When the enforcer reinforced the letters he also applied in certain cases a different syllable division. He did this by leaving the last letter of a line unenhanced and writing it anew in front of the first letter of the next line. Cases with Sigma and Nu are frequent.
In a few cases a small section number is in the way. Here the enforcer squeezes the letter between the section number and the text.
Now there is one case where there is an umlaut in the way:
Page: 1498 C 3 L: A Sigma is squeezed between umlaut and text.
Old division:
musthrion uper ou pres
beuw en alusei. ina au
New division:
musthrion uper ou pre
sbeuw en alusei. ina au
Consequence: The umlauts are older than the reinforcement. Since the reinforcement is dated by Tischendorf to the 10th or 11th CE, the umlauts must be earlier than this date.
"Well, good point", said Sherlock Holmes, "but there still is the umlaut on the minuscle page 1519!"Back
Old division: