Rustic Capitals |
Script Type : majuscule Date : Early Roman (1st century AD) in origin, used in various forms until around 12th century. Location : Roman Empire Function : Originally a formal book hand, mainly used in the early medieval era for display headings. |
Example, from the early 8th century Vespasian Psalter (British Library, Cotton Vespasian A1, f.6), by permission of the British Library. |
This section shows the use of rustic capitals for a full page of text. The example shows only the bottom segment of the page. This section is from the introductory commentary to the psalter which was produced at St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury. The script of the psalms themselves is uncial. |
Pass cursor over letters to see enlarged examples taken from the photograph above. |
Distinctive letters : Letters such as M, N, L and A have slight curves to their straight lines. U is rounded. A has no crossbar. M, N and U have curved descending embellishments. The letters K and Y are not commonly found in Latin but here appear in proper nouns indicating exotic peoples. There are no examples visible of J, V, W or Z. Pass the cursor slowly over the first few lines to see what is written. For a more detailed examination, proceed to the paleography exercises. |
A complete transcript of the Vespasian Psalter is avaialble in Kuhn, S.M. (ed.) 1965 The Vespasian Psalter Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press |
Paleography exercises using Flash Requires at least Flash 5 plugin |
Script Index |
What is Paleography? |
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