![Merovingian script sample from an evangelary internally dated to AD 754, from F. Steffens's Lateinische Palaographie (1929): ego hacse jnperitus gundohinus poscen- / te fulculfo monacho et si non ut dibui / psaltjm ut ualui a capite usque ad sui con[summacionis finem...] Merov2.jpg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/Merov2.jpg/525px-Merov2.jpg)
Merovingian script or Gallo-Roman script (Latin : Scriptura Merovingica/Francogallica) was a medieval variant of the Latin script so called because it was developed in Gaul during the Merovingian dynasty. It was used in the 7th and 8th centuries before the Carolingian dynasty and the development of Carolingian minuscule.
There were four major centres of Merovingian script: the monasteries of Luxeuil, Laon, Corbie, and Chelles. Each script developed from uncial, half-uncial, and the Merovingian charter scripts.
The Luxeuil type uses distinctive long, slim capital letters as a display script. These capitals have wedge-shaped finials, and the crossbar of ⟨a⟩ resembles a small letter ⟨v⟩ while that of ⟨h⟩ is a wavy line. The letter ⟨o⟩ is often written as a diamond shape, with a smaller ⟨o⟩ written inside. The letter ⟨a⟩ resembles two ⟨c⟩s ("cc"), and because of this distinctive feature the Luxeuil type is sometimes called "a type". [1] The letter ⟨b⟩ often has an open bowl and an arm connecting it to the following letter, the letter ⟨d⟩ can have either a vertical ascender or an ascender slanted to the left; ⟨i⟩ is often very tall, resembling l; ⟨n⟩ can be written with an uncial form (similar to a capital ⟨N⟩); ⟨o⟩ is often drop-shaped and has a line connecting it to the next letter; and ⟨t⟩ has a loop extending to the left of its top stroke. The letter ⟨t⟩ is also used in numerous ligatures where it has many other forms. The letters ⟨e⟩ and ⟨r⟩ are also quite often found in ligature.
The Laon type has thicker display capitals than the Luxeuil type. Capital initial letters are often decorated with animals, and there are many ligatures with the letter ⟨i⟩. Like Visigothic script, there are two different ⟨ti⟩ ligatures, representing two different sounds ("hard" and "soft"). The letters ⟨d⟩ and ⟨q⟩ often have open bowls. The letter a is unique, resembling two sharp points ("<<"), and the letter ⟨z⟩, uncommon in Latin, is nevertheless very distinctive in the Laon type, with a flourish projecting upwards to the left, above the line. Because of these features, Laon type is sometimes called "a-z type".
The Corbie type as used in the 8th century, was based on uncial and the Luxeuil type, but was also similar to half-uncial and insular script, with elements of Roman cursive. It is sometimes called "eN-type", as the letter ⟨e⟩ has a high, open upper loop, and the uncial form of the letter ⟨n⟩ (resembling majuscule ⟨N⟩) is very frequently used. After the mid-8th century, the letter (a) also has an open loop and resembles the letter ⟨u⟩; this type is referred to as "eNa-type". A more distinctive type was developed at Corbie in the 9th century, the "a-b type". The letter ⟨b⟩ is similar to Luxeuil type, but the letter ⟨a⟩ has a straight first stroke, resembling a combination of ⟨i⟩ and ⟨c⟩. This type was used from the end of the 8th century until the mid-9th century. The Liber glossarum, a major medieval reference work, was written in the "a-b type" script of Corbie.
The Chelles type was similar to the Luxeuil a-b type. Other features include the uncial ⟨N⟩, with strokes leaning to the left; the letter d with an ascender leaning to the left; the letter ⟨g⟩ with a descender resembling the letter ⟨s⟩; the letter ⟨s⟩ with a very small top loop; and the letter ⟨x⟩ with the two strokes crossing near the top of the line rather than the middle.
There was also a Merovingian cursive script, used in charters and non-religious writings. All of these types were later influenced by Carolingian script, which eventually replaced it entirely. Along with resemblances to Carolingian and Visigothic, Merovingian shares some features with Beneventan script.
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Its name in English is a, plural aes. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type.
The Cyrillic script is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia and is used as the national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia.
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language and its extensions used to write modern languages.
Palaeography (UK) or paleography is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysis of historic handwriting. It is concerned with the forms and processes of writing; not the textual content of documents. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of scriptoria.
Penmanship is the technique of writing with the hand using a writing instrument. Today, this is most commonly done with a pen, or pencil, but throughout history has included many different implements. The various generic and formal historical styles of writing are called "hands" while an individual's style of penmanship is referred to as "handwriting".
Uncial is a majuscule script commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek, Latin, and Gothic.
Carolingian minuscule or Caroline minuscule is a script which developed as a calligraphic standard in Europe so that the Latin alphabet of Jerome's Vulgate Bible could be easily recognized by the literate class from one region to another. It is thought to have originated before AD 778 at the scriptorium of the Benedictine monks of Corbie Abbey, and then developed by Alcuin of York for wide use in the Carolingian Renaissance. However, the script Alcuin wrote was still not the Carolingian minuscule, which slowly developed over three centuries. He was most likely responsible for copying and preserving the manuscripts and upkeep of the script. It was used in the Holy Roman Empire between approximately 800 and 1200. Codices, pagan and Christian texts, and educational material were written in Carolingian minuscule.
Cursive is any style of penmanship in which some characters are written joined together in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. Cursive handwriting is very functional, and is intended to be used in everyday writing. In addition, it is also used in art and calligraphy hand-lettering. Formal cursive is generally joined, but casual cursive is a combination of joins and pen lifts. The writing style can be further divided as "looped", "italic" or "connected".
Blackletter, also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish language until 1875, and for German, Estonian and Latvian until the 1940s. Fraktur is a notable script of this type, and sometimes the entire group of blackletter faces is incorrectly referred to as Fraktur. Blackletter is sometimes referred to as Old English, but it is not to be confused with the Old English language, which predates blackletter by many centuries and was written in the insular script or in Futhorc. Along with Italic type and Roman type, it served as one of the major typefaces in the history of Western typography.
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals and smaller lowercase in the written representation of certain languages. The writing systems that distinguish between the upper and lowercase have two parallel sets of letters, with each letter in one set usually having an equivalent in the other set. The two case variants are alternative representations of the same letter: they have the same name and pronunciation and are treated identically when sorting in alphabetical order.
Roman square capitals, also called capitalis monumentalis, inscriptional capitals, elegant capitals and capitalis quadrata, are an ancient Roman form of writing, and the basis for modern capital letters.
Roman cursive is a form of handwriting used in ancient Rome and to some extent into the Middle Ages. It is customarily divided into old cursive and new cursive.
Scribal abbreviations or sigla are the abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek, Old English and Old Norse. In modern manuscript editing sigla are the symbols used to indicate the source manuscript and to identify the copyists of a work. See Critical apparatus.
Insular script was a medieval script system invented in Ireland that spread to Anglo-Saxon England and continental Europe under the influence of Irish Christianity. Irish missionaries took the script to continental Europe, where they founded monasteries such as Bobbio. The scripts were also used in monasteries like Fulda, which were influenced by English missionaries. They are associated with insular art, of which most surviving examples are illuminated manuscripts. It greatly influenced Irish orthography and modern Gaelic scripts in handwriting and typefaces.
Visigothic script was a type of medieval script that originated in the Visigothic kingdom in Hispania. Its more limiting alternative designations littera toletana and littera mozarabica associate it with scriptoria specifically in Toledo and with Mozarabic culture more generally, respectively.
The beneventan script was a medieval script which originated in the Duchy of Benevento in southern Italy. It was also called Langobarda, Longobarda, Longobardisca, or sometimes Gothica; it was first called Beneventan by palaeographer E. A. Lowe.
Cursive Hebrew is a collective designation for several styles of handwriting the Hebrew alphabet. Modern Hebrew, especially in informal use in Israel, is handwritten with the Ashkenazi cursive script that had developed in Central Europe by the 13th century. This is also a mainstay of handwritten Yiddish. It was preceded by a Sephardi cursive script, known as Solitreo, that is still used for Ladino.
The Latin script is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. It is the standard script of the English language and is often referred to simply as "the alphabet" in English. It is a true alphabet which originated in the 7th century BC in Italy and has changed continually over the last 2,500 years. It has roots in the Semitic alphabet and its offshoot alphabets, the Phoenician, Greek, and Etruscan. The phonetic values of some letters changed, some letters were lost and gained, and several writing styles ("hands") developed. Two such styles, the minuscule and majuscule hands, were combined into one script with alternate forms for the lower and upper case letters. Due to classicism, modern uppercase letters differ only slightly from their classical counterparts. There are few regional variants.
Greek minuscule was a Greek writing style which was developed as a book hand in Byzantine manuscripts during the 9th and 10th centuries. It replaced the earlier style of uncial writing, from which it differed in using smaller, more rounded and more connected letter forms, and in using many ligatures. Many of these forms had previously developed as parts of more informal cursive writing. The basic letter shapes used in the minuscule script are the ancestors of modern lower case Greek letters.
Long i, written ⟨ꟾ⟩, is a variant of the letter i found in ancient and early medieval forms of the Latin script.
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