George Codinus Curopalates

CENTURY XV. GEORGIUS CODINUS. NOTITIA.

(Fabric., Bibl. Gr. ed. Harles tom. VII.)

Georgius Codinus, having formerly discharged the highest office in the Constantinopolitan court as Curopalates, flourished in the latest times of the Palæologi, ^A and survived the empire itself, inasmuch as he concludes his booklet on the emperors of Constantinople with a commemoration of the city’s capture by the Agarenes, or Turks, in the year 6961, that is, 1453 of Christ. Of his writings there remain: *De officiis et officialibus aulæ imperatorum et magnæ ecclesiæ CPolitanæ* (On the offices and officials of the palace of the emperors and of the Great Church of Constantinople). Codinus also treats of the majority of festivals, and of the emperor’s coronation, the inauguration of the patriarch, and other matters; whence in another Bavarian manuscript codex ^B the title of the first part is conceived as follows: *Τὰ ὀφφίκια τοῦ παλλατίου* (The offices of the palace), etc.

(a) Consult Allatius, *De Georgiis*, p. 361; Haneckius, *De Byz. rerum scriptoribus*, chap. 10; Warthon in the Appendix to Cave's *Historia Litteraria* at the year 1461, and Petrus Lambecius in his brief *Dissertatio* on the life and writings of Codinus, who denies that he ever encountered the name "Curopalates" in the six manuscript codices he examined, and thinks it was assigned rather because he wrote about the offices of the palace than because he himself held the dignity of Curopalates. Yet since Junius and Gretser found this name of "Curopalates," I do not see why it should seem incredible that he held the dignity of Curopalates. But because it is omitted in some codices, it appears that this is a name of dignity, not, in truth, a proper name, which is not to be sought elsewhere than in Codinus. (FABR.) Add C. Oudin, *Commentarius De scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis*, book II, chap. 10. Hamberger, *Z. N.* IV, p. 733 sqq. And Saxius, *Onom.* II, p. 450 sq. (HARL.)

(b) Page 8 of Lambecius’s edition: *Ἐπὶ τούτου* (he speaks of Constantine Palæologus, the last emperor): "Under him, alas, occurred the capture of the same Constantinople by the godless Agarenes in the year 6961, and the former queen of all cities became a captive, who was also slain by them in the ensuing slaughter, both he himself and almost all the nobility, and he received the crown of martyrdom, not wishing to betray the kingdom to the lawless, nor indeed wishing to escape the danger, although it was in his power."

(c) The very first chapter concerning the officials of the Great Church, it seems, is not by Codinus, and it is missing in two royal manuscript codices and in one of those which Gretser unrolled from the Bavarian library. Furthermore, the order of the chapters in the various codices is also different. See Goar’s preface and notes, p. 20. And the *Notitia* of the codices.

(d) According to the catalog of Greek manuscripts of the Bavarian electoral library, p. 71, there is, in codex 185, a *Book of the offices and festivals of the palace of Constantinople and of the coronation of the emperor*; likewise of the designation of the despot and the patriarch, published under the name of Georgius Codinus, Curopalates; a description of Constantinople published under the same name of Codinus; likewise of the Great Church of Sophia; a *Catalog of the emperors of Constantinople* up to Manuel Palæologus; a *Catalog of the patriarchs of Constantinople* up to Isaiah, etc. On page 74, however, in another codex, 195: *Curopalates, on the offices of the court of Constantinople, and an exposition of Andronicus, concerning what are now episcopal titles subject to the patriarch.* ^C I shall add at the same time, for the sake of brevity, notice of other codices.

1. Florence, in the Laurentian Medicean library, codex 15 plut. 70, 1. *Excerpta* from the book of Chronicles concerning the origins of Constantinople, and whence the city was called Byzantium, in which codex, however, Bandini notes in his copious description of that codex in the *Catalogus codicum Græcorum Laurentianorum* 2, p. 675, that many things from this book were omitted by the copyist and others transposed. 2. A work of the same man on the offices of the Great Church and the court of Constantinople, likewise different from the Venetian edition, tom. XVIII, part 1, p. 1 sqq; there precedes a list of contents of the 14 chapters, of which the first 12 correspond with those which are brought forward from royal codex 1119, as the same Bandini notes. 3. Another work of the same man without a title; but it is about the years from the birth of Christ up to the reign of Constantine the Great and about those who reigned in the same queen of cities from Constantine the Great up to Constantine, the last of the Palæologi, under whom it was captured by the Agarenes. There follow accounts of the destruction of Constantinople, which indeed seem more to be attributed to a scribe than to the author, notes Bandini, l. c., who had that brief piece, and some other things which provide the end of the codex, written out in Greek.

Turin, in the Royal Library, codex 189, 1. *Excerpta* from the book of Chronicles (of Hesychius) ^D concerning the origins of Constantinople, etc. 2. Codinus’s *Opus on the offices of the palace*, to which is prefixed a chapter index: which, since it is somewhat different from that which is read in the Venice edition of 1729, the compiler of the *Catalogus codicum Græcorum Taurinensium*, p. 284, published it in Greek with a Latin version; he notes, however, that the two final [chapters] regarding the emperors who reigned at Constantinople until its destruction, wrought by the Agarenes, and regarding the patriarchs of the same Constantinople, in iambic verses, are not found in the editions; the penultimate one, however, Lambecius published together with the *Excerpta* of Codinus (compare what are noted shortly after regarding the Paris codex). Moreover, he notes that, upon completion of the index, the same words are read which are subscribed in the first chapter of the index to the second book of Gretser’s commentaries on Codinus: which, however, the author of the catalog does not see what they have to do with the index. Finally, the same person notes that not all the chapters which are exhibited in the list are also in the text of the codex; some are missing, the chapter on the offices of the Church is desired, and others depart from the order or reading of the edition. In codex 257 (p. 370 of the catalog)

and the ranks [established] in the festivities at the palace, and how the emperor ought to be crowned, and concerning the ushering in of the despot and the patriarch, and the customs performed in the palace. Franciscus Junius first transcribed this book from a manuscript of Julius Pacius and edited it in Greek with his own translation, notes, and very ample indices, hiding under the name of Nadab Agmonius in the year 1588, at the house of Joannes Mareschallus in Lyons, in octavo. Afterward, this same edition, with the addition of some pages and a new title-page in which the name of Franciscus Junius appears, was published in the printing house of Commelinus in 1596, in octavo. Although Jacob Gretser criticized Junius because he did not embellish the new edition and had not corrected the errors scattered [throughout] with a “full sack” by himself, [Gretser worked] aided by manuscripts from the Palatine library and by the copy of Raphael Seiler, which was a transcript of the best Augustan manuscript: for that this manuscript was once in the library of the illustrious Augustan republic, Hieron. Wolfius is a witness in his preface to Nicetas, and Seiler himself, who transcribed it from there in Greek and translated it into Latin, although he never permitted his translation to go out to the public; I say it was once there, for now it is not, but is lost, as I learned some years ago from the most distinguished Lord, Marcus Velserus, duumvir of Augsburg: it is unknown through whose negligence or fraud it has perished. Instructed, therefore, by so many aids (by Freherus, to whom he dedicated the book in 1596), Junius, especially with the Seilerian translation, ought to have reviewed Codinus from head to heel, to have amended many and very serious mistakes, and to have presented the book to the reader free of errors. From that time, the same Gretser criticized and rebuked several things rather harshly, as is his wont, in the version and annotations of Junius, in his notes to the volume of the work *De cruce*, published at Ingolstadt in 1600, in quarto, pp. 577, 587, seqq. 599 sqq., 606 sqq., 609 sqq., 613 sqq., etc. The same man, in 1602, in octavo, published at Ingolstadt notes and various readings in Codinus from two manuscript volumes of the Bavarian library and one of the Lautherian [library], at the end of the commentaries of Muretus on the *Ethics*, *Economics*, and two books of the *Republic* of Plato, and on the *Anabasis* of Cyrus by Xenophon. Then, a “little torch” of the same Gretser, added to Codinus, appeared in the same place in 1604, in octavo, together with the notes of Muretus on Sallust and the first five books of the *Annals* of Tacitus. Finally, the whole work of Codinus, corrected according to those three manuscripts with his own new version and with three books of commentaries, observations, and emendations, and a dissertation on the images not made by hands, was published by Gretser at Paris in 1625, in folio, from the workshop of Seb. Cramoisy (f). Although indeed Gretser saw many things rightly in Codinus, and was able to interpret many things even more correctly assisted by the Greek-Barbarous Glossary of Meursius (g), yet he no less provided for Jacobus Goarus a “spicilegium,” and a sufficient one, who in his edition of Codinus…

— concerning the years from the creation of the world up to the reign of Constantine the Great, and concerning those who reigned in Constantinople from Constantine the Great, together with an opusculum on the temple of St. Sophia. — A work on the officials of the palace of Constantinople is also in codex 107, no. 1, with an appendix concerning the offices of the Great Church; and in codex 282, fol. 208 (page cat. 383), in the public library of Paris is a Codinus. On the origins of Constantinople or excerpts from them in nine codices; on the offices of the court of Constantinople in five codices; and on the structure of the temple of Sophia in codices 1726, no. 4, 1766, no. 5, 1788. See the index to Vol. II of the catalog of the manuscripts of the Paris library. In codex 1726, no. 2, [in] Codinus concerning offices, chapters XII, an index is prefixed which adds chapter XIII, in the former part of which is shown a chronological and historical catalog of the emperors from Constantine the Great to Constantine Palaiologos; the other part, however, is a nomenclature of the patriarchs of Constantinople from Metrophanes to Isaiah, in iambic verses, in the vulgar Greek language. But whether Codinus is the author of that chapter, the compiler of the catalog doubts in Part II, page […], and other things worthy of being seen which are sighted at Constantinople. — At Vienna, in the Imperial library, codex 133, no. 16, Codinus: *Catalog of the offices of the Great Church of Constantinople of St. Sophia*, which Lambecius in *Comment.* VII, page 531, persuades [one] to compare with the edition of Goarus: the same, in Vol. VIII, page 126 sqq., corrects and supplements the book of Codinus *On the offices of Constantinople*. — In the same Vol. VIII, page 968 sqq., codex 50, it is reviewed at length, in which is no. 2, with the author’s name not added, a narrative concerning the structure of the temple of St. Sophia of Constantinople, and there he says many things for himself against Franc. Combelistus, his adversary, amends certain passages from the manuscript, and discourses on the time when and during which that temple was built. — In codex 292, no. 11, *Excerpt from the Origins of Codinus*, etc. (Lambec. V, p. 526) according to the catalog of manuscripts of England, Vol. 1, in the Bodleian library among the manuscripts of Hen. Savilius, no. 655, *The Origins of Codinus*, etc., with a *Catalog of the Emperors and Patriarchs*. Vol. II, in the Catalog of the ecclesiastical manuscripts of Westminster, no. 1094, *Codinus: Origins of Constantinople*. Among the Vossian manuscripts 1. 2/29, *Concerning the origins*, etc., with emendations and notes by the hand of Jos. Scaliger.

— In the Jacobaea library, no. 8582, *Codinus: The Patriarchs of Constantinople*, etc., and no. 8585, *Concerning the offices of the Great Church and the palace*. In the Escorial library, *Codinus: Concerning the honors, dignities, and offices of the palace of Constantinople*, witness Pluerus in *Itinerary through Spain*, page 170. — Matriti, in the Royal library, codex 29, *Curopalates (by Georgius Codinus): A book concerning the officials of the palace of Constantinople and the Great Church, likewise a list of the metropolises, archbishoprics, and bishoprics of the Greeks, by an uncertain author*; each and every thing in which this manuscript might differ from the edition, Iriarte carefully reviews, in the *Royal Library Greek manuscript [catalog]*, page 128 sqq. (Harl.)

(e) Henckus and Warthonus write that this edition appeared at Frankfurt. But I think rather at Heidelberg, although it was dedicated by the editor who was staying at Frankfurt-on-Main at that time to the Frankfurt senate. (Fabr.) Freytag reviews this and the remaining editions copiously, narrates the controversy, and treats of Codinus and Junius in *Appar. litter.* 1, p. 554 sqq. (Harl.) (f) Again in Greek and Latin with commentaries in the *Works of Gretser*, Vol. XV, p. 1 sqq. Ratisbon, 1734. (Harl.) (g) In the preface: Since he labored in the obscurity of the words which Codinus used, Meursius demonstrates in many places his emendation, and the version instituted by Gretser and the illustration of the same Codinus in ample and learned commentaries: but as the words of that neoteric Greek had not yet been brought to the western parts in the age in which Gretser lived, for that reason he is worthy of pardon, a man who truly has deserved well of literary matters. For he is not the only one who strikes against the rocks which the Glossary of Meursius explains for the most part “non-doctarum” [in error]. For since he had not attained the native meaning of the Greek and vulgar words, he made a pit for his followers, into which he himself had fallen first, unless it be corrected by one skilled in the later Greek language, illustrated, and augmented by almost countless words which could be added (as was later happily and learnedly performed by Du Cange), he will still provide an easy occasion for falling to those who follow.

^A

Codinus, in the new Paris Royal edition of 1648, folio, corrected the Greek from two manuscripts of the Royal Library and a third one from Allatius; he refined the translation page by page and added his own new and highly learned notes, in which Junius is also sometimes vindicated (as on p. 76). He also appended, from the Royal manuscripts (pp. 5, 7, 36), catalogs of the officials of the Church and the Court of Constantinople, which were previously unpublished, and from the Mazarinian manuscripts of Matthew, priest, monk, and physician (monachus et sacerdos), a short work written in political verses, *Concerning the Offices of the Palace of Constantinople* (pp. 8, 38), and another by an anonymous author in iambic verses (p. 40); as well as [material] from Allatius (p. 9). Furthermore, he included in Greek and Latin the *Diatyposis of the Greek Bishoprics*, compiled eight hundred years ago by the Emperor Leo the Wise and previously published in the *Ecclesiastical Geography* of Carolus a S. Paulo, but corrected by Goar from another manuscript (pp. 337–362). 2) The *Recapitulation of the Patriarchs and Enumeration of the Apostolic Sees* (pp. 363–381), which the same Carolus a S. Paulo had edited from a Vatican manuscript. 3) The *Order of Precedence of the Metropolitans and the Bishops subject to them under the Apostolic See of Constantinople* (pp. 381–399), from the edition of Gretser at the end of Codinus (p. 413), collated with a Royal manuscript and with the *Greco-Roman Law* of Freher (p. 90 sqq.). 4) The *Exposition of the Emperor Lord Andronicus the Elder, as to how the Metropolitan Sees subject to the Patriarchal Throne of Constantinople are currently ordered* (pp. 400–409). Junius was the first to publish this *Exposition* of the Emperor Andronicus Palaeologus the Elder at the end of Codinus (p. 219), and Gretser followed his example (p. 117). 5) The *New Exposition, as to how the Patriarch of Constantinople currently writes to the Pope and to the other Patriarchs and Archbishops, and even to the Metropolitans and those who direct secular authorities* (pp. 410–419). 6) A formal letter from Parthenius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in which he follows up on Philip de Harlay, Count of Cely, who fulfilled the legation of the Most Christian King to the Emperor of the Turks, and a letter from the Roman Pope Urban VIII to the same Harlay (p. 420 sqq.). ^B

To return to the book of Codinus: Allatius, in *De Georgiis* (p. 362), mentions his manuscript copies, beyond those which I have already praised, including the Vatican, the Escorial, and the Sforza codices, and notes that he wrote in an unpolished and barbaric style, such as was in use among the common people in that age. For, he says, besides the difficult understanding of the subjects and names, often the very manner of speaking, being rustic and harsh, obscures and blinds the meaning, and this is made even more obscure by the errors of the scribes and by foreign words introduced in place of proper ones through the carelessness of the learned. He copied most of his work almost verbatim from Cantacuzenus and other later historians, as Pontanus and Gretser noted among others.

Excerpts from the Book of the Chronicle concerning the origin of Constantinople

^A Moreover, what Codinus narrates here about the tokens or images of the pagans, he took from Cornutus and John Lydus the Philadelphian, in his book *On Months*, from which Suidas also, as Lambecius observed, drew the same things. The rest concerning the statues and things worthy of note in the city, he described almost word for word from the anonymous collection of antiquities of Constantinople, which bears the title *Brief Historical Collections*, which Lambecius first published in Greek from a code of the King of France with his own notes at the end of Codinus, pp. 85-105, and observes that they were excerpted from Theodore the Reader, Papias, Eusebius, Socrates, Marcellus the Reader, and many other writers. The same Anonynymous Collections, far more corrected, were given by Francis Combefis from that time, in Greek and Latin with his own version and notes, in his *Fasciculus of Constantinopolitan Affairs*, at the end of Allatius' *On Simeon*, Paris, 1664, 4to. And since he frequently chides Lambecius in those notes, Lambecius wished to reply to him in a new edition of Codinus which he had promised, which he wanted to insert by equipping it primarily from the Imperial library as a supplement to the *Corpus of Byzantine History*. See Book III of his *Commentaries on the Library of Vienna*, p. 426. [Book VIII, p. 970 Koll.] But that Supplement never saw the light of day. There follows in that first and last Lambecian edition of Codinus the work of the same writer *On the Buildings of Constantinople*, *On the monasteries and other buildings of Constantinople*, pp. 37-64; or *On the structure of the church of St. Sophia and the Holy Apostles*, pp. 64-74. Which part is also read in the edition of Georgius Dousa, and finally *On the years from the creation of the world down to the empire of the great Constantine, and on those who reigned in the same queen of cities, down to its very capture by the Hagarenes*, pp. 75-83. [Concerning the codices, we have already spoken above.] ^B There is subjoined at the end of the volume *An explanation of the offices of the Holy and Great Church, and they were interpreted according to their order*. An anonymous explanation of the offices of the Holy and Great Church of Constantinople according to their order: which Bernard Medonius of Toulouse first edited from a manuscript code belonging to Carolus Monchallus, Archbishop of Toulouse, and added his own Latin version and Glossary, and brief notes in the margin.

There exists also, but which Lambecius rightly omitted, the Mass of Gregory I the Pope, translated into Greek by the same Codinus, which, with that Greek interpretation (in both languages, not in Greek only, as Wharton writes), was edited by Fed. Morellus at Paris, 1595, 8vo, with whom John a S. Andrea, a canon of the Parisian church, had shared it. Furthermore, an edition from Paris, 1583, 8vo, is mentioned in the Barberini library, which I have not seen. It exists also in Greek and Latin in Fronton du Duc's *Auctuarium of the Library of the Fathers*, Paris, 1624, vol. XII. Be it known, reader, says Allatius, *On the Georgii*, p. 362, that this same Mass is read much more fully and perfectly in the Barberini library, cod. 75, which is nevertheless said to have been translated into the Greek language by Manuel Chrysoloras: *Liturgy translated from the Latin dialect into the Greek, by Lord Manuel Chrysoloras*. The beginning is the same as that which is attributed to Codinus: "The priest who is about to celebrate, etc." There appeared also with the Lambecian Codinus the epistle by the same Manuel Chrysoloras to John Palæologus. ^{C D}