About this Hand

 

Bibliographical Information

'A note of men, horses, and mrmer, and the prices of maintayninge them, sent forthe by my lorde of Ely...22nd March, 1569'
Gonville and Caius College MS 53/30, f. 23v (i)

 

Description and Dating

This set of inventories is written throughout in a formal, fairly cursive secretary hand datable to about 1570. The slightly conservative elements here -- the strong horizontal bar in initial minuscule a, the 'cracked egg' form of terminal s, the very upright and distinct z form of r, medial d with a wave to its left-leaning ascender, a slight suggestion of rounding to the 'gallows' form of minuscule c, the gothic engrossing hand, and the overall set, vertical emphasis -- do not entirely occlude the signs of innovation, including the occasional terminal 'reverse' e, the looped-ascender form of terminal d, the two-foot form of r, a fluid 'sigma' s, etc. (see, for example, the end of the first section, and particularly the end of the second, where the scribe begins to write more quickly the well-worn phrase, 'And in redye monye' -- here, naturally, the more familiar and cursive forms predominate). Without such characteristic Elizabethan forms, the hand might well be thought somewhat older; the internal evidence of the inventory title, which gives a terminus a quo of 22 March 1569, however, places us decisively in the early 1570s. Relatively long approach strokes on such unlikely minuscules as b, l, and h add to the overall impression of formality and angularity, further evidenced in the tendency to jointed, spurred, and kinked angles both in and between letter-forms. Abbreviations are quite limited, to the standard shortened form of 'William' and 'Item', and to the use of the common marks li, s, and d for denominations of pounds, shillings, and pence; on one occasion the scribe employs w^t for 'with', and he resorts frequently to the Tironian sign for 'and'. Punctuation is limited to the punctus, but the accounts are structured by a lattice of horizontal and vertical rules, with terminal ornamentation and occasional curled brackets, that give the page a very ordered and crisp feel.