An introduction to Greek and Latin palaeography / by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson.

  • Edward Maunde Thompson
Date:
1912
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: An introduction to Greek and Latin palaeography / by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    for general use to mark leading letters, as in S' = sint, ls°=znoster, S° = sors, etc., a practice which may be regarded as a stage between suspension and contraction. As will presently be seen, it holds an important place in the later mediaeval scheme. Here we have to take account of the new system of contraction which, as described above, was introduced into Greek MSS. of the early Christian period from the Hellenist treatment of the Nomina Sacra, and Avhich was adopted by the Latin scribes from the Greek. On the native Greek system of suspension this new system, as we have seen, had no serious effect. The result was different in the case of Latin MSS. There the system of contraction, once accepted, became predominant, and, although that of suspension was not altogetlier superseded, yet the elaborated methods employed in the MSS. of the middle ages were in the direction of contraction, not of suspension. By transliterating the contracted forms of the following Nomina Sacrct, they appeared in Latin thus: OC became DS (the first and last letters of Dens)', TTNN became SPS (the first two letters and the last letter of Spiritus); IHC XPC (a variant of the more normal 1C XC) became IHS XPS^ (that is, lesus Christus, the forms of the Greek eta, chi, and rho being imitated, just as we have seen the Hebrew name of Jehovah copied in imitative Greek letters); and KC Ijecame DNS or DMS (three letters being written instead of two, vdiich strict transliteration would have required, in order to avoid confusion with DS).” The form IHS XPS was the fix’st to be used in Latin; a later form IHC XPC appears in English and Irish MSS., and then, from the ninth century, in those of the Continent.^ The two forms of DoxxiMius, DNS and DMS, were used simultaneously in early MSS.; but the form DNS superseded the other as the title of the Almighty, DMS being reserved for human beings.'^ 1 Christian of Stavelot, in tlie ninth century, commenting on Matt. i. 21 (Migne, cvi. 1278), writes: ‘ Scribitur lesus per iota et eta et sigma et apice [stroke of contraction] desuper apud nos. Nam in Graecoriim libris solummodo per iota et sigma et apice desuper invenitur scriptum, et sicut alia nomina Dei comprehensive debent scribi, quia ncmeu Dei non potest litteris explicari.’ - It is to be borne in mind that the horizontal stroke marking contraction covers all the letters of the contracted words, as it does in the Greek. And as in Greek, as already noticed, by a natural confusion the uncontracted 0€OC was sometimes marked with the stroke, 0€0C > so in Latin there are instances of a parallel confusion, DEC.'S, DEO, etc. 3 The researches of Traubo {Vorlesumjen und Abhandlungen,'Bd.'i. 1911),of Professor W. M. Lindsay, and of others have been directed to tlie investigation of the systems of inde- pendent schools in Wcstei'n Euroioe jn'evious to the Carolingian period. * At a later time a distinction was drawn between the full word domimis and the syncopated form domnus or dornimus, the latter being employetl in monastic life as a human title, e. g. ‘ domnus abbas’, while the former was reserved for the Lord of Heaven.— Cus-
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