A much requested Greek manuscript from the William Wake collection at Christ Church has been digitised and is now available. It is a Miscellany of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Texts (MS 49), with booklets dating from the 15th to the 18th centuries (the last dated indication is June 16th 1727). It was most likely produced in Ioannina, Epirus. The codex contains 307 folios in quarto, in different hands. The booklets were separate for some time before they were joined together in the 18th century. The texts are written a several authors, and are generally of religious nature, with no direct connection to a specific place.
MS 49, and in particular the section containing the manuscript of The Chronicle of Ioannina (folios 252 to 272), benefits from detailed codicological and palaeographic descriptions by Dr Brendan Osswald, and has been extensively discussed in the most recent issue of the Library journal (Christ Church Library Newsletter, Volume 12, Issues 2-3, 2020-2021). This is an important text for the history of Epirus in the second half of the 14th century. It narrates events from the Serbian invasion led by Stefan Dušan in the 1340’s to the death of Gjin Spata, despot of Arta, in 1399. The main characters of the Chronicle are Thomas, known to modern historians as Preljubović, and Esau Buondelmonti, who both ruled the city as despot. Unlike the other versions, this manuscript of the Chronicle is deeply prejudiced against Thomas, and very favourable to Esau.
You can access MS 49 directly from Digital Bodleian, or from the section dedicated to Byzantine Manuscripts in Christ Church Digital Library. From here you can also additional information and detailed palaeographical and codicological descriptions of the codex.
* For more fully digitised items from Christ Church collections, please see Digital Library.
* To access all issues of the journal, please go to Publications - Christ Church Library Newsletter.
* For other news related to Special Collections, please go the library Exhibitions and Research.
