Home > Digitized Walters Manuscripts

This document is a tranformation of a TEI P5 XML manuscript description incorporating images. If you have trouble reading special or non-Latin characters on this page, please make sure you have appropriate Unicode fonts installed and an up-to-date web browser.

Walters Ms. W.548, Fragments of a Sluzhebnik (Euchologion)

Browse images (Browse images in a new window) | TEI in XML format

Shelf mark

W.548


Manuscript

Fragments of a Sluzhebnik (Euchologion)


Text title
Slavic Orthodox Liturgical Book

Abstract

This liturgical text is a rare example of an early Russian manuscript, dating from the fourteenth century. It offers a fascinating case study in the history of manuscript collecting. Because of some eleventh-century dates written in the text, the manuscript was long believed to have been made in that century. Later it was argued that the work was in fact a nineteenth-century forgery by a Russian collector, Alexander Sulakadzev (Demkova 1979). A recent study (Afanas'eva 2009), however, has determined its origin definitively: the pages of this book were cut from a larger manuscript (Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Ms. O. п. Ι. 4) and bound together (out of order), probably by Sulakadzev. Sulakadzev is also likely to have added the notes that made the text appear to date to the eleventh century.


Date

14th century CE


Origin

Russia


Form

Book


Genre

Liturgical


Language:

The primary language in this manuscript is Church Slavic; Old Slavonic; Church Slavonic; Old Bulgarian; Old Church Slavonic.


Support material

Parchment

Medium-weight parchment; brown stains on edges from use; some holes and uneven edges


Extent

Foliation: 16

Foliated in pencil on upper right rectos


Collation

Formula: 1-8(2)

Catchwords: None

Signatures: None

Comments: Each bifolio appears to have been cut from the center of a quire from the larger manuscript (St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, O. π. Ι. 4)


Dimensions

12.5 cm wide by 17.0 cm high


Written surface

9.0 cm wide by 12.5 cm high


Layout
  1. Columns: 1
  2. Ruled lines: 16
  3. Hardpoint ruling

Contents:
fols. 1r - 16v:
  1. Title: Slavic Orthodox Liturgical Book
  2. Hand note: Uncial, written by a single hand; several notes in margins by later users, including some that refer to medieval history and include medieval dates, which were probably added by Sulakadzev
  3. Decoration note: One inhabited initial (5 lines); sixteen decorated initials; prayer initials in capitals with blue fill; rubrics and some capitals in red; text in brown ink
fols. 11r - 12v; 7r - 9v; 5r - 6v; 10r - 10v:
  1. Title: Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom
  2. Text note: Beginning and end of text missing; gaps between fols. 12v and 7r and between fols. 8v and 9r
fols. 15r - 16v; 13r - 13v; 2r - 2v:
  1. Title: Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts
  2. Text note: Beginning of text missing; gap between fols. 16v and 13r
fols. 1r - 1v; 14r - 14v:
  1. Title: Vesperinal Prayers
  2. Text note: End of text missing
fols. 4r - 4v:
  1. Title: Matutinal Prayers
  2. Text note: End of text missing
fols. 3r - 3v:
  1. Title: Prayers for All-Night Vigil
  2. Text note: Beginning and end of text missing

Decoration:

fol. 13v:

  1. W.548, fol. 13v
  2. Title: Initial "B" in the shape of a dragon biting its tail
  3. Form: Inhabited initial "B," 6 lines

Binding

The binding is not original.

Disbound bifolia housed in a nineteenth-century binding of red velvet over pasteboard with paper pastedowns


Provenance

Created in Russia in the fourteenth century as part of a larger liturgical text (Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia ms. O. п. Ι. 4)

Alexander Sulakadzev, before 1816 (labeled and numbered on front pastedown: "Codex Sulakasianus Slavonicus membranaceus dictus: Coyбopникь const. fol.: 16. 1v-16v, saec XIo. Cum Postillis Sulakasianis")

Henry Walters, Baltimore, before 1931 (bookplate on front pastedown)


Acquisition

Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest


Bibliography

De Ricci, Seymour. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935. p. 817. no. 369.

Demkova, Natalia. "Древнерусские рукописи и старопeчатные kниги в нekotopыx собpaнияx" Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoi literatury 34 (1979): pp. 388-405.

Parpulov, Georgi. "A Medieval Russian Manuscript at the Walters Art Museum (W.548)." Journal of the Walters Art Museum. Journal of the Walters Art Museum 62 (2004): pp. 229-232, p. 230 fig. 1 (fol. 2r), p. 230 fig. 2 (fol. 13v).

Afanas'eva, Tatiana. "Cлужебник Рнб О. п. I. 4 и Рукoпись Walter Art Museum (W. 548) – единый дpевнеpусский кoдекс пеpвoй пoлoвины XIV в." 2009. http://www.drevnyaya.ru/vyp/2009_2/part5.pdf

Parpulov, Georgi. "Pre-1650 Cyrillic Manuscripts in U.S. Public Collections: A Catalogue." Palaeoslavica 18, no. 2 (2010): pp. 1-53, p. 7, no. 3.


Contributors

Cataloger: Parpulov, Georgi R.

Editor: Herbert, Lynley

Copy editor: Joyal, Stephanie

Conservators: Owen, Linda; Quandt, Abigail

Contributors: Bockrath, Diane; Emery, Doug; Noel, William; Tabritha, Ariel; Toth, Michael B.


Publisher

The Walters Art Museum


License

Licensed for use under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Access Rights, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode. It is requested that copies of any published articles based on the information in this data set be sent to the curator of manuscripts, The Walters Art Museum, 600 North Charles Street, Baltimore MD 21201.