Category: History - Other
Fashion changes in everything; but these alterations go on so imperceptibly, so gradually, that ofttimes we fail to recognise their progress except by glancing backwards into the past. But the fashion of handwriting and its changes are very forcibly brought home to us when con...
Fashion changes in everything; but these alterations go on so imperceptibly, so gradually, that ofttimes we fail to recognise their progress except by glancing backwards into th...
2. CHAPTER II.Many books have been recently published on the subject of ‘Character by Handwriting,’ but they are not very descriptive in detail, although the theories and rules for character-...
3. CHAPTER III.Although we are always told that our present English language is directly derived from that of our Saxon forefathers, this information gives us very little, if any, help towards...
4. CHAPTER IV.Among old family papers it is rare to meet with many dating further back than the Reformation; first of all, this may be accounted for by the enormous amount of land possessed b...
5. CHAPTER V.The two chief divisions into which all law deeds may be roughly classified are the deed-pole and the indenture. The former is a square piece of parchment, made by one person, su...
6. CHAPTER VI.The oldest account of an estate is to be obtained, not from deeds of purchase and mortgage, but from its own private records, called court rolls, a most curious class of documen...
7. CHAPTER VII.Every abbey of any importance kept a chartulary--in other words, a catalogue of its possessions in the copies of grants of land all collected within one or more volumes--a caref...
8. CHAPTER VIII.The study of parish registers is quite apart from that of old deeds. The writing of the former begins at the period where the latter usually end, for deeds written in the sevent...
9. CHAPTER IX.Among the contents of the parish deed-chest wherein registers are supposed to be safely kept are often found other books and papers, seemingly of little interest or importance,...
10. CHAPTER X.Few accomplishments can be learnt with the aid of only one book on the subject, and paleography is a combination of many elements. Few English writers have expended their genius...
11. CHAPTER XI.There were always two divisions of handwriting: the formal hand, employed for clerk’s work, and a freer, less mechanical, less careful style, used for private correspondence. Wr...
12. CHAPTER XII.In most books treating of ancient handwriting, the abbreviations and contractions are put forward as the most important part; certainly it is necessary to study them carefully,...