More Facts about our Oldest Latin Manuscripts

Abstract

In an article entitled ‘Some Facts about our Oldest Latin Manuscripts,’ which appeared in this journal, the present writer put together a group of forty-seven MSS. which had this one feature in common, that each page or each column of a page they contained began with a large letter, regardless of whether that letter occurred in the middle of a sentence, or even in the middle of a word. It so happened that the list thus drawn up was composed almost entirely of very ancient MSS.; indeed, it contained a very large proportion of the oldest MSS. extant. In the circumstances it seemed useful to note down the behaviour of these MSS. with respect to four other features—namely, the manner of indicating the omission of m and n at the end of lines, the use of running titles in the top margin, the size and arrangement of the written space, and the manner of signing quires.

estructura bibliográfica de los manuscritos e incunables hispanomedievales vernáculos

“…Sin embargo, ya en esta época se constata cómo a veces se reproduce literalmente la suscripción previa, con lo cual los datos consignados no caracterizan la nueva copia, sino su modelo. Los manuscritos tardoantiguos y de la Alta Edad Media perpetuaron estos usos (Lowe: 1928), que se aprecian igualmente en los códices ibéricos bajomedievales (Ruiz: 2009). Por todo ello, se impone cotejar los datos de la suscripción con los elementos paleográficos y materiales del códice, para comprobar si hay o no correspondencia cronológica (Gimeno: 2009).…”