CHAPTER I.
HINTS TO BEGINNERS.
Fashion changes in everything; but these alterations go on so imperceptibly, so gradually, that ofttimes we fail to recognise their progress except by glancing backwards into the past. But the fashion of handwriting and its changes are very forcibly brought home to us when confronted for the first time with some old deed or paper; and a feeling of helplessness reduces the amateur to the verge of despair as the pages of unintelligible hieroglyphics are spread out, as unfamiliar as Sanscrit or Egyptian characters. But perseverance conquers all difficulties.
Every generation has its own particular type of writing. Compare, for instance, any bundle of letters taken, hap-hazard, out of an old desk or secrétaire; it is quite easy to sort them into bundles in sequence of dates, and also guess accurately the age and position of the writers.
The flowing Italian hand, used by educated women early in the last century, changed with fashion into the freer style of the succeeding generation; this in the third generation had further developed into the bold, decisive, almost masculine writing adopted by the more strong-minded females of the latter end of the nineteenth century.
Of course, school-teaching is responsible to a certain extent for handwriting. Our University men of to-day all, with few exceptions, use a neat scholarly form of writing, free from flourishes, and with simple capital letters and the small broken-backed Greek letter ε. Compared with the scholar’s, the soldier’s writing is bolder and rounder, while the clerk’s is still more distinct in type in its open lettering, interspersed with curls and twists. So with most professions it will be found that each has special characteristics; but these are liable to change according to circumstances; thus, the clerk will form his letters less distinctly after the need of great legibility no longer compels him to carefulness. Self-education will often alter a vulgar, ill-formed writing to a better, more studied style; and writing is the clearest proof of both bodily and mental condition, for in cases of paralysis or mental aberration the doctor takes it as a certain guide. The writing of feeble-minded persons is like that of a scarcely-educated child.
Looking back to the days when writing was a profession of itself, it can easily be understood how it is that we find less variety among old writings. For in those days, before printing was discovered, or at least but imperfectly executed and understood, all books had to be produced by hand, and were the work either of paid scribes, whose duty it was to reproduce copies of well-known authors; or else copied out by clerks or private secretaries at the dictation of the authors themselves, who could seldom spare the time to commit their ideas to paper, or, even if they did so, it was customary to have additional copies made by professed scribes. Unacquainted with the subjects of the books, and copying merely from verbal dictation, it is no wonder that mistakes and misunderstandings often occurred, especially in the spelling of place and personal names; for one man reading aloud to several scribes, each would write down the names and words as they sounded to his individual sense of hearing, for the constant interruption necessary to ensure complete accuracy would cause the process to be tedious and very lengthy.
Private correspondence, even, was carried on as a profession; writing shops existed up to a comparatively late period; at present, in out-of-the-way streets in London, one reads the notice ‘Letters written here,’ though this generally means that letters may be sent to that address.
Authors who indited or dictated their own books had them afterwards transcribed neatly for preservation, and probably destroyed the original notes, for of these comparatively few, if any, exist.
All the earliest scribes had a special education for their profession, being sent to some monastery for that purpose; hence they were either foreigners, or educated under foreign monks, either French or Italian, and the effect of this teaching is clearly demonstrated by the similitude which exists all over Europe between manuscripts of the early Middle Ages.
In England the Norman Conquest overruled most of the previous customs and styles. Vast crowds of Normans emigrated continuously to our shores. This went on more or less for at least three or four centuries, and then prejudice against foreigners asserted itself, and the Saxon element, which still remained among the lower classes of the people, gained the ascendant. In the reign of Henry V. alien priories were suppressed, and foreign monks and priests no longer travelled backwards and forwards from the Norman abbeys to the junior houses or cells in England. The rich merchants, who resorted here from the Low Countries and Germany, brought with them their own customs and fashions; and at this time will first be noticed the use of a written character, like the modern German, which steadily came more and more into use until the end of the seventeenth century, when it died out and the style altered to a rounder, freer hand.
So long as education was almost entirely monastic, or at least conducted by teachers trained in monastic institutions, we find (as we should naturally expect to do) a regularity, carefulness and formality in the handwriting of the period; but so soon as England had shaken off the authority of Rome and the educated communities had been scattered and disbanded, a marked change took place in the quantity and quality of all kinds of writing. The monks and nuns, rendered homeless by the Reformation, returned to their native villages, thus spreading education among all classes and creating a desire after learning. But the primary cause of the alteration in handwriting, so very marked in the sixteenth century, was perhaps attributable to the introduction of the art of printing, which naturally was fatal to handwriting as a profession. The scribe was no longer required to multiply the author’s productions; so that lawyers and public office clerks only remained out of the large class who had formerly earned their living as professional writers. In the actual writing, also, a change took place. The old elaborate letters were supplanted by the simple capitals copied from the printer’s blocks. Some day, maybe, writing will die out altogether; every year fresh improvements and inventions are increasing; now type-writers and multiplying machines are used in place of handwriting in many offices, while sooner or later typing by machine will be universal.
A hundred years ago, very few if any of the labourers could either read or write; even now, in out-of-the-way country places, there exist people ignorant of these (to us) necessary arts. The marriage registers of the eighteenth century prove to us the ignorance of the country folk; frequently neither the contracting parties nor their witnesses could write their names, using instead either some eccentric monogram bearing a faint resemblance to initials—a memory perhaps of a bygone and very slight amount of teaching—or oftener still we find in lieu of name the old Christian cross, which has been in use by the illiterate from Saxon times as a pledge of good faith and consent.
Previous to the nineteenth century, education in country places was either altogether absent or provided out of the bounty of the squire or parson, the teacher being some old ignorant person prevented by age or bodily infirmity from pursuing active labour, and whose qualifications were merely a smattering of the ‘three R’s,’ which, with plain sewing, was the whole of his or her useful though scanty répertoire. Children then were sent out to work at the age of nine or ten years, and earlier if anybody could be found to employ them in service. When once placed out, they had no opportunities of gaining further book knowledge, and soon forgot the little they had learnt for want of practice or stimulation, nor had they sufficient mental capacity to study by themselves, except in very exceptional cases of natural genius.
If this was the state of things within the memory of those still alive, we can well believe how very limited was the knowledge of handwriting some hundreds of years ago, and can more fully understand that the scribe was a very important personage, and took great pride in his work.
It is very rare to find mistakes or erasures in the lettering of old charters. Varieties of spelling occur everywhere; a name is often found spelt two or three different ways on the same page; but this is easily explained if the work was written from dictation, especially if pronounced to or by a foreigner. Our English language being so full of unexpected variations of spelling, it is no wonder that names of people and places suffered at the hands of a transcriber unacquainted with the localities, and who merely wrote down the words as they sounded to him. The actual spelling of words remained fairly constant. Certainly to us they look very curious, for English orthography has undergone innumerable changes; in course of time new words are being coined, and old words alter not only in spelling, but also in meaning and significance. If we wish for an example of Old English phraseology, we have our present version of the Bible—which, being translated into English in the seventeenth century, now sounds quaint, and in many parts the sense of the words is a matter of dispute. If it be compared with the Revised Version the changes which have taken place in our language in the two past centuries become very evident. All this must be borne in mind when the task of transcribing and translating old writing is undertaken, and allowance must be made for all such alterations both in style and spelling.
It has been said that a knowledge of Latin is indispensable to the would-be transcriber of old deeds; this is not really the case for ordinary antiquarian research, for the meaning can be discovered easily with only very slight knowledge. Legal Latin consists so entirely of set forms that when once these forms are familiar to the reader, they are without any difficulty recognised, and are so little liable to any variations that they are easily rendered into English. The most important points being a correct and accurate attention to the names of people and places, with the descriptions of the localities referred to. As the use of Latin for legal transactions almost entirely superseded the Norman-French language after the reign of Edward III. (although it is an open question whether deeds were not duplicated into the two languages), very few old deeds are met with in the latter language, and those few are usually so well written and legible that they can easily be understood with the help of a slight knowledge of modern French.
Indeed, a transcriber’s work properly consists chiefly in correctly putting into modern handwriting the deeds which are only illegible to those unfamiliar with the handwriting; in consequence an actual acquaintance with the Latin grammar is less important than a correct eye, quick to note every minute difference in letters. Every stroke of the pen means something; bars or curves are the representatives of absent words or syllables, and are never dashed down hap-hazard or by accident. Therefore it is possible to understand the meaning of the abbreviated portions correctly, although extension with absolute grammatical correctness can never be ensured without study of the language and a knowledge of its grammar.
One of the best methods of learning to read courthand is first to devote a short time to the study of shorthand; any system will do, it being merely a means of training the eye and brain into speedily noticing small shades of difference, undetected except by comparison. For in all kinds of shorthand the least stroke or dot, or even a change in the position of a line, will entirely alter the spelling or meaning of a word.
Next, I would advise the careful study of an old deed, one of those written late in the seventeenth or early in the eighteenth century, because these deeds give the phraseology or form of sentences, and are often written in English in a fairly clear hand, freer from contractions than earlier manuscripts, and the beginner has so many new things to discover and learn that it is well to commence by not attempting too much at the first start. An acquaintance with the style of words used in legal language is a good groundwork to commence with. Spread out the parchment before you; never mind the fact that only a word or two, or even only a chance letter here and there catches your eye. Then set to work to compare the letters of the words you do know with the letters in other words which at the commencement looked so strange to you.
It was in this way that Egyptian hieroglyphics were first successfully studied.
Remember that three consonants seldom come together; no word is formed without the help of one or more vowels; the final letter or letters more often supply a clue than the capital letter or beginning syllable, especially in the so-called courthands.
Beware of too imaginative guesses. Although this fault is easily remedied, still, it is better to spell a word out letter by letter, however unintelligible and depressing the result at first may be. It is so easy to take a name or word for granted, and an idea once seized upon is not quickly eradicated, and may bring about absurd results and deductions.
Do not ponder too long over a word which puzzles you, but go on, leaving gaps in your copy with a stroke underneath corresponding with or leaving sufficient space for the missing word. These spaces can then be filled in afterwards, when the general sense of the document has been mastered, and the aspect of the particular style of writing has become familiar. Then it will be found that words hitherto seemingly unintelligible resolve themselves into readable form, and although apparently impossible to decipher at the first reading, later on they present no difficulty. A little practice and patience soon overcome the difficulties of the first start, and after that the progress is rapid.
To begin by learning a variety of old alphabets seems to me so much waste of time, although it would be a valuable groundwork to commence with. The true alphabet for beginners lies in the contracted words, whose missing portions must be supplied by the reader from the few letters given, which are often not even one connected syllable, but instead merely one or two letters out of the missing syllable clustered together.
The reason for this style of writing was to save time and material. With use, it grew into a complete system, a language of its own. At the time it was penned, these contractions were no doubt perfectly familiar to all, just as our modern abbreviations are. Of these last there are more contractions in use nowadays than would at first be realized—our daily correspondence is full of them; these may have originated from the older system of contractions, relics of it, still left lingering on.
A few examples of modern abbreviations will not be out of place here, as showing that a contracted form of writing is not so very difficult or extraordinary after all.
&, and, derived from the Latin et; the second example, which is still in use, can be traced in very old documents from et, till gradually it assumed its modern shape.
Mr, mister or master; Sr for sir was formerly in common use.
Co, company; Cie, compagnie (French).
etc., derived from the first three letters of the Latin word etcetera.
The words ‘with, which, whereof, where,’ etc., were formerly abbreviated; also yr for your, ye the, and many others now obsolete.
Pounds, shillings and pence we still designate by the Latin £ s. d.
The long word ‘affectionate’ is seldom written in full; so, too, with many other words there are recognised forms of contraction, and when this is borne in mind the abbreviations of old deeds appear in quite a different light, and we attack their difficulties with less dread of failure.