The primary goal of this class, to be taught by Dr. Justin Haynes during the Spring Quarter, is to introduce students to the history of Latin book hands from late antiquity to c.1500 and to provide practical training in transcription. Most scripts used for Western European vernacular languages are closely related, if not identical, to Latin scripts, but because we will be exclusively examining Latin texts, some knowledge of Latin is essential. The class will spend more time on the later (Gothic) scripts for the practical reason that, since far more manuscripts survive written in these scripts, students are much more likely to encounter them in their research. Because it is impossible to understand scripts without some knowledge of the history and construction of the physical manuscripts that carry them, we will necessarily touch upon many aspects of codicology as well.
(Image of Latin abbreviations courtesy of Dr. Richard M. Pollard.)