Palaeography - Ancient paleography. Palaeography - Medieval paleography. When the Roman empire collapsed in the 4th century, Europe was taken over by mostly illiterate Goths; the Ostrogoths ruled Italy, the Visigoths took over Spain and southern France, the Franks settled in central and northern France and the Anglo-Saxons ran over the Celts in Great Britain. The Catholic church took on the task of converting the Goths to Christianity and educating them, and over time each tribe of Go ...

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Palaeography, Palaeography - History, Palaeography - Ancient paleography, Palaeography - Medieval paleography

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Philology is the study of ancient texts and languages. The term originally meant a love (Greek philo-) of learning and literature (Greek -logia). In the academic traditions of several nations, a wide sense of the term "philology" describes the study of a language together with its literature and the historical and cultural contexts which are indispensable for an understanding of the literary works and other culturally significant texts. Philology thus comprises the study of the grammar, rhetoric, history, interpretation ...

Including:

• Philology - Branches of philology
• Philology - Comparative philology
• Philology - Radical philology
• Philology - Text reconstruction
• Philology - Deciphering ancient texts

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Philology - Comparative philology. One branch of philology is comparative linguistics, which studies the relationship between languages. Similarities between Sanskrit and European languages were first noted in the early 18th century and led to the speculation of a common ancestor language from which all of these descended - now named Proto-Indo-European. Philology's interest in ancient languages led to the study of what were in the 19th century "exotic" languages for the light they could cast on problems in understanding and deciphering the origins of older texts. < ...

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Philology, Philology - Branches of philology, Philology - Comparative philology, Philology - Radical philology, Philology - Text reconstruction, Philology - Deciphering ancient texts

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Penmanship is the art of writing clearly and quickly. Different styles of writing have been popular at different times and in different countries. Styles of handwriting are also called hands or scripts. A publication of Platt Rogers Spencer's style in The Spencerian Key to Practical Penmanship by his son in 1866 introduced business writing to North America. This "Spencerian Method" was taught in schools until the mid-20th century. Starting at the beginning of the 20th century, Zaner-Blosser Script an ...

Including:

• Penmanship - History

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At different times of Europe's history the quality of penmanship has varied considerably. Ancient Roman handwriting styles included Roman cursive, and the more calligraphic rustic capitals and square capitals, the latter of which forms the basis for modern capital letters and was used in stone inscriptions. Writing implements and materials were easy to come by. With the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Dark Ages, new scripts developed from the old Roman ones, such as uncial and later blackletter. The Carolingian period saw t ...

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Penmanship, Penmanship - History

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Ancient Roman cursive, also called majuscule cursive and capitalis cursive, was the everyday form of handwriting used for writing letters, by merchants writing business accounts, by schoolchildren learning the Roman alphabet, and even emperors issuing commands. A more formal style of writing was based on Roman square capitals, but cursive was used for quicker, informal writing. It was most commonly used from about the 1st century BC to the 3rd century, but it probably existed earlier than that; the comedian Plautus, in Pseudolus ...

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Roman cursive, Roman cursive - Ancient Roman cursive, Roman cursive - New Roman cursive

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The use of abbreviations is due, in part, to exigencies arising from the nature of the materials employed in the making of records, whether stone, marble, bronze, or parchment. Lapidaries, engravers, and copyists were under the same necessity of making the most of the space at their disposal. Such abbreviations, indeed, were seldom met with at the beginning of the Christian era when material of all kinds was plentiful and there was consequently no need to be sparing in the use of it. By the third or fourth century, however, it had grown to be scarce and costly, and it became the artist's aim to inscribe long t ...

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Scribal abbreviation, Scribal abbreviation - History, Scribal abbreviation - Forms

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