Hand: Main Hand, BL Harley Ch. 43.C.7

Name

Main Hand

Manuscript

BL Harley Ch. 43.C.7

Script

Unspecified

Scribe

Unspecified

Date

Saec. x/xi

Place

Central Production (?)

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

The charter was written throughout in a script derived from Square minuscule but with many Caroline features. It displays short tapering descenders and fairly straight thick ascenders with forked wedges which trail off slightly to the left. Ascenders are longer in the boundary-clause than in the main body of the charter relative to cue-height. The body of a is somewhat rounded but the structure is flat-topped: the top and back were written with a single stroke which varies in angularity, and the left side is more or less vertical but can bulge out slightly and curves back to the right to meet the back slightly above the base-line. A tall e-component was used in æ when conjoined with a following minim or descender, although this form does not appear in the Latin digraph or in Anglo-Saxon names in main text. Concave-down and bilinear d were used, as was round c. Horned e is common but round e is also found. The lower curve of horned e can be fairly straight and angled at about 45°, in which case it shows a very laid-back form. The mid-section of g is very narrow and hangs from the middle or left of the top-stroke, and the tail is closed in a loop which sits to the right of centre. The shoulders of h, m, n, and r are all rounded, and the down-strokes terminate with short horizontal feet on h, m, and n, but a larger tick on r. Long, low and round s were used in the Latin text, but round s does not appear in the boundary-clause. Long s is slightly forward-leaning, looking as if it is about to tip over, and once has an extravagant loop at the end of line nine. The top of final t often turns up on the right. The scribe preferred ð to þ, the latter appearing regularly in æþel- in the witness-list but only in the words þa, þone, and the abbreviation for þæt in the boundary-clause. Straight-limbed, undotted y was used throughout. The back of ð is straight, very long, and is ticked slightly or curved prominently down and to the left, and the through-stroke is short, concave-down, and hooked down on the right. Capital wynn is very angular. Latin is distinguished by script, though not consistently.