In
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ''Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'' or ''papyruses'') can a ...
rolls and
manuscripts
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has c ...
, a ''reclamans'' (plural: ''reclamantes'') is a catchline included at the end of a section of text showing the first line or sentence of the subsequent roll or
codex
The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...
, thus ensuring that the reader could quickly determine the proper order in which the particular work was to be read. The practice is well-attested in
Homeric
Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his authorship, Homer is ...
papyri, but it appears to have fallen into disuse in these texts around the 1st century AD. It seems very likely that the increased popularity of inscribing each roll with a book title precipitated the obsolescence of the ''reclamans''. In the case of prose works, however, the practice continued to be used, and several medieval manuscripts of works like
Herodotus
Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...
' ''Histories'' and the
Hippocratic Corpus
The Hippocratic Corpus (Latin: ''Corpus Hippocraticum''), or Hippocratic Collection, is a collection of around 60 early Ancient Greek medical works strongly associated with the physician Hippocrates and his teachings. The Hippocratic Corpus cov ...
include ''reclamantes''.
[.]
See also
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Catchword
A catchword is a word placed at the foot of a handwritten or Printing, printed page that is meant to be bound along with other pages in a book. The word anticipates the first word of the following page. It was meant to help the bookbinder or pr ...
Notes
Bibliography
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Papyrology
Manuscripts
Book terminology
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