Original scientific paper
Jagić's middle form of the Glagolitic script in the light of the contemporary Glagolitic paleography
Marica Čunčić
Abstract
Jagić’s hypothesis from 1883, about the development of the Glagolitic script types is compared with the recent results of the paleographic research. Vatroslav Jagić considered the titles in Zograf and Marianus Glagolitic codices, in Glagolita Clocianus and elsewhere, to be the oldest known form and according to him the whole Kiev Missal, the oldest known Glagolitic manuscript from the 10th century, is written in this middle character form. According to him the »full roundness« in Macedonia and Bulgaria and the less roundness or »greater squareness« of the Glagolitic script in Moravian, Czech and Pannonian lands have developed from this title form which Jagić called the »middle« form. The results of the contemporary Glagolitic paleography show that the middle form or the title characters and Kiev
Missal share a common five line system. Although the character position ignores the five line system in the Kiev Missal – the shorter characters are shifted to the upper line – the five line system is present in the predictable
consistently different character height which comes from the five line system. It is known from the recent paleography literature that the rounded Glagolitic script did not develop from the title form but from the triangular form. Since the triangular Glagolitic does not have the character stems in its graphic structure, the title form could not have been developed from it. The rounded Glagolitic script has stems and there is a great probability that the title form developed from the rounded form by stretching the stems
considerably. Since the middle form shares the same five line system with the triangular form, it can be concluded that the middle form developed from the rounded in the earliest phase when the five line system was still known
to scribes. Jagić’s hypothesis about the middle form of »greater squareness« has opened the possibility for the form older than the rounded type. It was a good hypothesis in his time. In the contemporary Glagolitic paleography the
place of the older-than-the-rounded form is the triangular Glagolitic script.
Keywords
Vatroslav Jagić; Glagolitic paleography; Glagolitic middle form; Glagolitic title form; Glagolitic triangular form
Hrčak ID:
31624
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2008.
Visits: 3.097 *