Glossary
Ascender – The letter part that rises above the letter’s body or minim as on the modern letters b, d, f, h, k, l, and t.
Award – A recognition and honor given by SCA Monarchs during court. Each Kingdom has its own set. If you want to learn more, Calontir’s may be found here.
Calligrapher – The artisan who pens the letters of a text, in the SCA commonly they are on a scroll.
Calligraphy – The beautiful writing inked onto an SCA scroll or other support.
Cartridge Pen – A calligraphy pen which holds ink in an enclosed tube or cartridge, feeding it through the attached barrel to the nib. Although modern, they are convenient and easy to use compared to a dip pen or quill.
Court – A ceremonial gathering presided by a Kingdom’s royalty primarily to recognize people with awards.
Descender – The letter part that hangs below the body or minim as on the modern letters g, j, p, q, and y. Some Medieval scripts also have descenders on letters f, h, s, x, and z.
Dip Pen – A lettering pen filled by dipping the nib into ink. This pen is composed of a holder and a metal nib. Although probably not period, metal nibs are inexpensive and more varied in size and style than cartridge pen nibs.
Ductus – The stroke description or image that shows how a letter is formed.
Gilding – Applying gold leaf.
Guideline – Marks made with a pencil or hard point on your support locating the letter and pen strokes. Usually erased after the calligraphy ink is dry.
Hand – One scribe’s specific way of writing a calligraphic script. Some people and books interchange the terms hand, script, and alphabet. In this blog, I differentiate between a style of writing vs. the way an individual scribe letters a style.
Illuminator – The artist responsible for gilding or painting a scroll.
Illumination – A Medieval style artwork’s gold ando paint, commonly in the SCA on a scroll.
Interlinear Space – The space between text lines, into which ascenders, descenders, and capital letters extend. A page’s line spacing may be described as a ratio of body height to interlinear space. M
Minim – Any style’s small letter height measurement without any appending ascender or descender, determined by the nib being used i.e. modern alphabets s, v, x and z. Also called x-height or body height.
Nib – A lettering pen’s tip that contacts the paper making marks.
Nib-width – A pen tip’s marking edge width. The letter height and line spacing is commonly measured in nib-widths.
Parchment – A writing support made from prepared animal hide, commonly from a calf, goat, or sheep. Modernly fiber based papers may be euphemistically called parchment. The term vellum, sometimes interchanged with parchment, specifically refers to calfskin.
Pergamenata – A modern writing support that replicates the appearance and feel of parchment or vellum at a more reasonable cost.
Period – A SCA term referring to the pre-17th century or pre-1600s time period we study.
Quill Pen – A lettering pen made from a specially hardened and cut feather, as was most period lettering.
Reed Pen – A lettering pen made from a specially cut dried hollow reed, sometimes found used prior to the more flexible, durable quill.
Scroll – In the SCA this refers to an artwork that commemorates an hono
r given by Royalty in court. Commonly these are inspired by a Medieval manuscript page. However, they may be other types such as stained glass, painted banners or boxes, woven or embroidered cloth, carved stone, wood or horn, engraved or enameled metal…
Scribe – Any artisan who helps make an award scroll.
Script – A calligraphy alphabet style from a particular time period i.e. Uncial, Carolingian Minuscule, Gothic Textura Quadrata, and Batardé. Some people and books interchange the terms hand, script and alphabet. In this blog I differentiate between a style of writing vs. the way an individual scribe letters a style.
Vellum – A writing support made from prepared calfskin. Modernly fiber based papers may be euphemistically called vellum. The term vellum is sometimes interchanged with parchment, though vellum specifically refers to calfskin parchment.
Wordsmith – The artist responsible for researching and composing scroll text.
An Itinerant Scribe 