The List of Notae in the Liber Glossarum

Abstract

In both Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, a special class of marginal symbols, known in Latin as notae, were used to annotate the manuscript text. The shapes of these marginal symbols, their names, and functions were described in technical texts that had the form of lists of signs, the sign treatises. Many early medieval manuscripts contain sign treatises of either ancient or early medieval origin. One such treatise was incorporated into the Liber Glossarum, a large glossographic collection that survives in a number of Carolingian manuscripts. This sign list is, like many other sign treatises, a compilation of older sources. While it is difficult to analyze the other sign treatises, the direct sources of which are lost, we possess the main source of the sign list in the Liber Glossarum, namely the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville. A comparison of the sign list in the Liber Glossarum with the Etymologiae allows us to analyze the processes used by the compilers of the former rather than just their sources. This comparison shines light also on how other sign treatises preserved in early medieval manuscripts may have come into being. Moreover, the sign list in the Liber Glossarum provides evidence that the oldest core of this glossary came into being on the Iberian peninsula and includes material that had been used by Isidore of Seville for the Etymologiae, as suggested by Anne Grondeux.