Edward Maunde Thompson

“ It is interesting, too, to observe that in our own time the teaching in schools of a particular type of handwriting which finds favour in clerical examinations for the public service has not been without its influence on the general handwriting of the people.
Classifying, then, the writing of the papyri into the three groups—the Ptolemaic, the Roman, and the Byzantine—the next step is to determine, by a closer examination of the documents, the changes which characterize the several centuries traversed by those groups. ”

“ No nation can have advanced far on the path of civilization before discovering the necessity for documentary evidence both in public and in private life. The laws, the constitutions, the decrees of government, on the one hand, and private contracts between man and man, on the other, must be embodied in formal documents, in order to ensure permanent record. ”

“ The Greek character, in its pure form, was used for one language only; but the universal study of that language throughout Europe and the wide diffusion of its literature have been the cause of the accumulation of Greek MSS. in every centre of learning. The field of Latin palaeography is much wider, for the Roman alphabet has made its way into every country of western Europe, and the study of its various developments and changes is essential for a proper understanding of the character which we write.
Handwriting, like every other art, has its different phases of growth, perfection and decay. ”

“ The most interesting extant case of an opisthograph papyrus is the copy of Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens in the British Museum, which is written on the back of a farmer’s accounts, of the end of the 1st century—but only for private use. It being the rule, then, to confine the writing to one side of the material, that is, to the inner surface of the made-up roll, that surface was more carefully prepared and smoothed than the other; and, further, the joints of the several sheets were so well made that they offered no obstacle to the action of the pen. ”

“ Neither series, however, it is to be remembered, has a style of writing peculiar to itself. While the extant literary works are, as a rule, written with more or less formality, no doubt by professional scribes for the book market, not a few of even the more valuable of them are copies in the ordinary cursive hands of the day. Conversely, while we find non-literary documents generally written in ordinary cursive hands, whether by official scribes or by private individuals, yet occasionally we meet with one produced in the formal style more proper to literary examples. ”

“ On the other hand, early cursive documents on vellum are scarce, for it must be borne in mind that, even allowing for the loss of such documents attributable to the perishable nature of that material in the humid climates of Europe, papyrus and waxen tablets were also the usual writing materials of the Greeks and Romans. The importance of the survival of Greek cursive papyri to so late a period is very great, for it enables us to trace the development of the Greek literary minuscule handwriting of the 9th century in a direct line from the cursive script of the papyri centuries earlier. ”

“ Necessarily, the non-literary papyri are much more numerous than the literary documents, and present a much greater variety of handwriting, being in fact the result of the daily transactions of ordinary life; and how very widespread was the knowledge of writing among the Greek-speaking population of Egypt is sufficiently testified by the surviving examples, coming as they do from the hands of all sorts and conditions of men. ”

“ But the similarity of the character of the writing (taller and more slender than is usual in vellum codices) to that of the large uncials of the papyrus Homers of the 2nd century from Hawara and Oxyrhynchus and Tebtunis is so striking that the Ambrosian Homer must be classed with them. Hence it is now held that that MS. may certainly be as early as the 3rd century. But, as that century was still within the period when papyrus was the general vehicle for Greek literature, it may be asked why that material should not in this instance also have been used. ”

“ But if space of any appreciable value is to be saved in a page of writing, a system is necessary for eliminating letters from the body of the word as well as curtailing the termination, that is, a system of contraction as well as abbreviation; and, in addition, the employment of arbitrary signs, analogous to shorthand, will serve still further to condense the text. An elaborate system of contraction of this nature was naturally only fully developed after very long practice. Both in Greek and in Latin MSS. from the 9th to the 15th century such a system was in full force. ”

“ A particular form of writing is gradually developed, then takes a finished or calligraphic style and becomes the hand of its period, then deteriorates, breaks up and disappears, or only drags on an artificial existence, being meanwhile superseded by another style which, either developed from the older hand or introduced independently, runs the same course, and in its turn is displaced by a younger rival. ”

“ Based on this foundation the chanceries of the several countries of Europe, as they came into existence and were organized, reduced to method and rule on one general system the various documents which the exigencies of public and of private life from time to time called into existence, each individual chancery at the same time following its own line of practice in detail, and evolving and confirming particular formulas which have become characteristic of it. ”

“ But the western method of obtaining the impression has differed from the eastern method. With us, the notion of a seal is an impression in relief, obtained from an incised design, either on a soft material such as wax or clay, or on a harder material such as lead, gold or silver. By common usage the word “seal,” is employed as a term to describe both the implement for making the impression, and the impression itself; but properly it should be confined to the latter, the graven implement being technically called the matrix. ”

“ It had therefore now to be unrolled afresh and to be re-rolled into its normal shape—a troublesome process which the lazy man shirked, and which the careful man accomplished by making the revolutions with his two hands while he held the revolving material steady under his chin.
Although the codex or manuscript in book-form began to make its way in Greek and Roman literature as early as the 1st century of our era, the roll maintained its position as the recognized type of literary document down to the 3rd, and even into the 4th, century, when it was altogether superseded. ”

“ The date of the first find of Greek papyri in Egypt was in 1778, when some forty or fifty rolls were discovered by some native diggers, who, however, kept only one of them. After this scarcely anything appeared until the year 1820, when was found on the site of the Serapeum at Memphis, as it was reported, a group of documents of the 2nd century B.C. Then followed a fruitful period, when several important literary papyri were secured: in 1821, the Bankes Homer, containing the last book of the Iliad; in 1847, the roll containing the Lycophron and other orations of Hypereides ”

“ Of the more pliant, and therefore generally more convenient, substances there were many, such as animal skins and vegetable growths. Practically we might confine our attention to three of them: papyrus, parchment or vellum, and paper, the employment of which, each in turn, as a writing material became almost universal. But there are also others which must be mentioned.
In a primitive state of society leaves of plants and trees strong enough for the purpose might be taken as a ready-made material to receive writing. ”

“ With the rise of the period of the Renaissance, like other medieval arts, seal-engraving passed out of the range of the traditions of the middle ages and came under the influence of the derived classical or pseudo-classical sentiment. ”

“ A single codex could hold the contents of a work which formerly must have been distributed through many volumes in roll-form. The term σωμάτιον, which was one of the names given to a codex, was expressive of its capacity. Turning again to discoveries in Egypt, it appears that in the early centuries the codex-form had become so usual among the Christians in that land that even the native material, papyrus, the recognized material for the roll, was now also made up by them into leaved books. ”

“ With the introduction of the smooth and hard-surfaced vellum, firmer and heavier letters, with marked contrasts of fine and thick strokes, became possible, and thence became the fashion. In the task which lies before us we shall have to deal mainly with MSS. written on the two very different materials, papyrus and vellum, and we shall find to how great an extent the general character and the detailed development of Greek and Latin writing, particularly for literary purposes, has been affected by the two materials. ”

“ In contradistinction those public documents which were issued in closed form under seal were known as “close letters,” litterae clausae.
Such public documents belong to the state archives of their several countries, and are the monuments of administrative and political and domestic history of a nation from one generation to another. In no country has so perfect a series been preserved as in our own. Into the Public Record Office in London have been brought together all the collections of state archives which were formerly stored in different official repositories of the kingdom. ”

“ Armorial devices of the gentry first appear on seals at the close of the 12th century; and from that time there is a gradual development of the heraldic seal, which in the 14th century was often a work of fine decorative sculpture. And, lastly, the devices on fancy seals are without end in their variety.
As in all other departments of medieval art, the engraving of seals in the middle ages passed through certain well-marked developments and changes characteristic of different periods. Fine seal engraving is to be found in the productions of many of the continental nations ”

“ The superscription always runs in the form, N. rex Francorum. The most complete kinds of diplomas were authenticated by the king’s subscription, that of the referendarius (the official charged with the custody of the royal seal) , the impression of the seal, and exceptionally by subscriptions of prelates and great personages. The royal subscription was usually autograph; but, if the sovereign were too young or too illiterate to write, a monogram was traced by the scribe. ”

“ But, while lead was the ordinary material for the metal seal, a more precious substance was occasionally used. On special occasions golden bullae were issued by the Byzantine emperors, by the popes, by the Carolings, although no actual examples of the last have survived, by the emperors of Germany, and by other sovereigns and rulers. Such specimens as have descended to us show that the golden bulla of the middle ages was usually hollow, being formed of two thin plates of metal stamped with the designs of obverse and reverse, soldered together at the edges and padded with wax or plaster. ”

“ Bearing in mind these natural changes, it is evident that a style of writing, once developed, is best at the period when it is in general use, and that the oldest examples of that period are the simplest, in which vigour and naturalness of handwriting are predominant. On the other hand, the fine execution of a MS. after the best period of the style has passed cannot conceal deterioration. ”

“ In writing the text of a work, the scribe might choose to make use of separate sheets of papyrus, κολλήματα, schedae, and then join them to one another consecutively so as to make up the roll; or he might purchase from the stationers a scapus, or ready-made roll of twenty sheets at most; and if this length were not sufficient, he might add other sheets or scapi, and thus make a roll of indefinite length. ”

“ The medieval seal may be said, in general, to be composed of two essential parts: the device, or type as it is sometimes called, and the inscription or legend. It is the existence of the legend, surrounding the device as with a border, that distinguishes it from the antique engraved gem, which rarely bore an Type and legend. inscription and then only its field. Such antique gems as were adopted for matrices in the middle ages were usually set in metal mounts, on which the legends were engraved. The first and obvious reason for an inscription on a seal was to ensure identification of the owner ”

“ It was the custom of the Greeks and Romans to estimate the length of their literary works by measured lines. In poetical works the number of metrical verses was computed; in prose works a standard line had to be taken, for no two scribes would naturally write lines of the same length. On the authority of Galen (de Placit. Hipp. et Plat. viii. 1) we learn that the unit of measurement among the Greeks was the average Homeric line, consisting of about 36 letters, or 16 syllables. ”

“ The rivalry of collectors and the high prices which rare or favourite autographs realize have naturally given encouragement to the forger. False letters of popular heroes and of popular authors, of Nelson, of Burns, of Thackeray, and of others, appear from time to time in the market: in some instances clever imitations, but more generally too palpably spurious to deceive any one with experience. ”

“ In both Greek and Latin literary MSS. of early date the writing runs on continuously without separation of words. This practice however, may be regarded as rather artificial, as in papyri written in non-literary hands and in Latin deeds also, contemporary with these early literary Text without separation of Words. MSS., there is a tendency to separation. In a text thus continuously written occasional ambiguities necessarily occurred, and then a dot or apostrophe might be inserted between words to aid the reader. ”