2 – Three medieval script families: St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 14 (9th century) Leiden, University Library, BPL 196 (12th century) London, British Library, Arundel 28 (13th century)ĭespite the fact that these three families are relatively easy to distinguish and identify, they were used for extensive periods of time: Caroline (nr. 2, sample 2), and Littera textualis or Gothic script (Fig. Take for example the three major script families from the medieval period: Caroline minuscule (Fig. Medieval script tells time, although usually not very precisely. But how do we find it? Welcome to the secretive world of handwritten letters from the Middle Ages. This information comes in extremely handy considering that the title page was not yet invented. If we forget, for a moment, that letters themselves convey meaning, these two levels of variation – choice of script and of its execution – comprise perhaps the greatest value: letters show us when a manuscript was made. Remarkably, this variation is still preserved in our modern notions of typefaces, which represent the families, and fonts, which express the variation within these families, for example concerning size (for their meaning, see here). In this wild party of letter shapes roughly two categories of variation can be observed: first, the shape of medieval letters differs because they belong to different script families and secondly, their precise execution varies because the scribes opted for a particular size, thickness, quality, and pen angle. He even wrote the names of the scripts next to the samples, in appealing golden letters, like a good businessman (more about advertisements from the medieval book world in this post). The blank back shows that the sheet was hanging on the wall, like a menu in a fast-food restaurant. ![]() 1 was produced by Herman Strepel and through it he shows off his expertise – and in a sense his merchandise – to customers who visited his shop. No surviving artefact underscores this point of variation better than advertisement sheets of commercial scribes. This is perhaps the most amazing experience of spending a day going through a pile of medieval books in the library: the immense variation in the manner in which the text is written on the parchment pages. Each one of us human beings writes differently and considering that medieval books were made before the invention of print, it follows that the scripts they carry show a great variety in execution styles. It depicts Bernard of Clairvaux, founder of the Cistercian order.One of the fundamental things in a medieval book is letters – those symbols that fill up page after page and that make up meaning. Historiated initial B from a 13th century illuminated illuminated manuscript: Legenda Aurea (Keble MS 49, fol 162r). Scenes from the Old Testament and New Testament, the life of Christ, and saints or other important religious figures were common subjects for historiated initials in sacred texts. By Eadfrith (Lindisfarne Gospels, c 700 AD), via Wikimedia Commons.Finally, key sections of a text often commence with large initials framing vignettes relating to the subject matter of the section – these are called “historiated initials”. In this selection from the famed Lindisfarne Gospels (BL Cotton MS Nero D IV), the elaborate Greek letters chi and rho take up much of the page. Initials are often highly-detailed and elaborately-decorated. They can be larger than the surrounding text as well as larger or smaller than other initials the size of the letter starting a paragraph or section can be taken to indicate that section’s importance relative to other sections. Also note that some lines are completely in red ink. Larger, colored initials set off the beginnings of different sections in this manuscript page. In fact, quite a few modern-day fonts have their origins in the world of manuscripts. ![]() They divided up the text, making it easier to read and indicating where important sections began and ended. There are many different ways that initials can be differentiated from each other. They may be in different colored ink than the surrounding text, or they can be written in different styles of lettering. In medieval manuscripts, capital letters, termed “initials”, often served functions similar to line breaks, chapters, or subheadings. Today, I want to take a look at capital letters in manuscripts. ![]() ![]() Decorated initial ‘S'(anctissimo) at the beginning of Bede’s life of Cuthbert.
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