Unthinkable Wings

I have: "Textual Scholarship - an introduction", by D.C.Greetham, which has a chapter on Palaeography. Do you think it could help? (If not, sorry for wasting your time, but I am not and probably never will be a palaeographer.)

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No. The university seems to have developed a policy of not duplicating holdings (in some cases, they won't even buy titles if the PH has got a copy, which is ridiculous).

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rivrea.livejournal.com

They did what? I know that my comments aren't in the least helpful to you, but I will readily tell you that Freiburg's local librarians are quite insane.

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It might well do; the terms I need are related to letter forms. You don't happen to have easy access to a scanner, do you? I'm rather at my wits end just now.

t I am not and probably never will be a palaeographer.

Neither am I; this is half the problem. I don't know why people assume that just because you are a native speaker, you will automatically have a firm grasp of the technical terms of subjects not directly related to yours. As it is, the only book I own on palaeography.... is in German. (The main library, of course, has lots of books on palaeography, but they're in German too, of course).

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I might, but I was thinking of just sending it to you. I do not have any immediate need for it anyway.

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parrot-knight.livejournal.com

Those who complain about Oxford's present non-duplication drive (like me) should remember the example of Freiburg as a lesson.

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That's kind, but I'm moving in two weeks, so the notion of more stuff currently fills me with despair! I appreciate that scanning is probably a hassle. Maybe you could be kind enough to take a quick look at the relevant chapter, and see if the following terminology occurs (and if not, what it might be):

Individual letter forms and their proportions and construction in stalks, bars, bows and caudens (???) and their formation, the thickness of lines and its variations within a form, the decorative elements attached to the letters, combinations of letters such as nexus litterarum, ligatures, amalgamated and connected bows (???), enclaves, interlacing, the appearance of abbreviations, word division and signs indicating word-divisions, as well as numbers and their development are of interest. However, graphical study is not restricted to consideration of individual forms. Attention must be paid to whether the character of the text (schriftbild) is open or cramped, the layout of lines, the question of ‚scriptura continua’, the homogenity of the script as a whole, as well as the possibility of later revision(s) or additions.

Thanks ever so much for your help - LJ is amazing sometimes!

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They really do want their heads examined, don't they? Especially as the PH is twenty minutes by tram from the centre of town (I've also had to go and look at stuff in the town archives and the Diocesan Seminar, but at least both of these are central).

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I'll have a good look tomorrow. My problem is not so much scanning a hefty chapter - although that does not appeal - as that I just got a new second-hand scanner and I am not sure whether it will work. Anyway, I'll do what I can. And think nothing of it - at least, until you've seen the results!

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I have had a look, and it looks hopeful. The chapter is full of technical terms for the parts of letters and the various features of writing. Now my problem is whether to synthetize what I can get and e-mail it to you, or whether I can manage to do a scan (keeping the whole chapter would indubitably be useful to you in the future as well). Whatever it is, it will be done by Friday at the most. You say that you need it by the end of next week, so this ought to do.

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(belatedly)
You might try Boyle's Integral palaeography, or Lowe's Handwriting. I just have Bischoff, myself, and I'm sure Freiburg only has IT in English.

You're looking at the forms of characters, rather than epistolography, right? All I can remember is that an l-shaped upright is a hasta. And ascenders, descenders and bows.
Oh, and minims, of course. Mimi minimi numinum niuium...

A "Cauden" is probably a finishing stroke, or a tail.

What are you trying to describe?

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Schriftbild is probably Aspect. Character of the script would work too, though.

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Frieburg does have Bischoff, but it's in the med. Latin. seminar.... I'll look for the others.

I'm not trying to describe anything in particular, just list the things which you have to consider when describing letter forms (or the layout of a text block). Thanks for your help, though!

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That's brilliant - thank you for taking the trouble!

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My pleasure.

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...Don't suppose the diocesan archive would have anything useful among their guidebooks?

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That's a thought.

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Dear

tree_and_leaf,
this was not quite as easy as I thought. From what I can make out, the technical terms used by Greetham include:

letter-forms
strokes
cross-strokes (horizontal)
curves
bows
finials (the "tails" that finish off decorative letters such as Roman monumental square capitals)
ducts (vertical or upward strokes)
thick and thin ducts
Ligatures
word division
"interlacing and trellis-work" (to describe particularly fanciful early Irish show-pages)
Fusing of letters (writing letters without the pen ever leaving the paper, rather than in separate strokes)
Ascender, descender (a rising or falling stroke)
minims ("the short vertical ducts of i, u, m and n" in early minuscule scripts)
Club (thick ascender or descender with no finials, characteristic of Merovingian script); likewise, "clubbing" of letters

An interesting expression: Insular after the ninth century is "a laterally compressed derivative of the early style" of the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels, since both Merovingian and Insular scripts "tended towards lateral compression". That gives one an idea of how to speak about scripts.
"Open" and "cramped" are correct descriptions of a script's visual quality.

Of the items I have not found, "Amalgamated and connected bows" seems perfectly understandable to me, describing such things as the ampersand, the capital B and the attractive old-fashioned cursive capitals full of immense bows which we Italian children used to be taught at school. I would translate Schriftbild as just text, since the word text, in English, seems to me to include the appearance thereof ("three columns of solid text", "a sparse and poorly printed text"). If necessary, I would suggest "the appearance of the text". "Layout" is a technical term in printing, so I imagine it ought to be in palaeography as well. Scriptura continua seems to me to speak for itself.

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"fusing of letters" is sometimes called biting, when referring to the sharing of strokes in Gothic.
(What kind of script are you writing about?)

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I am quoting from a chapter that handles in a general way all Western scripts from Roman to the age of printing.

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