Codex

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This article is about ancient and medieval books. For other
uses, see Codex
(disambiguation).

Christian Bible as codex

A codex (Latin caudex for "trunk of
a tree" or block of wood, book; plural codices) is
a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings
(sheets of paper or
vellum in
multiples of two which are folded and stitched through) typically bound
together and given a cover.

Developed by the Romans from wooden writing
tablets, its gradual replacement of the scroll, the dominant form of book
in the ancient world, has
been termed the most important advance in the history of the book prior to the
invention of printing.[1]
The spread of the codex is often associated with the rise of Christianity, which adopted
the format for the Bible early on.[2]
First described by the 1st-century AD Roman poet Martial, who praised its
convenient use, the codex achieved numerical parity with the scroll around AD
300, and had completely replaced it throughout the now Christianised Greco-Roman world by
the 6th century.[3]

The codex holds considerable practical advantages over other book formats,
such as compactness, sturdiness, ease of reference (a codex is random
access, as opposed to a scroll, which is sequential access),
and especially economy; unlike the scroll, both recto and verso could be
used for writing.[4]
Although the change from rolls to codices roughly coincides with the transition
from papyrus to
parchment
as favourite writing material, the two developments are quite unconnected. In
fact, any combination of codices and scrolls on the one hand with papyrus and
parchment on the other is technically feasible and well attested from the
historical record.[5]

Although technically any modern paperback is a codex, the term
is now reserved for manuscript (hand-written)
books which were produced from Late Antiquity through
the Middle Ages. The scholarly
study of these manuscripts from the point of view of the bookbinding craft is called
codicology, while the study
of ancient documents in general is called paleography.

Contents

1 History

2 Bookbinding

3 See also

4 References

5 Sources

6 External
links

[edit]
History

Reproduced Roman-style wax tablet, from which the
codex evolved

The Romans used precursors made
of reusable wax-covered tablets of wood
for taking notes and other informal writings. Two ancient polyptychs, a pentatych
and octotych, excavated at Herculaneum employed a
unique connecting system that presages later sewing on thongs or cords.[6]
At the turn of the 1st century CE, a kind of folded parchment notebook called
pugillares membranei in Latin became commonly used for writing in the Roman
Empire.[7]
This term was used by both the pagan poet Martial and the Christian apostle Paul. Martial used the term with
reference to gifts of literature exchanged by Romans during the festival of Saturnalia.
According to T.C. Skeat “…in at least three cases and probably in all, in the
form of codices" and he theorized that this form of notebook was invented in
Rome and then “…must have spread rapidly to the Near East…”[8]
In his discussion of one of the earliest pagan parchment codices to survive from
Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, Eric
Turner seems to challenge Skeat’s notion when stating “…its mere existence is
evidence that this book form had a prehistory” and that “early experiments with
this book form may well have taken place outside of Egypt.”[9]
Early codices of parchment or papyrus appear to have been widely used as
personal notebooks, for instance in recording copies of letters sent (Cicero
Fam. 9.26.1). The pages of parchment notebooks were
commonly washed or scraped for re-use, called a palimpsest; and consequently
writings in a codex were considered informal and impermanent.

As far back as the early 2nd century, there is evidence that the
codex—usually of papyrus—was the preferred format
among Christians: in the library
of the Villa of the Papyri,
Herculaneum (buried in AD
79), all the texts (Greek literature) are scrolls (see Herculaneum papyri);
in the Nag Hammadi "library",
secreted about AD 390, all the texts (Gnostic Christian) are codices. Despite
this comparison, a fragment of a non-Christian parchment Codex of Demosthenes,
De Falsa Legatione from Oxyrhynchus in Egypt
demonstrates that the surviving evidence is insufficient to conclude whether
Christians played a major, if not central, role in the development of early
codices, or if they simply adopted the format to distinguish themselves from Jews. The earliest
surviving fragments from codices come from Egypt and are variously dated (always
tentatively) towards the end of the 1st century or in the first half of the 2nd.
This group includes the Rylands Library
Papyrus P52, containing part of St John's Gospel, and perhaps dating from
between 125 and 160.[10]

Early medieval bookcase containing about ten
codices depicted in the Codex Amiatinus (ca.
700)

In Western
culture the codex gradually replaced the scroll. From the 4th century, when
the codex gained wide acceptance, to the Carolingian
Renaissance in the 8th century, many works that were not converted from
scroll to codex were lost to posterity. The codex was an improvement over the
scroll in several ways. It could be opened flat at any page, allowing easier
reading; the pages could be written on both front and back (recto and verso); and
the codex, protected within its durable covers, was more compact and easier to
transport.

The codex also made it easier to organize documents in a library because it had a stable
spine on which the title of the book could be written. The spine could be used
for the incipit, before the concept of a
proper title was developed, during medieval times.

Although most early codices were made of papyrus, papyrus was fragile and
supplies from Egypt, the only place where papyrus grew and was made into paper,
became scanty; the more durable parchment and vellum gained favor, despite the
cost.

Aztec warriors as shown in the Florentine
Codex.

The codices of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica had the same
form as the European codex, but were instead made with long folded strips of
either fig bark (amatl) or plant fibers, often with
a layer of whitewash applied before
writing. New
World codices were written as late as the 16th century (see Maya
codices and Aztec codices). Those
written before the Spanish conquests seem all to have been single long sheets
folded concertina-style, sometimes
written on both sides of the local amatl paper. So, strictly speaking
they are not in codex format, but they more consistently have "Codex" in their
usual names than do other types of manuscript.

In the Far
East, the scroll remained standard for far longer than in the West. There
were intermediate stages, such as scrolls folded concertina-style and pasted
together at the back and books that were printed only on one side of the
paper.[11]
The Jewish religion still retains the
Torah scroll, at
least for ceremonial use.

[edit]
Bookbinding

Among the experiments of earlier centuries, scrolls were sometimes unrolled
horizontally, as a succession of columns. (The Dead Sea Scrolls are a
famous example of this format.) This made it possible to fold the scroll as an
accordion. The next step was then to cut the folios, sew and glue
them at their centers, making it easier to use the papyrus or vellum recto-verso as with a
modern book. In traditional bookbinding, these assembled folios trimmed and
curved were called "codex" in order to differentiate it from the "case" which we
now know as "hard cover". Binding the codex was clearly a different procedure
from binding the "case". This terminology, still in use some 50 or 60 years
ago,[citation
needed] has been nearly abandoned. Some commercial
bookbinders may refer to the cover and the inside of the book instead, but a few
others[who?],
attached to their traditions, still use the terms "codex" and "case".

[edit]
See also

List of codices

List of New
Testament papyri

List of New
Testament uncials

Aztec codices

Maya codices

Traditional
Chinese bookbinding

History of
books

[edit]
References

^ Roberts
& Skeat 1983, p. 1

^ Roberts
& Skeat 1983, pp. 38−67

^ Roberts
& Skeat 1983, p. 75

^ Roberts
& Skeat 1983, pp. 45−53

^ Roberts
& Skeat 1983, p. 5

^ Carratelli, Giovanni Pugliese (1950). "L'instrvmentvm
Scriptorivm Nei Monumenti Pompeiani Ed Ercolanesi." in Pompeiana. Raccolta di
studi per il secondo centenario degli di Pompei..
pp. 166–78..

^ Roberts, Colin H; Skeat, TC (1983). The Birth of the
Codex. London: British Academy. pp. 15–22. ISBN 0197260616.

^ Skeat, T.C. (2004). The Collected Biblical Writings
of T.C. Skeat.. Leiden: E.J. Brill. pp. 45. ISBN 9004139206.

^ Turner, Eric (1977). The Typology of the Early
Codex. Philadelhpia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 38. ISBN 10:
0812276965.

^ Turner The
Typology of the Early Codex, U Penn 1977, and Roberts & Skeat The
Birth of the Codex (Oxford University 1983). From Robert A Kraft (see
link): "A fragment of a Latin parchment codex of an otherwise unknown
historical text dating to about 100 CE was also found at Oxyrhynchus (P. Oxy. 30; see
Roberts & Skeat 28). Papyrus fragments of a "Treatise of the Empirical
School" dated by its editor to the centuries 1-2 CE is also attested in the
Berlin collection (inv. # 9015, Pack\2 # 2355) — Turner, Typology # 389, and
Roberts & Skeat 71, call it a "medical manual.""

^ International
Dunhuang Project — Several intermediate Chinese bookbinding forms from the
C10th.

[edit]
Sources

David Diringer, The
Book Before Printing: Ancient, Medieval and Oriental, Courier Dover
Publications, New York 1982, ISBN
0486242439

L. W. Hurtado, The
Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins, Cambridge
2006.

Roberts, Colin H.; Skeat,
T. C. (1983), The Birth of the Codex, London: Oxford University Press,
ISBN 0-19-726024-1

[edit]
External links

Georgian
Codex

Centre for the History of the Book

The Codex and Canon Consciousness – Draft paper by Robert
Kraft on the change from scroll to codex

The Construction of the Codex In Classic- and Postclassic-Period
Maya Civilization Maya Codex and Paper Making

Encyclopaedia Romana: "Scroll and codex"

K.C. Hanson, Catalogue of New
Testament Papyri & Codices 2nd—10th Centuries

Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, including Vulgates,
Breviaries, Contracts, and Herbal Texts from 12 -17th century, Center for
Digital Initiatives, University of Vermont Libraries

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Codex&oldid=455181696"

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