Editing Palaeography (section)

==== 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" />