Hand: Witness-list (dorse), BL Stowe Ch. 6

Name

Witness-list (dorse)

Manuscript

BL Stowe Ch. 6

Script

Unspecified

Scribe

Unspecified

Date

Saec. xi

Place

Canterbury

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

Though strictly in Latin, this text consists largely of Anglo-Saxon names, and even the Latin was written with Insular letter-forms. The script is again imitative but is much more convincing than S.125-1. Nevertheless, the two hands are very similar and were probably by the same scribe but written at different times. The ink is fairly dark and the script has a somewhat disorderly appearance. Ascenders are long and have heavy wedges. Descenders are also long and are usually pointed. Minims are backward-leaning and have small wedges and small feet. Several forms of a were used. The Caroline form appears several times, as does the semi-Caroline and an essentially teardrop-shaped one. The letter can also have a prominent horn, and a lozenge-shaped form was used in ligature with preceding e. The horned form was also used for æ, the tongue of which is short and thick, and the letter forms a tall bulging ligature whenever possible. Horned c was also used, the lower stroke of which is quite diagonal and the hook short. Round d was used, the back short and sometimes concave down but sometimes vertical-tipped. Horned e is found throughout, the tongue of which is angled up slightly, but a tall bulging ligature was used whenever possible including with flat-topped a. The tongue of f is flat and very long, and the hook is deeply split. The top of g is very short and somewhat concave up. The mid-section of g starts on the right, is very straight and angled between about 45–60°, then turns to the horizontal, and then curves around in a rounded open hook which is once turned down at the tip but is usually curved up. The shoulders of h, m, n, and r are deeply split, slightly swollen, and normally quite rounded, although a more angular r is sometimes found. Though not found in the Anglo-Saxon names, deeply-split low s was used throughout the Latin text, the hook of which can reach slightly above cue-height, and in one case the letter is long (consensi, line 4). No þ is found. The back of ð is like that of d but longer and always vertical-tipped, and the through-stroke is very long and hooked down on the right. Round undottted y was used, in one case written with a single stroke and with a large loop for a tail (the second in cyneðryð, line 7).