Lincoln College MS. Gr. 35

Diktyon no.: 48689

Monastery rule (typicon); c. 1300 / c. 1330–1335

Language(s): Greek

1. (fols. 14r–142v)

Foundress’s rule (τύπικον) for the Convent of the Virgin τῆς Βεβαίας Ἐλπίδος in Constantinople, preceded by a table of contents (πίναξ). Most of f. 13r and all of f. 13v are blank.

2. (fols. 158r–v, 143r–147v, 159r–v)

Commemorations for the foundress’s family.

3. (fols. 156r–157v)

Cartulary (περιορισμός) of the convent’s buildings and possessions.

4. (fols. 155r–v, 148r–154v)

Supplementary rule (ὑποτύποσις δευτέρα) issued by the foundress’s daughter.

5. (fols. 160r–161r, 161v–163v)

Commemorations for donors of the convent. Most of f. 161r and all of ff. 161v–163v were originally blank.

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: Parchment

Extent: 163+ii leaves (numbered 1–165)

Dimensions (leaf): 235 × 170 mm.

Collation

Collation: viii (ff. 1–8), iv (ff. 9–12), 10 × viii (ff. 13–92), viii (ff. 93–100, ff. 94 and 99 single), 2 × viii (ff. 101–116), viii (ff. 117–122.125–126, ff. 118 and 125 single) + ii (ff. 123–124), vii (ff. 125–132.134, f. 132 single) + i (f. 133), viii (ff. 135–142), v (ff. 143–147, f. 144 single without text loss), viii (ff. 148–155), 2 × i (ff. 156–157), ii (ff. 158–159), iv (ff. 160–163). Scribal signatures, many of them now lost, occur in the lower inner corner of the quires’ last pages, starting with α´ on f. 20v, including ζ´ on f. 68v, and ending with ιγ´ on 116v. These are supplemented with non-scribal signatures added by two different hands in the lower inner corner at the end quires and sometimes (ff. 69r, 117r, 143r, 148r, etc.) also in the upper outer corner at the beginning of quires. These start with α´ on f. 8v and β´ οn f. 12v, then resume with η´ on f. 69r, and finish with ιθ´ on f. 157v and κ´ on f. 159v.

Layout

16–19 lines, 172–182 × 120 mm. , ruling Leroy V 20D1 (ff. 13–122, 126–127, 133–134, 136–141) and Leroy 10D1m (ff. 123–125, 128–132, 135, 142–156, 158–159).

The text on ff. 14–15 is in two columns.

Hand(s)

Copied by three scribes: A (ff. 14–122, 126–127, 133–134, 136–141), B (ff. 123–125, 128–132, 135, 142–156, 158–159), and C (ff. 157 and 160; line 1 on f. 161r).

Decoration

There are full-page miniatures on ff. 1v–2r, 3r, 4r, 5r, 6r, 7r, 8r, 9v, 10v–11r, 12r, and a gilded and painted headpiece on f. 13r.

Empty space was left for a headpiece on f. 16r supra. Scribe A drew a coloured interlace headband on f. 14r. Scribe B drew in red ink headbands on ff. 132r, 155r, and 158r.

Additions:

There is a drawing for the game of nine men’s morris on f. 1r.

Three entries added on ff. 161r–162r, 162r-v, and 162v–163v by three different hands respectively on 11 February 1397, ca. 1400, and in March 1402 record donations made to the convent. The scribe of the first entry signed his name as Demetrius Balsamon (RGK I, 91). Christian Gastgeber (cit. below) tentatively attributes the third one to the hand of George Eugenicus (PLP 6188).

Binding

Binding (sixteenth-century) of blind-tooled brown leather over squared and grooved wooden boards. The boards are flush with the book-block. Two pins, only the upper one of which now remains, were inserted in the edge of the upper board; there are traces two leather thongs once attached to the lower board. The spine is smooth; the endbands raised. The paper pastedowns have no watermarks. The endpapers at the back (ff. 164–165) contain two anchor watermarks very similar to Piccard online no. 119041 (attested in 1572) and to Mošin no. 1542 (attested ca. 1550–1560); chain-distance 28 mm.

History

Origin: c. 1300 / c. 1330–1335

Provenance and Acquisition

Bequeathed by Sir George Wheler (1651–1724), who acquired it in Athens in February 1676: Paris, BnF, Fr. 9467, f. 35r.

Record Sources

Description by Georgi Parpulov (2023).

Availability

To ensure its availability to future readers, access to this item is restricted, and readers are asked to work from reproductions and published descriptions as far as possible. To apply to see the original, please send a message to specialcollections.enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk, outlining the subject of your research, the importance of this item to that research, and the resources you have already consulted.

Bibliography

H. O. Coxe, Catalogus codicum mss. qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur (Oxford, 1852) I [individual sections separately paginated], Lincoln College, pp. 18-19 (open access at HathiTrust Digital Library)

H. Delehaye, Deux typica byzantins de l’époque des Paléologues (Brussels 1921) 10–105

H. Omont, ‘Portraits de différents membres de la famille des Comnénes peints dans le typicon du monastére de Notre-Dame-de-bonne-espérance à Constantinople’, Revue des études grecques 17 (1904) 361–373

I. Spatharakis, The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts (Leiden 1976) 190–206

I. Hutter, ‘Die Geschichte des Lincoln College Typikons’, Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 45 (1995) 79–114

I. Hutter, Corpus der byzantinischen Miniaturenhandschriften: Oxford College Libraries, 2 vols (Stuttgart 1997) 56–62, figs. 201–221, pls. 6–18

J. Thomas and A. Constantinides Hero (eds.), Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents (Washington DC 2000) 1512–1578

C. Gastgeber, ‘Das Typikon Lincoln College gr. 35 und das Patriarchat von Konstantinopel’, Scripta 7 (2014) 95–110

N. Gaul, ‘Writing “with Joyful and Leaping Soul”: Sacralization, Scribal Hands, and Ceremonial in the Lincoln College Typikon’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 69 (2015) 243–272

J. Ball, ‘The Group Portrait in the Lincoln Typikon: Identity and Social Structure in a Fourteenth-Century Convent’, Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies 5 (2016) 139–164

Online resources:

Pinakes | Πίνακες: Textes et manuscrits grecs

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2023-07: New description by Georgi Parpulov.

A catalogue of Western manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries and selected Oxford colleges