The term "chancery hand" can refer to either of two very different styles of historical handwriting.
A chancery hand was at first a form of handwriting for business transactions that developed in the Lateran chancelry (the Cancelleria Apostolica) of the thirteenth century, then spread to France, notably through the Avignon Papacy, and to England after 1350 (Fisher et al.:3). This early "chancery hand" is a Gothic hand similar to blackletter. Versions of it were adopted by royal and ducal chanceries, which were often staffed by clerics who had taken minor orders.
A later cursive "chancery hand", also developed in the Vatican but based on humanist minuscule, was introduced in the 1420s by Niccolò Niccoli; it was the manuscript origin of the typefaces we recognize as italic.
Read more about Chancery Hand: English Chancery Hand, "Italian Hand"
Famous quotes containing the words chancery and/or hand:
“He shall not die, by G—, cried my uncle Toby.
MThe ACCUSING SPIRIT which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blush’d as he gave it in;—and the RECORDING ANGEL as he wrote it down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 14:21,22.