Angela Andreani

Introducing Palaeography

What is palaeography

• Palaeography is the study of ancient writing

• It is concerned with different aspects of the writing phenomenon, and it encompasses different levels of analysis

Paper strip in the ancient Indic script Kharoshtī (2nd-5th c.); A scroll of the Book of Esther (Seville, Spain); Sumerian cuneiform script on a clay tablet (2400–2200 BC)

What is palaeography

• The decoding process which allows reading, i.e. deciphering, older writing systems;

• The history of handwriting itself, and how its changes and developments may reflect historical and social changes;

• As a science it can be used for historical tracing, identify local script styles or individual scribal hands, since it analyses the precise mode of delineation of letters.

Terminology: majuscule and minuscule

• Majuscule, or two-line script, identifies letters comprised within two imaginary parallel lines

• Minuscle, or four-line script, identifies letters presenting ascenders, like <b> or descenders, like <g> as shown in the image

Terminology: upper case and lower case

• The definitions upper case and lower case are used to refer to the types in printed books (and not letters in manuscripts). The term ‘case’ indicates the drawers called ‘type cases’ used for letterpress printing

Combined case with majuscules above minuscules and 18th century press letters

Terminology: scripts• The term script is used by palaeographers to

indicate a distinctive style of writing, like the anglicana or the uncial

• Book or text script indicates scripts in which letters are formed separately, with few ligatures and many individual ducts for letters (typically roman scripts)Examples of common ligatures

used to combine multiple letters

Terminology: scripts

• In Cursive scripts the hand is seldom lifted from the page. Letters present ligatures and continuous ducts

• A further subdivision among cursive scripts may be drawn between set (more calligraphic) and free (more idiosyncratic and difficult to read) styles

• Distinction are not always clear: in some cases there might virtually be no difference between scripts, and in some others bastard styles evolve out of a mixture of the two styles. However, these terms are useful for their descriptive function

Book script Cursive script

Older scripts in England

• Uncial – a majuscule script commonly used from the 3rd to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Letters are disconnected from one another, and word separation is typically not used:

• This script is found for instance in the Vespasian Psalter (8th century). Click the link to view an image of the manuscript at the British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts:http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/TourPopup.asp?

TourID=3

Older scripts in England• Half-Uncial – it was brought to Ireland in the 5th

century, and it then spread to England where it was used up to the 8th century. After the 8th century it developed into the insular script

• It is the script of the Book of Kells (8th/9th c., in the image) and of the Lindisfarne Gospels (7th/8th c.)

Older scripts in England• Insular scripts – these

are the scripts of the great works of Old English literature of the 10th century, like the Exeter Book (10th century); Vercelli Book (10th century); Ms Cotton Vitellius A xv (11th century, the manuscript in which Beowulf is preserved, (see image) and Ms Junius 11 (11th century)

More on insular scripts

• Insular scripts became a sort of national ‘trademark’, to the extent that the spread of Continental scripts in England brought about the coexistence of a set of alternative, and somehow competing scripts, so for instance the Caroline or Carolingian script (image 1), of Continental origin was preferred for works in Latin, whereas the insular scripts (image 2) would be favoured for works in English:

Older scripts in England

1)

2)

Older scripts in England

• The 12th and 13th centuries mark a period of considerable cultural and political change, as a consequence of both the Norman Conquest (1066) and the progressive laicisation of culture

• Perhaps favoured by the need to speed up the process of writing, cursive scripts become more and more popular, and from this moment on, scripts generally present two variants: bookhand and cursive (cf. Lat. cursivo, ‘running’)

Older scripts in England

• The different kinds of script in use in the later Middle Ages and Early Modern England may be grouped into two major subdivisions:– Anglicana (closely connected to the Gothic

script) and– Secretary (of uncertain origin)

• Connected to the spread of Humanism in Europe, the Italic (from Italy) script began to spread in England in the later Middle Ages

Older scripts: a comparison

FOCUS ON SCRIPTS

•Which of the above are (mainly) majuscule scripts and which are minuscules?•Compare letters <a> and <g> in the scripts above and identify similarities and differences.•What can you say of the ascenders and discenders in letter <d> and <f>?•Find examples of manuscripts in each of the above scripts (you can start from these links in slide n. 18)

Resources and reference• Websites– http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/439491/

paleography palaeography at the Encyclopaedia Britannica

– http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/scripts/letters/historya.htm provides a rich repository of images, and examples of individual letters

• Tutorials and courses– http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/

online tutorial from the National Archives focusing on English hands 1500-1800

– http://www.history.ac.uk/research-training/courses/online-palaeography free online course from the University of London’s School of Advanced Studies

Resources and reference

• Palaeography in UK’s Higher Education– The website of the London Palaeography

Summer School: http://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/london-palaeography-summer-school

– More resources at the University of Dundee: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/archives/palaeography.htm

– John Crace’s interesting article from The Guardian, why palaeography matters: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/feb/09/writing-off-last-palaeographer-university

Resources and reference

• Selection of digital images and projects– http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html

turning the pages at the British Library– The British Library catalogue of illuminated

manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/TourPopup.asp?TourID=3

– Early Manuscripts at Oxford University http://image.ox.ac.uk/

– The rich collection of the Digital Scriptorium http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/digitalscriptorium/

Resources and reference

• In print– Brown, M. P., The British Library Guide to Writing

and Scripts, London & Toronto: British Library & Toronto University Press, 1998

– Cappelli, A., Lexicon abbreviaturarum, Milan: Hoepli, 1954

– Parkes, M., English Cursive Book Hands, 1250-1500, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980

– Roberts, J., Guide to Scripts Used in English Writing up to 1500, London and Toronto: British Library and Toronto University Press, 2005