Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries: Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 1879.10

Diktyon no.: Diktyon 77960

Introduction: This fragment consists of five folios from a manuscript which was probably copied in the 11th or first half of the 12th century. It contains the end of the Life of St Gregory of Agrigento (Greek Akragas), by the 8th or 9th-century author Leontius, presbyter of Rome. Much larger portions of this manuscript are now Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, MS gr. 504 and St Petersburg, Rossijskaja Nacional'naja biblioteka, MS gr. 96. There are a number of different endings to this text, one of which is unique to this copy. The original manuscript was a menologion for November, a book containing Lives of the saints whose feasts fell in that month, and associated homilies. The surviving foliation had evidently been added before the different parts of the manuscript were separated from each other, and the St Petersburg fragment, of 91 folios, follows directly on from this one without intervening losses. The Sinai fragment, of 161 folios, precedes this one, but a folio has evidently been lost between them. Dr Christopher Wright

Language(s): Greek

Leontius Presbyter Romanus, Vita et miracula Sancti Gregorii Agrigenti

The fragment contains part of BHG 707c, beginning at section 94, line 4 (ed. Berger, p. 259) and concluding with the variant ending peculiar to this manuscript (ed. Berger, p. 272). The preceding Sinai fragment ends at section 92, line 5 (ed. Berger, p. 257), while the following St Petersburg fragment opens at the beginning of a new text, with continuous foliation

Filiation: Berger identifies the closest relative of this manuscript as Reading, Douai Abbey, unnumbered MS, indirectly derived from the same lost exemplar.

Incipit: || f. 1r τῆ ἁγία καὶ καθολικῆ ἐκκλησία· ἵνα καὶ εἰς τὰς μετέπειτα γενεὰς

Explicit: f. 5v καὶ τὴν προτέραν τιμὴν τῆ δευτέρα διὰ δεξάμενον[sic] ... νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων· ἀμήν

TLG 3385.001

BHG 0707-0707e, 707p, 708f

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: Parchment, of medium thickness and quality.

Extent: Fragment (quire) 6 leaves. 243 × 194 mm.

Foliation: The fragment is foliated with the numbers 1-5, [i] in Arabic numerals, in pencil, recto, upper right.

Foliation: The fragment also retains foliation from the source manuscript, not original to its production: the numbers 163-167 in Greek numerals, in black ink, recto, upper right.

Collation

Quire 1^8-3 ff. 1-5, [i] This quire of five surviving folios followed by a stub was probably originally a quaternion, in which the cancelled stub was the seventh original folio, while the outermost bifolio, forming the original first and eighth folios, has been lost. In this case the eighth folio was probably cancelled prior to the whole bifolio being lost, as the text appears to have continued from this point without loss. It may also have been a ternion of which the last folio has been cancelled, without loss of text, although the construction of the quire with hair side outermost which this would require would be unusual. However, the foliation of the Sinai fragment ends with 161, and there is a gap between the end of the text in that fragment and the beginning of this one, of a length corresponding to the content of a single folio, indicating that one intervening folio has been lost. This would tend in favour of the hypothesis that one folio was lost from the beginning of this quire.

Condition

There are numerous small tears to the edges of the folios, most severely in f. 2, where one tear has been repaired with stitching. The leaves are cockled, and there are areas of dirt and drops of wax.

Layout

Two columns of 30 lines each. 175 × 135 mm. Pricking survives in the upper margin, but has otherwise been lost to cropping. Ruled in hardpoint, system probably Leroy 1, type Leroy 20D2. Text hangs from the lines.

Hand(s)

The text was copied in a mixed minuscule Perlschrift with variable slant, in brown ink, with minimal variation in letter size.

Syllabic abbreviations are not used, apart from the horizontal stroke for nu, which appears only at the end of lines, while superscript word endings do not appear, although suspensions of word endings are present. Breathings are both angular and round, and mute iota is absent. Use of the double dot is functional only, and nomina sacra are unaccentuated. The double grave accent is in use.

Punctuation used includes the middle and upper points, lower and middle commas, question mark and full stop.

Decoration

The beginnings of sections are marked by simple minor initials in red ink.

The end of the text is followed by a simple vignette in brown ink (f. 5v).

Additions

The fragment has been marked with the present classmark and the former classmark T.4.

Binding

The fragment has a modern card binding reinforced with cloth inside the spine.

History

Origin: The style of script suggests that the fragment was copied in the 11th or first half of the 12th century.

Provenance and Acquisition

Owned by the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai.

Acquired there by the Biblical scholar Constantin von Tischendorf (1815-1874) , probably in 1858, when he acquired the St Petersburg fragment of the same manuscript.

Bought by the University Library from Tischendorf's executors in 1876.

Additional Information

Availability

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card. For information on eligibility and admissions procedures, see Joining the Library). For further enquiries, and to confirm the availability of the manuscript, please contact the Special Collections Reading Room.

Bibliography

Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum graecorum Germaniae, Belgii, Angliae, van de Vorst, CharlesDelehaye, Hippolyte (Brussels, Société des Bollandistes, 1913)

Hand-list of the additional Greek manuscripts in the University Library, Cambridge Scriptorium, Easterling, Patricia E. (16, 2, 302-323, 1962)

Per l'esumazione di alcuni testi agiografici siculo-italo greci Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici: Quaderni, Schirò, Giuseppe (2, 85-103, 1966)

Das Leben des heiligen Gregorios von Agrigent / Leontios Presbyteros von Rom, , (Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 1995)

Further "Membra Disiecta Cantabrigiensia" from the Tischendorf Collection Alethes Philia. Studi in onore di Giancarlo Prato Collectanea, Tchernetska, Natalie (Spoleto, Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, 2010)

Funding of Cataloguing

The Polonsky Foundation

Digital Images

Cambridge Digital Library

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 1879.10

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