2011-10-07

New Issue by e-Codices

E-Codices in Switzerland this week put Cod. Sang. 133 online, and I have accordingly added hyperlinks to my edition of the Liber Genealogus of 427 on www.piggin.net so that readers can read both side by side on a computer screen. This is the codex I blogged about earlier this year. Lowe's description of the script is also provided on the e-Codices website.
As always, it is interesting to "thumb" through the other material in a volume like this. This little codex is a jewel, and I quote the manuscript summary:
This manuscript, still in its original Carolingian binding, consists of three parts and was written in Merovingian script by numerous hands, apparently in the late 8th and/or early 9th century, probably at the Abbey of St. Gall. It contains reliable versions of many onomastic texts, including copies of the work Liber de situ et nominibus locorum Hebraicorum by Jerome, the Cosmographia of Aethicus Ister, the chronicles of Isidore of Seville, Chronica maiora and Historia regum Gothorum, Vandalorum Sueborum, as well as an excellent version of the Itinerarium Antonini Placentini, an account of the pilgrimage of a citizen of Piacenza in about 560/570 to the Holy Land.
The latest rush of e-codices material, placed online Tuesday, appears to comprise 65 more volumes, and includes wonderfully illuminated bibles and some magnificent compilations. A compendium of histories, Cod. Sang. 547, penned in about 1200, caught my eye. Its summary says:
This rather hefty tome (weighing nearly 17 kilograms) compiled around 1200 contains copies in Latin of major works of world-, church- and ethnic history; examples include the History of the World by Orosius, the ecclesiastical history of Eusebius of Caesarea, the Summa of Biblical history (Historica Scholastica) of the early Parisian scholastic Peter Comestor († ca. 1179), the history of the first crusade by Robert of Reims, the history of the Langobards by Paulus Diaconus, the History of the English Church and People by the Venerable Bede, and Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne.
One cannot praise the work of e-codices (and the generosity of its benefactors) too highly. Christoph Flüeler, who leads the project, deserves high honour for this. I was shocked to hear that Switzerland not only has no system of honours to reward civic excellence, but also makes it an offence for its citizens to accept honours from other nations. I hope that Professor Flüeler can be assured in some other way of the high esteem in which we hold his work.

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