Palaeography

Palaeography (British) or paleography (American) (from the Greek palaiós, "old" and graphein, "to write") is the study of ancient and medieval manuscripts, independent of the language (Koine Greek, Classical Latin, Medieval Latin, Old English, etc.) In a more general sense, palaeography is the practice of reading manuscript text, and of learning how to do so.

Palaeography is in many ways a prerequisite for philology, and it encounters two main difficulties: firstly, since the style of a single alphabet has changed constantly (Carolingian minuscule, Gothic, etc.), it is necessary to know how to decipher the characters that constitute a manuscript. Secondly, these manuscripts carry by necessity many abbreviations for the purpose of saving space — since each page was made from the skin of one sheep, one had to have a sizable flock just to produce a Bible, even an abridged one. The palaeographer must thus know the relevant abbreviations. The & sign, for example, originated from one of these abbreviations, as did the tilde.

This information, about the characters and the abbreviations, permits the palaegrapher to transcribe the document, that is, to produce a modern edition, reestablishing the abbreviations. This task is particularly important for transcribing texts in Latin, because the abbreviations frequently occur at the ends of words, and the declension of the Latin noun requires the usage of different endings.

History of latin script

Ancient paleography

Medieval paleography

When the Roman empire collapsed in the 4th century, Europe was taken over by mostly illiterate Germanic peoples; the Ostrogoths ruled Italy, the Visigoths took over Spain and southern France, the Franks settled in central and northern France and the Anglo-Saxons overran the Celts in Great Britain. The Catholic church took on the task of converting the Germanic tribes to Christianity and educating them, and over time developed regional Roman-based, but unique, system of handwriting. These developed into the so called National Hands of Spain (Visigothic script), Italy (Beneventan script), France, and the British Isles (Insular script).

Prior to the time of Charlemagne several parts of Europe even had their own handwriting style. His rule over a large part of the continent provided an opportunity to unify these writing styles in the hand called Carolingian minuscule. To over-simplify, the only scripts to escape this modernization were the Visigothic (or Mozarabic), which survived into the twelfth or thirteenth century, the Beneventan, which was still being written in the middle of the sixteenth century, and the one that continues to be used in traditional Irish handwriting, which has been in severe decline since the early 20th century and is now almost extinct. The printed form was abolished by the Irish government in the 1950s.

In the 12th century the Carolingian minuscule change its appearance to bold and broken letter forms, the Textura (blackletter). This style remained predominant with some regional variants (Rotunda) until the 15th century when the humanistic scripts rivived Carolingian minuscule and spread from italian renaissance all over Europe.

Modern paleography

These humanistic scripts are the base for the antiqua and the handwriting forms in western and southern Europe. In Germany and Austria, the Kurrentschrift rooted in the cursive handwriting of the later Middle Ages. With the name of the calligrapher Ludwig Sütterlin this handwriting counterpart to the blackletter typefaces was abolished by Hitler in 1941. After World War II it was taught as alternative script in schools only in some areas until the 1970s; it is no longer being taught.

External links

*Palaeography: reading old handwriting 1500 - 1800: A practical online tutorial, from the National Archives (UK)
*A comprehensive survey of all the important aspects of medieval palæography.
*A scholarly maintained web directory on paleography
*Online Tuition in the Palaeography of Scottish Documents 1500-1750
*An introduction to Greek and Latin palaeography by Thompson, Edward Maunde - Outdated (published 1912) but good and useful illustrated handbook, available as Faksimile.
*A type foundry specialising in authentic reproductions of historical handwriting
*Free paleographical fonts

Palaeography: Encyclopedia BETA

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