Introduction to Manuscript Technology

Dennis Baron, "Pencils and Pixels" in Writing Material
1)  When writing was a mystery practiced by priests, what kinds of texts did it record and what effect might that have had on its legibility for the masses?

2)  What guarantees the authority of speech?  "You will get an A in 341."
        What guarantees the authority of a similar message in writing?

3)  When do the English start making pencils in significant quantities and why might that have happened?  

4)  Where did American graphite come from after 1821?

Namoi Baron, "Art and Science of Handwriting" in Writing Material

1)  Why would C17-20 children study handwriting?  What could they do with it as adults?

2)  What was handwriting thought to reveal about the writer?  How might that have been possible?

3)  What was the difference between Spenser's andPalmer's methods of teaching handwriting?  What did the rise of Palmer's method (and the later Zaner-Bloser simplification of Palmer) mean about handwriting's cultural function?

Palmer Cursive Handwriting Practice: Familiarize yourself with the Palmer alphabet, the first formal "script" of many you will encounter.  Note that it is not THE ALPHABET, just one way of forming Roman letters.  All Roman scripts originate with C15 Florentine Renaissance humanist scholars like Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459) who discovered, in six-century-old manuscripts a simpler, clearer alternative to the Gothic script scribes had begun using a century or so before their time.  They thought they were reading actual classical Roman manuscripts, but those "Carolignian" MSS were copied during the C8 reign of Carolus Magnus, known to us as "Charles the Great" or to the French as "Charlemagne."

1)  Using the linked Palmer practice sheets, train your eye and hand to make the Palmer alphabet, capital and small letters, at least twice.  Pay careful attention to where each letter starts and stops.  Then, try linking together strings of Palmer cursive letters to form words.  Finally,

2)  Write your name in Palmer cursive script.