The
Develop¬
ment of
Writing

TENTH, ELEVENTH, AND TWELFTH
CENTURY WRITING.—The easy use of the
slanted pen, and the lateral compression of the letters
which naturally followed, resulted in a valuable
economy of time and space in the making of books.
This lateral compression is strongly marked in the
tenth century (see fig. 12), and in the eleventh and

mcxli dm dnort)
щилсотГциде^
it dnoi} п
fol&luwc drío s

Fig. 12.—Psalter: English tenth century.

(See also Plate VIII.)

twelfth centuries it caused curves to give place to
angles, and writing to become “Gothic ” in character
(see Plate XI.).

THIRTEENTH, FOURTEENTH, AND
FIFTEENTH CENTURY WRITING.—The
tendency to compression continued, and a further
economy of space was effected in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries by the general use of much
smaller writing (see fig. 13). In the fifteenth cen¬
tury writing grew larger and taller again, but the
letters had steadily become narrower, more angular,

12

and stiffer, till the written page consisted of rows of
perpendicular thick strokes with heads and feet con¬
nected by oblique hair-lines—which often look as
if they had been dashed in after with a fine pen—
all made with an almost mechanical precision (see
Plate XVII).

Jpuw ittoum Cençftr ЧоаСэх» baiœ.
тядѵоЬхтхіШШ. qtmnuoouur
magtfg ндоиШш wbtobam tone cauti
lama ûi?aô œgtrn faïas-sa# qtuutta
xb mbotüUmn fatuto ¿рштт Шѵл>
fmntttrauno.rt).cc.l.giu£ro.abl
елшгалпстютіт.

Fig. 13.—Colophon of English MS., dated 1254.

ITALIAN WRITING.—In Italy alone the
roundness of the earlier hands was preserved, and
though in course of time the letters were affected by
the “ Gothic ” tendency, they never lost the curved
forms or acquired the extreme angularity which is
seen in the writings of Northern Europe (compare
Plates X and XI).

At the time of the Renaissance the Italian scribes
remodelled, their “ hands ” on the beautiful Italian
writing of the eleventh and twelfth centuries (see
Plates X and XVIII, XIX, XX). The early
Italian printers followed after the scribes and
mpdelled their types on these round clear letters.
And thus the fifteenth century Italian formal writing
became the foundation of the “Roman ” small letters,
which have superseded all others for the printing
of books.

The
Develop¬
ment of
Writing

13