Errata and Re-attribution in Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogia
On f. xcviii r of Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogia, in a hand we have come to recognise as Br. Cyril's, the following marginal note appears in smudged sepia: an aside both characteristic of the working scriptorium and useful for our purposes. the marginal note speaks, as it were, for itself
Marginalia of this kind, while common in Constantinopolitan scriptoria of the tenth century, have not been adequately collected. Our running census now stands at 204, a number that grows weekly and surprises no one but the corrector.
The hand here is upright minuscule of the late-eleventh-century convention, with the characteristic narrow sigma terminal and the slightly hooked abbreviation stroke. The ink, examined under low magnification, shows a colour-shift suggesting two pots, or one pot in two sittings; we infer either a second hand returning to the line or an interruption mid-line, with the corrector preferring the latter.
Notes
- We have declined to date the second hand on present evidence.
- All folio numberings follow our internal census; the imperial census differs.
- The corrector's red ink is, as always, available.
Other Hands
Annotations by other scribes, in the order in which they were entered into the margins.