Hand: Hand 6 (fols. 328r–50r, 360r–66v, 378r–85v), CCCC 198

Name

Hand 6 (fols. 328r–50r, 360r–66v, 378r–85v)

Manuscript

CCCC 198

Script

Unspecified

Scribe

Unspecified

Date

Saec. xi1

Place

Worcester

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

This spidery hand was written with a medium-width pen and some shading. Although a relatively level cue-height was maintained, the heavily wedged ascenders and prominent backs of d and ð leave little sense of bilinearity. Ascenders are as long as or slightly longer than minims and can have no wedges but often have large, clumsy approach-strokes. Descenders are tapered and lean very slightly rightwards before curving left. Minims are relatively straight but not especially parallel; they have approach-strokes at the top and varying feet. Teardrop-shaped or semi-Caroline a appears throughout. Similar structures were used for æ, the eye of which is very small and the tongue straight and rising. Round e was used throughout with the same eye and tongue as æ; the back of e can be very rounded, more upright, or occasionally straighter but more angled. Round c appears throughout and can be more upright, rounded, or angular in the same way as e. The back of d is long and thick, extending between about 15–30° and then turning up at the tip. The tongue of f is thick, flat, and often short, although the hook is often shorter still. The mid-section of g tends to hang from the right of the top-stroke and extends diagonally from upper left to lower right; the tail forms a large closed loop which can also sit slightly to the right of centre and which extends under the following letter. Rounded Caroline h was used throughout. The shoulders of m, n and r are often quite angular, with a straight vertical down-stroke, but can be more rounded. The left side of o can be fairly vertical with a small approach-stroke, particularly around 333v. Low s appears almost exclusively, the hook of which branches from just above the base-line, is quite steeply angled, and finishes with a prominent downward stroke; long s is found sometimes before p, t, or wynn, and round was used infrequently but most often initally, in ‑ysse, and both medially and finally in moyses. The structure of ð is like that of d; the cross-stroke is very long, extending far to the right but very little to the left, and can be very slightly concave down and can have a very small downward hook on the right. The second, right to left stroke of x is concave down, the north-east branch is hooked down, and the south-west branch extends well below the preceding letter. Straight-limbed dotted y appears throughout, with the right branch hooked left and the tail thickening at the tip. Bilinear z was used, the top ~-shaped, the bottom angled, and the diagonal within cue-height and base-line. The top of 7 is hooked slightly at the left, rises slightly to the right, and then descends vertically. Latin is distinguished by use of Caroline d and long s alongside single-compartment a on 329r14, but the passage on 363r is not distinguished at all.