Visigothic script

The Visigothic script was a medieval script that originated in the Visigothic Kingdom in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula). Its more limiting alternative designations littera toletana and littera mozarabica associate it with scriptoria specifically in Toledo and with Mozarabic culture more generally, respectively.

The script, which exists in book-hand and cursive versions, was used from approximately the late seventh century until the thirteenth century, mostly in Visigothic Iberia but also somewhat in the Catalan kingdom in current southern France. It was perfected in the 9th–11th centuries and declined afterwards. It developed from the late Roman cursive, uncial and half-uncial scripts, and shares many features of uncial, especially the form of the letter ⟨g⟩.

Other features of the script include an open-top ⟨a⟩ (very similar to the letter ⟨u⟩), similar shapes for the letters ⟨r⟩ and ⟨s⟩, and a long letter ⟨i⟩ resembling the modern letter ⟨l⟩. There are two forms of the letter ⟨d⟩, one with a straight vertical ascender and another with an ascender slanting towards the left. The top stroke of the letter ⟨t⟩, by itself, has a hook curving to the left; ⟨t⟩ also has a number of other forms when used in ligatures, and there are two different ligatures for the two sounds of ⟨ti⟩ (“hard” or unassibilated and "soft" or sibilated) as spoken in Hispano-Latin during this period. The letters ⟨e⟩ and ⟨r⟩ also have many different forms when written in ligature. Of particular interest is the special Visigothic z ⟨ꝣ⟩, which, after adoption into Carolingian handwriting, eventually transformed into the c-cedilla ⟨ç⟩.

A capital-letter display script was developed from the standard script, with long slender forms. There was also a cursive form that was used for charters and non-religious writings, which had northern ("Leonese") and southern ("Mozarabic") forms. The Leonese cursive was used in the Christian north, and the Mozarabic was used by Christians living in the Muslim south. The cursive forms were probably influenced by Roman cursive, brought to Iberia from North Africa.

Visigothic script has many similarities with Beneventan script and Merovingian script.

See also

• Verona Orational

Further reading

• A manual of Latin paleography; a comprehensive PDF file containing 82 pages profusely illustrated, 4 January 2024).
• 2011-06-10 at the Wayback Machine
• Muñoz y Rivero, Jesús (1919). (in Spanish). Madrid: D. Jorro.

• Alturo Perucho, Jesús (2004). . Archiv für Diplomatik (in Spanish) (50). Viena: 347–386. ISSN .
• Castro Correa, Ainoa (2020). . Anuario de Estudios Medievales. 50 (2): 631–664. doi:.
• Castro Correa, Ainoa (2021). "Dating and placing Visigothic script codices: A quick guide for beginners". Le livre et l'écrit: Le manuscrit médiéval: Texte, objet et outil de transmission (2): 7–35.
• del Camino Martínez, Mª del Carmen (1990). Los orígenes de la escritura visigótica (in Spanish). Madrid-Toledo. pp. 29–37. ISBN 84-7094-111-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Díaz y Díaz, Manuel (1979). Libros y librerías en la Rioja altomedieval (in Spanish). Logroño: IER.
• Díaz y Díaz, Manuel (1983). Códices visigóticos en la Monarquía leonesa. León: CSIC.
• Millares Carlo, Agustín (1973). Consideraciones sobre la escritura visigótica cursiva. León.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Millares Carlo, Agustín; con la colaboración de José Manuel Ruiz Asencio (1983). (in Spanish). Madrid: Espasa Calpe. ISBN 84-239-4986-9.
• Mundó, Anscari M. (1965). "La datación de los códices litúrgicos toledanos". Hispania Sacra (in Spanish). XVIII. ISSN .
• Mundó, Anscari M.; Alturo Perucho, Jesús (1990). "La escritura de transición de la visgótica a la carolina en la Cataluña del siglo IX". Actas del VIII Coloquio del Comité International de Paléographie Latine (in Spanish). Madrid-Toledo: 131–138. ISBN 84-7094-111-9.
• Núñez Contreras, Luis (1994). Manual de Paleografía (in Spanish). Madrid: Cátedra. ISBN 84-376-1245-4.
• Rodríguez Díaz, Elena E. (2011). Die Mozaraber. Definitionen und Perspektiven der Forschung [Los manuscritos mozárabes: una encrucijada de culturas] (in German). Münster: Lit. ISBN 978-3-643-11117-3.
• Selig, Maria; Frank, Barbara; Hartmann, Jörg (1993). (in French). Gunter Narr Verlag. ISBN 9783823342618.
• Velázquez Soriano, Isabel (1989). Las pizarras visigodas. Edición crítica y estudio. Antigüedad y Cristianismo: Monografías históricas sobre la Antigüedad Tardía (in Spanish). Murcia: Universidad de Murcia. ISSN .