CHANCERY SCRIPT

In the course of your research you’re liable to come across a number of different styles of handwriting. One of the most distinctive old English hands is one known as Chancery script. It developed from medieval texts and from the 14th century, was used by a number of English courts, notably the Court of Chancery.

The place where family historians are most likely to confront Chancery script is in the registers of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.

Over the centuries, it became highly stylised and for researchers coming to it for the first time it can seem very off-putting. But, as with other scripts, the form of the letters is very consistent, so once you’ve learnt to recognise the 52 possible characters it really isn’t that difficult.

The biggest challenges are the:

• lower case ‘c’ (which looks more like a modern ‘r’)

• the lower case ‘e’ (which looks more like a modern ‘c’)

• the capital ‘T’ which often looks more like a Z. Again, it’s the capital letters which usually cause the biggest problems