Some fragmentary witnesses to the Ethiopic 'Homiliary for the Year'

Abstract

Although the Ḥayq Ǝsṭifānos exemplar of the ‘Homiliary for the Year’ (EMML 1763) has become quite well-known, its connectedness to a much broader substratum of the medieval Ethiopic manuscript tradition has been mostly overlooked. It, in fact, constitutes only one of more than a dozen representatives of this homiliary to have emerged, which together go back to an archetype assembled sometime around the twelfth century. Several fragmentary witnesses to this particular collection, which contains texts translated from Greek and Arabic alongside original Ethiopic compositions, are scientifically described for the first time.