sharing more book love

[anotheranon]

Found this online course course in medieval/early modern handwriting, which includes an online version of (at least part of) The Pen's Excellencie, a 17th century handwriting manual that includes alphabets in Italic (looks a lot like modern script) and Secretary (looks like modern script only at first glance).

Why this matters to me: Picked up English Handwriting 1400-1650 a few months ago and though I'm almost finished, I'm still having difficulty reading the Secretary samples. I can't figure out whether this is because the folio samples in the book have such tiny reproduced script (I've been using a magnifying glass) or because the writers just had crap handwriting - so, I'm looking for more samples.

Why learn this? Why not?

Comments

[hadesgirl.livejournal.com]

My GOODNESS!!! Secreatry is an unbelievably difficult script to read. Why learn this? Like you say, why not? And if you can decipher and come to recognize this, kudos!

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Well... If I ever do manage to wrap my head around Secretary script then a whole world of wills, inventories etc. opens up to me - lists of things like cloth, clothing, shoes, etc. ;)

Come to think of it, I have a CD of Renaissance English document photos... I should see if there's something to practice on there...

[hadesgirl.livejournal.com]

Phew - I'm mightily impressed. You go, girl!!!

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

"Why learn this? Why not?"

Best reason in the entire universe! :-)

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

I have always been amused by the non-terminal S in late 17th/early 18th century script. I always read the beginning of the US Constitution as "In Congrefs".

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Yep - that appears in Secretary, only ALL lowercase "s"es look like that! At the beginning of words they really do look like uppercase "F"s!

The lower case "h" has a descender, which can be jarring until you get used to it, because it appears so often ("the", "which", "there" etc.)