It was quite common for some scribes to use both Greek-sigma and B-shape for final-ess in the same manuscript. Scribes who did this usually did not use long-ess at the end.
It was also not uncommon for some scribes to use both long-ess and snake-ess (the modern ess) in the same manuscript and sometimes even on the same line. Scribes who did this SOMETIMES used Greek-sigma, but didn't use B-shape very often.
(These are not the technical terms, but they are ones I prefer because anyone can understand what they are right away.)
The generalizations above are somewhat regional... (it's taken me years to figure all this out...)...
The snake-ess is more common in Spain and Italy, the B-shaped ess in central and northern Europe. Everyone seems to have used Greek-sigma (it shows up all over).
The snake-ess is the more traditional shape. Central and Northern Europe made a segué into Gothic text while Italy retained some of the traditional forms (which were more attractive and more readable). The humanist movement brought back an appreciation of the more readable Caroline texts (which the Italians were still using to some extent) and they started using them again in the very late 1400s and early 1500s and this evolved into modern script.
I have many many samples of all these which I will post when I post the statistics on the 8-shaped final-ess so they can be seen altogether.
It was also not uncommon for some scribes to use both long-ess and snake-ess (the modern ess) in the same manuscript and sometimes even on the same line. Scribes who did this SOMETIMES used Greek-sigma, but didn't use B-shape very often.
(These are not the technical terms, but they are ones I prefer because anyone can understand what they are right away.)
The generalizations above are somewhat regional... (it's taken me years to figure all this out...)...
The snake-ess is more common in Spain and Italy, the B-shaped ess in central and northern Europe. Everyone seems to have used Greek-sigma (it shows up all over).
The snake-ess is the more traditional shape. Central and Northern Europe made a segué into Gothic text while Italy retained some of the traditional forms (which were more attractive and more readable). The humanist movement brought back an appreciation of the more readable Caroline texts (which the Italians were still using to some extent) and they started using them again in the very late 1400s and early 1500s and this evolved into modern script.
I have many many samples of all these which I will post when I post the statistics on the 8-shaped final-ess so they can be seen altogether.