General Patterns of Punctuation in the Paston Letters

Abstract

The late Middle Ages saw a proliferation in the number of marks of punctuation as a result of the development of cursive hands and scripts. While the punctus had been the principal mark used in the Anglo-Saxon period, other marks like the paragraphus, the virgule, the perioslash and the hyphen were progressively incorporated into the repertoire of punctuation. The inventory of marks and their functions settled over time, but it was not until the seventeenth century when we find the early symptoms of normalization (Calle-Martín forthcoming). Even though some recent studies have focused on the analysis of the punctuation system deployed in different text types–literary, scientific and legal material in particular–, letters have, however, not been the focus of these studies. This paper therefore analyses what marks are present in the Paston Letters and what their functions are. Particular attention is paid to the punctus and the virgule as marks with overlapping uses in the period.