Editing Palaeography (section)

=== Majuscule writing ===
==== Capital writing ====
[[File:RomanVirgilFolio014rVergilPortrait.jpg|thumb|200px|Folio14 [[recto]] of the [[Vergilius Romanus]] written in [[rustic capitals]], also contains an author portrait of [[Virgil]].]]

The [[Latin alphabet]] first appears in the epigraphic type of [[majuscule]] writing, known as capitals. These characters form the main stem from which developed all the branches of Latin writing. On the oldest monuments (the ''inscriptiones bello Hannibalico antiquiores'' of the ''[[Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum|Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum = CIL]]''), it is far from showing the orderly regularity of the later period. Side by side with upright and square characters are angular and sloping forms, sometimes very distorted, which seem to indicate the existence of an early cursive writing from which they would have been borrowed. Certain literary texts clearly allude to such a hand.<ref>Cf. Henry B. Van Hoesen, [https://archive.org/details/romancursivewri00hoesgoog ''Roman Cursive Writing''], Princeton University Press, 1915, pp. 1–2.</ref> Later, the characters of the cursive type were progressively eliminated from formal inscriptions, and capital writing reached its perfection in the [[History of Rome|Augustan Age]].

Epigraphists divide the numerous inscriptions of this period into two quite distinct classes: ''tituli'', or formal inscriptions engraved on stone in elegant and regular capitals, and ''acta'', or legal texts, documents, etc., generally engraved on bronze in cramped and careless capitals. Palaeography inherits both these types. Reproduced by scribes on papyrus or parchment, the elegant characters of the inscriptions become the square capitals of the manuscripts, and the ''actuaria'', as the writing of the ''acta'' is called, becomes the [[rustic capital]].

Of the many books written in square capitals, the ''éditions de luxe'' of ancient times, only a few fragments have survived, the most famous being pages from manuscripts of [[Virgil]].<ref>Cf. [[Émile Chatelain]], [http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/classics/index.asp ''Paléographie des classiques latins''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131115034341/http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/classics/index.asp |date=15 November 2013 }}, pl. LXI-II, LXXV; ''[[Oxyrhynchus Papyri]]'', viii, 1,098.</ref> The finest examples of rustic capitals, the use of which is attested by papyri of the 1st century,<ref>Cf. Karl Zangemeister & Wilhelm Wattenbach, [https://books.google.com/books?id=wuTEXwAACAAJ ''Exempla codicum Latinorum''], Koester, 1876, pl. I-II.</ref> are to be found in manuscripts of Virgil<ref>Cf. ''Pal. Soc., cit.'', pl. 113-117; ''Archivio paleografico italiano'', i, p. 98.</ref> and [[Terence]].<ref>Cf. ''Pal. Soc.'', pl. 135.</ref> Neither of these forms of capital writing offers any difficulty in reading, except that no space is left between the words. Their dates are still uncertain, in spite of attempts to determine them by minute observation.<ref>Cf. [[Karl Franz Otto Dziatzko]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=nHM2QwAACAAJ ''Untersuchungen über ausgewählte Kapitel des antiken Buchwesens''], BiblioBazaar, repr. 2010; E.A. Lowe, [http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=3572504 "More Facts about our Oldest Latin Manuscripts"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305070639/http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=3572504 |date=5 March 2016 }}, in the ''Classical Quarterly'', vol. xix, p. 197.</ref>

The rustic capitals, more practical than the square forms, soon came into general use. This was the standard form of writing, so far as books are concerned, until the 5th century, when it was replaced by a new type, the uncial, which is discussed below.

==== Early cursive writing ====
While the set book-hand, in square or rustic capitals, was used for the copying of books, the writing of everyday life, letters and documents of all kinds, was in a cursive form, the oldest examples of which are provided by the [[graffiti]] on walls at [[Pompeii]] (''[[Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum|CIL]]'', iv), a series of waxen tablets, also discovered at Pompeii (''CIL'', iv, supplement), a similar series found at [[Verespatak]] in [[Transylvania]] (''CIL'', iii) and a number of papyri.<ref>Cf. [[Carl Wessely]], [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=ha001159476 ''Schrifttafeln zur älteren lateinischen Palaeographie''], Leipzig, E. Avenarius; ''Oxyrhynchus Papyri, passim''; Vincenzo Federici, ''Esempi di corsivo antico''; ''et al''.</ref> From a study of a number of documents which exhibit transitional forms, it appears that this cursive was originally simplified capital writing.<ref>Cf. Franz Steffens, [http://www.paleography.unifr.ch/schrifttafeln.htm ''Lateinische Paläographie'' – digital version] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130907055406/http://www.paleography.unifr.ch/schrifttafeln.htm |date=7 September 2013 }}, 2nd ed., pl. 3 {{in lang|de}}; Wessely, ''Studien'', xiv, pl. viii; ''et al''.</ref> The evolution was so rapid, however, that at quite an early date the ''scriptura epistolaris'' of the Roman world can no longer be described as capitals. By the 1st century, this kind of writing began to develop the principal characteristics of two new types: the [[Uncial script|uncial]] and the [[minuscule cursive]]. With the coming into use of writing surfaces which were smooth, or offered little resistance, the unhampered haste of the writer altered the shape, size and position of the letters. In the earliest specimens of writing on wax, plaster or papyrus, there appears a tendency to represent several straight strokes by a single curve. The cursive writing thus foreshadows the specifically uncial forms. The same specimens show great inequality in the height of the letters; the main strokes are prolonged upwards ([[File:Hand 1 sample b 1.png|20px]]= {{angbr|b}}; [[File:Hand 10 sample d 2.png|20px]]= {{angbr|d}}) or downwards ([[File:Hand 2 sample q.png|20px]]= {{angbr|q}}; [[File:Hand 4 sample s 2.png|15px]] = '''{{'s}}'''). In this direction, the cursive tends to become a minuscule hand.<ref name="Bouar" />

==== Uncial writing ====
Although the characteristic forms of the uncial type appear to have their origin in the early cursive,<ref>Cf. [[Edward Maunde Thompson]], [https://archive.org/details/greeklatin00thomuoft ''Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography''], ''s.v.''; Van Hoesen, ''The Parentage and Birthdate of the Latin Uncial'', in ''Transactions and Proceedings'' of the [[American Philological Association]], xlii.</ref> the two hands are nevertheless quite distinct. The uncial is a ''libraria'', closely related to the capital writing, from which it differs only in the rounding off of the angles of certain letters, principally [[File:Hand 1 sample A mag 2.png|28px]] [[File:Uncial d.png|15px]] [[File:Uncial e.png|15px]] [[File:Hand 2 sample m 1.png|30px]]. It represents a compromise between the beauty and legibility of the capitals and the rapidity of the cursive, and is clearly an artificial product. It was certainly in existence by the latter part of the 4th century, for a number of manuscripts of that date are written in perfect uncial hands (''Exempla'', pl. XX). It presently supplanted the capitals and appears in numerous manuscripts which have survived from the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries, when it was at its height.<ref>A list is given in Traube, ''Vorlesungen'', i, pp. 171–261, and numerous reproductions in Zangemeister & Wattenbach's ''Exempla'', and in Chatelain, ''Uncialis scriptura''.</ref> By this time it had become an imitative hand, in which there was generally no room for spontaneous development. It remained noticeably uniform over a long period. It is difficult therefore to date the manuscripts by palaeographical criteria alone. The most that can be done is to classify them by centuries, on the strength of tenuous data.<ref>Cf. Chatelain, ''Unc. script., explanatio tabularum''.</ref> The earliest uncial writing is easily distinguished by its simple and monumental character from the later hands, which become progressively stiff and affected.