A class for FOOL 2024
Prepared and delivered by Asleif of Ramshaven
Uncial script in the British Isles comes in two varieties ‘Irish half-uncial’ and ‘English (Anglo-Saxon) uncial’. These terms are outdated and based on biased and incomplete understanding from the 17th century, however these are the terms we still use today. Both come from the Roman rustic capitals (again, weirdly biased, as it was used for the high literary form in manuscripts), and the informal cursive which was used for everything from merchant account books and children’s school books up to decrees by the Emperor. The old cursive form fell out of use by the 3rd century as it was basically a Latin shorthand script with single letters signifying entire words, but the ‘new cursive’, which included larger initial letters remained in use until the 7th. ‘Rustic capitals’ continued on until the 9th, with the heyday between the 4th and 6th century. Both of these merged in the 7th century to become the precursors of the Visigothic, Merovingian and Uncial scripts. So, as the Roman Empire slowly came apart the Classical age melded into the Middle Ages. The scripts changed as a reflection of this.
Part of this evolution was the change from papyrus to vellum. Papyrus has a rough, choppy surface, so it is suited to brush strokes and short, choppy letters. Vellum, made from stretched and prepared calfskin, has a much smoother surface and allows for rounded strokes, and even colour to be applied, which is impossible on papyrus. It also lasts a lot longer. Although the use of prepared animal hides as a writing surface goes back millennia it was a very expensive material. Papyrus was so popular because it was cheap and more easily manufactured, but it’s only found in Egypt. So, as trade routes dissolved, so did the source of this cheap, expendable writing material.
The earliest example of uncial comes from a rubbish dump in Egypt (Oxyrhynchus 30), and is dated to the 1st or 2nd century. (See the Oxyrhynchus Papyri for more details if you are interested. The wikipedia article is fascinating). It makes sense, as Insular/Celtic Christianity was based on a form of monastic Christianity from that area of the world, which developed in the 4th century in Ireland. It was written on vellum, and had some of the basic characteristics of what would later develop in the 5th and 6th centuries. This script was taken by Irish monks to England, and then mainland Europe via the Carolingian Empire. There were also variations on uncial scripts in Roman North Africa, France (Merovingian). Greek uncial in the Byzantine Empire developed in the 9th century in the 9th century as a Cyrillic called Old Slavonic, used for liturgical books. But the form we know best today is a font called Times New Roman.
This image is a bit misleading, but it is a tidy representation of the different forms through time. Obviously Greek capitals came far before the Roman. It’s interesting to see the different scripts beside each other this way.
These are very regularized font styles, but they're good for beginner practice
The Anglo-Saxon font example I used
The Irish Half-uncial example I used
Uncial scripts through time on manuscripts
Roman scripts
Modern
If it looks like the styles merge and blend a bit... yes. Monks were known to wander around to various monasteries all over the Western Roman Empire and beyond. They brought books and art styles with them wherever they went.
Feel like nerding out?
Trinity College Dublin digitised collection
British Library Irish Manuscripts
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