Hand: Added Glosses, BL Cotton Vespasian A.i

Name

Added Glosses

Manuscript

BL Cotton Vespasian A.i

Script

Unspecified

Scribe

Unspecified

Date

Saec. xi

Place

CaCC

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

Most of these glosses were written in a fairly regular and fairly set hand with a thick pen which was held fairly flat. Ascenders are longer than minims and have wedges or approach-strokes. Descenders are shorter than ascenders, are usually about the length of minims, and are straight. Minims have short approach-strokes and can have short feet or lack feet entirely. A rounded but essentially teardrop-shaped a was used, the body sometimes wider than it is tall. A similar form was often used for æ, although a flat-topped form is also found in a low ligature. In both cases the hook is rounded and the tongue is straight and rising. Round c was used throughout, as was bilinear d and round e, and the tongue and hook of e are like those of æ. The tongue of f can be flat or concave up, and the hook is consistently short. The top of g is flat, and the mid-section hangs from approximately the centre and bulges only slightly to the left before turning right and then curving into a rounded and three-quarters-open tail. The shoulders of h, m, n, and particularly r can be quite angular and can branch from below cue-height. Tall s was used throughout, the down-stroke of which usually extends slightly below the base-line and can turn left at the tip. No ð is found. Straight-limbed y was used throughout, normally dotted (but not dotted in hyspton, Ps. 1019); the right branch is hooked left.