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I THE
XVI. HANDWRITING 1
handwriting ofthe middle ages is one ofits greatest
achievements: comparable with its architecture, and,
forthehistorian,evenmorefundamentalandimportant.
For although palaeographers study it primarily as a great
art, wemustneverforget that most ofour knowledgeof the period
rests upon written records. They are the very stuff of history;
and the student is even more concerned with what is in his
manuscripts than with their beauty. For this double approach
we are rather better off than our medieval ancestors, most of
whom were illiterate; and just because we all use a pen today
we can appreciate, even ifwe cannot copy, the calligraphy, or
fine writing, ofthe middle ages. Contrariwise, we have a lot to
forget; for we must think ourselves back into a period when
printing not to mention the typewriter was unknown:
when men wrote with quills instead ofsteel pens, on sheepskin
instead ofpaper, and in Latin instead ofEnglish. A bald contrast between the handwriting of medieval and
ofmodern society is, however, something less than a half-truth.
Between, say, A.D. 500 and 1500 the extent and the funcx
tion of handwriting were both transformed. In the barbarous
centuries which followed the disintegration of the Roman
Empire the practice ofwriting was increasingly confined to the
Church, whose 'clerks' copied the great books written in better
times the Bible, the works of the fathers, and the classics
and in their chronicles kept a briefrecord ofthe more impor/
tant contemporary events. They were acutely aware of the
general collapse, and fearful lest the memory of the great days
behind them should fall into oblivion. In these dark ages
1 The witter wishes to acknowledge the expert assistance of Dr. R. W. Hunt
who, as Keeper of Western manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, has so many of
the oldest and finest manuscripts in his charge.