“In the later
Middle Ages, the clarity of the Carolingian script becomes lost. A much darker
and denser style evolves in northern Europe from the 11th
century. It is known as 'black letter', because of the almost oppressive weight
of dark ink on each densely packed page….
This medieval
style derives partly from an aesthetic impulse (there is drama in dark
pen strokes and in the angular ends left by a broad nib), but it is above
all a matter of economy. Parchment is expensive. Books are much in
demand, particularly with the growth of universities. If the letters in a word
and the words in a sentence are squashed more closely together, less pages are
used and the book is cheaper.”
But I couldn’t help thinking that something
as “dramatic” and original as Blackletter was no chance occurrence. Could
“economy” only be argued for its appearance? The development of an entirely new
and quite complicated script takes great effort, time, patience, study and
practice. If we place ourselves in that period, we would have to imagine a
group of studious monks and illuminators actually re-designing all the capital letters,
working on them, almost creating them from scratch. And since this was not just
a variation of an existing script, but something completely new, human
creativity and inspiration had to play a major role. When such a studious group
of professionals or artists or scholars or seers develop
something totally new, we need to surmise that they have their reasons; they
must know something, and be interesting in transmitting something. Economising
on paper, as alleged above, may be one thing, but the script itself does not
seem to be “economical” in its calligraphic expression. On the contrary, it is
highly decorative and requires more pen strokes than a simpler hand. To say
that it just “evolved” or “appeared” is much too simple. There is something
else here that no one has seen, and I have not been able to discover from
written sources.
My way of explaining it is as follows.
Culture was in the hands of the church. Universities were incipient, with the
founding of the University of Bologna in 1088 (Oxford in 1096, Salamanca in
1134, Paris in 1150, Cambridge in 1209…). So monasteries were still seedbeds of
learning and creation, with particular emphasis of course on “spiritual”
matters, in line with the times. As old parchments were reproduced, and Roman
and Greek scripts were fused for knowledge and artistic effect, a certain group
of monks must have worked on this new style of lettering, drawing up glyphs that
were particularly decorative and artistic, developed from the initials and
illuminations used in many Books of Hours. This decorative style, in the
capitals at least, involved incorporating more strokes than the
absolutely essential. Now apart from the decorative effects, are there any
other meanings behind these strokes? Do they intend to symbolise more than
meets the eye? Stay with me and we shall see…
(to be
continued…)
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