LATIN I'sALEoGdraY. In studying the history of Latin paleography, we begin with majuscule writing as found in the earliest Latin manu scripts extant, such as the Vergil of the fourth century. Uncials described above may be recog nized in Latin paleography by the letters E and m, and also by rounded forms of D and 11. As a literary hand the uncial writing runs from the tifth to the eighth century. The cursive hand generally used influenced the more limited liter ary majuseule hand, so that a style designated the half-uneial finally became the book hand. The earliest examples of the cursive style are the wall inscriptions and wax tablets of Pompeii, written before A.n. 79. The style of writing dif fered very slightly in the first three centuries of the Christian Era. From the cursive hand came the so-called national hands, which assumed an individuality according to the locality in which they held sway. The Lombardie is the writing of Southern Italy as practiced in the monasteries of Monte Cassino and La Cava, and lasted from the ninth to the thirteenth century. The Visi gothic was employed for books and documents in Spain from the eighth to the twelfth century. The :Merovingian appears as a hand on manuscripts of the seventh and eighth centuries. It never reached the calligraphic forin. which marked the highest development of the other na tional hands. for it was supplanted by the round minuscules of the Carolingian re(orm. The Irish and Anglo-Saxon writing must be mentioned apart from the' national hands. for it was not de rived from the cursive style. but from the half uncial which was brought to Ireland by the mis sionaries in the sixth century. One important peculiarity of the Irish hand is the tendency to calligraphie forms and ornamentation of the manuscripts, as in the famous Book of of the latter part of the seventh century. The Irish hand found its way into the northern part of Britain, so that the English hand may thus be traced to the Roman half-uncial.
The reform of writing which marked the reign of Charlemagne was initialed by a decree of 789 for the revision of Church books. It had its origin in the monasteries of France, particularly at fours, where, in the Abbey of Saint Martin, under• the direction of Alcuin of York, much at tention was given to writing. A new hand was the result, which is known as the round Caroline minuseitles. The, are small uncials of the true Latin form modified by cursive intluences.mid they became the literary hand of the Frankish Empire. In the tenth century these minuscules began to spread, and in the eleventh century they began to assume their individual form in various nations of Europe. This was the starting point of the history of modern hands, which are traced to the Roman alphabet. In the twelfth century the so-called Gothic writing appeared. wl,iclt is simply the Caroline minuscule with angles replac ing the The writing of the fourteenth century shows a gradual decline and the letters become less distinct and are less carefully made. Nevertheless, a renaissance in Italy in the four teenth century gave a very regular and beautiful style—the humanistic hands of the fifteenth century, which had great influence on the type forms. These minuscule letters were the an cestors of the lower-case letters of the Roman alphabet, and the Gothic forni of the same gave the German lower-case letters.
BtttcnocitnrltT. The most convenient hand books are; Thompson, Ham/book of Greek mot Latin. 1yulmcogr•uphy (London, ISO)) ; Bentsen. EN unen/8 de (Paris, 1597) ; I'rou, Manuel dc pale'ographic Mine ct francaise (1892) ; and Paoli, Programma scholastic(' di paleogralia &Lana e di diplomatica (Florence, 1884-94), For facsimiles, the large series of facsimiles of the Pahrographical Society (Lon don, 1873 et seq.) are of great value; also Vitelli and Paoli. Collezione jtorentina di farisimili pa lcografici greci e latini (Florence, 1884-96).