Note 14 — THE PALAEOGRAPHY OF THE MORGAN FRAGMENT.

That is, manuscripts written before the eighth century. The number of abbreviations increases considerably during the eighth century. Previously the only symbols found in calligraphic majuscule manuscripts are the “Nomina Sacra” (deus, dominus, Iesus, Christus, spiritus, sanctus), which constantly occur in Christian literature, and such suspensions as are met with in our fragment. A familiar exception is the manuscript of Gaius, preserved in the Chapter library of Verona, MS. xv (13). This is full of abbreviations not found in contemporary manuscripts containing purely literary or religious texts. Cf. W. Studemund, Gaii Institutionum Commentarii Quattuor, etc., Leipsic 1874; and F. Steffens, Lateinische Paläographie2, pl. 18 (pl. 8 of the Supplement). The Oxyrhynchus papyrus of Cicero’s speeches is non-calligraphic and therefore not subject to the rule governing calligraphic products. The same is true of marginal notes to calligraphic texts. See W. M. Lindsay, Notae Latinae, Cambridge 1915, pp. 1-2.