Western Medieval Manuscripts : Chiliades and other works of Ioannes Tzetzes

Western Medieval Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This manuscript, produced in the late 15th or early 16th century, contains the <i>Chiliades and other works of Ioannes Tzetzes</i>, the 12th-century Byzantine scholar and teacher. The bulk of it is occupied by the Chiliades, the author's principal work, a primarily historical miscellany of brief passages in verse concerning matters of sacred and secular history, mythology, literature, and occasionally language and theology, drawn from a very wide range of sources. This is followed by a series of other brief works by Tzetzes, including poems and letters relating to the main text, which were also associated with it in other manuscripts. It is preceded by a contents list, the numbering of which does not correspond to that used in the body of the manuscript.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The manuscript was copied by at least a dozen different hands. Most of these copied only a short portion of the text, often only a handful of lines, and their work is interspersed with that of the copyists responsible for the bulk of the manuscript. The standard of handwriting of the more minor hands is sometimes rather poor, and their involvement may reflect brief passages being assigned to novice copyists.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr Christopher Wright</p>