Minuscule 69 (Gregory-Aland; Soden's δ 505), known as Codex Leicester. It is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament on 213 leaves (37.8 by 27 cm). Written in one column per page, 37-38 lines per page, dated paleographically to the 15th.

Description

The codex contains the entire of the New Testament with lacunae (Matt 1:1-18:15; Acts 10:45-14:17; Jude 7-25; Rev 19:10-22:21). The text of the manuscript skips from Acts 10:45 to 14:17 without break, possibly scribe rewrote it from defect manuscript. Rev. The text of Rev 18:7-19:10 is a fragmentary. The codex is written on 91 leaves of parchment and 122 of paper. Usually two parchment leaves are followed by three paper leaves. The paper was very poor quality. It was written by a strange hand, epsilon being recumbent and almost like alpha, that it is not clear which was intended. "The whole style of writting resembling a careless scrawl". Name ιησους is always writting at full lenght up to John 21:15, where we meet with ις, and in 41 other places, 19 of which are in the Acts.

Passage Luke 22:43-44 was placed after Matt 26:39.

Textually codex 69 is very remarkable, it belongs to Family 13, as very important member of this group. The Greek text of the Gospels of this codex is a representative of the Caesarean text-type, Aland placed it n Category III. In Pauline epistles and Catholic epistles its text is a Byzantine. Aland placed it in Category V. In the Book of Revelation its text belongs to the Byzantine text-type but with a large number of unique textual variant, in a close relationship to the Uncial 046, and Minuscule 61. These three manuscripts constitute a subgroup of the Byzantine text-type.

History

The manuscript was presented to George Neville, Archbishop of York (1465-1472). It belonged to William Chark, mentioned in marginal notes of codex 61, and then to Thomas Hayne, who in 1640 gave this codex to the Leicester Library.

The codex now is located in Town Museum, Muniment Room (Cod. 6 D 32/1) at Leicester.

See also

• List of New Testament minuscules
• Family 13
• Textual criticism

References