Western Medieval Manuscripts : Maximus the Confessor and a fragment of the Geoponica

Western Medieval Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This manuscript was formerly part of a miscellaneous composite volume (MS Dd.3.86) formed of eleven parts, containing texts in English, Latin and Greek (it is described as such in the Cambridge University Library manuscripts catalogue of 1856, as sections 10 and 11 of the manuscript). These two sections are now bound separately as MS Dd.3.86.10-11. It is a composite volume, containing a work by <i>Maximus the Confessor and a fragment of the <i>Geoponica</i></i>. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Part I contains Maximus the Confessor's <i>Computus ecclesiasticus</i>, on calendrical and chronological matters, with tables. The text seems to have been copied in the 15th century.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Part II contains a brief fragment of the <i>Geoponica</i>, a collection of excerpts on agriculture, in twenty books, compiled in Byzantium at the time of Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (945-959).</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Both parts of the manuscript were owned by John Moore (1646-1714) (see Provenance). The fragment from the <i>Geoponica</i>, comprising only the prooimion and the beginning of the first book, was used by Peter Needham for his 1704 edition of the text dedicated to Moore ( P. Needham, <i>Geoponicorum, sive de re rustica libri XX, Cassiano Basso scholastico collectore, antea Constantino Porphyrogenneto a quibusdam adscripti</i> (Cantabrigiae, 1704); the manuscript is indicated as " Norv. Fragmentum Manuscriptum penes Episcopum Norvicensem"). </p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr. Erika Elia</p>