The oldest preserved documents written in the old Italian cursive show all the essential characteristics of the Roman cursive of the 6th century (Bonelli, Cod. pal. lombardo; Arch. pal. ital., i., iii., vii.). In northern Italy, this hand began in the 9th century to be influenced by a minuscule book-hand which developed, as will be seen later, in the time of Charlemagne ; under this in fluence it gradually disappeared, and ceased to exist in the course of the 12th century. In southern Italy, it persisted far on into the later middle ages (Russi, Paleogr. . . . de' docum. della prov. Napolitana).
The papal chancery hand, a variety of Lombardic peculiar to the vicinity of Rome and principally used in papal documents, is distinguished by the formation of the letters, a, e, q, t. It is formal in appearance at first, but is gradually simplified, under the influence of the Carolingian minuscule, which finally prevailed in the bulls of Honorius II. (1124-1130). The notaries public in Rome continued to use the papal chancery hand until the be ginning of the 13th century.
The old Italian book-hand is simply a semi-cursive of the type already described as in use in the 6th century. The principal examples are derived from scriptoria in northern Italy, where it was displaced by the Carolingian minuscule during the 9th century.
In southern Italy, this hand persisted, developing into a calli graphic form of writing, and in the loth century took on a very artistic angular appearance (Lowe, Beneventan Script; facsimiles in Piscicelli-Taeggi, Paleogr. artist. di Monte Cassino). The Exultet rolls provide us with the finest examples. In the 9th century, it was introduced in Dalmatia by the Benedictine monks and developed there, as in Apulia, on the basis of the archetype, culminating in a rounded Beneventana known as the Bari type (Novak, Scriptura Beneventana, Zagreb, 1920).
Merovingian.—The offshoot of the Roman cursive which de veloped in Gaul under the first dynasty of kings is called Mero vingian writing. It is represented by thirty-eight royal diplomas (Lauer and Samaran, Les diplomes originaux des Merovingiens), a number of private charters (Tardif, Facsim. de chartes et diplames) and the authenticating documents of relics (Prow, Recueil de facsim., 1904, pl. v.).
Though less than a century intervenes between the Ravenna cursive and the oldest extant Merovingian document (A.D. 625), there is a great difference in appearance between the two writings The facile flow of the former is replaced by a cramped style, in which the natural slope to the right gives way to an upright hand, and the letters, instead of being fully outlined, are compresser1 to such an extent that they modify the shape of other letter:).
Copyists of books used a cursive similar to that found in docu ments, except that the strokes are thicker, the forms more regular, and the heads and tails shorter (Album paleogr. de la Soc. de Ec. des Chartes, pl. 12).
The Merovingian cursive as used in books underwent simplifica tion in some localities, undoubtedly through the influence of the minuscule book-hand of the period. The two principal centres of this reform were Luxeuil and Corbie (Traube, Perron Scot torum in Sitzungsberichte of the Munich Academy, 900 ; Liebart, Corbie Scriptorium in W. M. Lindsay's Palaeogr. Lat., i.).
With the appearance, early in the 8th century, of the Caro lingian minuscule, the Merovingian hand ceased to be used for books. In the Carolingian chancery, where it persisted longest, it soon discarded its characteristic forms and intricate combina tions of letters under the influence of the new hand. Only a few archaic types with long slender heads and tails, vaguely reminiscent of the old script, survived in diplomatic writing until the II th century.
Visigothic Writing.—In Spain, after the Visigothic conquest, the Roman cursive gradually developed special characteristics.
Some documents attributed to the 7th century display a transi tional hand with straggling and rather uncouth forms (Ewald and Loewe, Exempla scripturae visigothicae, pl. 3). The dis tinctive features of Visigothic writing, the most noticeable of which is certainly the q-shaped g, did not appear until later, in the book-hand. The book-hand became set at an early date.
In the 8th century it appears as a sort of semi-cursive; the earliest example of certain date is ms. lxxxix. in the Capitular Library in Verona (Clark, Collectanea hispanica, 63, 129-130; Schiaparelli in Arch. stor. ital. lxxxii., 106). From the 9th century the calli graphic forms become broader and more rounded until the II th century, when they become slender and angular (numerous re productions in Ewald and Loewe, Exempla; Burnam, Paleogr.
iberica; Clark, Collectanea; Garcia Villada, Paleogr. espanola). The Visigothic minuscule appears in a cursive form in docu ments about the middle of the 9th century, and in the course of time grows more intricate and consequently less legible (Munoz, Paleogr. visigoda; Garcia Villada, op. cit.). It soon came into competition with the Carolingian minuscule, which supplanted it as a result of the presence in Spain of French elements such as Cluniac monks and warriors engaged in the campaign against the Moors (Hessel, Ausbreitung der karo, Afinuskel in Archiv fur Urkundenforschung, vii., viii.).
The Irish and Anglo-Saxon hands, which were not directly de rived from the Roman minuscule cursive, will be discussed later.