Shortcuts to Letter Forms, Capital Letters, and Ligatures.

Aspect

This is genuinely cursive writing, using loops to connect letters, though not always in our way. In particular the descenders are curved outwards where we would bring the loop round and across:

There are some extravagant loops on ascenders and descenders.

The writing is upright, though it appears to lean slightly forward. This is largely because of the backwards-sloping descenders.

Letters are slightly flattened: the aspect ratio of n and m is definitely wider than it is high:

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Letter Forms: Variant Letters

The hand is clear for a sixteenth-century Secretary hand. The difficulties merely lie in the elaboration of some of the letter forms:

Some of them have been pulled out sideways in comparison to earlier forms:
w	d	v	e
In some the loops turn in the opposite direction, or are extravagantly extended:
h	g	y	p

The letter s which we saw in the Lay Folks' Catechism has simplified itself into a loop.

Ligatures: double ff, s + t, and s + k are joined at the top in the usual way

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The Capital Letters are much the same as in the previous piece:

A	B	C	D	F	J
K	L	M	R	S	T

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© MEG TWYCROSS 2000