A guide to early handwriting

BhavikaVirji discusses a handy guide to early modern palaeography

Reading Early Handwriting, 1500-1700

Mark Forrest

British Association for Local History, 2019 87 pages

Paperback, £10.00

ISBN: 9780948140044

Reading early handwriting is a difficult task, requiring much practice.There were many styles of writing, and spelling was not standardised in the 16th and 17th centuries. This short and simple guide by Mark Forrest is a perfect resource for local or family historians, students and researchers who are beginning to learn palaeography. It looks at English documents written between 1500 and 1700 and focuses on two writing styles: secretary and italic. It also discusses traditional court hands.

This guide is clearly written and offers various useful tips that researchers can consult before jumping into the actual examples. Forrest underlines the importance of looking at every letter in a word and recommends that researchers copy out words to learn how particular writers formed their letters and joined them together. He also notes that early modern spelling was often phonetic, so words may need to be sounded out as well as spelled out.

Forrest offers additional background information about specific letters, numbers, writing tools, hands and languages. He explains, for instance, that ‘most legal documents were written in Latin for the whole period and continued to be so until 1733 with the brief exception of the Commonwealth, 1650-1660, when English was used for all court proceedings including those that took place in Wales’ (p.13). These explorations into the history of language and document types help the reader to feel connected to the texts and understand how words evolved over time. Forrest also provides a useful guide to features such as abbreviations, Latin phrases, numbers, dates, Christian names, currency and measurements, all of which can be bewildering for a new researcher.

The majority of the guide consists of examples from a wide variety of document types, each with clear pictures, a transcription and a short explanation. These offer new researchers a useful opportunity to practise and hone their transcription skills.The examples appear in reverse chronological order, meaning that readers get a clear sense of how writing changed over time as they move from the relatively recent documents to the more challenging earlier ones.

Overall, this guide offers a detailed, yet simple introduction to reading early modern handwriting.The variety of examples allows readers to familiarise themselves with a range of document types. However, Scottish history enthusiasts may be sorry to learn that the material is all from England, and there is no specific discussion of Scottish spelling, orthography or other document features. In addition, while the pictures of the documents give the reader a taste of what it is like to work with physical manuscripts, some are difficult to make out; perhaps having an online platform where one could zoom in on certain areas would be useful.The guide does, nevertheless, succeed in its aim to help readers develop familiarity with early modern texts.

The majority of the guide consists of examples from a wide variety of document types, each with clear pictures, a transcription and a short explanation