MANUSCRIPTS (Latin, nianuscriptus, written by the hand), are literally writing of any kind, whether on paper or any other ma terial, in contradistinction to printed matter. Previous to the introduction of printing all literature was contained in All manuscripts. A the existing ancient manuscripts are written on parchment or on paper. The paper is sometimes Egyptian (prepared from the real papyrus shrub), sometimes cotton or silk paper (charts bombycina), which was invented in the East about the year 706 A.D., and used till the intro duction of linen paper, and in common with this till the middle of the 14th century; some times linen paper, the date of the invention of which, though ascribed to the first half of the 13th century, on the authority of a document of the year 1243, written on such paper, is nevertheless exceedingly doubtful. The earliest mention of quill pens is in the 7th century. The most common ink is the black, which is very old. The oldest, however, was not mixed with vitriol, like ours, but generally consisted of soot, lamp-black, burned ivory, pulverized char coal, etc. Red ink of a dazzling beauty is also found in ancient times in manuscripts. With it were written the initial letters, the first lines, and the titles, which were thence called rubrics, and the writer rubricator. More rarely, but still quite frequently, blue ink is found in an cient manuscripts; yet more rarely green and yellow. Gold and silver were also used for writing either whole manuscripts (which, from their costliness, are great rarities), or for adorning the initial letters of books. With respect to external form, manuscripts are divided into rolls (volumina, the most ancient way, in which the troubadours in France wrote their poems at a much later period) and into stitched books or volumes (properly codices). Among the ancients the writers of manuscripts were mainly freedmen or slaves (scriber librarii). Some of the professional copyists in Rome were women. When Origen undertook the revision of the Old Testament (231 A.D.), Saint Am brose sent to his assistance a number of deacons and virgins skilful in caligraphy. Subsequently the monks, among them the Benedictines in particular, were bound to this employment by the rules of their Order. In all the principal monasteries was a scriptorium, in which the scriptor or scribe could pursue his work in quiet, generally assisted by a dictator, who read aloud the text to be copied ; the manuscript was then revised by a corrector, and afterward handed to the miniator, who added the orna mental capitals and artistic designs.
It is more difficult to form a correct judg ment respecting the age of Greek manuscripts from the character of the writing than it is re specting that of Latin manuscripts. In general it is to be remarked the in a Greek manuscript the strokes are lighter, easier and more flow ing the older it is, and that they become stiffer in the progress of time. The absence or pres ence of the Greek accents is in no respect de cisive. Some Greek papyri are earlier than the
Christian era, but most are not earlier than about the 6th century. The characters in Latin manuscripts have been classified partly accord ing to their size (majuscula, minuscuta), partly according to the various shapes and characters which they assumed among different nations or in various periods (scriptura Romana antiqua, Merovingica, Longobardica, Carolingica, etc., to which has been added since the 12th century the Gothic, so called, which is an artificially pointed and angular character) ; and for all of those species of writing particular rules have been established, affording the means of estimating the age of a manuscript. Before the 8th cen tury punctuation marks rarely occur : even after the introduction of punctuation, manuscripts may be met with destitute of points, but with the words separate. Manuscripts which have no capital or other divisions are always old. The catch-word, as it is termed, or the repetition of the first word of the following page at the end of the preceding, belongs to the 12th or subse quent centuries. The fewer and easier the ab breviations of a manuscript are the older it is. Finally, in the oldest manuscripts the words commonly join each other without break or separation. The division of words first became general in the 9th century. The form of the Arabic ciphers, which are seldom found in manuscripts earlier than the first half of the 13th century, also assists in deciding the age of a manuscript. Some manuscripts have at the end a statement when, and commonly also by whom, they were written (dated codices). But this signature often denotes merely the time when the book was composed, or refers merely to a part of the manuscript, or is entirely spuri ous. The most ancient manuscripts still pre served are those written on papyrus which have been found in Egyptian tombs. Next to them in point of age are the Latin manuscripts found at Herculaneum, of which there is a rich col lection in the Naples Museum. Then there are the manuscripts of the imperial era, among which are the Vatican Terence and Septuagint and the Biblical codices in the British Museum. Since the middle of the 19th century many manuscripts of Greek writings have been found in Egypt, among the chief being that containing the orations of Hyperides, several containing parts of the works of Homer, Plato, De mosthenes, etc., that in which occurs a portion of the Antiope of Euripides, and the almost complete text of Aristotle's work on the con stitution of Athens. It was the custom in the Middle Ages to obliterate and erase writings on parchment for the purpose of writing on the materials anew, and these manuscripts, many of them of great value, are known as «palimp sests.» This custom ceased in the 14th century, probably because paper came then more into use. See LIBRARIES; MANuscairrs Itxust