Sturz (2): Byzantine-Papyrus Readings Luke

Here again are examples from Sturz' List 1, (cont.)

Distinctively Byzantine - Papyrus Alignments (Byz Text-type p. 145 fwd):

Luke:

6:28  καταρωμενους υμιν P75 EHLSUVΔΘΛ pm Just (Or) Κ ς
6:39  δε   P45 [P75] APΓΔΛΠ unc7 pl co go sy-p Κ ς 
9:30  μωσης   P45 AEGHMPSUVΓΛ λ pm (Κ) ς
10:21  τω πνευματι  P45 AEGHMSUVWΓΔΛ φ pl f g bo-pt Cl Bas Cyr   Κ ς
10:39  του ιησου P45 P75(-του)  AB3C2PWΓΔΘΛΠ unc9 λ φ pl b sy-ptxt Bas Κ ς
11:12  η και εαν  P45 AWXΓΔΘΛΠ  unc9   pl Κ ς (ΑΘΛ pc αν)
11:12   αιτηση  P45 EFGMSUVWXΠ  φ pm Κ ς
11:33  το φεγγος  P45 ALWΓΔΛΠ unc8 28 33 pm Κ ς
11:50  εκχυνομενον  P75 HKMSVXΓΘΛ λ pl  Κ ς
12:5   εξουσιαν εχοντα   P45 EGHMSUVΓΔΛ pm eth Tert  Κ ς
12:21  εαυτω  P75  AQXΓΔΘΛΠ λ  unc9 pl Κ ς
12:22  ψυχη υμων  P45 XΓΔΛΠ unc8 φ pl a e g2 vg-ed sy-c sa bo eth Cl Ath Κ ς
12:23  η ψυχη  P45 AEGHKQUVWΓΔΛΠ pl a f ff2 i q g-l vg sy-ptxt  Κ ς
12:30  επιζητει  P45 AQWΓΔΘΛΠ unc8 λ pl Bas Ath Κ ς
12:31  την βασιλειαν του θεου  P45 AD2QWXΓΔΘΛΠ 070 unc8 λ φ pl d it-pl vg sy-c Cl Mcion  Κ ς
13:2    οτι τοιαυτα  P75 AWXΓΔΘΛΠ 070 unc8 λ (φ) pm it vg Chr  Κ ς
13:19  δενδρον μεγα  P45 AWXΓΔΘΛΠ unc9 λ φ pl c f q sy-p eth  Κ ς
13:28  οψησθε  P75 AB2LRWΓΔΛΠ  070 unc8 pl it vg Ir  Κ ς [WH]
14:3    ει εξεστιν  P45  AWXΔΛΠ unc8 λ φ pl it-pl vg (sa) sy-c  Κ ς
14:23  ο οικος μου P45 PWΓΔΛ unc8  λ φ pl lat Bas  Κ ς
14:34  εαν δε  P75  ARWΓΔΛΠ unc8 pl e ff2 i vg-ed co sy-p eth arm  Κ ς
15:21  υοις σου  P75 ALPQRWΓΔΘΛΠ unc7 λ φ  pl it (vg) go co sy-h arm Aug  Κ ς
15:22  την στολην  P75 D2EGHK2MRSUVXΓΔΛ  pl Ps Chr Dam   Κ ς
23:53  εθηκεν αυτο  P75 ALPWXΓΔΘΛΠ unc8 pl c  Κ ς
24:47  αρξαμενον  P75 AC3FHKMUVWΓΔ* ΛΠ λ φ pm (a c e l) (sy-sp) arm  Κ ς

Uncial Talk (5) - Greek Script: Ullman

The following is from B. L. Ullman, Ancient Writing and Its Influence (1932):

"Chapter VI: The Development of Greek Script

...

The papyrus finds of Egypt have furnished us with material for a study of Greek writing from the 4th cent. B.C. to the 8th cent. A.D.  Essentially there are two styles -- the literary book-hand and the cursive hand of everyday use.  These interact on each other from time to time.   The book-hand starts out with a character very similar to that of the inscriptions, as may be seen from the 4th cent. MS of Timotheus.   In the 3rd century, as a result no doubt of cursive influence, it becomes Uncial, i.e., some fo the letters become rounded.

First Σ becomes C; next E becomes e, and Ω becomes ω.  Soon after we find Z for  I ,  and α for A, and this eventually becomes a.  At the beginning of our era M has become U, the typical later Uncial form.   Under obvious cursive influence the three strokes of Ξ becomes ξ.  Thus we see a gradually developing uncial script from the 3rd century B.C. to the 2nd century A.D.

In the 2nd and 3rd centuries we find side by side with the broad Uncial a sloping, compressed Uncial, much as today we find vertical and slanting forms of writing side by side. 

In the meantime there arose a cursive hand, used for business purposes, in which letters were written together instead of separately.  This was at times written quite as carefully as the book-hand, just as our cursive hand also has its regularized type form, called "script".  The details of its evolution are of no interest to us here.  It is sufficient to point out that the changes in the the book-hand were due to its influence.  We can definitely say, for example, that the round alpha came into the book-hand from the cursive, for it is found two centuries earlier in cursive than in the book-hand.  Similarly with other letters.

It seems to be true that the chief borrowings from cursive came at two periods, one about 300 B.C., when Alexandria became the most important city of the Greek world, and the other nearly 300 years later, when the Romans took over Egypt.

It is natural that new political situations should affect the style of writing; history shows many such examples. 

To the earlier of these two periods we owe the forms ε C ω;  to the latter, a U ξ.   It is also worth noting that not all cursive forms affected the book-hand, but those which did generally required a century or two to succeed.  It is not impossible that Roman writing had an influence on both cursive and book-hands in the earlier period as it surely did in the later.

The earliest parchment MSS that have survived date from the 3rd or 4th century A.D.   They are written essentially in the Uncial characters of the papyrus scrolls.  But the new material led to a differentiation in that it permitted the shading of letters to a much greater extent.   It is true that some papyri show shading, but this probably is due to imitation of writing on parchment.  The ambrosian Homer of the 3rd or 4th century is thought to be our earliest example of a parchment book.   Other MSS of the 4th cent. are the Vatican and Sinai Bibles; the Codex Alexandrinus is attributed to the following century. 

Codex B (Vat. 1209)

Compressed, Sloping Uncial Script: 

The handsome, broad Uncial, with its square and round letters, continued to be used until about the 6th century, and was contemporary with its Roman counterpart.  But the sloping, compressed Uncial found in the papyri was also used on parchment, though at first it was less common.  The reason is obvious: it is a time and space-saving script, and in the earlier centuries, at least in Egypt, parchment was still the more expensive material and was used only when saving of time and space was not a consideration.  The most important early MS in sloping Uncials is the Washington (Freer Codex W) MS of the Gospels, which is thought to have been written in the 4th century.   This style of writing eventually became the dominant type.    It developed as its chief characteristic very heavy lines contrasted with fine ones and teneded to become pointed, like the Gothic style of Roman writing.   Upright forms with the same characteristics are also found.   This type, which became common in the 9th century, is called Slavonic Uncial because it formed the basis for the alphabet used in the Slavic languages.  After that the Uncial became more and more artificial.   It lasted in an upright form until about the 12th century. 

Codex W

 

The Minuscule Hand:

With the 9th century we come to a crossroads in the history of Greek writing.   The main road of Uncial goes on, but its traffic is that of the Slavic alphabet.   The Greek traffic is diverted to a road that before crossing the main road was little known but now becomes the main highway for the Greek alphabet.   That road, known as the cursive before it crosses the other highway, is the minuscule. 

It is only necessary to examine the highly artificial Uncial writing of the 10th or 11th century to see that something was bound to happen.   Writing such as this could not last.  It is not surprising therefore that in the 9th century a minuscule style of writing based on the old cursive came into use as a formal book-hand.

This style of writing, called "old minuscule", is at its best in the 9th and 10th centuries.  Though the letters are connected, there are no extreme ligatures; many of them involve the letter sigma.   The letters are well rounded.  In shape they are in general similar to modern Greek minuscules, except beta, which is similar to our u;  zeta, which  is at first like our 3, later has the Uncial Z form; eta, which is like our h; kappa which looks like our li without a dot; nu, which is round at the bottom like a mu without the last stroke.; pi, which has the form ω. 

 The script may be compared in general with the Caroline minuscules of the Roman alphabet in the 9th and 10th centuries, to which it possibly owes its inspiration.   The 9th century is noteworthy also because the use of accents and breathings becomes general, in both Uncial and minuscule manuscripts. 

[insert Vat. Gr 190]

 

Later Minuscule Styles:

In the following centuries we find what is called the "middle minuscule", whose chiefe characteristic is the use of the Uncial formst of many letters, especially beta, eta, and kappa.  We are on the way to a welding of Uncial and minuscule scripts.   At times it seems as if  the result might e a cursive Uncial.   In fact Uncial forms of every letter can be found in one or another MS of this period, but they are joined together in the cursive manner.   Ligatures and abbreviations become more numerous. 

[plate V Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS 639, 12 cent. Gosp.]

From the 13th century on we have preserved to us a number of more carelessly written MSS, filled with ligatures and abbreviations.  In this respect the script recalls the contemporary Gothic of Western Europe, though in appearance they are quite unalike.  SOme letters have many shapes in the same MSS; most have at least two.   It was a period of formlessness and carelessness, produced or at least assisted by political turmoil.  Furthermore, the introduction of paper, the new cheap writing material, was responsible for a lesser degree of care in writing.  

[Vat. Gr 144 1439 A.D.]

 With the reawakening of interest in Greek in 15th cent. Italy, Greek scholars and scribes came to Italy, especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1453.   Naturally they  brought with them the undesirable writing then current.

It was this unfortunate time that printing began, and the early Greek books printed in Italy preserve all the numerous ligatures and other peculiarities of this writing.   In the course of centuries the printed forms gradually became simplified under the influence of the Roman script, but it was not until the 19th century that all ligatures disappeared.    Even so the present printed form of Greek is less beautiful and less legible than Roman type.   As Rutherford said: 

"Nothing could well be imagined less likely to call up ideas of art or beauty than a modern page of printed Greek."  

Very recently there have been suggestions in Greece that the Greek alphabet be abandoned in favor of the Roman for the printed and written forms of modern Greek.  Unfortunately it is unlikely by reason of national pride that this movement will make much headway. "

(Ullman, p. 46-56)

mr.scrivener

Uncial Talk (4) - MS Illumination, C. Nordenfalk

Croatian Initials

Again we continue the series with a short quotation from another great book on the history of manuscripts, Book Illumination, Early Middle Ages, by Carl Nordenfalk, Curator, Nat. Mus. Sweden (1957, 1988, 1995). 

"...But though the art of the illuminated MS was typically medieval, it was not, like the stained-glass window for example, invented in the Middl Ages.  Long before this, in ancient Egypt, the papyrus rolls...were supplied with colored illustrations.  And though the Greeks of the Hellenistic Age did not give illumination a leading place... there can be no doubt that illustrations often figured in their books.  ...as guide-marks..these were all the more useful since in early MSS columns were not numbered [or indexed].

During the 2nd - 4th centuries A.D. the papyrus scroll was gradually supplanted by the vellum codex, which furnished new support for illustrations...for portraits of authors, ...inserted in the columns of text, usually without frames or backgrounds. 

The oldest extant miniatures in painted frames date without exception to the 4th century A.D. ...when classical culture was beginning to decline.  the 'illusionist' technique of antique painting...perpetuating the art of previous centuries...was particularly striking during the Carolingian renaissance.   The Roman Calendar for 354 A.D. is a case in point; nothing of it survives, but we have 16th-17th cent. Carolingian copies...reproduced so faithfully that one is hardly conscious of the intervention of the Carolingian copyist. 

We learn from Egyptian papyrus that in book rolls of the Hellenistic epoch it was already customary to frame tabular texts with ornamental colonnettes. 

A richly decorated Bible was used as a model by painters at Tours in the 9th century.  Four large-size pictures, to fo rthe Old and two for the New Testament, sponsor an interpretation of the doctrine of Redemption, intended to counterblast the Manichean heresy, possibly a 'proclamation' of Pope Leo the Great (440-461 A.D.).   Classical details such as heads and gestures, ...perspective, link up with earlier MSS.  ...however, ...the tendency to bring figures forward, and diversity is replaced by smaller selection of types...the beginnings of a new pictorial language that, after gaining ground in the late 5th century, attained its culmination in the reign of Justinian.  

...

During the 6th century book production passed more and more into the hands of the Church and the copyists were chiefly employed on making Gospel Books.  But the time was not yet ripe for a final break with the art tradition of antiquity.  Judging by surviving works, the only decorative elements of the Gospel Books in 4 / 5 cases were limited to simple linear ornaments around the colophons.  only the Canon Tables or "concordances", invented by Eusebius of Caesarea (d. 340 A.D.) formed a real exception, having decorative arches.  This type of decoration soon became standardized, and Jerome employed them in the West for his new Latin Vulgate.

That no examples earlier than the 6th century are extant can be explained by the pillaging of Italian churches in the intervening period.  ...

During the period before political upheavals and pariticularly the Arab invasions of the 7th century had almost extinguished the art of the illustrated book in the Latin countries around the Mediteranean basin, an important atelier somewhere in southwest Europe produced a MS whose full-page pictures excel those in all others of this period, the so-called Ashburnham Pentateuch. " (selections abbrev., p. 1-24)

mr.scrivener

Uncial Talk (3) - M. Brown

We continue our survey of Latin Capitals and Greek/Latin Uncials with some more observations of value from Michelle Brown's book, A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (U of T press, 1993);

Rustic Capitals (cont. from our previous post)

Vat. Lat. 3867, Vergilius Romanus:  (c. 4th  century  A.D.)

"Script:  An elegant example of Rustic Capitals, written with great fluidity of the pen and with a tendency towards calligraphic flourishes (seen in the treatment of the heads of F and X and the descent of L below the line).  Bows are minimal.  Note the curved head of the secnond minim of H, another scribal feature.  Curvaceous feet are systematically applied to minims.
Punctuation is by the medial punctus (centre-dot) which imposes word division, rather than the more usual scriptura continua, in the manner of monumental epigraphic inscriptions.
The Column Picture is an increasingly popular element of de luxe manuscripts from the 4th century onwards.  The naturalistic impressionism of antique painting is beginning to give way to a more linear and stylized approach."

Two important points noted above are:

a)  Spaces between words were already commonplace in Latin and Greek writing by the 4th century.  Thus the presence of spaces cannot be used to indicate later dates for manuscripts.

b)  Even such fancy adornments as full column-width pictures embedded into the text were also popular features from the 4th century onwards.  

The significance of this is that manuscript decoration and production was already quite varied and sophisticated even in the 4th century, and so this feature cannot be used to assign later dates to manuscripts with such features, nor can their absence be used to date manuscripts to the 4th century or earlier.

Especially important is that any discussion of decoration and/or pictography or the lack of it must be done in the light of the controversies re: icons, which occurred after this period.  Many manuscripts containing "idolatrous" icons and pictoral decoration were destroyed during the "Iconoclasm" battles, which would have provided a more complete picture of scribal practices for earlier periods.


mr.scrivener

Uncial Talk (2) - Brown & Lovett

Here are some short excerpts from "The Historical Source Book for Scribes" (U of T, 1999), by Michelle P. Brown, Patricia Lovett.  They give us a clear picture of the difference between simple Capital Letters, and the Uncial Script.


Capital Scripts (p. 21)

"Capital letters are the oldest to have been used in the Roman or Latin alphabet, which is still used in the West.  They evolved via Phoenician, Greek and Etruscan alphabets and were used by Romans from the 1st century BC onwards.  Square Capitals were probably the earliest, their angular form being governed by the chisel which worked them for monumental inscriptions (scriptura monumentalis).

... The effort required to write Square Capitals with a pen meant that they were rarely used for complete texts, although some rare examples of ostentatious early codices written in Square Capitals survive, notably a 4th century Italian copy of Virgil's Georgics (The Codex Augusteus, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. LAt. 3256).  However, ...they were frequently used in display scripts designed, with decorated initials, to mark important divisions in the text."

Virgil in Square Capitals (4th c.) 
Click to Enlarge: Backbutton to return

Uncials (p. 39)

Uncial is the most formal book script to have enjoyed any major degree of use.  Its rounded forms, which evolved during the 2nd to 4th centuries AD, were suited to the action of the pen and represented a fusion of capital letter forms and rapidly written variants with fewer strokes, which had become a script in themselves - Old Roman Cursive.   The term "Uncial" is attributed, apocryphally, to St. Jerome who is said to have criticised this de luxe script for being so ostentatious that it could appear to be an 'inch high' (uncia is the Latin for "inch"). 

Uncial was commissioned of professional scribes by the publishers of the later Roman Empire and was used for sacred texts by the bishops and clerics who filled the vacuum left by the civil service at its demise, from the 5th century onwards.   Its most influential patron was Pope Gregory the Great, instigator of missionary work amongst the 'barbarian' heirs to Roman rule in northern Europe.  Around 600 A.D. Gregory encouraged the clerical scribes of Rome to pen elegant uncial copies of Scripture and of works by the Church Fathers (including Gregory's own influential compositions).  These were designed to equip the expanding Church and to enhance the authority of this religion of the Word through the beauty and imposing character of its books.  

The symbols of faith, the Cross and the fish, began to adorn major letters and therein the process of integrating text and image through the decorated initial had its genesis, embodying Gregory's tenet that in images 'the illiterate read'.  This pronouncement was a major step in determining the future of book arts in the West.  

Idolatry was a significant preoccupation.  The Islamic response [post 622 A.D.] was to espouse sacred calligraphy and to prohibit figural representations in sacred contexts.   Byzantium was to be plunged into a lengthy period of iconoclasm during which images were actively destroyed, as they were around a millenium later during the English Civil War.  

In the West, Gregory's approval of the didactic use of images and decoration set the tone (although the question was sometimes reopened, especially in the Carolingian orbit).   This allowed the 'barbarian' peoples of northern Europe to lavish their strong sense of ornament and style, with all its accompanying connotations of power and prestige, on to the new medium of the book.   Only from such a heady brew of 'barbaric' and Mediterranean influences could manuscripts as stunning and innovative as the Book of Durrow, the Lindisfairne Gospels and the Book of Kells have been distilled.   

Book of Durrow 

Lindisfairne Gospels

Book of Kells: "Half-Uncial" Script

Book of Kells

The direct influence of the cautiously decorated uncial books produced in Gregory's Rome can be detected in the already more ambitious initials of the earliest Insular manuscripts to survive from Britain and Ireland, such as the Cathach  (or 'battler' of of Columcille (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy).  This is now thought to date around 630, but was for centuries thought to be the Psalter that St. Columba plagarised, earning the famous legal judgment of "to every cow its calf and to every book its copy" - the first statement of copyright.   The conflict which ensued led Columba to leave his beloved Ireland in voluntary exile for Christ (peregrinatio) and to establish a monastic family (paruchia) which was to comprise such important foundations as Iona and Lindisfairne.  Book production remained a core function of all such centres.  ...

Cathach of Columba

Cathach of Columba

Uncial continued in use in the cathedral cities and monasteries of early medieval Italy and Merovingian Gaul, often developing regional variant letter-forms, such as the Merovingian hooked 't' which can be so pronounced that it resembles an 'a'. "...

mr.scrivener

The Sudden Conquest of the Minuscule Script c. 780-820 A.D.

Upensky Gospels MS: GA-461 (c. 820) - Sample page

I am borrowing this great excerpt on the Upensky Gospels to open the discussion:

"The earliest surviving dated example of Greek minuscule is the Uspensky Gospels manuscript. The codex was probably written in Constantinople by monk named Nicholas. Later it belonged to the monastery of Great Lavra of St. Sabas, known in Arabic as Mar Saba, a Greek Orthodox monastery overlooking the Kidron Valley in the West Bank, east of Bethlehem in Palestine. In 1844 bishop Porphiryj Uspienski took it along with other manuscripts, including a portion of the Codex Coislinianus, to Russia. The Uspensky Gospels MS is preserved in the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg (Gr. 219. 213. 101)." ( - from Cave Paintings to the Internet)

Further enlightenment on the changeover comes from Reynolds & Wilson:

"As the script of this book (GA 461) is by no means immature or primitive, the adoption of this style should probably be dated at least half a century earlier. The place of its origin is not known for certain, but there are some grounds for thinking that it was popularized by members of the important Stoudios monastery in the capital [Constantinople], which a was a well-known centre of book production at a later date. Gradually the uncial hand was abandoned, and by the end of the 10th century it was no longer used except for a few special liturgical books. The new script facilitated the copying of texts by making more economical use of parchment . . . .

"The transliteration of old uncial books into the new script was energetically undertaken by the scholars of the 9th century. It is largely owing to their activity that Greek literature can still be read, for the text of almost all authors depends ultimately on one or more books written in minuscule script at this date or shortly after, from which all later copies are derived; the quantity of literature that is available to us from the papyri and the uncial manuscripts is only a small proportion of the whole. In the process of transliteration mistakes were sometimes made, especially by misreading letters that were similar in the uncial script and therefore easily confused. 

 

The Changeover Process:

At many points in Greek texts there are errors common to all the extant manuscripts which appear to be derived from the same source, and this source is usually taken to be a ninth-century copy. 

 

A further assumption generally made is that one minuscule copy was made from one uncial copy. The uncial book was then discarded, and the minuscule book became the source of all further copies. The theory has a certain a priori justification on two grounds, since the task of transliteration from a script that was becoming less and less familiar would not be willingly undertaken more often than was absolutely necessary, and there is at least some likelihod that after the destruction of the previous centuries many texts survived in one copy only. But these arguments do not amount to proof, and there are cases which can only be explained by more complicated hypotheses" (Reynolds & Wilson, Scribes and Scholars 3rd ed ([1991] 59-60).

mr.scrivener

Uncial Talk (1) Greek and Latin - M. Drogin

In TC, there is often a lot of vague talk and inaccurate use of various terms regarding scripts and styles.   We seek to expand our knowledge of the background with a series here on the various scripts, starting with Uncials.   Sometimes we see "Uncial" and "majuscule" used interchangeably, but I think we can gain precision by consulting those historical investigators of calligraphy.   For openers, I will quote a nice introduction by Marc Drogin, from his book, Medieval Calligraphy (1980):

 Uncial Script - 3rd to 6th Century

Brief History

"In the 1st and 2nd centuries the scribes of Europe wrote most formally in Roman Square Capital and less formally and more conveniently in Roman Rustic.

ROMAN RUSTIC CAPITALS   ca. 4th century

From the square Roman capitals (preserved on the plinth of Trajan’s Column (114 AD),
developed the freer-form and slightly more condensed Rustic capitals. 

Their subject matter was almost wholly non-Christian.  In Rome, Greek manuscripts predominated, since Latin had yet to become the official Church language.  With the demand for church-related manuscripts, it was probable that the primary source was the intellectual community of North Africa, where Latin was the literary language of the Church and the population knew both Latin and Greek.  The scribes there sought an appropriately dramatic Latin script suitable to the importance of their new religion, but some changes had to be made so such a script could be produced more rapidly to fill the demand for manuscripts.  Since the pen more easily and rapidly produces curves than straight lines and angles, scribes began adopting some of the round strokes which were a hallmark of the formal Greek script since the 3rd century B.C.

This adaptation resulted late in the 2nd or early in the 3rd century in a script as majuscule and important as Roman Rustic, but now with its letters wide and curved, reminiscent of the finest Greek formation.  When the Church in Rome adopted Latin as its official language and sought to represent itself in a script both different from the pagan literature's Roman Rustic but familiar to people accustomed to that script or accustomed to Greek-Uncial, a formal but quick script was the obvious  choice.  By the 4th century it had become an established script for manuscripts of importance, and by the end of the 5th century it had eclipsed the pagan scripts and reigned supreme."  (Drogin, p. 93)

Latin Cod. Bobbiensis (k) (c. 400 A.D.)

Latin Uncial  -  circa 5th century

Click to Enlarge

MS GA-087 - Θ^c (6th cent) - Click to Enlarge

mr.scrivener