This is a book of religious instruction for private use, and thus less formal than the York Register, which is a civic document. The hand is clear and well-formed, but definitely cursive in quality, and has the familiar ‘pointed’ look of Secretary, though its overall uprightness and some of its letter-forms are intended to suggest its function as a bookhand.

The page is only frame-ruled, and the lines of writing, though they keep within the block, are conspicuously freehand, running uphill in what a graphologist would probably suggest is an optimistic way.

Despite this, they are fairly though not always completely straight if not horizontal, and the letters are fairly even in size.

		Pen-width is on the verticals: which gives the script an even look:
		but the oblique downstrokes are also made with the width of the pen, which makes the script look as if it is lying backwards: the upstrokes are finer.
		Letters come to a point at the top:
		even when they are oval ones like a and o.

The aspect ratio of our test letters is slightly narrower than that of the York Register hand, apart from m, which is wider because more freehand:

o is 10:7	m is 1:2	e is 10:7

Ascenders on letters like s, f, and k nearly as tall as the body of the text, about 4:6 (ascender:body); h and l are slightly lower.
Descenders on s, f, and even h and ž are even longer, about 7(body):13(descender).

Loops on ascenders are dramatic and bold,

b	h	l	v	w	k	d

and often connect with preceding or following letters:

Double ss and s + t are ligatures
Double ll and double ff are linked, as before.

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© MEG TWYCROSS 2000