Carolingian Minuscule

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Descriptions of scripts are from Michelle Brown's A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 London, The British Library: 1990

The attraction [of Carolingian minuscule] lay in its clarity and uniformity. It offered a disiplined alternative to the plethora of national hands and sub-Roman scripts and, as part of a campaign to achieve standardisation of texts, contributed to a semblance of cohesion amongst the varied elements which formed the Carolingian Empire.

... It is found at Corbie from the time of abbot Maurdramnus, c. 772-81 (Maurdramnus minuscule). The Palace School also witnessed its early introduction and hastened its dissemination, sending exemplars in the script to a number of ecclesiastical centres, including Tours, itself a key centre from c. 796 following the accession of its English bishop, Alcuin of York.

The new script spread rapidly throughout areas of Carolingian rule. It was not, however, adopted substanitally in England until the ecclesiastical reforms of the mid-tenth-century and was generally reserved for Latin rather than Old English texts... Relative political independence and the possession of a satisfactory indigenous script may similarly have contributed to the survival of Visigothic minuscule througout much of Spain until the twelfth century and of Beneventan minuscule in parts of southern Italy to c. 1300 (and even into s. xv in some provincial contexts).

Diffusion and duration: most of western Europe s. viii^ex -xiiiⁱⁿ; France, s. viii^ex-xi; N. and Central Italy, c. 800-1200; Germany, c. 800-s. xiiiⁱⁿ (in the S.); Spain (Catalonia, c. 800-s.xii¹, the rest of Spain s. xii-xiiiⁱⁿ; England, s. x^med-s.xi^ex (for Latin texts).

Distinctive features: round aspect to script, emphasizing unifrom head and baselines and length of ascenders/descender; straight minims without feet (except for English Caroline which is elaborated by foot serifs, a feature which also sometimes occurs in German manuscripts, notably those produced in centres under Insular influence); Half-Uncial a; straight-backed d; Half-Uncial g; short r or the rounded 'figure 2' form; tall s favoured, although round s occurs; flat-headed t; ampersand generally used for et, although simple et ligature occurs.

Lorscher Rotulus, Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek (Frankfurt am Main, Germany), Ms. Barth. 179

Om[ni]p[oten]s sempiterne d[eu]s dirige actus n[ost]ros in bene placito tuo
ut in nomine dilecti filii tui meream[ur] in bonis operib[us] habundare
D[eu]s cui omne cor patet et omnis volutas loquit[ur] et nullu[m] latet