Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

Page 551

550
THE ALPHABET At the end of the twelfth century, and still more during the next two centuries, the letters gradually assumed angular shapes-due to the pen being held so as to make a slanting stroke.
The new hand (Fig. 248, 3), termed "black letter" or Gothic, or else, in reference to modern usage, German (the German term, derived from Latin, is Fraktur), employed in north-western Europe, including England, until the sixteenth century, is still used in Germany as the "national" hand. According to some scholars, this survival of the black letter in
fue letificauerunt animam meams
umquid adheret tibi fedrs imqui tatis:quifingis laborem in precepto. Captabunt in animam tush:1lan guinem Innocentem ondemnabīt,"
Fig. 249 Famous "Luttrell Psalter" (British Museum, Add. 42130): Gothic "liturgical hand".
about 1340, neighbourhood of East Anglia.
Germany is due to the fact that it was the current style at the time of the invention of printing and was employed by Gutenberg, but Sir Ellis Minns points out that black letter survived in protestant countries because the humanistic hand was used by the Roman Church; in England it was touch and go.
Italic and Roman Types In Italy both the "black letter" and the round hand were used and during the fifteenth century a beautiful Italian cursive minuscule, the round, neat humanistic or renaissance hand (Fig. 247, 6), was introduced in Florence, and employed for literary productions, while the needs of every-day life were met by an equally beautiful (but not as clearly legible) cursive hand (Fig. 247. 7).