A capital display: initials in Exchequer documents

A capital display: initials in Exchequer documents Scribes, and the text they produced, heavily influence the way we read the past The formal appearance of documents is a significant part of their effect. Then structure, which emphasises some material at the expense of others, helps in the reading of meaning into the content. It also, in the context of government, establishes authenticity and reinforces authority. Thus from the Middle Ages in England,1 material kept in the royal courts was privileged. Inscribed in parchment and sometimes authenticated by seals of various sorts, such material was a matter 'of record', and so treated as indisputable, irrefutable evidence in any court in the land. Different types of documents required the use, not only of distinctive formulae within them, but of a different physical form as well. The particular type of script used also conferred authority and legality. Before the advent of the typewriter, all documents had to be handwritten, and a good 'hand' was a saleable commodity. However, in the courts of government or church, an individual's hand had to be anonymous, as indistinguishable as possible from that of any other clerk. The appearance of these records was of critical importance. The scripts in which they were written were highly formal, as distinctive in general character as they were individually anonymous. There is no confusing a Chancery hand with an Exchequer hand or a King's Bench hand, and each hand had subsets used for a variety of purposes. Distinguishing one clerk's hand from another, however, is a different matter. There was evidently already a high premium on bureaucratic anonymity. Clerks learned the required characteristics of their court scripts so thoroughly that, although some individuals' hands among them can be distinguished, mosdy by subtle variations in pen angle or pressure, many cannot. Perhaps in a faint bid for identity, people adopted tiny personal characteristics, but in general die use of a clear and 'generous' common script was mandatory. The form of that script was laid down and difficult to alter. Documents were identifiable as emanating from a particular court simply by the script and layout employed. Individuals might have had a 1 The period covered by the documents to be discussed in the present essay extends from thefirstrollswhich survive for the royal courts of the twelfth century down to the administrative reforms of the nineteenth century. P A R E R G O N ns 13.2, January 1996—Text, Scribe, Artefact 54 S. M. Jack personal hand—in the sixteenth century, this was possibly italic, but more commonly a form of secretary, a running hand which they might use in rough notes or comments as well as personal letters—but the formal hands remained a requirement in official documents. Training in a particular script was presumably carried out in the court itself, where the clerks who had a secure position—the 'sworn' clerks— took on assistants who were responsible only to them and w h o m they paid from then own fees. The teaching of skills in specific court hands outside the court was probably discouraged as it would have made forgery too easy. It was important that the use of a formal hand as one form of authentication was not undermined. Despite this, court hands did slowly modify over a period. It is comparatively easy to differentiate, solely on the grounds of script, between an Henrician document and one from the reign of James I and VI, but the process by which the required letter-form was modified is much hardertotrack. These records of the crown to which we now all have access through the Public Record Office were, whenfirstwritten, secret and confidential. Obtaining a certified copy was a tedious process which required permission from authority, and was neither easy nor cheap. A certified attorney—one of the clerks in the court—had to be employed tofindthe material and show it to the client, and exemplification of documents was also very expensive. Nor was access automatic. On one occasion, Winchester wrote to Fanshawe, in the Queen's Remembrancer's Office, instructing him to allow inspection by someone who had put in pledges for payment.2 A certified...