chancery hand

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English

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A facsimile letter from Henry V of England, 1418, written in English chancery hand

Alternative forms

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Noun

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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[1], 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.[2], 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[3], 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.
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