É. Apor (ed.): Codex Cumanicus. Ed. by Géza Kuun with a Prolegomena to the Codex Cumanicus by Lajos Ligeti. (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. B 1.)
L. Ligeti: Prolegomena to the Codex Cumanicus
8 L. I-IGETI The 1303 variant is believed to have been made in the Monastery of St. John near Sarai. No attempts what so ever were made to establish the place of origin of the extant (cc. 1330) copy. The second, «German» part was allegedly compiled by the native German friars of a Franciscan monastery in South Russia (Gabain). There is no denying that the first part was composed in an Italian setting for other than religious purposes. The idea entertained from time to time that the author was a friar can be discarded. It is indeed conspicuous that a number of substantives denoting certain groups of subjects, are absent from the text. Bràtianu (Recherches, p. 231, note 5) also remarked that certain words unbecoming a friar are detectable (Codex p. 68: bordellum, rofiana, meretrix ; p. 99: rofianus, castratura ). It cannot be questioned that the first part of the codex had a secular function. It certainly played a significant, though not exclusive, role in promoting commercial interests. Even Gyárfás emphasized that the trilingual parts had a commercial purpose. To fortify his argument, he cited 89 names of spices, 70 words denoting commercial articles, 17 names of precious stones, and 91 terms connected with office work from the glossary classified by subjects. Regardless of the accuracy of those figures, we must admit that Gyárfás got to the core hinting to questions well worth elaborating. At this point, a passing remark should be devoted to the role of the Monastery of St. John, mentioned in the 1303 copy, since it seems to contradict the conclusion drawn from the lack of clerical terms. 1 4 This seeming contradiction can be somewhat resolved if we consider the fact that it is not an original manuscript, but rather a copy whose second part is indisputably of ecclesiastical origin and purpose. The only way to resolve definitively the apparent contradiction is to clear up the relationship between the extant (and lost) copies. The question originally raised by Gyárfás and later reiterated by others, 1 1 W. Bang directed attention to the role of the Monastery of St. John (Über die Ilerkunjt des Codex Cumanicus : SPA IF 1913, pp. 244 — 245). In his opinion, the monks of this monastery began to write the Codex Cumanicus here in 1294/5. The Monastery of St. John was one of the 17 monasteries north of the Black Sea. According to a text dating from 1314 the monastery was located near Sarai. Bang based his opinion on the last line of the invocation which contains the name of the saint (Ad honorem dei et B(ea)ti St(ephan)is euangelifte) . Györffy rightly argued that this invocation was inserted at the head of the text later, during copying. Strangely enough, the name of St. John does not occur at any other place in the Codex. Rather, a passage on the death of St. Stephen can be read among the Coman texts of the second part, cf. Codex, p. 122; Kuun, pp. 159 — 160; Drimba, Syntaxe cornane, pp. 228 -230 (De la mort de Saint Étienne), which contains the Coman text, its French translation and the relevant part of «The Acts of the Apostles» in Latin. St. Stephen was the only saint whose story the friars thought worthy of including in the Codex. It would lead us too far to search for the causes of this, but it should not be forgotten. It is advisable to check whether there was a monastery with this name among the 17.
