Palæography is the science which deals with ancient manuscripts, teaching us not only to decipher them, but to judge of their date, genuineness, and place of origin. While Epigraphy (see the article INSCRIPTIONS) is concerned with writings engraved on some hard substance, such as stone or metal, the materials for palæographic study comprise ancient books, either rolls, volumina, written on leather or papyrus, or codices, written in book form on sheets of vellum or paper. Wax-tablets, charters, bulls, decrees, acts, business papers, and similar documents have also to be considered by the student of palæography.
The oldest extant manuscripts come from Egyptian tombs, and are written on sheets of Papyrus (q.v.), prepared from the pith of a rush. A few fragments date from the time of the early empire, the most important being the Papyrus Prisse, the oldest book in the world, which was found in a tomb of the 11th dynasty, and must therefore be older by several centuries than the Hebrew Exodus. Coming down to the 18th and 19th dynasties, papyrus rolls, usually containing portions of the Book of the Dead (q.v.), are numerous. But documents written on papyrus, a very fragile material, have mostly perished, and the chief ancient MSS. which have come down to us are written either on parchment, which is still used for legal documents, or on vellum; the skins being prepared so as to be written on both sides, thus superseding the older leather rolls, still used in Jewish synagogues for copies of the Law. The necessary limits of this article make it impossible to discuss the hieratic and demotic papyri from Egyptian tombs, or any of the Eastern scripts, Chinese, Pali, Indian, Coptic, Syriac, Hebrew, or even the magnificent specimens of Persian and Arabic calligraphy preserved in oriental libraries. The student may, however, be referred to the oriental series of the Palæographical Society, to Silvestre's Paléographie Universelle, and Burnell's Elements of South Indian Palæo- graphy. It must here suffice to describe briefly the Greek and Latin styles, and the more important of the mediæval scripts.
Both in Greek and Latin manuscripts we find two contemporaneous but widely-different styles of writing; a book-hand, formal and stiff, but legible, used by professional scribes, and a cursive hand, rapid, careless, loose, and straggling, often very difficult to read, which was employed for private correspondence, contracts, accounts, and, somewhat formalised, for charters, rescripts, and other official documents.
The book-hands may be classed as Capital, Uncial, or Minuscule. The capitals, which differ little from the lapidary forms used in inscriptions, are square and angular, such as are still retained for initials, titles, and superscriptions. Manuscripts written wholly in capitals are very rare, the use of more facile materials, such as parchment or papyrus, having led at a very early time to modifications of the lapidary forms, transforming them into uncials, a formal book-hand, large, clear, and legible, used by professional scribes for codices, and derived from the capitals with little change, save that the forms are more rounded, and often inclined rather than upright. Thus, Ε both in Greek and Latin is a characteristic uncial form, obtained by rounding the capital form E, and saving labour by requiring only two strokes of the pen instead of four. The term Uncial is as old as the time of St Jerome, but its modern usage is due to a misconception, uncial letters being seldom an inch in height, as the name implies. The general resemblance in the character of Greek and Latin uncials will be seen by a few words from St John, xxi. 19, as they appear in the Codex Bezae at Cambridge, a manuscript assigned to the 6th century, containing the Gospels and Acts in Greek, with the Vulgate translation.
CHMENΩΝΤΟΙΩΘΑΝΑΤΩΔΟΞΑCΕΙΤΟΝΘΝ
Greek.
SIGNIFICANSQUAMORTENONORIFICABITDΜ
Latin.
Or, in ordinary minuscules, σημενων [σημαινων] ποιω θανατω δοξασει τον θεον, 'significans qua morte honorificabit Deum.'
In the 8th and 9th centuries a new book-hand was evolved mainly out of the cursive, but incorporating sundry forms from the degenerate contemporary uncial. This, by reason of the smaller size of the letters, is called minuscule. The old majuscule cursive, developed out of the capitals and uncials, which had by this time become formless and illegible, was gradually superseded by a new cursive, developed out of the minuscule. The minuscule reached its perfection as a book-hand in the 11th century, after which it continually degenerated till the invention of printing. Both for Greek and Latin books the early printers adopted at first the corrupted forms of the contemporary book-hands, but afterwards returned to the older and purer types of the 11th and 12th centuries. Thus there is a general analogy between the successive stages of Greek and Latin writing. Side by side with the old cursive scripts there is a gradual evolution of improved uncial book-hands till about the 4th century, followed by a period of decay, till the 9th century, when the revival of learning produced a regeneration, again followed by progressive deterioration till the invention of printing caused a reversion to the best of all preceding styles, that of the 11th century. Traces of these revolutions may still be recognised. It will be observed that we now employ four different alphabets: minuscules for our printed books, and capitals for their title-pages, headings, and initials, and cursives for our correspondence, while the initials in our ordinary writing are analogous to uncials. Familiarity prevents us from noting the wide differences in the forms of such letters as A, a, a; B, b, b; G, g, g; or R, r, r. These are survivals, the first from the lapidary capitals of the Augustan age, the second from the French book-hand of the 11th century, and the third from the Tudor cursive, modified and improved by the Italian cursive of the Elizabethan age.
Greek Palæography.—No Greek manuscripts written in pure capitals have come down to us, though the transitional forms may be detected. The oldest Greek manuscripts now extant are papyri in early uncials of the Ptolemaic period which have been found in Egypt, their preservation being due to the dryness of the climate, and to the practice of burying documents in tombs. Three must be earlier than 160 B.C., and there are several Homeric fragments on papyri earlier than the Christian era. The most important contain Orations of Hyperides, of which the oldest are assigned to the 1st century B.C. We have from Herculaneum an ancient library consisting of 1803 papyrus rolls, which must be older than 79 A.D., when the city was destroyed. These early Greek uncials being written on papyrus, a fragile material, are slender and delicate, without bold curves, thick downstrokes, or fine hairlines, which only became possible when the use of vellum introduced a firmer and bolder style. In these uncial papyri the introduction of ligatures produced a tendency to cursive forms, which are exhibited in the ostraca, of which great numbers have been found in Egypt. These are usually receipts for taxes, scratched with a point or written with ink on potsherds. Our chief knowledge of the early Greek cursive is derived from the private papers and correspondence of Ptolemy, son of Glaucias, a Macedonian Greek, who lived as a recluse at the Serapeum about 170 B.C. Cursive scripts were, however, used by the Greeks at a much earlier period; Greek inscriptions in the Cypriote syllabary exhibiting forms of a distinctively cursive character as early as the 7th century B.C. Compared with the papyri the uncial vellum codices, of which about 300 are known, exhibit a firmer and more set uncial style, which was rendered possible by the material. The oldest to which a definite date can be assigned is the Dioscorides now at Vienna, which from internal evidence must have been written about 506 A.D. Earlier, but undated, are the three great Biblical codices, the Codex Vaticanus at Rome, which is assigned to the 4th century; the Codex Sinaiticus at St Petersburg, assigned to the end of the 4th or the beginning of the 5th century; and the Codex Alexandrinus, now in the British Museum, which probably belongs to the middle of the 5th. The style of the writing in these uncial codices is seen in the subjoined specimen, which is taken from the Septuagint version of Esther, i. 22, as it appears in the Codex Sinaiticus.
ΚΑΙΛΠΕΚΤΙΛΕΝΕΙϣⲟⲩⲥΙΛΕⲛⲉⲥ
ΠΑCΑΝΤΗΝΒΑCΙ
ΛΕΙΑΝΚΑΤΑΧΩΡΑΝ
ΚΑΤΑΤΗΝΛΕΞΙΝΑΥ
ΤΩΝΩCΤΕΕΙΝΑΙ
ΦΟΚΟΝΑΥΤΟΙCΕΝ
ΤΑΙCΟΙΚΙΑΙCΑΥΤⲟⲩⲥΙΛΕⲛⲉⲥ
This in ordinary Greek type would read : και απεστιλεν εις
πασαν την βασι
λειαν κατα χωραν
κατα την λεξιν αυ
των ωστε ειναι
φοβον αυτοις εν
ταις οικιαις αυτω[ν].
To the 5th century are assigned the palimpsest Codex Ephraemi at Paris, to the 6th the Codex Bezae at Cambridge and the Codex Claromontanus at Paris. After the 7th century the Greek uncial loses its early style; the letters become oval, narrow, elongated, and cramped, sloping to the right; accents make their appearance, and the pure early uncial degenerates into cursive forms difficult to read.
At the end of the 6th century we find the first beginnings of the new minuscule, the book-hand of the future, which was destined to replace both the deformed uncial and the earlier cursive, from each of which it borrowed certain elements. The earliest traces of these minuscule forms as yet discovered are seen in a collection of papyri, ranging in date from 592 to 616 A.D., which were the business and family papers of Aurelius Pachymius, a dealer in purple dyes. The transition from the old to the new style is exemplified in a most interesting sheet of papyrus from Ravenna, now at Vienna, which contains the signatures of certain bishops to the Acts of the Council of Constantinople, held in 680. The older bishops sign in slanting uncials and the younger men in early forms of the new minuscule. In the 9th century, with the revival of learning, this new minuscule developed into a calligraphic book-hand, which was used in vellum codices. The oldest books in which it appears are the Uspensky Gospels, written in 835, and the Bodleian Euclid of 888 A.D. The chief transformations are due to the use of ligatures, as is plainly seen in the forms of the letters δ, ϣ, and σ. Hence in the fully-formed minuscule of the 11th century we find the letters α, ε, κ, λ, φ, ω, which follow the old uncial forms, while δ, η, μ, ν are taken from the cursive. In the case of several letters the double source of this script is shown by the retention of duplicate forms, β, θ, π, and σ, for instance, being uncials, while ε, ϣ, ϣ, and σ are of cursive origin.
From the end of the 12th century to the invention of printing the minuscule continually degenerates, losing its purity and beauty, and breaking up into a rough cursive script. The writing becomes intricate and involved, ligatures and accents being combined into a single character rapidly executed without taking the pen from the paper, thus making the writing very difficult to read. In the earliest printed books the contracted and ligatured forms of contemporary minuscule MSS. were faithfully imitated. These, however, were gradually discarded, though a few, such as ϣ for στ, ϣ for ου, and ϣ for ος, survived till quite recent times.
Latin Palaeography followed much the same course as the Greek. There were four set book-hands—capitals, uncials, semiuncials, and minuscules, of which the two last were influenced by the old Roman cursive. The capitals are of two kinds, Square and Rustic. Square capitals differ little from the lapidary characters used in inscriptions, and may be defined as having their vertical and horizontal strokes at right angles. Of the few examples we possess of this script the best is the St Gall Virgil, assigned to the 4th century. Rustic capitals, which were more usual, are characterised by circumflexed finials and by the crossbars being curved and slightly oblique. This style, which can be traced in a Herculaneum papyrus of the 1st century A.D., was greatly in fashion from the 3d century to the 7th. Good examples are four famous Virgils: the Codex Vaticanus assigned to the 4th century, the Codex Palatinus to the 5th, the Codex Romanus to the 6th, all of which are in the Vatican, and the 5th century Medicean Virgil at Florence. The Rustic died out about the 9th century, and left no successor.
The uncials arose out of the square capitals, and exhibit rounded forms of certain letters. The earliest uncial codices extant are not earlier than the 4th century A.D., but it is plain that uncial writing was practised at a much earlier period, since we find uncial forms in some of the Graffiti (q.v.) scribbled on Pompeian walls, while as early as the 3d century B.C. the lapidary forms of P, R, C, S show that uncial influences had already transformed the earlier angular shapes of these letters. The uncial book-hand is distinguished from the contemporary square capitals by the rounded forms Ε Μ Υ Η instead of E, M, V, H, and by the tails of P, F, Q, and R falling below the line, while the head of L rises above it.
One of the oldest uncial Latin MSS. is the Vercelli Gospels, said to have been transcribed by the hand of Eusebius himself, but in any case nearly as early as his time. A good example of the later uncials is the copy of the Gospels now in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, which is believed to have been the actual copy brought from Rome by St Augustine in 596. Also of the 6th century is the Codex Bezae at Cambridge, the style of which is shown in the fac-simile already given. The earlier and later uncial styles are well seen in the famous palimpsest Cicero from the monastery of Bobbio, now in the Vatican. A palimpsest is a manuscript from which the writing was washed off with a sponge, or sometimes scraped or rubbed, in order that the vellum might be used for some other work. The Codex Ephraemi above mentioned is a palimpsest, a 5th-century Greek text being overwritten in a 12th-century hand. The Vatican Cicero is a codex consisting of 150 leaves, containing in the first hand the treatise De Republica, written in double columns in large uncials, probably of the 4th century. Over this is written across the commentary of St Augustine on the Psalms, in a small uncial hand of the 7th century. boengest quia
ET OMNES XPIANI MEMBRASUNT XPI
MEMBRAS XPI QUID CANTANT AMANT
DESIDERANDO CANTANT ALIQUANDO
XPI RANU BRAS
In the fainter writing of the original manuscript we may decipher the words EST IGITUR INQUIT AFRICANUS RESP.[ublica]. The writing in the second hand reads (line 1) HOMO EST QUIA, (2) ET OMNES XPIANI [Christiani] MEMBRA SUNT XPI [Christi], (3) MEMBRA XPI [Christi] QUID CANTANT. AMANT, (4) DESIDERANDO CANTANT. ALIQUANDO.
Towards the close of the 7th century the Latin uncial becomes rough and careless, and it deteriorates still further in the 8th, when it is replaced as a book-hand by a new script which goes by the name of semiuncial or half-uncial. This name, which arose out of a misconception of early palæographers, does not signify a script half the size of the uncial, some semiuncials being larger than some uncials, but is used to denote an uncial script with new forms of certain letters, of g and s, for instance, which were derived from the cursive. The earliest traces of the semiuncial style are found towards the end of the 5th century, and the first instance of its use as a book-hand is a Hilary, written in 509 or 510, now preserved in the Chapter Library of St Peter's at Rome.
The old Roman cursive which thus began to influence the uncial writing in the 6th century is of great palæographical importance, since it became the source of many forms in modern scripts. Its existence has long been suspected, but actual examples have only recently been discovered. In a house at Pompeii a number of wax-tablets were found in 1875 which proved to be the business memoranda of L. Cæcilius Jucundus, a Pompeian banker and agent, mostly belonging to the years 55 and 56 A.D., and relating to purchases at auctions, and payments of taxes on behalf of his clients. Similar tablets, which are dated from 131 to 167 A.D., have been discovered in abandoned gold-workings in Dacia. This old Roman cursive, which is very illegible, exhibits the forms out of which arose f (the long s) and also the modern forms g, b, f, m, n, d, r, h, which replaced the capital and uncial forms G, B, F, M, N, D, R, H. This illegible Roman cursive reappears in a more set official hand in rescripts addressed to Egyptian functionaries in the 5th century, in official documents written at Ravenna in the 6th century, as well as in numerous marginal notes in uncial or semiuncial manuscripts. It is also employed in a copy of Avitus, written in the 6th century, and a Josephus of the 7th. These two books are written on papyrus, and the absence of other examples may be explained by the fact that the fragile papyrus books, probably copies made by scholars for their own use, have mostly perished, only vellum codices as a rule having been preserved.
With the establishment of the Teutonic kingdoms on the ruins of the Roman empire a number of national scripts arose—the Merovingian in France, the Visigothic in Spain, and the Lombardic in Italy. These were all based on the Roman cursive, and were used for civil purposes as well as for charters and other diplomatic documents. The Merovingian became the official hand of the
Frankish empire. It is cramped and vermiform, with exaggerated loops for the heads and tails of certain letters. It was used as the diplomatic hand in the chanceries of France and Italy till the 9th century, and in the imperial chancery till 1231, when its use was abolished by Frederick II. It has survived, however, in a modified form in the modern German cursive, in which many of the peculiar forms of the old Roman cursive can be detected. Out of the official Roman cursive arose the script which was employed in papal bulls till the 12th century, when it was replaced by the French minuscule, which was used till the 16th century, when a deformed, contracted, and illegible script called the littera Sancti Petri was adopted.
The old cursive derives its chief importance from having been one of the sources from which was developed the semiuncial book-hand which superseded the old uncial. Incorporating sundry uncial forms, the Visigothic and Lombardic cursives developed in the monasteries into calligraphic book-hands. But the Irish semiuncial is the most important of the national scripts, as it became the basis of the 'Roman type,' which is used in our modern printed books. The history of this Irish semiuncial is obscure. Its elements must have been obtained, probably in the 5th century, from the semiuncial book-hand of southern Gaul. The forms of some of the letters are plainly those of the Roman uncial; others are calligraphic forms which must have been derived from an ecclesiastical Gallican type of the Roman cursive. Just as the Greek minuscule has duplicate forms of certain letters, some derived from the uncial, others from the cursive, so the double parentage of the Irish semiuncial is demonstrated by the permissive use of N, R, S, which are uncials, and of n, r, f, which are uncialised cursives. Several other forms, such as g, b, a, m, f, h, l, are also uncialised cursives, and not, like the Roman uncials, merely rounded capitals (see IRELAND, Vol. VI. p. 208). This Irish semiuncial suddenly blazes forth in the 6th century as the most splendid of all mediæval scripts. The noblest specimen is the magnificent Book of Kells now at Dublin, which was probably written in the 7th century, though often referred to the 9th (see ILLUMINATION). Of somewhat later date are St Chad's Gospels, now at Lichfield, and the Lindisfarne or Durham Book, commonly called St Cuthbert's Gospels, now in the British Museum, both of which were written in Northumbria, where the script had been introduced by Irish missionaries. This Northumbrian semiuncial formed the basis of the nearly perfect Caroline minuscule, so called because during the reign of Charlemagne it was introduced by Alcuin of York, the friend and preceptor of the emperor, into the calligraphic school at Tours, over which Alcuin presided from 796 to 804. Alcuin seems to have incorporated certain elements from the Roman uncial and the Lombardic minuscule; and the new script, recommended by its legibility, distinctness, and minuteness, was rapidly diffused by Alcuin's pupils over Europe, and rapidly superseded all the other monastic book-hands. Starting at the beginning of the 9th century, it reached its highest perfection at the end of the 11th. In the 13th deformation set in; it stiffens and becomes more cramped, ligatures and contractions are introduced, and out of it grew the Black Letter or Gothic of the 15th century, a form of which still survives in German printed books. The black letter was used in the earliest printed books, but, with the revival of learning, Italian scholars returned to the beautiful Caroline minuscule of the 11th century, which was imitated in the Roman type now universal in Italy, France, Spain, Britain, and America, and which is rapidly replacing the Gothic letter in northern Europe. See PRINTING.
Besides the pure Caroline minuscules used for books, various cursive hands grew out of it, more angular, irregular, and difficult. Such are the Anglo-Saxon and the pointed Irish, the Domesday script (see DOMESDAY), and the deformed hands used in English charters and the records of courts of law. Our modern English script is based on this 'court-hand,' which arose out of the degraded Caroline minuscule—improved, however, in the reign of Elizabeth by the influence of the contemporary Italian hand. It is, however, much superior in legibility and distinctness to the modern German script, which, as we have seen, is to a great extent a survival from the old Roman cursive.
Contractions.—The difficulty of deciphering mediæval MSS. arises largely from the contractions, abbreviations, and ligatures which were employed to economise labour and parchment. To give a complete list within reasonable limits is impossible, more especially as they varied at different periods and in the various scripts. More than 5000 contractions of Latin words were used in France between the 7th century and the 16th, while in England more than 1000 are found in official Latin documents of the Tudor period alone. There are, for instance, six recognised contractions for quoniam, seven for esse, and ten for et. In one class of MSS. qm̄ stands for quoniam, in another for quum, while quō denotes quomodo in one script and quoniam in another. Instead, therefore, of attempting to catalogue the more usual contractions, which are tabulated in several works referred to below, it will be more useful to explain the general principles by which mediæval scribes were guided. In most cases, if not in all, these contractions arose out of ligatures, and were used at first for some particular syllable, and then as time went on they were generalised, so as to denote a whole class. Some of these ligatures we still use. Thus, w, as the name implies, is a ligature for uu; æ and œ need no explanation. The two superscript dots, as in ā or ō, which express the German umlaut, are merely the ligatures æ and œ.
The usual modern sign of abbreviation is the full point, as in ib. or ibid. for ibidem, e.g. for exempli gratia, or i.e. for id est. But this, which seems so natural and simple a sign, appears, when we trace its history, to have arisen out of a ligature for the common Latin termination -us. Its earlier form was the colon (:), which stood for -us, as in omnib: for omnibus. The origin of this colon is explained by the fact that at a still earlier time we find the final syllables -mus and -nus written ⲓⲙ and ⲓⲛ, where the cross stroke ⲓ, which is merely the long s, forms a ligature with the curve ⲓ which represents u. Of this ligature, representing -us, everything disappeared except the dots at the top and bottom of the s, leaving ⲓ: for -mus, or ⲓ: for -bus. The upper dot was then omitted as needless, and ultimately the use of the full point (.) was generalised so as to denote the omission of any final syllable. When this had taken place another special sign was required for -us. This was 9, so that in later documents we find ⲓⲉⲡ for ⲉⲡⲓⲉⲡ, or ⲓⲉⲡⲓⲉⲡ for ⲓⲉⲡⲓⲉⲡ. But in earlier MSS. the loop of the sign 9 is open at the top, the form ⲓ being manifestly the ligature of u and the long s.
In viz. for videlicet, and oz. for ounce, we have survivals of a very frequent abbreviation, which also proves to be a ligature. The z is merely used by printers for their own convenience instead of the correct sign 3, which is found, by tracing it back, to be only a rapid and slurred way of writing the semicolon (;) without taking the pen from the paper. This sign at one time denoted only the omission either of et, as in hab; for habet, or of ue, as in q; for que. The latter, however, was originally written q̄: where the reversed comma (,) is the letter u, and the dot stands for e, as in many other cases, such as n̄ for enim, or ⲓ for est. This ligature was assimilated to the nearly identical ligature (;) for et, where the dot (.) represents e, and the comma (,) is the remains of the letter t. For a long time this ligature (3 or ;) was confined to words ending in ue or et, as in qn̄ for quandoque, quō for quoque, ā for apparet, o for oportet, l for licet, t̄ for tenet, h̄ for habet, s for scilicet. Afterwards it was generalised to signify the omission of any final syllable, as in o for ounce, or in the apothecaries' signs ⲓ for uncia, and ⲓ for drachma. The sign ⲓ for scruple is merely the ligature sr, the long s being crossed by a cursive r.
The superscript comma now used to denote the omission of medial syllables or letters, as in can't for cannot, or I've for I have, was at first merely a superscript r, and denoted exclusively the omission of r or of a syllable containing r, such as er or re. In English records it forms a ligature with the preceding letter, as in funt for fuerunt, ⲓbo for verbo, or ⲓs for tres.
The circumflex (~) grew out a cursive form of the uncial m, and originally denoted exclusively the omission of m, then of n, and afterwards of other letters. Thus we have ōmes, ōms, and ōes for omnes, ōia and ōmia for omnia, hōiū and hōiñ for hominum, nō and ñ for non. The horizontal line (—) is one of the earliest signs of omission, and in some cases, if not in all, is merely a simplified form of the circumflex, as in ċ for cum, āut for autem, ā for annos. Its use was, however, less restricted than that of the circumflex, and we still use it in the contraction lb for libræ (pounds), the double bar in £ denoting a double omission. Shillings and pence, now expressed by s. and d., were formerly denoted by and , abbreviations for solidi and denarii. The sign $ for dollars is said to be the ligature dll, the S being merely , a cursive Dutch form of d (but see DOLLAR). The circumflex () which was a cursive m was not always written horizontally. We see this in the common sign used for rum, as for suorum, or for servorum. Here is the ligature of u and v, which is crossed by m in the cursive form () or () written vertically. For et there are numerous signs, all of which resolve themselves into ligatures. Some of them, such as , , and , require no explanation. They are found in for etiam, and in the various forms , or , or , or , or finally , which we now use for et cetera. The sign , used in Domesday for et, is also a ligature, as is shown by the older forms and . The sign or for est is also a ligature, the upper dot standing for e, the bar or circumflex for the long s (), and the lower dot for t. In like manner esse is written ; the two dots each representing e, and the two circumflexes being each a long s. This became and then , whence we obtain for esses, for esst, and for essemus.
Many similar contractions were also used, most of which can be easily resolved into ligatures. A few of the more common are for pro, for per and por, and and for præ, for quam, for quod, for qui, for tz, for frater, for vel, for ser and si. Thus we have supius and supig for superius, for prope, for proximus, for generosi, for assisa, for fiz.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The study of Palæography requires either an ample purse or access to a good library, the needful works being mostly bulky and costly. The best books of moderate price for the beginner in Greek Palæography are Wattenbach's Anleitung zur Griechischen Palæographie und Schrift-tafeln, and Gardthausen's Griechische Palæographie. For Latin Palæography it would be well to begin with Wattenbach's Anleitung, and Arndt's Schrift-tafeln. For Mediæval Palæography, Chassant's Palæographie des Chartes et des Manuscrits, with his companion volume, Dictionnaire des Abréviations du Moyen Âge, are extremely useful little books. Prou's Manuel de Palæographie may also be consulted. For English Charters, the student, awaiting Mr Maunde Thompson's long-promised work, has had to fall back upon Wright's Court-Hand Restored, published in 1773, and the article 'Records' in Savage's Dictionary of Printing. The evolution of the forms of letters is traced in Dr Taylor's book on The Alphabet. Subsidiary matters, such as writing materials, gatherings, lineation, punctuation, &c., which are useful in determining the age of MSS., are discussed in the works of Prou and Gardthausen already mentioned, and also in Wattenbach's Schriftwesen im Mittelalter, and Leist's Urkundenlehre. Of the more costly works, far the most important are the autotype fac-similes published by the Palæographical Society, with Zangemeister's Exempla Codicum Latinorum, Wattenbach's Exempla Codicum Grecorum, and his Scripturæ Græce Specimina. For MSS. in England, the fac-similes of National MSS., of Anglo-Saxon MSS., of ancient charters, and of ancient MSS. in the British Museum must be consulted; for German MSS., Sybel's Works and Sickel's Monumenta Graphica; for Russian, Sabas' Specimina Palæographia; for Italian, the Archivio paleografico Italiano; for Spanish, the Exempla Scripturæ Visigoticæ; for French, the Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits, and the valuable publications of Delisle and Letronne. Among the older works the most important are Walther's Lexicon Diplomaticum, Wailly's Éléments de Palæographie, Astle's Origin and Progress of Writing, Silvestre's Palæographie Universelle, Montfaucon's Palæographia Græca, Mabillon's De Re Diplomatica, and the Benedictine Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique.