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Secretary Scripts
This is essentially just the typed up version of what I say during this class, so if you have any questions (especially since you won't be able to sit in on the "lets discuss these scripts and analyze everything about them" portion of the class, feel free to contact me :)
Here is the handout: .docx, .pdf
So today we'll be talking about secretary scripts. We're not really walking through a script in particular, but I do hope to give you the tools to analyze period exemplars to pick them apart, or at least understand why Drogin and Harris's Art of Calligraphy and Harris's Calligrapher's Bible EACH have different versions of "Secretary" script and even some of the earlier period versions of document hands. When we think of secretary scripts, the first thing that many calligraphers jump to are scripts like batarde. These are the later period scripts on your handout, but first, we're going to go back a little further. Well, a lot further.
Note: While script classification gets REALLY dicey the closer you look, we're going to use some of these blanket terms today just to get a feel for classification but with the disclaimer that they aren't always the most accurate representation.
Your two biggest categories of scripts are book hands and document hands. Book hands are what you would see in liturgical books, fancy books, that sort of thing. Document hands, while not only relegated to literal documents, tended to be less formal and faster to write. One of the best examples of the beginning of this differentiation is with insular. Before that, you had the uncial scripts and the only difference between book uncial and document uncial is pretty much that book uncial was very measured and document uncial was written faster -- so like a scroll I've worked on for 2 months versus a scroll I'm told about 5 minutes before court. Insular? Not so much. Lindisfarne Gospel gives us a great example of both insular majuscule and insular minuscule (at this point majuscule/minuscle were being used to differentiate book vs document, not capital vs lowercase, but that is a whole other discussion).
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Insular majuscule is the big, bold primary script. This was the book hand. It's gorgeous, but NOT fast to write. The Old English gloss in between the Latin is insular minuscule. This is your document hand. Not as pretty, but super fast. There were books made with this script, but this is a nice side-by-side example.
Carolingian minuscule is another earlier example.
(Click to enlarge)
It arose out of a reform to make handwriting easier to read. It started in the 8th c. but was standard well into the 11th c., though its use persisted even post-period and it influenced a lot of other scripts including Visigothic and Humanist. During this time, a lot of scripts and book hands came and went, but Carolingian was a standard hand -- both as a document hand and a book hand. Especially when using quill and parchment, this is a pretty quick script.
Note: Actually, a lot of them are pretty quick because a lot of them -- when using quill and parchment -- included pen flicks and using the corner of your quill to drag the ink up before plunking your pen back down... so while they can be a tad slower with a steel nib on paper, they're pretty quick when using perg or parchment.
While these two were a lot faster, it was surprisingly more standardized than you'd think -- a lot like modern era handwriting in that there are a couple types of a's, serif vs non-serif when you write your capital I, but as a whole, the letter forms are fairly standard. This is because there was still a lower rate of literacy. yes, you had a book hand, but you didn't get a ton of the lay-folk scribbling out love letters on a daily basis. This all changed in the 15th c. with an EXPLOSION in literacy. Buringh & Van Zanden (2009) "Charting the 'Rise of the West'" estimates that Great Britain went from 5% literacy in 1475, to 16% in 1550, to 54% by 1650 (which it stayed at until 1820). There were a LOT of contributing factors to this that we just don't have time to get into, but the overarching themes are 1) more access to books & education, and 2) more access to materials. It was easier to learn how to read and using parchment and paper (which we have now) wasn't as fiscally wasteful. However, this also meant less standardization... sort of.
In the 17th/18th c. you could actually tell where someone was educated based on how they wrote their letters (or where their educator was educated at least). There was a lot of letter form variability, and also a lot of emphasis when learning your letter forms to form your letters a very specific way. This is as opposed to nowadays where, once the general letter shapes are learned, you can start developing your own handwriting before you can spell three syllable words. So while there is more variability within scripts nowadays, there were a lot more regional differences back then. So more letter forms but more adherence to the forms you learned. Ish. As a whole. In general...
So, moving into your actual handout! The default "Late Period Secretary Script" is usually in the batarde family, but that's not all that's out there. Not all batardes are secretary scripts, or are even the same letter form families. Some cursivas are formal book hands. Some document scripts are fancier than some more traditional book hands. In fact, some book hands might be better classified as document scripts, and vice versa. There is a lot of variability in all of these. But, for many of them, it boils down to the goal of what's being written. Do they want this to look pretty? Is it just for quick record keeping? Is the goal to write fast? Or maybe fast but still a little fancy? Depending on things like the goal of what's being written, the materials being used, and the school of training, scripts like these varied wider than modern handwriting.
When looking to replicate a secretary script, REALLY look at your exemplar, especially as compared to others from that time.
These are the things we need to consider.
Now, I've included a LOT of examples for y'all to look at. All images were shamelessly pulled from Medieval Writing: Index of Scripts. They do a good job of basic categorization, at least for an initial search, but I encourage you to expand your horizons from the examples they give. Really, I don't look for calligraphy that goes with my illumination. I just use the script they use in that manuscript. But for things like writs, or if I'm using an illumination from one culture but using the calligraphy to change the cultural feel of the piece (like that German manuscript I used for the French MOD in my gallery), or not-exactly-period-illuminations-but-totally-based-on-a-period-style kind of thing, then yeah, I use sources like this.
[This is the point where I go through a few of the styles and we all discuss things we notice, similarities vs differences, and that sort of thing.]
Note: For the top 4, even though these are called a Batarde Bood Hand, it's recognized that the distinction between batarde book hand and batarde document hand is negligible at times. These classifications are also very incestuous. They cross over all the time. Because it wasn't as rigid or formal as some of the book hands you see in things like a Book of Hours. Hence, greater variability and difficulty in finer categorization.
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