Medieval manuscripts letter g5/7/2023 The second example shown here is an Anglicana Formata with some traits from Textura, especially in the letter 'd', and in the way the minims have been carefully finished.ĭetail from Speculum Vitae, WLC/LM/9, f. Here are two examples from fifteenth-century manuscripts in the Wollaton Library Collection. In particular, ascenders and descenders are shorter and less exaggerated and the script looks solid and square. It was used for copying books and shows letter forms which are uniform and separate. 'Anglicana Formata' is the most formal of these. Like Textura, Anglicana also developed different varieties. At this date, this script is also characterised by hooks and flourishes. ![]() For instance, a long-tailed 'r' with the descender reaching below the line of writing (as seen in the second word, 'seruant'), and a long 's' which also extends below the writing line (as seen in the word 'ssame' at the end of the second line. One of the most striking differences from Textura is how many letters extend above or below the writing line. This fragment from the South English Legendary, written in the early fourteenth century, is in Anglicana. A variety of Anglicana continued to be used as a legal hand as late as the eighteenth century. The cursive form 'Anglicana' developed in England from Textura to become the most widely-used book hand of the later Middle Ages in Britain and northern France. It first appears in documents in around 1260, and is the script most often used in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for the copying of English literary texts (especially the manuscripts of works of Chaucer and Langland). They gradually became used for the speedier and more efficient copying of literary texts too. 207rĬursive scripts were developed for business use such as the copying of documents and letters. An excellent example of the use of Textura as a display script in a high-quality book is provided by the Wollaton Antiphonal, which was probably written in the 1430s.ĭetail from the Wollaton Antiphonal, MS 250, f. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it became increasingly associated with liturgical or devotional manuscripts, or luxury books of a secular nature, as a display script. This is seen more frequently in 'Anglicana' hands.Īfter the thirteenth century Textura was seldom used to copy literary manuscripts containing texts in English. ![]() In the example below, from the mid-thirteenth century, the letter 'g' is formed like the number '8'. This was the least formal type of Textura. The 'rotunda' form of Textura has minims with rounded or curved feet formed through the natural upward movement of the pen nib. The top stroke of the letter 'a' is open, which is not a characteristic of true Textura Quatrata. Note the diamond shapes at the end of the lines and, less clearly, at the foot of letters. The script is very regular and used for good quality books. Quadrata is the 'high-Gothic' variety of Textura, which is characterised by the consistent use of diamond-shaped feet on 'minim' letters made up of vertical strokes (such as i, m, n, u). The example below is a Textura Quadrata hand, written c.1250-1300. ![]() Letter forms are kept separate from one another, and when well spaced give an appearance of formality and neatness. There are various different forms of Textura, usually characterised by the way in which scribes formed the bottom of their letters. It is not a cursive hand, and is instead characterised by an upright appearance, and the use of separate strokes to form letters, which required the frequent raising or lifting of the nib from the writing surface. Sometimes called Gothic Book Hand or Black Letter, this was the most enduring script of the Middle Ages and was in use from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. Many hands are made up of a mixture of characteristics from different styles. They were first developed for the speedy copying of official documents or records, but gradually became used for copying other types of text. Cursive scripts contain letter forms made with as few strokes of the pen as possible. However, the most significant development in script in the English Middle Ages was the evolution of cursive hands which made the process of writing quicker and more efficient. Well-separated letters were their principal characteristic. At the beginning of the medieval period, scribes used 'set' scripts, which were very formal and tidy. The scripts favoured by English scribes evolved and changed over time.
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