Script Type : minuscule
Script Family : Gothic bastarda
Date : late 15th century
Location : England
Function : Document hand or charter hand
Distinctive letters : A colleague once criticised that my palaeography examples are all show ponies, with beautiful scripts photographed under ideal conditions, and do not represent what you actually find in the record offices. Well, this one was photographed by me standing on a chair in the Nottinghamshire Archives under fluorescent lights and with fairly ordinary camera equipment. Any difficulties you find with reading it are the kind you find in the real world of archives.
The script is a chancery hand derived from bastarda, in a fairly cursive style. The ascenders of letters like b, d, h and l tend to be loopy, although there is an alternative form of d with a strongly backsloping ascender. The letter s is tall. The descender of q curls to the left, making it look a bit like a g. The letter w, as usual, is large but not especially elaborate. The letter r is quite variable; two examples are given above. The letters n, u and v are indistinguishable, giving rise to the possibility of alternative transcriptions and endless arguments.
There are no examples of j or x.
The language is English, but the spelling might have you tricked in places. Pass the cursor slowly along the first few lines of text and see if it looks like that to you.To find out more about it, proceed to the paleography exercises.
Note: I have changed the date of this document here from the early 16th century to the late 15th century on the basis of information given to me by a historian, Nathaniel Taylor. To find out more, proceed to the paleography exercises.
Script
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