The most ancient style of cursive writing, employed in charts and diplomas, is to be seen in the deeds known by the name of charters of Ravenna, from the name of the town in which they were first discovered. We may consider as analogous to these the writing of the Acts of our early kings, very difficult to read on account of the exaggerated manner in which the thin strokes join the letters together, and by the indefinite forms of the up and down strokes. We give a fragment (Fig. 338) taken from an original chart, on parchment, of Childebert III. We see what the same writing had become in 784 by Fig. 339, copied from an original capitulary of Charlemagne.
To the same period belongs the employment, in ordinary use among chancellors and notaries, of a writing completely tachygraphic; it is composed of ciphers, one of which took the place of a syllable or a word. This writing was called Tironian, because the invention of it is attributed to Tiro, Cicero’s freed-man, who made use of it in tachygraphing, or, as we should now say, stenographing (short-hand), the speeches of the illustrious orator. Fig. 340 is taken from a psalter of the eighth century, of which the text is transcribed with the tachygraphic characters of that period.
The name of Visigothic is given to the writing of manuscripts executed in the south of France and in Spain during the rule of the Goths and the Visigoths; this writing, still rather Roman, is generally round and embellished with fanciful strokes, which render it agreeable to the eye.
We also find in Italy the Lombardic, in use for diplomas till the twelfth century.
The beautiful manuscripts on purple vellum are of the time of Charlemagne, when luxury in the arts showed itself in all forms. There is in the Imperial Library, Paris, a magnificent volume, which came from the ancient domain of Soubise, that contains the Epistles and Gospels for all the festivals of the year: the execution of this work is perfect; the gigantic capital letters, of Anglo-Saxon form, are coloured, and rendered still richer by being dotted with gold.
A valuable manuscript of the “Tractus Temporum” of the Venerable Bede, a manuscript posterior by more than two hundred years to the author, who lived in the beginning of the eighth century, affords a specimen of one of the varieties of minuscule writings, which in France was called the Lombardic writing of books, because it was in use during the reign of the Lombard kings beyond the Alps; it is more difficult to read than the Roman, though similar in form, because the words are not separated. A beautiful manuscript of “Horace” (Imperial Library, Paris), which presents a mixture of the different kinds of Roman writing of the period, is attributed to the same century. We have in Fig. 341 an elegant ornamental capital, taken from a manuscript, “Commentaries of St. Jerome,” also in the Imperial Library. We find specimens of writing of Anglo-Saxon origin, capital letters, and running text, in many books of the Gospel.
The diplomatic writing of the tenth century is here represented by a charter of the king, Hugh Capet, from which we borrow Fig. 342; it must have been issued between 988 and 996. In this fragment, the first line only is composed of characters very elongated, close together, mixed with some capital letters and some singular forms. It bears witness to the fact that the fine Merovingian writing had then singularly degenerated.
In the eleventh century the minuscule of manuscripts was characterised by its angular forms, which caused it to receive the name of Capetian. Then the Capetian, exaggerated in its tendency towards its strokes and angles, became the Ludovician, which announces the thirteenth century, and characterises the reign of St. Louis.
Fig. 335.—Scribe or Copyist, in his Work-room, surrounded by Open Manuscripts, and Writing at a Desk.