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Book hand

Stylised medieval handwriting style

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
1 min read
Source updated September 6, 2026

A book hand was any of several stylized handwriting scripts used during ancient and medieval times. It was intended for legibility and often used in transcribing official documents (prior to the development of printing and similar technologies).

In contrast to book hand's library or liturgical use cases, court hand developed as its cursive counterpart for business and departmental record keeping throughout the 12th to 17th centuries.

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This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Book hand”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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Block letters

Block letters are a sans-serif (or "gothic") style of writing Latin script in which the letters are individual glyphs, with no joining. Elementary education in English-speaking countries typically introduces children to the literacy of handwriting using a method of block letters (commonly referred to as manuscript by educators), which may later advance to cursive (joined) penmanship.

Court hand

Court hand, also known as business, departmental, documentary or charter hands, or Anglicana were any of a number of Gothic scripts used in medieval English law courts and later by professionals such as lawyers and clerks for record keeping. This was in contrast to book hands which were scripts used for library or liturgical manuscripts.

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