Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography

THE HANDBOOK OF GREEK AND LATIN PALAEOGRAPHY by EDWARD MATJNDE THOMPSON. Originally published in 1893. PREFACE. THIS Hand-book does not pretend to give more than an outline of the very large subject of Greek and Latin Palaeography. It must be regarded as an introduction to tlie study of the subject, indicating tlie different branches into which it is divided and suggesting the lines to be followed, rather than attempting full in struction. It in. no way supersedes the use of such works as the collections of facsimiles issued by the Palasographical Society and by other societies and scholars at home and abroad; but it is hoped that it will serve as an aid to the more intelligent and profitable study of them. Our conclusions as to the course of development of the handwritings of former ages are based on our know ledge and experience of the development of modern forms of writing. Children at school learn to write by copying formal text-hands in their copy-books, and the handwriting of each child will bear the impress of the models. But as he grows up the child developes a handwriting of his own, diverging more and more from the models, but never altogether divesting itself of their first influence. Thus, at all times, we have numerous individual handwritings, but each bearing the stamp of its school and of its period ; and they, in their turn, re act upon and modify the writing of the next generation. In this way have arisen the handwritings of nations viii Preface. and districts, of centuries and periods, all distinguish able from eacli other by the trained eye. And tlie i acuity o distinction is not entirely, but to a very great degree, dependent on familiarity. Anyone will readily distinguish the handwritings of individuals of his own time, and will recognise his friend’s writing at a glance as easily as he recognizes his face ; he has more difficulty in discriminating between the individual handwritings of a foreign country. Set before him specimens of the writing of the last century, and he will confuse the hands of different persons. Take him still farther back, and he will pronounce the writing of a whole school to be the writing of one man ; and he will see no difference between the hands, for example, of an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Fleming. Still farther back, the writing of one century is to him the same as the writing of another, and he may fail to name the locality where a MS. was written by the breadth of a whole continent. Palaeographical knowledge was formerly confined to a few, chiefly to the custodians or owners of collections of manuscripts ; works of reference on the subject were scarce and expensive; and facsimiles, with certain excep tions, were of no critical value. In these days, when photography has made accurate reproduction so simple a matter, the knowledge is within the reach of all who care to acquire it. The collections of facsimiles which have been issued during the last twenty years have brought into the private study materials which the student could formerly have gathered only by travel and personal research. And more than this : these facsimiles enable us to compare, side by side, specimens from manuscripts which lie scattered in the different libraries of Europe and which could never have been brought together. There is no longer any lack of Preface, ix material for tlie ready attainment} of palceographical knowledge. Abroad, this attainment is encoaraged In various countries by endowments and schools. In our own country, where the development of such studies is usually left