Charlemagne gave Alcuin the task of “improving” calligraphy throughout his empire. We will assume that Alcuin reported back to the Emperor on his progress. Prepare Alcuin’s presentation. It should include the following:
A quick overview of the variety of “national” hands –with some examples.
An argument for greater clarity and consistency of scripts
Examples of Carolingian script and how it differs from one or more national hands (include examples)
A case for using a hierarchy of scripts (with examples)
Use your wiki to make the presentation. We will ignore the fact that Charlemagne could not read and write very well!
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My lord,
We have the following national hands to work with, most of which are excessive in ornament and difficult to read – more to the point, they are most ineffective for teaching and learning, and I recommend we fashion a new script which is clear and easy to read as well as produce, and which is consistent. A consistent script will make it easier for monks in all of these different regions to read the same texts without dispute over the letter of what they say (disputation over the content notwithstanding), and their students will be the happier for it; those students learning to write as well will be pleased at the agreed-upon standard that we can offer them. There is no reason for which the art of beautiful writing should stand in the way of the purpose agreed upon for producing the text in the first place; it is to the greater glory of God to have His holy word spread and understood, rather than kept and hoarded among those who can read it only by virtue of familiarity with the text and through having remembered the process of production themselves.
Please note that I have not exhaustively presented the scripts in all their diversity in the following examples; these are only a representative selection.
Insular
The Irish script is the most commonly used of all the scripts. It has spread throughout Europe as a result of the missionary zeal of that people; they have carried it with them wherever they have gone, and they have gone nearly everywhere to spread the word of God. Very similar to the old uncial and half-uncial scripts with their elegant curves, it is not a terribly difficult script to read but too often employs a truly excessive amount of ligatures and marks of abbreviation. Also, sometimes their mise-en-page is messy or excessively ornamental, detracting from the clear presentation of the text (as in the instance of elaborate illustrations; this is exampled as well by the presence of diminuendo, where the letters start large and get smaller). Witness the following example from the famous Book of Durrow:
Beneventan Minuscule
The next example of a national hand I’d like to show you is the script that we find is beginning to be used in the south of Italy. This is a new script, of which we only have a few examples: I have written a few letters myself to show you the common ductus of this script, visible in most instances (the o, the u/v, the n, the s). As you can see, the basic stroke with which the letters are formed is heavy and blockish; one can envision a highly calligraphic, thickly ligatured script arising out of this sort of letter formation, particularly when written quickly. Space will be wanting, certainly, and legibility will be impaired. This script is very similar to the Roman cursive, which I will point out as a good example in many ways for the script I would suggest we adopt as our standard. Again, though, there are far too many ligatures and some letter forms, such as the “a” are made in such a way as to render the letter difficult to recognize; for example, with the “a”, the top is open and one cannot always tell at a glance that it is not part of the adjacent letters or two separate “i”s. This is very confusing for the reader.
Corbie Minuscule
This is a Merovingian script, of which I have procured an example from the abbey at Corbie, where it originated. You can see that it is dense and some letters exhibit the same sort of difficulty as I just described with the letter “a”; this script is similar to the Irish script in some ways (it takes many strokes from the uncial, for example, and very many from the half-uncial) and in others reminds one of the Roman cursive. It is evocative of the next script I will show you, the minuscule hand from Luxeuil. The script from Corbie is easy to recognize because of its distinctive large N, which looks like a majuscule form and is in displeasing contrast to the rest of the letters, and its tall “e”.
Luxeuil Minuscule
Here we have the very elegant script from Luxeuil; elegant, but difficult to read. The principal problem here is that there are far too many ligatures (for example, “e”, “r”, and “t” are very often joined to the adjacent letters) and several of the forms are simply impossible to read; “a” again is a problem in this regard, as it occasionally “b”. Inconsistent use of descenders and ascenders is also the problem; one never knows where the ascender on the “d” will point, for example, and such a lack of uniformity and consistency detracts greatly from ease of reading. I have copied out the “a” and the “n” for you to see below. Very often one also sees the diminuendo element that I discussed earlier, which I do not think contributes anything useful to the legibility of what is on the page. One commendable characteristic of this script, however, is that it does not use abbreviations as liberally as many of the others do.
Rhaetian Minuscule
This script is from the area around Curia Raetorum, which the layfolk refer to as Chur. It replicates the difficult-to-read “a”, but has a well-formed and clear “g”; far too many ligatures are employed when the “r” is used, however. I have found the usage also of rather pointless decorative strokes on letters like “o”, which do not contribute to the portion of the form that ensures legibility at all. The various hands I have come across in this script form their letters with much variety, but the kinship they all have to Roman cursive is apparent; they would do much to limit their invention, I would argue. It is also clear that they have taken much from half-uncial, and share some of those elements with the Irish script in particular. Attractive, but not very functional.
Visigothic Minuscule
The following example of the minuscule script used by the Visigoths is from Spain. You can see that it has inherited much from uncial; look at the “g”, for example. I do not care for the way the “a” looks, nor the “r” and the “s”; there is too little consistency as well in the ligatures, even those used for the same two letters (for example, “ti”) and in the formation of the “d”, though with the straight ascender it has a very lovely and legible form. I especially do like the “z”, and recommend its inclusion in our standardized script; I have reproduced it for you below. You will notice that, overall, this script is not terribly dissimilar from the script that is developing in the region around Benevento.
So, to conclude, I propose that we use a new script which is much neater and more legible than many of these. I suggest that we do not employ very many abbreviations and ligatures (though there are some, I think, that are clearer than others and which it would not present too much of a problem to use), and that we use capital letters and minuscule forms together in order to make clear the meaning and positioning of sentences and words, including names. I also believe we should use a clear hierarchy of scripts, to show an obvious division between the headings and titles of passages and chapters; Rustic Capitals, being very clearly formed and legible, provide the perfect model for this, as does a neatly-formed uncial. I have prepared two examples for you of my script, and they appear below: both are from the Gospel of Luke. As my primary models I have taken half-uncial and the Roman Cursive script in its newer form, and adopted several elements from the Irish script. You will notice that it is not cramped like several of the hands I showed you, that the letters are uniform, being nicely rounded and clear in their forms (note the “s”, “d” and “v”), and that there are spaces between the words, which I think is invaluable to the reader. If you permit it, I will teach the rest of my monks here at Aachen the script and we will begin the project of spreading it throughout your Empire.
