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548 MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
and contractions were Intended to lighten the labour of
copy/
ing. In manuscripts oflate antiquity the abbreviations are con/
fined to b; (bus),c^que), u (urn), and the contractions ofthe
holy names: e.g. DS for Deus, IHS, XPS for Jesus Christus,
but as time passed the practice was greatly extended, until in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the chief difficulty in
reading manuscripts lies in the correct extension of the
abbreviations. Roughly speaking, words were shortened in
four different ways:
1. By suspension, or the omission of the final letters of the
word, shown either by a dot (e.g. R. for Rex) or a horizon/
tal line above the last letter written (e.g. boste for bostem).
2. By contraction, or the omission ofmedial letters, shown by
a horizontal line (e.g. dns for dominus, apli for apostolf).
3. By superior letters, such as fm for 4.
quam.
By special signs, some ofwhich go right back to the Roman
system ofshorthand: e.g. 7 for ef, and to the abbreviations
used in legal and non/literary manuscripts: e.g. p for
prae,
at for autem.
These methods of abbreviation used either
singly or in com/
bination certainly present great difficulties to the student more
especially if his Latin is weak. But when once they are mas/
tered good manuscripts (at any rate until the end ofthe twelfth
century) can soon be read with almost the same ease and at the
same pace as modern print.
The development of abbreviations was, of course, deter/
mined by Latin manuscripts which alone used a fixed
spell/
Ing; but they were also applied, so far as could be, to books in
French and English, the
history ofwhich in England was pro/
foundly affected by the events ofthe year 1066. Very soon after
the Norman Conquest the status of English, hitherto the
language of all classes and ofgovernment, was depressed, and
for
nearly three centuries everyone except the serfs (the over/
whelming majority) spoke French. The writing of English
books almost, though not quite, ceased in the twelfth century,
and its place both in education and polite literature was filled