of some sumptuous volume (Cat. Anc. MSS. i. pl. 11); the Coislin Octateuch (Silvestre, pl. 65); the Genesis of Vienna, and the Codex Rossanensis, and the recently recovered Codex Sinopensis of the Gospels, instances of the very few early illustrated MSS. which have survived. Of the same period is the Codex Marchalianus of the Prophets, which, written in Egypt, follows in its style the Coptic form of uncial.
Reference may here be made to certain early bilingual Graeco-Latin uncial MSS., written in the 6th and 7th centuries, which, however, have rather to be studied apart, or in connexion with Latin palaeography; for the Greek letters of these MSS. run more or less upon the lines of the Latin forms. The best known of these examples are the Codex-Bezae of the New Testament, at Cambridge (Pal. Soc. pls. 14, 15), and the Codex Claromontanus of the Pauline Epistles, at Paris (Pal. Soc. pls. 63, 64), attributed to the 6th or 7th century; and the Laudian MS. of the Acts of the Apostles (Pal. Soc. pl. 80) of the 7th century. To these may be added the Harleian Glossary (Cat. Anc. MSS. i. pl. 13), also of the 7th century. A later example, of the 8th century, is the Graeco-Latin Psalter, at Paris, MS. Coislin 186 (Omont, Facs. des plus anciens MSS. grecs, pl. vii.).
An offshoot of early Greek uncial writing on vellum is seen in the Moeso-Gothic alphabet which Ulfilas constructed for the use of his countrymen in the 4th century, mainly from the Greek letters. Of the few extant remains of Gothic MSS. the oldest and most perfect is the Codex Argenteus of the Gospels, at Upsala, of the 6th century (Pal. Soc. pl. 118), written in characters which compare with purely written Greek MSS. of the same period. Other Gothic fragments appear in the sloping uncial hand seen in Greek MSS. of the 7th and following centuries.
About the year 600 Greek uncial writing passes into a new stage. We leave the period of the round and enter on that of the oval character. The letters Є, 🜔, 🌕︎, 🌕︎, instead of being symmetrically formed on the lines of a circle, are made oval; and other letters are laterally compressed into a narrow shape. In the 7th century also the writing begins to slope to the right, and accents are introduced and afterwards systematically applied. This slanting style of uncials continues in use through the 8th and 9th and into the 10th centuries, becoming heavier as time goes on. In this class of writing there is again the same dearth of dated MSS. as in the round uncial, to serve as standards for the assignment of dates. We have to reach the 9th century before finding a single dated MS. in this kind of writing. It is true that sloping Greek uncial writing is found in a few scattered notes and glosses in Syriac MSS. which bear actual dates in the 7th century, and they are so far useful as showing that this hand was firmly established at that time; but they do not afford sufficient material in quantity to be of really practical use for comparison (see the tables of alphabets in Gardthausen’s Griech. Paläog.). Of more value are a few palimpsest fragments of the Elements of Euclid and of Gospel Lectionaries which occur also in the Syriac collection in the British Museum, and are written in the 7th and 8th centuries. There is also in the Vatican a MS. (Reg. 886) of the Theodosian code, which can be assigned with fair accuracy to the close of the 7th century (Gardth. Gr. Pal. p. 158), which, however, being calligraphically written, retains some of the earlier rounder forms. This MS. may be taken as an example of transitional style. In the fragment of a mathematical treatise (fig. 14) from Bobio, forming part of a MS. rewritten in the 8th century and assignable to the previous century, the slanting writing is fully developed. The formation of the letters is good, and conveys the impression that the scribe was writing a hand quite natural to him:—
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| Fig. 14.—Mathemat. Treatise, 7th century. | ||
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It should be also noticed that in this MS.—a secular one—there are numerous abbreviations (Wattenbach, Script. gr. specim. tab. 8). An important document of this time is also the fragment of papyrus in the Imperial Library at Vienna, which bears the signatures of bishops and others to the acts of the Council of Constantinople of 680. Some of the signatures are in slanting uncials (Wattenb., Script, gr. specim., tabb. 12, 13; Gardth., Gr. Pal. tab. 1). Of the 8th century is the collection of hymns (Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 26, 113) written without breathings or accents (Cat. Anc. MSS. i. pl. 14). To the same century belongs the Codex Marcianus, the Venetian MS. of the Old Testament, which is marked with breathings and accents. The plate reproduced from this MS. (Wattenb., Script. gr. specim., tab. 9) contains in the second column a few lines written in round uncials, but in such a laboured style that nothing could more clearly prove the discontinuance of that form of writing as an ordinary hand. In the middle of the 9th century at length we find a MS. with a date in the Psalter of Bishop Uspensky of the year 862 (Wattenb. Script. gr. specim., tab. 10). A little later in date is the MS. of Gregory of Nazianzus, written between 867 and 886 (Silvestre, pl. 71); and at the end of the 9th or beginning of the 10th century stands a lectionary in the Harleian collection (Cat. Anc. MSS. i. pl. 17). A valuable series of examples is also given by Omont (Facsimiles des plus anc. MSS. grecs. de la Bibl. Nat.). But by this time minuscule writing was well established, and the use of the more inconvenient uncial was henceforth almost entirely confined to church-service books. Owing to this limitation uncial writing now underwent a further calligraphic change. As the 10th century advances the sloping characters by degrees become more upright, and with this resumption of their old position they begin in the next century to cast off the compressed formation and again become rounder. All this is simply the result of calligraphic imitation. Bibles and service-books have always been the MSS. in particular on which finely formed writing has been lavished; and it was but natural that, when a style of writing fell into general disuse, its continuance, where it did continue, should become more and more traditional, and a work of copying rather than of writing. In the 10th century there are a few examples bearing dates. There are facsimiles from three of them, viz. a copy of the Gospels (fig. 15), in the Vatican, of 949 (New Pal. Soc. pl. 105), the Curzon Lectionary of 980, and the Harleian Lectionary of 995 (Pal. Soc. pls. 154, 26, 27). The Bodleian commentary on the Psalter (D. 4, 1) is likewise of great palaeographic value, being written partly in uncials and partly in minuscules of the middle of the 10th century (Gardth., Gr. Pal. p. 159, tab. 2, col. 4). This late form of uncial writing appears to have lasted to about the middle of the 12th century. (Omont. Facs. pl. xxii.). From it was formed the Slavonic writing in use at the present day:—
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| Fig. 15.—The Gospels (Vatican), A.D. 949. | |||||
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Under the head of late uncial writing must be classed a few bilingual Graeco-Latin MSS. which have survived, written in a
