A little explanation regarding medieval calligraphy might be welcomed. Alcuin of York was a Benedictine monk and a great scholar and teacher. He was invited to go to Emperor Charlemagne’s court to design a standardised script which was easy to read. Charlemagne was semi-literate so probably struggled to read some of the scripts in the books in his library. Alcuin’s letter, a fragment of which is used in the frontispiece, is copied from his letter to King Aethelred of Northumbria and is in the script he devised. It is called Carolingian – sometimes Caroline – and is based on the Latin version of Charlemagne’s name, i.e. Carolus. If it looks familiar that’s because it is. It’s the script chosen by Edward Johnson early in the 20th century to create a fresh, clean script for the new Lon
