More Greek manuscripts at the British Library

An announcement this morning that 44 more Greek manuscripts are now online at the British Library, thanks to funding from Stavros Niarchos.

Many are biblical manuscripts.  The following will be of interest to us.

(Apologies for any errors; some thoughtless person at the BL site has fiddled with the copy and paste, removing all formatting and adding a pointless general link at the end in plain text.  All of which makes it nearly impossible to give a list like this, and include links; you have to delete the cruft and re-add the links manually).

  • Add MS 39601, Revelation (Gregory-Aland 911), imperfect at the end, with a marginal commentary by Andrew of Caesarea, Commentarii in Apocalypsin (TLG 3004.001).  11th c., from Athos.
  • Add MS 39614, Xenophon, Hellenica. Early 16th century, Venice.
  • Add MS 39615, Hermogenes, De constitutionibus (Περὶ στάσεων) (TLG 0592.002). Early 16th century, Venice.
  • Add MS 39616, [Plutarch], De liberis educandis. Early 16th century, Venice.
  • Add MS 39617, Demosthenes, Orationes, with the hypotheses of Libanius and occasional scholia and interlinear glosses. 15th century, Greece.
  • Arundel MS 531, Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum, with illuminated head- and tailpieces on f 1r. 2nd half of the 15th century, Italy.
  • Burney MS 61, Collection of works by Greek lyric poets, including Anacreon, Alcaeus, Sappho, Stesichorus, and Ibycus. Occasional marginal notes with variants of Henri Estienne and T. Faber. 2nd half of the 16th century, France.
  • Burney MS 70, Basil of Caesarea, De legendis libris gentilium (TLG 2040.002), and other works. Large initials in colour and gold, partial foliate border on f 1r similar to that in Burney 14. 4th quarter of the 15th century, written by Ioannes Skoutariotes at Florence.
  • Burney MS 71, Callimachus, Hymns (TLG 0533.015-020). c 1500.
  • Burney MS 88, Libanius, Epistulae (TLG 2200.001). End of the 15th century, Italy.
  • Burney MS 89, Lycophron, Alexandra, with the commentary of Ioannes or Isaac Tzetzes, imperfect. 1st half of the 15th century, Greece.
  • Burney MS 96, Minor Attic Orators. End of the 15th century, Venice.
  • Burney MS 98, Pindar, Olympia (TLG 0033.001), imperfect, with interlinear and marginal scholia; Dionysius Periegetes, Orbis Descriptio (TLG 0084.001), with interlinear glosses and marginal paraphrase; Eustathius Thessalonicensis, Commentarium in Dionysii periegetae orbis descriptionem (TLG 4083.006); Strabo, Geographica (TLG 0099.001), extracts. Beginning of the 16th century.
  • Burney MS 106, Sophocles, Ajax, Electra, Oedipus Tyrannus, Antigone; [Aeschylus], Prometheus Vinctus; Pindar, Olympia. End of the 15th century.
  • Burney MS 108, Aelian, Tactica; Leo VI, Tactica; Heron of Alexandria, Pneumatica, De automatis, with numerous diagrams. 1st quarter of the 16th century, possibly written at Venice.
  • Burney MS 109, Works by Theocritus, Hesiod, Pindar, Pythagoras and Aratus. 2nd half of the 14th century, Italy.
  • Burney MS 110, Zenobius, Epitome collectionum Luculli Tarrhaei et Didymi (TLG 0098.001). 4th quarter of the 15th century, Italy.
  • Egerton MS 2625, Thucydides, Historiae (TLG 0003.001), with scholia, formerly forming a single manuscript with Add MS 5110. 15th century, possibly written on Crete.
  • Royal MS 16 C IV Part 1 and Part 2, John Tzetzes, Antehomerica, with a translation into Latin by Petrus Morellus. 1560-1603, France (Tours/Loches), in the hand of Petrus Morellus.
  • Royal MS 16 C VII, Constantine Manasses, Breviarium Chronicum , imperfect. Mid-15th century, Italy? Probably formerly owned by Sir Robert Cotton.
  • Royal MS 16 C XIV, Apparatus Bellicus, followed by extracts from Byzantine authors. 1584, probably written in Italy.
  • Royal MS 16 C XIX, Simplicius, Commentarius in Epicteti Enchiridion. 1st half of the 16th century, Italy (Padua?)
  • Royal MS 16 C XX, Isaac Argyrus, De Metris Poeticis, imperfect, with marginalia by Isaac Casaubon. End of the 16th century, Italy?

Phew.  That was very unpleasant to transcribe and format.

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John the Lydian on August

Another chunk of John the Lydian, De mensibus, book 4, has arrived from Mischa Hooker.  Indeed it arrived at the weekend, but was delayed by my own illness.  As might be expected, this covers the month of August.

There is material on Augustus, as might be expected, and calendrical material.  No great surprises, but useful all the same!

The notes are copious, which is very necessary to understand the text and a great blessing.  Thank you, Mischa.

As ever, use it in whatever way you like, personal, educational or commercial.

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Is it time to nationalise the academic publishers?

A few tweets this morning were complaining about the inaccessibility of the main reference works for patristics, the Clavis Patrum Latinorum and the Clavis Patrum Graecorum.  These works are essentially lists of works by patristic authors.  Each is assigned a number, and the opening words of the first line are given.  If the text appears in the edition of J.-P. Migne, the reference is given; if not, the manuscript where it may be found.

As may be imagined, it is impossible to work in patristics without access to these volumes.

The complaints were that the volumes – numerous and very expensive – were generally not held by university libraries or, if they were, could not be borrowed.  A respondent slyly suggested that perhaps pirate PDFs were available somewhere; which is one answer.  Another said that Brepols, who publish the volumes, would undoubtedly eventually make them available online.  This drew the retort that access would be through a paywall, and that only tier-1 universities would subscribe for it.

Every word of this is true.  We have academics unable to access the tools of their trade, themselves compiled by other academics, because they are – legally – the property of a Belgian publishing house who have to pay their bills somehow, and do so by charging high fees for access.

What is the answer?

A further tweeter said that she would make sure all her work was open access.  This is laudable.  But it doesn’t solve the problem.

The situation is rather akin to that in place in the British Empire when slavery was abolished.  There were great numbers of slave owners, who had obtained their property quite legally, and were financially invested in it.  But the public interest was to abolish slavery.

The rulers of that day, being honest man and leaders of a great commercial nation, did not do what the lesser men of today might do.  They didn’t pillage their countrymen.  Instead they bought out the rights of the slave-owners.  The community as a whole had decided; and the community as a whole paid to make it happen.  Nobody was robbed.  There was no damage to the right of private property, the basis for all civilised life.

Surely the situation is much the same now.  The academic publishers once served a vital purpose.  That purpose is disappearing.  The absurd copyright laws give them ownership of materials lasting back a century.  The public interest is that this material should be freely accessible online.

The answer, surely, is for western governments to buy out the academic publishers.  The Belgian government needs to buy out Brepols and free the archive.  The terms might be negotiated; but the end is necessary, and it should be pursued.  The same applies to Brill in the Netherlands, and so on.

It might be objected that it is rather hard on the middle classes – the only people who pay tax, and who are currently being fleeced of their savings by low interest rates and money-printing – to add to their burdens.  There is merit to this, and it needs to be considered.

But I do not see how else the problem can be solved.

Free access to learning is a national necessity.  Let our politicians find a way.

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British Patristics Conference underway today

The 5th British Patristics conference is beginning today in London, and it runs until Friday.  There is a great mass of interesting papers on offer.

Unfortunately I am unable to attend.  I wish that I was there, and I booked back in January.  But a virus has laid me low since Saturday – undoubtedly acquired on the aircraft back from Rome a week earlier.

I hope that perhaps some other attendees will post accounts of the event.  These conferences are uniformly excellent.

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