book hand
Noun
Meaning
book hand (countable and uncountable, plural book hands)
Any of several stylized handwriting scripts used during medieval times. It was intended for legibility and often used in transcribing official documents (prior to the development of printing and similar technologies.)
Alternative names
book-hand
Synonyms
Related terms
Examples
Another classification, according to the care taken in forming the letters, distinguishes between the set book-hand and the cursive script.
In the 3rd century the book-hand, like the cursive, appears to have deteriorated in regularity and stylistic accomplishment.
In the Byzantine period, the book-hand, which in earlier times had more than once approximated to the contemporary cursive, diverged widely from it.
Since the scribe did not date literary rolls, such papyri are useful in tracing the development of the book-hand.
The development of the Ptolemaic book-hand is difficult to trace, as there are few examples, mostly not datable on external grounds.
The old Italian book-hand is simply a semi-cursive of the type already described as in use in the 6th century.