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-JKP- · (This post was last modified: 04-10-2018, 06:08 AM by -JKP-.)

(04-10-2018, 05:30 AM)Pelling-as-quoted-by-Diane wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Looking more closely at the first word, there's a fine horizontal bar through the (later alteration) 'a', indicating that its second letter could well have originally been 'e' - making the whole word probably "meilhor" (presumably in a Romance language, derived from the Latin melior as in 'ameliorate').

I don't think it's a horizontal bar or a later alteration. I think it's a double-chamber/double-story "a" with a slight pen skip. In the late 14th century and 15th century, many scribes used both forms, sometimes alternating randomly between them in the same word or adjacent words.

I have You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about this with visual examples. It was not uncommon for the double-chamber "a" to be written taller than other lowercase letters (as can be seen from the posted examples).

Quote:Diane:
[Notes - by me]. Nick is mistaken in seeing the script's 'l' as peculiarly Germanic. It's just a form of Gothic script and occurs in France and in England and elsewhere.

The script is not peculiarly Germanic. Gothic book and Gothic cursive were used all over the continent and to some extent in England (Anglicana, a variant of Gothic was widely used in England). But the words themselves, on lines 1 and 4, are peculiarly Germanic. Especially the last phrase on line 4—it is most definitely Germanic, and almost readable as German.