'Byzantine authorial manuscripts: Typology, terminology, methodisation'

University Library ms 224 carries the autograph signatures of Neophytos (1134–1214), a recluse and monastic founder near Paphos in Crusader Cyprus, but was otherwise copied by the priest and notary Basil of the Paphos bishopric. By contrast, National Library of Scotland, Adv. ms 18.7.15 was wholly copied by the late Byzantine scholar Maximos Planoudes (1255–1305) in his own hand. Ms 224 is a testamentary typikon authorised and sealed by Neophytos’s autograph signatures; ms 18.7.15, which carries Cleomedes’ ‘Meteora’ and Aratus’s ‘Phaenomena’ with some scholia and annotations, was designed for everyday usage in Planoudes’ own library. There is little obvious connection between the two; and yet both could be classified as authorial/autograph manuscripts.

The large number of such authorial and/or autograph manuscripts that survive from the middle and, especially, later Byzantine periods notwithstanding, students of such medieval Greek manuscripts still lack a coherent terminological and methodical framework in which to place them. This interdisciplinary workshop will take steps toward offering a detailed typology of such manuscripts alongside developing a more precise terminology. It will illustrate ways in which these manuscripts can fruitfully be analysed and integrated in literary, historical or cultural studies, thus offering a blueprint for approaching authorial/autograph manuscripts. Finally, given Byzantium’s cultural connectivity, the workshop seeks to open pathways into meaningful cross-disciplinary work, via comparative insights into medieval practices of authorship and manuscript publication especially in the Latinate Middle Ages.

Attendance

If interested in attending this in-person-only event, please contact Professor Niels Gaul (N.Gaul@ed.ac.uk).

This workshop is made possible by a BA/Leverhulme small research grant.