# Book hand

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Legible handwriting style

A **book hand** was any of several stylized [handwriting scripts](/source/Handwriting_script) used during ancient and medieval times.[1] It was intended for legibility and often used in transcribing official documents (prior to the development of [printing](/source/Printing) and similar technologies).[2]

In contrast to book hand's library or liturgical [use cases](/source/Use_case), [court hand](/source/Court_hand) developed as its [cursive](/source/Cursive) counterpart for business and departmental [record keeping](/source/Record_keeping) throughout the 12th to 17th centuries.[3]

In [palaeography](/source/Palaeography) and [calligraphy](/source/Calligraphy), the term *hand* is still used to refer to a named style of writing, such as the [chancery hand](/source/Chancery_hand).[1]

## See also

- [Writing portal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Writing)

- [Block letters](/source/Block_letters)

- [Court hand](/source/Court_hand)

- [History of writing](/source/History_of_writing)

- [Secretary hand](/source/Secretary_hand)

## References

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-Dillon-2002_1-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-Dillon-2002_1-1) Dillon, Emma (7 October 2002). *Medieval Music-Making and the Roman de Fauvel*. Cambridge University Press. p. 25. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-521-81371-6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-521-81371-6).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** Black, Robert (8 August 2002). [*Benedetto Accolti and the Florentine Renaissance*](https://books.google.com/books?id=61wNf7ZJhkcC). Cambridge University Press. pp. 130–133. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-521-52227-4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-521-52227-4).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Barrett, John (4 March 2008). [*Discovering Old Handwriting*](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Discovering_Old_Handwriting/S51lvgAACAAJ?hl=en). Bloomsbury USA. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-7478-0268-6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-7478-0268-6).

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