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2 results

  • 7 - Latin script in England c. 900–1100

  • from PART I - THE MAKING OF BOOKS
  • Edited by Richard Gameson, University of Durham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 March 2012
    Print publication:
    22 December 2011, pp 187-224

  • Summary

    English Square Minuscule is a formalised development of the compressed angular minuscule scripts in use in England in the eighth and ninth centuries. The translations of the Latin originals were presumably copied at Alfred's court using the compressed pointed minuscule. The morphology of Square Minuscule owes much to the competing influences of all these earlier forms of writing. This chapter presents a brief survey of notable manuscripts copied in Square Minuscule and suggests something of the evolution of the script. It conveys both the diversity of extant examples and the role of as yet unidentified writing centres in their production. The chapter describes a manuscript of the letters of Alcuin which should probably be dated to the start of the tenth century and is written in a very large and rather clumsy Square Minuscule. Square Minuscule was pioneered and preferred as the basic script of greater Wessex during much of the tenth century.

  • 18 - Anglo-Saxon gospel-books, c. 900–1066

  • from PART III - TYPES OF BOOKS AND THEIR USES
  • Edited by Richard Gameson, University of Durham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 March 2012
    Print publication:
    22 December 2011, pp 436-448

  • Summary

    In c.900-1066 Anglo-Saxon gospel-books are easily the most numerous of all surviving Latin biblical codices. This chapter considers their contents, their makeup and layout, their decoration and illustrations before examining where, when and why they were made. Two of the three plainer books are written in English Square Minuscule, an inheritance from the Insular past. In the Judith Monte Cassino Gospels the symbol was placed in the tympanum of the archon the facing initial page. The transmission of the Word of God is visually represented in these evangelist picture pages. In the York Gospels the hand of God replaces symbols, and is in direct contact with the evangelists. Grimbald has a capitulary different from that found in many other books, and it is similar to Arenberg's, another probable Canterbury book. Eadwig Basan also contributed to the York Gospels, whose evangelist portraits share features with those in Grimbald and Arenberg.