chancery hand

• Chancery hand

chancery hand (plural chancery hands)

1. (calligraphy, historical) Either of two styles of handwriting: a written form of black letter used in France and England from about 1350, developed in the Lateran chancelry in the 13th century, or a style of cursive handwriting introduced in the 1420s by Niccolò de' Niccoli, developed from humanist minuscule; a variety of either of these styles.
   • 1819, Malcolm Laing, The History of Scotland‎, volume 1, page 373:

     It begins like a transcript, at the top of the page, without the least appearance or form of an intended original : it is written in the common secretary hand of ,the age, which Crawford mistook for a chancery hand; […] .

   • 1830, John Pinkerton, The Literary Correspondence of John Pinkerton, Esq.‎, volume 2, page 112:

     Her name, from Crawford's example of it, seems to me to be written in the same chancery hand, which renders the supposed forgery a mere copy, mistaken by Welwood for the original.

   • 2009, Stanley Morison, Selected Essays on the History of Letter-forms in Manuscript and Print‎, page 165:

     But, unlike his posterity, Hercolani did not carry this sort of pleasantry too far, and his book remains a splendid specimen of the late chancery hand distinguished by decorative treatment of the ascenders and descenders and a discreet flourishing of initial and terminal letters.

• Chancery English
• court hand
• secretary hand

• black letter
• Carolingian minuscule
• humanist minuscule
• italic