secretary hand

plural secretary hands · alternative Secretary hand

1. countablehistoricaluncountableartsA style of handwriting developed in Europe and used during the 16th and 17th centuries for writing English, German, Welsh and Gaelic; a variety of this style.

   It is written in three different Secretary hands: the first finishing at stanza 9 but with stanzas unnumbered,[…].

   1961, Bernard Mellor, The Poems of Sir Francis Hubert, page 280

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   When Mercy Harvey advised the nobleman to imitate her handwriting, she specified that he should write the address on the outside of the letter in "a small raggid secretary hand."

   1998, Eve Rachele Sanders, Gender and Literacy on Stage in Early Modern England, page 173

   There are five scribes, all using variations on Secretary hands consistent with the third quarter of the fifteenth century.

   2004, “Introduction”, in Stephen H. A. Shepherd, editor, Turpines Story, page xvi

   While originating at the end of the medieval period, the secretary hand was not widely employed until the early modern period, by which time it had completely displaced the earlier court hands.

   2004, “Introduction”, in Helen Ostovich, Elizabeth Sauer, editors, Reading Early Modern Women: An Anthology of Texts in Manuscript and Print, 1550 - 1700, page 7

   Most authors, including dramatists, used both a separate secretary and an italic hand; in many cases the secretary hand was used for composing (that is, cursive or fluent) writing and italic for more formal copying.

   2006, Grace Ioppolo, Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton and Heywood, page 84