Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/181

 P A L P A L 165 more elaborate system of contraction, in sufficient numbers to repre sent certain common words and terminations. In the early Greek minuscule MSS. contractions are not very fre quent in the texts ; but in the marginal glosses, where it was an object to save space, they are found in great numbers as early as the 10th century. The MS. of Nonnus, of 972 A.D., in the British Museum (Wattenb. and Von Vels., Exempla, 7) is an instance of a text contracted to a degree that almost amounts to tachygraphy. In secular MSS. contractions developed most quickly. In the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries texts were fully contracted ; and as the writing became more cursive contraction-marks were more care lessly applied, until, in the 15th century, they degenerated into mere flourishes. In Latin Biblical uncial MSS. the same restrictions on abbrevia tions were exercised as in the Greek. _The sacred names and titles US dcus, DMS, TyNS = dominus, SCS = sanctus, BPS = spiri- tus, and others appear in the oldest codices. The contracted ter minations Q = quc, B = 6i&amp;lt;s, and the omission of final m, or (more rarely) final n, are common to all Latin MSS. of the earliest period. There is a peculiarity about the contracted form of our Saviour s name that it is always written by the Latin scribes in letters imitating the Greek IHC, XPC, ihc, xpc. In secular works, as already noticed, contractions were used in many forms at an early period. In minuscule MSS. of the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries the system of dropping middle or final syllables was commonly applied. In this stage the simpler marks of contraction, such as a horizontal stroke or an apostrophe to mark the omitted termination, were generally used. Certain ordinary words also, as prepositions and conjunctions, and a few prefixes and terminations, had parti cular forms of contraction from an early date. Such are e = es&amp;lt;, =&amp;gt; ml, fi = non, p =prc, f&amp;gt;=pcr, ^ =pro, = termination us. The letter q with distinctive strokes applied in different positions re presented the often recurring relative and other short words, as quod, quia. Conventional signs also derived from the Tironian notes were employed, particularly in Irish and English MSS., as ft=aute//i, -~=cst, 3 = ejus, tt = e,ii, ~] =ct. From the practice of writing above the line a leading letter of an omitted syllable, as int* =intra, t r = tur, other conventional signs were also de veloped. Such growths are well illustrated in the change under gone by the semicolon, which was attached to the end of a word to indicate the omission of the termination, as &amp;gt;; = bus, &amp;lt;[; = quc, del&amp;gt;; = dcbet, and which in course of time became converted into a 2, a form which survives in our ordinary abbreviation viz. (i.e., i; = videlicet). The different forms of contraction which have been noticed were common to all the nations of western Europe. The Spanish scribes, however, attached different values to certain of them. For example, in Visigothic MSS., q~m, which elsewhere represented quoniam, may be read as quum ; and ,}&amp;gt;, which else where =|?ro, is here=_pe? By the llth century the system of Latin contractions had been reduced to exact rules ; and from this time onwards it was univer sally practised. It reached its culminating point in the 13th cen tury, the period of increasing demand for MSS., when it became more than ever necessary to economize space. After this date the exact formation of the signs of contraction was less strictly observed, and the system deteriorated together with the decline of hand writing. In conclusion, it may be noticed that in MSS. written in the vernacular tongues contractions are more rarely used than in Latin texts. A system suited to the inflexions and terminations of this language could not be readily adapted to other languages so different in grammatical structure. Breathings and Accents. These were not systematically applied to the texts of Greek MSS. before the 7th century. Such as are found in isolated passages in the ancient papyri do not appear to have been written by the first hand, and most of them are probably of much later date. They have been freely added to the ancient texts of Homer, as in the Harris and Bankes papyri, but palpably long after the dates of the writing. Nor were they used in the early uncial MSS. The ancient codices of the Bible are devoid of them; and, although in the Ambrosian Homer of the 5th century it is thought that some of the breathings may be by the original hand, the other marks of breathing and the accents are of later date. So likewise the few breathings and accents which are seen in the palimpsest Homer of the 6th century in the British Museum have been, to all appearance, added afterwards. In Latin texts, and particularly in early Irish and English MSS., an accent is occasionally found over a monosyllabic word or one consisting of a single letter. But such accentuation, serving to distinguish such small words in reading, rather corresponds to the similar marking of short words in Greek MSS., as noticed above. Numerals. An examination of the different forms of numerals to be found in Greek and Latin MSS. is beyond the province of this article. It may, however, be pointed out that, while in Greek MSS. one system was followed, in Latin MSS. both the Roman and Arabic numerals were in use. The Roman numerals appear in all kinds of documents at all times. When occurring in the text of a MS. they were usually placed between full points, e.g., .cxiiii. . to prevent confusion with the letters of the words. Arabic- numerals were established in common use by the end of the 14th century, but their occurrence in MSS. has been traced back to the middle of the 12th century, from which date down to the time of their general adoption they were principally confined to mathe matical works. Bibliography. GREEK PALEOGRAPHY. The first book which dealt with the subject in a systematic manner was the Palxographia Gneca of the learned Benedictine, Dom Bernard de Montfaucon, published in 1708. So thoroughly well was the work done that down to our own time no other scholar attempted to improve upon it, and Montfaucon remained the undisputed authority in this branch of learning. At length, in 1879, Gardthausen published his Griechische Palieographie, in which is embodied fuller information that was unavailable in Montfaucon s day. In this work the development of Greek writing in its various styles is carefully and lucidly worked out and illustrated with table?, and a useful list of dated Greek MSS. is added. See also a review of Gardt- hausen s work by Charles Graux in the Journal des Savants (1881). A most useful and handy introduction is Wattenbach s Anleitung zur Griechiifheu Palieographie (2d ed., 1877), in which will be found references to all the most important MSS. With regard to facsimiles, those which are found in Montfaucon and other books of the same time are practically useless for critical purposes. The invention of photography has entirely driven into the background all hand made facsimiles, and in the future none will be admissible which are not pro duced by the action of light. Autotypes or pht to-lithographs. r vom MSS. ar* given in the Facsimiles of the Palasographical Society (1873-8:3); in the Exempla Codicum Grxcorum litteris minusculis fcriptorum(l878) of Wattenbach and Von Velsen; in the Catalogue of Ancient MSS. in the British Museum, part i. (1881): in Wattenbach s Scripturx Grxcie Specimina (1883): and, in fewer numbers, in Specimina Palxographica codd. Grxc. et Slav. bill. Mosguensis (1863-64) by Bishop Sabas. Facsimiles made by hand, but excellently finished, are in Silvestre s Paleographie Universelle (1850) and in Notices et Extraits dts Manuscrits, torn, xviii., pt. 2 (1865), where the papyri of Paris are faithfully represented. LATIN PALAEOGRAPHY. The bibliography of Latin palaeography in its different branches is very extensive, but there are comparatively few books which dtal with it as a whole. The most complete work is due to the Benedictines, who in 1750-65 produced the Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique, which examines the remains of Latin wilting in a most exhaustive manner. The fault of the work lies indeed in its diffuseness and in the superabundance of subdivisions which tend to confuse the reader. The extensive use, however, which the authors made of the French libraries renders their work most valuable for reference. As their title shows, they diil not confine themselves to the study of MS. volumes, but dealt also with that other branch of palaeography, the study of documents, in which they had been preceded by Mabillon in his De Re Diplomatica (1709). Wattenbach s Anleitung zur Latiinischen Palseographie, 3d ed., 1878, is a thoroughly practical introduction, classifying the different kinds of writing, and giving full biographical references, and tracing the forms of letters and the history of contractions, &c. Works which give facsimiles in general are Silvestre, Paleographie Universelle; the Facsimiles of the Palseographical Society: Arndt, Schrifttafeln, 1874, 1878; the Catalogue of Ancient MSS. in the British Museum, part ii., 1884; and among those which deal with particular branches of Latin palaeography the following may be enumerated Exempla Codicum Lutin- orumlitteris maiusculis scriptorum (1876, 1879) by Zangemeisterand Wattenbach : on Roman cursive, and on Lombardic, Merovingian, and Visigothic writing, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vols. iii., iv.; Massmann, Libellus aurariuf. 1840; Marini, Papiri Diplomatici, 1805; the Chartes Latines sur Papyrus (1835- 40) of Champollion-Figeac; Gloria, Paleografia, 1870; Sickel, Monumenta Graphica. 1858-69; Letronne, Diplomata et Chartse Meronngica; ^tatis, 1848; &quot;Facsimile de Chartes et Diplomes,&quot; in the Archives de I Empire, 1866; Sybel and Sickel, Kaiserurkunden, 1880-84; Bibliotheca Casinensis, 1873, &c.; Merino. Escutla Pahographica, 1780; and the Exempla Scripturx Visigoliae (1883) of Ewald and Loewe. On Irish and English writing Astle, Origin and Progress of Writing, 1873; Facsimiles of Ancient Charters in the British Museum, 1873-78 ; Facsimiltf of Anglo -Saxon MSS., 1878, 1881, Kolls Series; Facsimiles of National MSS. of Eng land, Scotland, and Ireland, in separate series. The various works on illumina tion, such as those of Count Bastard, Westwood, Tymms and Wyatt, and others may also be consulted. For the study of the Tironian Notes, see Carpentier. Alphabelum Tironianum, 1747; Kopp, Palxographia Criiica, 1817; Jules Tardif, &quot; Me moire sur les Notes Tironiennes,&quot; in the Memoires del Acade mie des Inscriptions, se r. 2, torn, iii., 1852; and the &quot;Notfe Bemenses,&quot; &c., published in the Panstenographikon periodical. A useful handbook of contractions is Chassant s Dictionnaire des Abre vititions, 1862. For particulars as to materials employed and the mechanical arrangements followed in the production of MSS., see Birt s Anlike Buchictsen (1882) and Wattenbach s Schriftu-esen im MittelaUtr (1875). (E. M. T.) PAL/EOLOGUS, a Byzantine family name which first appears in history about the middle of the llth century, when George Palaeologus is mentioned among the prominent supporters of Nicephorus Botaniates, and afterwadrs as having helped to raise Alexius I. Comnenus to the throne in 1081 ; he is also noted for his brave defence of Durazzo against the Normans in that year. Michael Palaeologus, probably his son, was sent by Manuel II. Comnenus into Italy as ambassador to the court of Frederick I. in 1154; in the following year he took part in the campaign against William of Sicily, and died at Bari in 1155. A son or brother of Michael, named George, received from the emperor Manuel the title of Sebastos, and was entrusted with several important missions ; it is uncertain whether he ought to be identified with the George Palaeologus who took part