pl. 160), a MS. written in fine large characters of the best type; and a very ancient fragment of a commentary on an ante-Hieronymian text, in three columns, has also survived at Fulda (Exempla, tab. 21). Among the uncial MSS. of the 5th century of which good photographic facsimiles are available are the two famous codices of Livy, at Vienna (fig. 31) and Paris (Exempla, tab. 18, 19; Pal. Soc. pl. 31, 32, 183).
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| Fig. 31.—Livy (Vienna MS.), 5th century. | |||
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To distinguish between uncial MSS. of the 5th and 6th centuries is not very easy, for the character of the writing changes but little, and is free from sign of weakness or wavering. It may, however, be noticed that in MSS. which are assigned to the latter century there is rather less compactness, and occasionally, as the century advances, there is a slight tendency to artificiality.
When the 7th century is reached there is every evidence that uncial writing has entered on a new stage. The letters are more roughly and carelessly formed, and the compactness of the earlier style is altogether wanting. From this time down to the age of Charlemagne there is a continual deterioration, the writing of the 8th century being altogether misshapen. A more exact but imitative hand was, however, at the same time employed, when occasion required, for the production of calligraphic MSS., such as Biblical and liturgical books. Under the encouragement given by Charlemagne to such works, splendid uncial volumes were written in ornamental style, often in gold, several of which have survived to this day.
Mixed and Half-uncial Writing.—It is obvious that the majuscule styles of literary writing, viz. the square capital, the rustic capital and the uncial, were of too elaborate and too stately a character to serve all the many requirements of literature. The capital hands, as we have seen, appear to have been employed, at least in many instances, for codices produced on a grand scale, and presumably for special occasions; and if the uncial hand had a longer and wider career, yet in this case also there must often have been a sense that the employment of this fine character gave a special importance and value to the MS. It is not improbable that the survival of so large a number of uncial MSS. is due to the special care that they received at the hands of their owners. Other more manageable styles of writing were necessary, and concurrently with the majuscule hands other forms were developing. The hand which bears the name of Half-uncial was finally evolved, and had itself an important career as a book-hand as well as exercising a large influence on the medieval minuscule hand of literature.
From the first, as we have seen in the case of the graffiti and the tablets, a mingling of capital forms and minuscule forms was prevalent in the non-literary style of writing. There are indications that the same mingling of the two streams was allowed in writing of a literary character. It appears in a rudimentary state in a papyrus fragment from Herculaneum (Exempla, tab. 2 b); and it appears in the epitome of Livy of the 3rd century found at Oxyrhynchus, in which minuscule letters are interspersed among the uncial text. From the regularity and ease with which this MS. is written, it is to be assumed that the mixed hand was ordinarily practised at that time. It is often employed for marginal notes in the early vellum codices. It is used for the text of the Verona Gaius (Exempla, tab. 24) of the 5th century, in which, besides the ordinary uncial shapes, d is also found as a minuscule, r as the transitional r, and s as the tall letter v. Again, in the uncial Florentine Pandects of the 6th century appears a hand which contains a large admixture of minuscule forms (Exempla, tab. 54). From these and other instances it is seen that in uncial MSS. of a secular nature, as in works relating to law and grammar, the scribe did not feel himself restricted to a uniform use of the larger letters, as he would be in producing a church book or calligraphic MS.
But the mixed hand, although partaking something of the nature of the Half-uncial hand, was not actually that form of writing. The Half-uncial hand was not only a mingling of uncial and minuscule forms, but also a blending of them, the uncial element yielding more or less to the minuscule influence, while the minuscule element was reacted upon by the uncial sentiment of roundness and sweeping curves. In its full development the Half-uncial, or Roman Half-uncial as it is also called, were it not for a few lingering pure uncial forms, might equally well be described as a large-type minuscule hand. It has, in fact, been sometimes styled the pre-Carolingian minuscule. An early form of this writing is found in the papyrus fragment of Sallust’s Catiline, perhaps of the early 5th century, recently recovered at Oxyrhynchus. In vellum codices of the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries Half-uncial writing of a very fine type is not uncommon. It is used for the marginal scholia of the Bembine Terence, of the 5th century. The MS. of the Fasti consulares, at Verona, brought down to 494 A.D. (Exempla, tab. 30), is also in this hand. But the earliest MS. of this class to which a more approximate date can be given is the Hilary of St Peter’s at Rome (fig. 32), which was written in or before the year 509 or 510 (Exempla, tab. 52; Pal. Soc. pl. 136); the next is the Sulpicius Severus of Verona, of 517 (Exempla, tab. 32); and of the year 569 is a beautifully written MS. at Monte Cassino containing a Biblical commentary (Exempla, tab. 3).
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| Fig. 32.—St Hilary, A.D. 509–510. | |||
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Other examples, of which good facsimiles may be consulted, are the Corbie MS. of Canons, at Paris (Exempla, tab. 41, 42), the St Severianus at Milan (Pal. Soc. pl. 161, 162), the Ashburnham St Augustine (Pal. Soc. ii. 9), and the Paris St Augustine (New. Pal. Soc. pl. 80), of the 6th century; and the Cologne MS. of Canons (Exempla, tab. 44), and the Josephus (Pal. Soc. pl. 138) and St Ambrose (Pal. Soc. pl. 137) of Milan, of the 6th or 7th century.
The influence which the Half-uncial literary hand exercised upon the minuscule book-writing of the 7th and 8th centuries may be traced in greater or less degree in the continental MSS. of that period. We shall find that it formed the basis for the beautiful national handwritings of Ireland and Britain; and it played an important part in the Carolingian reform of the book-hand of the Frankish Empire.
Latin Writing. III.—The National Hands
We have now to follow the rise and development of the national handwritings of western Europe, all of which were derived from the Roman hand, but from different phases of it. While the Roman Empire was the central power controlling its colonies and conquests, the Roman handwriting, however far apart might be the several countries in which it was current, remained practically one and the same. But, when the empire was broken up and when independent nationalities arose upon its ruins and advanced upon independent paths of civilization, the handwriting inherited from Rome gradually assumed distinctive characters and took the complexions of the several countries, unless from some accident the continuity of the effects of the Roman occupation was disturbed, as it was in Britain by the Saxon invasion. On the continent of western Europe, in Italy, in Spain, in Gaul, the Roman cursive hand had become the common form of writing, and it remained the framework on which the national hands of those countries developed. Thus
