scholarly journals Old Church Slavonic Elements in the Code of Emperor Dušan (1349, 1353/1354)

2021 ◽  
pp. 281-314
Author(s):  
Viktor Savić ◽  
◽  

The paper traces Old Church Slavonic elements in the Code of Emperor Dušan, a legal monument written in the vernacular, Old Serbian language. Before the end of the 14th century and especially in the 15th century, the text of the Code was subjected to subsequent archaization, with the aim of increasing the share of Old Church Slavonic elements in the linguistic structure, which reflected the spirit of the time, different from the period in which the codex had been compiled. In this context, the paper seeks to determine the real presence of this linguistically marked phenomenon and its function in the text, before the upper chronological limit, set by the oldest surviving manuscript copy in physical terms, the Struga manuscript (ca. 1395). The study compares the situation in the manuscript copies of the older recension, especially in those that were not exposed to major linguistic changes. It is established that during the earliest development of the manuscript tradition of Emperor Dušan’s Code (i.e. the first fifty years after its had been compiled), the Old Church Slavonic phonetics, accompanied by morphology to a limited extent, was the basic means of increasing expressiveness (however, Old Church Slavonic morphological means were hardly at all used in the protograph). The Old Church Slavonic vocabulary present in the Code of Emperor Dušan was generally not phonetically marked; it was in every respect adjusted to the vernacular language system. The use of elements adopted from Old Church Slavonic was, above all, determined by the topic, i.e. it was limited to a particular subject. These elements are not scattered throughout the text, but are mostly concentrated in the legal provisions concerning church law, usually with reliance on the so-called Code of the Holy Fathers. As it turns out, elements of Old Church Slavonic from various linguistic levels are not widely present in the original text of the Code of Emperor Dušan. This presumably reflects the situation in the Old Serbian language of the time, although the language of this legal monument is administrative and not colloquial.

Author(s):  
Pierangelo Buongiorno

This paper aims to reconstruct the origins of the so-called Decretum Rubiconis (CIL XI 30*) and the ancient sources that inspired it (Cicero’s Philippics; Vergil; Seneca; the lex de imperio Vespasiani). The text was significantly manipulated by Ciriaco de’ Pizzicolli before the mid 15th century and was identified as false already by Antonio Agustín (Diálogos, 1587). Despite this prompt identification, the forged epigraphic document had a wide circulation in the manuscript tradition and (at least) two different engravings after the 16th century. A copy of the inscription is now kept in the Museum of Cesena.


Author(s):  
Oleg R. Khromov ◽  
◽  

This article studies the activities of the Moscow Print Yard during the period under Patriarch Nikon between 1652 and 1658. The period was not only characterised by a serious economic activity intended to organise work at the Print Yard but also a number of considerable changes in the repertoire of publications of the printing house and book design. All these actions took place under the direct supervision of Patriarch Nikon and his participation. This article makes an attempt to trace the overall activity of the Print Yard in two directions: studying the structure of the repertoire of print products and book design and changes in the external form of Moscow editions. The article examines a new type of editions which appeared under Patriarch Nikon — loose-leaf editions, clarifying the reasons and motives for their appearance, which are not due to their economic benefit but their efficiency and circulation, and the opportunity to standardise church administrative issues through them. Additionally, the author considers issues connected with iconographic “preparation” related to changes in the images of the animal symbols of the Evangelists in the frontispiece engravings of the Gospel. Also, the article clarifies the reasons that prompted Patriarch Nikon to make these corrections, which are based on a general approach to correcting church rites and books. In correcting the order of animal symbols, Patriarch Nikon relied on the ancient Russian manuscript tradition (pre-15th century) and Greek samples associated primarily with the images on the Antimins. The article pays special attention to the publication of Antimins as a new type of Moscow edition considering the question of its samples. Finally, the author examines the features of engraved illustrations in Nikon’s editions and their design demonstrating the significance of Nikon’s reforms for the development of the artistic form and art of the Moscow book.


Slovene ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 262-295
Author(s):  
Alina S. Alekseeva

The Old Russian ritual of “Exposing the Thief” (“The Decree on the Proskomedia to the Holy Three Confessors Gurias, Samonas and Abibus”) was written by the Archbishop of Novgorod, Ioann III. The creation of the text was inspired by the sign from the icon of the confessors on December 24, 1410 in St. Sophia Cathedral. The full text of the “Decree…” is preserved in two copies from the 16th –17th centuries, whereas the prayer alone until recently was known in two copies not earlier than the 17th century. The corpus of copies of the prayer was replenished with two copies in manuscripts from the end of the 14th or the beginning of the 15th century and from the 18th century, respectively. The discovery of the first copy raised the question about the original text written by Archbishop Ioann: did he write the prescriptive part for a previously known prayer only or the full text? A textual study of the “Decree...” and the copies of the prayer allows to reconstruct the history of the text and conclude that the archetype contained both the prayer and the prescriptive part. Thus, it could be confirmed that the author of both parts of the “Decree...” is Archbishop Ioann, but the prayer is a less uniform formation. The comparison with Slavic prayers showed that the fragment about the forefathers, going back to a Greek tradition, was borrowed by Ioann from a South Slavic manuscript, while the first part of the text about the three confessors was compiled by the archbishop himself in the context of the special attitude of Novgorod to the cult of St. Gurias, Samonas and Abibus.


Author(s):  
Andrei Yur'evich Seibert

In the 19th century, after a two-centuries oblivion, the interest in a medieval genre “danse macabre” reappeared. Dances of Death were embodied not only in pictorial art, literature and music, but also attracted the attention of scholars. The research subject of this article is one of such scientific works - “Les Danses des Morts” by J.-G. Kastner. Its uniqueness consists in the combination of a theoretical research and practical embodiment of its results in a piece of music. The genre of the tractate is defined by scholars as “livre partition” - a sheet music book. The article contains the biographical data of the life and creative work of the French scholar, music expert and composer, little-known in Russian musicology. Based on their own translation of the original text, the authors study the structure-content components of the tractate and define its specificity. J.-G. Kastner considers the genre “danse macabre” in the historical, philosophical and aesthetic contexts; traces back the interdependence of literary, decorative, and musical versions of the dances. The tractate of the French musicologist considers in detail the range of instruments of dance macabre (based on the collection of wooden engravings of a gothic Doten Dantz printed in the late 15th century). The authors define the features of J.-G. Kastner’s ideas which differ them from the thanatological views of his predecessors H. Peino and E.-H. Langlois.


2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-160
Author(s):  
Ana Isabel Boullón Agrelo

AbstractThe textual transmission of the Crónica de Iria (a historical text written in Galicia in the 15th century) has been controversial in recent years. Its latest editor, José Souto, holds that the original text is the oldest manuscript (C), written in the 15th century by Rui Vázquez. On the other hand, David Mackenzie considered that this manuscript (C) and the seventeenth-century copy (V) come from the lost archetype with different degrees of manipulation. The historical data provided by Fernando López Alsina analysing the reasons for the composition of the Crónica de Iria supports Mackenzie’s analysis. The present article examines the indirect tradition and carries out a careful collation of the texts, aiming to draw more effective conclusions as regards the existing filiation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 172-183
Author(s):  
Anna Głusiuk
Keyword(s):  

In 1894, Pier Desiderio Pasolini published notes on the beauty of women written by Catherine Sforza. Unfortunately the original text written by Catherine disappeared in unknown circumstances but in 1522 Lucantonio Cuppano had seen the original and made one copy which was later consulted and published by Pasolini who gave it the tittle Experimenti de la Excelentissima Signora Caterina da Furlji. This writing - next to the work of Metrodora and Trotula of Salerno - is one of the oldest texts written by women, which is preserved for our time. This work shows that Catherine must have received an excellent education as she was interested in medicine, alchemy and property of herbs and minerals. The lecture on her recipes shows that she prepared her cosmetics for herself but she also sent them to others. Her recipes show her knowledge of the property of many herbs and minerals. Probably she thought about publishing her notes as we can find there some easy formulas (for beginners) where it was necessary only to add and mix the products. But there are also more complicated instructions where it was necessary to know, for example the process of distillation etc. Her writings show how in the 15th century women in Italy cared about their beauty and which herbs and minerals to use to make their cosmetics.


Slovene ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-26
Author(s):  
Alexander M. Moldovan

Among the issues that have been subject to much controversy during almost two centuries of scholarly research on the works of the Kievan metropolitan Hilarion, there is the question of whether his Prayer is a separate composition or the final part of the Sermon on Law and Grace. This question has been triggered by the fact that the Prayer has been preserved mostly in manuscripts (over 20) which do not contain the Sermon on Law and Grace, the only, but very important, exception being the Synodal codex (Moscow, SHM, Syn. 591, 2nd half of the 15th century), in which the Prayer is part of a cycle of Hilarion’s works, along with the Sermon on Law and Grace, the Encomium to Volodimir (usually viewed as part of the Sermon on Law and Grace), the Confession of Faith and Hilarion’s final entry reporting his enthronization. We adduce considerable evidence in favour of a close cohesion between the Prayer and the Sermon on Law and Grace along with the Encomium to Volodimir, and try to show that these works form a meaningful whole. Text-critical and linguistic data presented in the article demonstrate the unique integrity of the original text of the Prayer in the Synodal codex, which testifies to the close affinity of this manuscript with Hilarion’s protograph. This is an additional argument in support of the view that the cycle of texts presented in the Synodal codex was composed by Hilarion himself. The analysis of the contents of the Prayer leads to the conclusion that it was intended not so much for liturgical purposes, but was rather a poetical manifestation of the same ideas which Hilarion elaborated in the Sermon on Law and Grace and the Encomium to Volodimir in the form of encomiastic treatise and eulogy, respectively. Adding the Prayer to these compositions was part of the artist’s intention, aiming at producing a complex of texts united by a common ideologic and literary objective.


2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 137
Author(s):  
Foteini SPINGOU

<!--StartFragment--><p style="line-height: 150%" class="MsoNormal"><!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:85; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:129 0 0 0 8 0;} @font-face {font-family:Gentium; panose-1:2 0 5 3 6 0 0 2 0 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:131 0 0 0 9 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Gentium; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Gentium; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:595.0pt 842.0pt; margin:62.35pt 89.85pt 62.35pt 89.85pt; mso-header-margin:25.5pt; mso-footer-margin:25.5pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --></p><p> In the summer/autumn of 1175, Manuel Komnenos (1143-1180) undertook the rebuilding of Dorylaion, one of the major <em>aplekta</em> in Asia Minor. For this occasion a poem was written. The strong acquaintance of the poet with the conventions of court literature, the occasional content of the poem and its panegyric character, suggest that the text was written for a small ceremony which took place at Dorylaion. The author is probably an anonymous professional court poet who accompanied Manuel in his expedition. The authorship is further discussed since the manuscript tradition might suggest that John Tzetzes was the author. After a close look at the language, style and metre of the poem, this identification is excluded. In 1908, Spyridon Lambros published the poem on the basis of manuscript <em>Barocci 194</em> (fifteenth century) of the Bodleian Library. This study re-edits the poem on the basis of two more manuscripts: manuscript <em>Parisinus Graecus 2644</em> (late thirteenth century) of the Bibliothèque Nationale and <em>Auctarium T.1.10</em> of the Bodleian Library (sixteenth century). The history of each manuscript is analysed and the relation between them examined. It is established that the <em>Auctarium</em> is a direct copy from the Parisian manuscript. The metrical analysis of the poem follows and special textual problems are discussed. Finally, the translation of the original text is provided. </p><p> </p><p> </p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristijan Juran

The text discusses the archival record from the mid-15th century, which is known in the literature as a “catalogue” or “list” of parishes and villages of Šibenik diocese. It is not preserved in the original, but in transcripts from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. After introductory reminiscences of the existing literature, a review of the dating and provenance of the transcript and the manuscript tradition is given, followed by the analysis of the record content. Finally, the text brings the problem of its reception in the recent scientific and non-scientific public.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-116
Author(s):  
Mikhail Sergeev ◽  

The article concerns the influence of humanist scholarship on sixteenth-century etymological practices, testified in the Neo-Latin reference works and special treatises on linguistics and history. Being an important part of historical research, which relied mostly on Greek and Latin literary sources, etymology could not but adopt some important principles and instruments of contemporary philological work, notably on the source criticism. The foremost rule was to study the sources in their original language, form, and eliminate any corrupted data as well as any information not attested in written sources. This presumed that every text had its own written history, which tended to be a gradual deterioration of its state, represented in the manuscript tradition that was subject to scribal errors and misinterpretations. This view on the textual history was strikingly consonant with that on the history of languages, which was treated by the humanists as permanent corruption and inevitable degeneration from the noble and perfect state of their ancient ancestors. In an effort to restore the original text, philology used emendation as a cure for scribal abuse and textual losses; likewise, language historians had their own tool, namely etymology, to reconstruct and explain the original form of words (including the nomenclature of various sciences). The intersection of both procedures is taken into account in the article and it demonstrates how textual conjectures, manuscript collation, and graphical interpretation of misreadings were employed by the sixteenth-century scholars to corroborate their etymological speculations, which established themselves as one of the ways of the reception and criticism of classical scholarly heritage.


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