Subject: Re: Manuscript fragments....

From: [email-masked] (Nichael Lynn Cramer)
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 15:30:09 -0400

At 12:37 PM 6/10/96, Robert B. Waltz wrote:
>[email-masked] (Nichael Lynn Cramer) wrote:
>>At 10:45 AM 6/10/96, Robert B. Waltz wrote:
>>>Why is it that uncials are usually fragments, while minuscules are
>>>generally complete or nearly? As I recall, about 80% of uncials are
>>>fragmentary, often only a single leaf. Whereas a (very quick) check
>>>of the Kurzgefasste Liste seemed to show that only about 5% of
>>>minuscules are fragmentary (I was checking for manuscripts, not
>>>of the Apocalypse, of less than fifty folios), and the number of
>>>single-page manuscripts is infinitesimal.
>>>
>>>Is this just because many of the papyri and uncials are recovered
>>>from rubbish heaps and the like, whereas minuscules are usually
>>>kept in libraries? Or is there something else involved that might
>>>help us in our discussion of the destruction of manuscript's
>>>ancestors?
>>
>>Wouldn't a major consideration be simply their difference in age (in
>>general).  Most Uncials date from before the 9th century; most (all?)
>>miniscules after.
>>
>>Also, there may be a "false resonance" here.  Presumably the total number
>>of manuscripts produced in any century grew from the first century until
>>the introduction of printing.  Viewed in this way it would make sense that
>>there are more younger(=Miniscule) better preserved manuscripts than
>>older(=Uncial) manuscripts.
>
>I think it's a bit more complicated than that. By that argument,
>survival rates for uncials and minuscules should be the same for
>the centuries they overlap (IX and X).
>
>I thought I would check that. Using the Kurzgefasste Liste (1st Ed,
>since that's what I have at home), I looked for *all* ninth century
>minuscules and uncials. I may have missed one or two (this was
>obviously a very quick scan), *but*
>
>Of 15 minuscules from the ninth century, *all* are significant (50+
>folios). Most are complete.
>
>Of 38 uncials, only 22 are substantial, and many of these are more
>or less damaged. 14 uncials are fragmentary (usually less than 20
>folios, and uncials generally had less text on a folio than
>minuscules), and 2 uncials were single folios.
>
>Thus, even when they are of the same date, uncials seem to be
>more likely to have been damaged.

You're right --that is interesting (although we still have to separate out
the age affect: cf your reference to papyri above).

A couple of things come to mind.  First, I wonder if there was any
significant correlation between Uncial/Minscule scripy and book material
during this period?

If not, it would be useful to know what (if any) patterns of damage the
Uncials exhibit.  If so, could we infer that was there something about the
larger characters that tended to make the books more prone to damage?

For example, is the binding the culprit here?  The larger size of the
characters would tend to put the binding under greater stress because books
would need to be thicker for an equal amount of text (e.g. it's all I can
do to keep my 20's vintage Liddel-Scott together, but I have even older
magazines that are perfectly happy with a couple of staples).  There's also
the minor affect that fewer characters per page means proportionally more
page turning.  A damaged or broken binding will clearly put the leaves at
greater risk.

More generally would a physically smaller book be more or less likely to
survive (i.e. is it safer because it presents a smaller "target")?

Nichael
[email-masked]                                               __
http://www.sover.net/~nichael              Be as passersby   -- IC

---

From: Maurice Robinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 21:06:28 -0400 (EDT)

On Mon, 10 Jun 1996, Nichael Lynn Cramer wrote:

[Waltz:]

>>minuscules and uncials. ....

>>even when they are of the same date, uncials seem to be

> significant correlation between Uncial/Minscule scripy and book material

As far as I know, there was not.  The introduction of paper in the 12th 
or 13th and later centuries might explain part of the reduction in number 
of minuscule copies in the later era of the minuscules, but at the time 
of the uncial to minuscule transition, there are no known factors I know 
of which would cause a problem as regards availability of material.  
Minuscule script was developed primarily because it was easier to write 
than uncial, and took up less leaves within a document.

> larger characters that tended to make the books more prone to damage?

Certainly the script alone would not make a MS any more or less prone to
damage.  Typical instances of accidental damage would be the loss of an
internal quire or the beginning or last page(s) of a MS.  The extant MSS
which have had missing portions supplied (marked "supp" in the
apparatuses) attest to this situation.  The likely cause still remains
deliberate destruction of the uncial exemplars once a minuscule copy had
been made, as Lake proposed.  The existing uncial fragments which had been
put to palimpsest use testify to at least part of this near-universal 
disassembly or destruction of uncials so that they might be turned to 
other uses. (It is interesting that the Council of Trullo in 692 had 
prohibited such destruction of biblical MSS, especially their use as 
palimpsests; a century later, with the change of script occurring, this 
decree was obviously no longer in force).

> would need to be thicker for an equal amount of text 

No need to postulate any of this.  Only about 50 MSS contain the entire NT
bound as a single volume.  Most MSS were bound only as the four gospels,
or the Acts and Catholic epistles, or the Pauline Epistles (Revelation
usually stood alone, since it had no liturgical use within the lectionary
system).  The minuscule MSS containing any similar portion would be nearly
the same size and thickness (recognizing Aleph, A, B, C, and D as
exceptions on the grand scale); also, minuscule MSS which placed the
biblical text in the center but surrounded that text with lengthy catenae
would end up as thick as uncial MSS previously had been. 

> There's also

The quality of the binding certainly could be a factor; however, I think
you will find that there was probably MORE page turning in the minuscule
MSS, since most of them were rubricated for lectionary use, and pages were
turned quite frequently as a continuous-text MS served double duty as a
lectionary.  Interestingly, the lectionary MSS themselves (the pages of
which were obviously turned sequentially, seem to show less wear than 
many of the continuous text minuscule MSS). 
 
> survive (i.e. is it safer because it presents a smaller "target")?

MSS are preserved in all kinds of sizes, from true "miniature" books to 
the massive grand uncial type of volumes.  Proportionally, there is 
certainly an "average size" volume for both uncial and minuscule MSS, 
once the extremes are discounted, but there is nothing within that range 
to explain one cause of destruction more than another merely due to size 
alone.  E.g., Sinaiticus is complete in the NT; Vaticanus is missing from 
Heb 9:14 to the end (supplied by a minuscule hand from a different 
exemplar); A is missing the first 25 chapters of Matthew; C as a 
palimpsest is only about half complete.  There is no rhyme or reason 
regarding survival which can be discerned among the great uncials, except 
in the case of C, in which we know it was disassembled and reused for 
those "significant sermons of Ephraem".

_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~