Insular script

{{short description|Medieval writing system common to Ireland and England}}

{{Infobox writing system

|name= Insular (Gaelic) script

|type= Alphabet

|time= {{floruit}} 600–850 AD

|languages= Latin, Old Irish, Old English

|fam1 = Latin script

|fam2 =

|children= Gaelic type

|sample= BookDurrowInitMark86r.jpg

|imagesize=

|caption=The beginning of the Gospel of Mark from the Book of Durrow

|iso15924=

}}

Insular script is a medieval script system originating in Ireland that spread to England and continental Europe under the influence of Irish Christianity. Irish missionaries took the script to continental Europe, where they founded monasteries, such as Bobbio. The scripts were also used in monasteries, like Fulda, which were influenced by English missionaries. They are associated with Insular art, of which most surviving examples are illuminated manuscripts. It greatly influenced modern Gaelic type and handwriting.

The term "Insular script" is used to refer to a diverse family of scripts used for different functions. At the top of the hierarchy was the Insular half-uncial (or "Insular majuscule"), used for important documents and sacred text. The full uncial, in a version called "English uncial", was used in some English centres. Then "in descending order of formality and increased speed of writing" came "set minuscule", "cursive minuscule" and "current minuscule". These were used for non-scriptural texts, letters, accounting records, notes, and all the other types of written documents.{{cite book |author-link=Michelle P. Brown |last=Brown |first=Michelle P. |title=Manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon Age |page=13 (quoted) |date=2007 |publisher=British Library |isbn=978-0-7123-0680-5}}

Origin

The scripts developed in Ireland in the 7th century and were used as late as the 19th century, though its most flourishing period fell between 600 and 850. They were closely related to the uncial and half-uncial scripts, their immediate influences; the highest grade of Insular script is the majuscule Insular half-uncial, which is closely derived from Continental half-uncial script.

Appearance

File:Script, Chad-Gospels.jpg: {{lang|la-x-medieval|Et factum est iter[um cum sabbatis ambula] / ret ihs [Ihesus] per sata}} (Mark 2:23, p. 151) "And it came to pass, that Jesus went through the corn fields on the sabbath day".]]

File:Evolution of minuscule.svg

Works written in Insular scripts commonly use large initial letters surrounded by red ink dots (although this is also true of other scripts written in Ireland and England). Letters following a large initial at the start of a paragraph or section often gradually diminish in size as they are written across a line or a page, until the normal size is reached, which is called a "diminuendo" effect, and is a distinctive Insular innovation, which later influenced Continental illumination style. Letters with ascenders (b, d, h, l, etc.) are written with triangular or wedge-shaped tops. The bows of letters such as b, d, p, and q are very wide. The script uses many ligatures and has many unique scribal abbreviations, along with many borrowings from Tironian notes.

Insular script was spread to England by the Hiberno-Scottish mission; previously, uncial script had been brought to England by Augustine of Canterbury. The influences of both scripts produced the Insular script system.

Within this system, the palaeographer Julian Brown identified five grades, with decreasing formality:

Insular half-uncial, or "Irish majuscule": the most formal; became reserved for rubrics (highlighted directions) and other displays after the 9th century.{{cite book |last=Saunders |first=Corinne |title=A Companion to Medieval Poetry |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=CTtR2i7I3dgC&pg=PA52 |date=2010 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-4443-1910-1 |page=52}}
Insular hybrid minuscule: the most formal of the minuscules, came to be used for formal church books when use of the "Irish majuscule" diminished.
Insular set minuscule
Insular cursive minuscule
Insular current minuscule: the least formal;{{cite book |author1=Michael Lapidge |author2=John Blair |author3=Simon Keynes |author4=Donald Scragg |title=The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=WaAzAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA423 |date=2013 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-118-31609-2 |page=423}}: Entry "Script, Anglo-Saxon" current here means ‘running’ (rapid).{{OED|current, a.}} (definition e.)

Brown has also postulated two phases of development for this script, Phase II being mainly influenced by Roman uncial examples, developed at Wearmouth-Jarrow and typified by the Lindisfarne Gospels.{{cite book |last=Brown |first=Thomas Julian |title=A Palaeographer's View. Selected Writings of Julian Brown. |editor=J. Bately |editor2=M. Brown |editor3=J. Roberts. |date=1993 |publisher=Harvey Miller Publishers |location=London}}

Usage

Insular script was used not only for Latin religious books, but also for every other kind of book, including vernacular works. Examples include the Book of Kells, the Cathach of St. Columba, the Ambrosiana Orosius, the Durham Gospel Fragment, the Book of Durrow, the Durham Gospels, the Echternach Gospels, the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Lichfield Gospels, the St. Gall Gospel Book, and the Book of Armagh.

Insular script was influential in the development of Carolingian minuscule in the scriptoria of the Carolingian empire.{{cn|date=March 2024}}

In Ireland, Insular script was superseded in {{circa|850}} by Late Insular script; in England, it was followed by a form of Caroline minuscule.{{cn|date=March 2024}}

The Tironian {{lang|la|et}}, {{angbr|⁊}}{{snd}} equivalent of ampersand {{angbr|&}}{{snd}} was in widespread use in the script (meaning {{lang|sga|agus}} 'and' in Irish, and {{lang|ang|ond}} 'and' in Old English) and is occasionally continued in modern Gaelic typefaces derived from Insular script.

Unicode

Unicode treats representation of letters of the Latin alphabet written in insular script as a typeface choice that needs no separate coding. Only a few Insular letters have specific code-points because they are used by phonetic specialists. To render the full alphabet correctly, a suitable display font should be chosen. To display the specialist characters, there are several fonts that may be used; three free ones that support these characters are Junicode, Montagel, and Quivira. Gentium and Charis SIL support the alphabetic letters (U+A77x and U+A78x).

According to Michael Everson, in the 2006 Unicode proposal for these characters:{{cite web |last=Everson |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Everson |title=N3122: Proposal to add Latin letters and a Greek symbol to the UCS |url= https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2006/06266-n3122-insular.pdf |publisher=ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 |date=6 August 2006 |access-date=22 November 2016}} {{blockquote |text=To write text in an ordinary Gaelic font, only ASCII letters should be used, the font making all the relevant substitutions; the insular letters [proposed here] are for use only by specialists who require them for particular purposes.}}

References

External links

Early medieval insular Gospel Books as part of the [https://www.tcd.ie/library/research-collections/projects/early-irish-mss/ Early Irish Manuscripts Project] at Trinity College Dublin Library.