The Linguistic and Textual Peculiarities of the Glagolitic Psalter auctioned at Christie's on 3 June 1998
The Linguistic and Textual Peculiarities of the Glagolitic Psalter auctioned at Christie's on 3 June 1998

Summary/Abstract: The Glagolitic psalter manuscript which was auctioned at Christie’s in 1998 presents a strikingly archaic appearance. However, an examination of its orthographical, linguistic and textual features reveals a range of enigmatic discrepancies. Its orthography is exceptionally inconsistent and various mechanical errors suggest that the copyist was not accustomed to writing in Glagolitic. The manuscript seems to derive from an early Cyrillic exemplar, probably the Bologna Psalter, but it contains distinctive linguistic forms and variant readings which are characteristic of later redactions of the text. The Cyrillic marginalia also display a dependence on the headings to the psalms in the Bologna Psalter. These peculiarities give rise to significant difficulties in dating the manuscript; its date therefore needs to be established by means of physical tests.

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