Palermo 549calm of the intervening years between 1349 and 1350,
Palamas wrote a summary of his theological teaching in
The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters.In 1351, a third
synod was summoned, which affirmed the theological
themes and ideas proposed by Palamas as the official
teaching of Orthodoxy. These involved a doctrine of
creation of the natural world and of the human person,
specific discussions of natural human faculties, spiritual
knowledge, rational nature, the divine nature, and its
image in the human person.
THIRD CONTROVERSYA third period of controversy on creation and the human
person occupied the years 1351–58. Palamas was canon-
ized and given the title doctor of the church by the Greek
Orthodox Church in 1368 after his death in 1359. His
feast day in the Eastern Church is celebrated November
14 and the second Sunday of Lent.
Further reading:Gregory Palamas, The One Hundred
and Fifty Chapters,ed. and trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1988);
John Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, trans.
George Lawrence, 2d ed. (London: Faith Press, 1974);
George C. Papademetriou, Maimonides and Palamas on
God (Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press,
1994).
paleography(palaeography) For the study of the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance, paleography, a word
coined in the 18th century, in the strict sense is the study
and deciphering of old handwriting on manuscripts. In
more general terms it can amount to a study of the insti-
tutions and culture that produced this written material.
Paleography had its modern roots in the 17th century,
long after the invention of printing, in the works of
monks editing, criticizing, and evaluating written docu-
ments involving their own contemporary disputes over
the accuracy and authenticity of medieval monastic char-
ters or deeds.
As a discipline in the 19th century, it embraced the
study of writing and its media and instruments, such as
ink, PAPYRUS, PARCHMENT, and PAPER. Founded to study
the documents of the Western Middle Ages, it now forms
the basis for the study of the manuscripts and manuscript
cultures of all medieval peoples who wrote. According to
the modern understanding of the value of the discipline
of paleography, medieval texts, either in print or in
manuscript, have to be interpreted within the context of
the ways in which they were produced and the needs of
the institutions and ideologies that produced them. Mod-
ern paleographers have extended paleography to include
all the aspects of a written monument or artifact, both
internal and external material qualities and the cultural
and social implications affecting writing and the people
who produced it.
MEDIEVAL HANDWRITING
Paleography was practiced in the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance. It had to be done for readers then to be able
to read, understand, and interpret handwritten sources of
knowledge or information. Then as now, in a more infor-
mal way than in the past, scripts were classified and eval-
uated by the forms of their letters. To combat medieval
FORGERY, there was to be some attempt to date handwrit-
ing by recognizing changes in the writing itself and in
textual and literary styles. Charters had to be evaluated as
forgeries or as genuine transactions. The accuracy of
transcriptions of sacred texts was important for all the
religious of the medieval word, such as Christianity,
JUDAISM, and ISLAM. Skillful and accurate scribes were
fundamental to these religious cultures.
Handwriting forms used for clarity, beauty, or utility
evolved over the course of the Middle Ages as the needs
and goals of society changed, especially in terms of
bureaucracy, education, law, and commerce. In the 15th
century, there was a strong movement for the reform of
Western European writing to increase clarity and ease of
reading. Crabbed gothic hands, common in the elite and
specialized university and Scholastic systems, were to be
replaced by a humanist script based on the writing
reforms of the CAROLINGIANRENAISSANCE. These letter
forms and styles were much more clear and words were
less abbreviated, so readers and writers could more accu-
rately comprehend and reproduce the classical texts
being rediscovered and deemed so important for the bet-
terment of society and a proper education. These reforms
laid the basis for the movable type and textual forms used
in the PRINTINGrevolution of the 15th century.
See alsoARCHIVES AND ARCHIVAL INSTITUTIONS; CODI-
COLOGY; NOTARIES AND THE NOTARIATE; PUNCTUATION;
SCRIPTORIUM; SCRIPTS.
Further reading:Michelle P. Brown, A Guide to West-
ern Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1990); Leonard E. Boyle,
Medieval Latin Paleography: A Bibliographical Introduction
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984); Bernhard
Bischoff, Latin Paleography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages,
trans. Dáibhí óCróinín and David Ganz (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990); Jacqueline Brown
and William P. Stoneman, eds., A Distinct Voice: Medieval
Studies in Honor of Leonard E. Boyle, O.P.(Notre Dame,
Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997); Hubert Hall,
A Formula Book of English Official Historical Documents, 2
vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1908–1909); Walther Björkman, “Diplomatic,” Encyclo-
pedia of Islam,2.301–316.Palermo Palermo was founded by the Phoenicians, was
the Roman Panormus, and became the capital of SICILY
under the Muslims. By the 10th century it was one of the
major metropolises of the Mediterranean. Its population