Author Topic: quill written roundhand from 1770  (Read 2907 times)

Offline Brush My Fennec

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quill written roundhand from 1770
« on: September 01, 2014, 06:20:00 PM »
Roundhand was written in the 18th century (and into the 19th) with quills. Sometimes they were cut to be broad edged and stiff, sometimes broad edged and flexible. I've not found it easy to find good calligraphic manuscript examples of roundhand, as opposed to engraved reproductions of it, but I did find this indenture, concerning messuages in Warwickshire, which was written on laid paper (I think all paper was laid at that point) on the 28th of March 1770 (10th regnal year of George III). I think is of a quality fairly reasonable for a working document that wasn't strictly intended as a formal piece of calligraphy. It is certainly better than the majority indentures I've seen.

The body height of the small writing is c. 3mm. Link to hi-res scan and pictures below. Note the forms of the r and the e on 'Indenture'. Because broad edged quills were used, they naturally produced the shading on the other side of e (for example) without multiple strokes being needed, whereas with pointed pens two strokes are needed to imitate quill written forms of e.

Due to it being slightly wider and a little shorter than A3, I couldn't scan all of this two page document (only have A4 scanner). Some of these are digital photos.

I'd like to also note that although the paper is laid, there isn't really that much texture to it, from running my fingers over it. Probably because nowadays laid paper is a novelty so you might want to make the laid texture very noticeable, but when all paper is laid you might want to lessen it as much as possible to make smooth writing paper.













hi-res:

http://i.imgur.com/rGVUNzG.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/TUf1jTK.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Ik1AEPY.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/pniU3ux.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/rfyzDpC.jpg
« Last Edit: September 01, 2014, 06:32:04 PM by Brush My Fennec »

Offline tintenfuchs

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Re: quill written roundhand from 1770
« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2014, 11:11:21 AM »
I love it, thanks for sharing!
Natascha
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Offline Cecilia

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Re: quill written roundhand from 1770
« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2014, 10:12:30 AM »
Very interesting! Thank you for sharing!
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