Script Type : minuscule cursive

Script Family : Gothic

Date : early 13th century

Location : England

Function : Document hand or charter hand

Distinctive letters : Around this time document hands in England were somewhat variable and undergoing changes. This example has a spiky angular appearance, but with large loops and sometimes split shafts on the ascenders and descenders of letters like b, l, h, g and others. Despite being a little mannered in appearance, the script is cursive. The letter forms are a bit variable.

The descender of q curls, from our perspective, the wrong way but it is distinguished from g because that letter has a more lavishly curving descender. There are two forms of r, including the minimalist form that sometimes appears after vowels as well as the particularly English form that extends below the baseline, and two forms of s, the short and curly and the tall. In most cases v is the same as u.

The letters j and w only appear as capitals in English names. There are no examples of k or z.

The letter y only appears in English names, and it is dotted. While i is not generally dotted, this does occur when it is doubled, as in the word

filiis

There are many abbreviations. A distinctive characteristic, which gives the hint that this is an ecclesiastical document, is the use of the papal knot abbreviation mark, as in

gratia

The Tironian et is also employed.

Pass the cursor along the lines to get a taste of it. For more detail, investigate the paleography exercises.

Paleography exercises using Flash

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