Қолжазба кітаптарды зерттеу ғылымы

Study of codices or manuscript books

Codicology (,/k//oʊ//d//ɪ/'/k//ɒ//l//ə//dʒ//i/; from French codicologie; from Latin codex, genitive codicis, "notebook, book" and Greek λογία, logia) is the study of codices or manuscript books. It is often referred to as "the archaeology of the book," a term coined by François Masai. The demarcation of codicology is not clear cut. Some view codicology as a discipline complete in itself, while others see it as auxiliary to textual criticism analysis and transmission, which is studied by philology. Codicologists may also study the history of libraries, manuscript collecting, book cataloguing, and scribes, which otherwise belongs to the history of the book. Palaeographic techniques are used along with codicological techniques. Analysis of the work of the scribe, script styles and their variations, may reveal the book's character, value, purpose, date, and the importance attached to its different parts. The quality, size, and choice of support determine the status of a codex. Papyrus is found only in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Codices intended for display were bound with more durable materials than vellum. Parchment varied widely due to animal species and finish, and identification of animals used to make it has only begun to be studied in the 21st century. How manufacturing influenced the final products, technique, and style, is little understood. However, changes in style are underpinned more by variation in technique. Before the 14th and 15th century, paper was expensive, and its use may mark off the deluxe copy. ), sewing, bookbinding and rebinding. A quire consisted of a number of folded sheets inserting into one another at least three, but most commonly four bifolia, Ownership markings, decorations and illumination are also studied. Completed quires or books of quires might constitute independent book units booklets, which could be returned to the stationer, or combined with other texts to make anthologies or miscellanies. Exemplars were sometimes divided into quires for simultaneous copying and loaned out to students for study. To facilitate this, catchwords were used a word at the end of a page providing the next page's first word.

The study of manuscripts has a long tradition, but codicology has a short history. In the fifteenth century, two works published under the title De laude scriptorium, praised manuscripts and the works of copyists. One was written by Jean Gerson, a Parisian theologian, and the other by Johann Trithemius, the abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Sponheim. In the 16th and 17th centuries, as the study of manuscripts advanced, disputes between philologists and theologians occurred. In the 17th century, the Bollandists collected hagiographes and critically examined their contents and origins. In 1819, Heinrich Stein established the Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde, which published Monumenta Germaniae Historica and studies on medieval codices. In 1825, the librarian Adolph Ebert published a monograph on diplomatics, epigraphy and what he called Bücherhandschrifftenkunde "the science of internal and external features of manuscripts". In 1909, the philologist Ludwig Traube makes a distinction between paleography and Handschrifftenkunde. To Traube, paleography deals with deciphering writing, interpreting abbreviations and finding textual errors, as well as dating and locating the manuscript. Handschrifftenkunde studies the material elements of the codex, its preparation, and writings not part of the text itself, like annotations. However, the general tradition up until the 20th century viewed palaeography as not only encompassing the script, but everything used to date the manuscript. Victor Gardthausen in his "Greek Palaeography" divided palaeography into Buchwesen (the structure of the book) and Schriftwesen (the structure of writing). Up to the early 1930s, the study of manuscripts had also been linked to literary history and philology.

Over time, the meaning morphed to the study of the codex as an archeological object; equivalent to Buchwesen. Léon Delaissé preferred to use Masai's "archaeology of the book".

Since the 1970s, various codicologists have claimed that codicology should be concerned with the history, usage and reception of a manuscript as a cultural and textual object. Ornato articulates how the study of the inner features is inseparable from the exterior features of a manuscript. The quantitative method can therefore provide an idea of the economy and culture of manuscript production at a particular time or place or a longer period, relating it to the history of the book. Ornato and his school of followers thus consider codicology an independent and autonomous historical discipline, not subservient to any specialisation. However, his understanding of codicology is not lato sensu, but statistical the selection of materials, fabrication of quires, number of volumes, prices, work invested, circulation drawn from a group of manuscripts by time, place, type, etc. Malachi Beit Arie first used databases in codicology for Hebrew codices.

The progress in quantitative analysis of Latin, Hebrew, Byzantine and Arabic codices prompted research into whether technological practices were shared. This led to comparative codicology, a concept that takes its methodology from the comparative method. It was particularly inspired by linguistics and the possibility of a universal 'grammar' of the codex. The method was used early on in Hebrew codicology, as Hebrew manuscripts are considered intercultural via reflecting the manuscript culture of the dominant culture in which Jewish communities lived. In the 21st century, along with quantitative codicology, it is the most widespread methodology.

Starting in the late 1980s, some scholars borrowed ideas from structuralist linguistics and studied the codex as a structure with "morphological" and "syntactic" dimensions, treating its constituent components and their relationships respectively. A "genetic" aspect is also present as it tries to reconstruct the origin of the components and their production. Gumbert and other scholars formulated a syntax to identify codicological units and caesuras (discontinuities or boundaries) of a manuscript, formed by one or more quires, and their stages of production and interrelationships. This method faces difficulties due to manuscripts experiencing changes over their lifetime, due to losses, removals, and additions of text.

While medieval authors may have practised rudimentary codicology, interest in the study of Arabic manuscripts in the West started in the late 18th century. The greatest impetus was given with the first World of Islam Festival in London, in 1976, followed by a colloquium on Islamic codicology and palaeography in Istanbul in 1986. From then on, a number of conferences, exhibitions, catalogues, and specialized periodicals appeared.