English Square minuscule script: the background and earliest phases

Abstract

In the long history of the Insular system of scripts, the tenth century marks for England a decisive stage. Within the narrow confines of that eraq we may observe numerous ecclesiastical developments which bear on the history of book production: attempts at a scriptorial reform; the reception of external stimuli of an artistic and technical nature; the creation of a new ‘Square minuscule’ form of Insular script; the deliberate imitation in England (for the first time since its emergence in northwestern Francia in the later eighth century) of the Caroline minuscule, probably not unconnected with an increasing rate of impartation of foreign book; a monastic revolution within the English church (supported by the monarchy but led by Benedictine ideologues drawing inspiration in large part from continental models of reform) some of whose proponents probably favoured Caroline writing as a matter of principle; a growing tendency on the part of scribes to write different scripts for Latin and the vernacular; a considerable growth in the writing of vernacular manuscripts whose output seems to have increased geometrically during the 175 years from King Alfred's literary and educational reform to the Norman Conquest; and finally the abandonment of the Square minuscule as a vehicle for Latin writing, coincident with its transmutation into another variety of Insular script whose use in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was restricted to English-language matter.