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Poslanie mnogoslovnoe is an anonymous and undated polemic traditionally attributed to the sixteenth century Novgorodian monk Zinovii Otenskii.[1] In conjunction with Zinovii's magnum opus, Istiny pokazanie,

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Poslanie provides our chief source of information about Feodosii Kosoi, long considered the principal representative of the Radical Reformation in Russia.[2] Elsewhere I have shown how the watermarks[3] in the manuscript copies of compositions ascribed to Zinovii help to solve a number of questions about the origins of those documents, to establish that Poslanie should not be included among Zinovii's writings, and to lay the basis for a revised interpretation of both him and his heretical opponents.[4] Using filigranological and other evidence, I was able not only to identify the oldest extant manuscript of Poslanie, K-B 31,[5] as an autograph text (of its still unknown author),[6] but

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also to estimate its date as 1567, a time that coincides with a 1565 terminus post quem suggested by the text itself.[7] In the following discussion I will extend this analysis by attempting to determine when the paper varieties found in K-B 31 were used. Though the results are of immediate consequence for Poslanie itself, the methodology of this consideration of runs and remnants may also be of wider bibliographical use.

Few students of paper would fail to acknowledge that the mere identification of a watermark with one from an album reprinting handmade tracings from dated manuscripts is virtually useless for dating purposes, since such a procedure can hardly establish "identity" of the mark in question with the original.[8] However, even when a mark has been correctly matched with a dated analogue, there still remains the problem of ascertaining how long before or after the latter the paper containing the former was used. One of the more notable attempts to devise a method of dating watermarks which deals with this difficulty was made by the celebrated pioneer of watermark study, Charles M. Briquet. In his most famous work, Les Filigranes, Briquet endeavored to ascertain the amount of time that could elapse between the production and use of the paper made during the thirteenth- through sixteenth-century period covered in this album. Only in rare cases during this era did watermarks themselves directly indicate when they were made. But, Briquet inferred, because the wire designs that produced them deteriorated rather quickly, identical filigranes must have been made virtually at the

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same time. Thus, finding them in documents dated a number of years apart will give an indication of the time lag between their fabrication and employment in manuscripts and books, the assumption presumably being that the earlier date represents paper used immediately, and the later, the time limit within which the stock of paper in question can be expected to be found in use (Briquet, Les Filigranes, vol. 1, pp. xviii-xx). On these principles Briquet calculated the use-period of 2558 marks and their identical dated variants covering a period from the late thirteenth through the late sixteenth centuries, and found that for virtually all of the cases considered, the maximum time-span was fifteen years or less.[9] A work containing a watermark identical to that in a dated document could thus be assumed to have been produced fifteen years before or after the dated work (i.e. since it would not be known whether the dated document represents the paper at the beginning or end of its use-period). This thirty year period could be reduced if the undated document contained a number of marks which could be matched with those in dated works, since in this case the various use-periods would mutually limit each other (Briquet, Les Filigranes, vol. 1, pp. xx-xxiii).

In 1920 the noted Russian paleographer V. N. Shchepkin produced a critique of Briquet's method, and an approach to dating watermarks which he thought yielded a narrower time-period. Shchepkin suggested that the use of the maximum of plus/minus fifteen years as a corrective is unsatisfactory, since in more than half of the cases Briquet himself considered, the production/use timelag was five years or less, while the average figure was a decade.[10] Moreover, Briquet limited himself to a comparison only of identical marks, which Shchepkin implied did not take sufficient account of the fact that watermarks do change in shape very quickly during the short life of their wire designs. Thus, apparently working on the assumption that "very similar" as well as "identical" marks were produced at nearly the same point in time, Shchepkin devised a dating formula designed to be accurate to within a decade, based on a comparison of the use dates of both the former and the latter. What Shchepkin sought to obtain was the average of the known use dates of a given mark, which were then corrected by a margin of error assumed to be plus/minus five years. For a manuscript with one watermark, a simple average would be sufficient; for a work containing several different

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marks with various use dates, the average taken is that between the use dates of the two chronologically closest marks (since the various use dates again would mutually limit each other).[11]

Shchepkin's critique of Briquet's method is well-founded, and although his own procedure was expressed somewhat ambiguously,[12] his approach might seem a serviceable guideline for the calculation of an approximate watermark date.[13] However, both Shchepkin and Briquet seem to have been

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insufficiently aware of certain peculiarities of watermarks and their behavior which can have an important bearing on the use of watermark evidence in dating a manuscript. These factors can best be explained in terms of the way they have been studied by Allan Stevenson, who has been perhaps the most outstanding student of paper as bibliographical evidence to have written in recent decades.[14]

One major implication of Stevenson's research has been that watermarks do not have to be "identical" or even "very similar" in order to have been produced virtually at the same time, and he has pointed out a number of ways by which the researcher can determine the nature of the chronological relationship with which he or she is dealing. Stevenson seems to have been the first scholar to analyze the implications of the fact that watermarks are "twins." That is, pairs of wire forms with essentially the same designs were used to speed up the paper-making process, and the duplicate marks that result can be found together, thus denoting one consistent stock of paper. These twins would never be fully identical to each other, but will nevertheless be exact contemporaries with regard to time of manufacture.[15] Moreover, using guidelines which Stevenson has provided on certain recurring variations displayed by twin marks, the researcher can distinguish these pairs from other marks which may also appear very similar (perhaps having been produced by the same artisan), but of a different age (Stevenson, "Twins," pp. 64-68). Relatedly, Stevenson has shown that the distortion which watermarks undergo as their wire designs are used is a regular and in part measurable process, so that earlier and later stages or "states" in their brief lives can be distinguished.[16] Thus again, filigranes which might once have seemed only typologically related will be identifiable as different states of the same mark, very close to each other in age. Briquet was clearly aware that double moulds were used in paper production, Shchepkin at least recognized generally that more than one "form" could be employed in making the same kind of paper, and both knew that the marks changed shape during the lives of their moulds.[17] However, neither studied these phenomena systematically, or really took account of them in their dating formulae, which were applied only to "identical" or "very similar" marks. Thus many filigranes intimately related to each other, the analysis of which could clearly have a bearing on the dating of the

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paper stocks, and hence of the works in which they appear, would be ignored by such formulae.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the ability to identify twins and their variant states is that it facilitates the recognition of the presence of long series or "runs" of contemporaneously produced marks, which Stevenson considers to be the most significant for dating purposes. What Stevenson essentially argues is that these substantial runs denote a stock or stocks of paper procured expressly for a specific major project, which thus can be assumed to have been used shortly after their purchase.[18] Stevenson's research on early European printed books amply demonstrates a correlation between dating and the presence of long runs of homogeneous paper, and the idea is reenforced by the fact that paper was expensive to produce, which, as Stevenson points out, meant that a manufacturer did not undertake to make a large stock of paper until he had a definite order for it.[19] Thus one inference which might be drawn from all of this is that paper in a substantial run in an undated work could be presumed to have been used at about the same time as it was in a dated volume, where it also constituted a major stock. Concomitantly, Stevenson also noted other types of paper use, such as those represented by personal documents, or single sheets found scattered in large volumes, both of which may have remained in use for a number of years. That is, since paper was expensive to purchase as well as to produce, extra sheets left over from any project would be likely to be saved, rather than discarded. Stevenson suggested for example that a small but costly stock of paper might be passed from father to son, which could explain those exceptional cases noted by Briquet of the same mark turning up twenty or thirty years after its first recorded appearance.[20] Perhaps more importantly, Stevenson's research again demonstrates that odd sheets in the middle of large volumes tend to be left-overs or "remnants" of earlier projects, used where needed to fill gaps in later tasks.[21] Thus the dating of the major stock or stocks of paper represented by long "runs" should not be influenced by the long use-period which might obtain for "remnant" sheets scattered among its leaves; the

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former can be presumed to have been used as they were procured, and dating calculations, such as those of Briquet or Shchepkin, which have given equal weight to runs and remnants must of necessity have been distorted.

Stevenson was concerned primarily with western and central European printed books, and his approach implied that virtually no time-corrective was needed if one were dealing with considerable amounts of homogeneous paper in a large volume, whose remnants were essentially irrelevant for dating purposes. However, in applying these ideas to dating manuscripts, especially those produced on paper imported into Rus', where conditions affecting the paper trade are still inadequately known, it would seem unwise to apply no corrective at all to a suggested use date. Thus I would propose the creation of an additional category of paper use, interspersed between those suggested in Stevenson's work, which would apply to long manuscripts characterized by substantial runs, but also containing remnant sheets. Because paper even in a lengthy manuscript constitutes a smaller sample of the evidence involved (i.e. the stock of paper it represents) than does a printed book existing in a number of exemplars, its odd sheets may not be as insignificant for analysis as they would be in the printed work. Thus, while the long runs in such a volume will still be given prime consideration, as Stevenson suggests, the evidence provided by its remnants will not be entirely disregarded. Rather they will be used as a check on the date indicated by the main stock of paper, which is when that particular document was putatively inscribed. When the use dates of these remnants do not coincide with the date of the latter, they should, again following Stevenson, be presumed to be at the end of their use periods. Thus adding the latter figure (five years or less for the majority of marks in Briquet's sample) to their use dates should produce a limit beyond which that particular manuscript could not have first appeared.[22] Conversely, if the remnants do have use dates later than the major stock, the date of the latter might reasonably be called into question. In this way, the testimony of the remnants would be utilized, but would not disproportionately influence the choice of the dating period for a given stock of paper.

The most significant watermark match-ups in K-B 31 are with filigranes found in two other Russian works both written in 1567: Muzeiskoe 4056, a

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Mineia chetiia ("Reading Menology"),[23] and OIDR 328, a Triod tsvetnaia (a service book for fast days from Easter until Pentecost).[24] Before turning to the specifics of my analysis, a word of caution is in order: While in the Soviet Union in 1977-1978 I was able to make a first-hand inspection of all three of these manuscripts (i.e. K-B 31, Muzeiskoe 4056, and OIDR 328), but was given time only for a hurried examination of the latter two, and was not permitted to trace any of the marks involved. Thus my findings cannot be considered conclusive until they are verified by some more accurate means of reproduction and comparison than the fallible human hand and eye.

K-B 31 contains sixteen watermarks—ten "gloves" and six "spheres" of varying shapes and sizes, which together appear a total of seventy-one times, throughout the manuscript's 290 folios.[25] All of these marks will be shown to date from the 1560s, and all, with one possible exception, can be found in manuscripts of Russian provenance written during this decade.

The filigranes which are found most often in K-B 31 are two small ruffled gloves, each topped by a crown, with a letter "F" on the palm, and corresponding to Likhachev's nos. 1878 (in very good/excellent likenesses and distorted variants or later states), and 1879 (in good/excellent likenesses and close variants, perhaps later states).[26] They occur in twenty-four of the thirty odd quires of the manuscript, and together account for more than half of the total number of its marks. Their design features, frequency, and distribution

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suggest that they might be twins, but even taken separately, they stil constitute the longest runs of homogeneous paper in the work.[27] The second longest run in K-B 31 is represented also by two gloves—these topped by a star and marked with the letter "B" on the palm. They correspond to Likhachev 1901 (excellent likenesses) and 1902 (good/very good likenesses), and may also be companion marks, as each is found six times distributed in six consecutive quires, in four of which they occur as matched pairs.[28] The originals of 1878 and 1879 are found in Muzeiskoe 4056, where they are not the most frequently occurring marks, but still do appear a significant number of times in both earlier and later states, and again are distributed in relatively short runs in a frequency which implies that they might be twins.[29] Significantly, there are runs of 1878 and 1879 in later, but still recognizable states, and still behaving as twins, in OIDR 328, from which 1901 and 1902 are taken (viewed as twins, the latter two marks also constitute runs in this manuscript). This is something which Likhachev failed to note, despite the fact that in OIDR 328, 1878 and 1879 are among the more frequently occurring marks.[30]

Next in frequency in K-B 31 is still another crowned glove, which is a fairly close variant of Likhachev 1872, and is again taken from Muzeiskoe 4056. It appears three times in K-B 31 (see Table 1). The rest of the marks in the manuscript occur only once or twice each, and ought clearly to be classified as remnants. As has been indicated, such sheets should not unduly

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influence the choice of a date for the main stocks of paper, but nevertheless it could be noted that these remnants support the suggested 1567 date for K-B 31. Five of them do so more or less directly in that they match two spheres from Muzeiskoe 4056 and one glove which may also appear in that manuscript (good likeness of Likhachev 1892; fairly close variant of 1888; close variant of 3356),[31] and two gloves from OIDR 328 (good/excellent likeness of Likhachev 1905; very close variant of 1907).[32] A third sphere is at least typologically related to one (Likhachev 1920) in another Russian work dated 1567.[33] The remaining five remnants can be matched with marks in documents dated before 1567, and thus if we assume that, like most remnants, they represent marks nearing the end of their use-periods, again they would not contradict the 1567 date implied by the main stock of paper. Naturally most significant here are the two marks in this "non-1567" group which could be identified with any certainty: a glove which is a good/very good likeness of Likhachev 3146,[34] and a sphere which is a fairly good likeness of Likhachev 1856 or close variant of Likhachev 4090 (these may be variants of the same mark). The earliest use-dates which could be found for these marks are 1562 and 1561/1562 respectively,[35] which, corrected by the most common use-time limit, produces a terminus of 1567. The remaining three "non-1567" marks are in states difficult to match with any found in watermark albums, and thus are all but useless for dating purposes. However, the data they do provide again can be seen as support (at least indirectly) for the 1567 dating of K-B 31. They all resemble marks in use in the 1560s, none of which dates beyond that year. Meanwhile the earliest filigrane which any of them vaguely resembles is dated 1560.[36] Thus, finding such a mark in a later state in a manuscript

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written near the end of the decade (i.e. K-B 31) would imply a perfectly acceptable seven year use-period.

Thus it would seem that the available data clearly and consistently supports the idea that K-B 31 was inscribed in 1567 or very close to that date, and that the principle that a manuscript may be dated by its main stock of paper, using remnants as a check on the date of the latter, is valid, at least in this one case. Not only do all of the marks in the manuscript have analogues dating to the 1560s, but eleven of them, including both runs and remnants, can be identified with marks in Russian works dated 1567. Moreover, at least nine of the latter, which account for 88.7% of the total number of filigranes in K-B 31, closely match marks found in either Muzeiskoe 4056 or OIDR 328. Furthermore, these two manuscripts both contain significant runs of Likhachev 1878 and 1879, which undoubtedly constitute the longest runs in K-B 31.[37] The remaining five marks are all themselves remnants with use dates in the early 1560s, and thus likewise do not contradict the 1567 date posited for K-B 31.

Clearly one reason that the dating procedure suggested here could be applied to K-B 31 is that all but one of the dated analogues of its marks were on manuscripts of Russian provenance; thus an allowance for "travel-time" for the importation of its paper into Muscovy did not have to enter into the calculation. There are of course other aspects of paper-use and watermark behavior which need further study before this approach can be adopted with any confidence. For example, "runs" and "remnants" are still relative terms, at least with regard to manuscripts, which, as noted, represent a much smaller sample of a given stock of paper than can be accounted for in several exemplars of the same printed book. Nevertheless, it seems clear that the basic idea of dating manuscripts by their main stock and checking that date by their remnants, is worth the testing and refinement it requires, and I hope that the conclusions presented here will provide the impetus for such further work to be done.

Table 1

Distribution of Watermarks in K-B 31

The gatherings signed with a Cyrillic letter are here designated as gatherings 1-33, those not included in that count as A-D, and folios lacking both text and numeration as ff. 01-010. Three leaves are foliated with Roman numerals (f. I is attached to the front cover of the manuscript), and the leaves in the gatherings here designated B through 33 are paginated 1-277 in Arabic numbers. Watermark designs are cited according to their entry numbers in Likhachev's Paleograficheskoe znachenie or (when preceeded by "B") Briquet's Les Filigranes. The references for possible dated variants are recorded in parentheses; alternate identifications of a mark are separated by a virgule. References for marks that appear a second time in the same quire are followed by a parenthetical "2." The manuscript contains 71 watermarks, 63 of which imply a use date of 1567.

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Gathering	Watermark
[A (f.II,ff. 01-04):	1905]
[B (6 fols.):	3146 ("Skazanie")]
[C (5 fols.)]
1:	1901; 1902 (Poslanie begins)
2:	1902 (2)
3:	1901; 1902
4:	1901; 1902
5:	1901 (2)
6:	1901; 1902
7:	1878 (2)
8:	1878; 1879
9:	?B11028/1878/1879/3354/B11027; 1879
10:	1856/4090; 1879
11:	1878; 1879
12:	?B11028/1878/1879/3354/B11027; 1879
13:	1878; 1879
14:	1879 (2)
15:	1879
16:	1879 (2)
17:	1878; 1879
18:	1878; 1879
19:	1878 (2); 1879
20:	1878; 3356
21:	1878; 1879
22:	1878 (2)
23:	1878 (2)
24:	1879 (2)
25:	1878
26:	?1920; 1888
27:	1892 (2); 1878
28:	1878 (2)
29:	1878 (2)
30:	1878; 1879
31:	?3440/B14029/1913; 1872
32:	1878 (2)
[33 (includes ff. 05-06):	?1853/1892; 1872(2) (Poslanie ends; Basilean homily)]
[D (f.III,ff.07-010):	1907 (3450) (2)]

Sources for Reproductions

Watermark and Source	Date
1872; 1878; 1879; 1892: Muzeiskoe 4056, Mineia (also contains var. of 3356?)	1567
1901; 1902; 1905; 1907; 1913: GBL OIDR 328, Triod (also contains 1878; 1879 and var. of 3440?)	1567
1853; 1856: OIDR 262 (19th-cent. listing), Trefoloi	1561 or 1562
1920: Imperatorskaia publicheskaia biblioteka, F. I. 213 19th-cent. listing), Margarit	1567
3146: Imp. publ. bibl., portfeil' CIV (19th-cent. listing), Letter of Marshal de Montluc	1562
3354: Tverskoi muzei 4056 (19th-cent. listing), Zhalovannaia gramota granted by Ivan IV	1560
3356: Russkie akty Revel'skago gorodskago arkhiva 79 (19th-cent. listing), Official Communication (Gramota) by G. I. Zabolotskii, Voevoda of Rugodiv (Narva)	1567

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3440; 3450: Muscovite Apostol printed by Ivan Fedorov	1564
4090: Former Novgorod-Sofiiskoe sobor library 1423 (19th-cent. listing), Collection of Saints' Lives	1565
B11027: French document	1561
B11028: German document	1566
B14029: French document	1563

Notes

[*]

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, November 1984. I am grateful to the International Research and Exchanges Board for giving me the opportunity to do the research in Soviet archives on which this article is based.

[1]

The work was published as "Poslanie mnogoslovnoe. Sochineniia Zinovii, po rukopisi XVI veka (s prilozheniem dvukh snimkov.) Trud Andreia Popova," in Chteniia v obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom universitete 1880, book 2. The most important studies of Zinovii and his works to date have been F. Kalugin, Zinovii inok Otenskii i ego bogoslovsko-polemicheskia i tserkovnyi uchitel'nyi proizvedeniia, St. Petersburg 1894; S. G. Vilinskii, "Vopros ob avtore 'Mnogoslovnago poslaniia.'" Izvestiia otdeleniia russkago iazyka i slovesnosti imperatorskoi Akademii nauk 10 (1905): 146-176; Rudolf M. Mainka, Zinovii von Oten': ein russischer Polemiker der Mitte des 16 Jahrhunderts, Orientalia Christiana Analecta, Bd. 160, Rome, 1961; and L. E. Morozova, "Voprosy atributsii 'Poslanie mnogoslovnogo,' polemicheskogo proizvedenii XVI veka," Istoriia SSSR, 1975, no. 1, pp. 101-109. For a detailed analysis of the historical literature on Zinovii and his works, see Nancy Yanoshak, "A Fontological Analysis of the Major Works Attributed to Zinovii Otenskii," Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, 1981, pp. 31-83.

[2]

Istiny pokazanie was published on the basis of seventeenth-century copies by the Kazan Theological Academy, in its journal Pravoslavnyi sobesednik, 1863-1864, and also issued as a separate work, Kazan, 1863. References to the published edition of Istiny will be from the Pravoslavnyi sobesednik edition. For appraisals Kosoi's life and ideas, see A. A. Zimin, I. S. Persvetov i ego sovremenniki, Moscow, 1958, pp. 182-214; A. I. Klibanov, Reformatsionnye dvizheniia v Rossii v XIV-pervoi polovine XVI vv., Moscow, 1960, pp. 207-209, 265-284, 291-302, 357-358, 381-383; and idem., Narodnaia i sotsial'naia utopiia v Rossii, Moscow, 1977, pp. 55-82, 100-102.

[3]

All watermarks discussed in this article have been matched with representations of their dated analogues reproduced in either Charles M. Briquet, Les Filigranes, 4 vols., Geneva, 1907, or N. P. Likhachev, Paleograficheskoe znachenie bumazhnykh vodianykh znakov, 3 vols., St. Petersburg, 1899, and are referred to by the number assigned the tracings in these albums (e.g. Briquet 2046). When reference is made to parts of Briquet's and Likhachev's albums other than their watermark reproductions, the author's name, short title, and appropriate volume and page numbers are given.

[4]

For surveys of the scholarly literature on Kosoi and other figures in the Russian "Reformation movements" of the mid-sixteenth century, see Kalugin, Zinovii, pp. 44-52, and Zimin, Peresvetov, pp. 143-153. The principal implications of my research are that Kosoi was more conservative theologically than has previously been thought—he did not question the fundamental dogmas of Christianity, as charged in Istiny—but did adhere to the pacifist and communist social-political views ascribed to him in Poslanie; that Zinovii was a trusted contributor to the Orthodox anti-heretical campaigns of his time, while the Poslanie author was a suspect one from the point of view of the established church; and that neither of these clerics can be linked clearly to an identifiable party of followers of Iosif Volotskii, the chief ideologist of Muscovy's "church militant." Among other things, watermark analysis helped me to identify the autograph copies of Istiny and Poslanie, sort out the relationships between the constituent parts of the latter, and establish an accurate date for its composition, information which formed the basis of the interpretive conclusions outlined above. For further information, see my "The Author of Poslanie mnogoslovnoe: A Fontological Inquiry," Slavic Review, 50, no. 3 (Fall, 1991), 621-636, and idem, "Zinovii."

[5]

My abbreviation for Gosudarstvennaia ordena Trudovo Krasnogo Znameni Publichnaia biblioteka imeni M. E. Saltykova Shchedrina (Leningrad) (GPB), Sobranie Kirillo-Belozerskogo monastyria No. 31/1108 (4°, 277 fols. of text, 12 blank fols.), which was the basis of the published version of Poslanie. Only one other copy of the manuscript is extant (GPB, Novgorod-Sofiiskoe sobranie No. 1241, 4°, 258 fols.). It was made in the nineteenth century from the K-B 31 copy.

[6]

My arguments on the question of whether K-B 31 is an autograph text are summarized in Yanoshak, "The Author of Poslanie mnogoslovnoe," and presented in detail in idem, "Zinovii," 133-178.

[7]

The 1565 terminus post quem for Poslanie is provided by its reference (PM, p. 238) to the existence of a homily attributed to Zinovii on St. Nikita of Novgorod. The evidence for its 1565 date was convincingly analysed by Kalugin, who coordinated information it contained on the timing of St. Nikita's Day, St. Thomas' Week, and the Easter celebration (GPB, Sofiiskoe 1356, fols. 307-308) with the dates given for these holidays in a sixteenth-century Paschal table (Zinovii, pp. 321-322, 22 n.16; on the manuscript tradition of this as yet unpublished homily, and its relationship to Poslanie and Zinovii's works, and to other versions of Nikita's Life, see Yanoshak, "Zinovi," pp. 217-265.)

[8]

The inadequacies of identification made by matching a given mark with a reproduction of a hand tracing are fairly obvious: the original tracings themselves are products of the fallible human hand and eye, vary much in quality, and their common form of album reproduction is itself a further distortion. On these weaknesses of tracings and the desirability of more accurate methods of reproduction, see Allan Stevenson, The Problem of the Missale Speciale, London, 1967, pp. 65-68, and the same author's introduction to Charles M. Briquet, The New Briquet. Jubilee Edition, 4 vols., Geneva, 1907; reprint of Les Filigranes with supplementary materials, Amsterdam, 1968, vol. 1, p. * 17; see also Daniel C. Waugh, "Soviet Watermark Studies—Achievements and Prospects," Kritika, vol. 6, 1970, pp. 91-92, 109. The most promising method of reproducing watermarks developed thus far is by betaradiography, which produces an image virtually free of distortion, and is superior to ordinary photographic methods in that it eliminates the lines of script or type which have obscured details of the watermarks reproduced by such older procedures.

[9]

Ibid., pp. xix-xx. Briquet's figuring produced approximately the same results for each century. For paper of "ordinary" size format (i.e. paper measuring 35cm x 50cm or less—by far the most common in use), the maximum use-period of approximately 55% of the marks for all three centuries combined, was one to five years; for approximately 25%, it was six to ten years; and for approximately 10%, eleven to fifteen years. For the sixteenth century, the time-frame most pertinent to the analysis in this article, the figures were 55% (one to five years) and 24% (six to ten). For paper of the rare large-size format, the useperiod might be as long as thirty years.

[10]

V. N. Shchepkin, "Prilozheniia II: Rukovodstvo po datirovke rukoposei na osnovanii vodianykh znakov bumagi," Russkaia paleografiia, 2nd edition, Moscow, 1967, ed. M. V. Shchepkina; rpt. of 1920 edition entitled Uchebnik Russkoi paleografii, p. 203. This piece was also published as a separate article: V. N. Shchepkin and M. V. Shchepkina, "Paleogra-ficheskoe znachenie vodianykh znakov" Problemy istochnikovedeniia, vol. 6, 1958, pp. 325-346. My citations are from the essay as appended to Russkaia paleografiia.

[11]

Shchepkin, Paleografiia, pp. 205-207, 209. Shchepkin expressed his approach in the formula X = M ± 5: where X equals the sought-for time period in the undated manuscript, and M equals the mean in years between the use-dates of its watermarks. For an undated manuscript with several marks, the procedure for finding M apparently would be to locate the two chronologically closest marks and calculate the mean between the use dates for each mark that, when paired, encompass the shortest period of time (M = D + D1 divided by 2). Shchepkin's choice of a decade as a corrective for his average use-date seems to be based in part on the observations of his Russian predecessors in the study of watermarks, the Muscovite engraver K. Ia. Tromonin, and the historian, paleographer, and archaeologist, N. P. Likhachev. The former suggested that for foreign paper used in Russian manuscripts, a decade should be added to the use-date; the latter argued that there were too many variables to justify a correction in the case of a single mark appearing in a manuscript, but that for manuscripts with many marks, the use-dates would mutually limit each other, which could produce a date accurate to within a decade (Shchepkin, Paleografiia, pp. 203, 206, 207). Shchepkin also produced a limited sample comparing marks that indicated their manufacture dates with their use dates for the end of the sixteenth/beginning of the seventeenth centuries, which indicated an average of twelve and one-half years for the use of foreign paper in Russia, and he suggested that further research might narrow this average to a decade (ibid., p. 205). Additionally, Shchepkin noted that even one of Briquet's examples of dating a manuscript with several marks with his mutually limiting fifteen-year corrections resulted in a dating period spanning a decade (ibid., p. 208). And finally it may be inferred that Shchepkin was also influenced by his interpretation of Briquet's statistics of paper use through the sixteenth century, which indicated that only rarely did the production/use-time lag extend beyond a decade (ibid., pp. 206, 202-203). The percentage figures Shchepkin derives from Briquet's statistics are not quite accurate, but his principle of a ten-year corrective is supported when they are corrected: 79.9% of all the marks Briquet considered were used within this time period. (See Les Filigranes, vol. 1, p. xx.) Tromonin's work was published in 1844 as Iz"iasnenie znakov, vidimykh v pischei bumage, posredstvom kotrykh mozhno uznavat' kogda napisany ili napechatany kakii libo knigi, grammaty, risunki, kartinki i drugiia starinnyia i nestarinnyia dela, na kotorykh ne oznacheno godov. Moscow; reissued in facsimilie, with supplementary materials by S. A. Klepikov, as Tromonin's Watermark Album, Monumenta Chartae Papyraceae Historiam Illustrantia, vol. 11, Hilversum, Holland, 1965.

[12]

See for example, Paleografiia, p. 209, where Shchepkin explains the choice of watermark dates to be used in applying his formula to the dating of one of the manuscripts Briquet had attempted unsuccessfully to date by his own method.

[13]

Waugh recommends Shchepkin's essay as a "useful appendix on dating by means of watermarks" ("Watermark studies," p. 78 n. 3). Additionally, Waugh says he assumes a potential error in dating of at least plus/minus five years, where he has identified a mark with one in an album, although he does not seem to employ any specifically formulated dating procedure. ("De Visu Description of Manuscripts Containing the Correspondence," in Edward L. Keenan, The Kurbskii-Groznyi Apocrypha: The Seventeenth Century Genesis of the 'Correspondence' Attributed to Prince A. M. Kurbskii and Tsar Ivan IV, Cambridge, Mass., 1971, pp. 103-104; cf. idem., The Great Turkes Defiance: On the History of the Apocryphal Correspondence of the Ottoman Sultan in its Muscovite and Russian Variants, Columbus, Ohio, 1978, pp. 222-223, where Dr. Waugh takes a somewhat more agnostic position on the time corrective that ought to be applied).

[14]

Perhaps Stevenson's most spectacular achievement in the use of watermark study to solve bibliographic problems is his analysis of the Missale Speciale, considered by a number of scholars as being possibly the oldest western printed book in existence, i.e. dating from the early 1450s. Using watermarks, typographical evidence, and other bibliographical features, Stevenson demonstrated that the book should actually be dated to 1473; in the course of his research he located the city in which it was printed (Basle), identified the names of its likely printers, and narrowed the printing date to July-August 23, 1473. (On the dating of the work, see Missale, p. 166; on its printers, see Chapter 10, especially p. 222.)

[15]

Allan H. Stevenson, "Watermarks are Twins," Studies in Bibliography: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 4 (1951-52), 57-91, 235.

[16]

Stevenson, Missale, pp. 248-252, especially pp. 251-252; idem., New Briquet, vol. 1, pp. * 19-* 22.

[17]

Briquet, Les Filigranes, vol. 1, p. xix, cf. p. xviii. Shchepkin, Paleografiia, pp. 201, 202, 205, 206.

[18]

Stevenson, New Briquet, vol. 1, pp. * 19, * 22, cf. p. * 33; idem., Missale, pp. 90-91, 96-97; idem., "Twins," p. 89. See also Likhachev, Paleograficheskoe znachenie, vol. 1, pp. LXXIV-LXXVI on the use of paper in Muscovy. Only rarely, in Likhachev's opinion, could a manuscript be finished without the purchase of a stock of paper.

[19]

On Stevenson's evidence that paper in long runs was procured for a specific task, implying an immediate or shorter use-period, see Missale, chapter 6; on the operations involved in early European papermaking, and on some of the expenses incurred, see Dard Hunter, Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft, 2nd edition, New York, 1947; rpt. edition, New York, 1978, chapters 6, 8 passim.

[20]

Stevenson, Missale, p. 91; cf. idem., New Briquet, vol. 1, pp. * 19, * 33. See also Likhachev's inferences on the high prices paid for paper imported (in the sixteenth century, primarily from France) into Muscovy, where domestic manufacturing was not established until the mid-seventeenth century. (Paleograficheskoe znachenie, vol. 1, pp. LXXIV-LXXVII, LVII, LXVIII; cf. Shchepkin, Paleografiia, pp. 97-98).

[21]

Stevenson, Missale, passim, especially chapter 6, "Runs and Remnants," pp. 94-96. See also Likhachev, Paleograficheskoe znachenie, vol. 1, p. LXXVI for an example of a sheet left over from the paper supply used for a Russian manuscript written in 1456, turning up in another written three years later at the same scriptorium.

[22]

Both Shchepkin and Stevenson criticized Briquet for a lack of rigor in the application of the term "variété identique" to the marks he found, which would imply that his statistics on the use time for the 2558 marks and their dated variants that he so designated cannot of course be relied on absolutely. (Shchepkin, Paleografiia, pp. 205-206; Stevenson, Missale, pp. 61-64, idem, New Briquet, vol. 1, pp. * 32-* 33, cf. the same author's introduction to Charles M. Briquet, Briquet's Opuscula, Hilversum, Holland, 1955, p. xxvi). Nevertheless they surely can be accepted as serviceable guidelines. Stevenson himself indicated that a remnant may be contemporary with the main mark in a work, or may be as much as five or ten years older than the latter (Missale, pp. 94-95), and as noted earlier (note eleven), Shchepkin provided information on a small sample of late sixteenth-/early seventeenth-century manuscripts on European paper whose date of manufacture is indicated in the watermark itself, and found that on the average, foreign paper was used in Rus' not much longer than a decade after its production (Paleografiia, p. 205). See also Likhachev, Paleograficheskoe znachenie, vol. 1, pp. LXXII-LXXIV, on the idea that European paper in its country of origin and in Rus' was used within about a decade of its manufacture.

[23]

Gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii muzei (Moscow) [hereafter GIM], Muzeiskoe sobranie No. 4056 (10, 554 fols.; formerly Obshchestvo Liubitelei Drevnei Pis'mennosti [hereafter OLDP] F VII 380). This manuscript is described in detail under its former designation in Kh. M. Loparev, Opisanie rukopisei obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis' mennosti, 3 vols., St. Petersburg, 1892-1899, vol. 1, pp. 9-59.

[24]

Gosudarstvennaia ordena Lenina biblioteka SSR imeni V. I. Lenina (Moscow) [hereafter GBL] f. 205, Sobranie Obshchestva istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh No. 328 (10, 420 fols.). This manuscript is described very briefly in P. M. Stroev, ed., Biblioteka imperatorskago obshchestva istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh, Moscow, 1845, vol. 1, otdelenie 1, p. 148.

[25]

The texts in K-B 31 are preceeded by six blank folios (fol. I, pasted to the inside front cover; fol. II [both numbered in pencil]; and four unnumbered blank folios that I designate fols. 01-04). The next 279 folios in K-B 31 contain: "Skazanie mnogoslovnomu poslaniiu" (an introduction to the text, written by a different author); the body of Poslanie; two blank unnumbered folios (fols. 05-06); and a homily by Basil of Caesarea, meant by the Poslanie author to be integrated into the polished version of his text in some fashion. Five more blank folios follow (fol. III, numbered in pencil, and fols. 07-010, no numeration). Arabic numbers in ink mark the folios containing the three texts, occasionally appearing also in pencil to correct a mistake in the ink numbering whereby two folios were assigned the number 91. When folios after no. 91 are referred to, two numbers will be given—the first representing the original pagination, and the second, the correct folio count. Thirty-three Cyrillic signatures, in ink, mark the thirty-two eight folio quires, and the one twelve-folio quire on which Poslanie and the Basilean homily are written. (For a detailed description of K-B 31, see Yanoshak, "Zinovii," pp. 483-494. On "Skazanie," the Basilean homily, and the relationship of each to Poslanie and the K-B 31 manuscript, see idem, pp. 160-172, 179-209).

[26]

The degree of resemblance which the marks being dealt with bear to the album reproductions are described according to the following categories, based, with slight modifications, on those proposed by Waugh ("De Visu, p. 104): of the type; 2) similar; 3) variant; 4) close variant; 5) likeness (fair, good, excellent).

[27]

1878 appears twenty-four times (nineteen as a distorted variant/later state, five as a very good/excellent likeness), and 1879, eighteen times (twelve as a very good/excellent likeness, six as a close variant). In a quarto such as K-B 31 it is theoretically possible that each of the eight-folio quires could contain one set of companion marks, and thus in the twenty-four gatherings in which 1878 and 1879 are distributed, each might appear matched together twenty-four times. There are however other marks interspersed among these gatherings. Nevertheless, 1878 is at least found often enough times to have been once a part of each quire, while 1879 comes close. Moreover, in eight of their gatherings, 1878 and 1879 do appear together as matched pairs. Viewed as twins, these marks denote a consistent stock of paper occurring nearly without interruption from gathering 7 (i.e. of those numbered by Cyrillic signatures) through 25; 27 through 30; and also in 32. Viewed as separate marks, they still constitute the longest runs in the work, 1879 running through gatherings 8-19, 21, 24, and 30, and 1878 in gatherings 7-8, 11, 13, 17-23, 25, 27-30, and 32. (See Table 1 for more details).

[28]

1901 is found in Cyrillic-numbered quires 1, 3, 4, 5 (twice in this gathering), and 6, and 1902 is in nos. 1, 2 (twice), 3, 4, and 6.

[29]

Muzeiskoe 4056 is the source of Likhachev nos. 1870-1900. In Likhachev's album (1: 177), its number (OLDP F VII [380]) is mistakenly given as 389 (VII). According to my inspection, its most characteristic marks are varieties of 1874 or 1875, and 1880 or 1881. 1874, apparently the most frequently appearing mark, is found sixty-eight times; 1878 appears twelve times and 1879 eleven, matched together on fols. 345-348, and, with three other marks interspersed, on fols. 378-399. (See Yanoshak, "Zinovii," pp. 130-132 for further details).

[30]

OIDR 328 is the source of Likhachev nos. 1901-1913. Its most frequent mark is 1906 (26 times). In this manuscript I found 1878 and 1879 together distributed nearly equally (13 instances of 1878, 10 of 1879) on fols. 340-360 and 367-383. 1901 (12 times) and 1902 (6 times) alternate on fols. 271-298 and 303-304. (See Yanoshak, "Zinovii," pp. 130-132 for further information.)

[31]

The source of Likhachev 3356 was listed as a letter dated 30 April 1567 by G. I. Zabolotskii, a voevoda of Rugodiv (Narva) (Paleograficheskoe znachenie, vol. 1, p. 394); although identification is not certain, a variant may also be found, unnoted by Likhachev, in Muzeiskoe 4056.

[32]

The K-B 31 mark resembling Likhachev 1907 is also a close variant of 3450, taken from the celebrated Muscovite Apostol' of 1564, printed by Deacon Ivan Fedorov, and traditionally considered the first book printed in Muscovy (See Table 1), although several anonymous works may actually antedate it (A. S. Zernova, Nachalo knigopechataniia v Moskve i na Ukraine, Moscow, 1947, pp. 7-46, 79).

[33]

The source of Likhachev 1920 was a Margarit, or collection of the homilies of John Chrysostom (see Table 1).

[34]

This was the only mark in K-B 31 which could not be identified with one in a work of Russian provenance. Its source was a letter written by Marshall de Montluc, dated 11 October, 1562. (See Likhachev, Paleograficheskoe znachenie, vol. 1, p. 367, and Table 1.)

[35]

The source of 1856 is a Trefoloi, a service book for holidays, dated 1561/1562; that of 4090, a Sbornik (Collection) of Saints' Lives, written in 1565 (see Table 1).

[36]

One of these marks is a glove which shares design features with three marks encompassing the period 1560-1567 (Briquet 11028, dated 1566; Likhachev 1878 or 1879; Briquet 11017, dated 1561; Likhachev 3343, dated 1560), and appears twice in K-B 31. The other two doubtful marks are spheres, each appearing once in K-B 31. One shares features with three marks whose dates range from 1563 to 1567 (Likhachev 3440, dated 1564; Briquet 14029, dated 1563; Likhachev 1913, dated 1567) and is perhaps closest to Likhachev 3440, but even here the resemblance is rather vague. The other sphere vaguely resembles two marks (Likhachev 1853, dated 1561/1562, and Likhachev 1892, dated 1567), but again, identification is extremely uncertain (see Table 1).

[37]

Thus, K-B 31 shares, as runs or remnants, at least five marks with Muzeiskoe 4056 (Likhachev 1878, 1879, 1872, 1892, 1888, and, possibly, 3356), and six with OIDR 328 (Likhachev 1878, 1879, 1901, 1902, 1905, 1907).

266

University of Virginia Library

Watermarks and the Dating of Old Russian Manuscripts: The Case of Poslanie Mnogoslovnoe by Nancy Yanoshak [*]

Table 1

Distribution of Watermarks in K-B 31

Sources for Reproductions

Notes

Watermarks and the Dating of Old Russian Manuscripts: The Case of Poslanie Mnogoslovnoe
by
Nancy Yanoshak [*]