Alemannic minuscule

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Alemannic minuscules in a handwriting written in 781. St. Gallen, Abbey Library , Codex 11, page 59

The Alemannic minuscule is a regional font that was in use in the Lake Constance area from around 740 to 840 . It was replaced by the Carolingian minuscule .

distribution

The Alemannic minuscule got its name from the Swiss paleographer Albert Bruckner , who described it in the 1930s and distinguished it from other regional scripts.

The two centers of this writing were the scriptoria of the monasteries of St. Gallen and Reichenau . It was probably also in use in the cathedral school in Konstanz and in the monasteries of Freising , Murbach and Mondsee . They were used for documents as well as for codices , as well as for the inscriptions of the St. Gallen monastery plan .

Psalm 117 (116) in the Wolfcoz Psalter, around 825

Characteristic

Like all minuscule fonts, this is a further development of the younger Roman cursive . It is characterized by wide, nicely rounded letters and well-proportioned ascenders with little slope and wide line spacing. Typical is the so-called cc-a , a letter "a" made up of two arcs (easy to recognize in the written example: 1st word, line 4 "l a ud a te"), the letter "g" in the form of a 3, and the nt - ligature in the middle of words with which to slipped down transom with the "t" (both can be clearly seen in the last word of the third line: " g e nt it").

literature

  • Natalie Maag: Alemannic traces in Lorsch. In: Julia Becker, Tino Licht, Stefan Weinfurter (eds.): Carolingian monasteries. Knowledge transfer and cultural innovation. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2015, pp. 163–173 (the entire volume is available online )
  • Natalie Maag: Alemannic minuscule (744–846 AD). Early written culture in the Lake Constance area and the foothills of the Alps (= sources and studies on Latin philology of the Middle Ages ). Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-7772-1422-1
  • Bernhard Zeller: Written forms: Alemanien. In: Hans Rudolf Sennhauser (Ed.): Change and Constance between Lake Constance and Lombardy at the time of Charlemagne. Zurich 2013, pp. 310–318.
  • Tino Licht: The oldest Carolingian minuscule. In: Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 47, 2012, pp. 337–346.
  • Walter Berschin: Sankt Gallen written culture. In: Werner Vogler (Ed.): The culture of the Abbey of Sankt Gallen. St. Gallen 1998, pp. 69-80.

Web links

  • Brief overview of Natalie Maag's dissertation project (meanwhile completed) with two written examples.
  • Tino Licht: The oldest Carolingian minuscule. Full text .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bernhard Zeller: Written forms: Alemanien. In: Hans Rudolf Sennhauser (Ed.): Change and Constance between Lake Constance and Lombardy at the time of Charlemagne. Zurich 2013, p. 310.
  2. ↑ Walter Berschin: Sankt Gallen written culture. In: Werner Vogler (Ed.): The culture of the Abbey of Sankt Gallen. St.Gallen 1998, p. 70.
  3. ^ Natalie Maag: Alemannic traces in Lorsch. In: Julia Becker, Tino Licht, Stefan Weinfurter (eds.): Carolingian monasteries. Knowledge transfer and cultural innovation. Berlin / Boston 2015, p. 164.