Hand: Hand 2 (Recipes 2, 4 and 5), Wellcome 46

Name

Hand 2 (Recipes 2, 4 and 5)

Manuscript

Wellcome 46

Script

Unspecified

Scribe

Unspecified

Date

Saec. x/xi

Place

Unknown

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

This hand is smaller and more regular than G.523‑1. The letters can lean back slightly and were written with a thin pen and minimal shading. Ascenders are long and have more or less regular wedges. Descenders are also long, though shorter than ascenders, and taper. Minims have small wedges or approach-strokes and sometimes have feet. The top of a is flat and the left side usually concave up, although the rotundity varies. Much the same form was used for æ, although the top is usually more horizontal and so the body squarer; the hook is round and always low, and the tongue straight and rising. The back of d is very short and the letter usually bilinear but sometimes longer and extended above cue-height. Round e is found throughout, the hook and tongue like those of æ except that the tongue begins quite low in the letter and the lower curve can be very short. The tongue of f is also short and is flat. The top of g is short and flat, the mid-section begins in the centre of the letter and is close to vertical, and the tail is long, narrow, and more or less closed. The shoulders of h, m, n, and r are somewhat angular and the down-strokes fairly straight. Long, low, and round s are all found, the long form usually finally and the round form only initially. The scribe used þ exclusively in preference to ð. The lower left branch of x is long and curved up at the tip, and the upper two branches both curved down. Round y was used, both with and without the dot. The top of 7 is short and horizontal, and the down-stroke angled slightly left.