Old English Letters

Old English Script

Although entire books used to be written in the script, to modern readers the style is hard on the eyes, so be sure to use old English letters sparingly. The script is best for important documents, newspaper mastheads, and names carved into the stone over entrance ways to buildings. In fact, the people of the Renaissance, looking back to the Middle Ages, derogatorily named it Gothic.

Old English Language

The language that is Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, was written and spoken in what is now England until the twelfth century. It is a Germanic language, influenced by the many people who invaded the area, and became English closer to what we now know during the Norman Conquest. Blackletter script, on the other hand, was prevalent after the Norman Conquest.

Although our language is related to Old English, reading and speaking Anglo-Saxon is foreign to us. In addition, Old English literature was not written in Gothic script. Here’s a Beowulf site that also tells about Anglo-Saxon.

The Middle Ages

Blackletter handwriting was widespread during the Middle Ages. Books from this time can also have illuminations. More can be read at Medieval Writing: History, Heritage and Data Source, while there is an interesting article about later English blackletter ballads at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Two prevalent styles of writing were spiky Gothic and the rounder roman. The roman script won out everywhere except Germany, and continued into the twentieth century. Therefore, keep in mind that just because a German-language book uses Gothic script does not mean it is valuable. The book may be newer than you think.

Johannes Gutenberg

Johannes Gutenberg was born in Mainz, Germany in the late 1300s and died in 1468. He invented a method of printing with movable type that made literature widely available for the first time and helped usher in the Renaissance’s rebirth of art and literature. In 1455, Gutenberg printed his famous Bible in the Gothic-style medieval type. It is in Latin, in three volumes, and each page has two columns with 42 lines per column. There are still 40 Bibles in existence and The British Library has two. The script style is technically called textura because the black letters create a textured cloth effect.

Incunabula

Books printed before 1501 are called incunabula. Gutenberg’s Bible is an example. These books can still be purchased but are quite expensive. If you enter the keyword incunabula or incunabulum in a book database search engine, you might find blackletter incunabula.

ABC For Book Collectors by John Carter recomends:

• The British Museum Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century
• Gesamtkatalog Der Wiegendrucke by Holger Nickel
• Incunabula in American Libraries compiled and edited by Frederick R. Goff
• Index to the Early Printed Books in the British Museum: With Notes of Those in the Bodleian Library by Robert Proctor

Newer books have also been printed using blackletter or old English letter script. For instance, there are the small presses associated with the Arts and Crafts movement of the late nineteenth century in England such as Ashenden, Doves, Kelmscott and Vale.

Old English Letter Fonts

Many script styles are considered Gothic or old English. It is up to the imagination of the type designer or calligrapher to create them, but they are all based on blackletter. Companies sell fonts with various names such as Gothique, Crusader and Notre Dame.

A good book to pick up is:

• Gothic and Old English Alphabets: 100 Complete Fonts by Dan Solo.