Western Medieval Manuscripts : Miscellany of canon law and other texts in Greek

Western Medieval Manuscripts

This manuscript, probably produced in the first half of the 16th century, contains a Miscellany of canon law and other texts in Greek. The largest component, accounting for the majority of the manuscript, is the compendium of canon law compiled from earlier collections by the 14th-century monk and theologian Matthaios Blastares. This collection is organised by topics arranged in alphabetical order, and became a standard reference work across the Orthodox Christian world. The other content includes a variety of briefer canon law texts, particularly relating to penance and marriage, and excerpts from collections of civil law. The manuscript also contains a wide range of other texts including including lists of ecclesiastical offices, short chronicles and chronological lists, miscellaneous religious texts, a brief Hebrew-Greek lexicon and other linguistic lists.The manuscript was copied by many different hands, but is probably the product of a single project of production. The hand responsible for the largest proportion of the text appears at a number of points through the manuscript, and is identified by a colophon on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(381);return false;'>f. 194r</a> as the priest Theodosios Martinos.There is evidence from water staining that the manuscript has been divided into at least two parts in the past, but the combination of hands and the watermarks in the paper suggest that this division does not result from the two parts having been produced separately but from later detachment. The manuscript was rebound in the early 17th century, using manuscript waste to form limp boards, within a leather cover.The manuscript evidently spent time subsequently in southern Greece in the early modern period, as a note on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(7);return false;'>f. 1r</a> records its ownership by the hieromonachos (priest and monk) Nikephoros Pringelis, a native of Athens, while other notes mention the Metropolitan of Sparta and the ordination by the Metropolitan of Nauplion of a priest for Argos.