Abstract
T he volume before us , a study on a minor branch of English palaeography, is devoted to the investigation of a single script, in a single region—to which Peter Stokes has given the name (I daresay some will see objections to the term) ‘English Vernacular Minuscule’—during a transition in writing English before the Conquest. This brief phase—for it lasted only about 50 years—was one of great variety in writing, according to Neil Ker, who saw in it ‘no single characteristic type of writing and no obvious course of development’. That same period is the exact time when, according to Stokes, this new minuscule began first to develop. Clearly there had been a change. Can such a great amount have been added to our knowledge that what Ker had to say of the palaeography of the period remains untenable today? Perhaps a few general remarks on this development might not be thought out of place.
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