Lesson 8: Follow-Up

The humanistic italic hand of the scriptural text presents scant problems for the transcriber; it may be worth remembering that an early Tudor reader would have found this type of hand to be more impressive and perhaps exotic than we do today, probably according to it the same type of gravity that we now give to black letter (gothic) script in old or stylized documents. The more fluid secretary of the commentary would have appeared much more familiar to the contemporary eye. While this secretary hand is neither so fluid nor so clear as some of the examples in earlier course lessons, its conservative character and early date make it profitable to stay upon it for a moment. Note the rounded, two-stroke (or 'gallows') form of c in use here - still rounded like our own form, but tending toward the orthagonal shape that was to become widespread in the ensuing twenty years. A similar story might be told both of the form of e prevalent here, which was soon to give rise to the Elizabethan secretary two-stroke form, in a more cursive context; and of the minuscule g, which though its sublinear bowl opens rightward, already manifests the tilt that would induce scribes to reverse the descending stroke to a left-opening bowl.

Before passing on to the next lesson, ensure that you are comfortable with some of the unorthodox spellings in both sections of the this example, particularly the use of vocalic w (see 'trwely', line 5 of the commentary), past tense endings in 'id' or 'yd' rather than 'ed', present tense endings in 'yth' rather than 'eth', general substitution of y for i, etc. It is often the case that a transcription will go more quickly and accurately when you know what kinds of orthographical and rhetorical habits to expect from a writer in a given period; the sooner you can associate certain habits of phrasing and spelling with writers in a particular era, the sooner you will be breezing through the tougher manuscripts.

Further pages from this manuscript can be accessed via item 13 of the 'index of manuscript images', or in the window above by clicking on the links below. As usual, clicking on the + sign will display the zoomed version of the image.

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