Deciphering Handwriting I: Ancient Rome through Medieval Period

Even when I was a kid, other people’s handwriting fascinated me. I loved my mom’s capital Ls, the way one of my classmates made a lowercase s. My own handwriting struggles to match speed of thought, with the endings of words fading to scribbles and the overall effect I have described as “daggerlike” and “drunk Victorian man.” The experience of working in archives has shown me the handwriting of thousands of people, showing not only their personalities and the physicality of their hands moving across pages, but also the culture and technology of handwriting in their time. Orthography is the set of norms regarding letter forms, spelling, and punctuation, and paleography is the study of historic writing systems (not their content), the dating of manuscripts based on handwriting, and the deciphering of handwritten words from times past. 

This post is the first in a series on understanding and deciphering handwriting. In this introduction, I will cover key terminology in orthography and paleography and the origins of handwriting styles originating in Europe. Future posts will highlight particular handwriting systems or movements, and describe common challenges to reading documents written in the past under different handwriting norms than we use today.

In orthographic terms, that  capital L of my mom’s is a majuscule and a lowercase letter is a miniscule. Different handwriting systems dictate different relationships between majuscule and miniscule size and scale, as well as norms regarding ascenders – the parts of a letter that ascend above the centerline of the letter, like the top vertical line of a miniscule d – and descenders – the parts of a letter that descend below the baseline of a letter, such as the loop or hook of a miniscule g.

The ancient Romans wrote entirely in majuscule, as you can see from reading an ancient monument with Latin text. The Romans also used small dots between words in lieu of spaces. Any script or font face based on Latin letters is still called a “roman” script. The long arm of ancient Rome’s influence extends to the font Times New Roman and the continued use of majuscule on monuments and buildings. Latin calligraphic script, called “rustic” or “canonized capitals,” was also entirely majuscule. Throughout the medieval period, several handwriting systems evolved which wrote entirely in majuscule or minuscule.

The practices of religious document production and manuscript illumination in early Christian religious communities created a corpus of documents showing us the evolution of new writing styles. From about 400 to 800 AD, the rounded, majuscule uncial (pronounced UHN-shull) style evolved. Usually this style was used for Greek and Latin manuscripts. Because this style was so widespread, many variations emerged, including the insular style, which refers to the writing in the regions which now make up the United Kingdom. The Book of Kells, created in Ireland and Scotland around the turn of the ninth century, is probably the most famous example of the insular style.

Toward the end of the uncial period, a minuscule style came into use in mainland Europe. The Carolingian minuscule script evolved to improve literacy between regions. “Carolingian” refers to the dynasty of Frankish rulers who ruled in this period, most famously Charlemagne (in Latin, Carolus). Carolingian script still exhibits the rounded character (and characters!) of uncial script. The later humanist minuscule and blackletter scripts are derivatives from Carolingian, which was in use from the end of the eighth century, with the ascent of Charlemagne, to around the 1200.

Blackletter script emerged ca. 1150 as a less labor-intensive alternative to Carolongian, and was in use throughout the early modern period to around the 1500s in western Europe, but lasted in northern and eastern Europe through at least the 1870s. It was used in printing as well, and there are examples of Austrian newspapers still using blackletter-like type through the turn of the twentieth century! A southern European script similar to blackletter scripts in use in the late medieval/early modern period was Rotonda, and a northeastern European blackletter script used in France, Burgundian Netherlands, and Germany was called Bastarda. “Fraktur,” “Textura,” “Gothic bookhand” are some other names associated with this style. If you are interested in this style of writing, I recommend checking out Kelly Draper’s blog post on Fraktur Basics.

An example of blackletter type used in an English royal proclamation, 1715. Note that the name of the accused, Jacobite leader Sir William Wyndam, has been added later, using a roman-style type face. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

From the explosion of new ideas and technologies of the Renaissance sprang forth numerous handwriting styles, each reflecting different purposes and priorities. My webinar on Deciphering Handwriting covers the material here and what I will talk about next. The next post in this series will discuss the development of type faces alongside handwriting styles in Europe through the Renaissance and Enlightenment.