No exact system was followed in ruling the guiding lines on the pages of the codex. In the case of papyri it was enough to mark with the pencil the vertical marginal lines to bound the text, if indeed even this was considered needfulRuling.(see above); the fibres of the papyrus were a sufficient guide for the lines of writing. On vellum it became necessary to rule lines to keep the writing even. These lines were at first drawn with a blunt point, almost invariably on the hair (or outer) side of the skin, and strongly enough to be in relief on the flesh (or inner) side. Marginal lines were drawn to bound the text laterally; but the ruled lines which guided the writing were not infrequently drawn right across the sheet. Each sheet should be ruled separately; but two or more sheets were often laid and ruled together, the lines being drawn with so much force that the lower sheets also received the impressions. In rare instances lines are found ruled on both sides of the leaf, as in some parts of the Codex Alexandrinus. In this same MS. and in other early codices the ruling was not always drawn for every line of writing, but was occasionally spaced so that the writing ran between the ruled lines as well as on them. The lines were evenly spaced by means of guiding pricks made at measured intervals with a compass or rotary instrument down the margins; in some early MSS. these pricks run down the middle of the page. Ruling with the plummet or lead-point is found in the 11th century and came into ordinary use in the 12th century; coloured inks,e.g.red and violet, were used for ornamental ruling in the 15th century.
Mechanical Arrangement of Writing in MSS.—It has already been stated above that in the papyrus rolls the text was written in columns. They stood with convenient intervals between them and with fair margins at top andColumns.bottom. The length of the lines was to some extent governed by the nature of the text. If it was a poetical work, the metrical line was naturally the line of the column, unless, as sometimes was the case, the verse was written continuously as prose. For prose works a narrow column was preferred. It is noticeable that the columns in papyri have a tendency to lean to the right instead of being perpendicular—an indication that it was not the practice to rule marginal lines. In codices the columnar arrangement was also largely followed, and the number of columns in a page was commonly two. There are instances, however, of a larger number. The Codex Sinaiticus of the Bible has four columns to the page; and the Codex Vaticanus, three columns. And the tricolumnar arrangement occurs every now and then in later MSS.
In both Greek and Latin literary MSS. of early date the writing runs on continuously without separation of words. This practice however, may be regarded as rather artificial, as in papyri written in non-literary hands and in LatinText without separation of Words.deeds also, contemporary with these early literary MSS., there is a tendency to separation. In a text thus continuously written occasional ambiguities necessarily occurred, and then a dot or apostrophe might be inserted between words to aid the reader. Following the system of separation of words which appears in ancient inscriptions, wherein the several words are marked off by single, double, or treble dots or points, the words of the fragmentary poem on the battle of Actium found at Herculaneum are separated by single points, probably to facilitate reading aloud; monosyllables or short prepositions and conjunctions, however, being left unseparated from the words immediately following them—a system which is found in practice at a later time. But such marks of separation are not to be confounded with similar marks of punctuation whereby sentences are marked off and the sense of the text is made clear. Throughout the career of the uncial codices down to the 6th century, continuity of text was maintained. In the 7th century there is some evidence of separation of words, but without system. In early Latin minuscule codices partial separation in an uncertain and hesitating manner went on to the time of the Carolingian reform. In early Irish and English MSS., however, separation is more consistently practised. In the 9th and 10th centuries long words tend to separation, but short words, prepositions and conjunctions, still cling to the following word. It was not till the 11th century that the smaller words at length stood apart, and systematic separation of words was established. In Greek minuscule codices of the 10th century a certain degree of separation takes place; yet a large proportion of words remain linked together, and they are even incorrectly divided. Indeed a correct system of distinct separation of words in Greek texts was never thoroughly established even as late as the 15th century.
But while distinction of words was disregarded in early literary texts, distinction of important pauses in the sense was recognized from the first. The papyrus of thePersaeof Timotheus of Miletus, the oldest MS. of a GreekParagraphs.classic in existence, of the end of the 4th centuryB.C., is written in independent paragraphs. This is a natural system, the simplicity of which has caused it to be the system of moderntimes. But, in addition, the Greek scribe also separated paragraphs by inserting a short horizontal stroke,παράγραφος, between them at the commencement of the lines of writing. It should be noted that this stroke indicated the close of a passage, and therefore belonged to the paragraph just concluded, and did not stand for an initial sign for the new paragraph which followed. The dividing stroke was also used to mark off the different speeches of a play. Besides the stroke, a wedge-shaped sign or tick might be used. But to make every paragraph stand distinctly by itself would have entailed a certain loss of space. If the concluding line were short, there would remain a long space unfilled. Therefore, when this occurred, it became customary to leave only a short space blank to mark the termination of the paragraph, and then to proceed with the new paragraph in the same line, theπαράγραφοςat the same time preventing possible ambiguity. The next step was to project the first letter of the first full line of the new paragraph slightly into the margin, as a still further distinction; and lastly to enlarge it. The enlargement of the letter gave it so much prominence that the dividing stroke could then be dispensed with, and in this form the new paragraph was henceforward indicated in Greek MSS., it being immaterial whether the enlarged letter was the initial or a medial letter of a word. As early as the 5th century there is evidence that theπαράγραφοςwas losing its meaning with the scribes, for in the Codex Alexandrinus of the Bible it is not infrequently found in anomalous positions, particularly above the initial letters of different books, as if it were a mere ornament.
In Latin MSS. there was no such fixed system of marking off paragraphs as that just described. A new paragraph began with a new line, or a brief space in a line separated the conclusion of a paragraph from the beginning of the next one. It was only by the ultimate introduction of large letters, as the initial letters of the several sentences and paragraphs, and by the establishment of a system of punctuation, in the modern sense of the word, that a complete arrangement of the text was possible into sentences and paragraphs in accordance with its sense.
From the earliest times an elementary system of punctuation by points is found in papyri. Thus the papyrus of theCurse of Artemisia, at Vienna, which is at least as early as the 3rd centuryB.C., and in one or two otherPunctuation.ancient examples, a double point, resembling the modern colon, separates sentences. But more commonly a single point, placed high in the line of writing, is employed. This single punctuation was reduced to a system by the Alexandrian grammarians, its invention being ascribed to Aristophanes of Byzantium, 260B.C.The point placed high on a level with the top of the letters had the value of a full-stop; in the middle of the line of writing, of a comma; and low down on the line, of a semicolon. But these distinctions were not observed in the MSS. In the early vellum codices both the high and the middle point are found. In medieval MSS. other signs, coming nearer to our modern system, make their appearance. In Latin MSS. by the 7th century the high point has the value of the modern comma, the semicolon appears with its present value, and a point emphasized with additional signs, such as a second point or point and dash, marks a full-stop. In the Carolingian period the comma appears, as well as the inverted semicolon holding a position between our comma and semicolon.
Another detail which required the scribe’s attention in writing his text was the division of the last word in a line, when for want of room a portion of it had to be carried over into the next line. It was preferable, indeed, toDivision of Words at the End of a Line.avoid such division, and in the papyri as well as in the codices letters might be reduced in size and huddled together at the end of the line with this view. In the early codices too it was a common practice to link letters together in monogrammatic form, such as the common verbal terminationsur,unt, and thus save space. But when the division of a word was necessary, it was subject to certain rules. According to the Greek practice the division was ordinarily made after a vowel, asἔτυ|χον(even monosyllables might be so treated, asοὐ|κ). But in the case of double consonants the division fell after the first of them, asἵπ|πος: and, when the first of two or more consonants was a liquid or nasal the division followed it, asὀφθαλ|μός,μαν|θάνω. When a word was compounded with a preposition, the division usually followed the preposition, asπρος|εῖπον, but not infrequently the normal practice of dividing after a vowel prevailed, asπρο|σεῖπον. In Latin the true syllabic division was followed, but occasionally the scribes adopted the Greek system and divided after a vowel.
A modification of the practice of writing the text continuously was allowed in the case of certain works. Rhetorical texts, such as the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and the text of the Bible, might be broken up intoColometry.short clauses or sense-lines, apparently with the view of assisting reading aloud. Instances of MSS. so written are still extant. This system, to which the name of “colometry” has been given, is the arrangement bycolaandcommatareferred to by St Jerome in his preface to Isaiah. It will be found more fully explained under the heading ofStichometry; where also is described the mechanical computation of the length of a text by measured lines, for the purposeofcalculating the pay of the scribe.
The title of a MS., both in roll-form and in codex-form, was frequently written at the end of the text, but even at an early date it stood in some instances at the beginning; and the latter practice in course of time prevailed,Titles and Colophons.although even in the 15th century the title was sometimes reserved for the close of the MS. In this latter position it might stand alone or be accompanied by other particulars concerning the MS., such as the length of the work, the date of writing, the name of the scribe, &c., all combined in a final paragraph called the colophon. For distinction, title and colophon might be written in red, as might also the first few lines of the text. This method of rubrication was a very early practice, appearing even in ancient Egyptian papyri. Such rubrics and titles and colophons were at first written in the same character as the text; afterwards, when the admixture of different kinds of writing was allowed, capitals and uncials were used at discretion. Running titles or head-lines are found in some of the earliest Latin MSS. in the same characters as the text, but of a small size. Quotations were usually indicatedQuotations.by ticks or arrow-heads in the margin, serving the purpose of the modern inverted commas. Sometimes the quoted words were arranged as a sub-paragraph or indented passage. In commentaries of later date, the quotations from the work commented upon were often written in a different style from the text of the commentary itself.
Accentuation, &c.—Accentuation was not systematically applied to Greek MSS. before the 7th century, but even in the literary papyri it appears occasionally. In the latter instances accents were applied specially to assist the reader, and they seem to have been used more frequently in texts which may have presented greater difficulties than usual. For example, they are found fairly plentifully in the papyrus of Bacchylides of the 1st centuryB.C.In the less well-written papyri they are fewer in number; and papyri written in non-literary hands are practically devoid of them. Accents have been frequently added to the ancient texts of Homer, as in the Harris and Bankes papyri, but apparently long after the date of the writing. They were not used in the early uncial MSS. Breathings also appear occasionally in the papyri. The rough and the smooth breathings are found in the form of the two halves of the H () in the Bacchylides papyrus; in other papyri they are in rectangular form, never rounded like an apostrophe; in fact rounded breathings do not come into general use until the 12th century. Other signs resembling accents are used occasionally in Greek MSS. For example, a short accent or horizontal stroke was employed to indicate a single-letter word, and an apostrophe was sometimes used to separate words in order to prevent ambiguity and was placed after words ending in κ, χ, ξ, ρ, and after proper names not having a Greek termination.Accents were seldom employed by Latin scribes. In early Irish and English MSS., in particular, an acute accent is occasionally found over a monosyllabic word or one consisting of a single letter. In the 9th and 10th centuries a curious occasional practice obtained among the correctors of the texts of expressing the aspirate by the Greek half-eta symbol, instead of writing the letterhin the ordinary way—perhaps only an affectation.Corrections.—For obliteration or removing pen strokes from the surface of the material the sponge was used in ancient times. While the writing was still fresh, the scribe could easily wash off the ink by this means; and for a fragile material, such as papyrus, he could well use no other. On vellum he might use sponge or knife. But after a MS. had left his hands it would undergo revision at the hands of a corrector, who had to deal with the text in a different manner. He could no longer conveniently apply the sponge. On hard material he might still use the knife to erase letters or words or sentences. But he could also use his pen for such purposes. Thus we find that a very early system of indicating erasure was the placing of dots or minute strokes above the letters to be thus “expunged.” The same marks were also (and generally at later periods) placed under the letters; in rare instances they stood inside them. It need scarcely be said that letters were also struck out with strokes of the pen or altered into others, and that letters and words were interlined. A long sentence, however, which could not be admitted between the lines, was entered in the margin, and its place in the text indicated by corresponding reference marks, such ashd.,hs.=hic deest,hoc supraorhic scribas, &c.Abbreviations and Contractions.—The practice of shortening words in writing has played an important part in the history of the ancient and the medieval manuscript. Two reasons have disposed men to follow this practice: firstly, the desire to avoid the labour of writing over and over again words or portions of words of common occurrence which can be readily understood in a shortened form as when written in full; and, secondly, the necessity of saving space at a time when it was an object to make the most of the writing material to hand. To meet the former requirement, a simple and limited method alone was needed; to satisfy the second, a more elaborate system was necessary. The most natural method of reducing the length of a word is to suppress as much as possible of its termination, consistently with intelligibility, that is, by simpleabbreviation. But if space of any appreciable value is to be saved in a page of writing, a system is necessary for eliminating letters from the body of the word as well as curtailing the termination, that is, a system ofcontractionas well as abbreviation; and, in addition, the employment of arbitrary signs, analogous to shorthand, will serve still further to condense the text. An elaborate system of contraction of this nature was naturally only fully developed after very long practice. Both in Greek and in Latin MSS. from the 9th to the 15th century such a system was in full force.Different kinds of literature were, according to their nature, more or less abbreviated and contracted. From early times such curtailment was more freely employed in works written in technical language, such as works on law or grammar or mathematics, wherein particular words are more liable to repetition, than in MSS. of general literature. The oldest system of abbreviation is that in which a single letter (nearly always the initial letter) or at most two or three letters represent the whole word. This system we know was in common use among both Greek and Latin writers, and ancient inscriptions afford plentiful examples. It is well adapted for the brief expression of the common words and phrases in works of a technical nature (as for example such a phrase as C D E R N E =cujus de ea re notio est); but for general literature it is of little use, and practically has been restricted to express proper names and numerals.When abbreviations were employed only with the view of speed in writing, it is obvious that they would occur more frequently in the ephemeral documents of daily life than in carefully written literary works intended for the book-market.Abbreviation in Greek MSS.Hence they are not to be found in Greek papyri of the latter class. On the other hand in literary papyri written in non-literary script they naturally occur just as they would in contemporary common documents. As early as the 3rd and 2nd centuriesB.C.the ordinary method of abbreviation was to omit the termination or latter portion of the word and to mark the omission by a short horizontal stroke or dash; or the letter which immediately preceded the omission was written above the line as a key to the reading, asτελforτέλος. Such a system obviously might be extended indefinitely at the discretion of the writer. But in addition, at quite an early period, symbols and monogrammatic forms for particular words must have been developed, for they are found in common use in cursive papyri. A notable instance of their employment in a full degree occurs in the papyrus of Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens, of the 1st century.Like the well-written literary papyri, the early vellum uncial codices of the Bible, being inscribed with calligraphic formality, avoided in principle the use of abbreviations. But by the 4th to the 6th century, the period when they were chiefly produced, the contraction or abbreviation of certain words and terminations had, it seems, become so fixed by usage that the contracted forms were adopted in the texts. They areΘC=θεός,ΙC=ίησοῦς,ΧC=χριστός,ΠΝΑ=πνεῦμα,CΗΡ=σωτήρ,ΚC=κύριος,CΤΡΟC=σταυρός,ΠΗΡ=πατήρ,ΜΗΡ=μήτηρ,ΥC=υἱός,ΑΝΟC=ἄνθρωπος,ΟΥΝΟC=οὐρανός,Κ=καί,Τ=ται,Μ=μου,μοι, &c. Final Ν, especially at the end of a line, was dropped, and its place occupied by the horizontal stroke, asΤΟ.But while this limited system was used in biblical, and also in liturgical MSS., in profane literature a greater licence was recognized. For example, in a fragment of a mathematical work at Milan, of the 7th century, we find instances of abbreviation by dropping terminations, just as in the earlier papyri, and, in addition, contracted particles and prepositions are numerous. Technical works, in fact, inherited the system instituted in the early papyri written in non-literary or cursive hands; and this system, undergoing continual development, had a larger scope when the cursive writing was cast into a literary form and became the literary minuscule script of the middle ages. From the 9th century onwards a fully developed system of abbreviation and contraction was practised in Greek MSS., comprising the early system of the papyri, the special contractions of the early biblical MSS., and also a large number of special symbols, derived in great measure from tachygraphical signs.In the early Greek minuscule MSS. contractions are not very frequent in the texts; but in the marginal glosses, where it was an object to save space, they are found in great numbers as early as the 10th century. The MS. of Nonnus, ofA.D.972, in the British Museum (Wattenb. and Von Vels.,Exempla, 7) is an instance of a text contracted to a degree that almost amounts to tachygraphy. In the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries texts were fully contracted; and as the writing became more cursive contraction-marks were more carelessly applied, until, in the 15th century, they degenerated into mere flourishes.As far back as material is available for comparison, it appears that abbreviations and contractions in Latin MSS. followed the same lines as those in Greek MSS. We have no very early papyri written in Latin as we have in Greek to show us whatAbbreviations in Latin MSS.the practice of Roman writers was in the 3rd and 2nd and early 1st centuriesB.C.; but there can be little doubt that in that remote time there was followed in Latin writing a system of abbreviation similar to that in Greek, that is, by curtailment of terminations, and that in ephemeral documents written in cursive characters such abbreviation was allowed more freely than in carefully written literary works. The early system of representing words by their initial letters has already been referred to. It was in common use, as we know, in the inscriptions on coins and monuments, and to some extent in the texts of Roman writers. But the ambiguity which must have always accompanied such a system of single-letter abbreviations, orsigla, naturally induced an improvement by expressing a word by two or more of its letters. Hence was developed the more regular syllabic system of the Romans, by which the leading letters of the several syllables were written, as EG =ergo, HR=heres, ST=satis. At a later time Christian writers secured greater exactness by expressing the final letter of a contracted word, asds=deus,dō=deo,scs=sanctus. Further, certain marks and signs, many derived from shorthand symbols, came into use to indicate inflections and terminations; or the terminating letter or a leading letter to indicate the termination might be written above the line, as Qo=quo, Vm=verum, No=noster, Si=sint. This practice became capable of greater development later on. Among the special signs arec=est,=vel,n=non, p’ =pre,=per,=pro,9= terminationus. The letterqwith distinctive strokes applied in different positions represented the often recurring relative and other short words, asquod,quia.In Latin Biblical uncial MSS. the same restrictions on abbreviations were exercised as in the Greek. The sacred names and titlesDS=deus,DMS, DNS =dominus, SCS =sanctus,SPS=spiritus, and others appear in the oldest codices. The contracted terminations Q· =que, B· =bus, and the omission of finalm, or (more rarely) finaln, are common to all Latin MSS. of the earliest period. There is a peculiarity about the contracted form of our Saviour’s name that it is always written by the Latin scribes in letters imitating the Greek IHC, XPC,ihc,xpc, andihs,xps.The full development of the medieval system of abbreviation and contraction was effected at the time when the Carolingian schools were compelling the reform of the handwriting of western Europe. Then came a freer practice of abbreviation by suppression of terminations and the latter portions of words, the omission of which was indicated by the ordinary signs, the horizontal or oblique stroke or the apostrophe; then came also a freer practice of contraction by omitting letters and syllables from the middle as well as the end of words, asoio,omnino,prb,presbyter; and then from the practice of writing above the line a leading letter of an omitted syllable, as inta=intra, tr=tur, conventional signs, with special significations, were also gradually developed. Such growths are well illustrated in the change undergone by the semicolon, which was attached to the end of a word to indicate the omission of the termination, as b; =bus, q; =que, deb; =debet, and which in course of time became converted into a z, a form which survives in our ordinary abbreviation, viz. (i.e.vi; =videlicet). The different forms of contraction were common to all the nations of western Europe. The Spanish scribes, however, attached different values to certain of them. For example, in Visigothic MSS.,qm, which elsewhere representedquoniam, may be read asquum; and, which elsewhere =pro, is here =per. Nor must the use of arbitrary symbols for special words be forgotten. These are generally adaptations of the shorthand signs known as Tironian notes. Such are=autem, ÷ =est,=ejus,=enim,=et, v̇ and u̇ =ut, which were employed particularly in early MSS. of English and Irish origin.By the 11th century the system of Latin contractions had been reduced to exact rules; and from this time onwards it was universally practised. It reached its culminating point in the 13th century, the period of increasing demand for MSS., when it became more than ever necessary to economize space. After this date the exact formation of the signs of contractions was less strictly observed, and the system deteriorated together with the decline of handwriting. In conclusion, it may be noticed that in MSS. written in the vernacular tongues contractions are more rarely used than in Latin texts. A system suited to the inflexions and terminations of this language could not be readily adapted to other languages so different in grammatical structure.Palimpsests, &c.—Palimpsest MSS., that is, MSS. written upon material from which older writing has been previously removed by washing or scraping, are described in a separate article (Palimpsest). The ornamentation of MSS. is fully dealt with under the headingsIlluminated MSS., andMiniatures.Writing Implements.—In conclusion, a few words may be added respecting the writing implements employed in the production of MSS. The reed,κάλαμος,calamus, was adapted for tracing characters either on papyrus or vellum. By the ancient Egyptians, and also probably by the early Greek scribes in Egypt, it was used with a soft brush-like point, rather as a paint-brush than as a pen. The Greek and Roman scribes used the reed cut to a point and slit like the quill-pen; and it survived as a writing implement into the middle ages. For scratching letters on the waxen tablet the sharp pointed bodkin,στῦλος,γραφεῖον,stilus,graphium, was necessary, made of iron, bronze, ivory, or other suitable material, with a knobbed or flattened butt-end wherewith corrections could be made by smoothening the wax surface (hencevertere stilum, to correct). Although there is no very early record of the use of quills as pens, it is obvious that, well adapted as they are for the purpose and to be had everywhere, they must have been in request even in ancient times as they afterwards were in the middle ages. Bronze pens, fashioned exactly on the model of the quill-pen, that is in form of a tube ending in a slit nib (sometimes even with a nib at each end), of late Roman manufacture, are still in existence. A score of them are to be found scattered among public and private museums. The ruler for guiding ruled lines was theκανών,canon,regula; the pencil was theμόλυβδος,plumbum, the plummet; the pricker for marking the spacing out of the ruled lines was theδιαβάτης,circinus,punctorium; the pen-knife,γλύφανον,σμίλη,scalprum; the erasing-knife,rasorium,novacula.Inks.—Inks of various colours were employed from early times. The ink of the early papyri is a deep glossy black; in the Byzantine period it deteriorates. In the middle ages black ink is generally of excellent quality; it tends to deteriorate from the 14th century. But its quality varies in different countries at different periods. Red ink, besides being used for titles and colophons, also served for contrast, as, for example, in glosses. In the Carolingian period entire MSS. were occasionally written in red ink. Other coloured inks—green, violet and yellow—are also found, at an early date. Gold and silver writing fluids were used in the texts of the ancient purple vellum MSS., and writing in gold was reintroduced under Charlemagne for codices of ordinary white vellum. It was introduced into English MSS. in the 10th century.Authorities.—H. Geraud,Essai sur les livres dans l’antiquité(1840); E. Egger,Histoire du livre depuis ses origines jusqu’à nos jours(1880); T. Birt,Das antike Buchwesen(1882) andDie Buchrolle in der Kunst(1907); W. Wattenbach,Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter(1896); K. Dziatzko,Untersuchungen über ausgewählte Kapitel des antiken Buchwesens(1900); J. W. Clark,The Care of Books(1901); W. Schubart,Das Buch bei den Griechen und Römern(1907); and generally the authorities quoted in the articlePalaeography. See alsoTextual Criticism.
Accentuation, &c.—Accentuation was not systematically applied to Greek MSS. before the 7th century, but even in the literary papyri it appears occasionally. In the latter instances accents were applied specially to assist the reader, and they seem to have been used more frequently in texts which may have presented greater difficulties than usual. For example, they are found fairly plentifully in the papyrus of Bacchylides of the 1st centuryB.C.In the less well-written papyri they are fewer in number; and papyri written in non-literary hands are practically devoid of them. Accents have been frequently added to the ancient texts of Homer, as in the Harris and Bankes papyri, but apparently long after the date of the writing. They were not used in the early uncial MSS. Breathings also appear occasionally in the papyri. The rough and the smooth breathings are found in the form of the two halves of the H () in the Bacchylides papyrus; in other papyri they are in rectangular form, never rounded like an apostrophe; in fact rounded breathings do not come into general use until the 12th century. Other signs resembling accents are used occasionally in Greek MSS. For example, a short accent or horizontal stroke was employed to indicate a single-letter word, and an apostrophe was sometimes used to separate words in order to prevent ambiguity and was placed after words ending in κ, χ, ξ, ρ, and after proper names not having a Greek termination.
Accents were seldom employed by Latin scribes. In early Irish and English MSS., in particular, an acute accent is occasionally found over a monosyllabic word or one consisting of a single letter. In the 9th and 10th centuries a curious occasional practice obtained among the correctors of the texts of expressing the aspirate by the Greek half-eta symbol, instead of writing the letterhin the ordinary way—perhaps only an affectation.
Corrections.—For obliteration or removing pen strokes from the surface of the material the sponge was used in ancient times. While the writing was still fresh, the scribe could easily wash off the ink by this means; and for a fragile material, such as papyrus, he could well use no other. On vellum he might use sponge or knife. But after a MS. had left his hands it would undergo revision at the hands of a corrector, who had to deal with the text in a different manner. He could no longer conveniently apply the sponge. On hard material he might still use the knife to erase letters or words or sentences. But he could also use his pen for such purposes. Thus we find that a very early system of indicating erasure was the placing of dots or minute strokes above the letters to be thus “expunged.” The same marks were also (and generally at later periods) placed under the letters; in rare instances they stood inside them. It need scarcely be said that letters were also struck out with strokes of the pen or altered into others, and that letters and words were interlined. A long sentence, however, which could not be admitted between the lines, was entered in the margin, and its place in the text indicated by corresponding reference marks, such ashd.,hs.=hic deest,hoc supraorhic scribas, &c.
Abbreviations and Contractions.—The practice of shortening words in writing has played an important part in the history of the ancient and the medieval manuscript. Two reasons have disposed men to follow this practice: firstly, the desire to avoid the labour of writing over and over again words or portions of words of common occurrence which can be readily understood in a shortened form as when written in full; and, secondly, the necessity of saving space at a time when it was an object to make the most of the writing material to hand. To meet the former requirement, a simple and limited method alone was needed; to satisfy the second, a more elaborate system was necessary. The most natural method of reducing the length of a word is to suppress as much as possible of its termination, consistently with intelligibility, that is, by simpleabbreviation. But if space of any appreciable value is to be saved in a page of writing, a system is necessary for eliminating letters from the body of the word as well as curtailing the termination, that is, a system ofcontractionas well as abbreviation; and, in addition, the employment of arbitrary signs, analogous to shorthand, will serve still further to condense the text. An elaborate system of contraction of this nature was naturally only fully developed after very long practice. Both in Greek and in Latin MSS. from the 9th to the 15th century such a system was in full force.
Different kinds of literature were, according to their nature, more or less abbreviated and contracted. From early times such curtailment was more freely employed in works written in technical language, such as works on law or grammar or mathematics, wherein particular words are more liable to repetition, than in MSS. of general literature. The oldest system of abbreviation is that in which a single letter (nearly always the initial letter) or at most two or three letters represent the whole word. This system we know was in common use among both Greek and Latin writers, and ancient inscriptions afford plentiful examples. It is well adapted for the brief expression of the common words and phrases in works of a technical nature (as for example such a phrase as C D E R N E =cujus de ea re notio est); but for general literature it is of little use, and practically has been restricted to express proper names and numerals.
When abbreviations were employed only with the view of speed in writing, it is obvious that they would occur more frequently in the ephemeral documents of daily life than in carefully written literary works intended for the book-market.Abbreviation in Greek MSS.Hence they are not to be found in Greek papyri of the latter class. On the other hand in literary papyri written in non-literary script they naturally occur just as they would in contemporary common documents. As early as the 3rd and 2nd centuriesB.C.the ordinary method of abbreviation was to omit the termination or latter portion of the word and to mark the omission by a short horizontal stroke or dash; or the letter which immediately preceded the omission was written above the line as a key to the reading, asτελforτέλος. Such a system obviously might be extended indefinitely at the discretion of the writer. But in addition, at quite an early period, symbols and monogrammatic forms for particular words must have been developed, for they are found in common use in cursive papyri. A notable instance of their employment in a full degree occurs in the papyrus of Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens, of the 1st century.
Like the well-written literary papyri, the early vellum uncial codices of the Bible, being inscribed with calligraphic formality, avoided in principle the use of abbreviations. But by the 4th to the 6th century, the period when they were chiefly produced, the contraction or abbreviation of certain words and terminations had, it seems, become so fixed by usage that the contracted forms were adopted in the texts. They areΘC=θεός,ΙC=ίησοῦς,ΧC=χριστός,ΠΝΑ=πνεῦμα,CΗΡ=σωτήρ,ΚC=κύριος,CΤΡΟC=σταυρός,ΠΗΡ=πατήρ,ΜΗΡ=μήτηρ,ΥC=υἱός,ΑΝΟC=ἄνθρωπος,ΟΥΝΟC=οὐρανός,Κ=καί,Τ=ται,Μ=μου,μοι, &c. Final Ν, especially at the end of a line, was dropped, and its place occupied by the horizontal stroke, asΤΟ.
But while this limited system was used in biblical, and also in liturgical MSS., in profane literature a greater licence was recognized. For example, in a fragment of a mathematical work at Milan, of the 7th century, we find instances of abbreviation by dropping terminations, just as in the earlier papyri, and, in addition, contracted particles and prepositions are numerous. Technical works, in fact, inherited the system instituted in the early papyri written in non-literary or cursive hands; and this system, undergoing continual development, had a larger scope when the cursive writing was cast into a literary form and became the literary minuscule script of the middle ages. From the 9th century onwards a fully developed system of abbreviation and contraction was practised in Greek MSS., comprising the early system of the papyri, the special contractions of the early biblical MSS., and also a large number of special symbols, derived in great measure from tachygraphical signs.
In the early Greek minuscule MSS. contractions are not very frequent in the texts; but in the marginal glosses, where it was an object to save space, they are found in great numbers as early as the 10th century. The MS. of Nonnus, ofA.D.972, in the British Museum (Wattenb. and Von Vels.,Exempla, 7) is an instance of a text contracted to a degree that almost amounts to tachygraphy. In the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries texts were fully contracted; and as the writing became more cursive contraction-marks were more carelessly applied, until, in the 15th century, they degenerated into mere flourishes.
As far back as material is available for comparison, it appears that abbreviations and contractions in Latin MSS. followed the same lines as those in Greek MSS. We have no very early papyri written in Latin as we have in Greek to show us whatAbbreviations in Latin MSS.the practice of Roman writers was in the 3rd and 2nd and early 1st centuriesB.C.; but there can be little doubt that in that remote time there was followed in Latin writing a system of abbreviation similar to that in Greek, that is, by curtailment of terminations, and that in ephemeral documents written in cursive characters such abbreviation was allowed more freely than in carefully written literary works. The early system of representing words by their initial letters has already been referred to. It was in common use, as we know, in the inscriptions on coins and monuments, and to some extent in the texts of Roman writers. But the ambiguity which must have always accompanied such a system of single-letter abbreviations, orsigla, naturally induced an improvement by expressing a word by two or more of its letters. Hence was developed the more regular syllabic system of the Romans, by which the leading letters of the several syllables were written, as EG =ergo, HR=heres, ST=satis. At a later time Christian writers secured greater exactness by expressing the final letter of a contracted word, asds=deus,dō=deo,scs=sanctus. Further, certain marks and signs, many derived from shorthand symbols, came into use to indicate inflections and terminations; or the terminating letter or a leading letter to indicate the termination might be written above the line, as Qo=quo, Vm=verum, No=noster, Si=sint. This practice became capable of greater development later on. Among the special signs arec=est,=vel,n=non, p’ =pre,=per,=pro,9= terminationus. The letterqwith distinctive strokes applied in different positions represented the often recurring relative and other short words, asquod,quia.
In Latin Biblical uncial MSS. the same restrictions on abbreviations were exercised as in the Greek. The sacred names and titlesDS=deus,DMS, DNS =dominus, SCS =sanctus,SPS=spiritus, and others appear in the oldest codices. The contracted terminations Q· =que, B· =bus, and the omission of finalm, or (more rarely) finaln, are common to all Latin MSS. of the earliest period. There is a peculiarity about the contracted form of our Saviour’s name that it is always written by the Latin scribes in letters imitating the Greek IHC, XPC,ihc,xpc, andihs,xps.
The full development of the medieval system of abbreviation and contraction was effected at the time when the Carolingian schools were compelling the reform of the handwriting of western Europe. Then came a freer practice of abbreviation by suppression of terminations and the latter portions of words, the omission of which was indicated by the ordinary signs, the horizontal or oblique stroke or the apostrophe; then came also a freer practice of contraction by omitting letters and syllables from the middle as well as the end of words, asoio,omnino,prb,presbyter; and then from the practice of writing above the line a leading letter of an omitted syllable, as inta=intra, tr=tur, conventional signs, with special significations, were also gradually developed. Such growths are well illustrated in the change undergone by the semicolon, which was attached to the end of a word to indicate the omission of the termination, as b; =bus, q; =que, deb; =debet, and which in course of time became converted into a z, a form which survives in our ordinary abbreviation, viz. (i.e.vi; =videlicet). The different forms of contraction were common to all the nations of western Europe. The Spanish scribes, however, attached different values to certain of them. For example, in Visigothic MSS.,qm, which elsewhere representedquoniam, may be read asquum; and, which elsewhere =pro, is here =per. Nor must the use of arbitrary symbols for special words be forgotten. These are generally adaptations of the shorthand signs known as Tironian notes. Such are=autem, ÷ =est,=ejus,=enim,=et, v̇ and u̇ =ut, which were employed particularly in early MSS. of English and Irish origin.
By the 11th century the system of Latin contractions had been reduced to exact rules; and from this time onwards it was universally practised. It reached its culminating point in the 13th century, the period of increasing demand for MSS., when it became more than ever necessary to economize space. After this date the exact formation of the signs of contractions was less strictly observed, and the system deteriorated together with the decline of handwriting. In conclusion, it may be noticed that in MSS. written in the vernacular tongues contractions are more rarely used than in Latin texts. A system suited to the inflexions and terminations of this language could not be readily adapted to other languages so different in grammatical structure.
Palimpsests, &c.—Palimpsest MSS., that is, MSS. written upon material from which older writing has been previously removed by washing or scraping, are described in a separate article (Palimpsest). The ornamentation of MSS. is fully dealt with under the headingsIlluminated MSS., andMiniatures.
Writing Implements.—In conclusion, a few words may be added respecting the writing implements employed in the production of MSS. The reed,κάλαμος,calamus, was adapted for tracing characters either on papyrus or vellum. By the ancient Egyptians, and also probably by the early Greek scribes in Egypt, it was used with a soft brush-like point, rather as a paint-brush than as a pen. The Greek and Roman scribes used the reed cut to a point and slit like the quill-pen; and it survived as a writing implement into the middle ages. For scratching letters on the waxen tablet the sharp pointed bodkin,στῦλος,γραφεῖον,stilus,graphium, was necessary, made of iron, bronze, ivory, or other suitable material, with a knobbed or flattened butt-end wherewith corrections could be made by smoothening the wax surface (hencevertere stilum, to correct). Although there is no very early record of the use of quills as pens, it is obvious that, well adapted as they are for the purpose and to be had everywhere, they must have been in request even in ancient times as they afterwards were in the middle ages. Bronze pens, fashioned exactly on the model of the quill-pen, that is in form of a tube ending in a slit nib (sometimes even with a nib at each end), of late Roman manufacture, are still in existence. A score of them are to be found scattered among public and private museums. The ruler for guiding ruled lines was theκανών,canon,regula; the pencil was theμόλυβδος,plumbum, the plummet; the pricker for marking the spacing out of the ruled lines was theδιαβάτης,circinus,punctorium; the pen-knife,γλύφανον,σμίλη,scalprum; the erasing-knife,rasorium,novacula.
Inks.—Inks of various colours were employed from early times. The ink of the early papyri is a deep glossy black; in the Byzantine period it deteriorates. In the middle ages black ink is generally of excellent quality; it tends to deteriorate from the 14th century. But its quality varies in different countries at different periods. Red ink, besides being used for titles and colophons, also served for contrast, as, for example, in glosses. In the Carolingian period entire MSS. were occasionally written in red ink. Other coloured inks—green, violet and yellow—are also found, at an early date. Gold and silver writing fluids were used in the texts of the ancient purple vellum MSS., and writing in gold was reintroduced under Charlemagne for codices of ordinary white vellum. It was introduced into English MSS. in the 10th century.
Authorities.—H. Geraud,Essai sur les livres dans l’antiquité(1840); E. Egger,Histoire du livre depuis ses origines jusqu’à nos jours(1880); T. Birt,Das antike Buchwesen(1882) andDie Buchrolle in der Kunst(1907); W. Wattenbach,Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter(1896); K. Dziatzko,Untersuchungen über ausgewählte Kapitel des antiken Buchwesens(1900); J. W. Clark,The Care of Books(1901); W. Schubart,Das Buch bei den Griechen und Römern(1907); and generally the authorities quoted in the articlePalaeography. See alsoTextual Criticism.
(E. M. T.)
MANUTIUS,the Latin name of an Italian family (Mannucci, Manuzio), famous in the history of printing as organizers of the Aldine press.
1.Aldus Manutius(1450-1515). Teobaldo Mannucci, better known as Aldo Manuzio, the founder of the Aldine press, was born in 1450 at Sermoneta in the Papal States. He received a scholar’s training, studying Latin at Rome under Gasparino da Verona, and Greek at Ferrara under Guarino da Verona. In 1482 he went to reside at Mirandola with his old friend and fellow-student, the illustrious Giovanni Pico. There he stayed two years, prosecuting his studies in Greek literature. Before Pico removed to Florence, he procured for Aldo the post of tutor to his nephews Alberto and Lionello Pio, princes of Carpi. Alberto Pio supplied Aldo with funds for starting his printing press, and gave him lands at Carpi. It was Aldo’s ambition to secure the literature of Greece from further accident by committing its chief masterpieces to type. Before his time four Italian towns had won the honours of Greek publications: Milan, with the grammar of Lascaris, Aesop, Theocritus, a Greek Psalter, and Isocrates, between 1476 and 1493; Venice, with theErotemalaof Chrysoloras in 1484; Vicenza, with reprints of Lascaris’s grammar and theErolemata, in 1488 and 1490; Florence, with Alopa’s Homer, in 1488. Of these works, only three, the Milanese Theocritus and Isocrates and the Florentine Homer, were classics. Aldo selected Venice as the most appropriate station for his labours. He settled there in 1490, and soon afterwards gave to the world editions of theHero and Leanderof Musaeus, theGaleomyomachia, and the Greek Psalter. These have no date; but they are the earliest tracts issued from his press, and are called by him “Precursors of the Greek Library.”
At Venice Aldo gathered an army of Greek scholars and compositors around him. His trade was carried on by Greeks, and Greek was the language of his household. Instructions to type-setters and binders were given in Greek. The prefaces to his editions were written in Greek. Greeks from Crete collated MSS., read proofs, and gave models of calligraphy for casts of Greek type. Not counting the craftsmen employed in merely manual labour, Aldo entertained as many as thirty of these Greek assistants in his family. His own industry and energy were unremitting. In 1495 he issued the first volume of his Aristotle. Four more volumes completed the work in 1497-1498. Nine comedies of Aristophanes appeared in 1498. Thucydides, Sophocles and Herodotus followed in 1502; Xenophon’sHellenicsand Euripides in 1503; Demosthenes in 1504. The troubles of Italy, which pressed heavily on Venice at this epoch, suspended Aldo’s labours for a while. But in 1508 he resumed his series with an edition of the minor Greek orators; and in 1509 appeared the lesser works of Plutarch. Then came another stoppage. The league of Cambray had driven Venice back to her lagoons, and all the forces of the republic were concentrated on a struggle to the death with the allied powers of Europe. In 1513 Aldo reappeared with Plato, which he dedicated to Leo X. in a preface eloquently and earnestly comparing the miseries of warfare and the woes of Italy with the sublime and tranquil objects of the student’s life. Pindar, Hesychius, and Athenaeus followed in 1514.
These complete the list of Aldo’s prime services to Greek literature. But it may be well in this place to observe that his successors continued his work by giving Pausanias, Strabo, Aeschylus, Galen, Hippocrates and Longinus to the world in first editions. Omission has been made of Aldo’s reprints, in order that the attention of the reader might be concentrated on his labours in editing Greek classics from MSS. Other presses were at work in Italy; and, as the classics issued from Florence, Rome or Milan, Aldo took them up, bestowing in each case fresh industry upon the collation of codices and the correction of texts. Nor was the Aldine press idle in regard to Latin and Italian classics. TheAsolaniof Bembo, the collected writings of Poliziano, theHypnerotomachia Poliphili, Dante’sDivine Comedy, Petrarch’s poems, a collection of early Latin poets of the Christian era, the letters of the younger Pliny, the poems of Pontanus, Sannazzaro’sArcadia, Quintilian, Valerius Maximus, and theAdagiaof Erasmus were printed, either in first editions, or with a beauty of type and paper never reached before, between the years 1495 and 1514. For these Italian and Latin editions Aldo had the elegant type struck which bears his name. It is said to have been copied from Petrarch’s handwriting, and was cast under the direction of Francesco da Bologna, who has been identified by Panizzi with Francia the painter.
Aldo’s enthusiasm for Greek literature was not confined to the printing-room. Whatever the students of this century may think of his scholarship, they must allow that only vast erudition and thorough familiarity with the Greek language could have enabled him to accomplish what he did. In his own days Aldo’s learning won the hearty acknowledgment of ripe scholars. To his fellow workers he was uniformly generous, free from jealousy, and prodigal of praise. While aiming at that excellence of typography which renders his editions the treasures of the book-collector, he strove at the same time to make them cheap. We may perhaps roughly estimate thecurrent price of his pocket series of Greek, Latin and Italian classics, begun in 1501, at 2s. per volume of our present money. The five volumes of the Aristotle cost about £8. His great undertaking was carried on under continual difficulties, arising from strikes among his workmen, the piracies of rivals, and the interruptions of war. When he died, bequeathing Greek literature as an inalienable possession to the world, he was a poor man. In order to promote Greek studies, Aldo founded an academy of Hellenists in 1500 under the title of the New Academy. Its rules were written in Greek. Its members were obliged to speak Greek. Their names were Hellenized, and their official titles were Greek. The biographies of all the famous men who were enrolled in this academy must be sought in the pages of Didot’sAlde Manuce. It is enough here to mention that they included Erasmus and the English Linacre.
In 1499 Aldo married Maria, daughter of Andrea Torresano of Asola. Andrea had already bought the press established by Nicholas Jenson at Venice. Therefore Aldo’s marriage combined two important publishing firms. Henceforth the names Aldus and Asolanus were associated on the title pages of the Aldine publications; and after Aldo’s death in 1515, Andrea and his two sons carried on the business during the minority of Aldo’s children. The device of the dolphin and the anchor, and the mottofestina lente, which indicated quickness combined with firmness in the execution of a great scheme, were never wholly abandoned by the Aldines until the expiration of their firm in the third generation.
2.Paulus Manutius(1512-1574). By his marriage with Maria Torresano, Aldo had three sons, the youngest of whom, Paolo, was born in 1512. He had the misfortune to lose his father at the age of two. After this event his grandfather and two uncles, the three Asolani, carried on the Aldine press, while Paolo prosecuted his early studies at Venice. Excessive application hurt his health, which remained weak during the rest of his life. At the age of twenty-one he had acquired a solid reputation for scholarship and learning. In 1533 Paolo undertook the conduct of his father’s business, which had latterly been much neglected by his uncles. In the interregnum between Aldo’s death and Paolo’s succession (1514-1533) the Asolani continued to issue books, the best of which were Latin classics. But, though their publications count a large number of first editions, and some are works of considerable magnitude, they were not brought out with the scholarly perfection at which Aldo aimed. The Asolani attempted to perform the whole duties of editing, and to reserve all its honours for themselves, dispensing with the service of competent collaborators. The result was that some of their editions, especially their Aeschylus of 1518, are singularly bad. Paolo determined to restore the glories of the house, and in 1540 he separated from his uncles. The field of Greek literature having been well-nigh exhausted, he devoted himself principally to the Latin classics. He was a passionate Ciceronian, and perhaps his chief contributions to scholarship are the corrected editions of Cicero’s letters and orations, his own epistles in a Ciceronian style, and his Latin version of Demosthenes. Throughout his life he combined the occupations of a student and a printer, winning an even higher celebrity in the former field than his father had done. Four treatises from his pen on Roman antiquities deserve to be commemorated for their erudition no less than for the elegance of their Latinity. Several Italian cities contended for the possession of so rare a man; and he received tempting offers from the Spanish court. Yet his life was a long struggle with pecuniary difficulties. To prepare correct editions of the classics, and to print them in a splendid style, has always been a costly undertaking. And, though Paolo’s publications were highly esteemed, their sale was slow. In 1556 he received for a time external support from the Venetian Academy, founded by Federigo Badoaro. But Badoaro failed disgracefully in 1559, and the academy was extinct in 1562. Meanwhile Paolo had established his brother, Antonio, a man of good parts but indifferent conduct, in a printing office and book shop at Bologna. Antonio died in 1559, having been a source of trouble and expense to Paolo during the last four years of his life. Other pecuniary embarrassments arose from a contract for supplying fish to Venice, into which Paolo had somewhat strangely entered with the government. In 1561 pope Pius IV. invited him to Rome, offering him a yearly stipend of 500 ducats, and undertaking to establish and maintain his press there. The profits on publications were to be divided between Paolo Manuzio and the Apostolic camera. Paolo accepted the invitation, and spent the larger portion of his life, under three papacies, with varying fortunes, in the city of Rome. Ill-health, the commercial interests he had left behind at Venice, and the coldness shown him by pope Pius V., induced him at various times and for several reasons to leave Rome. As was natural, his editions after his removal to Rome were mostly Latin works of theology and Biblical or patristic literature.
Paolo married Caterina Odoni in 1546. She brought him three sons and one daughter. His eldest son, the younger Aldus, succeeded him in the management of the Venetian printing house when his father settled at Rome in 1561. Paolo had never been a strong man, and his health was overtaxed with studies and commercial worries. Yet he lived into his sixty-second year, and died at Rome in 1574.
3.Aldus Manutius,Junior(1547-1597). The younger Aldo born in the year after his father Paolo’s marriage, proved what is called an infant prodigy. When he was nine years old his name was placed upon the title page of the famousEleganze della lingua Toscana e Latina. TheEleganzewas probably a book made for his instruction and in his company by his father. In 1561, at the age of fourteen, he produced a work upon Latin spelling, calledOrthographiae ratio. During a visit to his father at Rome in the next year he was able to improve this treatise by the study of inscriptions, and in 1575 he completed his labours in the same field by the publication of anEpitome orthographiae. Whether Aldo was the sole composer of the work on spelling, in its first edition, may be doubted; but he appropriated the subject and made it his own. Probably his greatest service to scholarship is this analysis of the principles of orthography in Latin.
Aldo remained at Venice, studying literature and superintending the Aldine press. In 1572 he married Francesca Lucrezia daughter of Bartolommeo Giunta, and great-grandchild of the first Giunta, who founded the famous printing house in Venice. This was an alliance which augured well of the Giunta for the future of the Aldines, especially as Aldo had recently found time to publish a new revised edition of Velleius Paterculus. Two years later the death of his father at Rome placed Aldo at the head of the firm. In concert with the Giunta, he now edited an extensive collection of Italian letters, and in 1576 he published his commentary upon theArs poeticaof Horace. About the same time, that is to say, about the year 1576, he was appointed professor of literature to the Cancelleria at Venice. The Aldine press continued through this period to issue books, but none of signal merit; and in 1585 Aldo determined to quit his native city for Bologna, where he occupied the chair of eloquence for a few months. In 1587 he left Bologna for Pisa, and there, in his quality of professor, he made the curious mistake of printing Alberti’s comedyPhilodoxiusas a work of the classic Lepidus. Sixtus V. drew him in 1588 from Tuscany to Rome; and at Rome he hoped to make a permanent settlement as lecturer. But his public lessons were ill attended, and he soon fell back upon his old vocation of publisher under the patronage of a new pope, Clement VIII. In 1597 he died, leaving children, but none who cared or had capacity to carry on the Aldine press. Aldo himself, though a precocious student, a scholar of no mean ability, and a publisher of some distinction, was the least remarkable of the three men who gave books to the public under the old Aldine ensign. This does not of necessity mean that we should adopt Scaliger’s critique of the younger Aldo without reservation. Scaliger called him “a poverty-stricken talent, slow in operation; his work is very commonplace; he aped his father.” What is true in this remark lies partly in the fact that scholarship in Aldo’s days had flown beyondthe Alps, where a new growth of erudition, on a basis different from that of the Italian Renaissance, had begun.