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  • 7 - Latin script in England c. 900–1100

  • from PART I - THE MAKING OF BOOKS
  • Edited by Richard Gameson, University of Durham
  • Book: The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
  • Published online: 28 March 2012
  • Print publication: 22 December 2011, pp 187-224

  • Summary

    English Square Minuscule is a formalised development of the compressed angular minuscule scripts in use in England in the eighth and ninth centuries. The translations of the Latin originals were presumably copied at Alfred's court using the compressed pointed minuscule. The morphology of Square Minuscule owes much to the competing influences of all these earlier forms of writing. This chapter presents a brief survey of notable manuscripts copied in Square Minuscule and suggests something of the evolution of the script. It conveys both the diversity of extant examples and the role of as yet unidentified writing centres in their production. The chapter describes a manuscript of the letters of Alcuin which should probably be dated to the start of the tenth century and is written in a very large and rather clumsy Square Minuscule. Square Minuscule was pioneered and preferred as the basic script of greater Wessex during much of the tenth century.