The earliest of all extant manuscripts of the Insular style is the Cathach (“Battler”) of St. Columba (Royal Irish Academy, Dublin), who, according to legend, wrote it himself and, in the judgment of scholars, may actually have done so. Housed in its cumhdach (a sort of ark), it was carried into battle to ensure victory.
Besides the proud witness of such books as these to the Anglo-Celtic contribution, there were also the productions of continental centres influenced by St. Columban and his disciples, as well as books mainly in the Roman tradition but carrying the unmistakable sign of Insular influence. For instance, there are three that scholars believe were written in the 7th century at Bobbio (Italy), in the monastery of St. Columban. They are Codex Usserianus Primus, now a treasure of Trinity College, Dublin, and two manuscripts preserved in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, known as Codex Ambrosianus C.26 sup. and Codex Ambrosianus D.23 sup. There is another, Codex Amiatinus (Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Florence), of 1,030 leaves measuring 20 by 13 1/2 inches (51 by 34 cm), made in Northumbria in the 8th century. It is continental Roman in style with no concession to the Insular habit of ornamentation—perhaps because it was designed for presentation to the pope.
Though the Insular minuscule was widely known, the majuscular half uncial was always given the place of honour and the preference for the fine Latin books of the Anglo-Celtic monasteries. Nevertheless, by the 8th century the minuscule was developing into a disciplined book hand, as seen in the copy of Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica (c. 731). The spiky, ligatured, compactly written style migrated early to the Continent and, by the beginning of the 8th century, was at home in the Anglo-Saxon foundation of Echternach, in what is now Luxembourg. Fulda and Würzburg (Germany), were other important centres abroad of Insular culture and book production in this style.
Insular minuscule, from Bede's Historia ecclesiastica, 8th century; in the British Museum, London (Cotton Tiberius C.11).Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum
The Merovingian (France) and the Visigothic (Spain) are two more varieties of minuscular script that grew out of Latin cursive after the withdrawal of the Roman authority. In the Luxeuil monastery, in Burgundy, the minuscule attained in the 7th century the characteristics of a fine book hand. In the Iberian Peninsula the Visigothic style was in use from at least the 8th to the 12th century. It has the verticality of emphasis that is common to the other hands out of the same cursive background, and its weighted ascenders are carefully topped by flat serifs.
The southern Italian script of the style called Beneventan, nurtured in the motherhouse of the Benedictine Order at Monte Cassino, was the “national” hand that rose to the status of calligraphy and held its position well into the 13th century, an active literary life of more than 500 years. This type of script has a peculiar jerky rhythm and retains individual cursive forms, which, together with the abundance of abbreviations and ligatures, make reading quite difficult.
Beneventan script, Exultet Roll from Monte Cassino, Italy, late 11th or early 12th century; in the British Museum, London (MS. 30377).Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum
Carolingian reforms in the scriptorium (8th and 9th centuries)
The literary and ecclesiastical reforms undertaken in the latter part of the 8th century and the early 9th century by order of the Holy Roman emperor Charlemagne set the highest of standards for the making of books throughout his Western empire. The extensive educational program and the production of new authorized versions of the Vulgate, the missal, and other liturgical works led Charlemagne to invite the English cleric Alcuin of York to come to France to oversee the making of these manuscripts. Alcuin first became master of the palace school at Aachen, Ger. (Aix-la-Chapelle), then went to Tours, France, to lead the Abbey of St. Martin.
Carolingian minuscule script from the Maurdramnus Bible, named for the abbot and head of the scriptorium at the Corbie Abbey, c. 772–781; in the Bibliothèque Municipale, Amiens, France.Courtesy of the Bibliothèque Municipale, Amiens, France
Scholars have concluded that Alcuin may have been more a text editor and general overseer of the project than inventor of the Carolingian alphabet. He probably selected this particular alphabet from existing manuscripts as the best one to use in copying new manuscripts. The fully developed hand can be seen in books written in Charlemagne’s court around the time of Alcuin’s arrival there in 781 or 782. For example, one of best known of the codices written in the Carolingian script, the Godescalc Gospels, was commissioned by Charlemagne on Oct. 7, 781, and finished a year and a half later by the scribe Godescalc on April 30, 783. Also noteworthy are several other early Carolingian gospel books in which important headings are written in gold uncials; the books, done on purple-dyed skins, are illuminated with miniatures and use Carolingian script for their main text.
Carolingian calligraphyCarolingian calligraphy.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Uncial script, Godescalc Gospels, before 783; in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.Courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
Carolingian minuscule, Gospels of Lothair, c. 850; in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (MS. Lat. 266, fol. 19).Courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, ParisUnder Alcuin, work was carried forward in the scriptorium of St. Martin’s abbey in the spirit of a true Classical renaissance. Each variety of traditional letter form was studied with a view to finding its norm by careful comparison with archetypes in ancient monuments and books. A hierarchy of scripts was established to distinguish different levels of text. At the top of the hierarchy were square capitals, which were used for book headings, and rustic capitals, used for the explicit (the last line of a book). Uncials signaled chapter headings, the table of contents, and the first line of text; half uncials were sometimes used for preface and the second text line; and Carolingian minuscules were used for the main text. Carefully drawn and coloured large Roman square capitals were used as major paragraph initials. This period marks the first time multiple writing styles were used both to decorate the text and to delineate categories of content.
The black-letter, or Gothic, style (9th to 15th century)
Carolingian minuscule remained the unrivaled book hand of western Europe through the 9th century, when a trend away from this official imperial standard appeared in some places. For example, in the manuscripts written at Sankt Gallen (Switz.) near the end of the 9th century and during the 10th, scribes tended to compress the letters laterally. They may have found the motion of the pen to be more fluid if they held it with the shaft out to the side rather than pointing back over the right shoulder. With a change of the orientation of the shaft, scribes probably cut the pen’s writing edge obliquely so that it would be parallel to the top of the page to accommodate the slanting position of the shaft. This position produced a perpendicular mark (minim) of maximum width.
black-letter styleBlack-letter calligraphy.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
By the end of the 12th century this strong vertical stroke was made more prominent as Carolingian letters were made narrower and some curved parts of letters were replaced with angles. The resulting style is called protogothic. It is widely believed that the more compact writing allowed significant economies in time (and thus labour) and materials. In addition, abbreviations, another way to save space, occurred with increasing frequency. Yet book margins remained wide, and the text usually occupied less than half the available area. In books of hours, literary manuscripts, and some religious tomes, these ample spaces were partly filled with decorations made by illuminators; and some manuscripts preserve readers’ marginal glosses or annotations.