Text type, besides being known as Black Letter, is also called Gothic and Old English; Gothic because of its preference by Gothic or German peoples, and Old English because of its use by Wynkyn de Worde and other early printers of England.
Moxon, in 1676, drew an alphabet of Text letter in both capitals and lower-case (Examples [518] and [519]), and Caslon, in the eighteenth century, cut a Text letter similar but somewhat thinner in form. Alteration in capitals works great changes in Text type.
Text letter in a variety of designs is used in America for special purposes—sometimes as headings of newspapers or for a line on stationery, but because it is generally considered illegible it seldom is given place, except in German-language newspapers, on body portions of printed work.
The story of the evolution of Text type from Roman capitals has already been told on pages [5] and [6] of the chapter, “When Books Were Written,” and under the head, “Development of the Roman Type-Face,” in this chapter. It is illustrated in Example [465].
EXAMPLE 518
EXAMPLE 519
Text capitals and Text lower-case letters as drawn by Moxon in 1676
EXAMPLE 520
Two standard German type-faces, the Fractur and the Schwabacher