Guide to Scripts Used in English Writings up to 1500 (review)

The palaeography of medieval and early modern manuscripts written in English has a long and complicated history, spanning more than seven hundred years up to – and even after – the invention of printing. In this book, Jane Roberts aims to give 'an overview of the variety of scripts used in the recording of English literature up to and a little beyond the introduction of print' (p. 1) and to provide an account of the different sets of letter-forms used during this period. Her purpose is partly to help readers to identify the scripts found in English manuscripts and partly to explain the place of these scripts in the wider history and context of palaeography.

A total of 58 individual manuscripts are discussed and analysed, ranging in date from the mid-eighth century to the early sixteenth century. All the major scripts from this long period are covered, with a chapter for each: Insular, Anglo-Saxon minuscule, English Caroline minuscule, Protogothic, Gothic textualis, Anglicana, and Secretary. Inevitably, some scripts – Anglo-Saxon minuscule, Anglicana, and Secretary – have a significantly larger number of examples than the others. Most of the manuscripts are from the British Library or from various Oxford libraries.

For most of these manuscripts there is a single black and white photograph, though some have two photographs and a few also have colour versions of the black and white plates. There is a transcription of each text, together with a detailed analysis of the script(s), some information about the provenance and history of the manuscript (under the heading 'contexts'), and a summary bibliography. There are also supplementary plates from at least 32 other manuscripts, which have been chosen because they illustrate or complement aspects of the main manuscripts under discussion. These supplementary plates are not given individual descriptions, though they are sometimes referred to in the introductory material for each chapter. There are various indexes, including an index of personal names appearing in the manuscripts and an index of manuscripts by location.

This is an excellent introduction to English palaeography which can be warmly recommended to the novice and the expert alike. The manuscripts are well-chosen, and the entry for each manuscript is informative, thorough and reliable. The more general introductory and background material is also invariably helpful and authoritative. As a whole, the volume gives a strong sense of the development and continuity of English as a written language, from Bede and Alfred through to Hoccleve and Chaucer and beyond.

Nevertheless, there are a few ways in which the book could have been improved. The quality of a small number of the black and white reproductions is simply inadequate for palaeographical purposes. The inclusion of the supplementary plates makes the structure of the book rather confusing to browse through. It would also have been very useful to have had a general index and a glossary of the various technical terms used.