Visigothic script
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Visigothic script was a type of medieval script, so called because it originated in the Visigothic kingdom in Spain. It is also called littera toletana or littera mozarabica.
The script was used from approximately the late 7th century until the 13th century, mostly in Visigothic Spain but also somewhat in southern France. It was perfected in the 9th-11th centuries and declined afterwards. It developed from uncial script, and shares many features of uncial, especially an uncial form of the letter g.
Other features of the script include an open-top a (very similar to the letter u), similar shapes for the letters r and s, and a long letter i resembling the letter l. There are two forms of the letter d, one with a straight vertical ascender, and another with an ascender slanting towards the left. The top stroke of the letter t, by itself, has a hook curving to the left; t also has a number of other forms when used in ligatures and there are two different ligatures for the two sounds of ti (“hard” and “soft”) as spoken in Spanish Latin during this period. The letters e and r also have many different forms when written in ligature. Of particular interest is the special Visigothic z, which after adoption into Carolingian handwriting eventually transformed into the c-cedilla, ç.
From the standard script, a capital-letter display script was developed, with long slender forms. There was also a cursive form used for charters and non-religious writings, which had northern ("Leonese") and southern ("Mozarabic") forms. The Leonese cursive was used in the Christian north, while the Mozarabic was used by Christians living in the Muslim south. The cursive forms were probably influenced by Roman cursive, brought to Spain from North Africa.
Visigothic script has many similarities with Beneventan script and Merovingian script.
[edit] References
- Visigothic script at Medieval Writing
- Muñoz y Rivero, Jesús (1919). Paleografía visigoda: método teórico-práctico para aprender a leer los códices y documentos españoles de los siglos V al XII; obra ilustrada con 45 láminas dibujadas por el autor (Visigothic Paleography: A Theoretical-Practical Method for Learning to Read Spanish Codices and Documents from the 5th to 11th centuries; Illustrated with 45 Figures Drawn by the Author) (in Spanish). Madrid: D. Jorro.
