Secretary Anglicana: Aspect

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Aspect.

Secretary Anglicana is a mixed cursive/bookhand script, designed to combine speed of execution with a slightly formal look. This hand is in fact quite regular:

and despite the more casual look (and the lack of ruling), the script is fairly evenly spaced between the head- and base-line:

The aspect ratio of our test letters is very similar to that of Bastarda:

o is 10:9 m is slightly less than 1:2 e is 10:8


Ascenders on letters like s, f, and h can be as tall again as the body of the text, though they are usually slightly shorter.
Descenders like those on s, p, or y can be even longer.



The downstrokes are quite wide, adding to the regularity of the look.

However, not all downstrokes are vertical: as in Bastarda, there are wide slanting strokes in, for example, s, f, and l, which adds to the cursive effect.

Secretary Anglicana
Bastarda

The angle of curved letters like o, e, and a are very similar to the Bastarda shapes, merely rather heavier and less finished-looking (this hand is of course much smaller):

The main difference between this and a formal bookhand is that many of these letters have loops. Oddly, however, they are not often used to connect one letter to another. There are other ways of doing this:

Letters like b, l, and k are looped at the top, though this rarely connects with the preceding letter.
But the flat headlines on t,g and c are often used to link these letters to h.
Double ss and s + t are as usual ligatures, and s + c has joined them. It is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between s + t and s + c unless you recognise the word: if you look closely, however, the horizontal stroke of the t gives the clue.
And double ll and double ff are linked, ff by their mid-stroke, and ll by an extraneous ornamental line through the middle.
However, bowed letters like d and b do not coalesce with a following o or e.

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