Uloga kolofona u srpskim srednjovekovnim rukopisima: preliminarne napomene

According to the definition provided by Denis Muzerelle in his Vocabulaire codicologique, a colophon is an annotation (frequently, but not always) placed at the end of a manuscript by the scribe. In it the scribe gives information about his transcribing work, in particular the date and the place, his name and status, and sometimes expressions of thanks for the successful completion of his task. This paper aims to provide a preliminary survey of representative occurrences of colophons in Serbian medieval manuscripts, in order to establish: 1) if they fulfill such a definition; 2) the extent to which they may vary from this basic definition, e.g. using distinctive, formulaic expressions, peculiar visual devices; 3) if they play a specific role in the structure of the manuscript book; 4) whether a researcher, on the basis of point 3, is able to identify different codicological units in composite and multiple-texts manuscripts.