The History of Gothic Scripts

Gothic scripts are probably the most known and iconic calligraphy styles in the Western world. They have a long and complex history that is not so linear as many think. In this article I’ll make an introduction to the historical background and the main medieval gothic variants.

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The Origins of Gothic Scripts

From the VIII century to the XII century, Caroline Minuscule was the main script in the Latin West. But the result of a slow change of the civilization, that began two centuries before, exploded in the second half of the XII century. This transformation regarded many aspects of society, culture, religion, politics, economy and art. It probably started with urbanization, which caused the increase of the city population and consequently the need for a new scholastic system. So in the cities, new schools were founded and there was also the revival of old universities to adapt them to the new population. And moreover, this led to the creation of new monastery orders, such as Dominicans that had a great role in the cities and the university studies. All this complex context created the ground for the evolution of gothic scripts.

The new methods of teaching changed the way of reading, studying and even the manuscript production. The growing number of students, and consequently of readers, in the cities required to produce more books for educational purposes at less cost. The main priority in manuscript creation was saving space and money. So to fill the pages at best, it was necessary a compact script that occupied less space on the line and on the page. And for the same reason, the system of abbreviations became very frequent.

There are many theories about the origin of gothic scripts; someone says gothic derived from beneventan, while for others it was born in insular monasteries. But most researchers think they are a direct derivation of Caroline.

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Protogothic and Textura Quadrata

The Protogothic (or Ancient Gothic) represents a sort of transition from Caroline to Blackletter and during the XI-XIII century it was largely used in western Europe. It tends to be more compact than the previous scripts and it has a lot of flourishing. From the XIII century, Protogothic became sharper, narrow and angular, creating the Textura Quadrata. The birth of place of Textura Quadrata was probably the geographical region that include Germany, France and England. But it was really common not only in the West and Central area, but in North Europe too.

Textura Quadrata is really compact and squared-off and these characteristics made it the ideal script for producing manuscripts. It has four main changes that distinguish it from previous styles. The first two changes regard its heavily shattered ductus and the very little differentiation between letters. The third invention is the presence of a foot at the base of the letter. And the fourth one is the dot on the letter “i”; which is very important, since it didn’t exist before.

Some Gothic variations emerged during the same historical period with different characteristics depending on the place and institution they spread. Some styles are more common than others such as Semi-quadrata, Rotunda, Prescissa and also Schwabacher and later Fraktur.

About Terms and Names

Textura Quadrata is the most representative among Gothic scripts of Middle Ages, but that is not its real name. Contemporaries called it “littera textualis” and in the XIV century it became “littera moderna” to distinguish it from “littera antiqua”, which indicated to Caroline.

Instead, the word “textura” (“weaving”) indicates the pattern that gothic scripts create on a filled page, but it doesn’t refer to the name’s script. Textura is the macro group that contains all the gothic scripts, while “textualis” is the name of the script itself. And “quadrata” means “squared off” which refers to the general shape of the writing. These days people use both “textualis quadrata” and “textura quadrata”, but many tend to prefer adopting the second one.

While the term “Gothic script” didn’t appear until the XV century. At the time, Italian humanists used it as derogatory towards earlier medieval scripts, like Merovingian and Beneventan. But in the following century it was applied also to Littera Textualis. Today we use it for all medieval scripts, except for Caroline and Uncial. Also, “Blackletter” was a descriptive word for Gothic scripts in contrast to “white letter”, which were humanistic scripts.

“Protogothic” or “Ancient Gothic” are not the only terms to define the transition from Caroline to Gothic scripts. Some historians also use “late Caroline” or “early Gothic”, but all of them refer to the same thing.

Textura Semi-quadrata

This variant was the most common and used in medieval manuscripts in substitution of Textura Quadrata. Because Textura Semi-Quadrata is really similar to it, but less sharp and its strokes are more fluid to do. In fact there’s no need to remove the pen from the paper for every stroke, as it happens in Textura Quadrata. Also, it still takes up less space on the page compared to previous scripts.

Textura Rotunda

In Italian, and also Hispanic, region a new and different variant spread slowly during the XIII century; it was the Textura Rotunda. It’s less angular and sharp than Textura Quadrata and it has more curves and elegance. Its main characteristics are flat and round letters with non-curved and definite feet and the curved ones upwards in a cursive manner.

Today many of us know this script as “Textura Rotunda”, but in the Middle Ages its name was “Littera Rotunda”, that means “round letter”. In fact, it has more curves and fewer angles than the central European “Textura Quadrata”. Later, it was also called “choral” because it appeared in many volumes of the choir.

Textura Prescisus

Textura Prescisus (also Prescissa or Sine Pedibus) is a variant of the classic textura quadrata that was really common in England. This script keeps many aspects of Textura Quadrata except for the absence of the diamond at the base in most of the letters. It’s probably the most elegant and formal, but at the same time the most difficult to write. In fact only the most skilled monks and scribes could do perfectly the typical square cut-off base.

Both the term “Prescisus” and its derivation “Prescissa” mean “cut off”, while “Sine Pedibus” means “without feet”. And all of them describe the overall aesthetic of the scripts and its characteristic letter bases.

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Pecia

In the XIII century, the universities of Bologna and Paris had a great role and they contributed to the creation and evolution of gothic scripts. They had a new method to produce books for study; it was the “Pecia system”. It was very useful to allow clear control of educational institutions. It consisted of “exemplaria” (official copies of a text) that an internal university commission revisioned periodically. The exemplaria were divided into sections or peciae (“pieces”), rented, numbered and given to a lot of scribes at a time. Many scribes were involved, mainly laics, students and also women; this allowed to produce a really big amount of copies.

In the universities, the scripts used for book production differed according to the region and city. But the most important are those from Bologna and Paris universities.

Littera Bononiensis

The Littera Bononiensis was a script developed in the University of Bologna and it is strictly related to Textura Rotunda. Because it preserves its main characteristics, but it tends to be more compressed.

Littera Parisiensis

The Littera Parisiensis was the Gothic script from the University of Paris and it is smaller and more angular. Its irregular flow and frequent division created a script that is easier to read.