English

Noun

palæography ‎(plural palæographies)

1. (chiefly Britain, dated) Alternative form of paleography (study of ancient forms of writing).
   • 1822, Sir Francis Palgrave, K.H. in The Edinburgh Quarterly Review, number 26, page 195 (quoted in: & )

     We should like to have them collected by Dr. Young; whose acuteness and learning seem calculated to subdue the difficulties of palæography.

   • 1840, Charles Knight, The Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, page 149 ^DUP.

     PALÆOGRAPHY. The study of antient documents, called by modern antiquaries ‘Palæography,’ is too extensive a subject to be canvassed at length in a work like the present.

   • 1858, Samuel Birch, History of Ancient Pottery, page 196

     Judging from the palæography of the inscriptions, they may have been in use from the age of Augustus to that of Marcus Aurelius, or even of Severus.

   • 1864, Thomas John Gullick and John Timbs, Painting Popularly Explained, page 101 (second edition; first edition published in 1859)

     The study of the caligraphy, or penmanship, of ancient MSS. is replete with interest; and the art of deciphering ancient writings, or palæography, has received of late years some of the attention it deserves.

   • 1885, Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, Encyclopædia Britannica XVIII, page 143

     Palæography is the study of ancient handwriting from surviving examples.

   • 1898, Joris-Karl Huysmans (translated by Clara Bell), The Cathedral, Chapter X

     Now they are editing and printing a musical Palæography, one of the most learned and abstruse of modern publications.

   • 1913, Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11, “Palæography”

     The art of deciphering ancient writing in manuscripts or diplomas. It is distinguished from epigraphy, which provides rules for reading carved inscriptions, and from diplomatics which studies the intrinsic character of written documents, while palæography concerns itself only with written characters and the classification of documents by their external characters.

     […] palæography has become the basis of all study of historical, religious, or literary texts. There are as many branches of palæography as there are different kinds of writings, but the science of Oriental written characters is as yet hardly formed.

     […] Kopp, in his “Palæographia Critica”, laid the foundations for Oriental palæography, while devoting himself exclusively to Semitic languages.

   • 1970, J. McN. Dodgson, Survey of English Place Names, page 72 (The University Press)

     The transition from Birc(h)- to Birt- is obscured by the palæography of -t(h)-, -c(h)-, undistinguishable in many sources.

2. (chiefly Britain, obsolete) Alternative form of paleography (paleogeography).
   • 1896, The Geographical journal, number 8, page 67

     Principles of palæography*— The value of palæontology; meaning of archæan land masses; search for ancient shore-lines; reconstruction of original […] ancient mountains.