Hand: Main Hand, Brasenose Latham M.6.15

Name
Main Hand
Manuscript
Brasenose Latham M.6.15
Script
Unspecified
Scribe
Unspecified
Date
Saec. xi1
Place
Unknown (Ælfric)

Stokes, English Vernacular Script, ca 990–ca 1035, Vol. 2 (PhD Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2006)

This set hand is very regular, somewhat rounded, and written with a medium-width pen and some shading. Ascenders are shorter than minims and are slightly split at the tops. Descenders are as long as or longer than minims and are very straight but can have angled finials at the tips. Minims are straight, fairly upright, and have rising ticked feet; m and n have approach-strokes, but descenders, i, and u have wedges. A more or less teardrop-shaped a is found, the body of which is quite wide, and the top is often straight but rising. Much the same form was used for æ but with a more rounded top; the hook is also round and the tongue straight and rising except when forming a tall and somewhat bulging ligature with following g. Round c was used, as was d with a long back which can be within or rising slightly above cue-height. Round e was used, the hook and tongue like those of æ except that the tall form is not found. The tongue of f is long, very flat, and can extend very slightly through the down-stroke, and the hook-stroke begins close to the base-line but follows the vertical very closely and so the resultant letter is rarely deeply split. The top of g is flat and relatively long, the mid-section hangs in the centre and is rounded but relatively narrow, and the tail is rounded and open, the letter fairly S-shaped. The shoulders of h, m, n, and r are all fairly rounded, although m and n are fairly narrow and the descender of r is short. Tall and low s were used with little distinction; tall s descends very slightly below the base-line. The conventional distinction between þ and ð seems to have been followed. The back of ð is long, tapering, and curves smoothly up at the tip; the through-stroke is high and straight, with a short down-stroke added at the tip. Straight-limbed dotted y is found, the top branches hooked down and the tail hooked up. The top of 7 is wide and is hooked up at the left.

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