If the preceding conclusion accords with fact, then we may accept the traditional date (circa A.D. 371) of the Codex Vercellensis of the Gospels. The famous Vatican palimpsest of Cicero’s De Re Publica seems more properly placed in the fourth than in the fifth century; and the older portion of the Bodleian manuscript of Jerome’s translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, dated after the year A.D. 442, becomes another guide-post in the history of uncial writing, since a comparison with the Berlin fragment of about A.D. 447 convinces one that the Bodleian manuscript can not have been written much after the date of its archetype, which is A.D. 442.
[Dated uncial manuscripts] Asked to enumerate the landmarks which may serve as helpful guides in uncial writing prior to the year 800, we should hardly go far wrong if we tabulate them in the following order:[29]
ca. a. 371 1. Codex Vercellensis of the Gospels (a).
Traube, l.c., No. 327; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XX.
post a. 442 2. Bodleian Manuscript (Auct. T. 2. 26) of Jerome’s translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius (older portion).
Traube, l.c., No. 164; J. K. Fotheringham, The Bodleian manuscript of Jerome’s version of the Chronicle of Eusebius reproduced in collotype, Oxford 1905, pp. 25-6; Steffens2, pl. 17; also Schwartz in Berliner Philologische Wochenschrift, XXVI (1906), c. 746.
ca. a. 447 3. Berlin Computus Paschalis (MS. lat. 4º. 298).
Traube, l.c., No. 13; Th. Mommsen, “Zeitzer Ostertafel vom Jahre 447” in Abhandl. der Berliner Akad. aus dem Jahre 1862, Berlin 1863, pp. 539 sqq.; “Liber Paschalis Codicis Cicensis A. CCCCXLVII” in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, IX, 1, pp. 502 sqq.; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XXIII.
ante a. 546 4. Codex Fuldensis of the Gospels (F), Fulda MS. Bonifat. 1, read by Bishop Victor of Capua.
Traube, l.c., No. 47; E. Ranke, Codex Fuldensis, Novum Testamentum Latine interprete Hieronymo ex manuscripto Victoris Capuani, Marburg and Leipsic 1868; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XXXIV; Steffens2, pl. 21a.