4. Omitted M at the end of a line, omitted N at the end of a line, the omission being indicated by means of a horizontal stroke, thickened at either end, which is placed over the space immediately following the final vowel.19 This omission may occur in the middle of a word but only at the end of a line.
Authenticity of the six leaves The sudden appearance in America of a portion of a very ancient classical manuscript unknown to modern editors may easily arouse suspicion in the minds of some scholars. Our experience with the “Anonymus Cortesianus” has taught us to be wary,20 and it is natural to demand proof establishing the genuineness of the new fragment.21 As to the six leaves of the Morgan Pliny, it may be said unhesitatingly that no one with experience of ancient Latin manuscripts could entertain any doubt as to their genuineness. The look and feel of the parchment, the ink, the script, the titles, colophons, ornamentation, corrections, and later additions, all bear the indisputable marks of genuine antiquity.
But it may be objected that a clever forger possessing a knowledge of palaeography would be able to reproduce all these features of ancient manuscripts. This objection can hardly be sustained. It is difficult to believe that any modern could reproduce faithfully all the characteristics of sixth-century uncials and fifteenth-century notarial writing without unconsciously falling into some error and betraying his modernity. Besides, there is one consideration which to my mind establishes the genuineness of our fragment beyond a peradventure. We have seen above that the leaves of our manuscript are so arranged that hair side faces hair side and flesh side faces flesh side. The visible effect of this arrangement is that two pages of clear writing alternate with two pages of faded writing, the faded appearance being caused by the ink scaling off from the less porous surface of the flesh side of the vellum.22 As a matter of fact, the flesh side of the vellum showed faded writing long before modern time. To judge by the retouched characters on fol. 53r it would seem that the original writing had become illegible by the eighth or ninth century.23 Still, a considerable period of time would, so far as we know, be necessary for this process. It is highly improbable that a forger could devise this method of giving his forgery the appearance of antiquity, and even if he attempted it, it is safe to say that the present effect would not be produced in the time that elapsed before the book was sold to Mr. Morgan.
But let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the Morgan fragment is a modern forgery. We are then constrained to credit the forger not only with a knowledge of palaeography which is simply faultless, but, as will be shown in the second part, with a minute acquaintance with the criticism and the history of the text. And this forger did not try to attain fame or academic standing by his nefarious doings, as was the case with the Roman author of the forged “Anonymus Cortesianus,” for nothing was heard of this Morgan fragment till it had reached the library of the American collector. If his motive was monetary gain he chose a long and arduous path to attain it. It is hardly conceivable that he should take the trouble to make all the errors and omissions found in our twelve pages and all the additions and corrections representing different ages, different styles, when less than half the number would have served to give the forged document an air of verisimilitude. The assumption that the Morgan fragment is a forgery thus becomes highly unreasonable. When you add to this the fact that there is nothing in the twelve pages that in any way arouses suspicion, the conclusion is inevitable that the Morgan fragment is a genuine relic of antiquity.
Archetype As to the original from which our manuscript was copied, very little can be said. The six leaves before us furnish scanty material on which to build any theory. The errors which occur are not sufficient to warrant any conclusion as to the script of the archetype. One item of information, however, we do get: an omission on fol. 52v goes to show that the manuscript from which our scribe copied was written in lines of 25 letters or thereabout.24 The scribe first wrote excucuris|sem commeatu. Discovering his error of omission, he erased sem at the beginning of line 8 and added it at the end of line 7 (intruding upon margin-space in order to do so), and then supplied, in somewhat smaller letters, the omitted words accepto ut praefectus aerari. As there are no homoioteleuta to account for the omission, it is almost certain that it was caused by the inadvertent skipping of a line.25 The omitted letters number 25.
A glance at the abbreviations used in the index of addresses on foll. 48v-49r teaches that the original from which our manuscript was copied must have had its names abbreviated in exactly the same form. There is no other way of explaining why the scribe first wrote ad iulium seruianum (fol. 49, l. 12), and then erased the final um and put a point after seruian.
Our manuscript was written in Italy at the end of the fifth or more probably at the beginning of the sixth century.
The manuscripts with which we can compare it come, with scarcely an exception, from Italy; for it is only of more recent uncial manuscripts (those of the seventh and eighth centuries) that we can say with certainty that they originate in other than Italian centres. The only exception which occurs to one is the Codex Bobiensis (k) of the Gospels of the fifth century, which may actually have been written in Africa, though this is far from certain. As for our fragment, the details of its script, as well as the ornamentation, disposition of the page, the ink, the parchment, all find their parallels in authenticated Italian products; and this similarity in details is borne out by the general impression of the whole.
The manuscript may be dated at about the year A.D. 500, for the reason that the script is not quite so old as that of our oldest fifth-century uncial manuscripts, and yet decidedly older than that of the Codex Fuldensis of the Gospels (F) written in or before A.D. 546.
On the dating of uncial manuscripts In dating uncial manuscripts we must proceed warily, since the data on which our judgments are based are meagre in the extreme and rather difficult to formulate.
The history of uncial writing still remains to be written. The chief value of excellent works like Chatelain’s Uncialis Scriptura or Zangemeister and Wattenbach’s Exempla Codicum Latinorum Litteris Maiusculis Scriptorum lies in the mass of material they offer to the student. This could not well be otherwise, since clear-cut, objective criteria for dating uncial manuscripts have not yet been formulated; and that is due to the fact that of our four hundred or more uncial manuscripts, ranging from the fourth to the eighth century, very few, indeed, can be dated with precision, and of these virtually none is in the oldest class. Yet a few guide-posts there are. By means of those it ought to be possible not only to throw light on the development of this script, but also to determine the features peculiar to the different periods of its history. This task, of course, can not be attempted here; it may, however, not be out of place to call attention to certain salient facts.
The student of manuscripts knows that a law of evolution is observable in writing as in other aspects of human endeavor. The process of evolution is from the less to the more complex, from the less to the more differentiated, from the simple to the more ornate form. Guided by these general considerations, he would find that his uncial manuscripts naturally fall into two groups. One group is manifestly the older: in orthography, punctuation, and abbreviation it bears close resemblance to inscriptions of the classical or Roman period. The other group is as manifestly composed of the more recent manuscripts: this may be inferred from the corrupt or barbarous spelling, from the use of abbreviations unfamiliar in the classical period but very common in the Middle Ages, or from the presence of punctuation, which the oldest manuscripts invariably lack. The manuscripts of the first group show letters that are simple and unadorned and words unseparated from each other. Those of the second group show a type of ornate writing, the letters having serifs or hair-lines and flourishes, and the words being well separated. There can be no reasonable doubt that this rough classification is correct as far as it goes; but it must remain rough and permit large play for subjective judgement.
A scientific classification, however, can rest only on objective criteria—criteria which, once recognized, are acceptable to all. Such criteria are made possible by the presence of dated manuscripts. Now, if by a dated manuscript we mean a manuscript of which we know, through a subscription or some other entry, that it was written in a certain year, there is not a single dated manuscript in uncial writing which is older than the seventh century—the oldest manuscript with a precise date known to me being the manuscript of St. Augustine written in the Abbey of Luxeuil in A.D. 669.26 But there are a few manuscripts of which we can say with certainty that they were written either before or after some given date. And these manuscripts which furnish us with a terminus ante quem or post quem, as the case may be, are extremely important to us as being the only relatively safe landmarks for following development in a field that is both remote and shadowy.
The Codex Fuldensis of the Gospels, mentioned above, is our first landmark of importance.27 It was read by Bishop Victor of Capua in the years A.D. 546 and 547, as is testified by two entries, probably autograph. From this it follows that the manuscript was written before A.D. 546. We may surmise—and I think correctly—that it was shortly before 546, if not in that very year. In any case the Codex Fuldensis furnishes a precise terminus ante quem.
The other landmark of importance is furnished by a Berlin fragment containing a computation for finding the correct date for Easter Sunday.28 Internal evidence makes it clear that this Computus Paschalis first saw light shortly after A.D. 447. The presumption is that the Berlin leaves represent a very early copy, if not the original, of this composition. In no case can these leaves be regarded as a much later copy of the original, as the following purely palaeographical considerations, that is, considerations of style and form of letters, will go to show.
Let us assume, as we do in geometry, for the sake of argument, that the Fulda manuscript and the Berlin fragment were both written about the year 500—a date representing, roughly speaking, the middle point in the period of about one hundred years which separates the extreme limits of the dates possible for either of these two manuscripts, as the following diagram illustrates:
dates of Berlin and Fulda MSS
If our hypothesis be correct, then the script of these two manuscripts, as well as other palaeographical features, would offer striking similarities if not close resemblance. As a matter of fact, a careful comparison of the two manuscripts discloses differences so marked as to render our assumption absurd. The Berlin fragment is obviously much older than the Fulda manuscript. It would be rash to specify the exact interval of time that separates these two manuscripts, yet if we remember the slow development of types of writing the conclusion seems justified that at least several generations of evolution lie between the two manuscripts. If this be correct, we are forced to push the date of each as far back as the ascertained limit will permit, namely, the Fulda manuscript to the year 546 and the Berlin fragment to the year 447. Thus, apparently, considerations of form and style (purely palaeographical considerations) confirm the dates derived from examination of the internal evidence, and the Berlin and Fulda manuscripts may, in effect, be considered two dated manuscripts, two definite guide-posts.
If the preceding conclusion accords with fact, then we may accept the traditional date (circa A.D. 371) of the Codex Vercellensis of the Gospels. The famous Vatican palimpsest of Cicero’s De Re Publica seems more properly placed in the fourth than in the fifth century; and the older portion of the Bodleian manuscript of Jerome’s translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, dated after the year A.D. 442, becomes another guide-post in the history of uncial writing, since a comparison with the Berlin fragment of about A.D. 447 convinces one that the Bodleian manuscript can not have been written much after the date of its archetype, which is A.D. 442.
Dated uncial manuscripts Asked to enumerate the landmarks which may serve as helpful guides in uncial writing prior to the year 800, we should hardly go far wrong if we tabulate them in the following order:29
ca. a. 371 1. Codex Vercellensis of the Gospels (a).
post a. 442 2. Bodleian Manuscript (Auct. T. 2. 26) of Jerome’s translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius (older portion).
ca. a. 447 3. Berlin Computus Paschalis (MS. lat. 4º. 298).
ante a. 546 4. Codex Fuldensis of the Gospels (F), Fulda MS. Bonifat. 1, read by Bishop Victor of Capua.
a. 438-ca. 550 5. Codex Theodosianus (Turin, MS. A. II. 2).
Manuscripts containing the Theodosian Code can not be earlier than A.D. 438, when this body of law was promulgated, nor much later than the middle of sixth century, when the Justinian Code supplanted the Theodosian and made it useless to copy it.
a. 600-666 6. The Toulouse Manuscript (No. 364) and Paris MS. lat. 8901, containing Canons, written at Albi.
a. 669 7. The Morgan Manuscript of St. Augustine’s Homilies, written in the Abbey of Luxeuil. Later at Beauvais and Chateau de Troussures.
a. 699 8. The Berne Manuscript (No. 219B) of Jerome’s translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, written in France, possibly at Fleury.
a. 695-711 9. Brussels Fragment of a Psalter and Varia Patristica (MS. 1221 = 9850-52) written for St. Medardus in Soissons in the time of Childebert III.
ante a. 716 10. Codex Amiatinus of the Bible (Florence Laur. Am. 1) written in England.
a. 719 11. The Treves Prosper (MS. 36, olim S. Matthaei).
ca. a. 750 12. The Milan Manuscript (Ambros. B. 159 sup.) of Gregory’s Moralia, written at Bobbio in the abbacy of Anastasius.
ante a. 752 13. The Bodleian Acts of the Apostles (MS. Selden supra 30) written in the Isle of Thanet.
a. 754 14. The Autun Manuscript (No. 3) of the Gospels, written at Vosevium.
a. 739-760 15. Codex Beneventanus of the Gospels (London Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 5463) written at Benevento.
post a. 787 16. The Lucca Manuscript (No. 490) of the Liber Pontificalis.
Guided by the above manuscripts, we may proceed to determine the place which the Morgan Pliny occupies in the series of uncial manuscripts. The student of manuscripts recognizes at a glance that the Morgan fragment is, as has been said, distinctly older than the Codex Fuldensis of about the year 546. But how much older? Is it to be compared in antiquity with such venerable monuments as the palimpsest of Cicero’s De Re Publica, with products like the Berlin Computus Paschalis or the Bodleian Chronicle of Eusebius? If we examine carefully the characteristics of our oldest group of fourth- and fifth-century manuscripts and compare them with those of the Morgan manuscript we shall see that the latter, though sharing some of the features found in manuscripts of the oldest group, lacks others and in turn shows features peculiar to manuscripts of a later group.
Oldest group of uncial manuscripts Our oldest group would naturally be composed of those uncial manuscripts which bear the closest resemblance to the above-mentioned manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries, and I should include in that group such manuscripts as these:
1. Rome, Vatic. lat. 5757.—Cicero, De Re Publica, palimpsest.
2. Rome, Vatic. lat. 5750 + Milan, Ambros. E. 147 sup.—Scholia Bobiensia in Ciceronem, palimpsest.
3. Vienna, 15.—Livy, fifth decade (five books).
4. Paris, lat. 5730.—Livy, third decade.
5. Verona, XL (38).—Livy, first decade, 6 palimpsest leaves.
6. Rome, Vatic. lat. 10696.—Livy, fourth decade, Lateran fragments.
7. Bamberg, Class. 35a.—Livy, fourth decade, fragments.
8. Vienna, lat. 1a.—Pliny, Historia Naturalis, fragments.
9. St. Paul in Carinthia, XXV a 3.—Pliny, Historia Naturalis, palimpsest.
10. Turin, A. II. 2.—Theodosian Codex, fragments, palimpsest.
1. Vercelli, Cathedral Library.—Gospels (a) ascribed to Bishop Eusebius (†371).
2. Paris, lat. 17225.—Corbie Gospels (ff2).
3. Constance-Weingarten Biblical fragments.—Prophets, fragments scattered in the libraries of Stuttgart, Darmstadt, Fulda, and St. Paul in Carinthia.
4. Berlin, lat. 4º. 298.—Computus Paschalis of ca. a. 447.
5. Turin, G. VII. 15.—Bobbio Gospels (k).
6. Turin, F. IV. 27 + Milan, D. 519. inf. + Rome, Vatic. lat. 10959.—Cyprian, Epistolae, fragments.
7. Turin, G. V. 37.—Cyprian, de opere et eleemosynis.
8. Oxford, Bodleian Auct. T. 2. 26.—Eusebius-Hieronymus, Chronicle, post a. 442.
9. Petrograd Q. v. I. 3 (Corbie).—Varia of St. Augustine.
10. St. Gall, 1394.—Gospels (n).
Characteristics of the oldest uncial manuscripts The main characteristics of the manuscripts included in the above list, which is by no means complete, may briefly be described thus:
1. General effect of compactness. This is the result of scriptura continua, which knows no separation of words and no punctuation. See the facsimiles cited above.
2. Precision in the mode of shading. The alternation of stressed and unstressed strokes is very regular. The two arcs of uncial O are shaded not in the middle, as in Greek uncials, but in the lower left and upper right parts of the letter, so that the space enclosed by the two arcs resembles an ellipse leaning to the left at an angle of about 45°, thus uncial O. What is true of the uncial O is true of other curved strokes. The strokes are often very short, mere touches of pen to parchment, like brush work. Often they are unconnected, thus giving a mere suggestion of the form. The attack or fore-stroke as well as the finishing stroke is a very fine, oblique hair-line.30
3. Absence of long ascending or descending strokes. The letters lie virtually between two lines (instead of between four as in later uncials), the upper and lower shafts of letters like uncial H L P Q projecting but slightly beyond the head and base lines.
4. The broadness of the letters uncial M N U
5. The relative narrowness of the letters uncial F L P S T
6. The manner of forming uncial B E L M N P S T
B with the lower bow considerably larger than the upper, which often has the form of a mere comma.
E with the tongue or horizontal stroke placed not in the middle, as in later uncial manuscripts, but high above it, and extending beyond the upper curve. The loop is often left open.
L with very small base.
M with the initial stroke tending to be a straight line instead of the well-rounded bow of later uncials.
N with the oblique connecting stroke shaded.
P with the loop very small and often open.
S with a rather longish form and shallow curves, as compared with the broad form and ample curves of later uncials.
T with a very small, sinuous horizontal top stroke (except at the beginning of a line when it often has an exaggerated extension to the left).
7. Extreme fineness of parchment, at least in parts of the manuscript.
8. Perforation of parchment along furrows made by the pen.
9. Quires signed by means of roman numerals often preceded by the letter Q· (= Quaternio) in the lower right corner of the last page of each gathering.
10. Running titles, in abbreviated form, usually in smaller uncials than the text.
11. Colophons, in which red and black ink alternate, usually in large-sized uncials.
12. Use of a capital, i.e., a larger-sized letter at the beginning of each page or of each column in the page, even if the beginning falls in the middle of a word.
13. Lack of all but the simplest ornamentation, e.g., scroll or ivy-leaf.
14. The restricted use of abbreviations. Besides B· and Q· and such suspensions as occur in classical inscriptions only the contracted forms of the Nomina Sacra are found.
15. Omission of M and N allowed only at the end of a line, the omission being marked by means of a simple horizontal line (somewhat hooked at each end) placed above the line after the final vowel and not directly over it as in later uncial manuscripts.
16. Absence of nearly all punctuation.
17. The use of 'infra' symbol in the text where an omission has occurred, and 'supra' symbol after the supplied omission in the lower margin, or the same symbols reversed if the supplement is entered in the upper margin.
If we now turn to the Morgan Pliny we observe that it lacks a number of the characteristics enumerated above as belonging to the oldest type of uncial manuscripts. The parchment is not of the very thin sort. There has been no corrosion along the furrows made by the pen. The running title and colophons are in rustic capitals, not in uncials. The manner of forming such letters as uncial B E M R S T differs from that employed in the oldest group.
B with the lower bow not so markedly larger than the upper.
E with the horizontal stroke placed nearer the middle.
M with the left bow tending to become a distinct curve.
R S T have gained in breadth and proportionately lost in height.
Date of the Morgan manuscript Inasmuch as these palaeographical differences mark a tendency which reaches fuller development in later uncial manuscripts, it is clear that their presence in our manuscript is a sign of its more recent character as compared with manuscripts of the oldest type. Just as our manuscript is clearly older than the Codex Fuldensis of about the year 546, so it is clearly more recent than the Berlin Computus Paschalis of about the year 447. Its proper place is at the end of the oldest series of uncial manuscripts, which begins with the Cicero palimpsest. Its closest neighbors are, I believe, the Pliny palimpsest of St. Paul in Carinthia and the Codex Theodosianus of Turin. If we conclude by saying that the Morgan manuscript was written about the year 500 we shall probably not be far from the truth.
Later history of the Morgan manuscript The vicissitudes of a manuscript often throw light upon the history of the text contained in the manuscript. And the palaeographer knows that any scratch or scribbling, any probatio pennae or casual entry, may become important in tracing the wanderings of a manuscript.
In the six leaves that have been saved of our Morgan manuscript we have two entries. One is of a neutral character and does not take us further, but the other is very clear and tells an unequivocal story.
The unimportant entry occurs in the lower margin of folio 53r. The words “uir erat in terra,” which are apparently the beginning of the book of Job, are written in Carolingian characters of the ninth century. As these characters were used during the ninth century in northern Italy as well as in France, it is impossible to say where this entry was made. If in France, then the manuscript of Pliny must have left its Italian home before the ninth century.31
That it had crossed the Alps by the beginning of the fifteenth century we know from the second entry. Nay, we learn more precise details. We learn that our manuscript had found a home in France, in the town of Meaux or its vicinity. The entry is found in the upper margin of fol. 51r and doubtless represents a probatio pennae on the part of a notary. It runs thus:
“A tous ceulz qui ces presentes lettres verront et
orront
Jehan de Sannemeres garde du scel de la provoste de
Meaulx & Francois Beloy clerc Jure de par le Roy
nostre sire a ce faire Salut sachient tuit que par.”
The above note is made in the regular French notarial hand of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.32 The formula of greeting with which the document opens is in the precise form in which it occurs in numberless charters of the period. All efforts to identify Jehan de Sannemeres, keeper of the seal of the provosté of Meaux, and François Beloy, sworn clerk in behalf of the King, have so far proved fruitless.33
Conclusion Our manuscript, then, was written in Italy about the year 500. It is quite possible that it had crossed the Alps by the ninth century or even before. It is certain that by the fifteenth century it had found asylum in France. When and under what circumstances it got back to Italy will be shown by Professor Rand in the pages that follow.
So it is France that has saved this, the oldest extant witness of Pliny’s Letters, for modern times. To mediaeval France we are, in fact, indebted for the preservation of more than one ancient classical manuscript. The oldest manuscript of the third decade of Livy was at Corbie in Charlemagne’s time, when it was loaned to Tours and a copy of it made there. Both copy and original have come down to us. Sallust’s Histories were saved (though not in complete form) for our generation by the Abbey of Fleury. The famous Schedae Vergilianae, in square capitals, as well as the Codex Romanus of Virgil, in rustic capitals, belonged to the monastery of St. Denis. Lyons preserved the Codex Theodosianus. It was again some French centre that rescued Pomponius Mela from destruction. The oldest fragments of Ovid’s Pontica, the oldest fragments of the first decade of Livy, the oldest manuscript of Pliny’s Natural History—all palimpsests—were in some French centre in the Middle Ages, as may be seen from the indisputably eighth-century French writing which covers the ancient texts. The student of Latin literature knows that the manuscript tradition of Lucretius, Suetonius, Cæsar, Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius—to mention only the greatest names—shows that we are indebted primarily to Gallia Christiana for the preservation of these authors.