Uncial Script - National Styles

National Styles

Due to its extremely widespread use, in Byzantine, African, Italian, French, Spanish, and "insular" (Irish and English) centres, there were many slightly different styles in use:

• African (i.e. Roman North African) uncial is more angular than other forms of uncial. In particular, the bow of the letter a is particularly sharp and pointed.
• Byzantine uncial has two unique features: "b-d uncial" uses forms of b and d, which are closer to half-uncial (see below), and was in use in the 4th and 5th centuries; "b-r" uncial, in use in the 5th and 6th centuries, has a form of b that is twice as large as the other letters, and an r with a bow resting on the baseline and the stem extending below the baseline.
• Italian uncial has round letters (c, e, o, etc.) with flatter tops, an a with a sharp bow (as in African uncial), an almost horizontal rather than vertical stem in d, and forked finials (i.e., serifs in some letters such as f, l, t, and s).
• Insular uncial (not to be confused with the separate insular script) generally has definite word separation, and accent marks over stressed syllables, probably because Irish scribes did not speak a language descended from Latin. They also use specifically Insular scribal abbreviations not found in other uncial forms, use wedge-shaped finials, connect a slightly subscript "pendant i" with m or h (when at the end of a word), and decorate the script with animals and dots ("Insular dotting", often in groups of three).
• French (that is, Merovingian) uncial uses thin descenders (in g, p, etc.), an x with lines that cross higher than the middle, and a d with a curled stem (somewhat resembling an apple), and there are many decorations of fish, trees, and birds.
• Cyrillic manuscript developed from Greek uncial in the late ninth century (mostly replacing the Glagolitic alphabet), and was originally used to write the Old Church Slavonic liturgical language. The earlier form was called ustav (predominant in the 11–14th centuries), and later developed into semi-ustav script (or poluustav, 15–16th centuries).