Provisional Drogereit pdf

We will again examine the crosses and majuscules and the (p. 349) best identification
of any scribe, the ego, before examining the characteristics of the small letters.
At the beginning of the text there is a tall, slender cross. The thick vertical stroke
broadens to a conical shape at the ends, finishing with a thin horizontal stroke
extending slightly beyond both sides of the thickening. A little above the centre the
much more slender and shorter horizontal bar cuts across the vertical and thickens at
both ends in the same way but, due to the thinness of the rest of the line, this appears
thicker than it actually is. What we have here is a Latin cross 57 . Basically the same
cross, only smaller, is found before the witness-ego of the bishops in the first column
(no others have the word ego in front of their name). Above the word crucis of the
signatures Ae. C has drawn another smaller cross which consists of a vertical stroke,
with a triangular thickened point at the top left, cut by a fine horizontal line. Both
these types of cross are found consistently in the form described above, from which
can be clearly deduced that it is not an individual witness’s signature 58 .
Of the majuscules in the first instance the three capital letters in the date line, namely
the capital A in Acta and Uncial A in Anno, as well as the raised I in Indictione, are
characteristic of the specific scribe (both as appearing in the same sequence in the
differently composed manuscript Anglo-Sax. Mss. III, 25),. The capital A has a very
thick right-hand side, ending at the top with a short horizontal line curving to the left,
and at the bottom with a horizontal end-stroke curving to the right. The front slender
side has a heavy triangular thickening at the bottom facing inwards. The middle stroke
is thin. – With the Uncial A the left side is split. With the right hand stroke at the top,
the upper (left) part forms an elongated loop which curves downward to a point. The
lower part of the left side starts again, then curves under the second line. The raised i
elongates the shaft upwards and downwards, bordering it along the top with a final
stroke which extends slightly to the left beyond the shaft, then curving up to the right.
57 This Latin cross, like the Greeek one with the same number of arms, that we see with Eadmund C, is
to be found in particular in charters issued by clerics. cf. L. Schmidtz-Kallenberg, Die Lehre von den
Papsturkunden 2 in Grundriß der Geschichtswissenschaft (The teachings of the papal charters 2 within
the context of history), published by A. Meister, Leipzig-Berlin 1912. Herein p. 67.
58 In Anc. Ch. III, 9 (C. S. 741) a cross is positioned at the end before the space. In other words, it was
written right from the outset, without the scribe considering how many witnesses he had to list. But
then he did not erase it. It could be that an expected witness, in this case a minister, did not appear.
Whatever the reason, this also showed that the cross could not have been written by the particular
witness who is signing. This is further consolidated by Anc. Ch. III, 10 (C. S. 753). In this case the
name in the last column was entered retrospectively by another hand. At the same time we see a new
cross before the name, which matches the rough, untrained handwriting of the new hand i.e. it
originates from this scribe.
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