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55* MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
humanistic
script became models for the printed book. Thus
began a new 'battle of the books' which after a strife of
centuries, ended everywhere (except in Germany) in the
victory ofthe humanist letter/forms; and to this result, of course,
the very type ofMedieval England bears witness. But in England
at least, the invention of printing did not immediately curb the
inventiveness of scribes, and early in the sixteenth century a
new hand, based partly on English models, makes its appear/
ance. This is the script which the writing masters call
'secretary hand* (PL 121 1) which was developed and perfected
as the century proceeded. It is, in Denholm/ Young's words,
'the native, current hand for
everyday purposes'; the hand, for
example, of the great collection of State Papers, and as such of
great practical importance to students of the period.
The history of medieval handwriting at its best is
eminently that of the Latin language
and of the Catholic
church: and it falls naturally into three periods. Of these the
first is concerned with those splendid majuscule scripts, whose
roots lie in antiquity, and their gradual replacement, under the
influence ofcursive writing, by the minuscule, the especial con/
tribution of the middle ages to calligraphy. In the second
period, which is conveniently dated by the appearance of the
Caroline minuscule about the year 800 and lasts for four
centuries, the new script reigns supreme for all literary writing.
The third, beginning about 1200, is that of the Gothic script
which after rather less than three centuries was in its turn dis^
carded in the humanistic revival ofthe fifteenth century. In the
second of these periods England was bound up more closely
with the Continent than ever before or since, and shared a
common Latin civilization that was truly European. For
native and vernacular writing the periods, we have seen, need
alteration, the first closing in 1066 and the third beginning
early in the fourteenth century: the middle period almost
a blank
representing the price paid for internationalism. Yet,
however, we distinguish periods, an underlying unity is found