Armenian Manuscripts.--Manuscripts at Etchmiazin.--Comparative
Value of Manuscripts.--Uncial Writing.--Monastic
Libraries.--Collections in Europe.--The St. Lazaro Library.
Armenian manuscripts are of extreme rarity, not only in Europe, but in
Armenia itself, at Constantinople, or any other place. The unsettled
state in which that distracted province has from time immemorial been
sunk, has prevented the development of the peaceful arts, and few of
the monastic establishments of that country had wealth, or leisure,
or convenience to copy and illuminate their books. The few fine
manuscripts which I have met with seem to have been written for some
Armenian princes, and were the works of scribes supported by exalted
personages, who wrote under the shadow of their protection in the
metropolitan cities, or in the patriarchal monastery of Etchmiazin. I
was prevented by illness when in the neighborhood from visiting
Etchmiazin, but there are preserved (or rather neglected) there, I have
been given to understand, more than 2000 ancient manuscripts. These
are completely unknown, unless within these few years they have been
examined by any Russian antiquarian; no other traveler has been there
who was competent to overlook a dusty library, so as to give any idea,
not of what there is, but even what it may be likely to contain. This,
as my bibliographical friends are well aware, is a peculiar art or
mystery depending more on a general knowledge of the first aspect
of an old book than a capacity to appreciate its contents. A book
written on vellum implies a certain antiquity immediately recognizable
by the initiated. If it does not appear to be ancient, it is then
more than probable that it contains the works of some author of more
than ordinary consideration, to have made it worth while to go to
the expense and labor of a careful scribe and a material difficult
in those days to procure. An illuminated manuscript on vellum, if
not a prayer-book, secures additional attention; independent of its
value as a work of art, it must be of some consequence to have made
it worth illuminating. A large manuscript, as a general rule, is worth
more than a little one, for the same evident reason that its contents
were considered at the time when it was written to have been of some
importance, and deserving of more labor, time, and care, than if it was
just written out cheaply by a common scribe. Uncial writing--that is, a
book written in capital letters--is much more ancient than one written
in a cursive hand, and the most ancient volumes were generally large
square quartos. It is curious that this should be the case in almost
all nations and languages surrounding the Mediterranean, though their
customs may be so different in other respects. Manuscripts on paper,
again, are sometimes of remarkable interest, from their containing
the works of authors then considered trivial and inferior, but now
of much more value than the more ponderous tomes of the Middle Ages.
The majority of the volumes in an ancient monastic library are
worn-out, imperfect church-books, which have been cast aside from
time to time, and committed to the care of the mice and spiders, who
alone frequent the shelves or the floor of that dusty lumber-room. It
is uncommon to find a manuscript in more than one volume, unless it
may be the works of St. Chrysostom, or another of the Fathers of the
Church. In this case the volumes are hardly ever found together,
and a complete set of three or four volumes is beyond hoping for,
carelessness and neglect having been for centuries the librarians of
the monastery. These and other circumstances combine to make a cursory
examination of one of these original hoards of by-gone literature
a task for which the learned student of some abstruse science, or
dead or dying language, is totally incompetent. The translator of
an almost forgotten tongue, the laborious compiler of unpublished
history, requires that the musty chronicles, the splendid illuminated
volumes bound in gold and velvet, the crabbed, ill-written works of
antique lore, should be laid upon the table before him, so that,
in the undisturbed silence of his study, surrounded with lexicons
and modern books of reference, he may bit by bit extract the pith,
and winnow off the chaff, from the venerable manuscripts of distant
lands and other times. The bibliographical traveler, who is to provide
these precious relics for his careful use, who is to drag them from
their dark recesses, where they have been lying undisturbed 500 or
1000 years, has an entirely different task to fulfill. The professor
would require months to look over each book one by one, to brush
away the cobwebs, to ascertain by difficult and uncertain passages
what the subject of those manuscripts might be which had lost many
pages at the beginning and end, and to satisfy himself at last that
it was worthless--a conclusion to which another would arrive at the
first glance. This power of immediately appreciating the value of
ancient manuscripts in the manner above mentioned will be understood
by those who are aware that such is the usual jealousy of the ignorant
monks for that which they can neither use nor understand themselves,
that it hardly ever happens that a stranger is permitted to take more
than a general survey of the worm-eaten and dusty mass which lies in
heaps upon the floor, or is piled in the corners of the room which
they call their library, but which they probably have never entered
on any other occasion.
Such as I have described are the libraries at Etchmiazin, the monastery
on Lake Van, those near Ooroomia, and the few places where more than
the church-books are still remaining.
In England, the Bodleian Library contains about twenty volumes of
Armenian manuscripts; the British Museum not so many, I believe;
the Royal Library at Paris has about 200, which were collected by the
emissaries of Louis XIV. Some of these are of considerable antiquity
and beauty. In private collections very few are to be found. In my
library there are about a dozen, of which two are the most splendid
that I have met with in the East, or in any country. I possess also
a number of loose leaves of the highest antiquity, which are so far
curious that they display the progress of the art of writing almost
since the days of Mesrob to the present time. But, with the exception
of the unknown treasures of Etchmiazin, the convent of St. Lazaro at
Venice not only preserves, but makes good use of, the finest collection
of Armenian manuscripts extant. Their number is about 1200, of which
100 are on vellum; the rest are written partly on ancient paper made
from cotton, and partly on paper such as we use at present. Three
volumes on Charta Bombycina are among the most ancient that I have met
with that are written on that material: one contains commentaries on
the Psalms and the Epistles, by Ephraim Syrius and St. Chrysostom,
written in the year of the Armenian era 448, Anno Domini 999; the
second is a small book of prayer, containing the date of A. D. 1178;
the third is the romance of Alexander the Great: this curious volume
is illustrated with numerous drawings, richly gilt and colored;
it was written in the thirteenth century.
They have three copies of the Gospels, and one Ritual written in uncial
letters (one of these ancient copies of the Gospels is illuminated
with several large miniatures in a style resembling Greek art),
as well as several others of inferior interest.
The library also possesses six or seven richly illuminated copies of
the Scriptures, some splendid books of prayer, and a great number of
other Armenian manuscripts, containing records of the history or the
works of authors who were natives of that country, from which have
been printed many volumes whose pages illustrate manners and events
which were completely forgotten before the monks of St. Lazaro rescued
them from oblivion.