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The Origin of the Greek Minuscule Hand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

T. W. Allen
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Extract

I propound a question which I cannot answer. The period at which the Greek minuscule hand came into the world withdraws itself from direct evidence, and can only be approached by induction from dates apparently considerably distant. I have, however, facts to detail which do not seem to have been combined elsewhere, and which admit of a conclusion which I believe has not been drawn. And though the conclusion may not be right, the subject is of enough importance to justify a guess. With all the discoveries of papyrus and the survivals of uncial, the minuscule hand of the ninth to the sixteenth centuries is that in which we read nearly all our Greek classics, and imitated by the first printers has given us our present-day Greek type and modern Greek writing.

No tradition remained in Greece of the place, manner, or date of the origin of this hand. Of late a mistranscription of a sentence in the fourteenth century MS. Canonici graec. 23 by Cramer (An. Ox. iv. 400. 5) has given rise to some singular speculations (Gardthausen, Gr. Pal., p. 205).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , 1920 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1920

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References

1 Cf. also Cinnamus 256. 10, Nicetas Chon. 41. 1,

2 Gardthausen, , Beiträge zur gr. Pal. 1877Google Scholar, Taf. 2, repeated by Wattenbach and von Velsen Exempla, 1878, Plate 1, Zereteli, Byz. Zeitschrift, 1900, p. 649.

3 Exempla codicum graecorum litteris minusculis scriptorum annorumque notis instractorum. Vol. alt. Petropolitani: Mosquae, 1913.

4 Nor does it particularly resemble the later ninth century products of the house of Studius, Mosq. 117 (a. 880), Paris grec 1470 (a. 890), Mosq. 184 (a. 899), or Vat. 1669 of a. 916.

5 These will be found in a photograph in Zereteli's article.

5a But afterwards restored, Nicephorus Gregoras i. 100. 10.

6 The monastery continued to be one of the most important in Constantinople. Here Isaac and John Comnenus were educated (Nicephorus Bryennius 18. 12) and here Isaac retired to die (Michael Attaliota, 67).

7 [455] Theophanes, 175. 3.

8 Cf. e.g. Theodore's reply to Leo Armenius, Georgius Monachus, 767 = Symeon, 608.

9 Reprinted in Migne.

10 The marginalia of the Codex Bezae, which more or less resemble this hand, have been referred along with the whole MS. to the Greek East by Dr.Loew, (Journ. Theol. Stud. 1913, xiv. 385, sqq.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 That about A.D. 900 papyrus-books still came from Egypt to Greece seems to follow from the expression in one of Arethas' letters (Kugeas, Ἀρέθας, p. 117).Google Scholar In later centuries the chroniclers occasionally refer to trade with Egypt, e.g. Pachymeres ii. 595, Nicephorus Gregoras i. 101.