The codex was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term "codex" is now reserved for older manuscript books, which mostly used sheets of vellum, parchment, or papyrus, rather than paper.
A manuscript was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has come to be understood to further include any written, typed, or word-processed copy of an author's work, as distinguished from the rendition as a printed version of the same.
The Gandhāran Buddhist texts are the oldest Buddhist manuscripts yet discovered, dating from about the 1st century BCE to 3rd century CE and found in the northwestern outskirts of the Indian subcontinent. They represent the literature of Gandharan Buddhism from present-day northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan, and are written in Gāndhārī.
The Irish Gospels of St. Gall or Codex Sangallensis 51 is an 8th-century Insular Gospel Book, written either in Ireland or by Irish monks in the Abbey of St. Gall in Switzerland, where it is now in the Abbey library of St. Gallen as MS 51. It has 134 folios. Amongst its eleven illustrated pages are a Crucifixion, a Last Judgement, a Chi Rho monogram page, a carpet page, and Evangelist portraits.
Codicology is the study of codices or manuscript books. It is often referred to as "the archaeology of the book," a term coined by François Masai. It concerns itself with the materials, tools and techniques used to make codices, along with their features.
The Sanaa palimpsest or Sanaa Quran is one of the oldest Quranic manuscripts in existence. Part of a sizable cache of Quranic and non-Quranic fragments discovered in Yemen during a 1972 restoration of the Great Mosque of Sanaa, the manuscript was identified as a palimpsest Quran in 1981 as it is written on parchment and comprises two layers of text.
The conservation and restoration of illuminated manuscripts is the care and treatment of illuminated manuscripts which have cultural and historical significance so that they may be viewed, read, and studied now and in the future. It is a specialty case of the conservation and restoration of parchment within the field of conservation and restoration of books, manuscripts, documents and ephemera.
The Bibliotheca Palatina of Heidelberg was the most important library of the German Renaissance, numbering approximately 5,000 printed books and 3,524 manuscripts. The Bibliotheca was a prominent prize captured during the Thirty Years' War, taken as booty by Maximilian of Bavaria, and given to the Pope in a symbolic and political gesture. While some of the books and manuscripts are now held by the University of Heidelberg, the bulk of the original collection is now an integral part of the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana at the Vatican.
Minuscule 1143, ε 1035, also known as the Beratinus 2, or Codex Aureus Anthimi. It is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament on purple parchment, dated paleographically to the 9th century. This is one of the seven “purple codices” in the world to have survived to the present day, and one of the two known purple minuscules written with a gold ink.
Uncial 098, α 1025 (Soden), is a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament, dated palaeographically to the 7th-century. It is also named Codex Cryptoferratensis.
Codex Tischendorfianus I, designated as Uncial 0106, ε 40 (Soden), is a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament on parchment. It is dated palaeographically to the 7th century. The manuscript is fragmentary.
Uncial 0121a, α 1031 (Soden), is a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament, dated paleographically to the 10th-century.
Uncial 0237, ε 014, is a Greek-Coptic uncial manuscript of the New Testament. Paleographically it has been assigned to the 6th-century.
Uncial 0301, is a Greek-Coptic diglot uncial manuscript of the New Testament. Paleographically it has been assigned to the 5th century.
Minuscule 64, ε 1287, formerly known as Ussher 2, is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment leaves. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 12th century. The manuscript has complex contents and full marginalia.
Minuscule 459, α 104, is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. It is dated by a colophon to the year 1092. Formerly it was labeled by 89a and 99p.
Minuscule 852, ε406, is a 14th-century Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament on parchment. The manuscript has not survived in complete condition.
Lectionary 311 (Gregory-Aland), designated by siglum ℓ311 is a bilingual Greek–Arabic manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 12th century. The manuscript has survived in a fragmentary condition.
Fragmentology is the study of surviving fragments of manuscripts. A manuscript fragment may consist of whole or partial leaves, typically made of parchment, conjugate pairs or sometimes gatherings of a parchment book or codex, or parts of single-leaf documents such as notarial acts. They are commonly found in book bindings, especially printed books from the 15th to the 17th centuries, used in a variety of ways such as wrappers or covers for the book, as endpapers, or cut into pieces and used to reinforce the binding. In other non-Western manuscript cultures, fragments of paper manuscripts and other materials, takes place beside parchment, including board covers that many times reused written paper.
