On this 5 week course you will learn the lettering strokes for the English Carolingian hand, and explore its importance and influence on subsequent hands.

Thursday 2 - 30 July
2.30pm – 4.30pm
£50 per 5 week course
Suitable for ages 18+ years.
Booking cut off time: Thursday 2 July 9am
Find the materials list through the download further down the page.

About Carolingian Script

A pivotal script of great importance, Carolingian was developed during the late eighth century at Charlemagne’s scriptorium (Charles the Great, King of the Franks) in Tours, France.

It forms the basis for our modern minuscule characters, and has a round cursive flowing quality that makes it easy to read. This was one reason for its popularity throughout Europe, although a late arrival in England.

The style later gave way to the cursive Black Letter and more compressed Gothic script, but was then rediscovered in the fifteenth century by Poggio and Noccoli, from which developed the italic hands.

When reviving the calligraphy arts and crafts at the start of the 20th Century, Edward Johnston based his Foundation Hand on a tenth Century example of an Anglicised version of the script known as English Caroline Minuscule. The example chosen was the Ramsey Psalter, believed to have been written by scribes at Winchester and dating from 966.