Notes on the <em>Radziwiłł Codex</em>

Abstract

The Radziwiłł Codex is the only surviving Medieval Cyrillic manuscript with the chronicle text. Views as to its date and the place of origin varied in literature, yet there is a strong tendency to place it within the context of the nationally defined “Great Russian” cultural tradition. By examining the marginal notes entered by one of the very first manuscript’s reader, the article challenges the accepted wisdom. It appears that the codex was created before 1487, most possibly in Volhynia, and circulated only within the space of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There is a strong possibility that the Radziwiłł Codex is a replica of now lost original that emerged in the late thirteenth century in the same royal Volhynian scriptorium where the illuminated codex with the chronicle of George Hamartolos (the so-called Trinity Hamartolos) was also created.