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Dranchenwald Kingdom University A.S. XXXX Introduction to Blackletter Calligraphy

Lady Freyds Thrfinnsdttir Page 1

Gothic Blackletter

Notes for a practical calligraphy class at Kingdom University AS XXXX.

Introduction

The Blackletter or Gothic script is a calligraphic

hand widely used in western Europe from the

twelfth to the sixteenth century. Its main advantage

over its precursor, Carolingian, is that the letters are

simple, faster to write and take up much less space.

This was a major advantage as during this period

the demand for books had greatly increased. The

narrower Gothic script allowed more letters to be

written on the same page, thus minimising the

amount of parchment required for each book. The

original tendancy to do large illustrations and borders on each page was also curtailed, leadingto illustrations often being limited to large initial capitals as shown in the Aberdeen Bestiary.

Pens

Many calligraphy pens and nibs are commercially available. For Blackletter you need a pen

with a broad flat nib. If youre new to calligraphy or just want something thats easily

available and good for basic practice, the Berol calligraphy felt tip pens are very useful and

come in a number of widths. Art shops also often sell double-ended colour calligraphy felt

tips with a different tip width at each end. If you want to do something very large and bold,

square-tipped marker pens can also be used.

For more formal pieces such as scrolls it is more usual to use either a specialist calligraphyfountain pen or a dip pen with a removable nib. Lettering created with these looks fabulous

but the pens themselves often take a bit of getting used to. Pilot and Berol do ArtPens which

are broad-nibbed fountain pens which are much easier to use than the more traditional dip

pens.

The pen should be held close to upright with the line of the nib about 30 from the horizontal.

This gives the correct weight to the downstrokes and the sideways strokes.

Ruling up lines

It is much easier to maintain consistency between letters if you draw them between pencillines. These guide lines are still visible on many mediaeval manuscripts.

The separation of the lines is defined in

terms of the width of the nib of the pen.

Gothic blackletter miniscules (lower case

letters) use a height of four nib widths for

the body of the letter plus two pen widths

each for ascenders and descenders.

Majuscules (upper case letters) use a height of six nib widths for the body plus two nib widths

for descenders. Numerals use a height of five pen widths. When drawing up the lines use a

hard pencil so that it leaves only a faint line. These can be erased once the ink is dry.

Height for

miniscules

Height for

majuscules

Height for

numerals

Detail from the Malmesbury Bible, 1407


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Creating the letters

The three illustrations below show the individual letters in both miniscule and majuscule,

together with numerals and punctuation. The grey lines show the order and direction of the

strokes used to make up the letters.

The most important stroke in Blackletter is the downstroke, as this forms the basis of most ofthe letters. It may either fill just the body of the letter or extend into the ascender or

descender. Practice getting the line straight and the serifs equal before going on to the other

parts of the letters.

The large curves of the majuscules also take some practise to get the balance right. The

maexcules are, in general, far more curved than the miniscules and therefore much wider. The

letter S, in majuscule or miniscule, can be very difficult to get write, so dont be

disheartened if it appears unbalanced!

Resources

Pre-lined practice papers (in MS Word format) for use with the Berol calligraphy pens are

available at http://notendur.unak.is/not/nicolaw/stormbird/downloads/index.html .

Wikipedia has an excellent article on Blackletter, its history and development.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackletter

The Aberdeen Bestiary is an excellent example of both Blackletter and illumination, and is

available in its entirety on the web

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/

Gothic Blackletter Miniscules


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Gothic Blackletter Majescules

Gothic Blackletter Numerals

gothic black letter

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