bastard kind of uncial in the west of Europe. This writing follows, wherever the shapes of the letters permit, the formation of corresponding Latin characters—the purely Greek forms being imitated in a clumsy fashion. Such MSS. are the Codex Augiensis of Trinity College, Cambridge, of the end of the 9th century (Pal. Soc. pl. 127) and the Psalter of St Nicholas of Cusa (pl. 128) and the Codex Sangallensis and Boernerianus of the 10th century (pl. 179). The same imitative characters are used in quotations of Greek words in Latin MSS. of the same periods.
Minuscule Writing.—The beautifully formed minuscule book-hand, which practically superseded the uncial book-hand in the 9th century, did not spring into existence all at once. Its formation had been the work of centuries. It was the direct descendant of the cursive Greek writing of the papyri. It has been shown above, in tracing the progress of the non-literary, cursive writing on papyrus, how the original forms of the letters of the Greek alphabet went through various modifications, always tending towards the creation of the forms which eventually settled down into the recognized minuscules or small letters of the middle ages and modern times. The development of these modifications is apparent from the first; but it was in the Byzantine period especially that the changes became more marked and more rapid. All the minuscule forms, as we know them in medieval literature, had been practically evolved by the end of the 5th century, and in the course of the next two hundred years those forms became more and more confirmed. In the large formal cursive writing of the documents of the 6th and 7th centuries we can pick out the minuscule alphabet in the rough. It only needed to be cast in a calligraphic mould to become the book-hand minuscule, the later development of which we have now to trace. This calligraphic mould seems to have been found in the imperial chancery, from whence issued documents written in a fine round minuscule hand on an ample scale, as appears from one or two rare surviving examples attributed to the 8th and 9th centuries (see the facsimile of an imperial letter, dated variously A.D. 756 or 839, in Wattenbach, Script. graec. specim., pls. xiv., xv., and in Omont, Facs. des plus anc. MSS. grecs. pls. xxvi., xxvii.; and Brit. Mus. papyrus xxxii.). The fine hand only needed to be reduced in scale to become the calligraphic minuscule book-hand of the vellum MSS.
Thus, then, in the 9th century, the minuscule book-hand came into general use for literature, and, with the finely prepared vellum of the time ready to receive it, it assumed under the pens of expert calligraphers the requisite cast, upright, regular and symmetrical, which renders it in its earliest stages one of the most beautiful forms of writing ever created.
Greek MSS. written in minuscules have been classed as follow: (1) codices vetustissimi, of the 9th century and to the middle of the 10th century; (2) vetusti, from the middle of the 10th to the middle of the 13th century; (3) recentiores, from the middle of the 13th century to the fall of Constantinople, 1453; (4) novelli, all after that date.
Of dated minuscule MSS. there is a not inconsiderable number scattered among the different libraries of Europe. Gardthausen (Gr. Pal. 344 seq.) gives a list of some thousand, ending at A.D. 1500. But, as might be expected, the majority belong to the later classes.[1] Of the 9th century there are not ten which actually bear dates and of these all but one belong to the latter half of the century. In the 10th century, however, the number rises to nearly fifty, in the 11th to more than a hundred.
In the period of codices vetustissimi the minuscule hand is distinguished by its simplicity and purity. The period has been well described as the classic age of minuscules. The letters are symmetrically formed; the writing is compact and upright, or has even a slight tendency to slope to the left. In a word, the beauty of this class of minuscule writing is unsurpassed. But in addition to these general characteristics there are special distinctions which belong to it. The minuscule character is maintained intact, without intrusion of larger or uncial-formed letters. With its cessation as the ordinary literary hand the uncial character had not died out. We have seen that it was still used for liturgical books. It likewise continued to survive in a modified or half-uncial form for scholia, rubrics, titles, and special purposes—as, for example, in the Bodleian Euclid (fig. 16)—in minuscule written MSS. of the 9th and 10th centuries. These uses of the older character sufficed to keep it in remembrance, and it is therefore not a matter for surprise that some of its forms should reappear and commingle with the simple minuscule. This afterwards actually took place. But in the period now under consideration, when the minuscule had been cast into a new mould, and was, so to say, in the full vigour of youth, extraneous forms were rigorously excluded.
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| Fig. 16.—Euclid (Oxford), A.D. 888. | ||||||
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The breathings also of this class are rectangular, in unison with the careful and deliberate character of the writing; and there is but slight, if any, separation of the words. In addition, as far as has hitherto been observed, the letters run above, or stand upon, the ruled lines, and do not depend from them as at a later period. The exact time at which this latter mechanical change took place cannot be named; like other changes it would naturally establish itself by usage. But at least in the middle of the 10th century it seems to have been in use. In the Bodleian MS. of Basil’s homilies of 953 A.D. (Pal. Soc. pl. 82) the new method is followed; and if we are to accept the date of the 9th century ascribed to a MS. in the Ambrosian Library at Milan (Wattenb., Script. gr. specim., tab. 17), in which the ruled lines run above the writing, the practice was yet earlier. Certain scribal peculiarities, however, about the MS. make us hesitate to place it so early. In the Laurentian Herodotus (W and V., Exempla, tab. 31), which belongs to the 10th century, sometimes the one, sometimes the other system is followed in different parts of the volume; and the same peculiarity happens in the MS. of Gregory of Nazianzus of A.D. 972 in the British Museum (Pal. Soc. pl. 25; Exempla, tab. 7). The second half of the 10th century therefore appears to be a period of transition in this respect.
The earliest dated example of codices vetustissimi is the copy of the Gospels belonging to Bishop Uspensky, written in the year 835. A facsimile is given by Gardthausen (Beiträge) and repeated in the Exempla (tab. 1). Better specimens have been photographed from the Oxford Euclid of A.D. 888 (Pal. Soc. pls. 65, 66; Exempla, tab. 2) from a MS. of Saints’ Lives at Paris of A.D. 890 (Omont, Facs. des MSS. gr. datés, pl. 1), and from the Oxford Plato (fig. 17) of A.D. 895 (Pal. Soc. pl. 81; Exempla, tab. 3). Sabas (Specim. Palaeograph.), has also given two facsimiles from MSS. of 880 and 899.
Of dated examples of the first half of the 10th century about a dozen facsimiles are available.
After the middle of the 10th century we enter on the period of the codices vetusti, in which the writing becomes gradually
- ↑ In Omont’s Facs. des MSS. grecs datés de la Bibl. Nat. will be found a useful list of upwards of 300 facsimiles of dated Greek MSS. (including uncials).
