Trialing Bookhands
Last updated
Last updated
The folios in Carleton's collection are usually examples of book hands - i.e. scripts that were developed for legibility and were copied with as much consistency as a trained scribe could. We will not attain the skill and fluidity of these professional copyists, but rather our intention is to try to reproduce the script contained in your folios, by breaking down each letter into a series of strokes and movements.
The goal in this exercise is to acclimate your eyes to recognize the basic script types, allow you to indentify variations from the norm and ultimately to appreciate the skill shown by medieval scribes.
Find your folio's script in the chart below!
writing instrument (quill pen previously made, or modern calligraphy pen)
ink
scrap paper (best if ruled in advance);
the writing surface can be the folio previously ruled in the former assignment
In advance of class, look through David Harris' The Art of Calligraphy, posted on Perusall. It contains examples of different historical scripts and breaks down letters into strokes, movements and instructions on how to hold the pen. This guide provides several major hands from Late Antiquity to Early Modernity. Given the later nedieval/ early modern time period of our folios (14th century and later), your should be able to identify the hand of your manuscript folio in the major hands depicted in the later parts of the book (p. 50 et sqq).
By looking through the different scripts, try to find the bookhand which best matches your folio. The earliest dateable folios will be more typically Gothic. The later (and usually larger) liturgical folios will likely be a form of Rotunda (p. 84). Charters are usually written in legal hands (aka documentary or chancellery hands, which are slightly different than bookhands), so the closest will likely resemble the "Secretary" hand.
Scan the scripts in David Harris' The Art of Calligraphy to identify what seems like the best visual match. Your first step will be to use your gut - find the script which feels like the best match. Have an image of your folio and the pdf open side by side so that you can scan back and forth and compare.
The next stage will be more less impressionistic and more evidential. Compare the individual letter forms presented by Harris with those in your folio - you may wish to first make a digital table (for an example of what I mean, see below) in which you have copied an image of each letter (A-Z, as much as possible) in the alphabet from your digitized folio. Some letters (e.g. "s" and "r") might have more than one form as a miniscule/lower case letter as well as different forms as majascule/ upper case letters.
Your next stage is to write down on what basis you make your script identification. The Oxford Handbook to Latin Palaeography (see Perusall) is a definitive guide, but Albert Derolez's densely supported and illustrated The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books: From the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century (posted on Teams) will also be of considerable help in identifying the minutiae of bookhands.
Harris provides only the major exemplars, so your folio will likely demonstrate minor differences arising from temporal or regional variation. After you identify the closest match for your script in Harris, note/list the minor variations you are able to view- are there specific letter forms which are different in your folio than the model? (i.e. are the "g's typically dissimilar). Or are there special additions (curlicues or ornamentation that are added to the basic letter form)? This list of differences that you are able to identify will help give more precision to the dating and location of the script (and will make up the description of the script in our catalogue).
In the Book Arts lab, your goal will be to practice the script you have identified in your folio. David Harris's text provides the steps necessary to produce basic forms, but you may need to experiment somewhat to modify this suggestions to reproduce your particular script.
Your first step should be to write out an alphabet of miniscule/ lower case letters in the style of your folio's script on scrap paper. You can rule out a table if you prefer, but it is perhaps best if, at minimum, you have ruled two lines for each letter in order to demarcate the top and bottom of a minim (see image below for terminology).
After you have trialed an alphabet (remember, perfection is not necessary), attempt to reproduce the size of your folio's. This may require altering the size your nib (with a knife if you are using a quill pen, or changing pens if otherwise).
Once you are confidant that you have a rough idea of how to reproduce your script, try to copy out the lines of your transcription onto your pre-ruled folio.
