It is a striking fact that the letters which we take for granted today, in printed books, derive for the most part from handwriting in the last centuries of the Roman empire. Indeed the script in fragments of Latin messages, written by members of the Roman garrison at Hadrian's Wall in about100, is visibly related to the letters taught in western European languages in the 20th century.
When Christian monks in western Europe write out their holy texts, they do so in Latin on parchment - in the relatively new form of the codex. The script they use is that of the Roman empire, but there are many regional variations.
Manuscripts written in Italy in the 7th to 8th centuryare entirely in capital letters, giving a neat and intensely formal look. But Celtic monks in Ireland, who are among the most prolific of scribes at this time, prefer a more workaday script (the everyday hand of the Roman legionaries at Hadrian's Wall must have survived in many outlying regions as the normal style of handwriting).
A very early surviving example is the so-called Cathach of St Columba (cathach meaning 'battler', because this book of psalms is believed to have been carried into battle as a sacred talisman).
The Cathach of St Columba, dating perhaps from the early 7th century and possibly written by the saint himself, also exemplifies one profoundly influential innovation of the Irish monks. To emphasize the beginning of an important passage, the scribes write its first letter much larger than the rest of the text and in a grander style. Slightly embarrassed by the difference in scale, they tend to reduce each succeeding letter by a little until reaching the small scale of the ordinary text.
Here, already, is the distinction between capitals and lower case (or in manuscript terms, majuscule and minuscule) which is later a standard feature of the western European script.
The early Christian manuscripts influence the later standards of calligraphy and of print in two widely separated stages.
At the court of Charlemagne, in the 8th century, the existing manuscript traditions are deliberately tidied up into one official style of exquisite clarity. This becomes cluttered again during the later Middle Ages, until calligraphers of theRenaissance, in the 15th century, rediscover the earlier style. From them, still within the spirit of the Renaissance, it is adopted by the early printers - and thus enshrined for succeeding centuries.
