Their Hands Before Our Eyes

Book excerpt: Following on from his acclaimed study of punctuation, Pause and Effect, this new book by Malcolm Parkes makes an equally fundamental contribution to the history of handwriting. Its purpose is to focus on the writing of scribes from late antiquity to the beginning of the sixteenth century, and to identify those features which are a scribe's personal contribution to the techniques and art of handwriting. The text is illustrated with 69 plates, and accompanied by a glossary of technical terms, which in itself makes a significant contribution to the subject.