Paul Jamison BA. Hons.

I am a fine art graduate of The University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and have developed my calligraphic skills over 30 years. I have also studied the history of calligraphy in Europe and the East and below is a potted version of said story.

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History of calligraphy

Uncial is a majiscule script commonly used from the 3rd to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. From the 8th century to the 13th century the script was more often used as a display script in headings and titles. Early uncial script most likely developed from late Old Roman cursive. Early forms are characterized by broad single stroke letters using simple round forms taking advantage of the new parchment and vellum surfaces, as opposed to the angular, multiple stroke letters which are more suited for rougher surfaces, such as papyrus. In the oldest examples of uncial, such as the De bellis macedonicis manuscript in the British Library, all of the letters are disconnected from one another, and word separation is typically not used. Word separation, however, is characteristic of later uncial usage. As the script evolved over the centuries, the characters became more complex. Specifically, around AD 600, flourishes and exaggerations of the basic strokes began to appear in more manuscripts. Ascenders and descenders were the first major alterations, followed by twists of the tool in the basic stroke and overlapping. By the time the more compact minuscule scripts arose circa AD 800, some of the evolved uncial styles formed the basis for these simplified, smaller scripts. Uncial was still used, particularly for copies of the Bible, tapering off until around the 10th century. There are over 500 surviving copies of uncial script, by far the largest number prior to the Carolingian Renaissance. There is some doubt about the exact meaning of the word. Uncial itself probably comes from St. Jerome's preface to the Book of Job, where it is found in the form uncialibus, but it is possible that this is a misreading of inicialibus, and Jerome may have been referring to the larger initial letters found at the beginning of paragraphs. The term uncial in the sense of describing this script was first used by Jean Mabillon in the early 18th century. Thereafter his definition was refined by Scipione Maffei, who used to refer to this script as distinct from Roman square capitals. 

Half-uncial (6th-9th centuries) 

The term half-uncial or semi-uncial was first used in the mid-18th century by René Prosper Tassin and Charles François Toustain, and despite its common use and understanding, it is not a very accurate name - it is not really derived from regular uncial, but it does look similar and shares many of its features; sometimes, especially when both were developing, the two scripts were used simultaneously in a mixed-uncial script. Like uncial, half-uncial derived from Roman cursive. It was first used around the 3rd century and remained in use until the end of the 8th century. The early forms of half-uncial were used for pagan authors and Roman legal writing, while in the 6th century the script came to be used in Africa and Europe (but not as often in insular centres) to transcribe Christian texts. Half-uncial was brought to Ireland in the 5th century, and was then carried to England. There, it was used up to the 8th century, and developed into the insular script after the 8th century. 


Merovingian and Visigothic script (8th-9th centuries)

Merovingian and Visigothic script was a medieval script so called because it was developed in France during the Merovingian dynasty. It was used in the 7th and 8th Centuries before the Carolingian dynasty and the development of Carolingian minuscule. There were four major centres of Merovingian script: the monasteries of Luxeuil, Laon, Corbie, and Chelles. Each script developed from uncial, half-uncial, and the Merovingian charter scripts. There was also a Merovingian cursive script, used in charters and non-religious writings. All of these types were later influenced by Carolingian script, which eventually replaced it entirely. Along with resemblances to Carolingian and Visigothic, Merovingian shares some features with Beneventan script.


Old Italic script (9th-13th centuries)

Old Italic script - script, also known as chancery cursive, is a semi-cursive, slightly sloped style of handwriting and calligraphy that was developed during the Renaissance in Italy. It is one of the most popular styles used in contemporary Western calligraphy, and is often one of the first scripts learned by beginning calligraphers. Italic script is based largely on Humanist minuscule, which itself draws on Carolingian minuscule. The letters are the same as the Humanist capitals, modelled on Roman square capitals. The Italian scholar Niccolo Niccoli was dissatisfied with the lowercase forms of Humanist minuscule, however, finding it too slow to write. In response, he created the Italic script, which incorporates features and techniques characteristic of a quickly-written hand: oblique forms, fewer strokes per character, and the joining of letters. Perhaps the most significant change to any single character was to the form of the a, which he simplified from the two-story form to the one-story form now common in most handwriting styles. Old Italic script under the influence of Italic movable type used with printing presses, moved towards disjoined, more mannered characters. By the 1550s the Italic script had become so laborious that it fell out of use with scribes. The style became increasingly influenced by the development of Copperplate writing styles in the eighteenth century. The style Italic script used today is often heavily influenced by developments made as late as the early 20th century. In the past few decades, the italic script has been promoted in English-speaking countries as an easier-to-learn alternative to traditional styles of cursive handwriting. In the UK this revival was due in part to Alfred Fairbank's book A Handwriting Manual (1932).


Gothic script/Black Letter (11th-15th centuries)  

Black Letter, also known as Gothic script, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 to 1500. It continued to be used for the German language until the twentieth century. Fraktur is a notable script of this type, and sometimes the entire group of faces is known as Fraktur. Black Letter is not to be confused with Old English, despite the popular though untrue belief that it was written with Black Letter. nOld English pre-dates Black Letter by many centuries. Carolingian minuscule was the direct and linear ancestor of Black Letter. Black Letter developed from Carolingian as an increasingly literate twelfth century Europe required new books in many different subjects. New universities were founded, each producing books for business, law, grammar, history, and other pursuits, not solely religious works for which earlier scripts typically had been used. These books needed to be produced quickly to keep up with demand. Carolingian, though legible, was time-consuming and labour-intensive to produce. It was large and wide and took up a lot of space on a manuscript in a time when writing materials were very costly. As early as the eleventh century, different forms of Carolingian were already being used, and by the mid-twelfth century, a clearly distinguishable form, able to be written more quickly to meet the demand for new books, was being used in north-eastern France and the Low Countries.  The term Gothic was first used to describe this script in fifteenth century Italy, in the midst of the Renaissance, because Renaissance Humanists believed it was a barbaric script. Gothic was a synonym for barbaric. Flavio Biondo, in Italia Illustrata (1531) thought it was invented by the Lombards after their invasion of Italy in the sixth century. Not only were Black Letter calligraphy forms called Gothic script, but any other seemingly barbarian script, such as Visigothic, Beneventan, and Merovingian, were also labelled "Gothic", The Black Letter must not be confused either with the ancient alphabet of the Gothic language or with the sans-serif typefaces that are also sometimes called Gothic.


Rotunda, schwabacher calligraphy (15th century)    

Italian Black Letter calligraphy also is known as rotunda, as it was less angular than in northern centres. The most usual form of Italian rotunda was littera bononiensis, used at the University of Bologna in the thirteenth century. Italian Rotunda calligraphy also is characterized by unique abbreviations, such as q with a line beneath the bow signifying «qui», and unusual spellings, such as, x for s («milex» rather than «miles», and «knight»). The letters of this script preserve roundings, they are wide and tensed. Only the top are broken. The rotunda is wider and broader than any other gothic scripts, and it is seen as a transitional form between gothic and antique. This is one of the few gothic scripts which can be adjusted by antique majiscules. The rotunda, and especially its upper-Italic type, is one of the most beautiful scripts of Western Europe. It flourished in the 15th century and diminished during the renaissance period.   The development of the gothic script in South Europe ended with round gothic script, while in Northern Europe it flourished during the whole period called the Late gothic. During the Late gothic period many script types were invented in Germany and were used there more than anywhere else.

messages of thanks

"Hi Paul
   We received everything today, and just wanted to say thank you. We are so pleased, it   all looks wonderful."
   Carrie, York
 
"Paul,
  We have had many compliments on the calligraphy - many thanks."       
   Sarah, Oxon