Given the fact that the Ordinances were drawn up in two languages and copied by two scribes, one might have expected one scribe to write the Dutch and another the English, but this is not what happened. The first scribe wrote the first ten folios, English and Dutch, and then scribe two continued in both languages, although it should be noted that the last three articles written by scribe 2 (article 25, originally intended as the last, plus the two articles that were added later) are exclusively in English. The handwriting of these two scribes is easy to distinguish, and the differences between the two may indicate different levels of acculturation.
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Scribe 1 (see fig. 9) writes in a script known as
littera hybrida because it is a hybrid between the looser cursive script, cursiva, and the formal bookhand known as textura.
1 We take our terms and diagnostics for different scripts from Albert Derolez, The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books from the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Characteristic of textura is the careful execution of minims (the downstrokes in
m,
n, and
i), which are separately traced, as in ‘instructe’ (line 2). From cursiva come the single-compartment
a and the long
f and
s, with descenders extending well below the baseline. In the hand of scribe 1, the long
s alternates with the round cursiva
s, which he writes at the end of words (see ‘the seid fullers’, line 2). There are also two forms of the letter
r, the two-stroked textura
r and round
r (which looks rather like our
z). The
w of scribe 1 consists of two open
v’s. There is a single compartment
g (‘hatmakyng’, line 3). The
d is of the loopless variety, and the
e has the modern letter shape. Notable decorative features of scribe 1 are the use of elongated ascenders for the top line and the stroking of all majuscules in red ink. However, the most striking thing about scribe 1’s handwriting is the absence of any features that we would expect to find in a
littera hybrida written in England, and this becomes immediately obvious if we compare scribe 1 with scribe 2 (see fig. 10), whose
littera hybrida shows many of the features familiar from the cursive script known as Anglicana, because it was typical of England.
2 See M. B. Parkes, English Cursive Book Hands, 1250–1500 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969).~
Fig. 9 London, Guildhall Library, MS 15838, fol. 2v. © Haberdashers’ Company.
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Fig. 10 London, Guildhall Library, MS 15838, fol. 11v. © Haberdashers’ Company.
Thus scribe 2 alternates between the continental
w and the one typical of Anglicana, ending in a 3-shaped final stroke. See e.g ‘werscreuen’ at the beginning of line 7. This word also shows that, apart from the round
r, scribe 2 writes the tailed Anglicana
r. Like scribe 1, scribe 2 also uses long
s and round
s, but he writes the latter also at the beginning of words (see ‘sinte’, line 11). This ‘most noteworthy feature of Anglicana’
3 Derolez, Palaeography, p. 139. is found in scribe 2, but not in scribe 1. Similarly, while both scribes write the loopless
d and
g, scribe 2 also employs the Anglicana forms of these letters, that is, the looped
d (see e.g. ‘hoden’, line 5) and the 8-shaped
g (line 5, ‘shyllyngen’). A notable feature not found in the handwriting of scribe 1, but present in that of scribe 2 as well as that of the main scribe who penned the 1511 agreement of the Haberdashers, is the use of the infinity sign as a line filler (see e.g. end of lines 3 and 4).
The tentative conclusion to which we are drawn is that scribe 2 acquired his handwriting skills in England while scribe 1 had acquired his writing skills on the continent, though it should be noted that even scribe 1 was familiar enough with English writing to manage standard abbreviations for English words such as
wt for ‘with’ and
eu’ry for ‘euery’. We may be dealing with different generations, with scribe 1 a first-generation migrant, and scribe 2 a second-generation one. Given the confident writing of both scribes, both were probably trained scribes. Scribe 1 could very well be the ‘clerke’ of the Hatmakers’ Fraternity who is repeatedly mentioned in the Ordinances.
4 See n. 15 above. The English handwriting of scribe 2 could be that of a professional London scrivener of Dutch extraction. (As we shall see below, his Dutch dialect, very different from that of scribe 1, is that of Flanders or Brabant.) Both English and Dutch speakers knew where to find London scribes who knew Dutch. The Mercers, for example, whose trade focused on the Low Countries, needed to have letters and manuscripts written in Dutch, and commissioned expert London scribes to do this,
5 Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, ed., Book of Privileges, pp. 36–7, and Putter, ‘Materials’, p. 103. while members of the Dutch immigrant community relied on friars who spoke their language to be their confessors and to record their last testaments.
6 See below, p. 106.