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The New Palaeography The Beneventan Script: a History of the South Italian Minuscule. By E. A. Loew. Pp. xx + 384. With many illustrations. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914. 21s.
W. M. Lindsay
The Classical Review / Volume 28 / Issue 06 / September 1914, pp 209 - 210 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X0000771X, Published online: 27 October 2009
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X0000771X
How to cite this article: W. M. Lindsay (1914). The Classical Review, 28, pp 209-210 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X0000771X
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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 138.251.14.35 on 13 Jun 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 209
THE NEW PALAEOGRAPHY. The Beneventan Script: a History of the script) until it received its distinctive South Italian Minuscule. By E. A. form in the ninth and tenth centuries; LOEW. Pp. xx+ 384. With many that it reached its highest artistic level illustrations. Oxford: Clarendon in the eleventh, and persisted to the end Press, 1914. 21s. of the thirteenth. He shows us in detail each criterion for dating and LUDWIG TRAUBE, the Munich professor, localising, all the minutiae of ligatured made a new epoch in Latin Palaeo- letters, of punctuation, of abbreviation. graphy. He showed us a new world to The ' eius' abbreviation is the shibboleth conquer and how to conquer it. This of Beneventan scribes, and is mistaken book, by a pupil of his, following his ' for ' qui' by other transcribers. He takes methods, brings us the spoils from one us into the scriptorium of Monte Cassino wide province annexed by this peaceful and lets us hear the first instruction of warfare: we have here the firstfruits of Desiderius' monks in penmanship: how the New Palaeography. the syllable ti, when pronounced like z, The difference between this account must be written in a peculiar fashion; of Beneventan script and previous trea- how the letter i, when pronounced like y tises is the difference between mid-day (or j), demanded the long form (making and twilight, or rather gloom. All was it impossible to mistake, e.g., ius for vague before. A palaeographer of the uis); how interrogative sentences had to old style, if asked for a verdict on a MS. be punctuated in one way if the answer of this class, say that eleventh to twelfth- was merely ' Yes' or' No,' but in another century MS. of Juvenal in which Mr. if the answer became a statement of Winstedt found the famous passage, fact. Most of this we learn for the first would (in Sterne's phrase) assume a time from Dr. Loew, and we learn it mysterious carriage of the body to cover with such a wealth of illustration and the defects of the mind, and reply: explanation and such a mass of evidence ' Hum ! ha! Lombardic' He would that we can neither doubt it nor for- make the same reply if one showed him get it. (1) any minuscule MS. of France or The greater part of the book is of Italy written before the introduction of interest to historians rather than to Caroline minuscule, (2) most ninth- readers of this journal. Dr. Loew pro- century MSS. of Germany, or of vides, in fact, a history of the spread of Switzerland, or of Burgundy, (3) any culture in Southern Italy from the end MS. in Visigothic script, (4) any in the of the eighth to the end of the thirteenth Corbie ab-type, and so on. He might century, and shows how historical venture to pronounce that Mr. Winstedt's changes are reflected in the vicissitudes MS. was written in Southern Italy, but of the script. He gives lists too of the he would not be able to stand much extant MSS., of the scriptoria and of cross-examination on his verdict. It is the scribes of Southern Italy, which will many years since Traube exposed the be useful to librarians and palaeo- errors and the dangers of this vague use graphers. But classical scholars will of the term ' Lombardic'; but old usage find most to interest them within the dies hard. This book will, we hope, chapters dealing with the script itself. kill and bury it once for all. Beneventan minuscule has played so important a part in the transmission of Dr. Loew tells us that the designation 1 'littera Beneventana' for the writing the Latin Classics that no scholar can practised in the old Duchy of Benevento, afford to be ignorant of at least this i.e. the southern half of Italy, is as early branch of Latin Palaeography. Indeed, as the eleventh century and probably when we reflect that the Latin texts earlier; that the script itself was de- 1 veloped gradually from the old Italian Not Varro's De Lingua Latina (as stated on p. 18), but merely Priscian's De Figuris minuscule (in the eighth century it is Numerorum, with a quotation from Varro still indistinguishable from North Italian L. L. V., is contained in Paris 7530. 210 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW took most of their injuries from the what they can to help its progress, will hands of medieval scribes, it seems little learn from Dr. Loew's book what kind short of amazing that even in our emi- of statistics are worth gathering. Such nently practical nation there should still material, if published in a magazine or be Latin scholars who dispense light- handed over to a palaeographer (not a heartedly with all study of medieval drone), will be of use sooner or later. palaeography. The pages of our learned With our noble collections of MSS., our journals are still filled with long lists of Palaeographical Society's Publications, haphazard emendations, which take no our opportunities and love of travel, account of the conditions under which Englishmen ought surely to take the an author's text was transmitted in lead in this new advance. writing, and indeed often do not reveal By the way, we would advise the any thorough study of an author's lan- reader not to begin with Dr. Loew's guage and style. No self-respecting Preface, which somehow or other sug- editor admits one out of a hundred of gests that an amateur performance is these emendations into an edition. Yet going to follow, and recalls Professor the flow never ceases. What a waste Zimmer's criticism of a somewhat effu- of time it seems to write them! And sive ' commemoratio beneficientium' by how unsatisfying to read them ! Sauce, a young author. ' How many cooks!' much sauce, is needed for the meagre said the German critic. But Dr. Loew's fare. broth has certainly not been spoiled. This book must be the model for One could wish that the binding, future books on Latin Palaeography. printing and paper were less worthy of When shall we have a similar account the Clarendon Press. For, after all, this of Irish minuscule, a script equally im- is a book rather for the study than the portant for Latin scholars ? What is so drawing-room, and not every student often said of it, that its conservatism can afford a guinea for it. There has makes it difficult to date, has hitherto been too much (in our opinion) needless been said of Beneventan too. But, as cutting of new types. For example, why Dr. Loew here shows us, all that was was Dr. Loew not content with the needed was a thorough investigation phrase: ' the Corbie ab-script' (with the which left no single specimen of the ' ab' printed in ordinary form) ? It script unexamined. Beneventan minus- should be a matter of conscience with cule can now be dated as easily as palaeographers to make their publica- Caroline. Not the least merit of Sir tions as inexpensive as possible. A E. M. Thompson's Introduction to Palaeo- companion-volume by Dr. Loew is graphy is that he has made it impossible announced by the Clarendon Press, for teachers of this subject to spend Scriptura Beneventana, with a large their energies in writing another manual. number of plates, to cost £ 10. Palaeo- If they are not to be drones in the hive, graphy will be refused admission to they must do some work on Dr. Loew's University Libraries if this sort of thing lines. Even persons who are merely goes on. interested in the science and wish to do W. M. LINDSAY.
SOME SCHOOL BOOKS.
THERE is much good work in J. for eum is not intended to be emphatic; Thompson's First Year Latin Book or again, p. 53, 'the many gifts and (Cambridge University Press, 2s.); it kindnesses of the fort do not open the is well planned, the explanations are minds of the savage allies.' The clearly put, the print is excellent. But author rightly insists that the words the sentences often seem unsatisfactory should be common. It is equally im- in one way or another—e.g. p. 130, portant that the whole sentence should exercitus est tarn parvus ut non eum timea- be obviously good Latin of an ordinary mus, the position of non is unnatural, type. It is not very difficult to make