Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/169

PALAEOGRAPHY 153 hand into the 8th century, when it was supplanted by the reformed small writing of the Carlovingian school ; but, like the capitals, it survived for some time longer as an ornamental hand for special purposes. The Exempla of Zangemeister and Wattenbach, so often quoted above, contains a series of facsimiles which illustrate the progress of uncial writing throughout the period of its career. The letter fO has been adopted by the editors as a test letter, in the earlier forms of which the last limb is not curved or turned in. The letter <= also in its earlier and purer form has the cross stroke placed high. But, as in every style of writing, when once developed, the earliest examples are the best, being written with a free hand and natural stroke. The Gospels of Vercelli (Exempla, tab. 20), said to have been written by the hand of Eusebius himself, and which may indeed be of his time, is one of the most ancient uncial MSS. Its narrow columns and pure forms of letters have the stamp of antiquity. To the 4th century also is assigned the palimpsest Cicero De RepuUica in the Vatican (Exempla, tab. 17; Pal. Soc., pi. 160), a MS. written in fine large characters of the best type * and a very ancient fragment of a commentary on an ante-Hieronymian text, in three columns, has also survived at Fulda (Exempla. tab. 21). Among the uncial MSS. of the 5th century of which good photographic facsimiles are available are the two famous codices of Livy, at Vienna and Paris (Exempla, tabs. 18, 19; Pal, Soc., pis. 31, 32, 183), and the Gains of Verona (Exempla, tab. 24). The latter MS. is also of special interest, as it contains abbreviations and has cer tain secondary forms amongst its letters. To distinguish between uncial MSS. of the 5th and 6th centuries is not easy, for the character of the writing changes but little, and there is no sign of weakness or wavering. It may, however, be noticed that in MSS. which are assigned to the latter century there is rather less compactness, and occasionally, as the century advances, there is a slight tendency to artificiality. Latin Uncial, 5th or 6th century. (lam tibi ilia quae igno rantia saecularis lio na opinatur ostendam) When the 7th century is reached there is every evidence that uncial writing has entered on a new stage. The letters are more roughly and carelessly formed, and the compactness of the earlier style is altogether wanting. From this time down to the age of Charlemagne there is a continual deterioration, the writing of the 8th century | being altogether misshapen. A more exact but imitative j hand was, however, at the same time employed, when occasion required, for the production of calligraphic MSS., such as liturgical books. Under the encouragement given by Charlemagne to such works, splendid uncial volumes were written in ornamental style, often in gold, several of which have survived to this day (Cat. Am. MSS., ii. pis. 39-41). Half -Uncial. A very interesting style of writing, and for the study of the development of the set minuscule hand of later periods a most important one, is that to which the name of half -uncial has been given. It lies between cursive and uncial, and partakes of the character of both. As early apparently as the 4th century, a set style of small writing, partly following in formation the characters found in the Roman cursive writing of the Ravenna and other documents on papyrus, and in some of its letters betraying an uncial origin, is found in glosses or marginal notes of early MSS. The limited space into which the annotations had to be compressed compelled the writer to abandon the free style of the ordinary cursive hand, and at the same time a mere reduction of capital or uncial letters would have been too tedious a process to adopt. A middle course was followed, and a neat minute hand, half-set half current, was used, just as in the present day it is no uncommon practice to write a so-called printing hand for similar purposes. The earliest example of this hand appears to be in the marginal directions for the painter in the Quedlinburg fragment of an illustrated early Italic version of the Bible (see Schurn in Theolog. Studien u. Kritiken, 1876). In these notes appear b, d, m, n as fully developed minuscules ; r is represented by [7 , half way between the uncial and the minuscule, and s is T. Again in the notes by the Arian bishop Maximin (Exempla, tab. 22), of the 5th century, the same style of writing appears, with some variations, however, in individual letters, as in cj and r, which come near to minuscule shapes. In the Codex Bembinus of Terence (Exempla, tab. 8) there are many glosses giving ample opportunity for studying the hand, which is here in a small and well-formed character. From this specimen, and also from the notes in the Itala of Fulda (Exempla, tab. 21), a complete alphabet of set minuscule letters may be selected, as written probably early in the 6th century. Rather later and more uncial in form are the glosses in the Medicean Virgil (Exempla, tab. 10). This set form of small writing, then, was, as it appears from the examples quoted above and from many others (see the enumeration in Wattenbach, Einleitung zur Lat. Palseog., p. 12), in pretty general use for the purposes of annotation ; and it was but natural that it should also come to be adopted in MSS. for the text itself. The intro duction into the text of uncial-written MSS., at an early date, of forms of letters borrowed from cursive writing is illustrated by the Verona Gaius (Exempla, tab. 24) of the 5th century, in which, besides the ordinary uncial shapes, (/ is also found as a minuscule, r as the transitional [7 , and s as the tall letter T- Again, in the Florentine Pandects of the 6th century, one of the scribes writes a hand which contains a large admixture of minuscule forms (Exempla, tab. 54). And some fragments of a Grseco-Latin glossary on papyrus, of which facsimiles have been published (Com ment. Soc. Guttinr/en., iv. , 1820, p. 156 ; Rhein. Museum, v., 1837, p. 301), likewise contain, as secondary forms of uncial m, r, and s : TT1, fl, r . From these few instances it is seen that in uncial MSS. of a secular nature, as in works relating to law and grammar, the scribe did not feel himself restricted to a uniform use of the larger letters, as he would be in producing a church book or calligraphic MS. The adaptation then of a set small hand, very similar to, and in some particulars identical with, the annotating hand above referred to, is not surprising. The greater conveni ence of the small hand in comparison with the larger uncial is obvious, and the element of calligraphy which was infused into it gave it a vitality and status as a recognized book-hand. Thus we have a series of MSS., dating from the end of the 5th century, which are classed as examples of half uncial writing, and which appear to have been written in Italy and France. The MS. of the Fasti Con- sulares, at Verona, brought down to 494 A.D. (Exempla, tab. 30), is in this hand, but the earliest MS. of this class to which a more approximate date can be given is the Hilary of St Peter s at Rome, which was written in or before the year 509 or 510 (Exempla, tab. 52 ; Pal. Soc., pi. 136) ; the next is the Sulpicius Severus of Verona, of 517 A.D. (Exempla, tab. 32); and of the year 569 is a beautifully-written MS. at Monte Cassino containing a XVIII. 20