New insight into the <i>Lectionary of Leipzig</i>

The paper presents new insight into the Lectionary of Leipzig (LL), a Cyrillic manuscript most probably dating from between 1560 and 1580. This insight primarily concern the results of an analysis of watermarks, which is particularly important as the dating of the manuscript has been controversial in literature. In addition to this, new information on the library and signature of the manuscript are provided. Also presented are both an analysis of the various foliation systems used and a textological analysis of the relationship of LL to its template. Analysis has shown that the template from which the manuscript was transcribed was complete, thus indirectly reinforcing the hypothesis that the manuscript is missing nine leaves at the beginning, and not, as claimed by Joseph Schütz, only one. The manuscript is now held by Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig under the signature Slav. 2. Watermark analysis shows that the dominating watermark is an anchor in a circle with a six-pointed star above it typically used during the third quarter of the 16th century. However, there are some historical reasons for which a dating of this manuscript to after 1570 is unlikely (a change in the Missale Romanum according to the conclusions of the Council of Trent). It is also shown that some minor discrepancies between LL and its main template (the second edition of the Lectionary of Father Bernardinus Spalatensis , 1543) can be explained by the LL having adopted text from the beginning and end of the template – this is significant because the codex is now missing its beginning and was left unfinished at the end. Since we were able to prove that the template was complete, it was easy to calculate the exact amount of text missing from the beginning of LL relative to its template (expressed simply in the number of words). The analysis has shown that the quantity of text missing would be exactly enough to cover nine leaves of the codex – this quantity matched our expectations by more than 99%. This clearly shows that the beginning of LL, which is now missing, was completely textually equivalent to its template. We also tested Schütz’s hypothesis that only one leaf was missing: the analysis showed that, in order for this to be true, the scribe would have to have been able to write a quantity of text normally expected to fit across two full leaves onto just one leaf. By analysing the three different foliation systems used in LL, we have concluded that foliation with Arabic numbers was without a doubt performed by someone who knew or was able to reconstruct the original scope of the codex. This conclusion is more relevant than the possibility that the original foliation was Cyrillic, which was the point overemphasised and overestimated by Joseph Schütz, the writer of a 1963 monograph on LL