Towards an interpretation of the word “khorik'” in the colophon of the Dobrian Menaion

Abstract

This paper focuses on the colophon written by the bulgarian copist-kalligrapher Dobrian at the end of the Menaion manuscript ОГНБ, 1/4 (17). This manuscript was found by V. I. Grigorovich at the Zograf monastery on Mount Athos, already incomplete, the beginning and some sheets were already missing from the manuscript. Currently, the manuscript is divided into two parts. The colophon in located on page 92, in the part of the manuscript currently stored in Odessa and contains the formulaic celebration of the work being finished, the name of the person who ordered the book and the name of the scribe, Dobrian, who calls himself a “khorik’”. All these elements are rare for the Southern Slavic tradition in the XIII–XIV centuries. The word “khorik’”, which was not included in the Miclosic dictionary, was examined in a brief article by P. A. Lavrov. According to him, the word comes from the Greek χωρικός (rural, rustic), from which a noun with a Slavic suffix -in-, khoryanin, used in some Vlach-Bulgarian documents, also originated. Based on the usage of such formulas in the colophons of Greek manuscripts both old and new the author attempts to determine the precise meaning of the word “khorik’”, given the purposes of the colophon in both Greek and (Southern)Slavic traditions.