The Greek Manuscript Collection of Lambeth Palace Library Cataloguing Project

Project: Research

Project Details

Description

The Project involves the compilation of an analytical catalogue of the Greek Manuscript Collection of Lambeth Palace Library (LPL), consistiong of fifty-three codices acquired by LPL since its founding as a public library in 1610, including those donated in 2006 by Sion College, an institution for clergy founded in the City of London in the late 1620’s. Dated between the tenth and seventeenth centuries, these manuscripts include the Octateuch with catena and synopses of Old Testament texts, Gospel Books and Lectionaries, Acts and Epistles, the Book of Revelation, Apocryphal texts on Jesus and the Apostles, liturgical texts, Menaia and synaxaria/menologia, theological works, treatises and excerpts (by Justin the Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyon, Athanasius of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, John Damascene), Gerontika, Classical authors (Aeschylus, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Libanius, Lycophron, Dionysius Periegetes), post-Byzantine texts (Chronicle in vernacular Greek by an anonymous author, and Damaskenos Studites, On Animals), and papers on, and descriptions and collations of, LPL manuscripts. Among the most important manuscripts is codex 461 containing theological treatises by George Scholarios (later Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Gennadios II), with his autograph signature, notes and corrections. The finished catalogue will be published in downloadable PDF format on the websites of LPL and of the Hellenic Institute, thus enhancing the accessibility of, and interest in, this collection among scholars and the public worldwide. It will shed light on textual, palaeographical and codicological aspects of these important manuscripts which so far remain largely unexplored and will advance our knowledge on the relations between the Anglican Church and the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchates between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, a period of major political and ecclesiastical changes in Europe and the Middle East.
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date1/09/1231/08/14

Funding

  • AG Leventis Foundation: £121,000.00