English Caroline Script and Monastic History: Studies in Benedictinism, AD 950 - 1030

by David N. Dumville

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

222 pages, Hardcover

First published May 6, 1993

About the author

David Norman Dumville was a British medievalist and Celtic scholar.