Thu Oct 24 08:59:43 1996
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From: "A. Young"
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Subject: Re: uncials & majuscules
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Here is more than you ever wanted to know about the uses of the term
"uncial" in the wider world of palaeography and diplomatics. It's from LE
Boyle, OP, "Palaeography and Codicology: An Elementary Vocabulary" (1963,
rev. 1969 [hence the use of BM where we'd now say BL]); Fr Boyle (now
prefect of the Vatican Libaray) prepared this glossary of terms for his
palaeography seminars.
=======BEGIN QUOTE================
UNCIAL: A term first used by Mabillon, _De re diplomatica libri sex_
(Paris, 1681; ed. Paris 1709, p 48), to describe large CAPITAL ROMAN
(QUADRATA) writing, as distinct from Roman writing in "minuta" or
minuscule hand, As a source of the term he cited St Jerome's prologue to
his version of the Book of Job (PL 28, 1142A):
Habeant qui volunt veteres libros vel in membraneis purpureis auro
argentoque descriptos vel _uncialibus_ (ut vulgo aiunt) libris - onera
magis exarata quam codices - dummodo mihi meisque permittunt pauperes
habere schedulas, et non tam pulchros codices quam emendatos.
For Mabillon, the various Vergil codices (Vaticanus, etc), the Codex
Amiatinus, the Vatican St Hilary _De Trinitate_ (the so-called
_Basilicanus_ codex), were all in this majuscule UNCIAL or QUADRATA hand,
and belong to the "scriptura romana secundae aetatis". For Mabillon,
therefore, as probably for St Jerome, UNCIAL seems to have meant any type
of large Roman writing, especially the QUADRATA type.
Mabillon's terminology was refined by Scipione Maffei, _Istoria
diplomatica_ (Mantua, 1727). Maffei, indeed, is the first to draw a
distinction between the majuscule writing of the Vergil codices (calling
it CAPITAL) and the equally majuscule but distinctive writing of e.g., the
Vatican Hilary (Basilicanus), to which he preferred to reserve the term
UNCIAL.
However, the majuscule script in the Vatican Hilary (Basilicanus) was, in
fact, of two different sizes, the smaller looking like a cut-down version
of the larger. So Maffei decided that the large majuscule writing should
be called UNCIAL writing, and that the smaller majuscule writing should be
termed SEMI-UNCIAL. Thereafter, the Basilicanus codex of Hilary became the
yardstick of UNCIAL and SEMI-UNICIAL SCRIPTS (See Lowe, _Codices Latini
Antiquiores_, for variations of the "Semi-unical" theme: "Unical verging
on semi-uncial"; "semi-uncial verging on uncial"; "b-d uncial", etc, etc).
In fact, as J. Mallon, _Paleographie romaine_ (Madrid, 1952) has shown so
forcefully, there is no direct relationship whatever between "Uncial" and
"semi-unical"; Maffei's terminology is as spurious as the use of Unical
itself (Mabillon probably was quite correct in thinking that Jerome meant
something like large, expensive, expansive, ponderous, etc writing). As
Mallon and others have well shown, the two scripts in the Basilicanus
codex are independent developments out of the classic ROman literary
script known as RUSTIC: "uncial" being based on an outmoded form which we
may term "Transitional Rustic" (best seen in the _De Bellis Macedonicis_
fragment in the British Museum: BM Papyrus 745, writtn c. 100 AD and found
at Oxyrhynchos); "Semi-uncial" on the "Reformed Rustic" script which has
its earliest witness in the parchemnt roll fragment known as the _Epitome
Livii_ (C. 200 AD; found in 1903 at Oxyrhynchos, now BM Pap. 1532).
Semi-uncial is thus in fact a more authentic script than Uncial. However,
since the terms are to be found in every book on palaeography worth its
salt, they may continue to be used PROVIDED one remembers that there is no
question whatever of a "full" - "semi" relationship between the two; and
that the descriptions given of them in most manuals of palaeography
(Steffens, Ullman, Battelli, etc) are very, very, inaccutate - as are
their methodes of identification.
=========END QUOTE=============================
Dr Abigail Ann Young, Records of Early English Drama| young@chass.|
Victoria College, University of Toronto | utoronto.ca |
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/reed.html | REED's Home Page |
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