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.

[Sidenote:  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]

[Footnote 29:  For the pertinent literature on the manuscripts in the following list the student is referred to Traube’s Vorlesungen und Abhandlungen, Vol.  I, pp. 171-261, Munich 1909, and the index in Vol.  III, Munich 1920.  The chief works of facsimiles referred to below are:  Zangemeister and Wattenbach, Exempla codicum latinorum litteris maiusculis scriptorum, Heidelberg 1876 & 1879; E. Chatelain, Paleographie des classiques latins, Paris 1884-1900, and Uncialis scriptura codicum latinorum novis exemplis illustrata, Paris 1901-2; and Steffens, Lateinische Palaeographie{2}, Treves 1907. (Second edition in French appeared in 1910.)]

1.  Codex Vercellensis of the Gospels (a). ca. a. 371

    Traube, l.c., No. 327; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl.  XX.

2.  Bodleian Manuscript (Auct.  T. 2. 26) of Jerome’s translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius (older portion). post a. 442

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; Steffens{2}, pl. 17; also Schwartz in Berliner Philologische Wochenschrift, XXVI (1906), c. 746.

3.  Berlin Computus Paschalis (MS. lat. 4º. 298). ca. a. 447

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.

4.  Codex Fuldensis of the Gospels (F), Fulda MS. Bonifat. 1, read by Bishop Victor of Capua. ante a. 546

    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; Steffens{2}, pl. 21a.