English Caroline Script and Monastic History

Caroline minuscule script was adopted in England in the mid-tenth century in imitation of Continental usage. A badge of ecclesiastical reform, it was practised in Benedictine scriptoria but was also taken up by members of the royal writing office; the chancery occupied an important place in the pioneering of calligraphic fashions. During its approximately two-century history in England, Caroline script developed a number of forms, in part reflecting different tendencies within the Reform-cause. The Rule of St Benedict was focal for this movement. In the aftermath of the final Scandinavian conquest of England [AD1016] a Canterbury master-scribe created the form of Caroline writing which was to become a mark of Englishness and outlive the Norman Conquest. In the closing chapter its inventor's career is discussed and his achievement assessed. This volume offers analysis of manuscript evidence as a basis for the cultural and ecclesiastical history of late Anglo-Saxon England. David N. Dumville is professor of History and Palaeography at the University of Aberdeen