Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

A catalogue of Western manuscripts and papyri at Cambridge University Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum and selected Cambridge colleges

Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O.1.5

Diktyon no.: Diktyon 11953

Contents

Introduction: This manuscript forms the third volume of a Byzantine grammatical collection divided into at least four volumes, of which the fourth survives as MS O.1.2. It was probably copied in the second quarter of the 14th century in Thessalonike, the second city of the Byzantine Empire. Its content has been identified as being derived directly or indirectly from a copy then owned by the Monastery of the Theotokos in that city. The bulk of this volume is occupied by the linguistic and historical lexicon of terms from the works of ten orators by Valerius Harpocration, an Alexandrian grammarian who probably worked in the 2nd century CE. It also contains a series of brief excerpts from Byzantine works which were themselves compilations of material from earlier authors: the 10th-century encyclopaedic lexicon known as the Souda, the compendium of excerpts from Plato's dialogues compiled by the late 13th-early 14th century scholar Maximos Planoudes, and the 9th-century lexicon of Patriarch Photios. The excerpt from the latter text was originally drawn from the lost work of Helladius Besantinus, itself a collection of extracts, so that by the time this content was included in the present collection it had been excerpted at least three times in succession by different compilers. The sequential relationship with MS O.1.2 is indicated by notes on the first folio of each identifying this as the third and that as the fourth volume, by the appearance of quire signatures from the same sequence in both manuscripts, and by the use of similar parchment strips in the binding. This volume contains the original Quires 17-24, while MS O.1.2 contains Quires 25-30. The implication of the single signature series is that these and the preceding two parts were supposed to form a single large manuscript. The question is complicated by the fact that the two manuscripts appear to have been copied by different scribes, while their modest ornament is also different in style. MS O.1.2 was copied by a single scribe, while one hand was responsible for almost all of this manuscript, but four other hands, perhaps scribes in training, were each given a few lines to copy on f. 52v. However, the fact that both manuscripts were made from paper bearing the same unusual watermark suggests that, although produced separately, they belong to the same context of production and may well have been part of the same project. The style of script of the notes identifying them as the third and fourth parts appears similar in date to the main text, sugesting that the four-part organisation occurred around the time of production or soon after. It is unclear, however, whether these notes were meant to identify the order of a series of separate volumes or to indicate in which order a series of originally separate entities were to be bound together (in which case they would presumably have been written before the quire signatures were added, as these would have rendered such numbering superfluous). It therefore remains uncertain whether they were originally intended to be part of one codex or if this was a plan developed at some point after they had been copied, and it is also unclear whether they were actually bound together and then separated or if the plan was abandoned after the signatures had been marked but before the binding actually occurred. Dr Christopher Wright

Language(s): Greek

1. ff. 1r-52v, line 4
Harpocration Harpocration, Valerius , Lexicon in decem oratores Atticos
Filiation: This manuscript has been identified by Keaney as sharing an exeplar with Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. gr. 871, and as the source for this text in Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana, MS F.24 and Venice, Biblioteca Naxionale Marciana, MS gr. 490.
Rubric: f. 1r Ἁρποκρατίων
Incipit: f. 1r Ἄβαρις κύριον· λοιμοῦ δέ φασι κατὰ πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκονομίην[sic] γεγονότος
Explicit: f. 52v καὶ ψίθυρος Ἀφροδίτη· καὶ Ἔρως ψίθυρος

TLG 1839.002

2. f. 52v, lines 5-9
Souda

Excerpts: entry for Ὑποκοριζόμενοι (Upsilon 517)

Incipit: f. 52v Ὑποκορίζόμενοι[sic], διασύροντες Ξενοφῶν φησὶν
Explicit: f. 52v οὕτως γὰρ ὑποκοριζόμενος ἐκάλει τοὺς στρατευσαμενους[sic]

TLG 9010.001

3. f. 52v, lines 10-15
Souda

Excerpt: entry for Τί ἐστὶ τὸ ἐν τοῖς Δεμοσθένους Φιλιππικοῖς (Tau 566)

Incipit: f. 52v Τί ἐστὶ τὸ ἐν τοῖς Δεμοσθένους Φιλιππικοῖς
Explicit: f. 52v ἐν ἀπορρήτω δὲ μετὰ τῆς βουλῆς ἔπραττον

TLG 9010.001

4. f. 52v, lines 16-17
Maximos Planoudes (c. 1260-c. 1310), E Platonis dialogis compendia

Excerpt: Symposium, section 112

Incipit: f. 52v ⟨Ὅ⟩τι λυγμὸς παύεταί τινι, ἀπνεύστι ἔχοντι πολὺν χρόνον
Explicit: f. 52v οἵω κινῆσαι ἂν τὴν ῥῖναν πτάραι[sic]

TLG 4146.032

5. f. 52v, lines 18-23
Souda

Excerpt: entry for Χρεών (Chi 461)

Incipit: f. 52v Χρεὼν, εἰμαρμένον τέλος ζωῆς
Explicit: f. 52v πλὴν τοῦ χρεὼν καὶ ἐμποδὼν

TLG 9010.001

6. ff. 53r-56v
Helladius Besantinus, Πραγματεία χρηστομαθειῶν Treatise of extracts

Excerpt from this lost collection, taken from the longer excerpt which survives as Codex 279 in Photios, Bibliotheca (ed. Immanuel Bekker (Berlin 1824-1825), p. 529b, line 31-p. 535a, line 30)

Filiation: Diller ('Photius' "Bibliotheca"', p. 395) identifies this copy as derived from [Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, MS gr. 451, and related to Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS theol. gr. 210. Isepy ('Towards a new text of Helladius', p. 207) identifies the copy of this text in Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. gr. 2222 as having been copied by the same scribe from the same exemplar, now lost.
Incipit: f. 53r Ὅτι Διονύσιος φησὶ μὴ λέγειν τοὺς Ἀττικιστὰς ὠνησάμην
Explicit: f. 56v αἰτίαν δὲ πρότερον ἔχοντα φόνου

TLG 4040.001

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: Western paper, folded in quarto. Watermark: L-shape ( 55 × 35 mm. ) in the gutter, similar to Piccard online 28595. This example is dated to 1335.
Extent: Codex: v + 56 + vii leaves. 206 × 147 mm.
Foliation: The manuscript is foliated with the numbers [i-v] + 1-56 + [vi-xii], in pencil, in Arabic numerals, recto, upper right.

Collation

The manuscript consists of 7 quires, all quaternia.

  • Quires 1-78 ff. 1-56

There are original quire signatures in Greek numerals, in brown ink, on the first folio of each quire, recto, lower centre. They begin from the number 18, and survive on all quires (ιηʹ-κδʹ). The following six quires are now MS O.1.2.

Condition

There is minor pest damage to the first few folios (ff. 1-7) and significant wear and tear to the edges of some folios. There is some water staining and areas of dirt.

Layout

A single column of 29-30 lines. 159 × 105 mm.

Hand(s)

ff. 1r-52v, line 4 and ff. 53r-56v were copied by Hand A in mixed minuscule script, slanting slightly to the right, in brown or black ink, with moderate variation in letter size. Gaps have often been left in the text of Harpocration, evidently corresponding to lacunas in the exemplar.

Syllabic abbreviations and superscript word endings appear throughout the line. Breathings are round and mute iota is absent or in a transitional position, below and to the right of the letter. There is decorative use of the double dot, and accentuation of all nomina sacra . Accents are sometimes joined to letters, breathings, abbreviations and nomina sacra strokes.

The sigma telikon and loop epsilon are present.

Punctuation used includes the lower, middle and upper points, lower comma and full stop.

Headings are in the same style in red or brown ink.

f. 52v, lines 5-9 were copied by Hand B, in a similar style to Hand A.

f. 52v, lines 10-15 were copied by Hand C, in a similar style to Hand A.

f. 52v, lines 16-17 were copied by Hand D, in a similar style to Hand A.

f. 52v, lines 18-23 were copied by Hand E, in a similar style to Hand A.

Decoration

The beginning of the text is preceded by a simple horizontal bar headpiece in red ink (f. 1r).

The text of Harpocration begins with an ornamented initial in red ink. The begnnings of texts and lexicon entries are marked by simple minor initials in red ink.

Additions

A hand using pale red ink has filled some lacunas left by the copyist and added a marginal note on ff. 2v-3r).

A note on f. r gives what is probably the word ‘τρίτον’, identifying this as the third part of the original compilation (a similar note appears in MS O.1.2).

A Latin note on f. [ii] recto identifies the brief excerpts added on f. 52v: ‘Ista in pagina ultima Harpocrationis, sunt e Suida. Nisi forte’; ‘ὅτι ὁ λυγμός’; ‘et cetera quae spectant ad Platonis locum in Symposio’.

A Latin heading has been added to f. 53r identifying the text as the work of Helladius via Photios.

The present classmark and the former classmarks C.39 and No. 170 are marked on f. [ii] recto.

Binding

17th-century full leather binding over couched-laminate boards, with plain pastedowns. There is decorative blind tooling on both boards. The name ‘Harpocration I’ is tooled in gold on the spine, and the classmark appears on patches.

211 × 155 × 21 mm.

Accompanying Material

Slips of parchment waste with Greek text have been used in the binding and appear between some folios (e.g. before f. 1). Similar slips from the same source have been used in a similar way in MS O.1.2, which has a common origin.

f. [i] is an inserted letter from Charles B. Scott , dated November 1852, regarding the details of the manuscript and his collation of the text of Harpocration for the edition of Wilhelm Dindorf ( Harpocrationis lexicon in decem oratores Atticos (Oxford 1853)).

Attached to this is a note by J. E. Sandys , dated May 1857 (corrected from 1856), regarding his collation of the same text for the edition of Georg Wentzel.

The endleaves ff. iv-v and vi-xi are uncut.

History

Origin: The manuscript was probably copied in the second quarter of the 14th century, as indicated by the watermarks. Isepy argues on the basis of the script that it was probably produced in Thessalonike (Isepy, 'Towards a new text of Helladius', p. 207 n. 91). According to Diller ('Photius' "Bibliotheca"', p. 395), it was derived from a manuscript which was in the possession of the Monastery of the Theotokos in Thessalonike at that time. It was produced as part of a larger manuscript which was divided into at least four volumes, of which this is the third and the fourth is now MS O.1.2.

Provenance and Acquisition

Owned by the scholar Henry Scrimger (1506-1572)

Inherited from him by his nephew, Peter Young

By descent to his son, the royal librarian Patrick Young (1584-1652) .

Owned by the antiquary Thomas Gale (c. 1635-1702) , Fellow of Trinity and Dean of York. It appears in the 1697 catalogue of Gale's collection contained in Trinity College MS O.5.38 (p. 161).

Donated to Trinity College by Thomas's son, the antiquary Roger Gale (1672-1744) , in 1738.

Additional Information

Record Sources

Availability

Visitors to Trinity College who wish to consult Special Collections material are required to apply to the Library in advance of their visit. For information on eligibility and admission procedures see: Trinity College: Information for Readers.

Bibliography

    The western manuscripts in the library of Trinity College : a descriptive catalogue, James, M. R. (Montague Rhodes) (Cambridge, 3, Cambridge University Press, 1902) Lexeis of the ten orators, Harpocration, Valerius (Amsterdam, A.M. Hakkert, 1991) Longa est via: forme e contenuti dello studio grammaticale dalla Bisanzio paleologa al tardo Rinascimento veneziano Hellenica, Nuti, E. (Alessandria, Edizioni dell'Orso, 2014) Towards a new text of Helladius. Neglected Manuscript Evidence on Photius’ Bibliotheke Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Isépy, P. (163, 2, 189-230, 2020)

Funding of Cataloguing

The Polonsky Foundation

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