scripts 655he inflicted a defeat on the incompetent EDWARDII at the
Battle of BANNOCKBURNin 1314. This victory secured
Scottish independence for some time. In the 15th century
the Orkney and Shetland Islands were ceded to Scotland
and Saint Andrews University was created in 1401. A sec-
ond Scottish university was founded by Pope Nicholas V
(r. 1447–55) at Glasgow in 1451, and a third at Aberdeen
in 1495.
A new dynasty, the Stuarts, or Stewarts, was faced in
the 15th century with the almost insurmountable prob-
lem of dealing with the local power of the feudal nobility
and clan chieftains. The country’s PARLIAMENTwas mod-
eled on that of England but was of small consequence
most of the time. Frequent conflicts between the kings
and the nobility weakened the realm in the second half of
the 15th century. There was growing penetration by
English cultural influences, but local culture survived
and developed. The church generally maintained its inde-
pendence from England, but rivalries between local epis-
copal sees did not contribute to national unity.
See alsoDAVID I; DAVID II THE BRUCE;MACBETH;
PICTS.
Further reading:A. D. M. Barrell, Medieval Scotland
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Ian
Borthwick Cowan, The Medieval Church in Scotland,ed.
James Kirk (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1995);
R. James Goldstein, The Matter of Scotland: Historical
Narrative in Medieval Scotland(Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1993); Jenny Wormald, “Scotland:
1406–1513,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History.Vol.
7, c. 1415–c. 1500,ed. Christopher Allmand (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), 514–531.
scriptorium In the early Middle Ages, monasteries
maintained rooms, scriptoria, dedicated to writing and
listening to texts. The church at this time and later had a
great need for books, including biblical and patristic
texts, liturgical books, and pedagogical texts for the
CLERGY and the LAITY. Books had to be copied and
libraries were needed so classical and patristic Christian
literature were preserved and circulated at CATHEDRALSor
in monasteries. Two great religious establishments in
Italy, VIVARIUM and the Benedictine monastery MONTE
CASSINO, laid the foundations for the preservation and
compilation of books. Following the Rule of Saint BENE-
DICT, Benedictine monks kept alive most of what we have
of the literature of the classical world and late Christian
antiquity by borrowing, sharing, and copying texts
among themselves.
Certain scriptoriabecame famous for the skill and
style of their scribes, such as those at Iona, Durrow, LIND-
ISFARNE, Luxeuill, Bobbio, Corbie, Jarrow, and FULDA.
These were workshops for copying texts and producing
edifying ILLUMINATION. The CAROLINGIANRENAISSANCE
encouraged this even more, since aspects of its program
were the standardization of texts, the reform of handwrit-
ing, and the encouragement of clerical and monastic
learning. Cathedral schools, such as those at RHEIMSand
CHARTRESin the 10th century joined in the copying, pro-
duction, and dissemination of the texts. We knew little of
the actual organization and working practices of these
institutions. With the development of UNIVERSITIES,
another system of text reproduction evolved in response
to a greater demand. Some of these were clerical opera-
tions, but more often they were established by the laity
and overseen by universities.
See alsoPALEOGRAPHY; PECIA;SALISBURY; SCRIPTS.
Further reading:Elizabeth P. McLachlan, The Scrip-
torium of Bury St. Edmunds in the Twelfth Century(New
York: Garland, 1986); Aliza Cohen-Mushlin, A Medieval
Scriptorium: Sancta Maria Magdalena de Frankendal
(Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1990); Francis Newton,
The Scriptorium and Library at Monte Cassino, 1058–1105
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Vera
Trost, Scriptorium: Book Production in the Middle Ages,
trans. Christopher Reinish and Theodore Kwasman (Hei-
delberg: Universität Heidelberg, 1986?); Teresa Webber,
Scribes and Scholars at Salisbury Cathedral, c. 1075–
c. 1125(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).scripts Medieval handwriting or script style was a
direct heir of the style of Latin script used throughout the
territory of the Roman Empire. By the end of the fifth
century, Latin script had evolved into two families, a for-
mal capital script that was clear, dignified, and deliberate,
and a common or cursive script for much faster writing.
From the third century, the capital script became uncial,
an artificial and elegant display script used in luxury
books and also for the initials, titles, and rubrics of
medieval manuscripts. Common cursive script passed
from a left-inclining oblique position to a vertical posi-
tion with an abundance of ligatures. Varieties of this style
were used by the VISIGOTHSand the ANGLO-SAXONS.CAROLINGIAN SCRIPT
In the early Middle Ages, the great monasteries on the
Continent founded by Irish missionary monks became
flourishing centers of intellectual life and writing. Their
script, had to be simpler, and more harmonious. This
style resulted from the perfecting and harmonization of
preexisting forms into a unified, clear, and readable
alphabet that was soon favored and followed by CHARLE-
MAGNEand his court creating some partial graphic unity
in the West once more. This Carolingian script had no
joining strokes or other ligature save that of the letters et,
ct,and st.It evolved slowly at first into round, detached
forms and then, during the 11th century, into more oval
forms written closer to each other. From the 12th century
onward, it was embellished with fleeing strokes, serifs, or
bends on the writing line. This era also saw the first