Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/668

 HAHUaOBlPTS 6

("Beibefto lum Zentralblatt ftir BibUotbekwemn", XXXIII, Ledpiig, 1900). It wiU be seen that the neater number of copyiatA ue monks; at the end of the manuBcript they often place thetr signature and the name of uieir monastery. Some of tbiem through humUity preserve anonymity: r^^« rlt; olSt Wt "Who wrote this? God knows." Othera on the con- trary inform posterity concerning the rapidity with which they have completed their task. The scribe TheophiluB wrote in thirty days the Gospel of St. John (985). A manuscript of St. Basil begun on Pentecost (28 Hay) of 1105 was ended 8 August of the same year. With the monks there were some secular copyists known as nofan'i, labvlani, among them a tax collector of the eleventh century (Montfaucon, "PalBog. gr.",

17 MAHnS0BIPT8

ures of sacred and profane literature which are stin preserved there, there is not a library of Greek HSS. which djee not poBsees some examples of their work.

Finally the monasteries founded in the Slav countries, in Russia, Bulgaria, Servia, on the model of the Greek convents, also nad their copying rooms, in which were translated into tJie Slavonic language, with the help oi the alphabet invented in the ninth century by St. Cyril, the Holy Scripture and the most important works of the ecclesiastical hterature of the Greeks. It was also in these monastic study halls that the first monuments of the national literature of the Slavs were

dosiuB II (408-450) had earned the surname of "Cal- ligrapber" (Codinus ed. of Bonn, 151) and John V Cantacuzenus, having in 1355 retired to a monastery, copied manuscripts. Among copyists is also men- tioned the Patriarch Methodius (843-847), who in one week copied seven psalters for the seven weeks of Lent (Pat. Or. G. 1253).

The monasteries of Constantinople remain the chief centres for the copying of manuscriptH, From them ^rhape proceeded in the sixth century the beautiful GoBpels on purple parchment in letters of gold (see MANcacRiFTB, iLLUumATBD). In the ninth century the reform of the Studites was accompanied by a veritable renascence of calligraphy. St. Plato, uncle and master of Theodore of Studion, andTheodore him- self copied many books, and their biographies extcd the bniuty of their wnting. Theodore installed at Studion a scriptorium, at the head of which was a " protocailigra^her " charged with preparing the parch- ment and distributing to each one his task. In Lent the copyists were dispensed from the recitation of the Psalter, but rigorous discipline reigned in the work- room. A stain on a manuscript, an inexactness in copy was severely punished. All the monasteries which came under the influence of Studion also adopted its method of copying; all had their libraries and their copying rooms. In the eleventh century St. ChristodouIoB, another monastic reformer, founder of the convent of St. John of Patmos, ordained that all monks "skillful in the art of writing should with the authoriiiation of the heaoumenos make use of the talents with which they had been endowed by nature ". There has been preserved a catalogue of the library of Patmos, dated 1201; it oomprisee two hundred and sixty-seven manuscripts on parchment, and sixty-t^ree on paper. The majority are religious works, among them twelve Evangeliaries, nine Psal- ters, and many Lives of the saints. Among the seven- teen profane manuscripts are works on medicine and grammar, the " Antiquities" of Joeephus, the "Cate- gories" of Aristotle, etc.

In tbc monasteries located at the extremities of the Hellenic worifl are found the same occupations. The monastic colony of Sinai, which has existed since the fourth century, formed an admirable library, of which the present remains (1220 MS8.) afford but a faint idea. In Byzantine Italy from the tenth to the twelfth century, the Basilian monks also cultivated calligraphy at Grottaferrata, at St. Salvatore at Messina, at Stilo in Calabria, at the monastery of Cassola, near Otran to, at St. Elios at Carbone, ana especially at the Patir of Rossano, founded in the eleventh century by St. Bartholomew, who bought books at Constantinople and copied several MSS. The library of Itoesano be- came one of the sources from which the manuscripts of the Vatican hbrary weredrawn. Besides, from the end of the tenth century the great mtmasteriss of Hi. Athoa, the great lattra of St. Athanasius, Vatopedi, E^phigmenou, etc., became most important centres for the copying of MSB. Without speaking of the trM^

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copied, such as the " Chronicle of Nestor", the " S<»ig of Igor", ete.

(3) The IFegi.— The work of the Western copyists begins with St. Jerome (340-420), who, in his solitude of ChaJois and later in bis monastery of Bethlehem, copied books and commended this eKeroise as one most becoming bo monastic life (Ep. cxxiii). At the same time St. Martin of Tours introduced this rule into his monastery. The copvinff of USS. appears as one of the occupations of all tine founders of monastic institutions, of St. Honoratus and St. Capresius at I4rins, of Caselan at St. Victor's at Uorseiiles, of St. Patrick in the monasteries of Ireland, of Casalodorua in his monasteries of Scyllactum (Squillace). In his treatise "De Institutione divinarum litterarum" (643-G45) Cassiodorus has left a description of his library with its nine ormaria for HSS. of the Bible; he also describes the copying room, the scriptorium, directed by ibe antiquarius. He himself set the exam- ple by copying the Scriptures and he believed that '■ each word of the Saviour written by the copyist is a defeat inflicted on Satan" ("De Instltut.", I, 30). The work of the copyists was also considered merit^ rious by Bt, Benedict. In the sixth century copying rooms existed in all the monasteries of the West.

Since the time of Damasus, the popes had a library which was profaiably pro^'ided wiui a copying room.