Hand: Main Hand, Winchester Coll. 12093

Stokes, English Vernacular Script, ca 990–ca 1035, Vol. 2 (PhD Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2006)

This hand is not particularly regular and appears unpractised. A round, medium-width pen was used with little shading, but the boundary-clause was written slightly smaller than the main text and with a thinner pen. The witness-list seems slightly more regular, with a thicker pen and a more forward-leaning aspect. Ascenders are equal to or shorter than minims, are straight, and have wedges. Descenders are also straight, are tapering, and are as long as or longer than minims. Minims themselves have wedges and short horizontal feet or no feet at all. The form of a varies but usually shows a short, straight, horizontal or slightly rising top which turns sharply down to form the back; the left side is closed with a stroke which curves out a little to the left and then swings back to the right. A similar structure was used for æ, the hook of which is angled back to the left and extends just above cue-height, and the tongue of which is high, straight, and rising. The hook of c meets the back just below the top of the stroke, thereby forming a very small horn. A similar structure was used for e, the hook and tongue of which are otherwise like those of æ. The back of d is straight, fairly short, and angled at about 15°. The tongue of f is flat and of medium length, but the hook is short; the tongue extends slightly left of the down-stroke in the witness-list. The top of g is fairly short, and the mid-section begins towards the right, bulges out to the left, swings back to the right, and then turns into a small closed loop just right of centre. The lower branch of k reaches down to the base-line and then turns up, and the upper branch is hooked down. The shoulders of h, m, n, and r are all quite rounded and all branch well below cue-height. Only long s is found in the boundary-clause, but s only occurs in this passage before t or wynn, and only low s is found in the witness-list. Long s extends just below the base-line and has a relatively large hook at cue-height. The scribe only used þ in the charter-bounds (hæþenan twice, and nyþer), but þ and ð were used with little apparent distinction in the witness-list (eaðnoþ, æþelsige, þurkil, sireð). The back of ð is thick, slightly concave down, and angled at about 30–45°, and the through-stroke has a very slight downward hook on the right. The lower branches of x curve out and slightly up, the upper left branch curves out and down, the upper right branch is hooked down, and the lower left extends slightly below the preceding letter. Straight-limbed dotted y was used throughout, the right branch of which is hooked left and the tail curved slightly left. Latin is distinguished by script.