Formalizing the rules of typography in the Middle Ages

The Large Village Fair — 1535 by Hans Sebald Beham

It goes without saying that the influence of the Middle Ages on academia is often neglected. When you are asked to think about Medieval times, thoughts that might come to mind are plagues, peasants harvesting hay and wheat, or funny looking illustrations that get turned into memes on social media. Many people mock this era and are glad they were born in modern times. There is no doubt that the quality of life was poor and there were undeniable challenges. However, this period, which began after the decline of the Roman Empire and lasted until the Renaissance, played a monumental role in the development of typography, book formatting and fostering a literate population (History.com Editors).

In the Classical period, typography was limited to square and rustic capitals, old and new Roman cursive, or uncial and capital majuscule scripts (Dartmouth Ancient Books Lab). Many of us are familiar with the serif, capitalized stone engravings on the exterior of the Pantheon (Ranogajec). If you were exposed to Byzantine art, you may even be familiar with majuscule scripts on panels such as The Zoe Mosaic that is displayed in the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey (Hagia Sophia Research Team). Typography in the early Middle Ages consisted of these archaic letterforms.

In contrast to the limited scripts of antiquity, countless innovative letterforms developed in Medieval times (Drucker and Mcvarish 35). While older typefaces were employed initially, new styles and forms were introduced to achieve higher functionality. For example, chancery scripts, which were “elaborately elongated handwriting used for official documents”, emanated out of the need to prevent forgery (Drucker and Mcvarish 41). In addition, to differentiate the handwriting of scholars from clerics, blackletter scripts such as Bastarda were employed in legal documents and correspondence (Drucker and Mcvarish 45).

Beyond legal requirements, the Catholic Church also played a critical role in formalizing the rules of typography. They introduced design decisions that were supported by religious beliefs. To bring greater aesthetic appeal to formal scripture such as presentation bibles, the Textura or Gothic script was developed (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). The Catholic Church popularized Textura/Gothic scripts because these letterforms borrowed inspiration from architecture and the tall strokes reflected the Christian desire to ascend to heaven (Drucker and Mcvarish 44). These new letterforms signaled the association of texts with different institutions as well as reflecting religious ideologies.

As time passed, scribes became increasingly proficient in cursive scripts and letterforms matured further in the thirteenth-century (Harvard University English Department). Later on in Medieval times, book hand or court hand scripts such as Anglicana and Secretary emerged to speed up the production of books for scholars and the noble or merchant classes (University of Nottingham). These scripts migrated from places such as France to England in the fourteenth century, and they got “contaminated” or mutated and hybrid fonts such as Bastarda Anglicana (Anglicana with Textura features) and Bastarda Secretary (Secretary with Anglicana features) also surfaced (Reimer). Consequently, as literate cultures advanced, letterforms changed and greater emphasis was placed on typography.

New letterforms transformed the history of typefaces, but the implementation of structure and navigational tools in the codex arguably had the biggest impact on the rules of typography. The codex, which consisted of “individual pages of uniform size, bound in sequence”, was invented in the third and fourth centuries during the Roman Empire (Drucker and Mcvarish 34). This precursor to the modern book replaced scrolls, wall engravings, and wood or wax tablets (Drucker and Mcvarish 37). Although binding same-sized sheets of paper sounds like a modern book, early bibles and literature were composed of pages and pages of long, unbroken text (Drucker and Mcvarish 39). In other words, books had no structure. Readers had to sequentially access information and could not find specific sections by referencing an index. Although the codex was a product of the Roman Empire, the first universities got established in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries and new tools that would revolutionize typography and book structure emerged during the Middle Ages (Drucker and Mcvarish 50).

As the number of scholars increased and book production became more efficient during the Medieval period, the demand for a way to reference literature and better information structure grew. This requirement led to the development of a table of contents, chapter titles, headers, paragraph breaks and indices (Drucker and Mcvarish 40). Similar to modern books, these random access tools allowed scholars to navigate through text efficiently — a significant improvement from having to access information serially. The needs of scholars altered the course of book structure and laid the foundation for the format that we rely on today.

The founding of universities and the drastic increase in the number of scholars also meant that more books had to get copied. While monks produced elaborate, illuminated works for devotional readings, scribes made inexpensive books that served a practical purpose for scholars, nobles and merchants (Twycross). Although the beauty of letterforms was compromised, the demand for academic text was so great that by the beginning of the thirteenth century, the production rate of professional scribes outpaced religious institutions (Drucker and Mcvarish 50). By this time, it became evident that secular forces were on the rise, and the Church began to lose their hegemony over knowledge (Lord). Wealth distribution was skewed, but books became more accessible outside of the clergy and literacy rates increased in the Western world (Drucker and Mcvarish 50).

Typography and book formats would be entirely different today if it were not for all the events that took place during the Middle Ages. The need to distinguish various documents, prevent forgery and establish religious identity acted as a catalyst to improve the diversity of typefaces. The attention to letterforms was critical, but the demand for efficient information structure heavily impacted typographic rules and the architecture of books. Table of contents, chapter titles, headers, paragraph breaks and indices changed the way professional scribes organized bodies of text. The founding of universities also drove the demand for more books to be copied by scribes instead of monks, and the Catholic Church lost their position as the absolute gatekeeper of knowledge. The majority of the population was poor, but books became available outside of the clergy and literacy rates increased. The rules of typography were formalized in the Middle Ages and the advancements that took place had outstanding results on increasing literacy in the Western world.

Citations:

1. History.com Editors. “Middle Ages.” HISTORY, A&E Television Networks, 14 Sept. 2018, www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/middle-ages. Accessed 1 July 2022.
2. Dartmouth Ancient Books Lab. “Ancient Scripts: Rustic Capitals, Old and New Roman Cursive — Dartmouth Ancient Books Lab.” Sites.dartmouth.edu, 25 May 2016, sites.dartmouth.edu/ancientbooks/2016/05/25/ancient-fonts-rustic-capitals-old-and-new-roman-cursive/. Accessed 29 June 2022.
3. Ranogajec, Paul A. “The Pantheon (Rome) — Smarthistory.” Smarthistory.org, Smarthistory, 11 Dec. 2015, smarthistory.org/the-pantheon/. Accessed 29 June 2022.
4. Hagia Sophia Research Team. “The Zoe Mosaic.” Hagia Sophia, Hagia Sophia, 12 Nov. 2017, hagiasophiaturkey.com/the-zoe-mosaic/. Accessed 29 June 2022.
5. Drucker, Johanna, and Emily Mcvarish. Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide, 2nd Edition. 2nd ed., Boston, Pearson, 2013, p. 34 –50.
6. Harvard University English Department. “Types of Script.” Chaucer.fas.harvard.edu, Harvard University, chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/types-script. Accessed 1 July 2022.
7. University of Nottingham. “Handwriting Styles — the University of Nottingham.” Nottingham.ac.uk, University of Nottingham, 2019, www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/medievaldocuments/handwritingstyles.aspx. Accessed 1 July 2022.
8. Reimer, Stephen. “Manuscript Studies: Paleography: Historical Notes.” Sites.ualberta.ca, University of Alberta, 30 May 2015, sites.ualberta.ca/~sreimer/ms-course/course/pal-hist.htm. Accessed 1 July 2022.
9. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “From Gothic Script to Gothic Type · a History of Typography at UWM Special Collections · Special Collections Digital Index.” Liblamp.uwm.edu, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Special Collections Digital Index, liblamp.uwm.edu/omeka/spcdi/exhibits/show/typography-tuesday/15th-century/gothic-script-gothic-type#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-72%2C-96%2C1422%2C1880. Accessed 2 July 2022.
10. Twycross, Meg. “Bastarda.” Www.lancaster.ac.uk, Lancaster University, 2000, www.lancaster.ac.uk/users/yorkdoom/palweb/week14/palwk14.htm. Accessed 1 July 2022.
11. Lord, Victoria. “The Medieval Scribe and the Art of Writing.” The Ultimate History Project, ultimatehistoryproject.com/the-medieval-scribe.html. Accessed 29 June 2022.