- Paleography: the study of the script
- Codicology: the study of the manuscript as an physical object
- Material: parchment, paper, animal skin? Vellum (calfskin)?
- Binding: how is the book put together?
- Quire structure and folia: not single sheets
- Dimensions of the codex: how big is it?
- Illuminations, initials, and rubrication: how is the text decorated, lists of content.
- Material traces: user’s marks, smudges?
- Deciphering, reading, solving abbreviations, transcribing, and understanding historical
handwritten texts: figure out where it came from
- Dating and localising: situating a document in time and space
- Distinguishing hands: identifying different hands within one text and assigning multiple text
to a scribe
- Critical authentication: detecting and determining forgeries or false friends.
- Difficulties: scribes can adapt their handwriting over the years, or they don’t adapt at all.
Scribes can move from place to place. Some scripts occur at different moments in different
regions.
- Manuscript: a handwritten book; also known as a codex.
- Script: a particular form or style of handwriting. Miniscule etc.
- Scribe: a person who writes a text (not the author)
- Hand: the script or style of writing of an individual scribe.
- Majuscule: all letters are of the same height, written between two imaginative lines
(capital/uppercase letters)
- Minuscule: written between four imaginative lines, with ascenders and descenders (lowercase
letters)
- Headline: things go above the line. Baseline: things go underneath.
- Writing angle: the angle between the widest pen-stroke and the base line
- Minims (poot): short vertical strokes between the headline and the baseline: like in i, m, n, u/v.
They are all the same height.
- Serifs:
- Ascender: l,k
- Descender: tail, p,q
- Head-stroke: T, dakstreep
- Bar: A, H, dwarsstreep
- Cross-stroke: N, schuinbalk
- Arms: E, F, L
- Lobe, bow: p, b, q, d
- Limb: h
- Shoulder: r
- Hair and broad strokes: thick and thin lines, result of writing with a brush.
- Ligatures: two or more letters are joined to form a single mark. Often fusion of the ascenders
S and F with a following letter. Letters that touch each other. Biting: letters share vertical pen
stroke.
- Calligraphic: book-script, broad quill, various elements (lifting the pen), slow, broad and hair
strokes
- Cursive: everyday script, finer quill, letters are a unit (not lifting the pen), consistent thickness,
fast
- Ancient roman script: before 500
, - Capitalis Quadrata: carved on stone, monumental inscriptions, grooves of equal width, serifs,
straight lines, high status
- Capitalis Rustica: book script from 100 AD. Taller and more narrow than square, no space
between words, sometimes use of dots to separate words, no bar in A; E, F, T, L have short
arms, some letters higher than others L, F. No biblical text.
- Capitalis Cursiva: majuscule, 3rd century. Administrative, long-lived, limited surviving
evidence.
- Codicology: the study of the manuscript as an physical object
- Material: parchment, paper, animal skin? Vellum (calfskin)?
- Binding: how is the book put together?
- Quire structure and folia: not single sheets
- Dimensions of the codex: how big is it?
- Illuminations, initials, and rubrication: how is the text decorated, lists of content.
- Material traces: user’s marks, smudges?
- Deciphering, reading, solving abbreviations, transcribing, and understanding historical
handwritten texts: figure out where it came from
- Dating and localising: situating a document in time and space
- Distinguishing hands: identifying different hands within one text and assigning multiple text
to a scribe
- Critical authentication: detecting and determining forgeries or false friends.
- Difficulties: scribes can adapt their handwriting over the years, or they don’t adapt at all.
Scribes can move from place to place. Some scripts occur at different moments in different
regions.
- Manuscript: a handwritten book; also known as a codex.
- Script: a particular form or style of handwriting. Miniscule etc.
- Scribe: a person who writes a text (not the author)
- Hand: the script or style of writing of an individual scribe.
- Majuscule: all letters are of the same height, written between two imaginative lines
(capital/uppercase letters)
- Minuscule: written between four imaginative lines, with ascenders and descenders (lowercase
letters)
- Headline: things go above the line. Baseline: things go underneath.
- Writing angle: the angle between the widest pen-stroke and the base line
- Minims (poot): short vertical strokes between the headline and the baseline: like in i, m, n, u/v.
They are all the same height.
- Serifs:
- Ascender: l,k
- Descender: tail, p,q
- Head-stroke: T, dakstreep
- Bar: A, H, dwarsstreep
- Cross-stroke: N, schuinbalk
- Arms: E, F, L
- Lobe, bow: p, b, q, d
- Limb: h
- Shoulder: r
- Hair and broad strokes: thick and thin lines, result of writing with a brush.
- Ligatures: two or more letters are joined to form a single mark. Often fusion of the ascenders
S and F with a following letter. Letters that touch each other. Biting: letters share vertical pen
stroke.
- Calligraphic: book-script, broad quill, various elements (lifting the pen), slow, broad and hair
strokes
- Cursive: everyday script, finer quill, letters are a unit (not lifting the pen), consistent thickness,
fast
- Ancient roman script: before 500
, - Capitalis Quadrata: carved on stone, monumental inscriptions, grooves of equal width, serifs,
straight lines, high status
- Capitalis Rustica: book script from 100 AD. Taller and more narrow than square, no space
between words, sometimes use of dots to separate words, no bar in A; E, F, T, L have short
arms, some letters higher than others L, F. No biblical text.
- Capitalis Cursiva: majuscule, 3rd century. Administrative, long-lived, limited surviving
evidence.
