| Click on the button beside each word to indicate its abbreviation in the text. Unless you have a very big screen, the arrow may shoot off the right hand side occasionally, but just scroll across and follow it. | |
| There is an assortment of types of abbreviation here. There are superscript slashes for missing letters m and n, as in Latin abbreviations. There are standard abbreviations for short words, such as et, que or pour. There are various standard contractions. Numbers are all written as Roman numerals. There are also what one might call honorific abbreviations, as with men Seigneur or Monsieur, in which a significant title is indicated by a symbol. Some words, like Tresorier, seem to be contracted into a random selection of letters. | |
| Acquittance of 1383, from the collection of Rob Schäfer. All images © Rob Schäfer. | |
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| overview | seal | text | alphabet | abbreviations | structure | exercises | | transcript | translation | |
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| Click on each of the above to walk your way through the text. The transcript will appear in a separate window so that you can use it for reference at any time. These exercises are designed to guide you through the text, not test you, so you can cheat as much as you like. | |
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 Script sample for this example |
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Index
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Index
of Scripts |
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If you are looking at this page without frames, there is more information about medieval writing to be found by going to the home page (framed) or the site map (no frames). |
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