Hand: Glosses A (348 glosses, mostly on 21r–115v), BL Royal 5.E.xi

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

These were generally written with a very thin pen, with very small letters, and with little pen-lift. Ascenders are long and have small wedges, and descenders are shorter but still longer than minims and are straight. Minims appear to have small approach-strokes and are usually straight at the bottom but can have small horizontal feet. Single-compartment a was used throughout, the back angled slightly and the body approximately teardrop-shaped but relatively wide. The a-component of æ is usually rounded but can have a flat top, can be more teardrop-shaped, or can sometimes be wide but very compressed vertically, the top at cue-height but the bottom barely reaching below mid-height. The hooks of æ and e are round and low, and the tongues straight and rising. Round c and e are found throughout. Caroline d is found most often, but a bilinear form was also used, the back of which is long and extends to the preceding letter. Both Insular and Caroline f are found, the latter usually standing firmly on the base-line. Insular g was used frequently, the top short and sometimes slightly concave up, and the mid-section usually hanging from the centre and close to vertical or sometimes angled out to the left; the tail is first almost horizontal, then angles down and left, and usually hooks up at the tip. An alternative form is found which is almost a hybrid of Insular and Caroline: it looks as if it has the Insular structure but with a very narrow closed loop on the upper left. The shoulders of h, m, and n are often rounded and written with very little pen-lift but they can be more angular and less deeply split. The shoulder of r is often more rounded and tends to reach forward, angling out to the right and then curving up at the tip. An essentially Caroline s is normal, the down-stroke descending slightly below the base-line, although round s is sometimes found (gescead, 115v13). The scribe preferred þ to ð, the latter appearing infrequently (gecyðlæce, 91r6; cwyð 97v6 and 97v14; wiðcwyþ, 108r3). The back of ð is noticeably broken, the stroke nearly horizontal but then bending sharply up, almost to the vertical; the through-stroke is high, straight, and without a hook. An essentially bilinear x was used, the left-right stroke much closer to horizontal than the right-left one; the north-east branch curves down and the south-east one curves up, but the south-west branch is fairly straight, and the north-west branch usually extends from the preceding letter. Round undotted y was used most often, but the straight undotted form is also found.