was no doubt made use of in Egypt for ordinary purposes at the time of the Semitic conquest, and, as de Rouge has shown, was taken by the new lords of the country as material wherewith to form an alphabet of their own. But, as has already been remarked, while adopting the Egyptian forms of letters, the Semites did not also adopt their Egyptian names, nor did tliey keep to their order. This latter divergence may be due to the fact that it was a selection that was made from a large number of ideograms and phonograms, and not a complete and established alphabet that was taken over. In the table which accompanies this chapter the ancient hieratic character of the Prisse papyrus may be compared with the early Semitic alphabet of some sixteen hundred years later, and, in spite of the interval of time, their resemblance in very many instances is still wonderfully close. This Semitic alphabet appears to have been employed in the cities and colonies of the Phoenicians and among the-Jews and Moabites and other neighbouring tribes at a period not far removed from the time when the children of Israel sojourned in the land of Egypt. Bible history proves that in patriarchal times the art of writing was unknown to the Jews, b.ut that, when they entered the promised land, they were in possession of it. All evidence goes to prove its acquisition during the Semitic occupation of the Delta; and the diffusion of the newly-The Greek and Latin Alphabets. 5 formed alphabet may have been due to the retreating Hyksos when driven out of Egypt, or to Phoenician traders, or to both.1 The most ancient form of the Phoenician alphabet known to us is preserved in a series of inscriptions which date back to the tenth century B.C. The most important of them is that engraved upon the slab known as the Moabite stone, which records the wars of Mesha, king of Moab, about 890 B.C., against Israel and Edom, and which was discovered in 1868 near the site of Dibon, the ancient capital of Moab. Of rather earlier date are some fragments of a votive inscription engraved on bronze plates found in Cyprus in 1876 and dedicating a vessel to the god Baal of Lebanon. From these and other inscriptions of the oldest type we can construct the primitive Phoenician alphabet of twenty-two letters, as represented in the third column of the table, in a form, however, which must have passed through many stages of modification since it was evolved from the ancient cursive hieratic writing of Egypt. The Greek Alphabet. The Greeks learned the art of writing from the Phoenicians at least as eai'ly as the ninth century B.C.; and it is not improbable that they had acquired it even one or two centuries earlier. Trading stations and colonies of the Phoenicians, pressed at home by the advancing conquests of the Hebrews, were established in remote times in the isliinds and mainlands of Greece and Asia Minor ; and their alphabet of two-and-twenty letters was adopted by the Greeks among whom they settled or with whom they had commercial dealings. It i.s not, however, to be supposed that the Greeks rtceived the alphabet from the Phoenicians at one single place from whence it was passed on throughout Hellas ; but rather at several points of contact from whence it was locally diffused among neighbouring cities and their colonies. Hence we are prepared to find that, while the 1 See Isaac Taylor, The Alphabet, chap. ii. § 8..6 Palaeography. Greek alphabet is essentially one and the same in all parts of Hellas, as springing from one stock, it exhibits certain local peculiarities, partly no doubt inherent from its very first adoption at different centres, partly derived from local influences or from linguistic or other causes. We cannot, then, accept the idea of a Cadmean alphabet, in the sense of an alphabet of one uniform pattern for all Greece. Among the tvvo-and-twenty signs adopted from the Phoenician, four, viz. aleph, he, yod, and ayin, were made to represent the vowel-sounds a, e, i, o, both long and short, the signs for e and o being also employed for the diphthongs ei and ou. The last sound continued to be expressed by the omilcron alone to a comparatively late period in the history of the alphabet. The fifth vowel-sound u was provided for by a new letter, the updlon, which may have been either a modification or " differentiation" of the Phoenician waiv, or derived from a letter of similar form in the Cypriote alphabet. This new letter must have been added almost immediately after the introduction of the Semitic signs, for there is no local Greek alphabet which is without it. Next was felt the necessity for distinguishing long and short e, and in Ionia, the aspirate gradually falling into disuse, the sign H, eta, was adopted to represent long e, probably before the end of the seventh century e.c. About the same time the long o began to be distinguished by various signs, that used by the Ionians, the omega, f1, being apparently either a differentiation of the omilcron, or, as has been suggested, taken from the Cypriote alphabet. The age of the double letter <> and of X and as they appear in the Ionian alphabet, must, as is evident from their position, be older than or at least coeval with omega. With regard to the sibilants, their history is involved in great obscurity. The original Semitic names appear to have become confused in the course of transmission to the Greeks and to have been applied by them to the wrong signs. The name acta appears to correspond to the name isade, but the letter appears to beThe Greek and Latin Alphabets. 7 taken from the letter zayn. Xi, which seems to Ibe the same word as shin, represents the letter samekh. San, which is probably derived from zayn, represents tsade. Sigma, which may be identified with samekh, represents shin. But all these sibilants were not used simultaneously for any one dialect or locality. In the well-known passage of Herodotus (i. 139), where he is speaking of the terminations of Persian names, we are told that they " all end in the same letter, which the Dorians call san and the Ionians sigma." There can bs little doubt that the Dorian san was originally the M-shaped sibilant which is found in the older Dorian inscriptions, as in Thera, Melos, Crete, Corinth and Argos.2 This sibilant is now known to have been derived from the Phoenician letter tsade. In a Greek abecedarium scratched upon a small vase discovered at Formello, near Veii, this letter is seen to occupy the eighteenth place, corresponding to the position of tsade in the Phoenician alphabet. In the damagod Greek alphabet similarly scrawled on the Galassi vase, which was found at Cervetri in 1836, it is formed more closely on the pattern of the Phoenician letter. In the primitive Greek alphabet, therefore, san existed (representing tsade) as well as sigma (representing shin), but as both appear to have had nearly the same sibilant sound, the one or the other became superfluous. In the Ionian alphabet sigma was preferred. But the disuse of the letter san must date far back, for its loss affected the numerical value of the Greek letters. When this value was being fixed, the exclusion of san was overlooked, and the numbers were calculated as though that letter had not existed. The preceding letter pi stands for 80; the koppa for 90, the numerical value of the Phoenician tsade and properly also that of san. At a later period the obsolete letter was re-adopted as the numerical sign for 900, and became the modern sampi (i.e. san+pi), so called from its partial resemblance, in its late form, to the letter pi. J It has also been identified with a T-shaped sign which waa used For a special sound on coins of Hesembria, and at Halicar-nassiis in the fifth century B.C.8 Palaeography. With regard to the local alphabets of Greece, different states and different islands either adopted or developed distinctive signs. Certain letters underwent gradual changes, as eta, from closed B to open H, and theta from crossed ® to the dotted circle O, which forms were common to all the varieties of the alphabet. The most ancient forms of the alphabet are found in Melos, Thera, and Crete, which moreover did not admit the double letters. While some states retained the di gamma or the Icopjpa, others lost them; while some developed particular differentiations to express certain sounds, others were content to express two sounds by one letter. The forms J1 for beta and £ for epsilonave peculiar to Corinth and her colonies; the Argive alphabet is distinguished by its rectangular lambda ; and the same letter appears in the .Boeotian, Chalcidian, and Athenian alphabets in the inverted form ty. But while there are these local differences among the various alphabets of ancient Greece, a broad division has been laid down by Kirchhoff, who arranges them in two groups, the eastern and the western. The eastern group embraces the alphabet which has already been referred to as the Ionian, common to the cities on the western coast of Asia Minor and the neighbouring islands, and the alphabets of Megara, Argos, and Corinth and her colonies ; and, in a modified degree, those of Attica, Naxos, Thasos, and some other islands. The western group includes the alphabets of Thessaly, Euboea, Phocis, Locns, and Pceotia, and of all "the Peloponnesc (excepting the states specified under the other group), and also those of the Achosan aud Chalcidian colonies of Italy and Sicily. In the eastern group the letter Z has the sound of x; and the letters X, the sounds of kh an dp?. (In Attica, Naxos, etc., the letters Z and were wanting, and the sounds x find ps were expressed by X2> In the western group the letter Z is wanting, and X, have the values of x and Jch ; while the sound ps was expressed by nZ or £, or rarely by a special sign In a word, the special test-letters are:—The Greek and Latin Alphabets. 9 Eastern: \ = kh. yr/ = ps. Western : X= x. = hh. How this distinction came about is not known, although several explanations have been hazarded. It is unneces-Bary in this place to do more than state the fact. As the Semitic languages were written from right to left, so in the earliest Greek inscriptions we find the fame order followed. Next came the method of writing called boustrophedon, in which -the written lines run alternately from right to left and from left to right, or vice versa, as the plough forms the furrows. Lastly, writing from left to right became universal. In the most ancient tomb-inscriptions of Melos and Thera we have the earliest form of writing. Boustrophcdon was commonly used in the sixth century b.c. A notable exception, however, is found in the famous Greek inscription at Abu Simbel—the earliest to which a date can be given. It is cut on one of the legs of the colossal statues which guard the entrance of the great temple, and records the exploration of the Nile up to the second cataract by certain Greek, Ionian, and Carian mercenaries in the service of Psammetichus. The king here mentioned may be the first (b.c. 654—G17) or the second (b.c. 594 — 589) of the name. The date of the writing may therefore be roughly placed about 600 b.c. The fact that, besides this inscription, the work of two of the soldiers, the names of several of their comrades are also cut on the rock, proves how well established was the art of writing even at this early period. The Latin Alphabet. Like the local alphabets of Greece, the Italic alphabets varied from one another by the adoption or rejection of different signs, according to the requirements of language. Thus the Latin and Faliscan, the Etruscan, the Umbrian, and the CXsean alphabets are sufficiently distinguished in this way ; but at the same time the common origin of all can be traced to a primitive or so-called Pelasgian alphabet of the Chalcidian type. The period of the introduction ofIO Paleography. writing into Italy from the great trading and colonizing city of Chalcis must be carried back to the time when the Greeks wrote from right to left. A single Latin inscription 3 has been found which is thus written ; and in the other Italic scripts this ancient system was also followed. We may assume, then, that the Greek alphabet was made known to the native tribes of Italy as early as the eighth or ninth century B.C., and not improbably through the ancient Chalcidian colony of Cumas, which tradition named as the earliest Greek settlement in the land. The eventual prevalence of the Latin alphabet naturally followed the political supremacy of Rome. The Latin alphabet possesses twenty of the letters of the Greek western alphabet, and, in addition, three adopted signs. Taking the Formello and Galassi abece-daria as representing the primitive alphabet of Italy, it will be seen that the Latins rejected the letter san and the double letters theta, phi, and chi (+), and disregarded the earlier sign for aIn Quintilian's time letter X was the " ultima nostrarum" and closed the alphabet. The sound z in Latin being coincident with the sound s, the letter zeta dropped out. But at a later period it was restored to the alphabet, as Z, for the purpose of transliteration of Greek words. As, however, its original place had been meanwhile filled by the new letter G, it was sent down to the end of the alphabet. With regard to the creation of G, till the middle of the third century B.C. its want was not felt, as C was employed to represent both the hard c and g sounds,5 a 3 On a small vase found in Rome in 1880. See L'Inscription de Duenos in the Melanges d'Archeologic et d'Histoire of the licolo Fran^aise de Rome, 1882, p. 147. 4 Some of these letters are generally accepted as the origin of certain of the symbols used for the Latin numerals. But a different origin has been lately proposed by Professor Zangemeister : Entslehung der romischen Zahlzeiclien (Sitzber. d. k. Preuss. Akad., 1887). 5 The sound rcpre.'cntecl by C in Latin no doubt also gradually, but at a very early period, became iudistinguishable from that represented by K. Heuce the letter K fell into genera I disuse inE G Y P T I A N PHOENICIAN i O , o o i a a _ K * < a eagle/, b crcuxe/. £ bowt. d hcurudb. h pf/uv of house? J)V cerastes. t(tchp) dxich. JC(kh) sieve, til/ tongs; loop. V leaves. /c throne,>. I lioness. nv owl. Tl> water. S door-bolt, ft weapon.>. p door. t(ts) STLoJce. g lahe& 1 V month. 8 (ah) field. t(tu/) arm> with cakeuvhandj. ra ra / t • (D tlk FE» k £ 2 AWM / s ^ A o TtTtT « aJbeph/ betfv gimeL cLaletfv he wcuw zayin cheth teth yodj Icaph Lamed/ C R f z 5 -S ^ -i to 2 I g E K k IJUJ JUJ sarrveJeh ayirv pe tscuie tfoph re&h shirv tlXLU ADDED LETTERS '. £ 5 1 Y A ® % f 6 1 ) * O 7 fi f w x alpha beta/ gamma/ delta epsiLow diffammcu zetou etaj thetou iota/ happa lambda/ omikrarv pi/ sarv (ss) Iccppau rho sigma/ taw upsiLow ad phi/ chi> psi> omega A * 1 ^ x B <8) t x WJ M EB 0 1 9 <1 J T A * Is A fc F X B ® } K A Js/V I" o 5 O o ■J IL A A A A Melosetc I B ! * B Thaeos.eic. *L Corinth, tcSjSf ta etc. A D fc Corinth, £ E. etc- [*] p D Elis^ £ E F F I X BHm ®o Crete, Thora, / / Meloa, <> Corinth, etc. Attica. ("Apgoa. A A A I* N H Later Argos. 1X1 |jc«t Attica, ^ I KazDS,Siph-nos.Tnaaos, etc.] O 'AParos, o Smfan08,etc. 0,C Meloa. r n n m HaHcarnassus, ' TeogjMesemhria 9 I> i T [9] Crete, Thera, / / MMaos,'^ > Argos, Corinth, etc. -j. BH(h) ® G UChalms, Bceotia, etc. A* M N rsee I o r n V Y VY raee l ab Pf R ^ 5 M Phocis, etc. T LATIN w z p UJ 2 < o. o J A AAA| a ! & I fc B ! fc i < C D E II F I' i\vpa, iilia, was chosen as most suitable. Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 14, describing this tree, says: "Inter corticem et lignum tenues tunicse sunt multiplici membrana, e quibus vincula tiliae vocantur tenuissimae earum philyrae." It was these delicate shreds, phily-ras, of this inner skin or bark which formed the writing material. In the enumeration of different kinds of books by Martianus Capella, ii. 136, those consisting of lime-bark are quoted, though as rare : " Rari vero in philyrae cortice subnotati." Ulpian 1 The olive-leaf, used in this ceremony, is also mentioned, t\vpa In the British Museum there is also a small wooden board (Add. MS. 33,293), painted white and incribed in ink with thirteen lines from the Iliad (iii. 273—285), the words being marked off and the syllables indicated by accents, no doubb for teaching young Greek scholars. It was found in Egypt, and is probably of the third century. There is also a miscellaneous set of broken tablets (Add. MS. 33,369) inscribed in ink on a gLOund of drab paint, with records relating to the recovery of debts, etc., at Panopolis, the modern Ekhmim, in the Thebaid; probably of the seventh century. In the records of ancient Greece we have an instance of the employment of wooden boards or tablets. In the inventory of the expenses of rebuilding the Erechtheum at Athens, b.c. 407, the price of two boards, on which the rough accounts were first entered, is set down at two drachmas, or 9f d. each : " a-avlSes Svo €9 a? rov \o Bltttv^ov) from which the wax had been previously scraped but was afterwards renewed to cover the writing. On Greek vases of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., tablets, generally triptychs, are represented, both open in the hands of the goddess v ypap.fj.a-reicov ijadiov." 0 See Polliix, Onrmasticon, x. 57. T Quintilian, lust-it. orator, x. 3, 31, rccommends the use of waxen tablets : " Scribi optima ceris, 111 quibus facillima est ratio." H Horace, Sat. 1. vi. 74, " Lasvo suspensi loculos tabulamquo lacerto.'' 3 Martial, xiv. 4, 6. 1 Iliad, vi. 169 : " ypaxjsas ev irlvaKi tttvktco 6vpo(f)8upa noXkd."Materials used to receive Writing. 21 o Athena or other persons, and closed and bound round with strings, hanging from the wall by slings or handles.2 Tablets in the codex form would be used not only as mere note-books, but especially in all cases where the writing was to be protected from injury either for the moment or for a long period. Hence they were used for legal documents, conveyances and wills, and for correspondence. When used for wills, each page was technically called ccra, as in Gaius, ii. 104: " Hsec, ita ut in his tabulis cerisque scripta sunt, ita do lego."3 They were closed against inspection by passing a triple thread, A.ivov, linum, through holes in the boards, and sealing it with the seals of the witnesses, as will presently be more fully explained. As to correspondence, small tablets, codicilli or pugillares, were employed for short letters ; longer letters, episfolse, were written on papyrus. Thus Seneca, Ejp. 55, 11, makes the distinction : >c Adeo tecum sum, ut dubitem an incipiam non epistulas sed codicillos tibi scribere/' The tablets were sent by messengers, tabellarii, as explained by Festus :4 " Tabellis pro chartis utebantur antiqui, quibus ultro citro, sive privatim sive publice opus erat, certiores absentes faciebant. Unde adhuc tabellarii dicuntuv, et tabellse missse ab impera-toribus." 5 The answer to the letter was inscribed on the same set of tablets and returned. Love-letters appear to have been sometimes written on very small tablets ;6 Martial, xiv. 8, 9, calls them Vitelliani. Tablets containing ' See Gerhard, Auserlescne Vasenbilder, iii. 239; iv. 244, 287, 288, 289, 296 ; Luynes, Vases, 35. 3 Cf. Horace, Sat. II. v. 51: " Qui testamentum tradet tibi cunque legendi^m Abnuere, et tabulas a te removere memento ; Sic tamen,ut limis rapias quid prima secundo Cera velit versn." 4 De Verlorum Signif., ed. Miiller, p. 359. 5 Compare St. Jerome, Ep. viii.: " Nam et rudes illi Italia} homines, ante chartse et membranarum usum, aut in dedolatis e ligno codicillis aut in corticibus arborum mutuo epistolarum alloquia missitabant. Unde et povtitores eornm tabellarios et Bcriptorea a libris arborum librarios vocavere." 8 See the drawing in ikfu^o Barbauico, i. 2.22 Pa Ixography. letters were fastened with a thread, which wag sealed.7 The materials for letter-writing are enumerated in tho passage of Plautus, Bacchides, iv. 714: "Ecfer cito . . . stilum, ceram et tabellas, linum i}; and the process of sealing in line 748 : " cedo tn ceram ac linum actutura age obliga, opsigna cito." In Cicero, Catil. iii. 5, we havo the opening of a letter: " Tabellas proferri jussimus. . . . Primo ostcndimus Cethego signum ; cognovit; nos linum incidimus; legimus. . . . Introductus est Statilius; cognovit et signum et manum suam." The custom of writing letters oil tablets survived for some centuries after classical times. In the 5th century St. Augustine in his epistle to .Romanianus (Migne, Patrolog. Lcit. xxxiii. 80) makes reference to his tablets in these words :—" Non liasc epistola sic inopiam chart£B indicat, ut membranas saltern abundare testetur. Tabellas eburneas quas habeo avunculo tuo cum litteris misi. Tu enim huic pelliculge facilius ignosces, quia differri non potuit quod ei scripsi, et tibi non scribere etiam ineptissimum existimavi. Sed tabellas, si quae ibi nostrte sunt, propter hujusmodi necessitates mittas peto." St. Hilary of Aries likewise has the following passage in his Life of Honoratus (Migne, Patrol. Lat. 1. 1261) : —u Beatus Eucherius cum ab eremo in tabulis, ut assolet, cera illitis, in proxima ab ipso degens insula, litteras ejua suscepisset: ' Mel/ inquit, f suum ceris reddidisti.' " Both these passages prove that the custom was general at the period. Even as late as the year 1148 a letter t( in tabella" was written by a monk of Fulda.8 It will be noticed that St. Augustine refers to his tablets as being of ivory. The ancient tablets were ordinarily of common wood, such as beech, or fir, or box, the " vulgaris buxus " of Propertius (iii. 23); but they Avere also made of more expensive material. Two of Martial's apophoreta are "pugillares citrei" and " pugillares eborei/; Propertius (I.e.) refers to golden fittings: "Non illas fixum caras efFecerat aurum." The largo 7 Clay, cvttula, was originally used: yfj a^/idvrpis, Herod, ii. 38; pvrros, Aristoph. Lysis. 1200, Pollux, Onomast. x. 58. 8 Wattenbach, Schriftw. 48.Materials used to receive Writing. 23 consular diptychs, as we know from existing specimens, were of ivory, often most beautifully carved. The employment of waxen tablets lasted for certain purposes through the middle ages in countries of Western Europe. Specimens inscribed with money accounts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries have survived to the present day in France9; and municipal accounts on tablets of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are still preserved in some of the German towns. They also exist in Italy,1 dating from the thirteenth or fourteenth century; they were used in England; and specimens are reported to have been found in Ireland. It is said that quite recently sales in the fish-market of Rouen were noted on waxen tablets.2 Greek Waxen Tablets. Ancient Greek waxen tablets have survived in not many instances. In the British Museum are some which have been found in Egypt. The most perfect is a book (Add. MS. 33,270), perhaps of the third century, measuring nearly nine by seven inches, "which consists of seven tablets coated on both sides with black wax and two covers waxed on the inner side, inscribed with documents in shorthand, presumably in Greek, and with shorthand signs written repeatedly, as if for practice, and with notes in Greek; in one of the covers a groove is hollowed for the reception of the writing implements. Another smaller book, of about seven by four inches, formed of six tablets (Add. MS. 33,868), is inscribed, probably by some schoolboy of the third century, with grammatical exercises and other notes in Greek, and also with a rough drawing, perhaps meant for a caricature of the schoolmaster. There are also two tablets 9 A tablet of accounts, of about the year 1300, from Citeaux Abbey, is in the British Museum, Add. MS. 33, 215. Four tablets, of the 14th century, found at Beauvais, are in the Bibliotheque Nationale—Acad, des Inscriptions, Comptis Rinclus, 1887, p. 141. 1 See Milani, Sei Tavolelte cerate, in Pubbl. del B. Islilutu di Studi Superiori, 1877. 2 Wattenbaeb, Sc/triftw. 74.24 Palaeography. inscribed with verses in Greek uncial writing-, possibly some literary sketch 01* a school exercise.3 Two others of a similar nature have been recently acquired, the one containing a writing exercise, the other a multiplication table. The Bodleian Library has also lately purchased a waxen tablet (Gr. Inscr. 4) on which is a writing exercise. Others are at Paris; some containing scribbled alphabets and a contractor's accounts, which were found at Memphis/ In New York is a set of five tablets, on which are verses, in the style of Menander, set as a copy by a writing-master and copied by a pupil.5 Other specimens of a similar character are at Marseilles, the date of which can be fixed at the eud of the 3rd or beginning of the 4th century;6 and the last leaf of a document found at Verespatak, where so many Latin tablets have been discovered, is preserved at Karls-burg.7 Latin Waxen Tablets. Extant Latin tablets are more numerous, but have only been found in comparatively recent years. Twenty-four, containing deeds ranging in date from a.d. 131 to 167, were recovered, between the years 1786 and 1855, from the ancient mining works in the neighbourhood of Albur-nus Major, the modern Yerespatak, in Dacia. In 1840 Massmann published the few which had at that time been discovered, in his Libcllus Aurarius; but the admission into his book of two undoubtedly spurious documents cast suspicion on the rest, which were accordingly denounced until the finding cf other tablets proved their genuineness. The wholo collection is given in the Corpus InawipUonum Latin arum of the Berlin Academy, vol, iii. During the excavations at Pompeii in July, 1875, a box 3 See Verjiandl. der Philolocjen-Vcrsamml. zu TVilrzburg, 1869, p. 239. 4 Revue Archcol. viii. 461, 4-70. 5 Proceedings of the American Aracl. of Arts and Sciences, iii. 371. 6 Annuaire de la Soc. Fran, de Kvmism. ct d'Arc/: col. iii. lxxi.— lxxvii. 7 Corpus Inscr. hat. iii. 933.Materials used to receive Writing. 25 containing 127 waxen tablets was discovered in the houso of L. Ctecilius Jucundus. They proved to be 'perscrip-tiones and other deeds connectcd with sales by auction and receipts for payment of tuxes.8 The recovery of so many specimens of Latin tablets has afforded ample means of understanding the mechanical arrangement of such documents among the Romans. O O Like the military tabulae honedse missionis, they contained the deed under seal and the duplicate copy open to inspection. But most of them consist of three leaves: they are triptychs, tho third leaf being of great service in giving cover to the seals. The Pompeian and Dacian tablets differ from one another in some particulars; but the general arrangement was as follows. The triptych was made from one block of wood, cloven into tho three required pieces, or leaves, which were fastened by strings or wires passing through two holes near the edge and serving for hinges. In the Pompeian tablets, one side of each leaf was sunk within a frame, the hollowed space being coated with wax in such a way that, of the six sides or pages, nos. 2, 3, 5 were waxen, while 1, 4, 6 were of plain wood. The first and sixth sides were not used; they formed the outside. On the sides 2 and 3 wns inscribed the deed, and on 4 the names of the witnesses were written in ink and their seals sunk into a groove cut down the centre, the deed being closed by a string of three twisted threads, which passed through two holes, one at the head and the other at the foot of the groove, round the two leaves and under the wax of the seals, which thus secured it. An abstract or copy of the deed was inscribed on page 5. The Dacian tablets differed in this respect, that page 4 was also waxen, and that the copy of the deed was commenced on that page in the space on the left of the groove, the space on the right being filled with the 8 Atti della It. Accademia dei Lincei, ser. ii. vol. iii. pt. 3, 1875-76, pp. 150—230; Hermes, vol. xii. 1877, pp. 88-141; and Overbeck, Pompeji, 4th ed. by Mau, 1884, pp. 489 sqq. The whole collection is to be edited by Prof. Zangen' ;ister in the Corpus Inscr. Lat. See Pal. Soc. i. pi. 159.26 Paleography, witnesses' names. The following diagram shows the arrangement of a Dacian triptych :— \ 2 begins Copy of Co Names deed ti of Wit- begins CO -nesses It will be noticed that, although the string which closed the deed (as indicated by dotted lines) passed through the holes of only two of the leaves, yet tho third leaf (pages 5 and 6) is also perforated with corresponding holes. This proves that the holes were first pierced in the solid block, before it was cloven into three, in order that they might afterwards adjust themselves accurately.9 In one instance the fastening threads and seals still remain.1 9 See Corp. Inscr. Lat. iii. 922. » Ibid. 938.CHAPTER III materials used to receive wr1ttng—continued. We now have to examine the history of the more common writing-materials of the ancient world and of the middle ages, viz. papyrus, vellum, and paper. Papyrus. The papyrus plant, Cyperns Papyrus, which supplied the substance lor the great writing material of tho ancient world, was widely cultivated in the Delta of Egypt. From this part of the country it has now vanished, but it still grows in Nubia and Abyssinia. Theophrastus, Hist. Plant, iv. 10, states that it also grew in Syria, and Pliny adds that it was native to the Niger and Euphrates. Its Greek name irairvpo9, whence Latin papyrus, was derived from one of its ancient Egyptian names, P-a.pa. Herodotus, our most ancient authority for any details of the purposes for which tho plant was employed, always calls it /3u/3\o?, a word no doubt also taken from an Egyptian term. Theophrastus describes the plant as one which grows in the shallows to the height of six feet, with a triangular and tapering stem crowned with a tufted head; the root striking out at right angles to the stem and being of the thickness of a man's wrist. The tufted heads were used for garlands in the temples of the gods; of the wood of the root were made various utensils; and of the stem, the pith of which was also used as an article of food, a variety of articles, including writing material, were manufactured : caulking yarn, ships' rigging, light skiffs, shoes, etc. The cable with which Ulysses boundPalaeography. the doors of tho luill when lie slew the suitors was ottXov (3v/3\ivov (Otlyss. xxi. 390). As a writing material papyrus was employed in Egypt from the earliest times. Papyrus rolls arc represented on the sculptured walls of Egyptian temples; and rolls themselves exist of immense antiquity. The most ancient papyrus roll now extant is the Papyrus Prisse, at Paris, which contains the copy of a work composed in the reign of a king of the fifth dynasty and is itself of about the year 2500 B.C. or earlier. Tho dry atmosphere of Egypt has been specially favourable to the preservation of these fragile documents. Buried with the dead, they have lain in tho tombs or swathed in the folds of the mummy-cloths for centuries, untouched by decay, and in many instances remain as fresh as on the day when they were written. Among the Greeks the papyrus material manufactured for writing purposes was called ^apT??? (Latin chart a) as well as by the names of the plant itself. Herodotus, v. 58, refers to the early use of papyrus rolls among the Ionian Greeks, to which they attached the name of Si^depat, " skins," the writing material to which they had before been accustomed. Their neighbours, the Assyrians, were also acquainted with it.1 They called it "the reed of Egypt." An inscription relating to the expenses of the rebuilding of the Erechtheum at Athens in the year 407 B.C. shows that papyrus was used for the fair copy of the rough accounts, which were first inscribed on tablets. Two sheets, ^dprau 8vo, cost at the rate of a drachma and two obols each, or a little over a shilling of our money.* The period of its first importation into Italy is not known. The story of its introduction by Ptolemy, at 1 In the Assyrian wall-sculptures in tlie British Museum there are two scents (Nos. 3 a'ul 84) in which two couples of scribos are represented taking notes. In each case, one of the scribes is using a'folding tablet (the hinges of one being distinctly represented), and the other a scroll. The scroll may be either papyrus or leather. 3 See above, p. 19.Materials used to receive Writing. 29 the suggestion of Aristarchus, is of suspicious authenticity.' Wc know, however, that papyrus was plentiful in Koine under the Empire. In fact, it was the common writing material among the Romans at that period, and became so indispensable that, on a temporary failure of the supply in the reign of Tiberius, there was danger of a popular tumult.4 Pliny also, Nat. Hist. xiii. 11, refers to its high social value in the words: "papyri natura dicetur, cum chartae usu maxime humanitas vitas constet, certe memoria," and again he describes it as a thing ''qua constat immortalitas hominum." It is probable that papyrus was imported into Italy already manufactured; and it is doubtful whether any native plant grew in that country. Strabo says that it was found in Lake Trasitnene and other lakes of Etruria; but the accuracy of this statement has been disputed. Still, it is a fact that there was a manufacture of this writing material carried on in Rome, the charta Fanniana being an instance; but it has been asserted that this industry was confined to the re-making of imported material. The more brittle condition of the Latin papyri, as compared with the Greek papyri, found at Hercu-laneum, has been ascribed to the detrimental effect of this re-manufacture. At a later period the Syrian variety of the plant was grown in Sicily, where it was probably introduced during the Arab occupation. It was seen there by the Arab traveller, Ibn-Haukal, in the tenth century, in the neighbourhood of Palermo, where it throve in great luxuriance in the shallows of the Papireto, a stream to which it gave its njime. Paper was made from this source for the use of the Sultan; but in the thirteenth century the plant began to fail, and it was finally extinguished by the drying up of the stieam in 1591. It is still, however, to be seen growing in the neighbourhood of Syracuse, but was probably transplanted thither at a later time, for no mention of it 3 Sec below, p. 36. 4 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xiii. 13, " Sterilitatem sentit hoc quoque, factumque jam Tiberio principe inopia charts, ut e senatu darentnr arbitri dispensandae ; alias in tumultu vita erat."3° Paldeos -rap Ivy. in that place occurs earlier than 1674. Some attempts have been made in recent years to manufacture a writing material on the pattern of the ancient charta from this Sicilian plant. The manufacture of the writing material, as practised in Egypt, is described by Pliny, Nat. Hist. xiii. 12. His description applies specially to the system of his own day ; but no doubt it was essentially the same that had been followed for centuries. His text is far from clear, and there are consequently many divergences of opinion on different points. The stem of the plant was cut longitudinally into thin strips (phili/rat)5 with a sharp cutting instrument described as a needle (acus). The old idea that the strips were peeled off the inner core of the stem is now abandoned, as it has been shown that the plant, like other reeds, contains a cellular pith within the rind, which was all used in the manufacture. The central strips were naturally the best, being the widest. The strips thus cut were laid vertically upon a board, side by side, to the required width, thus forming a layer, zcheda, across which another layer of shorter strips was laid at right angles. Pliny applies to this process the phraseology of net or basket making. The two layers formed a " net,'"' plagula, or tf wicker," crates, which was thus " woven/' texitur. In this process Nile water was used for moistening the whole. The special mention of this particular water has caused some to believe that there were some adhesive properties in it which acted as a paste or glue on the material; others, more reasonably, have thought that water, whether from the Nile or any other eource, solved the glutinous matter in the strips and thus caused them to adhere. It seems, however, more probable that paste was actually used.6 The sheets were finally 6 Birt, Antikes UucUwesen, 229, prefers to apply the word schecLsz or schidce to tlie strips. But Pliny distinctly uses the although he elsewhere describes the inner bark of the lime tree by this name. Another name for the strips was inse. 6 Birt, -231, points out, in regard to Pliny's words, "turbidus liquor vim glutinis praebet," that "glutinis" is not a genitive but a dative, Pliny never using the word " gluten," but " glutinum.''Materials used to receive Writing. 31 pressed and dried in the sun. Rough 01* uneven places were rubbed down with ivory or a smooth shell.7, Moisture lurking between the layers was to be detected by strokes of the mallet. Spots, stains, and spongy strips (taeniae) in which the ink would run, were defects which also had to be encountered.8 The sheets were joined together with paste to form a roll, scapus, but not more than twenty was the prescribed number. There are, however, rolls of more than twenty sheets, so that, if Pliny's reading vicinse is correct, the number was not constant in all times. The outside of the roll was naturally that part which was more exposed to risk of damage and to general wear and tear. The best sheets were therefore reserved for this position, those which lay nearer the centre or end of the roll not being necessarily so good. Moreover, the end of a roll was not wanted in case of a short text, and might be cut away. A protecting strip of papyrus was often pasted down the edge at the beginning or end of a roll, in order to give additional strength to the material and prevent it tearing.9 The first sheet of a papyrus roll was called the 7rpcoroKoWov, a term which still survives in diplomacy ; the last sheet was called the ia^aroKoWLov. Among the Romans the protocol was marked with the name of the Comes largitionum, who hud the control of the manufacture, and with the date and name of the place where it was made. The portion thus marked was in ordinary practice cut away; but this curtailment was forbidden in legal documents by tlie laws of Justinian.10 After their conquest of Egypt in the seventh century, Mie Arabs continued the manufacture and marked the 7 Martial, xiv. 209: " Levis ab sequorea cortex Mareotica concha Fiat; inofEensa currit harundo via." 8 Pliny, Ei)ist. viii. 15: " quae (chartce) si scabiaa bibulaeve siiit," etc. 9 Wilcken, in Hermes, xxiii. 466. io i. Tabelliones non scribant instrumenta in aliis cliartis quam in bis quae protocolla habent, ut tamen protocollum tale sit, quod habeat nomen gloriosissimi comitis largitionum et tempus quo charta facta est."—Novell, xliv. 2.32 Paleography. protocol in Arabic. An instance of an Arab protocol thus marked is found in a bull of Pope John VIII. of 876, now in the Libliotheque Nationalc, Paris. With regard to the width of papyrus rolls, those which date from the earliest period of Egyptian history are narrow, of about six inches; later they increase to nine, eleven, and even above fourteen inches. The width of the early Greek papyri of Homer and Hyperides in the British Museum runs from nine to ten inches. From Pliny we learn that there were various qualities of writing material made from papyrus and that they differed from one another in width. It has however been found that extant specimens do not tally with the figures that he gives; but an ingenious explanation has been lately proposed,1 that he refers to the breadth of the individual sheets which together make up the length of the roll, not to the height of the sheets which forms its ividth. The best kind, formed from the broadest strips of the plant, was originally the chart a hieratica, a rame which was afterwards altered to Augusta out of flattery to the emperor Augustus. The charta Lima, or second quality, was named after his wife. The hieratica thus descended to the third rank. The Augusta and Licia were 13 digits, or about 9^ inches, wide ; the hieratica 11 digits or 8 inches. The charta amphitheatrica, of 9 digits or inches, took its title from the principal place of its manufacture, the amphitheatre of Alexandria. The charta Fanniana was apparently a variety which was re-made at Rome, in the workshops of a certain Fannius, from the amphitheatrica, the width being increased by about an inch through pressure. The Saitica was a common variety, named after the city of Sais, being of: about 8 digits or 5§ inches. Finally, there were the Tseniotica—which was said to have taken its name from the place where it was made, a tongue of land (raivLa) near Alexandria—and the common packing-paper, charta emporetica, neither of which was more than 5 inches wide. Mention is made by Isidore, Etymol. vi. 10, of a 1 Birt, 251 sqq.Materials used to receive Writing. 33 quality of papyrus called Corneliana, which was first made under C. Cornelius Gallus when prefect of Egypt. But the name may have disappeared from the vocabulary when Gallus fell into disgrace.2 Another kind was manufactured in the reign of Claudius, and on that account was named Claudia. It was a made-up material, combining the Augusta and Livia, to provide a stout substance. Finally, there was a large-sized quality, of a cubit or nearly 18 inches in width, called macrocollon. Cicero made use of it (Epp. ad Attic, xiii. 25; xvi. o). Varro, repeated by Pliny, xiii. 11, makes the extraordinary statement that papyrus writing material was first made in Alexander's time. He may have been misled from having found no reference to its use inpras-Alexaudrine authors; or he may have meant to say that its first free manufacture was only of that date, as it was previously a government monopoly. Papyrus continued to be the ordinary writing material in Egypt to a comparatively late period.3 Greek documents of the early centuries of our era have been found in considerable numbers in tlie Fayoum and other districts. In Europe also, long after vellum had become the principal writing material, especially for literary purposes, papyrus continued in common use, parlicularly for ordinary documents, such as letters. St. Jerome, Ep. vii., mentions vellum as a material for letters, " if papyrus fails"; and St. Augustine, Ep. xv., apologizes for using vellum instead of papyrus. A fragmentary epistle of Constantine Y. to Pepin le Bref, of 756, is preserved at Paris: A few fragments of Greek literary papyri of the early middle ages, containing Biblical matter and portions of Graeco-Latin glossaries, have also survived. For purely Latin literature papyrus was also occa- 2 Ibid. 250. 3 The middle of the tenth century is the period when it has been calculated the manufacture of papyrus in Egypt ceased.— Karabacek, Das ambische Papier, in Mittheilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus Erzher;:og Rainer, bd. ii.-iii. (1887', p. 98. D34 Paleography. sionally used in the early middle ages. Examples, made up in book form, sometimes with a few vellum leaves incorporated to give stability, are found in different libraries of Europe. They are: The Homilies of St. Avitus, of the 6th century, at Paris; Sermons and Epistles of St. Augustine, of the Gth or 7th century, at Paris and Genoa; works of Hilary, of the 6th century, at Vienna; fragments of the Digests, of the 6th century, at Pommersfeld; the Antiquities of Josephus, of the 7th century, at Milan ; an Isidore, of the 7th century, at St. Gall. At Munich, also, is the register of the Church of Kavenna, written on this material in the 10th century. Many papyrus documents in Latin, dating from the 5th to the 10th century, have survived from the archives of Ravenna; and there are extant fragments of two imperial rescripts written in Egypt, apparently in the 5th century, in a form of the Latin cursive alphabet which is otherwise unknown. In the papal chancery papyrus appears to have been used down to a late date in preference to vellum. A few papal bulls on this material have survived ; the earliest being one of Stephen III. of the year 757; the latest, one of Sergius IV. of 1011.4 In France papyrus was in common use in the sixth century.5 Under the Merovingian kings it. was used for official documents; several papyrus deeds of their period, dated from 625 to 692, being still preserved in the French archives. Skins. The skins of animals are of such a durable nature that it is no matter for surprise to find that they have been appropriated as writing material by the ancient nations of the world. They were in use among the Egyptians as early as the time of Cheops, in the 4th dynasty, documents written on skins at that period being referred to or copied in papyri of later date.6 Actual specimens of skin rolls from Egypt still exist. In the British Museum is a 4 Ratpport de M. Delisle, in Bulletin du Comite des Travauz hist, et scient., 1885, No. 2. 5 Gregory ot' Tours, JHist. Franc, v. 5. f Wilkinson, Anc. ~Egypt., eel. Birch, ii. 182,Materials used to receive Writing. 35 ritual on wliifco leather (Salt, 256) which may be dated about the year 2000 B.C. The Jews followed the same custom, and to the present day continue it in their synagogue rolls. It may be presumed that their neighbours the Phoenicians also availed themselves of the same kind of writing material. The Persians inscribed their history upon skins.7 The use of skins, Si(f>6ipai, among the Ionian Greeks is referred to by Herodotus, v. 58, who adds that in his day many foreign nations also wrote on them. Parchment and Vellum. After what has been here stated regarding the early use of skins, the introduction of parchment, or vellum as it is now more generally termed, that is to say, skins prepared in such a way that they could be written upon on both sides, cannot properly be called an invention ; it was rather an extension of, or improvement upon, an old practice. The common story, as told by Pliny, Nat. Hist. xiii. 11, on the authority of Yarro, runs that Eumenes II. of Pergamum (b.c. 197—158), wishing to extend the library in his capital, was opposed by the jealousy of the Ptolemies, who forbade the export of papyrus, hoping thus to check the growth of a rival library. The Pergamene king, thus thwarted, was forced to fall back again upon skins; and thus came about the manufacture of vellum : " Mox aemulatione circa bibliothecas regum Ptolemgei et Eumenis, supprimente chartas Ptolemaeo, idem Yarro membranas Pergami tradit repertas." 8 Whatever may be the historical value of this tradition, at least it points to the fact that Pergamum was the chief centre of the vellum trade. The name Stv fiao-ikikciiv 8i 236 Palaeography. earlier skins, was extended also to the new manufacture. The title mcmbrana Percjamena is comparatively late, first occurring iu the edict of Diocletian, a.d. 301, de pretiis rerum, vii. 38 ; next in the passage in St. Jerome's epistle, quoted in the footnote. The Latin name was also Grsecized as fiefxfipdvaL, being so used in 2 Tim. iv. 13 : i( IJLaXiGTa Taaiv6\rjftvo$, charta bomby-cina, is nothing more than an erroneous reading of %dpT7]crle, in the Memoires de la Sue. Nat. des Antiquaires de France, tome xlvi; and a review of the same by C. Paoli, Carta di Coione e Carta di Lino, in the Archivio Storico Italiano, 1885, p. 2:J0. Karabacek, Das arabisc/ie Papier, ia Mittheilungen aus der Sammhincj d>r Papyrus Erzkerzog Eainer, bd. ii.-iii. 87. 1 Karabacek, Neue Quellen zur Papiergeschichte, in Mittheilungen (ut supr.) bi'l. iv. 117.Materials used to receive Writing. 45 made in the oriental fashion, used for European documents and MSS. The oldest recorded document was a deed of King Roger of Sicily of the year 1102, and others of other Sicilian kings of the 12th century are also mentioned. At Genoa there are extant letters of Greek emperors, of 1188-1202. The oldest known imperial deed is a charter of Frederic II. to the nuns of Goess, in Styria, of 1228.2 The same emperor forbade, in 1231, the use of paper for public deeds. A Visigothic paper MS. of the 12th century, from Silos, near Burgos, is now in the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris (Nouv. Acq. Lat. 1296);3 a paper notarial register at Genoa dates from 1154 ; in the British Museum there is a paper MS. (Arundel 2G8), written in Italy, of the first half of the 13th century; and at Munich the autograph MS. of Albert de Beham, 1238-1255, is also on the same kind of paper. In several cities and towns of Italy there exist registers on paper dating back to the thirteenth century/ Letters addressed from Castile to Edward I. of England, in 1279 and following years, are on the samo material; and a register of the hustings court of Lyme Regis, now in the British Museum, which begins with entries of the year 1309, is on paper which was probably imported from Spain or Bordeaux, such as that employed for the Bordeaux customs register of the beginning of the reign of Edward II., now in the Record Office.6 The earliest reference to the material of paper made in Eui ope appears to be that in the tract of Peter, abbot of Cluny (a.d. 1122-1150), "adversus Judaeos," cap. 5, in which among the various kinds of books he mentions those made ex rasuris veterum i§iov, stilus, graphium, made of iron, bronze, or other metal, ivory, or bone, was adapted for writing on waxen tablets, the letters being scratched with the sharp point. The other end was fashioned into a knob or flat head, wherewith the writing could be obliterated by smoothening the wax, for correction or erasure: hence the phrase vertere stilum/ " to correct/' Among the Roman antiquities found in Biitain, now deposited in the British Museum, there are several specimens of the stilus, in ivory, bronze, etc. Many of them are furnished with a sharp projection, at right angles to the shaft, near the head, for the purpose of ruling lines on the wax. The passage in Ovid, Metam. ix. 521, thus describes the action of the writer :— " Dextra tenet feirum, vacnam tenet altera ceram. Incipit, et dubitat, scribit damnatque tabellas. Et notat et delet, mutat, culpatque probatque." Here the stilus is simply ferrum. In another place, Amor. I. xi. 23, Ovid gives its title of graphium '. " Quid digitos opus est graphio lassare tenenio?" This riddle on the stilus also occurs:— " De summo planus, Bed non ego planus in imo. Yersor utrimque manu; diversa et inunera fungor: Altera pars revocat quidquid pars altera fecit." 2 The case in which such implements were kept was the 1 Horace, Sat. I. x. 72: " Ssepe stilum vertas," 3 Riese, Anthol. Lat. I. no. 286.Writing Implements, etc. 49 ypa(f)ioO)r*i], ijraphiarium; as in Martial, xiv. 21, "armata suo graphiaria ferro." For writing on papyrus the reed, KaXafios, Sovag ypafavs, a^otvo^,-calamus, carina, was in use.:t Suitable reeds came chiefly from Egypt, as referred to by Martial, xiv. 38 : " Dat chart is liabiles calamos Memphitica tell us or from Cnidus, as in Ausonius, Ep. vii.: " Nec jam fissi-pedis per calami vias Grassetur Cnidise sulcus arundinis." Parallel with our use of steel pens is that of the ancient metal reeds, of which a few specimens, in bronze, have been found in Italy, and one in England.4 The case iu which reeds were kept was the KaXa^od^rcrj, /caXafifa, calamarium, theca calamaria; as in Martial, xiv. 19 : " Sortitus thecam, calamis armare memento." In Diocletian's edict, Be pretiis rerum venalium, the reed-case appears as made of leather. Reeds continued in use to some extent through the middle ages. In Italy they appear to have survived into the fifteenth century.5 The kovSIXiov, peniculus, penicillus, was the brush with which writing in gold was applied.6 The pen, penna, is first mentioned by an anonymous historian who tells us that, to enable the unlettered Ostrogoth Theodoric to write his name, he was provided with a stencil plate, through which he drew with a pen the strokes which formed the first four letters of his name : " ut, posita lamina super chartam, per earn penna duceret et subscriptio ejus tantum videretur/" 7 Isidore, Orig. vi. ] 3, describes the pen thus : " Iustrumenta scribse calamus 3 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 36 : " Chartisque serviunt calami." Some specimens of ancient reeds cut like a pen (Ausonius, " fissipes calamus'') are in the Egyptian gallery, British Museum. 4 See Bulletino dell' Institute, 1849, p. 169; 1880, pp. 68, 69, 150. The one found in England is preserved among the Komano-British antiquities in the British Museum. s For detailed information, see Wattenbach, Schrifho. 186. 6 Theophilus, De diversis artibus, iii. 96, mentions the reed for this purpose : " Atque I'ogo paritev, calamo cum cepcrit aurum, Ilium commoveat, pulchre si scribcre quaerit."- 7 In the Excerpta printed at the end of Gronoviua's edition of Ammianus Marcellinus, 1693, p. 512. I50 Paleography. et penna. Ex his enim verba paginis infiguntur ; sed Calamus arboris est, peuna avis, cujus acumeu dividitur in duo, in tolo corpore unitate servata." But, although no earlier mention of the quill pen than these has been found, it can scarcely be supposed that, as soon as vellum came into general use, so obviously convenient an implement, always ready to hand, could have been long overlooked, particularly in places where reeds of a kind suitable for writing could not be had. The hard surface of the new material could bear the flexible pressure of the pen which in heavy strokes might have proved too much for the more fragile papyrus. Inks, etc. Black ink, the ordinary writing fluid of centuries, Liekav, or more exactly 'ypafyucbv neXav, fiekdviov, atra-mentum, or atro.mentum Jibrarium to distinguish it from blacking used for other purposes, later eyfcavcrTov, incaus-tum, differs in tint at various periods and in different countries. In early MSS. it is either pure black or slightly brown ; in the middle ages it varies a good deal according to age and locality. In Italy and Southern Europe it is generally blacker than in the north, in France and Flanders it is generally darker than in England; a Spanish MS. of the 14th or 15tli century may usually be recognized by the peculiar blackness of the ink. Deterioration is observable in the course of time. The ink of the fifteenth century particularly is often of a faded, grey colour. The ancients used the liquid of the cuttle fish, as in the lines of Persius, iii. 12 :— " Tunc queritur crassus calamu quod pendeat humor, Nigra quod inf'usa vanescat sepia lympha, Dilutas queritur geminet quod fistula guttas." Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxv. 6, mentions soot and gum as the ingredients of writing ink. Other later authors add gall-apples. Metallic infusions seem also to have been used at an early period. In the midde ages vitriol was an ordinary iugredient. Theophilus, in his work DeWriting Implements, etc. 51 diversis artibus, written probably early in the twelfth century, gives a recipe (i. 4-0) for the manufacture of ink from thorn wood boiled down and mingled with wine and vitriol. Inks of other colours are also found in MSS. of the middle ages: green, yellow, and others, but generally only for ornamental purposes, although volumes written entirely in coloured ink are still extant. lfed, either in the form of a pigment or fluid ink, is of very ancient and common use. It is seen on the early Egyptian papyri; and it appears in the earliest extant vellum MSS., either in titles or the first lines of columns or chapters. The Greek term was fieXdviov kukkivov, Latin minium, rubrica. A volume written entirely in red ink, of the 9th or 10th century, is in the British Museum, Harley MS. 2795. The purple ink, Kivvdftapis, sacrum incaustum, reserved at Byzantium for the exclusive use of the emperors, seems to have originally been of a distinct kind. Later the same term, kivvafiapis, appears as a synonymous term with minium. The ink-pot, /xeXavSo^ou, /jLeXavBo^ij, fieXavho^eiov, atra-mcntarium, used by the ancients, was generally, as appears from surviving examples, a small cylindrical jar or metal box, the cover often pierced with a hole to admit the insertion of the reed. In paintings on the walls of Pompeii double ink-pots, with hinged covers, are depicted, the two receptacles being probably for black and red ink.8 Throughout the middle ages the ink-liorn was in common use. Gold was used as a writing fluid at a very early period. In a papyrus at Leyden, of the third or fourth century, there is a recipe for its manufacture.9 Something has already been said on its use in connection with purple-stained vellum. Ordinary white vellum MSS. were also written in gold, particularly in the ninth and ' tenth centuries, in the reigus of the Carlovingian kings. In most of the large national 8 Museo Borbonico, i. pi. 12. 8 Leenuuis, Papyri Grssci Mus. Lugd. Bat., torn. ii. (1885) p. 218. £ 252 Paleography % libraries examples are to be found.1 The practice passed from the continent to England, and was followed to some considerable extent in this country, not only for partial decoration, but also for the entire text of MSS. The record of a purple MS. written in gold, by order of Wilfrid of York, late in the 7th century, has already been noticed (p. 41, note 1) ; but the way in which this volume is referred to : " Inauditum ante seculis nostris quoddam miraculum " proves that such sumptuous MSS. were not known in England before that timo. St. Boniface, writing in a.d. 735 to Eadburg, abbess of St. Mildred's, Thanet, asks her to get transcribed for him in gold the Epistles of St. Peter.2 But the existing English examples are of later date.3 Gold writing as a practice died out in the thirteenth century, although a few isolated instances of later date are found. Sbate letters of the Byzantine emperors were also sometimes written in gold, anji the same was used for imperial charters in Germany, as appears from extant examples of the twelfth century, and for similar documents in other countries.4 Writing in silver appears to have ceased contemporaneously with the disuse of stained vellum. This metal would not show to advantage on a white ground. 1 Such MSS. in tlie British Museum are Harl. MS. 2788, the " Codex Aureus," a copy of the Gospels, in uncial letter-;, of the 9th century ; Harl. MS. 2797, also a copy of the Gospels, in minuscule writing, late in the 9th century, from the monastery of St. Genevieve, Paris. The Cottonian MS., Tiberius A. ii., which was sent as a present to king iEthelstan by the emperor Otho, also contains some leaves written in gold. 2 " Sic et adhuc deprecor . . . . ut mihi cum auro conscribas epistolas domini mei Sancli Petri apostoli, ad honorem et reverentiam sanctarum scripturarum ante oculos carnalium in praedicando, et quia dicta ejus qui me in hoc iter direxit maximc semper in praasentia cupiam habere."—Jaffe, Monumenta Moyun-tina, iii. 99. 3 The foundation charter of Newminster, Winchester, granted by king Edgar in 966, in Cotton. MS. Yesp. A. viii., is written in gold. The Eenedictional of iEthe! wold, bishop of Winchester, a.d. 963-984, also contains a page in gold. < Wattenbach, Schrifiw. 214^217.Writing Implements, etc. 53 Various Implements. For ruling papyri, a circular plate of lead, fcv/c\oTepr,$ fio\ifio<;, Tpo^oet? fioXifiSo*;, /cvrekofjLoXifiSos, was used. Ink was removed with the sponge. Papyrus would scarcely bear scraping with the knife. If the ink was still wet, or lately applied, its removal was of course easy. Martial, iv. 10, sends a sponge with his newly-written book of poems, wherewith the whole of his verses might be cleaned off.5 Augustus effaced his half-completed tragedy of Ajax, with the remark : " Ajacem suum in spongiam incubuisse."6 With vellum MSS. the knife or eraser, rasorium or novacula, came into use. While wet the iuk could still be sponged away ; but when it was hard and di*y, and for erasure of single letters and words without obliterating also the surrounding text, it was scraped off. The penknife was the oyuA/j?, yXvcfravov, jXvttti'jp, or >y\v(f>k, scalprum lihrarium, the mediaeval scalp ellum, cultellus, or artauus ; the ruler was the tcava>v, canon, norma, regula, lincarium ; the pricker or compass for spacing off the rulei lines was ZiaftaTr)*;, circinus, or punctorium ; and lastly, the office of the modern pencil was performed by the pointed piece of lead, /uoXvySSo?, plumbum, or plummet. " Dum novuB est rasa nec adhuc mihi froute libellua, Pagina dam tangi non bene sicca timet, I, puer, et caro perfer leve munus amico, Qui meruit nugas primus habere meas. Carre, sed instructus : comitetur Punica librum Spongia; muneribus convenit ilia meis. Non possunt nostros multae, Faustine, litui'aa Emendare jocos ; una litura potest." 6 Suetonius, Aug. 85,CHAPTER V. forms of books. The Roll. Among the Greeks the ordinary terms for a book (that is, a roll) were /3t/3\o? and its diminutive (3i/3\lov Earlier forms of these words were /3u/3X.o ev tj} %eipl e%r)<; trdy/caXov, 7rop(f)vpav fiev e-^ov ttjv Si(f)depav, ^pvaovv he tov 6/j,(pa\ov "; and Martial, i. 66, has the lines:— " Sed pumicata froiite si quis est nondum Nec umbilicis cultus atque membrana, Mercare: tales habeo." For preservation against moths, etc., cedar oil was rubbed on the papyrus.1 A good poem was worthy of this protection : " cedro digna locutus " (Persius, i. 42); "cedro nunc licet ambules perunctus" (Martial, iii. 2, 7). But it imparted a yellow tint: " quod neque sum cedro flavus " (Ovid, Frist. III. i. 13). The chest or box in which the rolls were kept was the kLotji, /a/SeoTo'?, caps a, cista, forulus, nidus, puteus, or scrinium. To tie bundles of rolls together was a destructive process, as the papyrus was injured; so Petronius, Satyricon, cii. : " Chartae alligatas mutant figu-ram." Extensive works were arranged in their capsse in decades, triads, or other sets, as we know from the examples of the works of Livy, Dio Cassius, Varro, and others. For convenience of reference when the roll was placed in a box or on a shelf, a vellum label, acrdpiov} titulns, index, was attached to the edi^e of the roll and inscribed with the title of the work,3 and, for distinction, was also coloured.4 Such iituli are perhaps the ,f lora rubra" of Catullus, xxii. 7. Cicero, writing to Atticus, iv. 4, gives both Greek and Lai in names : u Etiam velim mihi mittas de tuis librariolis duos aliquos, quibus Tyrannio utatur 1 " Ex cedro oleum, quod cedrenm dicitur, nascitur, quo reliquaa res unct£e, uti etiam libri, a tineis et carie non laeduntur."— Vitruvius, ii. 9, 13. 2 Marquardt, Privatl. der Romer, 794. 3 See an engraving, copied from a sculpture, in Schwarz, D( ornamentis librorum (1756), tab. ii., wherein are represented series of rolls placed on shelves, like bottles in a wine-bin, with the titu'ti depending in front; also an engraving of a capsa, with rolls enclosed, ou the title-page of Marini, Papiri Diplom.; and Museo Borbonico, tav. xii. 4 See above, p. 39.58 Palaeography. glutinatoribus, ad cetera administris, iisquc imperes ut sumanfc membranulam, ex qua indices fianfc, quos vos Graeci, ut opinor, a£Kkv$ovs appellatis." And the lines of Tibullus, III. i. 9, may be quoted as describing the outward appearance of the roll:— " Lufcra seel niveutn involvat membrana libellum, Pumex cui c mas tondeat ante comas ; Summaque praetexat tenuis fastigia chavtaa, Indicet ut nomen, litteva facta, puer." The text was written in columns, o-eX/Se?, paginse. The term vk\ov, folium. The line of writing was or 1^09, versus, linea, and riga. Ruling. In the earlier centuries of the middle ages, the ruled lines of vellum MSS. were drawn with a hard-pointed instrument, a blunt bodkin or stilus, on one side of the leaf, the lines being impressed with sufficient force to cause them to stand out in relief on the other side. The ruling was almost invariably on the hair- (or outer) side of the skin. Marginal lines were drawn to bound the text laterally. The distances of the horizontal lines from one another were marked off with pricks of the compass in vertical order down the page. In earlier MSS. these prickings are often found near the middle of the leaf, or at least within the space occupied by the text, and the lines are drawn right across the sheet and not confined within the vertical boundaries. It was afterwards the custom to prick off the spaces close to the margin and to keep the ruled lines within limits; and eventually the prickings often disappeared when the edges were shorn by the binder. Each sheet should be ruled separately ; but two or more sheets were not infrequently laid and ruled together, the lines being so deeply drawn on the upper sheet that the lower sheets also received the impressions. In rare instances lines are found ruled 0:1 both sides of the leaf, as in some parts of the Codex 8 C. R. Gregory, Les Cahiers des MSS. Grecs. in the Compter Ttendus of the Acad, des Inscriptions, 1885, p. 261. 4 Watteubach, Schriftw. 153.64 Palaeography. Alexandrinus. In this MS. also, and in some other early codices, ruling was not drawn for every line of writing, but was occasionally spaced so that some lines of the text lay in the spaces while others stood on the ruled lines. Ruling with the lead point or plummet came into ordinary use in the twelfth century; coloured ink was also used for ruled lines in the fifteenth century. Arrangement of the Text. The text, which in early MSS. was written continuously without separation of words, might be written across the face of the page ; and in some cases, as in poetical works, no other arrangement could well be followed. But, continuing the system observed in the papyrus rolls, tho arrangement in columns was usual. The superior convenience of the column over the long line is obvious, particularly when a small character was the type of writing, The number of columns in a page was ordinarily two ; but three and even four were also allowed. The Code:c Sinaiticus of the Greek Bible has four columns in a page; so that the open book presents a series of eight columns to the reader, which, it has been observed, would forcibly recall the long row of pagivse of the papyrus roll,3 The Codex Vatican us has three columns in a page in the portion containing the Old Testament; and other early MSS. or fragments of MSS. exhibit the same arrangement, e.g. the Vatican fragments of Sallust, the Latin Pentateuch of Lyons, and others in the libraries of Rome, Milan, etc.6 But the tri-columnar system appears to have been generally abandoned after the sixth century. The Utrecht Psalter, written at the beginning of the 9th century, in triple columns, is not an instance which counts for late usage, the MS. being only an exact copy of an 8 Thje phrase of Eusebius, Vita Const, iv. 37, '' ev TroXvreXas rjitkrjfievoii rev^fai Tpicrcra kcu reTpacrcrd" probably refers to the number of columns. See Wiittenbach, Srhriftw. 110. 6 See Watteiibach, Schriftw. 149. It may also be noted that the most ancient dated MS. in existence, the Syriac, MS. of a.d. 411, containing the Recognitions of Clement of Rome (Brit. Mns. Add. MS. 12,150), is written in triple columns.Forms of Books. 65 older codex.7 Usually the later examples are the result of necessity, as in the case of Psalters in parallel versions or languages.8 A late instance, however, of a text written in this fashion, without any compelling causes, occurs in the Latin Bible of the 9th century, Add. MS. 24,142, in the British Museum. With regard to the breaking up of the text into paragraphs, and more particularly into the short sentences known as aTiyoi, the reader is "referred to what is said below under the heads of Punctuation and Stichometry. As already noticed; the text of early MSS. was generally written continuously without separation of tho words; and this practice continued as a rule down to about the ninth century. But even when the scribes had begun to break up their lines into words, it still continued to be the fashion to attach short words, e.g. prepositions, to those which immediately followed them. It was hardly before the eleventh century that a perfect system of separately-written words was established in Latin MSS. In Greek MSS. it may be said that the system was at no time perfectly followed, for, even when the words were distinguished, there was always a tendency to separate them inaccurately. The first lines of the main divisions of the text, as for example the several books of the Bible, were ofton written in red for distinction. In order to save space, and to get as much as possible into a line, or to avoid division of a word, the letters were often written smaller towards the end of the line ; and in Latin MSS., with the same object, two or more letters were linked or combined in a monogrammatic form. At first, in uncial Latin MSS., there was no enlargement of letters in any part of the text to mark the 7 The later copies of this Psalter also maintain the same arrangement. 8 A Psalter in four parallel columns (the Greek and the three Latin versions), a.d. 1105, is in the Bibl. Nationale, M8. Lat 2195, S^e Pal 80c. i. 156. P66 Paleography. beginnings of sections or chapters; yet, in some of the earliest examples, the first letter of the page, without regard to its position in relation to the text, is made larger than the rest. Rubrics and titles and colophons (that is, titles, etc., written at the ends of books) were at first written in the same characters as the text; afterwards it was found convenient, as a distinction, to employ different characters. Thus in later uncial Latin MSS. titles might be in capitals or rustic capitals; in minuscule MSS. they might be written in capitals or uncials. The convenience of having the title at the beginning of a ]V1 S., instead of only in colophon-form at the end, was soon recognized; but the use of the colophon still continued, the designation of a work being frequently recorded in both title and colophon down to the latest period. Running titles or head-lines appear in even some of the earliest MSS., in the same characters as the text, but of smaller size. In the division of words at the end of a line, it was the ancient practice to break off with a complete syllable. In Greek, however, in the casie of compound words, the last consonant of the prefix was carried on to the next syllable, if this was a vowel or began with a vowel, as Ka-rel-hov; and the same method was observed with a preposition and the following word, as Ka-ri-fiov. With such a system in vogue it is not surprising to find it extended occasionally to other cases, as rav-rovx- In simple words the sigma was not uncommonly carried on to a following consonant, as /xejt- ffT09. In Latin MSS., while the observance of the true syllabic division was maintained according to ancient usage, and, when two consonants came together, they were property assigned to their several syllables, as dic-tus, prop-ter, ig-iiavus, pris-cus, hos-pes, hos-tis, yet in some ancient texts the first consonaut is drawn over to the second, as di-ctus, ho-stis, etc., in accordance with the Greek practice noticed above; and in some MSS. weForms of Books. 67 find the older style altered to suit the later, as in the Fulda MS. of the Gospels, corrected in the sixth ceutury by Victor of Capua,1 and the Harley Gospels of about the year 600.2 The coupling stroke or hyphen, to indicate connection of the two parts of the divided word, appears to have been unknown in the early centuries. A point performs this duty in early instances. In the eleventh century the hyphen at the end of the line shows itself on a few occasions ; in the twelfth century it becomes more systematic, and is also repeated at the beginning of the next line. Punctnation.—Greek. The earliest form in which a system of punctuation appears is that found in ancient inscriptions, wherein the several words are divided from one another by single, double, or treble dots or points. This, however, is not punctuation in the sense in which we use the term —the system whereby sentences are marked out, and the sense of the text is made clear. The ancient practice of writing literary texts continuously, without distinction of words, was not, indeed, quite universal; for the astronomical treatise known as the 'EySo^ou re^vrj, earlier than 154 b.c., at Paris, is an instance to the contrary. But it was certainly by far the more ordinary method, and in the uncial vellum MSS. of the earlier middle ages it may be said to have been the only method that was followed. In the documents of ordinary life the distinction of words was, from early times, more frequently, though still only partially, observed. When the minuscule writing came into ugq as the literary hand, separation of the words from one another gradually followed; but never was this system fully perfected. For example, prepositions were still attached to the following words, and there was always 1 Zangemeister and Wattenbach, Exem/pla Codd. Lat., tab. xxxiv. s Brit. Mas. Cat. Anc. MSS., pfc. ii. p. 14. v 268 Paleography. a tendency to detacli a final letter, and to attncl: it to the next following word. The inconvenience which we experience in reading a continuously written text could not have been bo greatly felt by the scholars of the old Greek world; otherwise separation of words, and a perfect system of punctuation, would have been established long before was actually the case. Still the distinction of paragraphs was found a necessity at an ancient period. Hence arose the dividing stroke, the 7rapdrypacf)o<;) known, at all events, as early as Aristotle's time, separating paragraphs by being inserted between them at the beginnings of lines • but, it should be remembered, the stroke really belonged to the concluding paragraph, and marked its termination, and did not form an initial sign for the new paragraph which followed. The paragraph-mark was not, however, uniformly the horizontal stroke ; the wedge > (hnrXr)), the mark which is also often found at the end of a work, 7 (icopcovk), and similar forms were employed. This system of distinguishing paragraphs appears in use in the early papyri, and analogously the dividing stroke marks off the speeches of the different characters in the surviving papyrus fragments of the tragedians, as, for example, in the very ancient remains of the Antiope of Euripides. But to write every paragraph distinct by itself would have entailed a certain loss of space. If the last line were short, there would remain a vacant space after it, unoccupied by writing. In the earliest specimens therefore we find this space occupied by the first words of the next paragraph, a slight break being left to mark its commencement, thus :— €COM€0A OVFAPAH TTOYOAYMTTIAAIM EN The next step was to draw back the first letter of tho first full line of the new paragraph, and leave it slightly projecting into the margin; and then lastly to enlarge it.Forms of Books. 69 The letter made thus prominent being a sufficient indication of the commencement of the new paragraph, the stroke or wedge between the lines was no longer necessary and ordinarily disappeared, Thus the two lines given above would, in this last stage of development, be written thus :— €com€0a oytapah TToyoaymttiaaimgn Of course, if the paragraph commenced at the beginning of a line, the large letter took its natural place as the initial; but, arranged as above, any letter, even one in the middle of a word, might be enlarged. This system is found in action in the Codex Alexan-drinus, attributed to the 5th century, and continued to be practised throughout the middle ages. But it should be noted that, although rendered unnecessary by the introduction of the large initial, the paragraph mark also appears in this MS., but generally in anomalous positions, particularly above the initial letters of the different books —an indication that the scribes of the day had already begun to forget the meaning and proper use of tho mark. We next have to consider punctuation by points. As already stated, these were used in ancient inscriptions. The earliest instance of their employment in a Greek MS. occurs in the very ancient fragment known as the Artemisia papyrus, at Vienna, wherein the double point (:) occasioually closes a sentence. Again, in the fragments of the Phse.do of Plato, found at Gurob, the same double point appears as a mark of punctuation ; and it may also be here added that a short horizontal stroke or dash also serves the purpose of separating the different speeches in the same fragments. The double point also, in addition to the irapdypacfio';, occasionally marks the close of the paragraphs in the Paris papyrus 49, a letter of about 160 B.C. But such isolated instances merely show that there was a knowledge of the value o*7° Paleography. such marks of punctuation, which, however, in practice were not systematically employed. A more regular system was developed in the schools of Alexandria, its invention being ascribed to Aristophanes of Byzantium (260 B.C.). This was the use of the full point with certain values in certain positions (deaeiq) : the high point (errvyfirj re\ela), equivalent to a full stop; the point on the line (vTroaTiy/Ai']), a shorter pause, equivalent to our semicolon; and the -point in a middle position (any/ir) fieari), an ordinary pause, equivalent to our comma. In the Codex Alexandrinus the middle and high points are pretty generally used. But the middle point eventually disappeared; and about the ninth century the comma was introduced. It also became a common practice to mark the conclusion of a paragraph or chapter with a more emphatic sign, such as two or more dots with or without a horizontal clash, :, :- , The mark of interrogation also first appears about the 8th or 9th century. Punctuation.—Latin. The punctuation of Latin MSS. followed in some respects the systems of the Greeks. In the poem on the Battle of Actium, found at Herculaneum, points are used to mark off the words, a practice borrowed from inscriptions ; and in the early MSS. of Virgil in the Vatican Library points are found employed for the same purpose, although they appear to be due to a second, but still early, hand. From the Latin grammarians we know that they adopted the Greek system of punctuation. by points (0e'o-eto ia the Vienna MS. of Dioscorides. In addition to the marks and signs already noticed, there are some others which occur in Greek MSS. Marks of diaeresis, placed over i and v when at the beginning of a word or when they do not form a diphthong with a foregoing vowel, occur in papyri, being either a single or double dot or short stroke, or, in some instances, a short accent; in later MSS. the form is usually a double dot. Quotations are indicated by marks in the margin, the moit common being the arrow-head, > or <, and the cross, horizontal stroke, or waved stroke being also used. More rarely, quoted passages are indented, that is, written within the marginal line of the text. To distinguish words consisting of a single letter, a short acute accent or similar mark is found in use, as, in the Codex Alexandrinus, to mark 77 in its various meanings as a word. Apparently from ignorance or confusion the scribes of this MS. even placed a mark on rj when merely a letter in a word. The article o is found similarly distinguished in a papyrus of a.d. 595 (Pal. Soc. ii. 124). To fill small spaces left vacant at the end of a line, an arrow-head or tick was employed ; a^s, for example, in the papyrus of Hyperides (Lycophron), and in the Codex Sinai ticus.74 Paleography. Arbitrary signs, or signs composed of dots or strokes, are used as reference marks to marginal scholia, or to indicate insertion of omitted words or passages. In the papyrus of Hyperides ([Lycophron) the place for insertion of an omitted line is marked, and has the word ava>, while the line itself, written in the margin above, has Kara). In the papyrus of Aristotle on the Constitution of Athens, a letter or word inserted between the lines has sometimes a dot on each side. In the same manner various signs are employed to indicate transposition, such as numerical letters, or (as in the papyrus of Aristotle) slanting strokes and dots (/•) placed above the words. To distinguish words or other combinations of letters from the rest of the text, a line was drawn above them; thus the grammatical forms in the papyrus attributed to Tryphon, in the British Museum, and the reference letters in the Oxford Euclid of a.d. 888 are so marked. Besides actually striking out a letter or word or passage with a pen-stroke, the ancient scribes indicated erasure by including the word or passage between inverted commas or brackets or dots, one at the beginning and one at the end; sometimes by accents above, as e.g. tcov (to erase the v), ra and nravra (to cover the whole word), as seen in the Codex Alexandrinus; sometimes by a line above, as /cat; sometimes by a dot above, rarely below, each letter. » Accents and other Signs.—Latin. Accents were seldom used by Latin scribes. Occasionally they mark a monosyllabic word, as the exclamation 0, or a preposition, as a; and sometimes they are employed to emphasize a syllable. As in Greek MSS., quotations are indicated by marks in the margin or by indentation; and arbitrary signs are used to mark the place of insertion of omissions. Common reference marks are hd hs = hic deest, hoc supra or hie scribas, etc. Transposition of words might be indicated in various ways, as by letters or numbers,Forms of Books. 75 and very commonly by oblique strokes above the line, as men mater = mater mea. Finally, for correction, the simple method of striking out with the pen and interlining or adding in the margin was followed, as well as that of marking words or letters for deletion with dots above or below them. Besides the above, other marks and signs are found in both Greek and Latin MSS., such as the private marks of correctors or readers. There are also critical symbols, such as the diple and the asterisk employed by Aris-tarchus in the texts of Homer, and the obelus and asterisk used by St. Jerome to distinguish certain passages in versions of the Latin Psalter. But the consideration of these is beyond the scope of the present work. Palimpsests. A palimpsest MS. is one from which the first writing has been rubbed off in order to make the leaves ready to receive fresh writing. Sometimes this process was repeated, and the leaves finally received a third text, the MS. being in such a case doubly palimpsest. This method of obtaining writing material was practised in early times. The term "palimpsest" is used by Catullus,1 apparently with reference to papyrus; also by Cicero in a passage 2 wherein he is evidently speaking of waxen tablets; and by Plutarch, who narrates3 that Plato compared Dionysius to a /3t/3\iW iraXifi^rja-Tov, his tyrannical nature, hvaetcTr\vroIAOAHMOY l~l€PI PHTOPIKHC XXXX HH (=4200 lines), or €niKOYPOY n€PI YC€I2C 1 Un papyrus inedit de la Bibl. de M. A. Firmin-Didot, Paris, 1879.Stichometry. 79 16. API0. XXXHH (=3200 lines), which, however, are probably traditional numbers copied from earlier examples. In addition to the number of lines we sometimes find a record of the number of columns or a£\i8e<;. Among the mediaeval MSS. which have sticho-metrical memoranda, a copy of the Halieutica of Oppian, of the 15tli century, at Madrid, contains a statement of the number of leaves (v\\a) as well as lines in the several books, not of this particular MS., but of its archetype. In like manner the Lauren-' tian Sophocles of the 11th century has similar memoranda of the length of the several plays. The Laurentian MS. of Herodotus, of the 10th century, and the Paris MS. of Demosthenes, of the same period, afford data of the same kind. In certain of these more recent MSS., as well as in the early papyri, the ancient system of Greek numeration is employed—a proof of the antiquity of this method of calculating the length of written works; but, on the other hand, the later system of alphabetical numeration is followed in some of the Herculanean rbll3. The practice of stichometry can actually be traced back to nearly a century before the time of Callima-chus, who has been sometimes credited with its invention. Theopompus, as quoted by Photius,2 boasts that he had written 20,000 evrj in rhetorical speeches, and 150,000 in historical books. When we thus find a writer of the fourth century B.C. measuring his works in terms which are clearly intelligible and need no explanation for those to whom he addresses himself, we can understand that even at that early period the system must have been long established by common usage. While stichometrical data can be gathered in fairly large numbers from Greek literature, those which are to be found relating to Latin authors are comparatively few ; but, such as they are, they show that the Latin s Bibliotheca, cod. 176, § 120. See also Isocrates, JPanathen. 136.8o Paleography. versus corresponded closely with the Greek €-77-09 or CTTt^O?.3 Besides the system of stichometry just explained, and to which, on account of its dealing with the full measurement of literary works, the title of " total stichometry " has been applied, there was also another system in practice which has been named " partial stichometry." This was the numbering of lines or verses at convenient intervals, which, in the first place, served the same purpose of literary reference as our modern system of numbering the verses of the Bible or the lines of a play or poem. Instances of such partial stichometry indeed are not very numerous among existing MSS.; but they are sufficient to show that the system was recognized. Thus, in the Bankes Homer, the verses are numbered in the margin by hundreds, and the same practice is followed in other papyri of Homer (Classical Texts from Papyri in the Brit. Mus.); so likewise in the Ambrosian Pentateuch of the 5th century, at Milan, the Book of Deuteronomy is numbered at every hundredth crTt^o?. Euthalius, a deacon of Alexandria of the fifth century, also announces that he marked the crrlyoi of the Pauline Epistles by fifties. And in the Codex Urbinas of Isocrates, and in the Clarke Plato of a.d. 888, at Oxford, indications of partial stichometry have been traced. The most practical use of such systems of stichometry was no doubt a commercial one. By counting the number of lines, the payment of the scribes could be exactly calculated and the market price of MSS. arranged. When once a standard copy had been written and the number of cttI^ol registered, subsequent copies could be made in any form at the pleasure of the scribe, who need only enter the as6ertained number of lines at the end of.his work. Thus, in practice, we find papyri and early vellum MSS. written in nai'row columns, the lines s See a notice printed by Mommsen in Serines, xxi. 142, Zur Lateinischen Stichometrie, of a MS. at Cheltenham which affords evidence of the computation, abont a.d. 359, of the length of the works of Cyprian by the standard of a Yirgilian line.Stichometiy. 81 of which by no means correspond in length with the regulation crrt'^ot, but which were more easily read without tiring the eye. The edict of Diocletian, Be pretiis rerum venalium, of a.d. 301, settled the tariff for scribes by the hundred lines; and a survival of the ancient method of calculating such remuneration has been found in the practice at Bologna and other Italian universities, in the middle ages, of paying by the pecia of sixteen columns, each of sixty-two lines with thirty-two letters to the line. An analogous practice in our own day is seen in the copyist's charge by the folio of either seventy-two or one hundred words. We have hitherto considered a-ri^oi as lines of measurement or space-lines. But the same term was also applied to the lines or short periods into which certain texts were divided in order to facilitate reading : in other words, sense-lines. The works which would naturally more than others call for such an arrangement would be those which were read in public : the speeches of orators, or the sacred books of the Bible used for Church lessons. We have evidence of an early and regular division of the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero into short periods : the cola and commata to which St. Jerome refers in his preface to Isaiah.4 Manuscripts of the works of the Latin orator are still in existence, the text of whicli is written in this form, one of them being a MS. of the Tusculans and the De Senectute attributed to the 9th century, at Paris; and it is evident from certain passages in the writings of early rhetoricians that they were familiar with this system in the orations of Demosthenes. Suidaa explains a colon as a o-rt^o? forming a complete clause ; Joannes Siculus lays down that a clause of less 4 " Nemo cum Prophetaa versibua viderit esse descriptos metro eos aestimet apud Hebraeos ligari, et aliquid simile habere de Psalmis vel operibus Salomonis: Bed quod in Demosthene et Tullio solet fieri, ut per cola scribnntur et commata, qui utique prosa et noa versibus conscripserunt, nos- quoque, utilitati legentium providentes, interpretationem novam novo scribendi genere distinximus." a82 Paleography, than eight syllables is a comma, and that one of from eight to seventeen syllables is a, colon. In the place cited above, St. Jerome tells us thab he has, for convenience in reading, followed the system of the MSS. of Demosthenes and Cicero, and arranged his translation in this " new style of writing.'' But he had already found tbe same system followed in the Psalms and poetical books of the Old Testament—just where one would look for ths first experiment of casting the text in sense-lines. Henco the title /3l/3\ot o-n^peK? or any^pal which was applied to them. The system was gradually extended to the other books of the Bible, the term art'^o? being now used altogether to mean a sense-line, although the ancient o ' o stichometrical measurements of the text into space-lines were still recorded at the ends of the books. Euthalius is credited with having written at least the Acts and Epistles in this stichometrical sense-arrangement ; although it seems more probable that he only revised the work of predecessors, also accurately measuring the space-lines and numbering them as noticed above. As might be expected, one arrangement of the text of the Bible in rhythmical sentences or lines of sense would not be consistently followed by all editors and scribes ; and hence we find variations in the length of lines and sentences in the different extant Biblical MSS. TACHYGIIAPHY. Greek. The Greeks appear to have had a system of shorthand at a very early date. A fragment of an inscription found recently on the Acropolis at Athens has been shown by Gomperz5 to be a portion of an explanation of a kind of shorthand, composed of arbitrary signs, as old as the fourth century B.C. A passage in Diogenes Laertius was for- : Ueber ein bisher unbeJcanntes griech. Schrift-system aus der Mitte des vierten vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts, Wien, 1884. See also P. Mitzschke, JEine griech. Kurzschrift aus dem vierten JahrTiundert, in the Archiv fur Stenographie, No. 434.Tachygraphy. 83 merly interpreted to imply that Xenophon wrote shorthand notes (viroaT]fieiQ}adfievo<;) of the lectures of Socrates ; but a similar expression elsewhere, which will not bear this meaning, has caused this idea to be abandoned. The first undoubted mention of a Greek shorthand writer occurs in a passage in Galen {irepl rai/ ISicov &i(3\uov jpdv eh rdyos ypdcjieiv ; but there is no very ancient specimen of Greek tachygraphy in existence. The occurrence, however, in papyri of certain symbols as marks of contraction or to represent entire words, and particularly the comparatively large number of them found in the papyrus of Aristotle's work on the Constitution of Athens, written about a.d. 100, goes to prove that the value of such symbols was commonly understood at that period, and indicates the existence of a perfected system of shorthand writing. A waxen book of several tablets, acquired not long since by the British Museum (Add. MS. 33,270), and assigned to the 3rd century, is inscribed with characters which are surmised to be in Greek shorthand, the only words written in ordinary letters being in that language. A system of shorthand was practised by the early Christians for taking down sermons and the proceedings of synods. But we must descend to the tenth century before we meet with Greek tachygraphic MSS. which have been deciphered. The first is the Paris MS. of Hermogenes, which contains some marginal notes in mixed ordinary and tachygraphical characters, of which Montfaucon6 gives an account with a table of forms. Next, there is a series of MSS. which owe their origin to the monastery of Grotta Ferrata, viz. the Add. MS. 18,231 of the British Museum, written in the year 972, and others of the same period (Pal. 80c. ii. pi. 28, 85, 86), which are full of partially tachygraphic texts and scholia, and also contain passages in shorthand pure and simple. And lastly there is the Vatican MS. 1809, a volume of which forty-seven pages • Falseogr. Grsec. p. 351. G 284 Palaeography. are covered witli tachygraphic writing of the eleventh century, which have been made tbe subject of special study by Dr. Gitlbauer for the Vienna Academy. Some shorthand passages which occur in a fourteenth century MS., and a passage from a fifteenth century MS in the Vatican, have recently been published.7 The shorthand system of these later examples is syllabic, the signs, it is thought, being formed from uncials; and it has been concluded that it represents, if nob a new creation of the ninth or tenth century, at least a modification and not a continuation of the older system —in a word, that two systems of Greek shorthand havo existed. For it is found that the forms of contraction and abbreviation in Greek MSS. of the middle ages are derived from two sources, most of them springing from an ancient system, but others clearly being contributed by the later system of shorthand. Latin. According to Suetonius,8 the first introduction of shorthand signs, notse, in Rome was due to Ennius; but more generally the name of Cicero's freedman, Tiro, is associated with the invention, the signs being commonly named notse Tironianse. Seneca is said to have collected the various notse known at his time, to the number of 5000. Shorthand appears to have been taught in schools under the empire; and the emperor Titus himself is said to have been expert in writing it. There seems to have been, as it is natural there should have been, a connection between Greek and Latin tachy-graphv, certain symbols being the same in both. Down to the ninth century the notes appear to have been in common use. In the Frankish empire they are found in the signatures and subscriptions of charters. They were also used by revisers and annotators of MSS. 7 T. W. Allen, Fourteenth Century Tachygraphy, in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, xi. 286; Desroupseaux, Sur quelques Manu-scrits d'ltalie, in the Melanges of the Ecole Frantjaise de Rome, 1886, p. 544. 8 " Vulgarea notas Ennuis primuj mille et centum invenit."Cryptog raphy. 85 The scholia and glosses iii a MS. of Virgil, at Berne, of the latter half of the 9th century {Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 12) are partially written in these signs; bat about this period they passed out of ordinary use. And yet there appears to have been an attempt made to check their total extinction; for there are still in existence MSS. of the Psalter, of the ninth or tenth century, in shorthand, which, it has been suggested, were written for practice. And the survival of Tironian lexicons, or collections of the signs, copied at this time, seems to point to an effort to keep them in the recollection of men. Professional scribes and notaries continued to use them in subscriptions to charters down to the eleventh century. CRYPTOGRAPHY. The various methods which at different periods have been adopted for the purpose of concealing the meaning of what is written, either by an "elaborate system of secret signs or "cyphers," or by a simpler and less artificial system, such as the substitution of other letters for the true letters required by the sense, only incidentally come within the scope of a work on Palaeography. The cypher-system, like short-hand, has a special department of its own. It is only the modified practice of substituting letters and other common signs which need for a moment detain us, as it is followed occasionally in mediaeval MSS. This simple system, as might be naturally inferred, appears to be of some antiquity. Julius Cassar and Augustus, according to Suetonius, both had their own private methods of disguise, by substitution of consonants for vowels. In the middle ages consonants for vowels, or vowels for consonants, or other exchange of letters occur; sometimes we have the substitution of Greek letters or of numerals or other signs. But the surviving instances are not very numerous and generally appear in colophons lor the purpose of disguising a namo or year of date, at the caprice of the writer.CHAPTER VII. ABBREVIATIONS AND CONTRACTIONS. Greek. Abbreviations and contractions1 play an important part in Palaeography. Two reasons in particular dispose men to curtail written words: (1) the desire to avoid the labour of writing over and over again words of frequent recurrence, which can as easily be understood in an abbreviated as in an extended form; and (2) the necessity of saving space. From the earliest times there must have been a constant striving among individuals to relieve the toil of writing by shortening words. The author would soon construct a system of contraction of his own, and, especially if he were writing on a subject into which technical words would largely enter, his system would be adopted by other writers in the same field. In law deeds, in public and private accounts, in the various memoranda of the transactions of daily life, common and oft-repeated words must have been always subject to curtailment—at first at the caprice of individuals, but gradually on recognized systems intelligible to all. The simplest form of abbreviation is that in which a single letter (or at most, two or three letters) represents a word. Thus, there is the ancient Greek system of indicating numerals by the first letter, as II = irevre, A = Sexa, ' H (aspirate) = gkcltov, and so on. On ancient coins, vhere available space was limited, we find the names of Greek cities indicated by the first two or three 1 1 use the word "abbreviation " for the shortening of a word by suppressing its termination ; " contraction " for the shortening of a word by omitting letters from the body.Abbreviations and Contractions. 8; letters. Certain ordinary words also occur in inscriptions in shortened forms. The Roman usage of employing single letters to represent titles of rank is familiar to us from inscriptions, and has been handed down in the works of classical authors ; the S.P. Q.R. of the great Republic will occur to the recollection of everyone. Such abbreviations by constant usage became a part of the written language. The fullest development to which a system of abbreviation can attain is, of course, a perfected shorthand; but this is far too artificial for the ordinary business of life. Something between simple single-letter signs and complex tachygraphical symbols is required, and hence we find in the middle ages a good working system developed by Greek and Latin writers, which combined the advantages of both kinds of abbreviation. The letter system was extended, and certain tachygraphical symbols were taken over as representatives of entire words in common use or as convenient signs for prefixes and terminations.2 In tracing, then, the history of Greek and Latin abbreviations and contractions, as far as it can be ascertained from existing documents, we must be prepared to find in the systems of each certain elements which are of great antiquity. "When we see in the case of mediaeval minuscule Greek MSS. considerable differences in the system there in use from that which appears in uncial 2 The art of reading contracted writing can necessarily only be acquired by those who have a knowledge of the languages in which the MSS. are written, and who will patiently persevere in their study. The beginner will find the first difficulty of mastering the elementary forms of contraction of the middle ages most easily overcome by transcribing passages in extenso. For Greek, MSS. in minuscule writing of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries ; for Latin, charters of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, are the best subjects to begin with. As regards the latter, they are generally short, the contractions are numerous ; but at tlio Ramo time particular phrases and contractions continually recur. The student has thus the advantage of passing under his eye a great variety of hnndwiitiug and of comparing the forms which individual letters and contractions take in the several documents ; while the recurrence of legal terms and phrases, which soon become familiar, gives him the key to correct reading.88 Palaeography. MSS., we might be led to infer that it was a new invention ; but a closer examination will prove that in its elements it is the same as that which was practised hundreds of years before, in the third century B.C. We may even carry our view still farther back. For, if in some of the earliest documents which have survived abbreviated forms are in existence, not made at random but following certain laws in their formation, we have sufficient ground for assuming that the practice of abbreviation was, even at that remote time, one of some antiquity, and that a long period must have passed for the development of a system intelligible to all readers. A still further, and even stronger, proof of the very ancient origin of this practice is afforded by the numerous symbols for particular words which are found in the earliest papyri. There does not exist, however, sufficient material for the construction of a continuous history of Greek abbreviation between the two periods noted above, viz., the third century B.C. and the ninth century of our era, when the minuscule came into use as the literary hand. It will be therefore convenient, first of all, to consider the forms of abbreviation and contraction which are found in the uncial MSS. of the Scriptures and liturgies, which partially fill the gap of the vacant centuries. The earliest dates from the fourth century. In such MSS., which were, more than others, required for public reading, the rules followed are very simple, nor are the examples of abbreviation numerous. The omission of N at the end of a line is marked by a horizontal stroke, as OIKO-; a form common to all MSS. The middle of a word was omitted, the first and last letter (or at most one or two more) being given and surmounted by a horizontal stroke, as ©C = (B)eo9. Words so contracted were confined generally to sacred names and titles and words of frequent occurrence, and their inflections. They are (besides OC) \ IC=T??o-o{;?, XC = XpicrT09, YC = v'm, KC=/cvpio<;, TTP and TTAP=mrr?;/?, MP=/J-Vtrjp, ANOC =dv6pa>iroT77/>, CTPOC and CPOC= arL<^ ^he unusual lj — avTTjv. Many of these abbreviations are used for syllables r\s well as for independent words. In addition, terminations are occasionally abbreviated with the over-written letter as /iax =Abbreviations and Contractions. 91 ordinary literary hand, the biblical system of contraction did not perish. The same scribes who had copied out the majuscule texts were now employed upon the new minuscule, and naturally introduced into the latter the contractions which they had been accustomed to write in the former. In minuscule writing, therefore, from the ninth century onwards, any form of contraction or abbreviation may be looked for. At first, however, they were, in general, very sparingly used in the calligraphic MSS. of the period, although, when necessary, the apparatus was ready at hand to be applied, as in the case of marginal and interlinear scholia, where contractions were always more freely used than in the text of a MS. The horizontal stroke which marked contracted words in the biblical uncial texts served the same purpose in minuscules ; it also distinguished letters which were used as numerals or special signs. But the ordinary terminal abbreviations were marked by an oblique stroke drawn under the line, as in aS6/ = dSe\(f)6<;} 7roX:/=7r6\e^,o?, although this stroke was also often dispensed with, and a mere flourish added to the over-written letter. This over-written letter was also subject to modifications. It was doubled occasionally to indicate a plucal, as, 7rat55/ = ira&cov, crri = cttl^ol. It was also in some instances the emphatic letter of the omitted portion of the word, as \v/=\ery€iv, KT"l=-KaTa. And the arrangement of letters was sometimes inverted, as$=\oyo5 eis. ? 1 = TiOels. Another rare form is C^ which appears to be the ordinary ligature of e and 1 with a cross stroke. ev. An angle L, as p, = fxev, which afterwards took a more rounded form, as yeyov = yeyovev, degenerating at a later period into L, or even into a looped flourish like a wide a. The tachygraphic sign tf is also occasionally found in use.94 Pala&cgraphy. ep. The oblique stroke, the tachygraphic sign for e, combines with a loop, for p, and makes the sign b, as coa-ir1, ==a>cTTrep, eiTri>=eLTrep. More rarely a bar is used as vtA - = vwep, coo~n\- - oiairep. e?. The early sign wasj, as dyovr° = (f>dyovre, as dv = avrjp. 779. A sign resembling 9, as t = r>79. This sign early combined with the circumflex as (5. It is sometimes doubled. tv. The sign for t]v was often used also for this termination. It was also differentiated by two dots, thus, Td%x=Ta%iv. It passed through the same stages of degeneration as its prototype. i?. The sign for 779 was also used for t?. It was also differentiated by two dots, thus, avT*zzavTi ; =\ov ; afterwards, a sweeping flourish, as 8ia(f>op=8La(f)op(b. top. A not common sign^o or as v8* = v8(op, prjTJ = prjtwp. to9. A curving line as ovt*1 =ovt(os, co7rep= wcnrep. Later, the sign turns downwards,as kcl\? = koX&s. Certain prepositions and particles are represented by special signs, as— ami: D, a very rare sign. airo : ^v ~V J a rare SL* (iarlv) ; but this distinction was not kept up. Later, from confusion with the sign for iv (/*), the position of the dots was altered, and tho sign became fi, which afterwards passed into the flourished style, on the pattern of the signs for rjv and iv. A double ecru, •//., was used foreiVZ; and in the same manner yy> or '//>. =elcrlv. And, perhaps on the same analogy, c*i = eivai.7 The future earai. is found in the rorms 7), g). Certain signs were also used for technical words, as ^ — dpiO/nos, ^ = api6fiol M, q = tcrom?i, NO =11011. Afterwards the simple stroke was placed above the last letter, as ENI, NO. Analogous to the horizontal stroke is the oblique stroke, which takes the place of the horizontal chiefly in words in which the tall minuscule letters b and 1 occur, as &ph=apostoli, mlto=multo, libe=libere, ■proci=proeul. Of the same class is the waved vertical stroke (sometimes in the form of a curve rising from the preceding letter), often used to signify the omission of er or re ; as frniter=breviter, cstus=certus. Less frequent, because it dropped out of general use, is the final oblique stroke, also found in the earlier abbreviations, usually for terminations us, ur, umAbbreviations and Contractions. 101 (after r), as any. = anus, amam^ = amamns, amat/ = amatur, VQy_=rerum. Of these, the last termination rum continued to be represented in this way, especially in words in the genitive plural.9 Another general sign of early use was the round curve or comma above the line, which, as late as the ninth century, continued to represent the terminations ur, os, us. In later MSS. the curve alone was retained to indicate the termination us (sometimes os), and so became a special sign (see below). A long drooping stroke attached to the end of a word is often found as a general sign to indicate the omission of any termination. It is, however, specially used for termination is. In the fourteenth century it develops into a loop, as diett=dictis. A sign nearly resembling an inverted c or the numeral 6, Tironian in its origin, usually signifies the syllable con or com, also more rarely cun or cum, as gdo = condo, 9munis = communis, cir9scriptus=circumscriptus, Qcti = cuncti.I0 It always stands in the line of writing. A similar sign (to which reference has already been made), above the line, represents the termination us, as bon9= bonus ; also more rarely 0.9, as n = uos, ip0t=post. In the last word it is sometimes used for the whole termination os t, as p9. A sign somewhat resembling the numeral 2 placed obliquely % , also derived from a Tironian note, is written for the termination ur, as amatamatur. It is also placed horizontally, as ierl2=fertur. Being commonly employed in the case of verbs, it also sometimes stands for the whole termination tur, as ama1. The letter p having a curve drawn through the down stroke, p, is to be read jtjro. In YisigothicMSS., however, it signifies per, very rarely pro, which is usually in such MSS. written in full. P crossed with a horizontal bar, A curious result of the use of this sign is seen in the second namo for Salisbury, " Sarum." The Latin Sarisburia iu abbreviated form was written Sa^., and came to be read Sarum. 10 The letter c surmounted by a horizontal line also represents con.i02 Pal&ography. p, is per, also par, par, as ptem = partem, optet, — oportet. The same letter with a horizontal or waved oblique stroke or curve placed above it (when riot at the end of a word) becomes pre, as psertim =prGsertim, p'bet = prebet. The following conventional signs, mostly derived from Tironian notes, are also used with more or less frequency:— )S = autcm, $ = ejus, = = esse, ^ = est (which degenerates into a 3-shaped sign: see above), $=per, 7 = et 7=etiam, ftj (later 44- and and thence -n-)==enim, ■i-=id est, \—vel, •& = obiit, obitus, v and u=ut. In this place may also bo noticed the Latin contracted form of our Lord's name. The name of Jesus Christ was always written in Greek letters by mediaeval scribes, and in contracted form it appeared in majuscule MSS. thus: IHC XPC, in Greek uncials. When these words bad to be written in minuscule letters, the scribes treated them as purely Latin words written in Latin letters, and transcribed them ihc (or ifrs) xpc. Hence arose the idea that the form Ihesus was the correct one, and by false analogy the letter h was introduced into other proper names, as Iherusalem, Iheronimus. Similarly the terminating letter c, for s, was carried over by scribes to other words, as opc = episcopus, spc=spiritus, tpc = tempus. Most ordinarily, over-written letters are vowels, to which the letter r has to be supplied to solve the reading, as gatia=gratia, cata=carta, tes = tres, u°hsL=verba, pior=prior, u'tus=virtus, ag°s = agros, c°pas = corpus, pudens =prudens, turis = turris. The more usual contractions of this character are those in which the r precedes the vowel. Other letters may also be understood, as in af—qua, bo*=bona, q'bus = quibus, m*=mihi, m°= modo.' The letter a when over-written frequently takes the open form («,) which degenerates into a mere zigzag horizontal line or flattened u (**■) ■. When consonants are over-written the number of letters to be supplied is quite uncertain : a single vowel is omitted in such words as nC=nec, hc=/a'c; severalAbbreviations and Contractions. 103 letters are understood in such a contraction as pl=potest. The over-written consonant is usually the last letter of the word.1 In some instances two or more letters are overwritten as hu""oi=hujusmodi, incorp}CB=incorporates ; but such full forms are seldom wanted. By metathesis, the contractions of certain common words, in which the letter g is prominent, take a special form, as g1 and gT=igitur, gB,=erga, g°=ergo. The amount of contraction in a MS. depended to a considerable extent upon the character of the text. As has been already observed, technical books were more contracted than works of general literature. In MSS. written in majuscule letters, and particularly in biblical and liturgical codices, which were specially required for public reading, the contractions are very few: the omission of final M or N, Q'=que, ~B' = bus, QM or QNM = quoniam, DS =Deus and its inflections, DMS or DNS=Dominus and its inflections, the name of our Lord (see above), SG$=sanctus, SPS=spiritus, and a few other common words. With the introduction of minuscule writing for the book-hand, and when MSS. were employed for private use, there was more scope for this convenient system of saving labour and space; but in works intended for popular use there was seldom an excess of contraction or the employment of arbitrary forms such as to render the reading of the text difficult. When once the elements and principles of the system are understood, and the eye has been fairly practised, no ordinary MS. will present difficulties to the reader. As regards texts written in the vernacular languages of those countries of Europe which have adopted the Roman alphabet, it will be found that contractions are more rarely used in them than in MSS. written in Latin. A system suited to the inflections and 1 With regard to over-written s, it may be noted that in Yisi-gothic writing a sign resembling that letter is used in the word q* que, which however is derived from the cursive form of overwritten u.104 Palaeography. terminations of this language could not be well adapted to other languages so different in their structure. Numerals. In Greek MSS. we find two systems of expressing numbers by signs, both being taken from the alphabet. It appears to have been the older practice to use the initial letter of the name of the number for its symbol, as TT for 5, A for 10, H (aspirate) for 100, X for 1000, M for 10,000. This has been called the Herodian system, after the name of the grammarian who described it. It is found in use in the papyri, especially in the stychometrical memoranda of the numbers of the lines contained in them; and such notes are also found transmitted to vellum MSS. of the middle ages. The other system was to take the first nine letters of the alphabet for the units, and the rest for the tens and hundreds, disused letters being still retained for numeration, viz., f, digamma, for 6, which in its early form appears as q or t, and afterwards, in the middle ages, becomes T, like the combined a and r or stigma; q, koppa. for 90; and a symbol derived from the old letter sail, which appears in papyri2 as T or f, and at later periods as ^ which, from its partial resemblance to pi} was called sampi (= san+pi), for 900. This system was ill full use in the third century B.C. The practice of numbering the successive books of a work, as e.g. the twenty-four books of the Iliad, by the successive letters of the alphabet, is hardly a system of numeration in the proper sense of the word. In certain cases, we find it convenient to make use of our alphabet in a somewhat similar way, to mark a series. The numerals were usually distinguished from the letters of the text by a horizontal stroke : thus a. To 2 See e.g. Gat. of Greek Papyri in the Brit. Mus.} pp. 47, 5E,Abbreviations and Contractions. 105 indicate thousands a stroke was added to the left of the numeral: thus = etc. The o which appears for the numerator in § is derived from the cursive form of j3, and is found in other combinations in papyri. The 8 for 5 also appears in form of a Roman d; and | is represented by a variant of it, fcj. The symbols —, r=, p, p, f?, stand for obols, from one to five. The'Roman system of numerals was used throughout the middle ages (and, indeed, it lasts to our own day), and was not displaced by the introduction of the Arabic system, .although the latter, from its convenience, was widely adopted. The Roman system was continued as the more official, and money accounts were calculated in its numerals. This is not the place to discuss the origin of the Roman numerals; it is sufficient to say that the system was not an alphabetical one, for, although 0 (100) has been said to be the first letter of ccntum and M (1000) the first letter of mille, both these signs had a different derivation, and by a natural process only took the forms of the letters which they resembled most nearly,3 To distinguish the numerals from the letters of the text they were placed between points : thus -XL-. Besides the ordinary method of indicating thousands by repetitions of M, units with horizontal strokes above were also employed for the purpose : thus, I-, -II-, -III-, etc. Certain special signs occur insomeMSS.: as the Visigothic T=1000, and X" =40, and the not very uncommon sign q = 6 which has been derived from the Greek symbol, but which may be only a combination of See Zangemeister, Entstehung der romischen Zahlzcichen, in the Sitzb. der k. Preussischen AJcademie, 1887.io6 Palceography. U (V) and I. A cross stroke traversing a numeral sometimes indicates redaction by half a unit, as ii+= Arabic numerals first appear in European MSS. in tlie twelfth century, their early use being general in mathematical works; by the fourteenth century they had become universal. They have not much changed in form since their first introduction, the greatest difference from the modern shapes being seen in £=4, and tj=5.CHAPTER VIII. greek paleography. Papyri. The first discovery of Greek papyri in Egypt took place in the year 1778, when fifty rolls were found in the neighbourhood of Memphis. Unfortunately, ail but one were carelessly destroyed; the survivor was presented to Cardinal Stefano Borgia, under whose auspices it was published in 1788, Charta papyracea Musei Borgiani Vclitrii, by Schow. It is of the year 191 after Christ. This find was followed early in the present century by the discovery of a collection, enclosed, according to the story of the Arabs who found it, in a single vessel, on the site of the Serapeum or temple of Serapis at Memphis. The finders divided the hoard among themselves, and hence the collection found its way piecemeal into different libraries of western Europe. Paris secured the largest number, which have been published, with au atlas of facsimiles, in the Notices et Extraits dcs Manu-scrits de la Bibliotheque Imperiale, etc., vol. xviii., 1865. A certain number fell to the share of the British Museum, and will be published in the Catalogue of Greek Papyri in the British Museum. Some are in the VaticaD, and others are at Leyden. The larger number of the documents thus brought to light have perpetuated a little domestic romance, and have preserved the memory of two poor twin sisters and the wrongs they endured in the second ccntury b.c. Thaues a~nd Thaus were the daughters of a native of Memphis, who in an unhappy hour married a woman named Nephoris. Deserted by her, and maltreated "byio8 Paleography. her paramour, he fled away and died; and the twins were forthwith turned out of doors. But a friend was at hand. Among the recluses of the temple of Serapis was one Ptolemy, son of Glaucias, a Macedonian by birth, whose father had settled in the nome of Hera-cleopolis, and who had entered on his life of seclusion in the year 173 B.C. As an old friend of their father, he now came forward and obtained for the two girls a place in the temple. Their duties, upon which they entered in the year 165 B.C., included the offering of libations to the gods, a service which entitled them to certain allowances of oil and bread. All went well for a brief six months, but then the supplies began to fall into arrears. The poor twins tried in vain to get their rights, and their appeals to the subordinate officials, who had probably diverted the allowances to their own use, were disregarded. Again the good Ptolemy came to the rescue and took the matter in hand; and very per-tinaceously did he pursue the claims. Petition after petition issued from his ready pen. Appeals to the governor; appeals to the king; reference to one official was referred again to another, who in his turn, passed it on to a third; reports were returned, duly docketed, and pigeon-holed; again they wore called for, and the game was carried ou in a way which would do credit to the government offices of the most civilized nation. But Ptolemy was not to be beaten. We know that he at length succeeded in getting for the twins payment of a large portion of arrears, and at the moment when the documents cease he is still left fighting. That his efforts were eventually crowned with a full success we cannot doubt; and thus ends the story of the twins. These documents, then, and certain others including other petitions and documents of the persistent Ptolemy, form the bulk of the collection which was found on the site of the Serapeum at Memphis. Its palaeographical value cannot be too highly estimated. Here, thanks chiefly to the ready pen of an obscure recluse, a fairly numerous series of documents bearing dates in the second century B.C. has descended to us. If the sands of Egypt hadGreek Paleography. 109 preserved a collection of such trivial intrinsic importance, probably from the accident of its being buried in the tomb of the man who had written so many of its documents, what might not be looked for if the last resting-place of a scholar were found ? The expectations that papyri inscribed with the works of Greek classical authors, and written in Egypt or imported thither during the reigns of the Ptolemies or in the Roman period, would sooner or later come to light gradually began to be realized. Several papyri containing books, or fragments of books, of Homer's Iliad have been recovered. The most ancient appears to be the one (the ''Harris Homer") containing a large portion of Book xviii., which was found in 1849-1850 by Mr. A. 0. Harris, in the Crocodile Pit at Ma'abdeh, in the Fayoum, and is now in the British Museum (Cat. Anc. MSS., i. pi. 1 ; Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 64). It is probably of the 1st century B.C. Of later date is the " Bankes Homer," containing the greater part of Book xxiv., which was bought at Elephantine by the traveller William Bankes, and is also in the British Museum {Cat. Anc. MSS., i. pi. 6; Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 153). A third important MS. of Homer, which has also lately found its way into the national collection (Brit. Mus., Papyrus cxxvi.), is the papyrus in form of a book, inscribed on the front of each leaf with the Iliad, from line 101 of Book ii. to line 40 of Book iv., the longest portion of the poem that has hitherto been found on papyrus. It was discovered in the same Crocodile Pit as the Harris Homer, and also belonged to Mr. Harris. It is not, however, of early date, being probably as late as the 4th century; but it has a special interest from the existence, on the back of three of the leaves, of a portion of a treatise on Greek grammar, which gives an outline of various parts of speech, and which bears in its title the name of Tryphon, a grammarian who flourished in the latter half of the first century B.C. The treatise, however, is probably only an abstract of the work of that writer. Besides these comparatively perfect Homeric papyri, there are others of a more fragmentary chai-acter:no Paldzograbhy. as the British Museum papyrus cxxviii., containing considerable portions of the Iliad, Books xxiii. and xxiv., and the fragments in the Louvre of Books vi., xiii., and xviii. (Not, et Extr., pi. xii., xlix.), all of an early period; of later date, papyri cxxvii. and cxxxvi. in the British Museum, containing portions of Books iii.,iv., v., vi., and xviii. Lastly there are the fragments of Book ii. in large characters, perhaps as late as the fifth or sixth century, found by Mr. Flinders Petrie at Hawara, and presented to the Bodleian Library (Hawara, etc., ed. Petrie, 1889, pi. xxiii.). An important addition has been made to classical literature by the recovery of several of the orations of the Athenian orator Hyperides. Tlie papyrus containing his orations for Lycophron and Euxenippus is in unusually good condition and measures eleven feet in length. It may be of the 1st century b.c. Other portions of the same roll contain fragments of his oration against Demosthenes (see editions of Professor Babington, 1850, 1853; Cat. Anc. MSS., i. pi. 2, 3; Pal. Soc., i. pi. 126). A fourth work of the same author is the funeral oration which he delivered over the Athenian general Leosthenes and his comrades, who fell in the Lamian war in 323 b.c. (ed. Babington, 1858). The date of this text was formerly placed in the 1st or 2nd century b.c.; a horoscope of a person born in a d. 95 being inscribed on the other side of the papyrus. But it has now been proved that the oration is on the verso side of the papyrus (i.e. the side on which the fibres run vertically), and therefore was written subsequently to the horoscope; and, further, the faults in orthography and the rough character of the writing have led to the conclusion that it is a student's exercise. All the papyri of Hyperides just enumerated are in the Bi'itish Museum, and in. a collection of documents recently acquired by the trustees there has also been found the concluding portion of an oration, which is believed to belong to the speech against Philippides, in writing earlier than the Christian era. The Museum of the Louvre has also purchased lately an important papyrus of the period ofGreek Palaeography. in the Ptolemies, in which is a work which is identified aa an oration of Hyperides against Athenogenes (Revue Egyptologique, 1892). When it is borne in mind that none of the works of this orator was known to have survived until the reappearance of these long-buried papyrus rolls, the significance of the recovery of a lost author and the promise which was thus held out of possibly greater prizes have accustomed the world to be ever on the look-out for the " semper aliquid novi" from Africa. The large collection of papyrus documents and fragments which a few years ago passed into the possession of the Archduke Rainer attracted considerable attention. Slowly, and with the expenditure of much patience and skill, they are being deciphered and published. But sifted, as they chiefly are, from the sand and light soil of the Fayoum, the rags and tatters of ancient dust-bins, they could not be expected to yield any text of considerable extent. A fragment of Thucy-dides has come to light (Wiener Studien, vii. 1885), and other such pieces may yet be found. But they would rank only with such discoveries as that of the fragment of the writings of the poet Alcman, now in the Louvre (Not, et Extr.f pi. 1.), whetting the appetite it is true, but adding very little to the stock of Greek literature. The Rainer collection is, however, of very great palgeo-graphical importance. It covers a wide period, and illustrates in particular the writing of the early centuries of our era, of which we have hitherto had but scanty examples. But the most important recent discovery that has been made, as far as palaeography is concerned, is that of Mr. Flinders Petrie at the village of Gurob in the Fayoum. Here he found that the cartonnage coffins which he obtained from the necropolis were composed of papyri pasted together in layers, fortunately not in all instances too effectively. The result of careful separation has been that a large number of documents -dated in the third century B.C. have been recovered. These, together with a few of the same century which are scattered in112 Paleography. different libraries of Europe, and whose early date had not in some instances been hitherto recognized, are the most ancient specimens of Greek writing (as distinguished from sculptured inscriptions) in existence above ground.1 Besides miscellaneous documents, there are not inconsiderable remains of registers of wills, entered up from time to time, and thus presenting us with a variety of different handwritings as practised under the early Ptolemies. Still more interesting in a literary aspect are the fragments of the Phseclo of Plato, and of the lost play, the Antiope, of Euripides, which have happily been gleaned from the Gurob mummy-cases. The tragedians had already been represented by the finding some years ago of a fragment of papyrus, on which were written some lines supposed to come from the Temenides of Euripides, and others from the Medxa (H. Weil, Un papyrus inedit de la Bibl. de M. A. Firmin-JDidot, 1879); and the date of the writing is at least as old as the year 161 B.C. But by the recovery of the classical fragments at Gurob, we are brought within almost measurable distance of the authors. Indeed, this copy of the Phsedo, written, as there is good reason to believe, within a hundred years of the death of Plato, can hardly differ in appearance, in a very material degree, from the copies which were published in his lifetime. The only other extant document that can be compared, as regards style of writing, with these fragments, is the papyrus at Vienna, inscribed with an invocation of a certain Artemisia, which has been ascribed to the 4th century, and may wit/L certainty be placed as early as the first half of the 3rd century B.C. It will be noticed below. These discoveries, of such inestimable value for the history both of Greek palaeography and of Greek literature, had been scarcely announced, when the world was astonished by the appearance of a copy, written about the end of the first or beginning of the second century, 1 A selection of these papyri has been recently published in the Cunningham Memoirs of the Royal Irish Academy {On the Flinders Petrie Papyri, by Rev. J. P. Mahaffy, 1891).Greek Paleography. of Aristotle's treatise on the Constitution of Athens, the YloXneLa to>v 'A6>]valo}v, a work which had vanished from sight more than a thousand years ago. The papyrus containing this valuable text came into possession of the British Museum in the course of the year 1890. Like the Funeral Oration of Hyperides, the work is written on the back of a disused document, the account-roll of a farm bailiff in the district of Hermopolis in Egypt, rendered in the reign of Vespasian, a.d. 78-79. Four hands were employed in the trauscription, the first of which is probably that of the scholar who desired the copy for his own use ; for a text written so roughly, and that, too, on the back of a waste papyrus, would have had 110 sale in the market. This recovery of a lost classic of such traditional fame has cast into the shade all previous finds of this nature, however important many of them have been; and there is every reason to hope that the more systematic and careful exploration of Egypt in our days may achieve still greater results. By the side of the work of Aristotle, other papyri which have lately passed into the British Museum, containing fragments of works of Demosthenes, of the 2nd or 1st century b.c., and of Isocrates of the 1st century after Christ, may appear insignificant; but the acquisition of a papyrus of fair length, restoring to us some of the lost poems of the iambographer Herodas, who flourished in the first century b.c., is one more welcome addition to the long lost*Greek literature which is again emerging into light.2 Outside of Egypt, Herculaneum is the only place in which Greek papyri have been found. Here, in a house which was excavated in the year 1752, a number of charred rolls were discovered, which were at first taken fo; pieces of charcoal, many being destroyed before 2 Aristotle's noXireia has been published, together with an autotype facsimile of the papyrus; and the poems of Herodas, with collations of other papyri, are print edr- in Classical Texts from Papyri in the British Museum, 1891: both works edited by F. G. Kenyon for the Trustees of the British Museum. A facsimile of the papyius of Herodas has also been issued. [U4 Paleography. their real nature was recognized. Almost immediately attempts were made to unroll them; and with more or less success the work has been carried on, at intervals, down to the present day. The process is a difficult one; the hardened crust, into which the outer portion of the rolls has been converted by the action of the heated ashes which buried the devoted city, must be removed before the inner and less injured layers can be reached, and so fragile are these that the most skilful and patient handling is required to separate them without irreparably injuring the remains. Copies of the texts recovered have been engraved and published in the series of volumes, the Herculcmensia Volumina, printed at Naples. In the year 1800, the Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Fourth, undertook the expense of unrolling and copying the papyri; but the work was interrupted by the French invasion of 1806. The tracings and copper-plates which had been prepared by his agent were presented by the Prince to the University of Oxford in 1810, together with a few unopened rolls, part of a number which had been given to him by the Neapolitan Government. Four of the rest and the unrolled fragments of a fifth were subsequently presented by the Queen to the British Museum in 1865. In 1824 and 1825 two volumes of lithographs of some of the Oxford facsimiles were published; and recently, in 1885, others have been given in the Fragmenta Jlerculanensi.a of Mr. Walter Scott. But none of the facsimiles in these publications can be considered sufficient for palseograpliical study, and unfortunately the blackened condition of the rolls is such that little can be done by the agency of photography. Two autotype plates copied from some of the original fragments, will be found in the facsimiles of the Palgeographical Society (i. pi. 151, 152). Of the rolls which have been opened, a large proportion are found to contain works of the Epicurean Philodemus, while others are the writings of Epicurus and the leading members of his school. From the fact that several of Philodemus's works are in duplicate,Greek Palaeography. it has been suggested that the principal part of the collection was formed by Philodemus himself, and that the house in which it was found was that of L. Calpur-nius Piso Csesoninus, the patron of the philosopher and the father-in-law of Julius Ca3sar. However this may be, the date of the destruction of Herculaneum, a.d. 79, forms a posterior limit for the age of the papyri. Roughly, then, their period may be fixed at the end of the first century b.c. or the beginning of the first century of the Christian era. The Antiquity of Greek Writing. The most important lesson which we, as palaeographers, learn from these ancient papyri is, that throughout all periods, as far back as we can reach, we have side by side two classes of Greek writing: the Literary or Book-hand, in which, works of literature were usually (but not always) written, and the Cursive hand of every-day life; that, however remote the date of these documents, we find in them evidence that then all sorts and conditions of men wrote as fluently as we do now ; that the scribe of those days could produce as finely written texts as the scribe of later times; and that the educated or professional man could note down records of daily business with as much facility as any of their descendants. And if we find these evidences of a widespread knowledge of Greek writing so far back as the third century b.c., and writing, too, of a kind which bears on its face the stamp of matured development, the question naturally arises, to what remote period are we to assign the first stage of Greek writing, not in a primitive condition, but so far developed as to be a practical means of intercourse. There has hitherto rather been a tendency to regard the earliest existing Greek inscriptions as the first painful efforts of unskilled hands. But it is far more natural to suppose that, almost simultaneously with the adoption of an alphabet, the keen-witted Greek trader must "have profited by the example of Egyptian and Phoenician and have soon learnt laow to express himself in writing. It is 12i 16 Palaeography. impossible at least to doubt that the Greek mercenaries Avho were able to cut so skilfully not only their names but also longer inscriptions on the statue of Abu Simbel some 600 years B.C., were perfectly able to write fluently with the pen. But without speculating further on this subject, we may vest content with the fact that in the papyri of the third century B.C. we have styles of writing so confirmed in their character that we have no difficulty in forming an approximate idea of the character of the writing of the best classical period of Greece. Indeed, judging by the comparatively slow changes which passed over Greek writing in the hundred years from the third to the second century B.C., we probably have before us, in our oldest specimens, both literary and cursive, styles not very different from those of a hundred years earlier. Divisions of Greek Palaeography. It will here be convenient to state the plan adopted in the following sketch of the progress of Greek writing. The courses of the two styles of writing', which have already been referred to as the Literary hand or Book-hand and tho Cursive hand, will be kept distinct for the earlier centuries, previous to the adoption of the minuscule as a literary hand in the ninth century. Again, a general distinction will be observed between MSS. written on papyrus (as well as examples on pottery or wax) and MSS. written on vellum. The examples of the book-hand on papyrus will first be considered; next, the cursive writing on the same material. Then the history of the uncial hand on vellum will be traced; and, lastly, the long series of mediaeval minuscule MSS., coming down to the sixteenth century, will be examined. It will be observed that cursive writing is here only specially dealt with under the early period. Although the cursive writing of the day was moulded into a settled style to serve as a book-hand in the ninth century, it naturally still continued in use as a current hand in the ordinary affairs of life; and, if sufficient independentGreek Paleography. 117 material had survived, this current hand would have formed a separate division of the subject. But no such material exists. We have no great collections of Greek charters and documents cursively written, such as we have in Latin. We must therefore look for the traces of the progress of the Greek cursive hand in the more hastily written minuscule literary MSS. of successive centuries. The different terms which are used to describe various styles of letters may here be explained. In both Greek and Latin palaeography, large letters are called " majuscules small letters, " minuscules." Of large letters there are two kinds : Capitals, or large letters, formed, as in inscriptions, chiefly by strokes meeting at angles and avoiding curves, except where the actual forms of the letters absolutely require them, angular characters being more easily cut with the tool on hard substances such as stone or metal; and Uncials, a modification of capitals, in which curves are freely introduced as being more readily inscribed with the pen on soft material such as papyrus. For example, the fifth letter is E as a* capital, and € as an uncial. The term " uncial" first appears in St. Jerome's Preface to the Book of Job, and is there applied to Latin letters, " uncialibus, ut vulgo aiunt, litteris," but the derivation of the word is not decided ; we know, however, that it refers to the alphabet of curved forms. In early Greek papyri, as well as in early vellum MSS., the ordinary character in use is the uncial. As will be presently seen, in some of the very earliest specimens on papyrus certain of the letters still retain the capital forms of inscriptions. These instances, however, are rare. At the earliest period of Greek writing of which we have knowledge the uncial character was, no doubt, quite developed. Minuscule, or small, letters are derived from majuscules ; but, although in early cursive-specimens we find at once certain forms from which the later minuscules directly grew, a full minuscule alphabet was only slowly developed.CHAPTER IX. greek palaeography—continued. The Literary or Book-Hand in Papyri. Our first division of Greek writing is the Literary or Book-hand in papyri. It is not, however, to be understood that all surviving literary remains are written in this hand; for there are exceptions, certain works having been copied out, apparently, by scholars for their own use, or at least by persons not writing for the book trade, in less formal hands which we must class as cursive. There is, indeed, in the case of the early papyri, some difficulty in drawing the line of division between the literary hand and the cursive hand, certain documents being written with sufficient care to give them a claim to be separated from the cursives and yet with not enough formality to be included under the book-hand. On the other hand, there are one or two instances of the formal literary hand being used for ordinary documents. We would define the literary hand to be that which professional scribes would employ in writing books for the market; and in the following review of this division, only such MSS. are noticed as are thus formally written, together with one or two (not literary) documents in which this class of hand is adopted. The earliest surviving specimens of Greek writing of the book-hand are contained in the papyrus fragment in the Imperial Library at Vienna, which is inscribed with an invocation of a certain Artemisia against the father of her child, and in the fragments of the PhsedoGreek Paleography. 119 of Plato and the Antiopc of Euripides, recently discovered at G11 rob.1 The invocation of Artemisia 2 may be placcd at least as early as the first half of the third century B.C. This ascription is supported by the similarity of the handwriting of the other fragments mentioned above, which there is every reason to believe are nearly of the same period. The writing approaches the epigraphic style, the letters standing quite distinct and unconnected, and some of them showing transitional forms. H AA < |e Ca^fAT HP KA KA1TH < H c E V/ VH FK/iA) Awj4 Q M7APO)H c ^ osf TAK£ PAfYRUS OF ARTEMISIA—8ED CENTURY B.C. (&) 8ecnr0T0 aepairi Kade\oi\— | 77 8afiacrto<; dvyarrjp Ka\ra\ — | nai TTjt; $77/079 et fiev ou[i|] — | [co?] 7rep fiev ovv a8i/ca efie— | firj rv^eiu en iraiScov 6[r]KT] OP PLATO.— 3RD CENTURY B.C. (—\aicr6if\ aewv ireiQovaa Se e/c Tovrcofj,3 | ava^wpeiv ocro/u? firj avayfCT) | %pT]cr[9]ai avrr\v S ei€ DIALECTICAL TREATISE.—BEFORE 160 B C. (yai ov a\fi/J,av o ttol^tt]^ | ovrcof airecpaiveTO ov | k 77? avrjp aypoiKo? ov8e | u/cato? ei ourtu? airo | (fxzivoir civ Ti? hevT e/jb | 7reSo? eifiL ouS acrroiai | Trpoa^vrj^ ov avaxpe—) Where the letters are so simple, there is no special remark to be made'about them individually, except in regard to the alpha, in which the left down-stroke and the cross-stroke are made together without lifting the pen, their point of junction being sometimes looped. This form of the letter is seen also, with a more decidedly developed loop, in the fragments of Demosthenes and Hyperides, on papyrus, in the British Museum, which may be of the 2nd or 1st century B.C., and in some of the Herculanean papyri. It will be noticed in the facsimile that the paragraphs of the text are marked off by the insertion of marginal strokes between the lines, according to the ancient system. The papyrus containing the orations of Hyperides for AJc/^okrvfon01 >~rrKc oy T"JcA tt c Arpo/jcocoY^Greek Paleography. 123 Lycophron and Euxenippus is probably of the 1st century B.C. The writing, of a round type, is remarkably regular and elegant (see facsimile, ed. Babington; Gat. Anc. MSS.} pis. 2, 3; Pal Soc. i. pi. 126). J^cac rn z^eo NACr fvX*oOT7l NcV Son an.coNiA^^ 01JUX) I O-COO I JK^ cy NI em eoTi cxq* )ceAeroyci NO/AI r^K ) fOKlOC ORATION OF HYPERIDES FOR LYCOPHKON.—1ST CENT. B.C. (—Si ra M £ vrm-i :NHI rNN > OH^'J H-ULKrrr^ 1 OT^ f) JirpVNMS | o c-fs^NN o >0* u) [> ^FTSM^VM ktv* HSM NJ Vh^T^XKMCYTT^TSJa-oc- l^f fr ^ v-v-y 10 n HARRIS UOMER.-1 ST CENTURY B.C. (koXcl ta fj,ev TrrjXrji Oeot hoaav ay\aa Sco[pa] 7][xari toil ore ere {3porov avepos efi/3a\ov e\yvqC\ co? o<£eA,epe i f^PCr riir-fn orrj^ito mttm poNOYKecxeNAN PHILODEMU3.—ABOUT A.D. 1.Greek Paleography. 125 (t&)5 ovx eiri toi? fiera rrjv re\evrrjv \ otclv Be ti<; ev Arb\^€Tf caYToe*'eN 1 ttt<5x QVJs ervN HTTANTTAC rAF>v^ocero N a rxbvA e£YN 3ah ntottytOmju n n e rrr uljt^m ton rXAoxucre 1 xh kai Ti xxe^etiNeTmAXA^ANe-v^oxo JtTTTaXljeNAf lce<)>AXKc'KAAI CU M^ * BANKES HOMER.—2ND CENTURY. (j7TOL['t]Trj avrod' evi 7rTo'\[efc Xiirer avrip\ ovSe yvvrj' tvclvtcl^ /3\t]vto irvKawv ve\_Kpov ayovrt'] irpwrai top j) rav coOpirj 0Xi(3ei aW tj/jbeprj re ktjtti fxe^ov codirat avrrj crv \iivov 7] Ovpr] {°/o cc^rr HOMER.—4TH CENTURY. (ev\\a Kat dvdea— i]vre fjbvtacav ahivaoiv edve[a\ — at re kclto, arad/xov irotfxvtjcov—) Accents are occasionally used; and in the left margin is seen a paragraph mark formed by a couple of oblique strokes.CHAPTER X. greek paleography—continued. Cursive Writing in Papyri, etc. We now leave the Book-band and turn to the examination of Cursive Greek writing as found in papyri, ostraka, tablets, etc. For this branch of palaeography there is comparatively larger material, which is being increased every day by the numerous fragments which are rapidly making their way from Egypt into European libraries. But yet, while in the aggregate the material is abundant, there are certain periods, notably the first century b.c., which are but scantily represented. For the earliest specimens of cursive Greek writing, as for the principal early examples of the book-hand, wo turn to the fragments discovered by Mr. Petrie at Gurob in the Fayoum. As already stated, the coffin-makers, in order to form the cartonnage of mummy-cases, made use of much cursively written material, documents of all kinds, and more particularly of a register 01* registers of wills entered up periodically by different scribes, and therefore affording the most valuable evidences of the handwriting of the third century b.c. The oldest fragment as yet discovered among these remains is assigned to the year 268 b.c. The hands vary from the most cursive scrawls to what may be termed the careful official hand. But throughout them all a most striking feature is the strength and facility of the writing, besides in many cases its boldness and breadth. The general characteristic of the letters, more especially in the clerical or official hands of the registers, is great width or flatness, which is very apparent in such letters as A, M, N, TT, GO- In other documents this is lessGreek Paleography, apparent, and the writing does not seem far removed in style from that of the next century. Some independent pieces, such as correspondence, are written in very cursive characters which have a peculiar ragged appear r ance and are often difficult to read. These documents, however, are not the only specimens of cursive writing of the third century b.c. within our reach. A few scattered pieces have already for many years been stored in the various museums of Europe, but the antiquity of some of them has not been recognized, and they have been thought to belong to the period ol the Roman occupation of Egypt. At Leyden there is a papyrus (Pap. Q), containing a receipt of the 26th year of Ptolemy Philadelplius, 260 b.c. At Berlin, Paris, and London there are three wooden tablets inscribed with deeds relating to a loan of the 30th and 31st years of the same king, about 254 b.c. Among the papyri of the British Museum, three, formerly ascribed to a later date, are now more correctly placed in the third century, viz., a petition for redress of grievances (Pap. cvi.) of the 25th year, apparently, of Ptolemy Euergetes I., b.c. 223; and two others (1. ai d H.a) without dates. The Paris collection also contains a long money account for public works (Not. et Extr. xviii. 2, pi. xliv.) of the same century, which has been incorrectly assigned to the Roman period. A facsimile of a letter of introduction, evidently of this time, is given by Passalacqua.1 Egger describes a papyrus at Athens,2 and various Greek endorsements and dockets on Demotic papyri are noticed by Revillout.3 Ostraka or potsherds also have been found with inscriptions of this period. Of cursive writing of the second century b.c. we have abundant material in the great collections of London, Paris, Leyden, etc., referred to above (p. 107) ; of the first century b.c. very little has yet been found, 1 Catalogue Raisonnedes Antiquitesdecouvertes en Egypte, Paris, 1826. Also described in Notices etExtraits des MSS. xviii., p. 399. 2 Journal des Sarant^ 1873, pp. 30, 97. Chrestomathie Democique, 1880, pp. 241, 277; Revue Egypt, ii.132 Pa l&ogrctphy. except in ostraka; of the first century of our era., several papyri have recently come to light, and there are numerous ostraka; and of the later centuries there are abundant specimens at Vienna and Berlin, and an ever increasing number in Paris and London and other places, the searches in tbe Fayoum continually adding to the stock. Greek cursive writing, as found in papyri, has been divided ("Wilcken, Tafeln, 1890) into three groups: the Ptolemaic, the Roman, and the Byzantine. Roughly, the Ptolemaic comprises documents down to about the end of the first century B.C. ; the Roman, those of the first three centuries of the Christian era; and the Byzantine, those of later date. The character of Ptolemaic writing, as seen in papyri of the third and second centuries B.C. is unmistakeable. For the first century B.C. there is not material to enable us to form a judgment; but it must have been a period of marked transition, if we may judge from the great difference between the writing of the first century of our era and that of the second century B.C. And the documents of the later centuries, of the Byzantine period, show as much distinctiveness of character, when compared with those of the Roman period of the early centuries after Christ. Our first example of cursive writing of the third century B.C. is taken from one of the entries in the registers of wills found at Gurob, being the will of Demetrius, the son of Deinon, dated in the year 237 B.C. (Mahaffy, Petne Papyri, pi. xiv.). This is a remarkably fine hand, to which the facsimile 'hardly does justice, and may be classed as a good example of the official writing of the time, penned by a skilful and experienced registrar. While not as cursive as many other specimens of the period, and while the letters are in general deliberately formed and ;ire not much connected with one another, there are certain characters which appear ^n the most cursive shapes, side by side with their more formal representations.Greek Pal&ography. 133 j^ J / j j ^frce-rrt-kf^— ^Kf^tn--rprorA car* ^c^pmrrrtrr WILL OP DEMETRIUS.—237 B.C. ([jSacrifXevovrot TrroXe/iaiov rov ttt— | [aSe]\<^(«i/ gtoj;? t €<; cnroWcovtSov— | decov aSe\(f)(ov kul Oecov cvepye-t[g)i/]— | [viov rov ey/cv-kXlov e(f> ov €p[fioK\r]] | eyKuxXiov irpocrohov apovpcov eySe/r[aJ— | ev Tiearevefxevw^e tov iradvpir [01/]—) In this specimen of the elegant cursive, which is not easy to read, we have the angle-shaped alpha consistently employed, and very cursive combinations of the terminations wv and av, besides instances of the more rapidly written forms of eta, lambda, and pi. How very cursive this style of writing might become is seen in the two last words of the facsimile. As a contrast to the two carefully written examples which have just been given, our third specimen of the writing of the third century B.C. is selected from a rough letter of a steward addressed to his employer (Mabaffy, Petrie Papyri, pi. xxix.). f-Ttetair* ( cr- fWA^^/ Iyc ^ iK-ff" nft^r' ^rt'^ . ^Vyv-VWP?''ret'? LETTER, OP A STEWARD.—3ED CENTURY B.C. 8vvi,<; 7 e-^^aajxrjv | Se kill irapa Svvecos npra | (3a<; S KpiOoirvpoov avrou | eirayyeXo/jievou Kau (pLXortfxou | ovtos lyLvoxjfce Se tcai ore | vhcop e/cacrTO<; tu>v opcov ttjv | afxireXov (jpvreuo/.tevTiv irporepov 4) 4 .As the letter has more than a palneograpliical interest, Professor Mahafl'y's translation is quoted : "... to Sosiphanes, greeting. I give much thanks to the gods if you are well. Lonikos also is well. The whole vineyard has been planted, viz., 300 stocks, and the climbing vines attended to. But the olive-yard lias yielded six measures, of which Dynis has got three. Also I have borrowed from Dynis four artabae of bearded wheat, whichGreek Paleography. 135 The style of writing is similar to that of the Leyden papyrus Q., which was written in the 26th year of Ptolemy Philadelphus, B.C. 260 ; and our letter may well be as early as the middle of the century. It will be seen that the letters are not linked together, but that they are hastily and roughly formed. The writer, though not a good penman, was evidently so far skilled that he could write rapidly and with ease; and the document may be regarded as a sample of the rough business hand of the period. Among the individual letters, the thoroughly cursive forms of eta, lambda, nu, tau, upsilon, and omega, are to be distinguished.. The letter iota, with the thickening on the right-hand side of the top of the letter, which has already been referred to as a mark of antiquity, and the very small size of theta and omiJcron, may also be noticed. The more carefully written documents of the second century B.C., do not differ so much from those of the same style of the preceding century as might have been expected. As far, however, as an opinion can be formed from extant remains, it appears that the practice of linking together the letters, particularly by slight horizontal strokes attached to their tops, becomes more prevalent. This is seen to best advantage in some of the elegantly written papyri of this period, the links imparting a certain grace and finish to the line of writing. The first example is taken from an official circular or instruction on the mode of collecting the taxes, written probably in the year 170 B.C. (Not. et Extr., pi. xl., no. 62). Here we have a very fine official hand, to be compared with that of the will of Demetrius, of 237 B.C., given above, of which it may claim to be an almost direct descendant. In this writing there is a greater tendency than in that of the earlier period to break up the letters, he offered, was pressing to lend. Know also that each .of the watchers says that the planted vines want water first, and that they have none. We are making conduits and watering. '. The third of the first month (P). Good-bye."136 Paleography. that is, to form their several Lmbs by distinct strokes. Thus we see the tan often distinctly formed in two portions, the first consisting of the left half of the horizontal and the vertical, and the second of the right half of the horizontal. The tipsilon is also made on the same plan. TREASURY CIRCULAR.-B.C. 170 (?). ([/cnraTrocrjTaXrjcrcTacfxera(fivXaicr,^ | —[y]eypa[i[jLevj'i | —\virJap^€L et? rrjv ey\r)-*\nv) The system of linking referred to above is here very noticeable, such letters as partially consist of horizontal strokes naturally adapting themselves to the practice, while others not so formed are supplied with links, as in the case of eta and nu. LETTER ON EGYPTI \N CONTTIAC'I S".— B.C. 146. (—[7rs]7r0T]VTaL OLKOVOIJUCLV fca.1 ra \ [ovo/xar]a avrcou Trarpo-6ev evTaacreiv | —[ypa]eiv tjpas evrera^evat etv o(j)i\ei fiob fiappr]<; I Trerocnptos erepa €K(popta erovs rj Ti/3ept[ov\ | tckavhiov tccLLaapos ae/Saarov | ~\— | hairavai tov /xtjvos X0laX— I T0 ^L avT01' 67TlfJLd'Xpv ejJLOV S[iSuyU.Oi;]) This is a good example of the light and graceful hand in which many of the tax rolls and other accounts are found to be written. Among individual letters, attention should be drawn to the much-curved sigma with its head bent down, a form which, though found occasionally, particularly at the end of a word or line, in earlier papyri, now comes into more general use. The first of the cursive hands employed upoii the Constitution of Athens is next represented. The .date is probably not much later than that of the farm account, and may reasonably be placed about a.d. 100.140 Palxog raphy. f\ H*^ 0 yx> rNsrr afttstotle, constitution op athens.—aboct a.t). 100. (7rpo? tou? e^era^eiv ra yevrj /3ov\op,[ev~\ov<} e7re[na\ — TTGVTTjKovTCL etcaar [779] eaoyeLo\y\ k[cu] Taura? e7rovo/iaaa<; TpiTr[w]—J 7ravr[ajy] tottcov k\cll\ SrjpLoras eiroi^crev aAA/j^A-aw]— | 7rpocrayopev-ovt€<; €%€\eeo7ro\t[Tas]) The hand is cramped and employs many abbreviations (see above, p. 90). The prevalent use of the epsilon referred to under the facsimile of the receipt of a.d. 20, and the occurrence of a peculiar form of eta, somewhat resembling upsilon (see e.g. 1. 2, TrevTrj/covra), should be noticed. This form probably came first into use in the first century b.c., as it is quite established at tho beginning of our era. t> Y-jiofy pSosr^-rc^-X^ vy3- Jiiju rro C-Mass^ .rrfo deed op sale.-a.d. 154. (/i7}rpo^ TavcnrwXis ra>[v~\— | [p^epet Kai rov fierrjWa-^otor*1 n> c-YTr° nric-n>-t-Lj rVwi^l^ o-e-fftN) ^crY-M-rt^i^ ^t^TX-H-t^oc—| Cj official deed.—a.'d. 233 (—arparr]yo<; vtto vv/cra— | —ra> <$ ir— | —[errje eiri erepois e/cyovois— | —a/ccoXvrov earat tt]- jta/r-nrc^ J^ibrlLsH* X^/r // /^^-Kn deed op sale.—a.d. 616. (ef't?? t»7t0 A A A A />- ^ ^ 6T ^ A A b~ is l" Jr 0- i/- (K (9- U^ S ^K L/- A A A JL cA n $ 5 b h B n n u-I> frKttpuUVuuilS u. u~ B> B $ £ 7 r r- r r r r- r r r r r f r r r rr r r r /— r r r r 0 A A- ^ A ^ ^ 2s K A ^ ^ Z>tr A ^ b & Zr A X ^ e £ 6 c-1 et ee ete^t \t Cr e- e o- & v-^rt & Y^ t tr Cr if £ X 7 Z Z z z z, x ^ ^ z Z ^ X Z % z 2 z a i ^ x h h W y-v rz Khh'hrhev^ hr k rr h- h K a Tt |r t^n y k ^ ^ um H ^ h K h h h H /tr 0 e &£> & e> o o- a a- j- e 6 fr £> d- ft T9- A r! f 11 f r r n or?) ) ' / I1 M P } ;;; /C Klc F K K )c > T- ^ A. r- ^ f^ ia. K Ul'JtW LL r- jc K U O-Ta X 2> LtUV- K U U X ^ /S X x. K r- k \ n r- A ^ AA X x jv x> /m r~v 1 L Nl /^N M KTi n aa. a^v M- Aa. M ^ />. yU. AX yU^ AA AJL V r-s r^d N rf int M N >Nr/>i // n n ttt( rt Miv yy n h ^ n) rf rt ^ , rr a/ rt rt i "E JE 3 - ^ S - a ^ a ? ^ 1 r M 0 <3 O 0 " ► o 0 li o u 0 ^ ^ f 0 7T n nn tt -TT r-T" n. n, nr T7 A -y^r w re R n n n n n ^ yy ZL rz /tit' rj m yr n yiT-^rt P f / r rr t r p p? r r ^ r / . 'c ? ci ? fU |o ^ c? G C c C c c r zr c c c C c e r c tf^rr c c C c~ C c- r r r^ ir T m?? T ^ n—fTT ^T T T X T T-r^yvr T" T ~T T ~T V r -r V V T Y 7 "X v Y Y \r V "f ^ 7 V r V y - A 1/ Y T V v Hy ^v Y ^v * ffH f * tH ftiM j j> jef^^j f f I lijf />. .X 7c >c A X X X * t f f / t /11 f t f f V /f t (O LA~ la— wTV. ia_ o- Ca/ c— c/O U3 6o ^ Ouo UJL L A ylA. pL yj-yL/ nil 71 v^ ^, : cr C , Tr^r v v ^ X X tt oo U) A.D. 498. A.D. 54-2. U Ca a U Xd n A -e- f' 'KU I t v- ATV^ A \ N ru nh in o r X TTYV f _ r c iff (7 Cr C Tr T V 0 c. ^ T 7° T 1 UJ ou A.D. 592 - 633. r r r r r r r t- ^ & ad c>kcjA J Ith^^^^t L h h. (X bill v\ n b €r ■& fr tu 1 h] fc It kUV\k/ck AA XL yu. )JU KM, XC at n u KjtvOrv ft 0 sir ^^ TT vr )r~ W Y\ ri fl UtrP tr c cr r ^ ^ T ^y r r y j / A.D. 756. ? ILL .QJL, (Vflf To fauoe. page, 148. G R E E K C U R S I V E ALPHABETS thtihain^L"!1. Lithor .London,.CHAPTER XI. GREEK PALEOGRAPHY—CONTINUED. Uncial Writing in Vellnm MSS. We have seen the Uncial Book-hand in papyri, nml have hid in the facsimiles of a conveyance of A.D. 88 (p. 120) and of the Bankes Homer (p. 127) specimens of the round hand which is the direct prototype of the wiiting on vellum which we are now about to examine. The first thing to strike the eye in the earliest examples of vellum uncial MSS. is the great beauty and firmness of the characters. The general result of the progress of any form of writing through a number of centuries is decadence and not improvement. But in the case of the uncial writing of the early cortices there is improvement and not decadence. This is to be attributed to the change of material, the fii'm and smooth surface of vellum giving the scribe greater scope for displaying his skill as a calligrapher. In other words, there appears to have been a period of renaissance with the general introduction of vellum as the ordinary writing material. The earliest examples of vellum uncial Greek MSS., which have survived practically entire, are the three great codices of the Bible : the Cudex Yaticanus, the Codex Sinaiticus, and the Codex Alexandrinus. The Vati-canus is to all appearance the most ancient and may be ascribed to the 4th century. It is written in triplo columns, without enlarged initial letters to mark paragraphs or even the beginnings of the several books. The writing in its original state was beautifully regular and fine ; but, unfortunately, the whole of the text has been touched over, in darker ink, by a hand, of perhaps the 10th century, only rejected letters or words being allowed to remain intact,150 Palxography. p j- A.nTCJD Nxe rci^M TX ae ae re 1 o a xc 1 Aeyc nej» ci)N KyfoceM e k N e G N ^ciagVTH CO J K-y M € N H CO hcf P I O Cfoyjc p XH a KC oyj' I CTOCX^I 6CHMHN G'N MOIOIKO AO M H C^txyTcUOl KOK CODEX VATICANUS.—4-TH CENTURY. (jypaiTTcov Xeya>V ta [ Se Xeyet o (3aatXev<; irep | au>v Kvpo<;' i/xe uveSet | £ev fiacrtXea rrj<> olkov | puevi^ o Kupio*; rov tcr | pa>)A, /c[vpto]YroN fc ICiXHM KXieCThCeNAYTON €rt nnrcn nefYriONi\3yiepov kxi e itt^ nxytcu e i vce i toy< KxxccexYTONeNieyoeNK fei'^xi ITXI rxpoTiToicxrro ^ytoyg NTexe 1i -err nepi corn CODEX ALEXANDRINUS.—5TH CENTURY, (^[eojy crou Kat aurco fiovw Xar^eyJ | atLf khy. In tin's specimen we see instances of contracted words. The MS. has enlarged letters to mark tVie beginnings of paragraphs ; the initial standing in the margin at the beginning of the first full line, whether that be the first line of the paragraph, or whether the paragraph begin, as shown in the facsimile, in the middle of the preceding line after a blank space. The writing of the Coclex Alexandrinns is more carefully finished than that of the Codex Sinaiticus. The letters are rather wide; horizontal strokes are very fine ; and there is a general tendency to thicken or club tbc extremities of certain letters, as T, and C. Other uncial MSS. which have been ascribed to the fifth century and a little later are : the Homer of the Ambrosian Library at Milan," interesting for its illustrations, which were copied probably from earlier originals and have transmitted the characteristics of classical art [Pal. Soc. i. pis. 39, 40, 50, 51); the palimpsest MS. of the Bible, known as the Codex Ephraemi, at Paris (ed. Tischendorf, 1845) ; the Octateuch, whose extant leaves are divided between Paris, Leyden, and St. Petersburg; the Genesis of the Cottonian Library, once, probably, one of the most beautifully illustrated MSS. of its period, but now reduced by fire to blackened and defaced fragments (Cat. Anc. MSS. i. pi. 8) ; the Dio Cassius of the Vatican (Silvestre, pi. 60); and the Paris Pentateuch (Id. pi. 61). A facsimile of an ancient fragment of Euripides at Berlin, which is certainly of a respectable age and which has even been ascribed to the 4th century, will be found in Wilcken's Tafeln ziir altaren griecli. Palseographin, pi. iv. Uncial'writing of the sixth century shows an advance on the delicate style of the fifth century in the comparatively heavy forms of its letters. Horizontal strokes are lengthened, and are generally finished off with heavy points or finials. The Dioscorides of Vienna (Pal. Soc. i. pi. 177), written early in the century for Juliana Anicia, daughter of Elavius Anicius Olybrius, Emperor of the West in 472, is a most valuable MS. for the pal Geographer, as it is the earliest example of uncial writing on vellumGreek Paleography. 153 to which an approximate date can be given. It is also of groat interest for the history of art, as, in addition to the coloured drawings of plants, reptiles, insects, etc., which illustrate the text, it contains six full-page designs, one of tliern being the portrait of the royal Juliana herself. u) yWAeXe 1 KTApO IA BAC! AI ItKiD pA CD C K P AM JB. H CTOAC CUGTTBPTTPICUN KAVAO TP I*rr H TTAPX<|> VAJLAGA I^G^>AAAIOMOl Al MHKQ)M DIOSCO lilDES.-EARLY Gxil CENTURY. Kapoia fiacrLki\Krj\— | copa &>? fipap,'j3ip to Se— | coawep irptoov- kclvXov— | rpiirriyrj' 7rapacf)va$a<; a[7ro]— | K€(f)aXat ofioiat firjKcov^t]—) This is a specimen of careful writing, suitable to a sumptuous book prepared for a lady of high rank. The letters exhibit a contrast of thick and fine strokes ; the curve of both € and C is thickened at both extremities; the base of A extends right and left and has heavy dots at the ends; the cross-strokes of TT and T are treated in the same way. In the second line will be noticed an instance, in the word I3pafj/3r)/> c A/eyfitepe cT€/> //£* 0 \J] icevr [p°v]) " - It will be seen that in this MS., intended for students' use nnd dealing with a secular subject, abbreviations are fairly numerous.15 6 Palscography. In a more compact style, and rather heavier, is the Venetian coclex: of the Old Testament (Wattenbach, Script. Gr. Specim., tab. 9), which is of the 8th or 9.h century. Descriptive titles are written in round uncials, evidently in imitative style and devoid of the grace and ea^o of a natural liand, as will be seen from the facsimile. KAltttirflh C yAAtf/lJ'/'fWtAIU'HJAt'JK rif J no ycafd mewoye • kai/l, ut/a ~PN A!C")tyMHAIjjoy' +6akorocdrgnc5oenocnpcc^epe mi n^ii^y, Otqa neb re i a g n npd c * y rr d j OLD TESTAMENT.—8'1'H OR 9Tn CENTDJtY. kcli fxyrpa cruXA^/z^eo)? alwvlas lva \ rl toutg e^r/XOov in fjbjjTpa^'TOv\p\f\ j ireiv KOTTov^KaLTTOVovi' Kai BtereX^eaav] \ ev alayyuT} ai rj/xepat, fxov :— | j" rO X070? 0 7evofjuevo^ 7rpo ovo/jlotl tt79 dytas d j ^pavrov /cal £Vi> /cal /cat | cuyiov nTv\c-vjJ.aTo\]v irapafio | Xrjv ravr\r]v\ ofMnicoOt] ?') | fiaatXeia toov ou[pajvcov | Sc/ca Trap6\_evoL o o-nf/ ly h i V r/rrtfrr^ ly 'XOJ trW ' «1J COO- " rt H . o ut*» ttu^ P lA-ji-o-jj oj nxrj> y 9 / ^ d ff fry tit • o 'u/J f ^*H ^ EUCLID.—A.D. (fiev entl ta AaT P$Z Tpiycova. airev[avTLOv Se] | ra OMN 2TT- coare k\cll\ ra aTepea 7rapaX[X7]\€TrL7re$a\ J ra airo rtov eiprjfjievaiv irpiarfMaTcov [avaypa(f>o/jLe\ | va iaoijyfrr} Tvy^avovra. Trpo^ dWrj\a \eiaiv co? at] [ ftdaea k\cll\ ra Tj/iLaiy apa earac d>? vlSP [/3a .Greek Paleography. fc\aTaaic6va] | £ei Se avrov fipva%i 0 £ffJU^bt V L^M • oirro or 0/ /< ccepov' /cal tovto) fjbiv (f)i]crii>)Greek Paleography. 167 TOU Ux/f tovrou • fjJ>'*vrD cygjL&ou Itjali+ji ^ou^^Qs^ ^ '/ M&lCpi ssrVba 5 cnM> <£* Ay m7TjiS f/Av djt/ **rut'- ni 11m kcll-7-f xjl^c l/i ^<570 kol-^oci f , 1 you c 6 ' M * CTB 1 au julttti A®0" * u KXH . ^ V . v / ST. THEODOEE.—A.D. 113). («al •KOTL^eiv /cat olov hia | KOTrreiv teal te/iveiv zeal | airo-Kadaipeiv, tW ev/cXr) | fiarovcra, iroXvu criv ire—) The ?narks above the line, in addition to the accents, are. to guide the intonation. The two hundred years, from the middle of the thirteenth century to the middle of the fifteenth century, which are given to the coclices recentiores, witness more rapid changes than have been seen in the previous periods. This was naturally to be expected with the wider diffusion of learning and the consequent multiplication of copies of books of all kinds. We will first examine the writing of the thirteenth century, taking our first facsimile from a typical MS. of the latter half of the century, written in the ordinary formal style—a Chrysostom of 1273 (Omont, Facsim., pi. 60). -r* m^ > vT™T* ^^Tovrz^-r f / Q* > •mcrir^yi^^^'^^ tovJo y^^mj (TWt/v^ ' * r CHRYSOSTOM.—A.D. 1273. (—to[M7]V, [/cat] ravTT] Si,a tou crT[av~\pov t[?)s] | Kardpa V -HuiOityw rv ?**/ Vary9 B Ji CUTE JbtqT t°¥ icfyonyZl^ »oTi Phvkoii tppfo purT»y^r'o THEOFI1YLACTUS.-A.I). 1255. (0av/i[a]r[a], oure ra iirl rco rd(f)U) fiaprvpov/xeva— | ro> IBlo) Travel rij o/3ov airoicXeicrOevT e?J, /e[at] fir] ToX^aifTe?] — | ireuvqa-KOU vcrrepov Si clvtov KrjpvTTOVT\ev\, e/cet elalv, [/cat] al viroXonr^otj. onr[o]u [Se] fiia [e'«Xei7r6Tail, | e'/cet [/cat] 7r[acr]at etcXetirovcri. elptjKOT^e^ Ta9 /cotvcoy/fa?] | crcu/u.[ey] [«at] eVt Ta? S ta](/>o[/oa9] • 8euT[e/3a] [Se] S[ta]0opa ayr[(oy] [u7rep%eTat,j o Tp6iro[<;~\ t[%] /caT^7opt[a?] . at/i[ei>] 7[ap] eV tco Tt [ecrrtz/] Karr/yo [povvre<;\ | wanrep to yevos /c[at]TO eiSo[o[pa], [/cat] to lSlov, /c[at] to crvfJb(3e/3r)ic6[ BAELAAM AND JOSAPHAT.—A.D. 1321.Greek Palaeography. 173 (cf)vcr6[a)s\ 7][j\wv\ ovSe ev tovtoo t9 irdvcr0fxrj) [ecr[iv~\ djxapTiwv. fxerd 7ap to \a/3[elv] —) To illustrate the writing of the fourteenth century, we first select a Psalter of the year 1304 (Omont, Facsim., pi. 75), just one hundred years later than the formally-written Lectionary of 1204, of which a facsimile is given above. •A 1 Cif«j6-Jj e I t^o JJ *ur\ o y td u r0xi C tiai kjlIM C^OH'tkotz ^ ^ V/TTX> C "TOXtA) TUJ O 61 cr td ux tu. 00 p a PSALTEE.—A.D. 1301. (Aia/xevei ei9 top [aiwm e'fai] | 77701/ toD #[eo]t/: | "EXeo9 /rat d\t]6ei [_av avTov T19] | e'/c^T^cret: | "Ovtco9 ifraXoo to) 6[vo(jLaTi aov] | 6t9 tow aiwm[ Vjlw • or >cp t v OtfJ OUTTCMsxa/ccrev TD vcr oacr^sp • «V—> HERODOTUS.-A.D. 1372.Greek Palaeography. 175 (ttjv ayyeXfyv, ore ovSev iroLrjao^i\ev\— | v/xecov irpocre-Seero' irpiv &v 7rapel^vai]— | ttjv aTTUcrjv, r)fiia HU>AO('HU>JbfCO tUcniv H+is 01 ao/C tour ' K-**4 POLYBIUS.-A.D. 1416. (—avf 9. ol Se pcofxaloi, | ■—\to\vtcoV iv fiev ouv tu \oltt6) 131(0 rqv tol | —[in /3]a\\ot" kcli ] I —\avfi\fJii(TeLV t019 t\oi<; rou? e^dpovsteal | —t laTopi\arr KymMr^**" WW SIMPLIC1US.—A.D. ]441. (—crat T6 [/cat] ftacravlaaL toov r(f)vcmcCov | ra _v I JUxVXAAJ TOV*UpC CUTWWC \ I•gfajl u>-n*>M4> V«nP**kc «rA\ A r^ / » / \ / 0 rt 10 u>rtxd y o c oocnxc cujt{m>vs^y^vfoic n? c / I * ^ > / UJf/ OUT • G) r7tjJfJ iff) y tVLUf \JJ-*X4T<*Jr MEN^EUM.-A.D. 1460.Greek Paleography. 177 (€i8m\wv dpr)aKia<> eVt rrjv tmv xpLCTTtdvtoV— | 7rpo? ere Koivwviav ou KaTaSe^ofiat. 0 tco— | yur/ 8i'VT]6evTO 7r/(TTe[cov Kara^dvas. [/cat] twv Tp%a)v ifc/cpe/Advas) The next example is from a carefully written copy of the Odyssey, the work of the calligraphic John Rhosos, of Crete, who was employed in Rome. Venice, Florence, and other cities of Italy. It is dated in 1479 {Pal. Soc. i. pi. 182). fyasr oudnJTTtgMct(vputp^i Mytrxiydty&'rTvpuwQHioyidxr^i&jojiu, Qciw Otyjuurtyoy epwie S^olrrarmHjjuojtujJSu^ > ' V * V ■« v ' * o^u&ttou^K nwaLZ i Ita4 0'ftyujcevo^i/[co9ixj • / , A r \ \ , / QUI HOMER.—A.D. 1479. ('V29 e'0a/i[ev~\ 81a tovto ]fiivov fitf/covs, Kal 0—) iii. The Mauual of Jurisprudence by Constautine Harmencpoulos, written in Chios, in 1541, by Jacob Diassorinos, of Rhodes (Omont, op. cit., pi. 2-3), in the loose straggling hand characteristic of the period. 1 >J yj iPl CONSTANTINE HARMENOTOULOS.—A.D. 1541. (—dehov iv avrrj ypdyp-ai, Kal varepov (V0ufJt.\r]0f} Tavra\ | tore ]ic[r)~\ eluelv. Kal Xe7[e]r[at] tovto ee(ySt/ceW[o9, ifyovv [it] | Kpov %apToirovXov, i) (SifiXihtov. a>? tov fiev) iv. ^Elian's Tactics, written at Paris, in 1564, by Angelus Yegecius, of Crete (Omont, op. cit., pi. 2), in quite a modern style of hand, but compact. n 2 ISh&jPalaeography. ^ftifyJicyZ/f *$ Qn&iicfi^vyfv• fa ^/tiyf^i wlf Ife Q^xfyvcT iELIAN.—A.D. 1564. (jwv Se iv tol<; po{i/3oei8ecri cr^fjuaaL r\j)v\ Xttttqv avvra- | i-avT\_(£>v~\, oi fxev outco? era^av & 'nnreas «[a!] crTot^[etV] | ic[ai\ £vyelv. oi Se, aroi^elv fiev, outc en, £vyelv. oi he, \ %v><-*£ ^J-rr^ep^ 57cupola. > tufol BLASTARES.—A.I>. 1593.Greek Palaeography. 181 (—Saeiv direLpTjtcev ou fi>]V dWa /cat-— | Siaypd(j>€iv dvev8iacrTCD 8ia(f)ep6vTG)<; Oaufia^o/j^eu] ov tea—) Greek Writing in Western Europe. Before closing the division of our work which relates to Greek Palaeography, a few MSS. may be quoted which illustrate the course of Greek writing in Western Europe. We refer, however, only to those MSS. which are written in actual Greek letters or in imitative letters, not to those in which Greek words or texts are inscribed in ordinary Latin letters, of which there are not a few examples. Two celebrated MSS. of the 6th century containing* bilingual texts have already been referred to2 as having been written in Western Europe. The " Codex BezEe," of the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, at Cambridge, and the " Codex Claromontanus," of the Epistles of St. Paul, at Paris, are both written in Greek and Latin in uncial letters. But in these MSS. the Greek text is in letters which are of the ordinary type of Greek uncials of the period. In a third example of a bilingual text, the Harley MS. 5792 (Cat. Anc. MSS. pt. i. pi. 13 ; Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 25), which contains a Grseco-Latin Glossary, written probably in France in the 7th century, the Greek writing betrays its western origin very palpably. Still more distinctly imitative is the Greek text in the " Codex Augiensis," of Trinity College, Cambridge, in which the Epistles of St. Paul were written in Latin minuscules and Gi'eek bastard uncials, in the latter part of the 9th century, at Reichenau in Bavaria (Pal. Soc. i. pi. 127) ; in a Grseco-Latin MS. of some of the Psalms, in the Library of St. Nicholas of Cusa, of tho same character, written early in the 10th centui'y (Pal. 2 See p. 154.182 Palaeography. Soc. i. pi. 128) ; and in the " Codex Sangallensis " and 11 Codex Boenerianus " of Dresden, which once formed one MS. and contain the Gospels in Latinized Greek letters of the 10th century, with an interlinear Latin version (Pal. Soc. i. pi. 179). A few instauces survive of the employment of Greek letters in Latin signatures and subscriptions to documents of the sixth and seventh centuries from Ravenna and Naples (Marini, I Papiri Diplom., 90, 92, 121 ; Cod. Diplom. Cav- nxis, ii. no. 250; Pal. Soc. ii. 3) ; and the same practice appears to have been followed in France and Spain as late as the eleventh century.3 But we may regard such a superfluous use of a foreign alphabet, at least in most instances, as a mere affectation of learning. In the ornamental pages of fanciful letters, also, which adorn early Anglo-Saxon and Franco-Saxon MSS., a Greek letter occasionally finds a place, serving, no doubt, to show off the erudition of the illuminator.'1 3 JBibliotheque tie VEcole des Charles, (2nd series) torn. i. p. 443; Delisle, Melanges cle Paleographie, p. 95. 4 Delisle, U Evangeliaire de Saint-Vaast d-Arras.CHAPTER XIII. latin pal/eogral'hy. We now proceed to trace the history of Latin Palaeography ; and the scheme which will be followed in this division of our subject may first be briefly described. Latin majuscule writing, in its two branches of (1) Square capitals and Rustic capitals, and (2) Uncials— the most ancient forms of the Latin literary script— naturally claims our first attention. Next, the modified forms of Uncial writing, viz., the mixed hands of uncial and minuscule letters, and the later developed Half-uncial writing, will be examined. We shall then have to pass in review the various styles of Roman Cursive writing, beginning with its eailiest examples, and from this we shall proceed to follow the course of the Continental National Minuscule hands, which were directly derived from that source, down to the period of the reform of the Merovingian school in the reign of Charlemagne. The independent history of the early Irish and English schools forms a chapter apart. From the peiiod of Charlemagne to the close of the fifteenth century, the vicissitudes of the literary handwritings of Western Europe will be described ; and this portion of our work will be brought to a close with some account of the Cursive writing, and particularly of the English Charter-hands of that time. Majuscule Writing.— Capitals. Latin Majuscule writing, as found in early M-SS., is divided into two branches: writing in Capitals, and writing in Uncials. Capitals, again, are of two kinds, Square Capitals and Rustic Capitals. The most ancientPaleography. Latin MSS. in existence are in Rustic Capitals; but there is no reason to presume that tlie rustic hand was employed in MSS. before the square hand, nay, rather, following the analogy of sculptured inscriptions, the preference as to age should be given to square letters. Capital writiug, in its two styles, copies the letterings of inscriptions which have b^en classed under the heads of " scriptura monumentalis " and i( scriptura actuaria," as executed in the time of Augustus and successive emperors1; the square character following generally the first, and the rustic the second. In square capital writing the letters are generally of the same height; but F and L are commonly exceptions. The angles are right angles, and the bases and tops and extremities are usually finished off with the fine strokes and pendants which are familiar to all in our modern copies of this type of letters. Rustic capitals, on the other hand, are, as the name implies, of a more negligent pattern, but as a style of writing for choice books they were no less carefully formed than the square capitals. But the strokes are more slender, cross-strokes are short and are more or less oblique and waved, and finials are not added to them. Being thus, in appearance, less finished as perfect letters, although accurately shaped, they have received the somewhat misleading title which distinguishes them. More than is the case with square capital writing, there is a greater tendency in certain rustic letters to rise above the line. The fact that a large proportion of the surviving MSS. in capital letters of the best class contain the works of - Virgil points to tho same conclusion as that suggested by the discovery of comparatively so many copies of the Iliad of Homer in early papyri, and by the existence of the Bible in three of the most important Greek vellum codices which have descended to us: namely, that a sumptuous style of production was, if not reserved, at least more especially employed for those 1 See Exempla Scripturae Ejngrajihicae Latinae (Corpus In-script. Lat.), ed. Hubner, 1885.Latin Paleography. books which were the great works of their day. Homer in the Greek world, Virgil in the classical period of Rome, and the Bible in the early centuries of the Christian Church, filled a space to which no other books of their time could pretend. And the survival of even the not very numerous copies which we possess is an indication both that such fine MSS. were more valued and better cared for than ordinary volumes and that they must have existed in fairly large numbers. With regard to the works of Yirgil and their sumptuous production, it will not be forgotten that Martial, xiv. 186, singles out a MS. of this author to be decorated with his portrait. Of Square Capital writing of ancient date there is very little now in existence, viz., a few leaves of a MS. of Virgil, divided between the Vatican Library and Berlin, which are attributed to the close of the 4th century (Z. W. Ex. 14) 1; and a few from another MS. of the same poet, of the 4th or 5th century, preserved in the library of St. Gall in Switzerland (Z. W. Ex. 14 a; Pal. Soc. i. pi. 208). We take a specimen from a facsimile of one of the latter: IDAUAELVCOSVBI M FLOFJ BVSETDVLCI AD IAMQJ BATD1CTO PAR virgil.—4th or 5th century. (Idaliac lucos ubi m[ollis]— | Floribus et dulci ad— | Iamquo ibat dicto par[ens]—) It is certainly remarkable that this large character should still have been employed at the time to which these fragments of square-capital MSS. are attributed, 2 Zangemeister and Wattenbach, Exempla Codicum Latinorum litteris majusculis scriptomm, Heidelberg, 1876, 1879.Palaeography. so long after the classical period of Rome. The use of so inconvenient a form of writing, and one which covered so much material in the case of any work of average extent, would, it might be thought, have been entirely abandoned in favour of the more ready uncial character, or at least of the less cumbersome rustic capitals. Its continuance maybe regarded as a survival of a style first employed at an early period to do honour to the great national Latin poet; and may, in some degree, be compared with the conservative practice in the middle ages of keeping to an old style of writing for Biblical and liturgical MSS. The same remark applies also to the comparatively late employment of Rustic Capital writing under similar conditions. This latter style of writing is found in the earliest extant Latin MSS. In some of the papyrus fragments recovered at Herculaneum it is of a character copied closely from the lettering of inscriptions on stone or metal (Z. W. R.v. 1, 2) ; in others it is of a less severe style. We give a specimen from the fragments of a poem on the Battle of Actium (Fragmenta Herculanensia, ed. W. Scott, 1885), written in light, quickly-formed letters, which must have been very generally used for literary purposes at the period of the destruction of Herculaneum in a.p. 79. Q.f au i c i&\j f k f n d I -^aoic VJKAT/lK'hfTUKQXJf LUl.Dl fc/UjUirH^rvlCnNJ I h^OK vltKilHNi/TA fKRX7/\M poem on the battle op actium. —before a.d. 79. (cervicibus . aspide . moll[em] | [somnjum . tiahiturquc . libicli [ne . mortis .] | brevis . hunc . sine . mor[sibus . anguis .] | [ten'Jui . pars . inlita . parva . v[eneni.])Latin Palseography. 187 Here the words are separated from one another with the full point, as in inscriptions. Long vowels are also, in many instances, marked with an accent; in the case of long i, the form of the accent (if accent it be) is rather that of the letter itself, and the scribe may have intended to indicate the length of the vowel by doubling it. Specimens of nearly all the existing vellum MSS. written in rustic capital letters are represented in facsimile in the Exempla of Zangemeister and Wattenbach, the publications of the Palasographical Society, and other works. The writing on this material is of a more careful type than that which we have seen in the last facsimile from a papyrus MS. The estimation of the age of the earliest of these MSS. is necessarily a matter of uncertainty, as we have no specimen to which a date can be approximately assigned before the end of the fifth century. But some of them may be placed earlier than that period. For example, the palimpsest fragments of the Verrine Oratior.s of Cicero, in the Vatican Library (Z. W. Ex. 4), are generally assigned to the fourth century. But the MSS. which before all others approach nearest in the forms of their letters to those of inscriptions, are the two famous codices of Virgil, known as the "Codex Romanus," and the "Codex Palatinus" (Z. W. Ex. 1J, 12; Pal 80c. i. pi. 113-115). In these the style of lettering found in formal inscriptions of the first century of our era has been closely followed; and although no one has ever thought of placing the MSS. in so remote a period, yet it has been suggested that scribes may have kept up the style without degeneration for one or two centuries, and that they may therefore be as old as the third century. Others are of opinion that they are merely imitative, and that the Codex Romanus in particular, on-account of the barbarisms of its text and the coarse character of the pictures with which it is illustrated, must be of a later date. These objections, however, are not conclusive, and taking the writing alone under judgment,'-there seems to be no reason for dating the MSS. later, at all events, than the fourth century.Paleography. The fallowing facsimile is from the Codex Palatinus {Pal. Soc. i. pi. 115) :— VOTVitViUUKODO\ltCmiV IMlViiAXAiOMAMIVACVAi xccionn'McUiiiiniAMio aVAn0IAMiVCIV.C0NCV5MI vicgil.—4th century (?). (Yolvitur ater odor tectis tu[m]— | Tntus saxa sonant vacuas — | Accidit haec fessis etiani fo[rtuna]— | Quae totam luctu concussit—) In this writing the contrast of the thick and fine strokes is as strongly marked as in inscriptions on stone or metal. Shortness of horizontal strokes, smallness of hows, as seen in letter R, and general lateral compression are characteristic. The formation of the letter H is easily explained by referring to the same letter in the second Hue of the facsimile from the poem on the Battle of Actium. It recalls the formation of the common truncated h-shaped eta in Greek papyri. The points are inserted by a later hand. Another famous MS. of Virgil in rustic capitals is that known as the " Schedte Vaticante," which is ornamented with a series of most interesting paintings in classical style, no doubt copied from more ancient prototypes (Z. W. Ex. 13; Pal. Soc. i. pi. 116, 117). It is assigned to the 4th century. But the first rustic MS. to which an approximate date can be given is the Medicean Virgil in the Laurentian Library at Florence (Z. W. Ex. 10; Pal. Soc. i. pi. 86). A note at the end of the Bucolics states that the MS. was read, pointed, and corrected by the " consul ordi-narius" Asterius, who lield office in the year 494.Latin Paleography. Consequently, the text must have been written at or before that date. A specimen is here given :— fgON^l^MNOSTMt'OSSUNl MUUfU 1 NHO N KS ll M C OM B- M f,D 11 S'.H f D \ U M £ » B \ M $imo.VnMQ'Niui$.ttii MISS amus \ N1C5ICUM MOMINJAln liMKNMllMul VIRGIL.—BEFORE A.D. 494. (Non ilium nostri possunt mutare labo[res.] Nec si frigoribits mediis . Hebruuiqwe bibam[us.] Silhoniasqwe nives . hicmis subeamus a[quosae.] Nec si cum morions . alta Liber aret in ulLmo]). Among the remaining older MSS. of this style the most important is the Codex Bembinus of Terence (Z. W. Ex. 8, 9 ; Pal. Soc. i. pi. 135) in the Vatican Library, a MS. of the 4th or 5ih century, which takes its name from a former owner, Bernardo Bembo, in the fifteenth century, and which is valuable on account of its annotations. This handsome but inconvenient style of literary writing could not be expected to last, even for editions de luxe, for a very long period. There still survives, however, one very finely executed MS., the poems of Prudentius, in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris (Z. W. Ex. 15; Pal. Soc. i. pi. 29, 30), written with gieat skill, but thought not to be earlier than the 6th century. In the Turin Sedulius (Z. W. Ex. 16) of the 7th century the rustic letters have altogether passed out of the domain of calligraphy in its true sense, and arc rough and mis-shapen. Lastly, we may notice a MS. which, on account of its contents and history, has attracted more than usual attention—the Utrecht Psalter, which is written in rustic capitals and yet' can be scarcely older than the beginning of the 9th century. Copied from an ancient original which was illustrated with drawings,190 Pal&ography. it seems that, in order to maintain the same relative arrangements of text and drawings, the scribe found it the simplest course to copy the actual character of the letters, the text thus filling the same space as the original and leaving the proper intervals for the insertion of the drawings. And yet the text was not so exactly copied as to be quite consistent with ancient usage; for titles are introduced in uncial letters—an intrusion which would have been quite impossible in the earlier and purer period of rustic capital writing. In a word, the form in which the Utrecht Psalter is cast must be regarded as accidental —a mere imitation of a style which had practically passed away. Judging by the specimens which have survived, capital writing may be said to have ceased to exist as a literary hand for entire texts about the close of the fifth century. In the middle ages it survived, in both square and rustic styles, as an ornamental form of writing for titles and initials, and occasionally for a few pages of text. For example, in the Psalter of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, of the beginning of the 8th centurjr, now one of the Cottonian MSS. in the British Museum, there are several prefatory leaves written in imitative rustic lettei's (Pal. Soc. i. pi. 19; Cat. Anc. MSS. ii. 12, 13), and in the Benedictional of Bishop ZEthelwold (Pal. Soc. i. pi. 14-3) of the 10th century, and in a MS. of Aratus at Boulogne (Pal. Soc. i. pi. 96) written quite at the end of the 10di century, pages in the same style are to be found. In the profusely ornamented MSS. of the Gospels and other sacred texts of the period of the Carlovingian kings the bountiful use of capitals is a prominent feature of their decoration-. Uncials. The second form of Majuscule writing employed as a literary hand for the texts of MSS. is that to which the name of Uncial has been given.3 It is a modification of the square capital'writing. As the latter was the 3 See above, p. 117.Latin Palaeography. 191 easiest form to carve on stone or metai, so was it more simple, when writing letters with the reed or pen on a material more or less soft, to avoid right angles by the use of curves. Uncial, then, is essentially a round hand, and its principal characteristic letters are the curved forms A. t) e b fT). The main vertical strokes generally, rise above or fall below the line of writing. This style appears to have come into common use as a literary hand at least as early as the fourth century. How much earlier it may have been employed must remain uncertain ; but as in the most ancient specimens it appears in a fully developed shapo, it is not improbable that it was used for books even in the third century. The period of the growth of the hand has been determined, from the occurrence of isolated uncial forms in inscriptions, etc., to lie between the latter part of the second century and the latter part of the fourth century.4 From the fifth to the eighth century it was the ordinary literary hand of the first rank. In MSS..of the fifth and sixth centuries, and particularly in those of the earlier century, the uncial writing is exact, and is generally formed with much beauty and precision of stroke; in the seventh century it becomes more artificial; in the course of the eighth century it rapidly degenerates, and breaks down into a rough, badly-formed hand, or, when written with care, is forced and imitative. As a test letter of age the letter m has been selected, which in its earliest forms appears with the first limb straight, or at least not curved inwards at the bottom, as it is seen in later examples. And the shape of the letter e may also be of assistance for determining the period of a MS.: in the earlier centuries, the cross-stroke is consistently placed high, but when the hand begins to give way in its later stages the stroke varies in position, beings sometimes high, sometimes low, in the letter. In fact, as is the case with the handwriting of all periods and countries, the first examples of an 4 Z. W. Exempla, p. 5. Uncials were used in Latin inscriptions in Africa in the third century. The Makter inscription (Pal. S-oc. ii. 1*1. 49), which is certainly as early as the fourth century, is in uncials wilh some small letters.192 Paleography. established hand are the purest and best; the letters are formed naturally, and therefore consistently. Of MSS. in uncial writing there are still a not inconsiderable number extant, and the earliest and most important have been represented by facsimiles in various palgeographical works. The palimpsest fragments of Cicero De Rapublica (Z. W. Ex. 17; Pal. Soc. i. pi. 160) in the Vatican Library are generally quoted as the most ancient example, and are assigned to the 4th century. The letters are massive and regular, and the columns of writing are very narrow. A few lines will give an idea of the amount of material which must have been required for the whole work, there being only fifteen such lines in each column, or thirty in a page. qU150MXN£< fUix^esiecM ?eUxiusolcxt cjuobexFAim ££ C TUT1551 msce 6oN1bU5^CUH livy. — 5th century. (—ri oppido posset ante ipsam Tempe in fau [ cibus situm Macaedoniae claustra | tutissima praebet et in Tessaliam | opportunum Macedonibus decur | sum cum et loco et praesidio valido in) For au example of uncial writing of the sixth century we are able to turn to a MS. which can be approximately dated—the Fulda MS. of the Gospels and other books of the New Testament, which was revised by Victor, Bishop of Capua, in the years 546 and 547, and is itself probably of about the same period (Z. W. Ex. 34). o194 Paleography. XJeM e ru h t I mi m li ospi CJcitttcis ^CpOMCBXlTeS-TipiCAH^ e Is^ciHmctc Le^eci >os le i p rvop heri §aoi * fie cjxiix iNipoTesrxTeeTunvrcrie KDpeRXTSpl R1T1 BUS INCDUNldlS CTexeQNT CODEX AMIATINUS.—ABOUT A.D. 700. (Bt conloquebantur | ad invicem dicentes | quod est hoc verbum | quia in potestate et virtute | imperat spiritibus | inmundis et exeunt) The text is arranged stichometrically, and the characters are bold and in harmony with the large scale of the MS., which measures nearly twenty inches in height and contains more than a thousand leaves.CHAPTER XIV. latin palaeography.-continued. Mixed Uncial and Minuscule Writing. The fact must not, however, be lost sight of that, after all, the majuscule forms of writing, both capital and uncial, which Jiave beeu under discussion, represent only one class of the handwritings of the periods in which they were practised, namely, the literary hand, used in the production of exactly written MSS., and therefore a hand of comparatively limited use. By its side, and of course of far more extensive and general use, was the cursive hand of the time, which under certain conditions, and particularly when a book was being produced, not for the general market> but for private or limited circulation, would invade the literary domain of pure majuscule writing and show its presence by the intrusion of letters which are proper to the cursive alphabet.1 Thus, some of the notes of scholars in the margins of early majuscule MSS., or sometimes a few inserted leaves of additions, are found written in a mixed style of negligently formed uncials and certain cursive forms iu limited numbers. For instance, the notes of Bishop Victor in the Fulda codex, quoted above (p. 193), are thus written; and, as an example of the employment of this hand for additions to a text, a few lines from a MS. of the Chronicles of Eusebius of the 6t,h century, in the In describing these mixed hands it is necessary to anticipate the discussion of Uie .Roman cursive writing.Latin Pal&ograpJiy. 197 Bodleian Library (Pal. 80c. ii. pi. 130), are here given :— yuib c/o'/ c,Nsnsi~crr>pop. ibj^xcrs. esi teCh* hurrytoyrpxy'Sf 0 a/ em JjjTs^inoxxxuui/ « tk*st\pno tmjie£iier uyxtn wquxp er% slo/ifoSf-occu t> a ejzusn CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES.—6TF CENTURY. (usqwe ad consulatum eundem quotiens persecutio j —quilws designatis temporibws facta est | —regnavit post passionem dowzmi anno xxxviiii | —[o]rta est anno imperii eius xiii in qua petrus et | —anostoli gloriose occubumint) Here the general character is a sloping uncial, but the letter,13 b and d are cursive forms, and the cursive influence shows itself in the lengthening of vertical strokes. The adaptation of this mixed hand, growing as it were by accident into a recognized style of writing, to more formal literary purposes would naturally follow. In the MS. of Gaius at Yerona (Z W. Ex. 24) of the 5th century, besides the ordinary uncial forms, the cursive-shaped d and s2 are used. In the Florentine Pandects, written by many scribes, several cursive forms appear (Z. W. Ex. 54; Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 108) in one portion of the MS. And fragments of a Graeco-Latin glossary on papyrus (Comment. Soc. Gottivgen. iv. 156 ; Wiein. Museum, v. 301) are also written in mixed 2 A curious instance of misunderstanding of the cursive or long s (r) by an ignorant scribe is afforded by the Hiirlcy MS. 5792, which contains a Grseco-Latin glossary, written probably in France in the seventh century. The archetype from which the MS. was transcribed, evidently had this form of the letter in several places. The scribe of the Harley MS., not understanding it, copied it sometimes as an i without a dot (1), sometimes as an i with a dot (i).— Glossae Latino-graeeue, etc., ed. Goetz and Gundermann, 1888, praef. xxii.198 Paleography. characters.3 From these examples it appears that secular MSS., such as those relating to law and grammar, were not always subject in their production to the same strict calligraphic rules as MSS. for church use or of a specially sumptuous character. The scribe, writing rather for the scholar than for the public reader or book-collector, allowed himself a certain freedom and adopted a style which he could write more rapidly ; and yet at the same time the preponderating element remained uncial. In the following facsimile from the Paudects of the Laurentian Library at Florence (Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 108), probably of the end of the 6th or beginning of the 7th century, it will be noticed that the cursive forms are used at the ends of lines, generally the weak point, so to say, of handwritings, where innovations make their first appearance. u i STi mxNn S3i qu vfcfcanppxece/ cmsxl \ x^T^F^xquxaiuisiNfrocno xees^ecoef efjxsi uepowoMppxecc/ cipsoquotuuboouiiTtoefcuCTxrsr pis po msxIi m: xcrxquxmsei4teiiia7 PANIJkC S.-GTH-FrFI CENTURY. ([proV>a]vi existimantis si quidem praeces | —[sp]onsaiia durarc ea quamvis in domo | —[nuptjae esse coeperit si vero non praeces | — [ho]e ipso quod in domum deducta est | —[videjri sponsalia facta quam sentential) 3 The same mixed style is found in Latin inscriptions of Northern Africa; e.g. the Makter inscription {Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 49'. It also appears in the recently discovered inscription of Diocletian's edict, " de pretiis venalium " of a.d. 301 (Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 127, 128). Even in inscriptions in square capitals small letters sometimes intruded : see an instance of a small b in an inscription of a.d. 104, »iven in Letronne, Inscriptions de VEgypte, 1842, 1848, atlas, pi. 31.Latin Paleography. 199 From the same MS. we give another specimen (Z. W. Ex. 54) of a hand which employs the cursive forms more generally, not only at the ends of lines, but promiscuously with the uncial forms, and illustrates a further stage of development. le^iimTfixmit^mquixburi £empO[\ 1 b u fx x xe rW com p u n urn kMve-si M:un\ecA.px ci no pecer< ci>eoLi>ox7C|cj i aper^eiMU) moixcuau *crferrxpe:rviM BIBLICAL COMMENTARY.-BEFORE A.D. 569. (aboleret. natus ergo e — | ut quae primum fecer[at]— | crearet quia per erro[rem]— | niortua ut semper in—) We must here break off our examination of the formal book-hands to take up that of the Roman Cursive "writing which, as we have just seen, essentially affected the half-uncial, and which had an all-important influence in formiug the later handwritings of Western Europe.CHAPTER. XV. latin paleography.-—continued. Roman Cursive Writing. Some of the earliest material which has survived for the study of Roman Cursive writing is found among the wall-inscriptions of Pompeii. These inscriptions have been divided into two classes : (1) those traced with-the brush, generally in formal and not cursive capitals, and consisting of advertisements, recommendations of candidates, announcements of public games, of lost articles, of houses to let, etc. ; and (2) scrawls and scribblings, sometimes in charcoal, chalk, etc., but more generally scratched with a point (the so-called graffiti), and written in cursive letters, being quotations from poets, idle words, reckonings, salutations, love addresses, pasquinades, satirical remarks, etc. A few are of ancient date, but most of them range between a.d. 63 and the year of the destruction of the city, a.d. 79. Similar inscriptions have been found at Herculaneum, and in the excavations and catacombs of Rome. Most of them have.,been collected by Zangemeister in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum of the Berlin Academy, vol. iv., which also contains a carefully compiled table of the forms of letters employed. Some of those found in Rome are represented in-the Roma, subterranea Christiana of De Rossi. Contemporary with these wall-inscriptions are the204 Paleography. waxen tablets found in 1875 at Pompeii, in the house of L. Csecilius Jucundus,1 inscribed with documents in cursive writing, and ranging in date chiefly from a.d. 53 to 62. Of similar character are the waxen tablets, some of which are dated between a.d. 131 and 167, found in the ancient mining works of Veivspatak in Dacia,2 and published with a table of forms of letters in the Corpus Inscriptionuin Latinarum, vol. iii. With these also must be grouped the tiles which have been found on various sites, scratched, before being baked, with alphabets, verses, or miscellaneous memoranda.3 The examples of Roman cursive writing which have been enumerated above represent the ordinary writing of the people for about the first three centuries of the Christian era. The letters are nothing more than the old Roman letters written with speed, and thus undergoing certain modifications in their forms, which eventually developed into the minuscule hand. These sam.) original. Roman letters written carefully became, as we have seen, the formal capital alphabets in use in inscriptions under the Empire and in the sumptuous MSS. of the early centuries of our era. It is probable that the wall-scribblings of Pompeii essentially represent the style of writing which had been followed for some two or three centuries before their actual date; for, in the other direction, the difference between the style of the Dacian tablets and that of the Pompeian period, although they are separated by a long interval, is nob so marked as might have been expected. If we turn to the Table of letters which are found in the graffiti of Pompeii and other Roman sites, we see how in the first century the original capital forms stand side by side with other modified forms which even at 1 See above, p. 25. 2 See above, p. 24. * See above, p. 15. Some of them are inscribed with memoranda of the brickfields. One found at Aquileia bears the warning of a severe taskmaster to some unfortunate workman : " Cave malum, si non raseris lateres DC ; si raseris minus, malum formidabis," Corp. Ins. Lot. v., no. 8110 (176).Latin Paleography. 205 that date had began to tend towards minuscules. In A the cross stroke falls, so to say, out of its horizontal position and hangs as a short middle stroke or entirely disappears. The slurring of the bows of B, in quick writing, produces the form of the letter resembling a stilted a, the waved stroke representing the bows and the loop the original upright mainstroke. This is the most complete transformation of any letter in the alphabet. C and G exaggerate the length of the upper part of the curve. The letter D developes gradually the uncial form, which afterwards produced the minuscule, by lengthening the upper stroke of the bow, while the straight main-stroke, like that of the B, turns into a curve. The letter E is represented in two forms, the second being the double vertical-stroke letter used also in inscriptions and in the Faliscan alphabet. F in like manner takes the form of a long and a short stroke, both more or less vertical, the short stroke gradually degenerating into a curve. In the changes of H we see the origin of the minuscule in the shortening of the second main-stroke; Besides the normal capital form we have M represented by four vertical strokes, llll, the first being longer than the rest; and so, too, N appears in the form of three strokes, III. The hastily written 0 is no longer a circle, but is formed by two curves ; and, the natural tendency when writing with a hard point being to form concave rather than convex curves, the second curve of the letter also becomes concave. In the letter P we see the gradual wearing down of the bow into a mere oblique stroke; in R the slurring of the bows into a curved stroke; and in S the straightening of the lower curve and the development of the upper one into an oblique stroke. In the alphabets of the Dacian tablets many of these modifications are seen to be carried still farther, as for example in the straightening of the exaggerated head-curve of C and G into the flat head which in the latter letter afterwards becomes so marked a feature. .The similarity now existing between certain letters is also very striking, and it is obvious how easily one may be206 Paleography. misread for another. A and R, B and D, C and 0, C and P, C and T, E and U, bear, under various conditions, more or less resLmblance to each other; and, to add to the difficulties of decipherment, linking and combination of letters was carried in the cursive hand of this period almost to an extreme. The two following facsimiles are taken from the Pompeian graffiti. First we select the b: ginnings of four lines, two from Ovid (Amor. I. viii. 77) and two from Propertius (IY. v. 47), written in a stylo which we may call formal cursive, the normal, shapes of the old letters being fairly maintained (Corp. Iiisc. Lat. iv. 18U3, 1894, tab. xxv. 7). WALL-INSCRIPTION-1ST CENTURY. (Surda sit oranti tua [ianua laxa ferenti] | audiat uxclusi verba [receptus amans] | ianitor ad dantis vigilet [si pulsat inanis] | surdus in obductam so[mniet usque seram]) Next is given a specimen of the more cursive style in which the normal shapes of the letters are considerably modified and the vertical-stroke forms of E and M are used. The shape of the 0 may also be noticed, being formed by two convex strokes as explained above. (Corp. Inse. Lat. iv. 1597, tab. vii. 1).Latin Paleography. 207 WALL-INSCRIPTION.-1ST CENTURY. (communem i^ummum— | censio est nam noster— | magna habet pecuni[am]) We now turn from the large hasty scrawls of the plaster-covered walls of Pompeii and take up the delicate specimens traced with the fine-pointed stilus on smooth waxen surfaces. In the waxen tablets found at Pompeii we have two styles of writing : that of the deeds themselves, inscribed on the waxen pap^es with the stilus in the decidedly cursive character which may be compared with the facsimile of the wall-inscription just given; and that of the endorsements and lists of witnesses written in ink upon the bare wood of the pages which were not coated with wax/ in a more formal character which maybe compared with the preceding facsimile. The following specimen is a fragment of one of the tablets which record payments made on account of sales by auction (Atti dei Lincei, 1875-6, p 21Sj tav. 1), written in the full cursive style. 1 See above, p. 25.Paleography. u ^Vc^KjJU M. I V\\K( Ksisi.. POMPEIAN WAXEN TABLET.— 1ST CENTURY. (—[S]atumi[no] — | —[Scipi]one— | iv idus Novembr | —s Umbricae Antiochidis se[rvus] | — [eajm accepisse ab L. Caec[ilio] | [Iucundo] sestertios numrnos sescentos | [quadra- gi]nta quinque [ob au]ctionem !.........| rebus innisiticis v[enditis]— | ex qua summa—) The handwriting is very firm and distinct, and the letters are formed upon the same pattern as those of the last facsimile. Nor is the hand complicated by the linkings and monogrammatic arrangements of two or more letters, which will be presently shown in another example. Indeed, the letters are inscribed so distinctly that there is no difficulty in deciphering the text when once the forms are mastered. Two facsimiles from the Dacian tablets of the second century are now given. The first is taken from one of the pages of a tablet recording the dissolution of a burial club at Alburnus Major, or Yerespatak, in the year 167. It is written clearly, and the letters generally stand distinct without much linking (jVIassmann, IAb. aw, tab. 2• Corp. Insc. Ltd. iii. 926-7).Latin Paleography. 209 'VS' * ^ >< ^ . dacian waxen tablet.—a.d. 167. (Dcscriptum et recognitum | factum ex lihello qui propo | situs erat Alburno maiori ad statio | nem Kesculi in quo scrip | turn erat id quot infra scriptum est | Artemidorus Apolloni magister | collegi Iovis Cerneni et Valerius | Niconis et Offas Menofili questo | res collegi eiusdem j posito hoc libello publico testantur | ex collegis supra scriptis ubi erant homines liiii | ex eis hod plus remasisse Albums quam quot homines xvii:) The facsimile represents the beginning of the deed written, in duplicate, in the left-hand compartment of the fourth page of the tablet, as described above (p. 26); the right-hand compartment being reserved for the names of the witnesses. The second example is taken from the very perfect remains of a triptych, to which the witnesses' seals still remain attached. The contents refer to the purchase of a girl in the year 139 [Corp. Insc. Lut. iii. 936-7).21 o Paleography. DACIAN WAXEN TABLET.—A.D '139. (et alteram tantum dari fide rogavit | Maximus Batonis fide promisit Dasius | Yerzonis Pirusta ex Kaviereti | Proque ea puella quae supra scripta est * ducen | tos quinque accepisse et habere | se dixit Dasius Verzonis a Maximo Batonis) The writing1 here is more complicated than that of tlie other example, and it will fit once be seen that the difficulty is not caused by any deficiency in the character o£ the hand, which is on the contrary particularly bold and well formed, but by the number of linked letters, or rather monograms, which occur. This system of linking dismembers the letters and leaves the initial stroke of a letter attached to its predecessor, while the rest stands quite separate, thus intensifying the natural disposition to write in disjointed strokes upon such a material as wax, and increasing the difficulty of reading. With such a condensed form of writing before us, we are tempted to speculate what would have been the cast of the handwriting,-derived from the Roman, of the middle ages and modern times, had waxen surfaces been the only, or principal, mnterial to receive it. We should certainly have had no loops to our cursive letters and curves would have disappeared. To complete the illustration of the early Roman cursive hand we give a few lines inscribed on a tile found at Silchester, probably of the 1st or 2nd century. They seem to be the material for a writing lesson, the teacher apparently first writing certain words as examples of theLatin Paleography. 211 formation of certain letters, and then dashing off the " conticuere omnes " of Virgil. INSCRIBED ROMAN TILE.—1ST OR 2ND CENTURY. (Pertacus Perfidus | Campester Lucilianus | Campanus conticuere omnes) The alphabet employed is identical with that of the waxen tablets. It will be noticed that the initial C is marked with an extra dash at the top in continuation of the curve of the letter, and that the linked form of the letters ER occurs several times. Examples of the Roman cursive hand now fail us for a period of some centuries. We have to wait till the fifth century to find its representative in Italian deeds of that period. But we must step aside to examine some interesting fragments of papyrus, in Paris and Leyden, inscribed in a character which is quite otherwise unknown : a modification of the Roman cursive, cast in a mould which stamps it with a strong individuality. The documents contained in them are portions of two rescripts addressed to Egyptian officials; and they are said to have been found at Pnilae and Elephantine. The writing is the official cursive of the Roman chancery, and is ascribed to the 5th century. Both documents are in the same hand. For a long time they remained undeciphered, and Champollion-Figeac, while publishing a facsimile (Chartea et MSS. siir papymx, 1840, pi. 14), was obliged to admit212 Pala&ography. his inability to read them. Massmann, however, after his experience of the writing of the waxen tablets, succeeded in reading the Leydeu fragment (Libellut aurarius, p 147), and the whole of the fragments were subsequently published by De Wailly (Mem. de I'Institut, xv. 399). Mommsen and Jaffe (Jahrbuch des gem. deut. Rechts, vi. 398.; see also Pal. Soc.. ii. pi. 30) have discussed the text and given a table of the letters compared with those of the Dacian tablets. The following facsimile (Lib. aur.) gives portions of a few lines on a reduced scale. (portionem ipsi debitam resarcire | nec ullum precatorem ex instrument*)— | pro memorata narratione per vim con[fecto]— | sed hoc viribus vacuato) The writing is large, the body of the letters being above three-quarters of an inch high. A comparison of the letters, as set out in the Table, with those of the alphabet of the waxen tablets leaves no room to question their connection, but at the same time shows the changes effected by the flourished style of the later IMPERIAL RESCRIPT.-5TH CENTURY.Latin Paleography. 213 hand and also by its more cursive formation with pen and ink upon papyrus, the natural slope of the writing inclining, under the altered conditions, to the right, instead of inclining rather to the left, or at least being upright, as in the waxen tablets. It is interesting to note the change in the shape of B, to suit the system of connecting letters practised in the more cursive style, from the stilted a-form of the tablets with closed bow, to an open-bowed letter somewhat resembling a reversed modern cursive b. The tall letters have developed loops; O and v-shaped U are small and written high in the line. The shapes of E, M, and N are peculiar; but the first is evidently only a quick formation, in a loop, of the old double-stroke E (II), and the other two, although they have been compared with the Greek minuscule mu and nu, as if derived from those letters, appear to be nothing more than cursive shapes of the Latin capitals M and N. This official hand, however, as already stated, is quite exceptional, and we turn to the documents on papyrus from Ravenna, Naples, and other places in Italy, dating from the fifth century, for examples of the less trammelled development of the Roman cursive into a bold straggling hand, which, however, is not wanting in effectiveness. The largest number are brought together by Marini (I Papiri Diplomatici), and other examples will be found in the works of Mabillou (De Be Diplomatica), Cham-pollion-Figeac (Chartes et M8S. sur papyrus), Mass-mann (Urkunden in Neapal und Arezzo), Gloria (Paleo-grojia); in the Facsimiles of Ancient Charters in the British Museum, iv. nos. 45, 46 ; and in Pal. Soc. i. pi. 2, 28, ii. pi. 51-53. The following facsimile is taken from a deed of sale of property in Rimini, now in the British Museum, drawn up at Ravenna in the year 572 (Pal. Soc. i. pi. 2). The papyrus roll on which it is inscribed is of great length, measuring as much as 8 ft. 6 in., and is a foot wide. The writing, not only of the deed itself, but also of the attestations, is on a'.large scale, which has been reduced to nearly half-size in the facsimile.214 Paleography. ^ 1/ loyttwrr^ tv k/tflrf)^io&fcwpi « j yj/c DEED Of SALE.—A.D. 572. (quantum supra scripto emptori interfuerit— | mancipalionique rei supra script&e dol[um]— | que esse vi mctu efc circumscrip [tione]— | unciis superius designatis sibi supra scriptus) As compared with the alphabet of the waxen tablets the letters have here undergone a great alteration, which must be chiefly attributed to the variations arising out of the system of connecting the letters together currente calamo. Most of the letters, indeed, have now assumed the shapes from which the minuscules of the literary hand of the Carlovingian period were directly derived. The letter a has no longer any trace of the capital in its composition ; it is now the open u-shaped minuscule, derived no doubt through an opdn uncial form <>.) from the parent capital; it is sometimes written in a small form high in the line ; and it is to be noticed that it is always connected with the next following letter, and on this account may be distinguished from the letter u, which is never thus connected. This link of the a no doubt has its origin i.uLatin Paleography. 215 the sweeping main-stroke of the early cursive letter as seen in the waxen tablets. The letter b has thrown away the bow on the left, as seen in the chancery hand cf the fifth century, and has developed one on the right, and appears in the form familiar in modern writing. The letter e, derived from the ordinary capitil, not from the two-stroke cursive letter, varies in form in accordance with the conditions of its connection with other letters, and affords a good illustration of the influence of linking-strokes in determining alterations of shape. Among the other letters the fully formed minuscule m and n are seen; long r is easily derived from the cursively-written letter of the waxen tablets; and s, having developed the initial down-stroke or tag, has taken the shape which it keeps long after. The general application of the Roman cursive hand to the purposes of literature would hardly be expected ; but a few surviving instances of its employ men t for annotations awl even for entire texts are found in the notes written probably in the fifth century by the Arian bishop Maximin in the margins of a MS. at Paris containing the Acts of the Council of Aquileia; in a short Graeco-Latiri vocabulary on papyrus (the Greek words being written in Roman letters), perhaps of the 5th or 6th century (Not. et Krtr. des MSS. xviii. pi. 18); in the grammatical treatise of the 6th century in the palimpsest MS. of Licinianus in the British Museum (Cat. Anc. MSS. ii. pi. 1, 2) ; and in the texts of the Homilies of St. Avitus at Paris, perhaps of the 6th century (Pal. Soc. i. pi. 68), the Ambrosian Josephus on papyrus, ascribed to the 7th century (Pal. Soc. i. pi. 59), and the Homilies of St. Maximus of Turin, also in the Ambrosian Library of Milan, of about the same period (Pal. Soc, ii. pi. 32) ; and in other MSS. From the survival of comparatively so many literary remains in this style of writing, it may be inferred that it was used as a quick and convenient means of writing texts intended probably for ordinary use and not for the market. As an example, we. give a few lines from the MS. of St. Maximus.216 Palseography. m?TJo J2rnShlnmc± clttrtuv* ^ucidr^ttoJurfifp&bL n&n QT? T-q^uy^^ f tv HOMILIES OF ST. MAX1MUS.—7TH CENTURY. ([pa]trem spccialiter exsuperantium— | [mijnister in sacerclotio comes in ma[rtyrio] — | [labo]re in cuius vultibus sanctum quoque— | [cre]dimus et quasi in quorlam speculo— | [iniagi] liera contuemur facile enim cogn[oscimus]) For our present purpose we need not follow^n this place the further course of Roman cursive writing. It was still used in the legal documents of Italy for some centuries, ever becoming more and more corrupt and complicated and illegible. Facsimiles of documents of the eighth and ninth centuries are given by Fumagalli (Delle Istituzioni- diplomatic!ic), by Sickel (Monument-a Grctphica), in the Codex Diplomat!ens Cavensis, vol. in the Paleogrcifia artisticci di Montecassino, tav. xxxiv., xxxv., and by Silvestre (Palseography, i. pi. 137). The illegible scrawl into which it finally degenerated in notarial instruments of southern Italy was at length suppressed by order of Frederic II. in the year 1220.' 5 In the thirteenth century the Roman cursive was unintelligible. Simon of Genoa, Clavis Sanct-ionis (1514, f. 37), says: " Ego vidi Ronise in gazophilaciis antiquorum monasterionim Roma) libros et privilegia ex hac materia (sc. charta) scripta ex litteris apud nos non intelligibilibus, nam figurae nec ex toto Grtecfc nec ex toto Lat.inae erant." And again, when speaking of papyrus (f. 47), he uses these words: " Ego vidi Romrc m aliquibus monasteriis antiquis-ima volumina ex eisdem litteris semi-grajcis seripta no niillis modernis Jegibilia." See De Rossi, C'odd. Palatini Latini, 1886, Introd. p. ci. TPomp elan Wall - Ins criptions. Before A.D.79. PompeibTi Waxen - Tablets. Before A.D. 79. Dacian "Waxen- Tablets. Century. Imp erial Rescript. Century. Ravenna Deed. A.D. 57 2. h i k 1 A a a m A a M X |n II) 0 £ () 0 1> & K f \ (■ («. vs ^ TJ-. T, cc.icji trrr (eeo) 6 & L H h l\ lb lire fjspj h f) i i)ll m 1 AA )V\YK Jilt I IK nj Y/ Xf h n 0 (V. (Is. tr r ctt d "N ^ rrfrj/f TTf XT U V V U, is, VV y r /v\ hN 7\> ^ (\\ >1 >( )i tt h 0 H ^ ^ F B I; t Cc 0\ e\ <\ Sfff/f r x xzx jc f x t n J^Cytyti 0 66 tvuu m fo yn h T) X 6 66 / 1 r1 / ZTVt if V S O ^rrr wrff U 14 U V 2 3o /ace* pajgc, 2W. Wetlm- i OraJum.LLiOlm.jMruitm LATIN CURSIVE ALPHABETS.CHAPTER XVI. t-atin paljeography —contjnued. Minuscule Writing.—National Hands. We have now to investigate the very interesting subject of the formation of the national handwritings of Western Europe, derived from Roman writing. On the Continent the cursive hand which has just been noticed became the basis of the writing of Italy, Spain, and Frankland, and from it were moulded the three national hands which we know as Lombardic, Visigothic, and Merovingian. The common origin of all three is sufficiently evident' on an inspection of the earliest charters of those countries. In the book-hands elaborated by professional scribes from the cursive, with a certain admixture of uncial and half-uncial forms, we see the lines of demarcation between the three kinds of writing at length quite clearly defined. But it was only to be expected that particularly in the earlier stages there should be examples which it would be difficult to assign definitely to either one or other of these national divisions; and, as a matter of fact, the difference between a MS. Avritten in France and another written in Italy is not always so strongly marked as to enable us to call the one decidedly Merovingian or the other decidedly Lombardic in its style.2 I 8 Palaeography. We will examine the three hands in the order in which they have been above referred to, reserving the Merovingian for the last, as that form of writing leads on to the Caroline Minuscule, which eventually displaced all three. Lombardic Writing. That the national handwriting of Italy, founded 011 the old Roman cursive, should not have developed on the same lines throughout the country is attributable to political causes. The defeat of the Lombards in northern Italy by Charlemagne subjected it there to new influences, and checked its development- in the direction which it continued to follow in the Lombard duchies of the south, and particularly in the monasteries of Monte Cassino near Naples and La Cava near Salerno. Therefore, although the title of Lombardic is given as a general term to the writing of Italy in the early middle ages, that title might be more properly restricted to its particular development in the south, covering the period from the ninth to the thirteenth century, and reaching its climax in the eleventh century. In an example of the book-hand of Northern Italy in the seventh century, the "Verona Augustine (Sickel, Mon. Graph, in. 1), we find the half-uncial element very strong, and what would be termed the Lombardic element, the peculiar adaptation of certain cursive forms, rather subordinate. Again, in the Sacramentarium (MS. 348) of St. Gall* (Pal. Soc. i. pi. 185), which belonged to Remedius, Bishop of Chur (a.d. 800-820), and which may therefore be placed at least as early as the beginning of the 9th century, if not at the end of the 8th century, the writing, though classed as Lombardic, is rather of the type which we should prefer to call modified Lombardic. In the facsimile here given, while the descent of the writing from the Roman cursive jan pretty readily be traced, tbe nalional character of the hand is not very marked, and it is only the letters aLatin Paleography. 219 (in the double-c form) and t which are absolutely Lom-bardic in shape. (jccaxc /jnj^inir of-f^trutf-pftf Sc cLtii^x enure ifo• ccc CAcjuccm pACI^l <5dait au commencement da xiiie siecle .... Le redacteur du catalogue a pris soin d'avertir que plusieurs des livres de son abbaye elaient ecrits en lettres f'ran^aises ......C'est une allusion a la revolution qui s'introduit au xiie siecle, et peut-etre des le xie, dans les habitudes des copistes cspagnols, probablement sous L'influence des colonies franchises que notre grande abbaye de Cluni envoya dans plusieurs dioceses d'Espagne.''—Delisle, Melanges de Paleographie, p. 69.Latin Paleography. 223 Ewald and G. Loewe (Heidelberg, 1883), the course of the Visigothic writing can be fairly followed. In the cursive hand of the seventh century we find little variation from the Roman cui-sive; but almost immediately we are in the presence of a half-cursive book-hand {Ex. 4) .vliich is attributed to the 7th or 8th century, and which has already assumed a distinctive character, as will be seen from the following facsimile. It comes from a treatise of Sr. Augustine in a MS. in the Escurial. ([qu]od scit medicus esse noxium sanitati | —medicus ergo ut eg mm exaudiat | —voluntatem . denique etiara ipsa | —accipit propter quod ter dom'nwm rogabit | —mea nam virtus in in-firmitate perficitur | —tur a te stimulus carnis quern accepisti) In this specimen the old forms of the Roman cursive letters are treated in a peculiar method, the inclination of the writing to the left imparting a compressed and angular character. The high-shouldered letter r and the ordinary t are already in the forms which at a later period are prominent in Visigothic MSS., and the letter g is beginning to take the q-foi m which makes-it the most characteristic letter of the Visigothic alphabet. It is interesting to notice the shapes of a and u (the linking of the first letter which distinguishes it, as in ST. AUGUSTINE.—7TH OR 8'J'H CENTURY.224 Paleography. its lloman prototype, from the independently written u, still being observed), the forms of p, and the different changes of t when in combination with other letters— all referable to their Roman ancestors. In many of the specimens of the eighth and ninth centuries we find a small evenly-written hand, in which the light and heavy strokes are in strong contrast, the inclination of the letters being still rather to the left. But we choose our next facsimile from a MS. which is of a rather more formal type, and is a more direct link in the development of the later style. It is from a MS. of the Etymologies of St. Isidore, in the Escurial, of the first half of the 9th century (Ex. 14). uittn ncuu IJ^OtnutiCU^oru^ CjuicJnnoucs^'7 ^sndatmlCLr ^t fcunec' mrtlipmiti^v^ouivj ST. JSTDORE.— 9TH CENTURY. (sunt nova. Testamentum | autfein novum . idco nuncupatur . | quia innovafc., non enim ilium | discunt . nisi homines reno-vati | ex'vetustate per gratiam et perti—) The letters of the Yisigothic hand are here fully developed; and at the same time the thickening or clubbing of the tall vertical strokes seems to indicate the influence of the French school. Attention may be drawn to the occurrence in the last line of the abbreviated form of per peculiar to the Yisigothic hand, which in other countries would represent pro.Latin Paleography. 225 We advance some hundred years, and select our next facsimile from a Martyrology in the British Museum {Pal. Soc. i. pi. 95), which was written in the diocese of Burgos in the year 919. lufliccetim capteerpLsccri'4 cjmuJ cl&o!Lt jii iuuu tiocaC-cofpofu/fclc • ftrln&otno MAETYROLOGY.-A.D. 919. (iussit cum capite plecti: quuraqwe | decollatus esset beatus Prota | sius/ ego servus CJhrzstfi Philippus | abstuli cum filio meo furtim | nocte corpora sancta .' et in domo) •It will be seen that this specimen differs from the last one in being rather squarer in form of letters and in having the vertical strokes finer. There is, in fact, a decided loss as regards actual beauty of writing. The MS. is one which may be classed as a specimen of calligraphy, and therefore rather in advance of others of the same period which still retain much of the older character, and is dominated by the increasing influence of the French hand. In passing, the use of the conjunction quum in our specimen may be noticed, a practice of Visigothic scribes, while those of other nations employ the form cum. The squareness and thinness of type which we have seen appearing in the above specimen increases in course of time, and is most characteristic of later Visigothic writing of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. In226 Pa Ise.ography. this change, too, we may trace the same influence which is seen at work in other handwritings of Western Europe of that period. Our last Yisigothic facsimile is supplied by a MS. of the Commentary of Beatus on the Apocalypse, now in the British Museum {Pal. Soc. i. pi. 48), which was written in the monastery of St. Sebastian of Silos, in the diocese of Burgos, in the year 1109. oblumc^fc^xan^afiuct? uaf&nj> ft In foctof fajiLifua?. cucjuof jJ^juaAair' Incj&hruU ' S&^^^l^fc nuili^^u^ arux&^ab uAiautn Jiu pafcmfidLcutr' In dolofi{?fuif. ^u^-^ajvxujuuj^hii jHurfutn tepfjufum. Afcxn^^ajjftoyu COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE.-A.D. 1109. (ad hanc ecclesiam portrait . ut semper sibi | socios requirat . cum quos precipitetur | in geenna.' semper enim hec mulier etia?n | ante adventum dom'ni parturiebat | in doloribvs suis . que est antiqua ecclma | patrum et profe^arum . et sancforimi et apos^olorwm) Merovingian Writing. The hands which have been classed as Merovingian, practised as they were over the whole extent of the Frankish empire, were on that account of several types; and, as has been already stated, the boundary line between the different national hands is not always to be accurately traced. First to consider the style of writing to which the name of Merovingian may par excellence be applied, we turn to the many officialLatin Palaeography. 227 documents still in existence of tlie Merovingian dynasty which are to be found in facsimile in such works as Letronne's Diplomata (1848), the Facsimile de Chartes ct Diplomas Meroviwjiens et Carlovinijiens of Jules Tardif (1806), the Kaisenirkunden in Abbilditnyen of yon Sybel and Sickel (1880, etc.), and the Musee des Archives Departementales (1878). In these the Roman cursive is transformed into a curiously cramped style of writing, the letters being laterally compressed, the strokes usually slender, and the heads and tails of letters exaggerated. As an example we may take a section from a charter of Childebert III., in favour of the Abbey of St. Denis, of the year G95 (Tardif, Monuments His-toriques, p. 28): CHARTER OF CHILDEBERT III.—rA.D. 695. ([sexcen]tus eum rognnti pro ipso conposuisset et pro [noncojpanti Hosdinio in pago Belloacense ad inte[grum"J por suo estrumentum delegasset vel fir[masset] [ —ibidem ad presens aderat interrogatum fuit | —sua in suprascripto "Joco Hosdinio ipsius Hai[noni] | —[v]ol firniasset sed ipsi Boc-tharm^ rlirecu9 in) o 2228 Paleography. There is no difficulty in tracing the descent of the various forms of letters here employed from the parent stock, the Roman cursive. But, besides such shapes as those of the varying- t and the high-written a and the coalescing form of the same letter in combination, as in the word ad, which at once arrest the eye, special notice may be taken of the narrow double-c shaped a, which is characteristic in this hand, and, in a less degree, of the u, worn down into a curved or sickle-shaped stroke —a form which is found in the book-hand, not ouly as an over-written u, but also as a letter in the body of the writing. The book-hand immediately derived from this style of writing, which is, in fact, the same hand moulded into a set calligraphic style, appears in various extant MS>S. of the seventh and eighth centuries. We select a specimen from a Lectionary of the Abbey of Luxeuil, written in the ye.-.r C63.2 ^ci^nlluJi - ^^Js&^u^Wj fai^t^^cW^f fSLOsssssxytobpi. fowicqmu^&n^tffi^W LECTIONARY OP LUXEUIL.-A.D. 669. (hie est qui verbum audit . et continno c[um gau] | dio accipit illud . lion habet autem in s[e radiccm] | sed est temporalis, facta autem tri[bulatione] | et persecutione . propter verbum . con[tinuo] | scandalizatur, qui autem est semina[tus]) 2 See Notice sur un Manuscrit de VAbbaye de Luxeuil, by L. Dolisle, in Notices et Extra its des MSS., tome xxxi. ; and Questions Merovingiennes, no. iii., by J. Havet (1885).Latin Palaeography. 229 As an example of the same type of writing, but of later date, the following facsimile is taken from a MS. of Pope Gregory's Moralia, probably of the latter part of the 8th century, in the British Museum (Add. MS., 31,031; Cat. Anc. MSS. ii. pi. 33). ST. GREGORY'S MORALIA.-8TH CENTURY. (descratur . Quia et frustra velociter currit— | veniat deficit. Hinc est enim q?/od de reprobis— | sustinenciam. hinc est enim quod de elcctis suis— | mansistis meciira in temtacionibus meis . hinc— | ad finem iustus perseverasse describitur) Of other types of handwriting which were used within the limits of the Frankish empire and which must be considered under the present division, there arc some which bear a close resemblance to the Lombardic style— so close, indeed, that many MSS. of this character have been classed as Lombardic. We are hero, in fact, in presence of the same difficulties as have been noticed under the section dealing with Lombardic writing; and have to deal with examples, any classification of which, in face of their mixed character, canuot but be to some extent arbitrary. The following specimen is from the Haney MS. 5041., in the British Museum, containing theological treatises, and homilies, of the end of the 7th century. It cannot be doubted that the volume was written in France,230 Paleography. and in the character of individual letters it is of the Merovingian typo, while in general appearance it has rather a Lomb.irdic cast. QuwpftcW Vimmilut^^&itf lu^ioccnfhiwiuSr f^^uixcc^fe- iuujiCttffrdtKitiir, JVutncjuicinlujUJ4 OtfmulmnnlujXcrifl^^ ir £tcmnuc6i SERMON OP ST. CtESARIUS.-8TH CENTURY. (aliia maledicere propter illud quocl scriptu[m]— | regnum dei possedibunt , Numquam iurar[c]— | vir multum iurans im-plebitur iniquitat[e]— | de domo illius plaga . Quod autem dicit de do— | plagam.' non de domo terrena sed de anima ei). But it must not be forgotten that the Uncial and Half-uncial styles were still employed for the production of the greater number of literary MSS.; and that the professional scribes, who were of course expert both in those formal book-hands and in the more cursive characters of the Merovingian, would naturally, when writing without special care or in a rough and ready style, mix the characters of the different hands. Thus we are prepared to find the influence of the uncial and half-uncial showing itself in modifying the extravagances of the cursive232 Pal&ography. Merovingian, and, on the other hand, the cursive breaking out among lines written in a more formal character. Two very interesting MSS. in a variety of hands in which these influences are marked have been described by Mo/isieur Delisle : Notice stir un Manuscrit Merovingian d'Eugyppius (1875) Avritten early in the 8th century, and Notice sur un Manuscrit Mcrovingien cle la Bibliotheque d'Epinal (1878) of the Epistles of St. Jerome, written in the year 744. The two following facsimiles represent two of the many hands employed. ^oai^cfwojp^^f*!^ Jiceutt flUC&iJHi 1 Cjuiue*~'fur~' r^peve in co Lom t C'j^ofbbfbupcficcrj m \ r^culo idquodipfX-Cogebxc u errexfftaxbxm ur~> won SULPICIUS SEVEKUS.—EARLY 9TH CENTURY. (ex uberibjw caprarum aut ovium pas | torum ma 1111 praessis . longa ]inea [ copiosi lactis effluere.' Puer . sur | rexit incolomis.' Nos obstupefacti | tantae roi miraoulo . id quod ipsa | cogcbat Veritas fatcbamur . non) We now leave for the present the further consideration of this new style and devote the following chapter to an examination of the early Irish and English schools of writing, which followed a different-line from that of the continental national hands.CHAPTER XVII. latin palaeography.—continued. Irish Writing. The origin and development of the early handwritings of our own Islands differ from those of the continental nations of Western Europe which have been examined in the last chapter. While on the continent the Roman Cursive hand formed the basis of the national forms of writing, in Ireland and England the basis was the Roman Half-uncial. The foundation of the early Church in Ireland and the consequent spread of civilization naturally fostered the growth of literature and the development of a national school of writings while at a later period the isolation of the country prevented the introduction of new ideas and changes which contact with neighbouring nations invariably effects. Ireland borrowed the types for her handwriting from the MSS. which the Roman missionaries brought with them; and we must assume that the greater number of those MSS. were written in the half-uncial character, and that there was an unusually scanty number of uncial MSS. among the works thus imported'; otherwise it is difficult to account for the development of the Irish hand on the line which it followed. In writing of the course of Greek Palaeography we had occasion to notice the very gradual changes which came over the handwriting of Greece, confined as it was to a comparatively small district and to a single language. In Ireland this conservatism is still more strongly marked. The hand which the modern Irish scholar writes isLatin Palaeography. 2o7 essentially, in the forms of its letters, tlie pointed hand of the early middle ages; and there is no class of MSS. which can be moref perplexing to the palaeographer than Irish MSS. Having once obtained their models, the Irish scribes developed their own style of writing and went on practising it, generation after generation, with an astonishing uniformity. The English conquest did not disturb this even course. The invaders concerned themselves not with the language and literature of the country. They were content to use their own style of writing for grants of land and other official deeds ; but they left the Irish scribes to go on producing MSS. iu the native characters. The early Irish handwriting appears in two forms : the round and the pointed. Of pure uncial writing we have to take no account. There are no undisputed Irish MSS. in existence which are written in that style; although the copy of the Gospels in uncials, which was found in the tomb of St. Kilian and is preserved at Wiirzburg, has been quoted as an instance of an Irish uncial MS. The writing is in ordinary uncial characters and bears no indication of Irish nationality (Z. and W., Exempla, 58). The round Irish hand ishalf-uncial, and in its characters there is close relationship with the Roman half-uncial writing as seen in the MSS. of Italy and France dating from the fifth or sixth century. A comparison of the earliest surviving Irish MSS. with specimens of this style leaves no room to doubt the origin of the Irish round hand ; and, without accepting the traditional ascription of certain of them to St. Patrick or St. Columba or other Irish saints, there can be no hesitation in dating some as far back as the seventh century. We may therefore place the period of the first development of the Irish round hand somewhat earlier, namely, in the sixth century, the Roman half-uncial MSS. of which time evidently served as models. Among the oldest extant Irish MS. of this character is the fragmentary copy of the Gospels, of an early version, in the library of Trinity College, Dublin (Nat.238 Paleography. MSS. Ireland, i. pi. 2 ; Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 33), which is to be ascribed to the latter part of the 7th century. The writing bears a very close resemblance to the continental half-uncial hand, but at the same time has the distinct impress of its Irish nationality, indicated gene-^ rally in a certain angular treatment of some of the' strokes which in the Eoman half-uncial MSS. are round. C3t 1do14liab quodpovtatn W ajcJitlecJ^isrcii-rr^erpoMcl^t^ lnni1ii mold^urerre Jazroafcivi ^ohi^omttiti fiitvgene- crn^ GOSPELS. — LATE 7TIT CF.KTUTCY. ([ami]cus meus supervenit de via a[d me] | et non habeo quod ponam an[te ilium] | ad ille deiutus respondeus [dicit 110] I li mihi molestus esse iam ostiu[m clusum] | est et pueri in cvabi-culo mecum [sunt] | non possum surgere et dare) The MS. may be cited as a specimen of a style of writing which was no doubt pretty widely used at the time for. the production of MSS. of a good class—a careful working book-hand, which, however, did not compete with the sumptuous style for which the Irish scribes had by this time become famous. The same kind of writing, but more ornamental, is found in a Psalter (Nat. MSS. Ireland, i. pi. 3, 4) traditionally ascribed to St. Columba, but probably also of the same date as the Gospels just described. No school of writing developed so thoroughly, and,Latin Paleography. 239 apparently, so quickly, the purely ornamental side of calligraphy as the Irish school. The wonderful interlaced designs which were introduced as decorative adjuncts to Irish MSS. of the seventh and eighth centuries are astonishing examples of skilful drawing and generally of brillant colouring. And this passion for ornamentation also affected the character of the writing in the more elaborately executed MSS.—sometimes even to the verge of the fantastic. Not only were fancifully formed initial letters common in the principal decorated pages, but the striving after ornamental effect also manifests itself in the capricious shapes f>iven to various letters of the text whenever an opportunity could be found, as, for instance, at the end of a line. The ornamental round hand which was elaborated under this influence, is remarkable both for its solidity and its graceful outlines. The finest MS. of this style is the famous copy of the Gospels known as the "Book of Kells," now in the library of Trinity College, Dublin (Nat. MSS. Ireland, i. pi. 7-17; Pal. Soc. i. pi. 55-58, 88, 89), in which both text and ornamentation are brought to the highest point of excellence. peau^Q^ipsiim v ou p uum piceRe-^re^cismh oexiXDarnJuucDecRuce-Tmisa O^updiuiijchjc) beRQ-eum siutj BOOK OF KELLS.-7th CENTURY.240 Palaeography. (fecit . Se ipsum non p[otest sal] | vum facere si rex Israh[el est des] | cendafc nunc de cruce[et crede] | mus ei . Confidit in dom'no [et nunc Ii] | beret eum si vult dixit) Although, tradition declares that the MS. belonged to St. Columba, who died in the year 507, it does not appear to be older than the latter part of the seventh century. It was a volume of this description, if not the Book of Kells itself, which Giraldus Cambrensis, in the twelfth century, saw at Kildare, and which he declared was so wonderful in the execution of its intricate ornamental designs that its production was rather to be attributed to the hand of an angel than to human skill. The oftener and the more closely he examined it, the more he found in it to excite his admiration.1 Another MS. of Irish execution, which is of the same character, but not nearly so elaborate as the Book of Kells, is the copy of the Gospels of St. Chad, at Lichfield {Pal. Soc. i. pi. 20, 21, 35). But the grand style of round half-uncial writing which is used in these MSS. was not adapted for the more ordinary purposes of literature or the requirements of daily intercourse, and, after reaching the culminating point of excellence in the Book of Kells, it appears to have quickly deteriorated— at all events, the lack of surviving examples would appear to indicate a limit to its practice. The MS. of the Gospels of MacRegol, written about the year 800, now in the Bodleian Library, is a late specimen, in which the comparative feebleness and rough style of the writing contrast very markedlv with the practised exactness of the older MSS. 1 " Sin autem ad perspicacius intuendum oculorum aciem invitaveris et longe penitius ad artis arcana transpenetraveris, tam delicatas et subtiles, tam arctas et artitas, tam nodosas et vinculatim colligatas, tamque recentibus adhuc coloribus illustratas notare poteris intri-caturas, ut vere haec omnia potius angelica quam humana diligentia jam asseveraveris esse composita. Haec equidem quanto frequentius et diligentius intueor, semper quasi novis abstupeo, semper magis ac magis admivanda conspicio."—Topoyraphid Mibernice, ii. 38. See Nat. MSS. Ireland, ii. pi. 66.Latin Paleography. 241 prcophecDcs axidicarcrilljo c^i2oclKcrnsedsiqiiis pio cerracorn c^errtraiuiruoari til riaiidiunuTieq-.siquis pcniou GOSPELS OF MACEEGOL.--ABOUT A.D. 800. (prophetas audiant illo[s]— | abracham sed siquis exmo[rtuis] — | [paenijtentiam agent ait autem ill[i] | —noraaudiunt nc(\ue si quis ex mor[tuis])— The pointed Irish nand was derived from the same source as the round hand. On the continent we have seen that the national cursive hands were but sequels of the Roman Cursive subjected to varying conditions, and were distinct from the literary or book hands which were used contemporaneously by their side. The Irish scribes had, or at least followed, but one model—the Roman Half-uncial. The pointed hand is nothiug more than a modification of the round-hand, witli the same forms of letters subjected to lateral compression and drawn out into points or hair-lines, and is a minuscule hand. There cannot be much doubt that this style of writing came into existence almost contemporaneously with the establishment of a national hand. The round hand no doubt preceded it ; but the necessity for a more cursive character must have made itself felt almost at once. The pointed hand, of an ornamental kiud, appears in some of the pages of the Book of Kells, a fact which proves its full establishment at a much earlier period. The Book of Dimma (Nat. MSS. Ireland, i. pi. 18, 19) has been conjecturally ascribcd to a period of about the year 650, but can scarcely be older thaii the eighth century. The first example to which a certain date can be given on grounds of internal evidence which R242 Pa lse,ography. are fairly conclusive is the Book of Armagh (Nat. MSS. Ireland, i. pi. 25-29), a MS. containing portions of the New Testament and other matter, written, as it seems, by Ferdomnach, a scribe who died in the year 844. tiprj: frflp^wr'fti)i<>nprrt r^rtf lit* '^f^rtif r&i mf uef BOOK OF ARMAGH.—BEFORE A.D. 844. ([Id]eo dico vobzs ne soliciti sitis animas | quid manducetis aut corpori vedvo qwid ( induamini norenc anima plus est quam ses | ca et corpus quam acsca vestimew/wm | respicite volatilia ctcli quoniam non scvunt \ neque congregant in liorrea et pater | \estev cselestis pascit ilia nownc vos | ruagis plures cslis illis) There is a close resemblance between the writing of this MS. and that of the pointed hand written in England at the same period. The MS. of the Gospels of MacDurnan, in the Lambeth Library (Nat. MSS. Ireland, i. pi. 30, 31) of the end of the 9th or beginning* of the 10th century may be referred to as a specimen of the very delicate and rather cramped writing which the Irish scribes at this time affected. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the pointed hand took the final stereotyped form which it was to follow in the future, and had assumed the angular shapes which are henceforth characteristic of the Irish hand. Asa good example of the early part of the twelfth century we select a passage from the Gospels of Maelbrighte (Nat. MSS. Ireland, i. pi. 40-42; Pal Soc. i. pi. 212), written in the year 1138, and now in the British Museum, ucb nrfohqu •fwanMnauahj- A*^ fa ir^ wfu:^Latin Paleography. 243 -AGtic&i^a n nfontf onfo iP&Slcop, 101W gft mfirmfof. V^eofreTncwcttntA^^d Ax^w^AitmriTtfjttttcC GcOte). ^tniVir' Veof t^w^erVrtm™-^t-6^ Actt* t»UMMl»; «urp ivy fyf.Qfw i ctrmtoic^r iU*? V* GOSPELS OP mj:LBEIGHTE.—A.D. 1138. (Penitentiam et remisionem peccaton/m in omnes gen | tes incipientibws ab icrusolima. Yos autern tes J tes estis horum. Et ego mitto promissum pa^ris | mei in vos. Yos autem sedete hie in civitate quo | adusgwe induamini virtuteexalto. Eduxit | autem eos usywe in bcthaniam. Et elevatis manibws | suis bened.is.it eis. Et factum est cum bewediceret illis re | cessit ab eis et ferebatzw in cek§& faff (iP5)eau quiZxignrc-quoTnamipsi mJ cousoliJjbuiTaiT^— JP..... ftij^f- hifate- i^vt^r /Tteora cfuiesurauutr GteraoiJtTioftiacxin LINDISFARNE GOSPELS.—ABOUT A.D. 700. (Beati qui lugunt | quoniam ipsi | consolabuntur | Beati qui esuriunt | et sitiunt iustitiam || Gloss: eadge brSon "Sa "Se gemaenas | for "Son -<5a | gefroefred brSon | eadge bi'Son iSa hyncgra'S | and *Syrstas so'Sfaestnisse) This very beautiful hand leaves nothing to be desired in the precision and grace with which it is executed, and fairly rivals the great Irish MSS. of the same period.Latifi Palaeography. 247 The glosses in the Northumbrian dialect were added by Aldred, a writer of the tenth century. The round hand was used for books, and, less frequently, even for charters, during the eighth and ninth centuries ; but, although in very carefully written MSS. the writing is still solid, the heavy-stroke style of the Lindisfarne Gospels appears generally to have ceased at an early date. We give a specimen of a lighter character from a fragmentary copy of the Gospels which belonged to the monastery of St. Augustine, Canterbury, though not necessarily written there {Pal. Soc. i. pi. 8; Cat. Anc. NSS. ii. pi. 17, 18). It is probably of the end of the 8th century., eiiue Gimn Gpnoice ocisro-', 6opuin>~q6i eso Cum ut>oocu 2m 51 O^xr BEDE's ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.—MIDDLE OP 8tII CENTURY. ([divijniliis adiutus . gratis canendi— | et supervacui poematis face re— | [re]ligionem pertinent religiosam eius— | [hajbitu secidari usqz^e ad tempora pro— | carminum aliq?f«ndo didicerat — | laetitiae causa dccrelum . lit) Nothing could be finer of its kind than the broad, bold, style of this hand, and it requires no demonstration to explain its evolution from the perfect round hand of the early Irish and English scribes who could execute such books as the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels. We make an advance of some half-century and next take a few lines from a charter of Cynewulf, King of the Mercians, of the year 812 (Pal. Soc. i. pi. 11). |n:k'qtmer.vj. ^^yuop^irm me* ewewy* UfrfxSi 9*uiqo linfcO" \xamojia\M j^juimcti camptop> pifc L^jiajTeJiptfnfc larfteal ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.—ABOUT A.D. 1045. {and his broftor eac eadmnnd .uncling candor]— | set saecce . swurda ccgum . cmbe brunna[nburh]— | clufon . heowon hea]?o-linda . hamora la[fum]— | weardes . swa him geae]?elc wees . fram cn[eo]— | campe oft . wi]? la]?ra gehAvaene land eal[godon]) The same characteristics are seen in the series of charters of this century. From one of these, dated in 1038 (Facs. Anc. Gh., iv. no. 20), we select a faw lines. The writing is very neat and uniform. It is interesting to notice the survival, in an altered shape, of the fashioning of the top of the letter a into a point by an oblique stroke, which was noticed above as characteristic of the tenth century. Here the top stroke, made independently of the body of the letter, is generally a hairline nearly horizontal. The practice of markiog the letter y with a dot, as seen in this facsimile, is a survival from about the sixth century, when it appears to have been first followed in uncial MSS. for the purpose of distinguishing the Y from V-Latin Paleography. 255 tegtrrj "J>osxd ttdlon gd kjioj^xmt -j Lcebon beam -eaXber -co rcea>eji» lite ^tt^yjl^f^ tiemojve^ madan jicrjvria. lira VO heotiox p -jiyTiie jceotlwv jx^tix-rrrTte Ucgea Mtlan . ait lee ftjt T,«T--jfjTrrTii J"ftf Iw, fi ]n OATn e^rryjje-. azmsn . CHARTER.-A.D. 1038. (begen pa to eallon gebropran awd bicdon— | heom ealle togfedere endemes \cet lie hit— j pa gyrnde he \ceb he moste macian fcrna[ngen]— | and se arcebwceop eadsige let hit eall to hcora— | v/olde pce£ scip ryne sceolde pan'inne licn;p.a[n]— | willan . and se abbotZ let hit eall pas.onrfse hire[dj— | sancte augustine . pis is call soft gelyfe se pe— | eallon a on ccnysse . amen). This is a favourable specimen of the charter-writing of the period. Many of the surviving1 documents are written in a far rougher style, but in all cases the lengthening of the main strokes, as well as deterioration in the forms of letters, marks the hand of the eleventh century. With the Norman Conquest the native English minuscule hand dhappeared as an official hand. The conquerors brought their own form of writing; and the history of later charters and legal and official documents written in England is the history of the law-hand— the hand used in the courts of law and for legal business generally. The native hand had already practically disappeared as the handwriting of the learned. There remained only books composed in the native tongue in which to employ the native form of writing : and there256 Paleography. it continued, for a certain time, to survive, more and more, however, losing its independent character, and being evermore overshadowed and displaced by the new writing of the continental school, until at length the memory of the old hand survives only in the paradoxical employment of the letter y to represent the old Saxon long thorn ]>, particularly in writing the definite article, ye for \o. We break off, then, with the period of the Norman Conquest as virtually marking the end of the English hand of the Anglo-Saxon type.CHAPTER XVIII. latin palaeography—continued. The Literary or Book-Hand in the Middle Ages. We have now examined the various national handwritings of Western Europe, as they were developed within the borders of different countries. We have seen how they had their origin in different styles of Roman writing, and how they followed their own lines and grew up in different forms under different conditions. And yet, with all their variations from one another, they followed one general law of development, passing from the broad simple style in the early periods through, stages of more artificial calligraphy to eventual degeneration from their first standards. We have now to gather the threads together and follow the course of the handwritings of Western Europe along a new line. One form of handwriting had been developed, which by its admirable simplicity recommended itself at once as a standard hand. The Caroline Minuscule, which we have already seen brought to perfection at Tours and at other monastic centres of France, spread quickly throughout the confines of the Frankish empire, and extended: its influence and was gradually adopted in neighbouring countries. But at the same time, with this widespread use of the reformed hand, uniformity of character could s25* Pal&ography. not be ensured. National idiosyncrasies show themselves as manifestly in the different handwritings of different peoples as they do in their mental and moral qualities ; and, although the Caroline minuscule hand forms the basis of all modern writing of Western Europe, which thus starts with more chance of uniformity than the old national hands which we have been discussing, yet the national character of each country soon stamps itself upon its handwriting. Thus in the later middle ages we have again a series of national hands, clearly distinguishable from each other, although in some degree falling into groups. First we follow the course of the minuscule hand as a book hand, reserving the examination of the more cursive styles used for legal and other documents for a later chapter. In a former chapter we have examined the development and final moulding of the Caroline minuscule hand, a,nd we left it established as the literary hand of the F^ankish empire. Its course through the ninth and tenth centuries, particularly on the Continent, can be traced with fair precision by means of the excellent facsimiles which have been published during recent years. Its general characteristics during the ninth century, at least in the better written examples, are these: the contrast of fine and heavy strokes is marked, there is a tendency to thicken or club the stems of tall letters, as in b, d, h ; the letter a is often in the open form (a-), and the bows of the letter g are often left unclosed, somewhat after the fashion of the numeral 3. In the tenth century, the strokes are usually of a less solid cast; the clubbing gradually disappears; the open a (in its pure form) is less frequently used, and the upper bow of g closes. No fixed laws can, however, be laid down for distinguishing the MSS. of the two centuries, and the characteristics which have been named must not be too rigidly exacted. As in all other departments of our subject, practice and familiarity are the best guides. In illustration of the finest style of writing of this class in the ninth century, we may take a few linesLatin Paleography. 259 from the Gospels of the Emperor Lothair, executed in the middle of the century in the Abbey of St. Martin of Tours and now preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris {Album Paleoyr. pi. 22). For such a book the most skilful writers were of course employed, and the handwriting was formed in the most accurate and finished style of the new school. GOSPELS OF LOTHA1R.— MIDDLE OF 9TH CENTURY. (Ait paralyJco . tibi dico \ surge . et tolle lectim | tuu»i . et vade in domum | tuam ; Et confestim j surgens coram illis | tulit in quo iacebat | ct abiit in doinum sua?») This MS. shows scarcely any advance upon the style of the MS. of Quedlinburg quoted above (p. 235). We may notice the prevalent use of the open-bowed g to which reference has been made as characteristic of this time ; but an instance of the open a does not happen to occur in the facsimile. The general style of the writing, however, is quite typical of the ninth century. Greater variety is seen in a MS. containing commentaries of St. Augustine, written by order of Bishop Baturich of Ratisbon in 823, and now in the Royal Library Xtcpxr^braco • Tibidico (itrgtr- Cxxotl&lcczu^ mum- Czxixdertndomu xuxm / Qrccon fcihm XvXxcx nquo t^ccbxv cc\b ttc t ftd&rn ttmfuxs of Munich {Pal Soc. i. pi. 123). a 2 '260 Paleography. COMMENTARY OF ST. AUGUSTINE.—A.D. 828. (sic et vos maneatis in cternum ! quia talis est— | eiws dilectio est-, Terrain diligis f ten a eris ; d— | quid dicam . deus ens'? K"on audeo dicere ex ni— | audiamns i ego dixi dii cstis . et filii excelsio— | vultis esse dii et filii altissimi, Nolite diligere—) The writing here is in some respects rather archaic, and may be quoted as an example produced outside the direct influence of the French school, but at the same time conforming generally to the new style of the period. Next we select two specimens from two MSS. of Lyons, the one a commentary of Bede, written before 852 ; the other containing works of St. Augustine, written before 875 (Album Paleogr. pi. 20). tpconfetuf abtjail tntcrucrreee e^trmnenhuf COMMENTARIES Otf BEDE.-BEFORE A.D. 852.Latin Palaeography. 261 (uxoris eius abigail interventa et muneribus— | decern dies mortno nabal ipse accipit uxore[m]— | de iezrahel. data uxore sua michol falti fil— | Zipheis prodentibus saul descendit cont[ra]— | ipse nocte descendcns dormientibus cun[ctis]—) This MS. is more carelessly written than the preceding, and shows^in the general character of the letters a falling off from the earlier models of the Caroline minuscule hand and rather an advance towards the more meagre style of writing of the next century, when the graceful contrast of heavy and fine strokes is gradually lost. The survival of the old high-shouldered letter r may be noticed in the word moi tuo in the second line. (ullo appetitu significandi preter se aliquid aliu[d]— | nosci fnciunt . sicuti est fumus significans ignera— | volens signifi-carc id facit . sed rerum expevta[rum]— | adversione efc nota-tione cognoscitur. Ignem— j si fumus solus appareat., Sed et vestigium tr—) This MS., while it is later than the other, is written in rather better style, but a facsimile of only a few lines can hardly make this very evident. The two specimens may be taken as typical examples of the ordinary French minuscule book-hand of this time. The very gradual change which came over the writing of the tenth century as compared with that of the ninth century is well illustrated bv a MS. in the British ftfutrt uf fbluf5 ^ tzutfz ST. AUGUSTINE.—BKFOKE A.D. 875.262 Palaeography. Museum, containing the commentary ofRabanus Maurus upon Jeremiah (Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 109), which, from internal evidence, could not have been written earlier than the year 948. fuvuvpcriat rtrni&ia infoltnidinc cuiazxzzf yliabtcutcyic uvdiSim tidtifnabucUo ad iter fan uf rtrJiubolufcjuufdwr^t^if «r mquufrrhgurdufefk &nemarzur c?&?rur • leuuiutd&juodtctuc- &mniutmmtcmjZ{u&iAju EABANUS MAURUS.—AFTER A.D, 918. (—suo ut ponat terra tuawz in solitudinewi . civitates | —que habitatore. Iste est ut diximws vcrus nabucho[donosorJ | adversarius nosier diabolus quasi leo rugiens cir[cuit] | —in quas religandus est . et ne mittat?fr exorat . | —levavit de quo dictum est. Omnium inimicorum suorum) The not infrequent occurrence of the open a and the general regularity of the writing would have inclined us to place this MS. within the ninth century, had not its approximate date been clearly ascertained. It may be the work of an old man who had not grown out of the training of his younger days. At all events it is an interesting instance of an older style of writing surviving into a new generation, and emphasizes the difficulty of accurately assigning MSS. of the period of the ninth and tenth centuries to their true positions—a difficulty which is enhanced by the comparatively few MSS. of the tenth century which bear dates. In illustration of the ordinary minuscule hand of the Caroline type in this century, we may take a facsimile from a Sacramentary of Corbie in the Bibliotheque Nationale (Delisle, Cabinet cles MSS. pi. 31).Latin Paleography.. 263 nj* rf/ubicp part-rompfA^ivrtir. JlononJauc ^LrmT^omniuc/^rircarTi^cju^fir fa-£cjuex;'imc4a,firTrtcmnir-. Am fernj? tnmefmf^runrn^ortflif SACRA MENTARIUM.—10TH CENTURY. tibi semper et ubiqwe gratias agere— | pater onmpctfens aet/mrc dews. Hon or urn auc[tor]— | [distributor omnium dignitatum . per que?» profic[iunt] [univer] | sa . per quern cnncta firmantur . Am[plificatis] | semper in melius naturae rationalis) It will be seen that the letters are not so well formed and are less graceful in stroke than in the earlier examples. They are also rather squarer and are more slackly written. Comparing this example with the facsimile from the Grospels of Lothair (p. 259), a single glance is enough to satisfy the eye of the change which the lapse of a century can effect in a style of handwriting. It is true that the Lothair Gospels are written in the finest style of the ninth century, and this example is an ordinary one of the tenth century, and the contrast between two MSS. of the two centuries would not in all cases be so marked. For the present purpose, however, strong contrast is a first object. All the specimens which we have given of this class of Caroline minuscule writing represent the normal hand of the Frankish empire. Another style, however, was also followed in the eastern districts, which developed later into the hand which we recognize as German. The special characteristic of this style is the sloping of the letters and a certain want of finish, which, perhaps, may be due to distance from the- influence of the French centres of Caroline-writing. A MS. of this class is the Fulda Annals at Leipzig, written264 Palaeography. at the close of the ninth century but before the year 882 (Arndt, Schrifttafeln, pi. 44). ■xztmf eft-- cyuod llLnpn inficiemrf cjtiajdxrri Affercwrt fzuionum. ucTi funihum cjaibufgrficfn. cjulzatczm femfi/uttr oljpofucnvTtr cifcjac: ItCLCjif oonjppcher uxrlagzxn perguriA bAj-ut m colonic ccrrrgzuidu7ri -rfrucprnfem gxxlLur be ANNALS OF FULDA.—BEFORE A.D. 882. ([tes]tatns est quocl illr non inlicientes qunsclain assercion[ibus] | racionum verisimilium quibus gestc rei qualitatem [ramii] | re nisi sunt obposuerunt easque litteiis conpr{fihc[nsas] | ut legati apos/olici suggesserunt per gundharium agr[ippine] | colonie et theotgaudum treverensem gallie be[lgice]) And another example of the same period, but written in a rougher manner, may be selected from a MS. of Canons, in the Library of St. Gall, of about the year 888 (Pal. Soc. i. pi. 186). efa \pxjme-frnf' Cnphwrrx rebgoftf Anc^t ' ^heedorv regiofdTirruo epo hiero Jfyoporto r?liqp.&fiffim0 efo neocefXrtf- plugofiffimo epo bofcrz- phiLpporeLtgt mxrvy ' ~rheoclcrn> eyo fete* CANONS.—ABOUT A.D. 888. (episcopo apamie syrie. Euphranta religiosis[simo]— | [Ty]-anora??*. Theodoro rcligiosissimo episcojpo liiero[polis] | — Bosporio religiosissimo epweo^o neocesarie | | [r]eligiosissimo d])iscopo bostre Philippo religi[osissimo] | — mirorum . Theodoto relzgj'osammo cpiscopo sele[tie]) In both these examples is apparent the lack of sense of grace which is so marked a failing in mediaeval German writing.Latin Paleography. 265 It will here be convenient to follow, briefly the progress of the continental minuscule hand, as practised in Franco and Germany, into the eleventh century, before touching upon the course which it took in England. In that century lies the period in which the handwritings of the different countries of Western Europe, cast and consolidated in the new mould, began to assume their sevei^al national characters, and which may be said to be the starting-point of the modern hands which employ the Roman alphabet. In the cmrsc of the century many old practices and archaisms which had lingered are cast off", and general principles are more systematically observed. The words of the text are now more generally separated from one another; abbreviations and contractions are more methodical; and the handwriting makes a palpable advance towards the square and exact character which culminates in the MSS. of the thirteenth century. The general characteristics of the writing of the first half of the century are shown in the following facsimile from a MS. of Saints5 Lives at Paris (Cabinet ties MSS., (etiam dominica que advenerat nocte ac die— | [vesper] tin am penc lioram quarti a transitu diei que— | [habejbatur . magno cnncnr.su fidelium multaqwe de— | [frequen]tabatur . ita ut noctu ct interdiu congregat—) In a later and more compressed style is a MS. of the Life of St. Mauritius, at Paris, written about the year 1070 (Cabinet des MSS., pi. 34). pi. 32). Tirwrt penrboram. cjuAra xqanfott die] cju^r bsuxT1 mxgi 0 con curfu fi ddium muteu^ dc *obxcuT?TcX' uCno c^W <*-' imxpk LIVES OF SAINTS.— IITH CENTURY.266 Paleography. tu^^Aiuie' Q~uo cufirie'Tnen* ueruffcr* rf/pace itcunv TtgrvcU cffnflecr'MKesjLu^ adporcce- Utigpjy foa,tj)1iuf irckericcliccumih} y{idi(fii*rnwLrncre Acuou^^ihjlA^aric Jnftj uof 'pAr&r&i'aiiclX pu ntUL infrrrn/ctrr c*cc cf & Ahln ftrymmidic' $da eftif- &wemc$' dsftmr in tymgpgi Amp'Sitoi quAmuif capo/ cefftnr eft- bpc tumimtf dmun pgiim taK'/ anm^ nultuf tzrh dev furuttf «wemwx> HOMILIES OF 0R1GEN.—A.D. 1163. (graham et participationem dei appollantur diif de qmb?fs | et alibi scriptura diciY. Ego dixi dii estis . et iterum | dews stetit in synagoga deomw. Sed hi quamvis capa | ccs sint dei. et hoc nomine donari per grafo'am vide | antur . nullus tamew deo similis invenitur) We may be content with these three specimens to represent the writing of Northern Europe. In the south a different style prevailed. The sense of grace of form which we perceive in the Lombardic writing of Italy is maintained in that country in the later writing of the new minuscule type, which assumes under the pens of the most expert Italian scribes a very beautiful and round even style. This style, though peculiarly Italian, extended its influence abroad, especially to the south of France, and became the model of Spanish writing at a later time. We select a specimen from a very handsome MS. of Homilies of the first half of the 12th century {Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 55), written in bold letters of the best type, to which we shall find the scribes of the fifteenth century reverting in order to obtain a model for their MSS. of the Renaissance. The exactness with which the writing is here executed is truly marvellous, arid was only rivalled, not surpassed, by the finished handiwork of its later imitators.272 Paleography. fuoar nadmiruf-Wr quern fccun prdldcm poffc fc faccrc difponcb eundem faxeret plenum arq; per baberrccm in lb cr dignttartrn qua ccH£rtc-tc pottfkitem qua cunc noiriLiEs.—12rn century. (fuerat tradi turns. Ut quem sccun[dum] | prcsidem post se facere disponeb[at] | cundem fa jeret plenum atqMeper[fectum] | habentem in se et dignitatem qua [pre] | celleret . et potes-tatem qua cunc[tis]) It will of course be understood that this was not the only style of hand that prevailed in Italy. Others of a much rougher cast were also employed. But as a typical book-hand, which was the parent of the hands in which the greater proportion of carefully written MSS. of succeeding periods were written in Italy, it is to be specially noticed. The ehinge from the grand style of the twelfth century to the general minuteness of the thirteenth century is very striking. In the latter century we reach the height of the exact hand, in which the vertical strokes are perfectly formed but are brought into closer order, the letters being laterally compressed, the round bends becoming angular, and the oblique strokes being fined down into hair-lines. In the second half of the century there appears to have been a great demand for copies of the Bible, if we are to judge by the large number of surviving examples, and the minuteness with which many of tliem are written enabled the scribes to compress their work into small volumes, which stand in extreme contrast to the large folios so common in the preceding century. An interesting example of the transitional hand of the end of the twelfth century, in which the writing is reduced to a small size, but vet isLatin Palaeography. 27 3 not compressed with the rather artificial precision of some fifty years later, is found in a MS. of the Historici Schulcistica of Petius Comestor, written for Elstow Abbey in the year 1 j 91 or 1192. taartttm ^©jxtattbo^f aa m twmffwn£ 3r tile f^artt^ ^tr-p^t ofcfi^ «un. ti filmf arobo eaptte tvtmmtitotyttcfi fatsi mtftcljofcf v atcitm cpTwty totno. r*ii\ittb&tttitO& ocetikfiftcufo&t ttC&tittea cutoMttfi uy ykttomfy mtlir. inSIORIA SCIIOLASTICA.—A.D. 1191-2. (martirium f dix?7 iacobo. IV^r . da nu/u remissionem. At | ille pavu?»per dulibe/ans . ait . lJax i-ibi' et oscwlatws est eum. j Et simwl ambo capite truneati. suttt. Petrum autem | app?-e-li^nsum misit he/odes m oarcerem . qnia in dieljwj azimo|ru???. 110/1 licebat alique?;i occidej c. Et preter custodes car | ceris J tradidit eum custodiend/wi quatuor qwatfrnionibws milium.) As a good illustration of the perfect style of the book-hand of the first half of the thirteenth century, we next select some lines from a Bible, written at Canterbury between the years 1225 and 1252 (Pal. Soc. i. pi. 73), which exhibits great regularity and precision in the compressed writing. flwmtntD' Ctfem efttm. tjocmnrqfftrma mcnumftrttfcrtmti •6rfcui rftnrfpnma nr dtc5cederenr' u&t promorfca.' UWglorta eterm nererrt. Xam trn getiaf fjotm -ruim ootnpoTitum e^cu?) por& efcammaxfr: ttattf SALTA1ST.—AD. 14G6. negocia transf erun fc. Quod si hominibns bonar?^ | re rum tanta cura esset: quanto studio alieua ao j nihil profutura mul-toq?/e ctiam pcriculosa petu?;t: | noqwe regcrcntur si casibus, mngis qiiam rogcrent casus | et co mngnitudinis procederent.' ubi pro morta | libus gloria ctcrni fierent. Nam uti genus homi | num compositum ex corpore et anima est.' ita res) It is unnecessary to pursue the history of the Latin minuscule literary hand beyond the fifteenth century. Indeed, after the general adoption of printing, MS. books ceased to be produced for ordirary use, and the book-band practically disappears in the several countries of Western Europe. In the comparatively small number of extant literary MSS. of a later date than the close of the century it is noticeable that a large proportion of them are written in the style of the book-band of the Italian Renaissance—the style which eventually superseded all others in the printing press. The scribes of these late examples only followed the taste of the day in preferring those clear and simple characters to the rough letters of the native bands. The English Book-hand in the Middle Ages. A handbook of Palteography which is intended chiefly for the use of English students would be incomplete286 Paleography, without a special examination of the styles of writing employed by English scribes of the later middle ages when writing in English. We have already followed the course of English minuscule writing down to the period of the Norman Conquest. From that date, as we have seen, the foreign hand became the recognized literary hand and was employed for Latin literature; and the old Saxon hand was discarded. With the native English, however, it naturally continued in use; and eventually, after its cessation as a separate style of writing, a few special Saxon forms of letters, the g, the tliorn (J? and IS), and the w, still survived to later times. But it must be remembered that, as we have seen above, the influence of the foreign minuscule had already begun to tell upon the native hand even before the Conquest. In the eleventh century the spirit of the change which marks the general progress of the handwriting of Western Europe is also visible in the cast of Anglo-Saxon writing, and after the Conquest the assimilation of the native hand to the imported hand, which was soon practised in all parts of the country, naturally became more rapid. In some English MSS. of the twelfth century we still find a hand which, in a certain sense, we may call Anglo-Saxon, as distinguished from the ordinary Latin minuscule of the period; but, later, this distinction disappears, and the writing of English scribes for English books was practically nothing more than the ordinary writing of the day with ail admixture of a few special English letters. On the other hand, it is observed that there was a tendency to prefer the use of charter-hand for English books, and in many MSS. of the-late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries we find a kind of writing, developing from that style, which may be called an English hand, in the sense of a hand employed in English MSS. To illustrate the handwriting of the twelfth century referred to above, we select a specimen from a copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle written about the year 1121 (Skeat, Twelve Facsimiles, pi. 3), in which the writing may still be called Saxon as regards the forms of lettersLatin Paleography. 287 employed. At the same time, it has the impress of the general character of twelfth century writing. ™tUai'Ct$bpt hi hit d}7den forces mynstres holdseipe. | ^yS'Son goden heow to scipe . ferden lieom to elig beta?hlan | J^ser J?a ealla J?a gcer.sume J»a denescae menn "\va2ndon \et hi | Fceoldon ofer cumen . }>a frencisca men }>a todrefodon | ealle J?a nmnekes . beleaf nan butan an munec lie | wa?s gehaten loofwine lange . he Itei seoc in ]?a secrannan) A rough but strong hand of the beginning of the thirteenth century, founded on the charter-hand of the time, is employed in a JV1S. of homilies in the Stowe collection of the British Museum [Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 94). tie uz fya ^itn to ru ^cafrfc yei ytf Jms&er ytffic^e t>T jeltfiF n^neytlJcA tpffuiajs"**1Vf W^^M+ttoM&r ySfa^R, Ije fe gtS tie j>«Tif tticfy f ycrVefUtfy* U^tcljc-o^ytle^e HOMILIES.— EARLY 1 3TH CENTURY.288 Pal&ography. (ne so jeap . ne swa witti to do7?ne -S it tu scalt don . [bute "Su habbe] | "Sese strerag]?e of god ue miht tu no??, god do?? . I>u [miht isien su??j] | wel wis clevec . 'Sc wisliche lii??i selve?i nalit ne wisscS [and jnnc]? 'Sat lie] | hafS inol)3 on his witte -$e lie ca??n . lie 'Sese strewg[]>e ne besek-S uaulit at] | gode for 'Si he belnefS among 'Sun 'Se no?? god ne [cimncn . And he??i] | he is ilich of werkes . alswa lihtliche o'Serhwile he) And a very pretty and regular hand of the same period nppears in a copy of " The Ancren Kiwle," or rule for anchoresses, in one of the Cottonian MSS. (Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 75), which maybe compared with the Latin facsimile of that time given above (p. 273). SteWbtlmifftmfynjwfirr wcM^tm^^ft^ ©leapr ktebut^n^uWtw^yff THIS ANC Lili N' EIWLE.—EAKLY 13TII CENTURT. (elle . ]?er ho lai i prisun fowr ]?use?zt ] 3er and mare ho and hire were ba-Se | «??rfdemde al hire ofspru??g to leape?? | al after hire . to deaft wi'Sute?i ende | Biniwge and rote of al |?is ilke reow | "Se i was a lute sihSe . Ofte as nion || [pa] triarches . and a muche burh forb | eamd . and te king and his suno | and te burhmen isleine . }?e wum | mon ilad forS. Hire fader and \ hire bre'Sre utlahes makede | se noble princc-s as ho werew . ]?us eo[de]) Following on the same lines as the Latin hands, the transition from the stiff characters of the thirteenth century to the more pliant style of the fourteenth century is seen in the " Ayenbite of Inwyt/' or Remorse of Conscience, written in the year 1340 by Dan Michael, of Northgate, in Kent, an Augustinian monk of Canterbury, in heavy minuscules of the charter-hand type (Pal, Soc. i. pi. 197).Latin Paleography. 289 AY EN lil'l'E 01)' 1NVVVT.— A.D. lo-lO. (workes of wysdom to }?e zone ! alsuo ]?e worke[s]— | wor guod-ulssc is ase zayp sanyt Denys to lere— | ]?et him na3t ne costnej? f ]?et ne is najt grat guo[dnesse]— | se zcve yef]?es spret him zelve ine ouro l;ei't[en]— | strcaines . ]?ervore hi bye]? propre-liclie ycleped ye[f]?es]— | welle . liy bye]? ]?e streames . And \>e o]>er scele is—) Next, as a contrast, we take a few lines from a Wycliffite Bible of the latter part of the fourteenth century, written in a square hand akin to the formal writing as seen in Latin liturgical MSS. {Pol. Sac. i. pi. 75). farto twue w tftHnpTtj- wvrrttWtRp of itionrr fltmMFte mo Indojw of fitir:veftrfrDw> ofttiftrtorttiTis/f fine pcfcimigi&om ^em^ttprtjftnaie^ofrc trnre ye rpttc a^ceioiti of cbruc^ftno 1 TyrffrTmigtff ftbtft mflilxt mi cmCe of ivoio/Hoyeu^ wcK tflstta mtf to AVYCLIFFITE BIBLE. — LATE 14rrH CENTURY. (for to have wirschipmg ]?e J?ritten]?e day | of }?e mono]? adar . ]>at is seid bi voyce of | sirie : ]?e first day of mardochius, -fon; | ]?ese jjinyis don a5einws nyclianore . and of ]?e | tymes J?e cytee weeldid of ebrues f and | I i» ]?ese ]>ingis schal make an eende of | word, and so^eli 3!f wel and as it acordi]? to)290 Paleography. Of the latter part of tlie fourteenth century, perhaps about the year 1380, is a MS. of the Vision of Piers Plowman, in the Oottonian collection (Pal. 80c. ii. pi. 56), written in a set minuscule hand, partly formed upon the charter-hand of the time. This specimen may be compared with the facsimile from the chronicle of about the year 1388 above (p. 278). tyanc wt sycuf*9 eteygi£*bt qtfc- bittr m Sdjal no fteidj motjmt Uenf&tefrrfig tm bin ~ lotut y* ^loulrnimi^Vdtrim^un^ms fcjmc aimtpng«*# alls ferric f Ane Ume UMt*#an£ totemffc of\Kytn no ttytrip t*Itt*to foit&Vbi* PIKES I'LOWMAN.—LA.TE 14TH CENTURY. (Have me excuscd quod clergie . bi crist but in [scole] | Schal no swicli motyng be mevet . for me bu[t ]?ere] | For peres love ]>e plouhman . J?at enpungned[e me ones] | Alle kyne cunnynges . and alle kyne craftes | Save love and leute . and lownesse of herte | And no tixt to take . to preve pis for trewe) And of about the same date, but written in a more careless style, and partaking rather of the character of the fifteenth century, is the original MS. of Hereford's Wycliffite translation of the Old Testament, at Oxford (Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 151), which is probably of the year 1382. Idtye&tf/ftoiMi qertpr Me ^kftfe aye j^tfttougti intmmT WYCI/IPFIJ E BIBLE.—A.D. 1882. /Latin Paleography. 291 (rereden up to hevene, and |?c holi lord god lierde | anoon \>e vois of he??z, he remewtbride not \>e | synnes of hew . nc jaf hem to jftr enemys i but | purgide hem i 11 J>e hond of isaie ]?e holi pr^phete | he |?re\v doim )>e tentis of assiries : and hem to | broside ]?e aimgil of ]?e lord, forwhi ezechie | d de ])at pie-side to }?e lord . and strongli he wente) Early in the fifteenth century, in some of the more cart-fully written MSS., a hand of the charter-hand type, but cast in a regular and rather pointed form, is employed. Such is the writing of a copy of Occleve's poem De Regimine Principum in the Harleian collection {Pal. See, ii. pi. 57). tttmtfo fynu mg cfe y tfej j ctatte OCCLEVE.—EARLY lo'l'FI CUNTURY. (Y:t somme holden oppynyou?? and sey | pat none ymagesschuld iuiaked be | poi errcn foule and goon out of wey | Of trouth have ]?ei scant sensibilite | Passe over ]?rtfc now blessed trinite | Uppon my limistres soule mercy have | For him lady eke ]?i mercy I crave) And to illustrate two other varieties of the writing of •Ihis century, we select the following- :— (i.) Some lines from a MS. of Bokenham's Lives of Saints-, written in the vear 1447 in a formal hand (Pnl. Soc. ii. pi. 58). u 22 g 2 Paleography. pc CcncM v&pd) it dew1* iptetah ^Soj^ontUily yat gtrrij tuv (iiial—1 IftlrtO tio dcvh Bitvote tit ytit cutw —j yxcxitXyc wetot o€/xvijtw&$v£j yrttj tycvrfl hytii coittcamuxnc-i t&ljmi fljuld $ (fsic off ijyvcbntune —( y&pdjV306vpljtfgrttUfyiii&ft Cei>&tefoCj % fymg-y 6 toiitfjtpr Cfyetvaelvie_I LIVES OF SAINTS.-A.D. 1447. (Of ]?e sevene wych be clepyd lyberal j 80 profoundly J>at greth ner smal | Was no clerk founde in ]?at cu?itre | What evere he were or of what degre | But ]?afc she wyt7i hym coude coni-une | What shuld I speke of hyre fortune | Wych was r.yht greth for as I seyd before [ A kyngys doughtyr she was bore) (ii.) A passage from a MS. of Chaucer's " Legend of Good Women" (Skeat, Twelve Facs., pi. 10), written in the pointed charter-hand of the middle of the century. y trfttn)**- Wtfacye 7j&Vc itiy totftc* i mtj° ^ us uv^Jui BULL OP JOHN VIII.—A.D. 876. (Qunndo ad ea quae ca[tholicorum]— | bus sunt monilis pro vocan[da] | —cute gratiam succenduntur— | et leto sunt animo conced[cnda—) This hand continued to be practised down to the beginning of the twelfth century, becoming in its later stages peculiarly angular and difficult to read. We give a facsimile of this late style from a bull of Urban II., of the year 1098 (Pf.-Hart.; tab. 47).296 Palaeography. tmuhvwnaT BULL OF URBAN II. — A.D. 1098. ([omenda] vorifc . polestatis lionorisq?/e sui dignita[te]— | corpore ac sanguine dei et dowmri redemptoris— | eidein loco iusta servantibws sit pax— | premia eterne pacis inveniant) The peculiar forms which the long r and the t aud other letters assume in combination will be specially noticed. This kind of writing, however, did not remain supreme throughout the period of its existence noted above. In the course of the eleventh century the writing of the Imperial Chancery became the ordinary hand for papal documents also. This hand was at that period, as we shall presently see, the ordinary minuscule, derived from the Caroline minuscule, mixed, however, for some time with older forms. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and subsequently during the later middle ages, the papal hand follows tbe goneral lines of the development of the established minuscule, cast, it must be remembered, in the mould of the symmetrical Italian style. A very peculiar and intricate style adopted at a lateLatin Palaeography. 297 period for papal documents may here be just mentioned. This is the so-called Litter a Sancti Petri or Scrittura bollatica, a character which appears to have been invented for the purpose of baffling the uninitiated. It first appeared in the reign of Clement VIII., a.d. 1592— 1605, and was only abolished in our own time, in 1879.1 As the special form of writing developed in the Papal Chancery is to be traced back to the Roman cursive as practised in Italy, so the writing of the Imperial Chancery is derived from the same cursive, as practised in France and represented by the facsimile of the Merovingian hand of the year 695 given above (p. 227). Facsimiles of the early Imperial Chancery writing are to be found scattered in various works; but a complete course may be best studied in Letronne's Diplomata, in Sickel's Schrifttafeln aus dem Nachlasse von TJ. F. von Kopp (1870), and especially in the recent work of von Sybel and Sickel, Kaiserurkunden in Abbildungen (1880, etc.). In the earliest documents, commencing in the 1 A very interesting paper, giving much information with regard to papal documents, in a condensed form, was contributed to the Revue des Questions Historiques, torn, xxxix., 1886, with the title Les Elements de la Diplomatique Pontificale, by Count de Mas La trie. In the Bibliotheque de VEcole des Chartes, series 4, tome iv. (1858), Monsieur Delisle has also written a valuable paper, Memoire sur les Actes d'Innocent III., in which some points of palaeographical interest are brought out. In the thirteenth century, the leaden papal seal {bulla) was attached by silken threads (red and yellow) to a bull which conferred or confirmed rights and was of a permanent nature; it was attached by a hempen string to a bull which conveyed orders and was of a temporary nature. Certain distinctive marks in the text of the documents gave at a glance the clue to their character. In (1) silken bulls, the intial letter of the pope's name was drawn in open work, in (2) hempen bulls it was solid; in (]) the pope's name was written in elongated letters, in (2) in ordinary letters ; in (1) a large majuscule letter began the- word following the words servus servorum Dei, in (2) the letter was an ordinary majuBCule; in (ljthe mark of contraction was looped, in (2) it was straight; in (1) the letters ct and st occurring in the middle of words, as dictus, justus, were separated by a space and connected by a link above, as dic'tus, jits'tus, in (2) they were written in the ordinary way.298 Paleography. seventh, century and continuing to the middle of the eighth century, the character is large, and in the earlier part of this period is not so intricate as afterwards. The writing then grows into a more regular form. The following specimen represents the style of the close of the eighth century, as found in a document of Charlemagne of the year 797 (Facs. Ecole chs Gkartes). DEED OF CHARLEMAGNE.-A.D. 797. (adscribitur quod pro contemplatione servitii | [filjius noster cum aliquibus dei infidelibus ac nostris | —ex ipsis in nosfcra praesentia convicti et secundum | —cui et nos omnes res pro-prietatis suae iuxfa eius) In the ninth century a small hand of increasing regularity and gradually falling into the lines of the Caroline minuscule is established; but while the influence of the reformed hand is quite evident, old forms of. letters are retained for some time, as might be expected in a style of writing which would, in the nature of things, cling to old traditions more closely than would that of theLatin Pal&ography. 299 literary schools. And so it progresses, affected by the changes which are seen at work in the literary hands, but still continuing to maintain its own individuality as a cursive form of writing. As an illustration of a middle period, we select a few lines from a deed of the Emperor Henry I., written in the year 932 (Kaiserurkundtab. 22). ^polestatis et>se videbatwr . cum curtilibws . ecclesta— | in comitatibz/s meginunarchi et sigifridi . loc[a]— | nuncupata . cum curtilibws . aecclesiis . ceteris) In this writing of the Imperial Chancery, as indeed in all other cursive styles derived from the Roman cursive, the exaggeration of the heads and tails of letters is a marked feature. And this exaggeration continued inherent in this hand and was carried over into the30o Paleography. national official hands of France and Germany and Italy, which are but later developments of it. In England we see the influence of the hand of the Imperial Chancery in the official hand which the Normans brought with them and established in the country. Each of the nations, then, of Western Europe developed its own style of official and legal writing, and in each country that writing ran its own course, becoming in process of time more and more individualized and distinct in its national characteristics. But at the same time, as we have seen in the case of the literary hand, it was subject to the general law of change; in each country it passed through the periods of the large bold style of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the exact style of the thirteenth, the declining style of the fourteenth, and the angular style and decadence of the fifteenth century. With its later career we have not to do, except to note that certain forms of it still linger in law documents, as for example in the engrossing of modern English deeds; and that every ordinary current hand of modern Europe might have been as directly descended from the old legal cursive hand as the modern German is. What saved Europe from this diversity of current handwriting was the welcome which was given to tlie beautiful Italian cursive hand of the Renaissance, a form of writing which stood in the same relation to the book-hand of the Renaissance as the modern printer's Italics (the name preserving the memory of their origin) do to his ordinary Roman type. As the Italian book-hand of the Renaissance was not infrequently adopted at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries as a style of writing for the production of select MSS. in England and France and other countries beyond the borders of Italy, so the Italian cursive hand at once came into favour as an elegant and simple style for ordinary use. In the sixteenth, century and even later an educated Englishman could write two styles of current writing, his own native hand lineally descended from the charter-hand, and the new Italian hand; just as a GermanLatin Palaeography. 301 scholar of the present day can write the native German and the Italian hands. And in concluding these remarks it is worth noting that the introduction and wide acceptance of the Italian hand has constituted a new starting-point for the history of modern cursive writing in Western Europe. As the Roman cursive was adopted and gradually became nationalized in different forms in different countries ; and, again, as the reformed minuscule writing of Charlemagne's reign was taken as a fresh basis, and in its turn gradually received the stamp of the several national characteristics of the countries where it was adopted; so the Italian hand of the Renaissance has taken the impress of those same characteristics, aud specimens are easily distinguished, whether written by an Englishman or a German, by a Frenchman or an Italian or a Spaniard, as the case may be. English Charter-hand. As already stated, the handwriting employed in England for official and legal documents after the Norman Conquest was the foreign hand introduced by the conquerors, and generally of the cursive type. An exception might be found in the few charters issued by William the Conqueror in the language of ther people, which presumably were written by English scribes and are in the native hand. But these documents are so few that they are hardly to be considered as affecting the principle of the introduction of a new order of things in the issue of official and legal instruments. But while we find it convenient to treat the cursive or charter-hand as a separate branch of mediaeval English writing apart from the literary or book-hand, it must not be forgotten that both are derived from the same stock, that each influences the other and occasionally crosses its path (we have already seen how often the cursive hand was employed in a more or less modified form for literary purposes), and that the same302 Paleography. laws of progress and change act contemporaneously upon both the one and the other. We shall accordingly have to note the same coarse of development and decadence in the cursive hand as we have followed in the set literary hand. The official lianl of the first hundred years succeeding the Conquest does not very materially alter. In the few surviving charters of the early kings of the Norman line it appears in a rough and angular character with the exaggeration of long limbs which we have noticed in the earlier hands derived from the Roman cursive. In such documents as the Pipe Rolls the writing is more careful and formal j in the great volume of Domesday, while it still retains the official cast, it has a good deal of the literary style of lettering, perhaps from the fact of the work being drawn up in form of a book. The character into which it soon settled for royal charters may be exemplified by the following specimen drawn from a grant of Henry II. to Bromfield Priory in the year 1155 (Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 41). CHARTER OP IIENRY U.—AD. 1155. (Come,-; \m\egavie . Archiepz'sco/ris . Ep^co/ns . Abbf<£ibi/.s'. Comit/fr?/.* | —suis tofcmb' A.ngl?'e f Sal/ftm . Scintis me pro | —dedisse . et Carta mea Confirmasso . Ecclemra | —[per]ti-nentiis suis , Priori , et Monacliis ibidem deo)Latin Paleography. 303 In this class of deeds the profuse employment of large letters is very striking; ai.d it should be noticcd that the long strokes are drawn out into fine hair-lines, and, as is seen in one or two instances in the facsimile, are occasionally provided with an ornamental spur near the top of the stem, which thus has the appearance of being cloven. In the next example of the official hand, from the charter of King John to the borough of Wilton, of the year 1204 (Pal. 80c. i. pi. 214), the writing is a little more regular and cloven stems are more frequent. nr tfcrU. ^jteul"? l^VvJi^t^P^^StXr iwM ^xi^NttC^t: CHARTER OP KING JOHX.—A.D. 1204, (forisfacturara . sicut carte Regi* . Henrici. proavi nos£r[i]— | testantwr . Testibus . Gileber/o lih'o Pet?-i Comitis Essex in . Ricardo Co[miLo]— | Nievilla . Roberto de veteri ponte . Petro de Stoka— | Cicestrew-sw Electi . Apud Oxoinam . xxi . die Aprih's) A style of the charter-hand very common at the end of the twelfth and beginuing of the thirteenth century— rather squaror in its forms of letters and less exaggerated than the official hand of the period—is shown in_ the following facsimile. It is taken from a deed of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, written at Ossington in Nottinghamshire in the year 1206 (Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 117).3°4 Paleography. ^odTftc ® i fuuf Bgo &J -dtj Cftftt) AngWcoui ^JJmfu fWuntSta CHARTER OP THE HOSPITALLERS.-A.D. ] 206. (Notim sit Omwibzfs p?'esentibws et futwris Quod Ego hater Rober[tus]— | [Hospijtak's lerosolymitani in Ang]ia de com-muni assensu et voluntate fra£mm— | Carta confirmavimws Koberto fih'o Ivonis de Wicham et— | Croftum que fuerzmfc Ivonis patris eius in Wicham . et unam p[ortionam]— | super Benecroftewelle. et aliam portioned terre ad Wirmode— | Bosci ad frithwude . et unam Gairam terre super Hagenegate) Except for its being rather looser in the formation of its letters and more subject to flourishes, there is no great difference between this writing and the ordinary book-hand of the period ; and it is to be observed that not infrequently the style of writing employed in monastic charters is rather of the literary than of the legal type, that is, it is more set than cursive. This preference of the more exact style of writing is conspicuous in many of the charters of the thirteenth jentury—the period when, as we have seen above, a more minute character was practised, contrasting strongly with the bold writing of the preceding century. Under this restrictive influence, a highly decorative class of documents was produced, in which the scribe exercised with effect his powers of penmanship in fanciful ornamentation of the capitals and the stems of tall letters. A. specimen of this style is given from a lease of land to Abingdon Abbev. of the year 1230 {Pal. Soc. ii, pi. 99).Latin Paleography. 305 LEASE TO ABINGDON ABBKY.-A.D. 1230. [Estovjerium suum usqwe ad terminum dz'cforzm decern anno-xum. Si vero dicta Iuliana infra dictos dec[em]— | et cum eorum pertinewtiis usqwe ad termiuura dictovum decern annorara teneburet . faciendo inde tantura for[insecum]— | [conjven-tionero firmiter et sine dolo esse tenendam dictus Abbas et Conventws per manu/n Ro[gm] — | [maio]rem huiws conventions traditzoreis et dimisszonis securitate???presens seriptum in mo[dum]— | Hiis testib^s. Hennco de Tracy. Ricardo Decano de Dumbeltuna. Wille/mo de Dicflesdnna]— | Elia de Dumbeltona Rogero Nepote. Thoma de Dreitona. Rogr?ro Marescallo.) Nothing can be prettier, as specimens of calligraphy, than these delicately written charters of the thirteenth century, which, moreover, are scarcely ever broader than the hand, and in their little compass present so many pleasing varieties of the penman's handiwork. But the true cursivc hand was more generally employed in the majority of legal and oficial deeds of the period. In the course of the reign of Henry III., while the letters generally retain the stiffness characteristic of writing of the thirteenth century, a certain amount of looping of the tall stems is gradually established—an advance upon the earlier practice of notching x3O6 Paleography. or cleaving the tops, as noticed above. The following specimen is taken from a charter of Bitlesden Abbey, of the year 1251 (Pal. Soc. ii. pi. 118). tee |ivi6 &&& ^oXwa&aw *20 cemdflk&m wvrv /fc&) ^Mfcr^Mao^wM^ ^mros^-ftMtClr aw CHARTER OF BITLESDEN ABBEY.—A.D. 1251. (Wal terns miseraci'one divina Norwicensjs Ecclesie minister hum[ilis]— | —paft'is downni Iohawwis Regis no?i viciatam no?i cancellatani nec in— | —Monacliis et monasterio de Bittles-dena concjssam in hac forma— | —[Comjitibws . Baronibtta Iusticianw . Yicecomitibus . omreibws amicis et fidelibws sui[s] — | —Ernoldus de Bosco fecit deo et monacliis de ordine Cis-tercie[usi]— | —[or]dinis Cisterciensis . et de tribes carucatis terre in syresham qwe vocator) At this period, under a more extended system of linking the letters together and the consequent establishment of a really current hand, many of the older forms of letters become modified. The looping of tall letters has already been referred to. The top stroke of the letter a is gradually more bent over, and already in several instances touches the lower bow and forms a closed loop ; i, m, n, and u, when two or more come together in a word, are composed of uniform strokes ; and, above all, the small round s becomes more frequent, and is finished off in a closed loop below. This form of the latter letter, as we shall see, afterwards became exaggerated, the loop growing to a disproportionate size. The official hand of the reign of Edward I., as seen inLatin Paleography. 307 his charters, is in a regular and rather broad style, showing a further development in the open order of the letters, and the tendency to roundness characteristic of the fourteenth century. • S3* nyiT^aiyta SfctjUp CcrnitafitinoSR? immn^^cfinSlSciliGnoCtsni^po (t£aa^<^muon ^ < J !_ r tti^rm m 09028 . 15o0. (Sond ac Georgio Taylour omwia ilia terras te[ne?»t!?jla]— | —[ijacenfo'a ct existenfo'a in Wescote in parochia de Dorkyng — I — [conc]-3ssione et feoffaniento Roberti Borne de Dorky[ng] — | —Maydeman aliam vero medietatem inde nnper— —[ap-par]ent/s ac filii et heredw Alicie nuper uxons mee ia[m]— | — pmlicta terras et tenemercta redditz/s et servicm cum suis peril inentiis])3 [4 Palaeography. In. most of the English cursive handwriting of the first half of the sixteenth century a certain heaviness of style was the fashion ; but afterwards this gave place to a lighter and more elegant character, which was fully established by the reign of Elizabeth, and was most commonly used from that time onwards fat into the seventeenth century, and then gradually toned down into a form modified by the Italian letters of the ordinary current hand of the day. The following specimen is taken from a deed of the year 1594 (Brit. Mus., (To be holden of the Cheefe lorde or lordes— | Administra-towrs and for every of them, Doth— | att thensealinge and deliveryo of these presents is— | all and sing?dcr thapp»?'tena«nces in Fee simple without]— I and every prt/'te thereof to the saide Thomas Tan[ner]— | att all convenient tyme or tymes within the—) In this hand we hav - a good fluent style to which none of the cursive writing of previous centuries had attained in England. In fact the close of the sixteenth century may be referred to as the epoch of the rise of the modern current hand, as distinguished from the more slowly written and more disjointed cursive writing of the middle ages. Lastly, in taking leave of this ordinary style, we select a specimen of a form which it assumed early in Add. Ch. 24,798). DEED.—A.D. 1594.'Latin Paleography. 315 the seventeenth century, from a deed of the year 16 L2 (Brit. Mus., Add. Ch. 24,000). /rib mvy, child /\v\ troV^bt/ZXKrorC ^root* 6 uri tb rt^Vfcnrtf gy) ff ff&Ag*' (ttffiawyz fyroy> ossifyuifo DEED.—A.D. ] (312. (powndes of good and lawfull mony— | himselfe fully satisfied, And therof— | And in consideracion of twoe huni~dred] — | confirmed, and by thease presentes d[oth]— | [A}11 that the Mannor of Butlers s[cituate]— | [MJesuage or Mannor howse of Butle[rs]) Now to turn to the peculiar official legal hands referred to above. From the earliest times succeeding the Norman Conquest there were, as we have seen, certain styles followed, though not uniformly, for particular official documents; and a series of examples of these during the several reigns may be found in the public records. But it was not until the sixteenth century that a perfected system of particular styles for certain courts was finally established. Without regarding the class to which has been given the name of " secretary/'1 and which is in fact the hand which has been illustrated by the two preceding facsimiles, there are two main styles which practically cover the varieties enumerated in the special works on the subject, viz., the Chancery hand and the Court hand. The former was used for records under the great seal; the latter was employed in the oourts of King's-Bench 1 Wright, Court Hand Restored, ed. Martin, 1879, p. xii,316 Palaeography. an^ Common Pleas, for fines and recoveries, placita, etc. These two kinds of writing do not vary very materially; both may be described as fanciful renderings of the ordinary law hand. The Chancery hand, of the pattern found in its developed form in the sixteenth century, appears in an incipient stage in the latter part of the fourteenth century, and is therefore of an earlier origin than the Court hand, which indeed is rather a modification of the Chancery hand itself. It will be enough to select one or two examples of each style in order to give a general idea of their character. First we take a few lines from an exemplification of a Chancery decree of the year 1539 (Brit. Mus., Add. Ch. 26,969) in illustration of the Chancery hand of the reign of Henry YI1I. «t tu&ucioutt Sao4bHUi *uutic oj? ooivT/^u4s EXEMPLIFICATION.-A.D. 1 53- (revencionum Corono noatfre quucklani iJecretuni— | —xxiiij die Novembris Anno regni dom'ni Regi[s]— | —[reve]ncionum Corone sue Et protulib ibidem quand[am]— | —[ver]ba This Indenture made the— | —the grace of god of Englond and Fraunce— | —Englond Betwene Raf Burell doctor in-- | - — [CJountie of Leicester of the oon partie and) Next, an example is taken from a grant of wardship and marriage of the year 1618, which illustrates the form which the hand had assumed in the reign ofLatin Palaeography. James I. (Brit. Mus., Add. Cli. 28,271), a form altogether of the modern type which continued in practice to quite a recent date. tmikuU^^&tm ^Jfe^itftrtHitc t uitt^mdk' cui^&tu lit GRANT OP WARDSHIP.—A.D. 1618. (quousqwe eadem Maria Gwynet executor— | —vel ha&uerint Et hoc absqwe compoto seu aliq[uo]— | —contingat yrediicium Georgium Gwynet ante[quani]— | —Maria Gwynet executores sive assignafo' sui— | herediVms masculis eiusdem Georgii Gwynet tu[nc]— | —presontes damws et concediraws prefate Marie Gwy[net]) In these two examples of the Chancery hand it will be seen that the chief characteristic is a fanciful angular and upright treatment of the letters without deviating from the setting of ordinary writing. With the Court hand the treatment is different. While the shapes of the letters (with the exception ot' e, which in this style is in the circular form) are practically the same as in the Chancery hand, the cast o£ the writing is quite altered by-' lateral compression, which cramps and narrows the letters in an exaggerated manner. Our first example of the Court hand is of Henry VIII/s reign, and is taken from a final concord, or foot of a fine, of the year 1530 (Brit, Mus., Add. Ch. 23,539).3i8 Paleography. ^a^iidto1 mwH j&m^ ^utyte^ L^vym^m.) WT i^WUpiM SCW^fo^Ull FINAL CONCORD.—A.D. 1530. (Hec est finalis concordia facia, in Curia domini Regis— | diomini Hiibemie a eonquestu vicesimo prinio coram Robert[o] — | lute?1 AntoniumWyngfeld Militem Iohanwem Audele[y]— j et Reginaldum Dygby Armigmim deforcie?tfea de Mane?'i[o] — | \)re<\ittum Mancrium cum pertmenUis esse Ius ipsius Humfridi et) Next we select a passage from an exemplification of a plea of Elizabeth's reign, dated iu the year 1578 (Brit. Mus., Add. Ch. 25,968). 4W* EXEMPLIFICATION. —A.D. 1578.Latin Paleography. (fac?7 Ideo consicleratum est qwod predicts Tohawwes Collyn recuperet j —[misericordi]a et cetera Et super hoc predicts loha/mes Collyn petiY breve | —[Trinitjatis in ties septimanas et cetera Ad quem diem hie | —[u]ltimo pretmto habere fecit p?vfato Iohawni Coll.yn | —[presenc]iu»i duximws exemplifi-candrt In cuius rei testimonium) There is practically no great difference in style between these two specimens. The latter is perhaps to some extent the better hand and shows a very slight advance on the other ; but the forms of the letters are so stereotyped in this class of writing that the space of nearly half a century which lies between the two documents has impressed but little trace of change on the later one. Lastly, to show further how very gradual was the alteration wrought by time iu the character of the Court hand, an example is iaken from a final concord of the reign of Charles II., bearing the date of 1673 (Brit. Mus., Add. Ch. 25,871), nearly a century and a half after the date of the final concord above, of the time of Henry VIII., with which it is to be compared. FTN\L CONCORD.-A.D. 1673. (Hec est finalis Concordia facta in Cun'a dom'ni— | defensons et cetera a Conquest vicesimo quinto Cor[am]— | Wille^mwm320 Paleography. Yates Generosum et Dinam uxorem eius— | duabws acristerre decern acris pasture et tribws— | cum ^erkmentiis esse ills ipsius WilleZmi ut ilia que iide[m]) The more recent date of this document is to be. recognized by the coarser style of the writing and by the broken appearance of the letters, which is effected by their more strongly defined angularity. The Court hand continued in practice down to the reign of George II. ; the Chancery hand still survives in the modern engrossing hands employed in enrolments and patents.ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. p. 3, I. 39.—It appears that de Rouge's theory of the derivation of the Phoenician alphabet from the Egyptian cursive alphabet must be abandoned. Recent discoveries prove the existence, in very remote times, in all quarters of the Mediterranean and in Egypt, of symbols resembling certain alphabetical signs and preceding even the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The early origin of our alphabet therefore still remains to be worked out. But there is no quest io:i of the descent of the Greek and Latin alphabets from that used by the Phoenicians. p. 14.—Linen : Flavius Yopiscus in his Life of the Emperor Aurelian refers to " libri lintei " in the Ulpian Library at Rome (J. W. Clark, The Care of Boohs, 1901, p. 20). The largest extant example of Etruscan writing is inscribed on linen, and is in the Museum at Agram : edited by Krall in the Denksehriften of the Vienna Academy, vol. xli. (1892). Clay : Clay tablets have been found at Knossos, in Crete; ascribed to the period about 1500 b.c. p. 16.—Lead : An interesting instance of the use of lead in correspondence occurs in Parthenius, Erotica, cap. 9. When the island of Naxos was invaded by the Milesians, 501 b.c., the priestess Polycrite, being in a temple outside the capital city, sent word to her brothers, by means of a letter written upon lead and concealed in a loaf, how to make a night attack. " p. 17, I. 4.—There are two inscribed leaden tablets at Bath: (1) a curse on a person who has carried off a girl, written in Latin in reversed characters; and (2) a Latin letter, ascribed to the 4th century (E. W. B. Nicholson, Vinisius to Nigra, Oxford, 1904). y322 Paleography. p. 17, I. 21.—The leaden plates referred to have been shown to be forgeries. p. 17.—Bkonze : Upwards of one hundred tabulse honestse missionis have now been recovered. For facsimilies see, for example, J. Arneth, Zicolf romische Militar-Diplome, Vienna, 1843. p. 19, I. 11.—A wooden board inscribed in ink with lines from the Habate of Callimachus and the Phoenissse of Euripides, of the 4th century, is preserved at Vienna. (Pop. Erz. Rainer, vi. (1897)). p. 20, I. 19.—For quintuplices read quinquiplices or quin-cuplices. p. 24, I. 17.—Seven waxen tablets, inscribed with fables of Babrius, as a school exercise, of the 3rd century, are preserved at Leiden. They are published in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, xiii. (1893) 293-314. p. 25, I. 18.—The Pompeian tablets were edited in 1898 by Professor Zangemeister, Tabulae ceratae Pompeis repertae annis 1875 et 1887, as a supplement to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latin arum, iv. An accurate description of the arrangement of these documents is now available. In the triptychs, the pages are usually treated thus : pp. 1 and 6, plain wood ; p. 4, cut with a groove to receive the seals, usually plain wood, but in some instances waxed either on the right or on both the right and the left of the groove ; the witnesses' names written in ink, if on the plain wood, with the stilus, if on wax ; pp. 2 and 3, the inner (authentic) deed; p. 5, the exterior copy. A notch is cut in the upper and lower margins, to adjust the string. (The senatus consultum for passing the string through holes is of a.d. 81.) In the diptychs, which are comparatively few, pp. 1 and 4 are plain wood ; pp. 2 and 3 are waxed; no groove cut for the seals, which were applied on the wood. Dockets were written on the edges, and the tablets were dropped vertically into the box made to hold them. In two of the tablets (nos. 32 and 136) the Latin is written in Greek letters. The dates of the documents are a.d. 15, 27, and 53-62. p. 28, I. 7.—A papyrus containing accounts of kingAdditions and Corrections. 323 Assa, 3580-353G B.C. is extant (Petrie, Hist, of Egypt, i. 81). p. 29, /, 7.—The words "in tumultu vita erat" have also been interpreted to mean that the lives of the traders would have been in peril; and, better, that there would have been danger of general interruption of the business of daily life. p. 32, I. 9.—The width (or height, as it may be better expressed) of extant papyrus rolls varies from 5 inches to 15£ inches. The average height of literary papyri is from 9 to 10 inches. p. 33, /. 29.—It has been suggested that this epistle is rather to be identified as one addressed by the Emperor Michael II. to Louis le Debonnaire on the occasion of one of the embassies which he despatched to France between the years 824 and 839 (H. Omont in the Revue Archeologiqite, xix. (1892) 3G4-393). See also p. 143. p. 34, I. 7—For " Genoa" read "Geneva." p. 34, I. 20.—Twenty-three papal bulls on papyrus have survived, ranging from a.d. 849 to a.d. 1022 (H. Omont, Bulles Pontificales sur Papyrus, in Bibl. de VEcole des Chartes, Ixv. (1904) 575). p. 37, footnote 5.—At the same time, although Birt has overstated the case, there are indications that, at first, vellum was sometimes used as a common material. In the British Museum there are two small leaves, roughly written, from a MS. of works of Demosthenes of the 2nd century (Add. MS. 34,473), which was probably a cheap copy (F. G. Kenyon, The Palceo-graphy of Greek Papyri, 119; The New Pal. Soc., pi. 2). p. 45, I. 27.—A very early example of European paper is exhibited in the Museum of the Public Record Office (Case A, no. 15), being a letter written on that material in Latin from Raymond, son of Raymond, duke of Narbonne and count of Toulouse, to the English king Henry III.; a.d. 1216-1222. p. 49, /. 10.—A score of Roman bronze pens, shaped like our ordinary quill pens, are now known to be in exist-y 2324 Paleography. ence in various museums of Europe or in private hands. Three are in the British Museum: one, found in the Tiber, has not a slit in the nib as most specimens have, but a groove; the second is of a very unusual form, having a rather short tube or barrel with a slit nib at each end (another example of the same type is at Aosta in Italy) ; the third, which was found in London, has a stumpy slit nib. Two broken specimens, which have lost their nibs, are also in the British Museum. A bone pen, shaped in the same manner, is figured in the Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique (of the French School at Athens), xii. 60. p. 55, I. 3—Delete the word "later." p. til, Z. 32.—The recent discoveries in Egypt throw an interesting light upon the developement of the codex or book. The survival of two vellum leaves from a codex containing the writings of Demosthenes, attributed to the 2nd century, has been noticed above (addition to p. • 37, footnote 5). And the use of the codex form by the early Christians is illustrated by the fragmentary papyri containing Christian writings. It is remarkable that the majority of such papyri of the 3rd century from Oxyrhynchus are in codex form, that is, they are leaves, or portions of leaves, from books, not fragments of rolls, whereas of the non-Christian papyri very few are in codex form. Hence it appears that the codex form was in common use among Christians at an earlier date than among people in general. (See Kenyon's art. " Writing" in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible.) p. 74, I. 32.—The Greek sign of the rough breathing (h) is occasionally found in Latin MSS. of about the 10th and 11th centuries. For example, the Harley MS. 2736, in the British Museum, Cicero "de Oratore," of about the year 900, contains numerous instances, e.g., annibal. p. 92, I. 31. Delete the sentence " This sign..... homophones." p. 107. Chapter VIII.—The further discoveries of Greek papyri, which have been steadily made, year by year, m Egypt, since this Handbook was written, are so large and so important that it need be no matter for surpriseAdditions and Corrections. 325 or for apology if some of the views which have been herein expressed should now be more or less modified. Every fresh discovery widens our knowledge of the subject of Greek writing in the early periods, hitherto so obscure, and a revision of former conceptions, especially of the dates of certain well-known literary papyri, is now possible. To our list of Greek papyri found in Egypt, as set out on pp. 107-113, several most important additions have to be made. First, to mention miscellaneous collections: in the year 1892, chiefly on the site of a village in the Fayum named Socnopaei Nesus, a large series of documents was brought to light, ranging from the 1st century to the 3rd century of our era. Most of them are now at Berlin ; but a certain number have found their way to the British Museum, while others are in the Libraries of Vienna and Geneva, and elsewhere. Again, in 1896-7, an immense collection of papyri, thousands in number, and ranging over the first six centuries of the Christian era, was discovered at Behnesa, the site of the ancient Oxyrhynchus, by Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt, excavating for the Egypt Exploration Fund. Here, besides innumerable documents of a non-literary character, a considerable quantity of fragments of literary works has been recovered, among them being the now well-known Logia or " Sayings of Our Lord/' of the 3rd century, and early fragments of the Gospel of St. Matthew, as well as remains of classical authors. But this is not all. Excavations were resumed in the winter of 1902-3 with a result no less striking than the former one. Another fragment of the Logia, of the 3rd century; a portiou of the Epistle to the Hebrews, of the 3rd or early 4th century, written on the back of the epitome of Livy mentioned below (Ox. Pa-p. iv. no. 657; New Pal. Soc., pi. 47); and numerous fragments of lost Greek classics are announced. It is to be noted that, while such extensive deposits of Greek papyri are being discovered, very few examples of Latin papyri have been found ; and it is therefore of particular interest that in this later instalment from326 Palseog raphy. Oxyrhynchus there is a Latin historical text of some length, which contains part of an epitome of Livy, in a hand of the 3rd century {Ox. Pap. iv, no. 668; New Pal. Soc., pi. 53). Selections from this great collection are in course of publication in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri by the Egypt Exploration Fund. A further discovery was made in 1899-1900 by Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt on the site of the ancient Tebtunis in the south of the Fayum, which yielded a great store of papyri, chiefly of a non-literary character, which had been generally used in the cartonnage of mummies and as wrappings of mummies of crocodiles. They range from the 3rd century b.c. to the 3rd century A.D. ; and a portion of them has been published in The Tebtunis Papyri, 1902, issued jointly by the University of California and the Egypt Exploration Fund. Two smaller groups of miscellaneous documents have also to be noticed, viz., the correspondence of a Roman officer named Abinseus, of the middle of the 4th century, which has been shared between the British Museum and the Library of Geneva, in 1892 ; and a collection ranging from the 2nd century b.c. to the 3rd or 4th century a.d,, acquired by the Egypt Exploration Fund and published by that Society (Fay um Towns and their Papyri, 1900). Of classical literature two most important works have been recovered. In 1896 the British Museum acquired a papyrus of tl:e 1st century b.c., containing a large part of the odes of Bacchylides, the contemporary of rindar (edited, with a facsimile,, by F. G-. Kenyon in 1897); and early in 1902 the oldest literary Greek papyrus as yet discovered was found in a coffin of a mummy at Abusir, the ancient Busiris, near Memphis, aucl proved to contain a large portion of the Persse of the poet Timotheos in writing which has been estimated to be of the latter half of the 4th century b.c. It is now in Berlin, and has been edited, with facsimile, Per Timotheos-Papy run (Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft), by von Wilamowitz-Mollendorff, 1903. Among other early literary papyri of importanceAdditions and Corrections. 327 which have been lately published, with facsimiles, should be mentioned the commentary on Plato's " Theaetetus," at Berlin, a roll of seventy narrow columns, containing about one-sixth of the whole work, finely written in delicately-formed uncials, early 2nd century, edited by Diels and Schubart in Berliner Klassikerfexte, ii. (1905) ; the commentary of Didymus on the " Philippics " of Demosthenes, of the 2nd century, edited by the same in Berl. Klass., i. (1904) ; the Psalms xxx.-lv., the longest Biblical roll in existence, at Leipzig, written in a cursive hand on the back of accounts of a.d. 338, edited by Heinrici, Beitrdge zur Gesch. u. Erkldrung des neuen Testamentes, iv. (1903). p. 109, I. 32.—This papyrus book (pap. cxxvi.) is more probably of the 3rd century. p. 110, I. 8.—The fragments of Book ii. of tTie Iliad, found by Professor Flinders Petrie at Hawara and deposited in the Bodleian Library, are now ascribed to the 2nd century a.d. (see below, note on p. 125, I. 36). p. 110, 1.14.—The papyrus of Hyperides' orations against Demosthenes and for Lycophron and Euxenippus, when perfect, must have measured twenty-eight feet in length. It is now thought to be of the 1st century a.d. p. 110, 1.33.—The papyrus containing the oration against Philippides is now assigned to the 1st century b.c. p. Ill, I. 2.—The papyrus of the oration against Atheno-genes is of the 2nd century b.c. It has been edited by E. Revillout, Le Playdoyer d'Hyperide contre Athenogene, 1892. p. 112, Z.* 16.—For " Medaea " read " Medea. " p. 118, Chapter IX.—The difficulty of drawing an exact line of division between the book-hand and the cursive hand in Greek papyri has led Mr. F. G. Kenyon—who has made this branch of palaeography the subject of special study, and whose book, The Palaeography of Greek Papyri, 1899, should be in the student's hands —to divide the papyri simply into two series representative of their contents, and not of their style of production, that is, literary papyri and non-literary papyri. While3*8 Paleography. reading this chapter the student should bear in mind the literary papyri, recently found, which are noted above in the addition to Chapter VIII. p. 118, I. 22.— The first place in the series of the earliest extant specimens of Greek writing of the book-hand has now been taken by the recently discovered papyrus of the Persse of Timotheos, referred to above, which is assigned to the second half of the 4th century b.c. The text is inscribed in a firmly-written large square character of the epigraphic style, not unlike that of the Artemisia papyrus (p. 119), but without any curved letters of the uncial type; even sigma, which in the Artemisia fragment assumes a rounded form, is here still of the ancient angular shape The arrangement of the text does not conform to the rules observed in later examples. The columns of writing are broad and vary in dimensions, ranging from 8 to 11| inches ; and the text runs on continuously without distinguishing the verses of the poem. The sections, however, are marked off with the separating stroke 7rapdypa(f>o, the last leaf of a papyrus roll, 31. Euclid, MS., 163. Eugyppius, MS., 232. Eumenes of Pergamum, reputed inventor of parchment or vellum, 35. Euripides, fragments of plays, 112, 120. Euthalius of Alexandria, his stichometrical arrangements in the Bible, 80, 82. Evangelistarium, 157. Exclamantes, catch-words, 62. Explicit, derivation of, £9. " Exultet " rolls, 60. T. Flaccus, Albinus, MS., 220. Folium, , the leaf of a codex, 63. Forulus, a chest for rolls, 57. France: ancient and mediaeval MSS., 259-263, 265, 270, 275, 276, 277, 284. Frontes, the edges of a roll, 56. Fulda, MSS. connected with, 194, 264.. - G. Gatherings, See Quires. Germanicus, charms used to destroy him, 16. Germany : mediaeval MSS., 264, 283.356 Paleography. yAw(ro.\6s, stick or knob of a roll, £6. Opisthographs, 59, GO. Oracles, on lead, 16. Origen, MS., 271. Ostracism, with leaves, 13 ; with potsherds, 14, 15. Ostraka, 14. Oxford, Earl of, charter of, 312. P. Peenula, the wrapper of a roll, 39, 56. Vagina, a column of writing, 58. Palajography, Greek ; divisions of, 116; the book-hand in papyri, 118-129 ; cursive writing in papyri, 130-148 ; forms of cursive letters, 14-4-148; uncial writing in vellum MSS., 149-158 j classes of mediaeval minuscule MSS., 159 ; codices vetustissimi, 162-165 ; codices vetusti, 165-170 ; codices re-centiores, 170-176; codices novelli, 176-181; Greek writing in "Western Europe, 181, 182; Greek letters used in Latin signatures, 182. Palaeography, Latin : writing in capitals, 183-190; square and rustic capitals, 184; nge of earliest MSS. in rustic; letters, 187; writing in uncials, 190-195 ; in mixed uncials and minuscules, 196-200 ; in half-uncials, 200-202 ; Roman cur-i,ive writing, 203-216; forms of cursive letters, 205, 206, 213-215; writing in minuscules, 217-235; Lombardic writiDg, 218-222; Visigoilvc writing, 222-226 ; Merovingian writiDg, 226-233 ; the Caroline reform, 233; Irish writing, 236-244; the round hand, 237-211; the pointed hand, 241-243; Euglish writing before the Norman conquest, 214—256; the round hand, 245, 247; the pointed land, 248-252 ; mediaeval writing in books, 257-285; of the ninth century, 259-261, 2R4; of the tenth century, 261-263, 267 ; of the eleventh C3iitury, 265,266, 268; of the twelfth century, 269-271; of the thirteenth century, 272-275 ; of the fourteenth century, 275-279; of the fifteenth cen-tury, 279-285; MSS. in the English tongue, 285-292; mediteval cureive writing, 293-301; writing of the Papal Chancery, 294-297; of the Imperial Chancery, 297-300; origin of modern writing in Western Europe, 300; the Eoglisli mediaeval charter-hand, 301-312; later legal writing, 313-320; Chancery-hand, 315-317; Court-hand, 315, 317-320. Palermo, papyrus grown there, 29. Palimpsests, 75-77. Pamphilus of Ceesnrea, vellum MSS. in his library, 37. Pandectcs, a Bible, 55. Papal chancery, writing used in, 294-297. Paper, history of, 43-47; medi-a;val names, 43; introductionIndex. 359 into Europe, 43 ; materials, 44 ; manufacture in Europe, 43, 46 ; water-marks, 47. Papyrus : description of the plant, 27 ; ancient Egyptian papyrus rolls, 28; price of the writing material at Athens, 28; importation to Rome, 28, 29 ; manufacture, 30-33; varieties, 32, 33; late use, 33, 34; papyrus in book-form, 34, 62. Papyrus MSS.,Greek: discoveries in Egypt, 107-113; at Hercu-laneum, 113, 115 ; MSS. written in capitals and uncials, 118-129; in cursive letters, ]30-148; Latin MSS., 34. irapaypacpos, a dividing-stroke, 68. Paragraphs. See Text. Parchment. Sec Vellum. Pausanias, MS , 178. Pen, early use of, 49, 321. Penicillus, peniculus, a brush to apply fluid gold, 49. Pcnlap/ycha, irti>TdirTvxa, a five-leaf tablet, 20. Tepin le Bref, imperial letter to, 33, 143. Persians, their use of skins for writing material, 35. TiraXifffxis, ostracism with loaves, 13. x°) a three-leaf tablet, 20. cr. Umbilicus, the central stiok or knob of a roll 56. Unoial letters, definition of, 117. See Palaeography. Urban II., Pope, bull of, 296. " Uspensky Psalter," 156. " Utreoht Psalter," 64, 189. V. Valerius Maximos, MS., 270. " Vaticanns " codex, 150. Vellum or parchment: its tradi- tional invention, 35 ; its ns9 and value at Borne, 36, 37, 61; varieties, 38; ornamentation, 38, 39 purple-staining-, 39-42 ; gilding, 42; the vellum codex, 60, 61. Venice, lead nsed there as a writing material, 17. Versus, a line of writing, 63, 80. Virgil, MSS , 185, 188, 189. Visigothio numerals, 105; writing, 222, 226. Vitelliani, small tablets, 21. Volumen, a roll, 54. Voragine, Jaoobus de, MS., 276. W. Wall-inscriptions. See Graffiti. Water-marks, in paper, 47. Waxen tablets. See Tablets. Wessex, oharaoter of writing in, 250,251. Wills, written on tablets, 21. Words, separation and divisior of. See Tui-r.london printed by gilbert and rivington, st. John's house, clerkenwell, e.g.