Blackletter
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Blackletter in a Latin Bible of AD 1407, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. |
Blackletter (also known as
Gothic script, not to be confused with the
Gothic alphabet, and
Old English because of a popular myth that it was used to write that language, despite a difference in time of several centuries) was a
script used throughout
Western Europe from approximately
1150 to
1500. It continued to be used for the
German language until the
20th century.
Fraktur is a notable script of this type, and sometimes the entire group of faces are known as
fraktur.
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Folio 56r of the Aberdeen Bestiary, an early example of blackletter from the 12th century. |
Carolingian minuscule was the direct and linear ancestor of blackletter. Blackletter developed from Carolingian as an increasingly literate
12th century Europe required new books in many different subjects. New
universities were founded, each producing books for
business,
law,
grammar,
history, and other pursuits, not solely religious works for which earlier
scripts had usually been used. These books needed to be produced quickly to keep up with demand. Carolingian, though legible, was time-consuming and labour-intensive to produce. It was large and wide and took up a lot of space on a
manuscript. As early as the
11th century, different forms of Carolingian were already being used, and by the mid-12th century, a clearly distinguishable form, able to be written more quickly to meet the demand for new books, was being used in north-eastern
France and the
Low Countries.
The term
Gothic was first used to describe this script in
15th century Italy, in the midst of the
Renaissance, because
Renaissance Humanists believed it was a barbaric
script (
Gothic was a synonym for
barbaric).
Flavio Biondo, in
Italia Illustrata (
1531) thought it was invented by the
Lombards after their invasion of Italy in the
6th century. Not only the blackletter were called
Gothic script, but any other seemingly barbarian
script, such as
Visigothic,
Beneventan, and
Merovingian, were also labelled "Gothic", in contrast to
Carolingian minuscule, a highly legible script which the Humanists called
littera antiqua, "the ancient letter", wrongly believing that it was the script used by the
Romans (it was only invented in the reign of
Charlemagne, though only used significantly after that era).
The blackletter must not be confused either with the genuinely
Gothic alphabet or with the
sans-serif typefaces that are also sometimes called
Gothic.
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Blackletter examples |
Textualis
Textualis, also known as
textura or
Gothic bookhand, was the most
calligraphic form of blackletter, and today is the form most associated with "Gothic".
Johannes Gutenberg carved a textualis typeface — including a large number of
ligatures and common abbreviations — when he printed his
42-line Bible.
According to Dutch scholar Gerard Lieftinck, the height of blackletter was the
14th and 15th centuries. For Lieftinck, the highest form of
textualis was
littera textualis formata, used for
de luxe manuscripts. The usual form, simply
littera textualis, was used for literary works and university texts. Lieftinck's third form,
littera textualis currens, was the
cursive form of blackletter, extremely difficult to read and used for textual
glosses, less important books, etc.
Textualis was most widely used in France, the Low Countries,
England, and
Germany. Some characteristics of the script are:
*tall, narrow letters, as compared to their Carolingian counterparts.
*letters formed by sharp, straight, angular lines, unlike the typically round Carolingian; as a result, there is a high degree of "breaking", i.e. lines that do not necessarily connect with each other, especially in curved letters.
*
ascenders (in letters such as b, d, h, etc.) are vertical and often end in sharp
finials
*when a letter with a bow (in b, d, p, q, etc) is followed by another letter with a bow (such as "be" or "po"), the bows overlap and the letters are joined by a straight line (this is known as "biting").
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German Blackletter typefaces |
*a related characteristic is the
half r, the shape of
r when attached to other letters with bows; only the bow and tail were written, connected to the bow of the previous letter. In other scripts, this only occurred in a
ligature with the letter o.
*similarly related is the form of the letter d when followed by a letter with a bow; its ascender is then curved to the left, like the
uncial d. Otherwise the ascender is vertical.
*the letters g, j, p, q, y, and the hook of h have descenders, but no other letters are written below the line.
*the letter a has a straight back stroke, and the top loop eventually became closed, somewhat resembling the number 8. The letter s often has a diagonal line connecting its two bows, also somewhat resembling an 8 (but the
long s is frequently used in the middle of words).
*
minims, especially in the later period of the script, do not connect with each other. This makes it very difficult to distinguish i, u, m, and n. A 14th century example of the difficulty minims produced is
mimi numinum niuium minimi munium nimium uini muniminum imminui uiui minimum uolunt ("the smallest mimes of the gods of snow do not wish at all in their life that the great duty of the defences of the wine be diminished"). In blackletter this would look like a series of single strokes. Dotted i and the letter j developed because of this. Minims may also have finials of their own.
*the script has many more
scribal abbreviations than Carolingian, adding to the speed in which it could be written.
Cursiva
Cursiva refers to a very large variety of forms of blackletter; like modern
cursive writing there is no real standard form. It developed in the 14th century as a simplified form of
textualis, with influence from the form of
textualis as used for writing
charters.
Cursiva developed partly because of the introduction of
paper, which was smoother than
parchment. It was therefore easier to write quickly on paper in a
cursive script.
In
cursiva, descenders are more frequent, especially in the letters f and s, and ascenders are curved and looped rather than vertical (seen especially in the letter d). The letters a, g, and s (at the end of a word) are very similar to their Carolingian forms. However, not all of these features are found in every example of
cursiva, which makes it difficult to determine whether or not a script can be called
cursiva at all.
Lieftinck also divided
cursiva into three styles:
littera cursiva formata was the most legible and calligraphic style.
Littera cursiva textualis (or
libraria) was the usual form, used for writing standard books, and was generally written with a larger pen, leading to larger letters.
Littera cursiva currens was used for textbooks and other unimportant books, and had very little standardization in forms.
Hybrida
Hybrida is also called
bastarda (especially in France), and as its name suggests, refers to a hybrid form of the script. It is a mixture of
textualis and
cursiva, developed in the early 15th century. From
textualis, it borrowed vertical ascenders, while from
cursiva, it borrowed long f and s, single-looped a, and g with an open descender (similar to Carolingian forms).
France
Textualis
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Photograph of a page from a rare blackletter Bible (1497) printed in Strassburg by J.R.Grueninger. The coloured chapter initials were handwritten after printing. |
French blackletter was the earliest form of blackletter to develop, in the 11th and 12th centuries. French
textualis was tall and narrow compared to other national forms, and was most fully developed in the late 13th century in Paris. In the 13th century there was also an extremely small version of
textualis used to write miniature Bibles, known as "pearl script." Another form of French textualis in this century was the script developed at the
University of Paris,
littera parisiensis, which is also small in size and designed to be written quickly, not calligraphically.
Cursiva
French
cursiva was used from the 13th to the 16th century, when it became highly looped, messy, and slanted.
Bastarda, the "hybrid" mixture of
cursiva and
textualis, developed in the 15th century and was used for vernacular texts as well as Latin. A more angular form of
bastarda was used in
Burgundy, the
lettre de forme or
lettre bourgouignonne, for
books of hours such as the
Très Riches Heures of
John, Duke of Berry.
England
Textualis
English blackletter developed from the form of Caroline minuscule used there after the
Norman Conquest, sometimes called "Romanesque minuscule."
Textualis forms developed after 1190 and were used most often until approximately 1300, afterwards being used mainly for
de luxe manuscripts. English forms of blackletter have been studied extensively and can be divided into many categories.
Textualis formata ("Old English" or "Black Letter"),
textualis prescissa (or
textualis sine pedibus, as it generally lacks feet on its minims) ,
textualis quadrata (or
psalterialis) and
semi-quadrata, and
textualis rotunda are various forms of high-grade
formata styles of blackletter.
The
University of Oxford borrowed the
littera parisiensis in the 13th century and early 14th century, and the
littera oxoniensis form is almost indistinguishable from its Parisian counterpart; however, there are a few differences, such as the round final "s" forms, resembling the number 8, rather than the long "s" used in the final position in the Paris script.
Cursiva
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Page from a 14th century Psalter, with blackletter "sine pedibus" text. |
English
cursiva began to be used in the 13th century, and soon replaced
littera oxoniensis as the standard university script. The earliest cursive blackletter form is
Anglicana, a very round and looped script, which also had a squarer and angular counterpart,
Anglicana formata. The
formata form was used until the 15th century and was also used to write vernacular texts. An
Anglicana bastarda form developed from a mixture of
Anglicana and
textualis, but by the 16th century the principal cursive blackletter used in England was the Secretary script, which originated in
Italy and came to England by way of France. Secretary script has a somewhat haphazard appearance, and its forms of the letters a, g, r, and s are unique, unlike any forms in any other English script.
Italy
Rotunda
Italian blackletter is also known as
rotunda, as it was less angular than in northern centres. The most usual form of Italian
rotunda was
littera bononiensis, used at the
University of Bologna in the 13th century. Biting is a common feature in
rotunda, but breaking is not. Italian
Rotunda is also characterized by unique abbreviations, such as q with a line beneath the bow signifying "qui", and unusual spellings, such as x for s ("milex" rather than "miles", "knight").
Cursiva
Italian cursive developed in the 13th century from scripts used by notaries. The more calligraphic form is known as
minuscola cancelleresca italiana (or simply
cancelleresca, chancery script), which developed into a
bookhand, a script used for writing books rather than charters, in the 14th century.
Cancelleresca influenced the development of
bastarda in France and
Secretary script in England.
Germany
Despite the frequent association of blackletter with
German, the script was actually very slow to develop in German-speaking areas. It developed first in those areas closest to France and then spread to the east and south in the 13th century. However, the German-speaking areas are where blackletter remained in use the longest.
Schwabacher typefaces dominated in Germany from about 1480 to 1530, and the style continued in use occasionally until the
20th century. Most importantly, all of the works of
Martin Luther, leading to the
Protestant Reformation, as well as the
Apocalypse of
Albrecht Dürer (1498) used this typeface. Johannes Bämler, a printer from
Augsburg, probably first used it as early as 1472. The origins of the name remain unclear; some assume that a typeface-carver from the village of Schwabach — one who worked externally and who thus became known as the
Schwabacher — designed the typeface.
Textualis
German
textualis is usually very heavy and angular, and there are few features that are common to all occurrences of the script. One common feature is the use of the letter "w" for Latin "vu" or "uu".
Textualis was used in the 13th and 14th centuries, afterwards becoming more elaborate and decorated and used for liturgical works only.
Johann Gutenberg used a
textualis typeface for his famous
Gutenberg Bible, possibly the first book ever to be printed with movable type, in
1455. The
Schwabacher, a blackletter with more rounded letters, became soon the usual printed
typeface, but it was replaced by the
fraktur in the early
17th century.
Fraktur came into use when Emperor
Maximilian I (1493–1519) established a series of books and had a new typeface created specifically for this purpose. In the 19th century, the use of antiqua alongside Fraktur increased, leading to the
Antiqua-Fraktur dispute, which lasted until the
Nazis abandoned Fraktur in
1942. Since it was so common, all kinds of blackletter tend to be called
fraktur in German.
This distinctive typeface was a great aid to the
Allies in
World War II, being particularly easy for forgers to duplicate by hand.
Cursiva
German
cursiva is generally similar to the cursive scripts in other areas, but forms of "a", "s" and other letters are more varied; here too the letter "w" is often used. A
hybrida form, which was basically
cursiva with fewer looped letters and with similar square proportions as
textualis, was used in the 15th and 16th centuries.
In the
18th century, the pointed quill was adopted for blackletter handwriting. In the early
20th century, the
Sütterlin script was introduced in the schools.
*
Calligraphy*
Typefaces*
Typography*
Typowiki Article: Black Letter*
ABBYY FineReader XIX Blackletter OCR recognition software
*
Handwriting Guide: German Gothic
