{{Short description|Medieval term for breaking in a new pen}} {{italic title}} [[File:Vogala.png|thumb|right|An eleventh-century ''probatio pennae'': one of the first known Dutch language fragments (Hebban olla vogala).]]
'''''Probatio pennae''''' (also written ''probatio pennę;'' in Medieval Latin; literally "pen test") is the medieval term for breaking in a new pen, and used to refer to text written to test a newly cut pen.<ref>{{cite book |title=Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms |publisher=Getty Publications |year=1994 |author= Michelle P. Brown |isbn=0892362170 |url=https://archive.org/details/understandingill00brow |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/understandingill00brow/page/102 102]}}</ref>
A scribe would normally test a newly cut pen to see if it wrote well by writing a few lines of text on a piece of blotting paper. Sometimes these blotting papers survived due to being used afterwards as book binding material; they often provide unique, less "serious" textual material that would otherwise have been lost. A famous example is "Hebban olla vogala", one of the first fragments of Dutch literature, which survived from an eleventh-century ''probatio pennae'' in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 340.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Dutch Language: A Survey - Volume 13 |year=1985 |author= Pierre Brachin |isbn=9004075933 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GeUUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA9 |page=9}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
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Category:Latin words and phrases Category:Writing