A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger Part 5

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 cla.s.sical 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 ma.n.u.scripts.

16. Absence of nearly all punctuation.

17. The use of {Symbol: infra?} in the text where an omission has occurred, and {Symbol: supra?} _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 ma.n.u.scripts. The parchment is not of the very thin sort. There has been no corrosion along the furrows made by the pen. The running t.i.tle and colophons are in rustic capitals, not in uncials. The manner of forming such letters as {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.

[Sidenote: _Date of the Morgan ma.n.u.script_]

Inasmuch as these palaeographical differences mark a tendency which reaches fuller development in later uncial ma.n.u.scripts, it is clear that their presence in our ma.n.u.script is a sign of its more recent character as compared with ma.n.u.scripts of the oldest type. Just as our ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.scripts, which begins with the Cicero palimpsest. Its closest neighbors are, I believe, the Pliny palimpsest of St. Paul in Carinthia and the _Codex Theodosia.n.u.s_ of Turin. If we conclude by saying that the Morgan ma.n.u.script was written about the year 500 we shall probably not be far from the truth.

[Sidenote: _Later history of the Morgan ma.n.u.script_]

The vicissitudes of a ma.n.u.script often throw light upon the history of the text contained in the ma.n.u.script. And the palaeographer knows that any scratch or scribbling, any _probatio pennae_ or casual entry, may become important in tracing the wanderings of a ma.n.u.script.

In the six leaves that have been saved of our Morgan ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.script of Pliny must have left its Italian home before the ninth century.[31]

[Footnote 31: This supposition will be strengthened by Professor Rand; see p. 53.]

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 ma.n.u.script 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 p_rese_ntes l_ett_res verront et orront Jeh_an_ de Sannemeres garde du scel de la provoste de Meaulx & Francois Beloy clerc Jure de p_ar_ le Roy nostre sire a ce faire Salut sachient tuit que p_ar_."

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 doc.u.ment 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 _provoste_ of Meaux, and Francois Beloy, sworn clerk in behalf of the King, have so far proved fruitless.[33]

[Footnote 32: Compare, for example, the facsimile of a French deed of sale at Roye, November 24, 1433, reproduced in _Recueil de Fac-similes a l'usage de l'ecole des chartes_. Premier fascicule (Paris 1880), No. 1.]

[Footnote 33: No mention of either of these is to be found in Dom Toussaints du Plessis' _Histoire de l'eglise de Meaux_. For doc.u.ments with similar opening formulas, see ibid. vol. ii (Paris 1731), pp. 191, 258, 269, 273.]

[Sidenote: _Conclusion_]

Our ma.n.u.script, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 cla.s.sical ma.n.u.script. The oldest ma.n.u.script 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. Sall.u.s.t'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 Roma.n.u.s of Virgil, in rustic capitals, belonged to the monastery of St. Denis. Lyons preserved the _Codex Theodosia.n.u.s_. 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 ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.script tradition of Lucretius, Suetonius, Caesar, 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.

{Transcriber's Note: Superscript letters are shown as in mathematical notation: ^{L} The twelve-page transcription retains the page and line breaks of the original text, representing the ma.n.u.script itself.

In a few places the authors used V in place of U. This appears to be an error, but has not been changed.}

[TRANSCRIPTION] [A]

{fol. 48r}

LIBERII

CESSIT UT IPSE MIHI DIXERIT c.u.m CO_N_ SULERET QUAM CITO SESTERTIUM SESCE_N_ TIES INPLETURUS ESSET INUENISSE SE EX TA DUPLICATA QUIB_US_ PORTENDI MI^{L}LIES[1] ET DUCENTIES HABITURUM ET HABEBIT SI MODO UT COEPIT ALIENA TESTAMENTA QUOD EST IMPROBISSIMUM GENUS FAL SI IPSIS QUORUM SUNT ILLA DICTAUERIT UALE

[2]CPLINISECUNDI

EPISTULARUMEXP_LICIT_LIBERII.

INC_IPIT_LIB_ER_IIIFELICITER[2]

[Footnote A: The original ma.n.u.script is in _scriptura continua_. For the reader's convenience, words have been separated and punctuation added in the transcription.]

[Footnote 1: _L_ added by a hand which seems contemporary, if not the scribe's own. If the scribe's, he used a finer pen for corrections.]

[Footnote 2-2: The colophon is written in rustic capitals, the middle line being in red.]

{fol. 48v}

AD CALUISIUM RUFUM[1]

NESCIO AN ULLUM 5 AD UIBIUMMAXIMUM QUODIPSE AMICIS TUIS AD CAERELLIAE HISPULLAE[2]

c.u.m PATREM TUUM AD CAE^{CI}LIUM[3] MACRINUM 10 QUAMUIS ET AMICI AD BAEBIUM MACRUM PERGRATUM EST MIHI [4]AD ANNIUM[4] SEUERUM [4]EX HEREDITATE[4] QUAE 15 AD CANINIUM RUFUM MODO NUNTIATUS EST AD SUETON[5] TRANQUE FACIS AD PRO CETERA AD CORNELIUM[6] MINICIANUM 20 POSSUM IAM PERSCRIB AD UESTRIC SPURINN COMPOSUISSE ME QUAED

[Footnote 1: On this and the following page lines in red alternate with lines in black. The first line is in red.]

[Footnote 2: The _h_ seems written over an erasure.]

[Footnote 3: _ci_ above the line by first hand.]

[Footnote 4-4: Over an erasure apparently.]