Insular script is a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

script system originating in Ireland that spread to

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

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 Fulda () (historically in English called Fuld) is a city in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district (''Kreis''). In 1990, the city hosted the 30th Hessentag state festival. Histor ...

, which were influenced by English missionaries. They are associated with

Insular art Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, was produced in the sub-Roman Britain, post-Roman era of Great Britain and Ireland. The term derives from ''insula'', the Latin language, Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland ...

, of which most surviving examples are

illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Churc ...

s. It greatly influenced modern

Gaelic type Gaelic type (sometimes called Irish character, Irish type, or Gaelic script) is a family of Insular script typefaces devised for printing Early Modern Irish. It was widely used from the 16th century until the mid-18th century in Scotland and t ...

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 Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally '' majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally '' minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing syste ...

"), used for important documents and sacred text. The full

uncial Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...

, 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 Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally '' minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing system ...

", "cursive minuscule" and "current minuscule". These were used for non-scriptural texts, letters, accounting records, notes, and all the other types of written documents.

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

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

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 abbreviation Scribal abbreviations, or sigla (grammatical number, singular: siglum), are abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek language, Greek, Old English and Old Norse. In modern Textua ...

s, along with many borrowings from

Tironian notes Tironian notes () are a form of thousands of signs that were formerly used in a system of shorthand (Tironian shorthand) dating from the 1st century BCE and named after Marcus Tullius Tiro, Tiro, a personal secretary to Marcus Tullius Cicero, wh ...

. Insular script was spread to England by the

Hiberno-Scottish mission The Hiberno-Scottish mission was a series of expeditions in the 6th and 7th centuries by Gaels, Gaelic Missionary, missionaries originating from Ireland that spread Celtic Christianity in Scotland, Wales, History of Anglo-Saxon England, England a ...

; previously, uncial script had been brought to England by

Augustine of Canterbury Augustine of Canterbury (early 6th century in England, 6th century – most likely 26 May 604) was a Christian monk who became the first archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the "Apostle to the English". Augustine ...

. 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

rubric A rubric is a word or section of text that is traditionally written or printed in red ink for emphasis. The word derives from the Latin , meaning red ochre or red chalk, and originates in medieval illuminated manuscripts from the 13th century or ...

s (highlighted directions) and other displays after the 9th century. *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; ''current'' here means ‘running’ (rapid). 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 The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV) is an illuminated manuscript gospel book probably produced around the years 715–720 in the monastery at Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, which is now in the Bri ...

Usage

Insular script was used not only for

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

religious books, but also for every other kind of book, including vernacular works. Examples include the

Book of Kells The Book of Kells (; ; Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS A. I. 8 sometimes known as the Book of Columba) is an illustrated manuscript and Celts, Celtic Gospel book in Latin, containing the Gospel, four Gospels of the New Testament togeth ...

, the Cathach of St. Columba, the Ambrosiana Orosius, the Durham Gospel Fragment, the Book of Durrow, the Durham Gospels, the Echternach Gospels, the

, the Lichfield Gospels, the St. Gall Gospel Book, and the Book of Armagh. Insular script was influential in the development of

Carolingian minuscule Carolingian minuscule or Caroline minuscule is a script which developed as a calligraphic standard in the medieval European period so that the Latin alphabet of Jerome's Vulgate Bible could be easily recognized by the literate class from one ...

in the

scriptoria A scriptorium () was a writing room in medieval European monasteries for the copying and Illuminated manuscript, illuminating of manuscripts by scribes. The term has perhaps been over-used—only some monasteries had special rooms set aside for ...

of the Carolingian empire. In Ireland, Insular script was superseded in by Late Insular script; in England, it was followed by a form of Caroline minuscule. The Tironian , equivalent of

ampersand The ampersand, also known as the and sign, is the logogram , representing the grammatical conjunction, conjunction "and". It originated as a typographic ligature, ligature of the letters of the word (Latin for "and"). Etymology Tradi ...

was in widespread use in the script (meaning 'and' in Irish, and 'and' in

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

) and is occasionally continued in modern

faces derived from Insular script.

Unicode

Unicode treats representation of letters of the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

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 Michael Everson (born January 1963) is an American and Irish linguistics, linguist, Character encoding, script encoder, typesetting, typesetter, type designer and Publishing, publisher. He runs a publishing company called Evertype, through which ...

, in the 2006 Unicode proposal for these characters:

References

External links

* Early medieval insular Gospel Books as part of th
Early Irish Manuscripts Project
at Trinity College Dublin Library.