Greek palaeography & Byzantine manuscript studies

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CEU code: 
MS 6135
CEU credits: 
4
ECTS credits: 
8
Academic year: 
2009/2010
Semester: 
Winter
Start and end dates: 
15 Jan 2010 - 2 Apr 2010
Unit: 
Center for Hellenic Traditions (CHT)
Department of Medieval Studies
Academic Program: 
Doctor of Philosophy in Medieval Studies
CEU Instructor(s): 
Niels Gaul
Brief course description: 

Medieval (Greek) manuscripts matter: they are a primary material means of bridging the gap between past and present. They offer, for those who know how to read and inter­pret them, a privileged, short-cut access to Greek intellectual and religious life in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. This twelve-week research method course provides a systematic introduction to the subject and its manifold aspects; at the same time, it will be used to put to test the materials that are currently being devised and drafted for the forthcoming Cambridge Handbook of Greek Palaeography.

Additional information: 
Medieval manuscripts remain the primary source upon which the study of ancient and medieval literature is ultimately based. Successful and objective textual assessment and criticism of classical, Biblical, late antique/patristic and Byzantine Greek texts requires a correct evaluation of the work of Byzantine scholars and scribes and of the interpolation and corruption which may be found in each individual manuscript; this in turn requires an intimate knowledge of the historical and cultural context in which those Byzantines worked. Besides carrying texts from the Byzantine millennium as well as from the classical period, manuscripts remain a privileged key for deciphering the cultural world inextricably and complexly linked to Byzantine literary/rhetorical production. Manuscripts have only just begun to be exploited systematically for prosopographical, network, and cultural poetic studies. It is hoped to organise a field-trip to Vienna or Cracow in order to look at a variety of medieval Greek manuscripts in the original.
Learning Outcomes: 
To provide an up-to-date introduction to the theoretical aspects of Greek manuscript studies, especially with regard to interdisciplinary/contextualised cultural and textual analysis; to provide participants with the advanced skill to approach manuscript material in libraries worldwide competently and independently; participants will thus gain the skill of analyzing and interpreting primary data, and to write, and present orally, topics pertaining to the field of Greek manuscript studies.
Assessment : 
Basic knowledge of Greek (classical, medieval or modern). Regular attendance (at least 75 % of all classes); active participation in class (60 %); exam: diplomatic transcription of two manuscript samples (minuscule hands, one formal, one informal) plus a brief description of the hands shown in each (40 %).
Full description: 
Recommended reading

Nota bene: an extensive bibliography including lists of tachygraphic abbreviations etc. will be distributed to participants during the first session, together with xeroxes of manuscript samples.

There is no up-to-date introduction in English or any other language to the subject. For the time being, consult:

  • B. de Montfaucon, Palæographia Græca, sive de ortu et progressu literarum Græcarum, et de variis omnium sæculorum scriptionis Græcæ generibus: itemque de abbreviationibus & de notis variarum artium ac disciplinarum, additis figuris & schematibus ad fidem manuscriptorum codicum (Paris: Guerin, 1708).
  • E. M. Thompson, Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography (London: Paul, 1906, reprinted Chicago, 1966).
  • E. M. Thompson, An Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912).
  • V. Gardthausen, Griechische Palaeographie (Leipzig: Veit, 2nd edn, 1913).
  • B. van Groningen, Short Manual of Greek Palaeography (Leiden: Sythoff, 3rd edn, 1963).
  • H. Hunger, ‘Griechische Paläographie’, in: Id. (ed.), Geschichte der Textüberlieferung der antiken und mittelalterlichen Literatur, 2 vols (Zurich: Atlantis, 1961‒4), 1:72–107.
  • A. Dain, Les manuscrits (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 3rd edn, 1975).
  • E. Mioni, Introduzione alla paleografia greca (Padua: Liviana, 1973).
  • P. Géhin (ed.), Lire le manuscrit médiéval (Paris: Colin, 2005).
  • Proceedings of the quinquennial international greek palaeography meetings
    Nota bene     that the following works will be quoted as Papers I–V below.
    (1) La paléographie grecque et byzantine, Colloques internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris 21–25 octobre 1974 (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1977) [= Papers I].(2) D. Harlfinger and G. Prato (eds), Paleografia e codicologia greca. Atti del II Colloquio internazionale, Berlino–­Wolfenbüttel, 17–21 ottobre 1983 (Alessandria: Dell’Orso, 1991) [= Papers II].
    (3) G. Cavallo, G. De Gregorio and M. Maniaci (eds), Scritture, libri e testi nelle aree provinciali di Bisanzio. Atti del seminario di Erice, 18–25 settembre 1988, Biblioteca del « Centro per il collegamento degli studi medievali e umanistici nell’Università di Perugia », 5 (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1991) [= Papers III].
    (4) Oxford, 1993 (no proceedings were published). However, the four papers of the art historical section were published as a group in Word & Image, 10 (1996).
    (5) G. Prato (ed.), I manoscritti greci tra riflessione e debattito. Atti del V Colloquio Internazionale di Paleografia Greca, Cremona, 4–10 ottobre 1998, 3 vols (Florence: Gonnelli, 2000) [= Papers V].
    (6) Drama (Greece), 2003 (proceedings not yet published).
    (7) Madrid/Escorial, 2008.
I. Majuscule bookhands
Week 1 (15. 1.): Introduction: writing and reading in late antiquity and the Byzantine Middle Ages. Early majuscule bookhands

Required readings

  • N. Gaul, ‘The manuscript tradition’, in E. Bakker (ed.), Companion to the Ancient Greek Language (Oxford: Blackwells, 2009), pp. 69–82.
  • M. McCormick, ‘The birth of the codex and apostolic lifestyle’, Scriptorium, 39 (1985): 150–8 – strictly speaking a review of Roberts & Skeat, but a very valuable contribution in its own right.

Recommended readings

  • H. Hunger, Schreiben und Lesen in Byzanz. Die byzantinische Buchkultur (Munich: Beck, 1989).
  • G. Cavallo, Lire à Byzance, Séminairs byzantins 1 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2006). – Ital. tr., Leggere a Bisanzio (Milan: Bonnard, 2007).
  • W. E. Klingshirn and L. Safran (eds), The early Christian book (Washington, DC: Catholic Univ of America Press, 2007).
  • C. H. Roberts and T. C. Skeat, The birth of the codex (London: Oxford Univ Press, 1987).
  • A. Taylor, Textual Situations. Three Medieval Manuscripts and Their Readers (Philadelphia: Univ of Pennsylvania Press, 2002).
Week 2 (22. 1.) : Late antique and Byzantine majuscule bookhands (cont’d)

Recommended readings

  • G. Cavallo, ‘Funzione e strutture della maiuscola greca tra i secoli VIII–XI’, in Papers I, pp. 95–137.
  • H. Hunger, ‘Minuskel und Auszeichnungsschrift im 10.–12. Jahrhundert’, in Papers I, pp. 201–220
II. Minuscule bookhands
Week 3 (29. 1.): The evolution of minuscule bookhands. Early calligraphic minuscule bookhands, ninth century

Recommended reading

  • J. M. Luzzatto, ‘Grammata e syrmata. Scrittura greca e produzione libraria tra VII e IX secolo’, Analecta Papyrologica, 14–15 (2002–2003): 1–85.
  • B. L. Fonkič, ‘Scriptoria bizantini. Risultati e prospettive della ricerca’, RSBN, n. s. 17–19 (1980–1982): 73–118.
Week 4 (5. 2.): Calligraphic minuscule bookhands, middle Byzantine period

Recommended readings

  • E. Follieri, ‘La minuscola libraria dei secoli IX e X’, in Papers I, pp. 136–65.
  • P. Canart and L. Perria, ‘Les écritures livresque des XIe et XIIe siècles’, in Papers II, pp. 67–118.
Week 5 (12. 2.): Archaizing calligraphic minuscule bookhands, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries

Recommended reading

  • G. Prato and G. De Gregorio, ‘Scrittura arcaizzante in codici profani e sacri della prima età paleologa’, RHM, 45 (2003): 59–102.
  • G. Prato, ‘Scritture librarie arcaizzanti della prima età dei Paleologi e loro modelli’, Scrittura e Civiltà, 3 (1979): 151–93 [reprinted in Id., Studi di paleografia greca (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1994), pp. 73–114.]
Week 6 (19. 2.): Early informal minuscule bookhands, eighth to ninth centuries
  • M. Hecquet, ‘An initial codicological and palaeographical investigation of the Venetus A manuscript of the Iliad’, in C. Dué, Recapturing a Homeric Legacy: images and insights from the Venetus A manuscript of the Iliad (Cambridge, MA, 2009), pp. 57–87.
  • M. Maniaci, ‘Words within Words: layout strategies in some glossed manuscripts of the Iliad’, Manuscripta, 2 (2006), 241–61.

Recommended reading

  • G. De Gregorio, ‘Materiali vecchi e nuovi per uno studio della minuscola greca fra VII e IX secolo’, in: Papers V, pp. 83–151.
Week 7 (26. 2.): Informal minuscule bookhands, tenth to mid-eleventh centuries

Required reading

  • L. Perria, ‘Un nuovo codice di Efrem: l’Urb. gr. 130’, RSBN, n. s. 14–16 (1977–1979): 33–114.
Week 8 (5. 3.): Informal minuscule bookhands, mid-eleventh to thirteenth centuries

Required reading

  • N. G. Wilson, ‘Scholarly hands of the middle Byzantine period’, in: Papers I, pp. 221–239.

Recommended reading

  • G. Cavallo, ‘Scritture informali, cambio grafico e pratiche librarie a Bisanzio tra i secoli XI e XII’, in: Papers V, pp. 219–238.
Week 9 (12. 3.): Informal minuscule bookhands, fourteenth century

Required reading

  • G. Prato, ‘I manoscritti greci dei secoli XIII e XIV: note palaeografiche’, in: Papers II, pp. 131–49 [reprinted in Id., Studi di paleografia greca (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1994), pp. 115­–31].
Week 10 (19. 3.): Fifteenth-century and Renaissance book culture; early printing
Week 11 (26. 3.): So-called ‘regional scripts’

Required readings

  • G. Cavallo, ‘La trasmissione scritta della cultura greca antica in Calabria e in Sicilia tra i secoli X–XV. Consistenza, tipologia, fruizione’, Scrittura e Civiltà, 4 (1980): 157–245.
Week 12 (tbd): Exam