#I used to write in the slanted 1800s form and it was even faster than this but a bit less legible

[anglerflsh]

your handwriting looks like a letter you'd find from a great grandfather or the likes /pos

the merit goes to those famous calligraphy classes I had to take because I held my pencils weird

[emnagylvl6]

FMP:

800 Years of English Handwriting

https://artsandculture.google.com/story/800-years-of-english-handwriting-derbyshire-record-office/eAURodcOgMzFIw?hl=en

Using Derbyshire Record Office's collections.

Medieval Writing 1100-1485

Most people in the Medieval age could not read, and even fewer were able to write. This meant that all formal documentations were written by professional scribes in Latin.

1100's - Carolingian Minescule. Very easy to write and good legibility. Abbreviations were used to speed up the scribes' process. (image above).

1200's - Handwriting became much more decorative, with the appearance of long ascenders, long 's' which looks like the modern day capital 'I', and decorative capital letters (such as the 'h' shown above).

Anglicana - appeared in 1200's and lasted for approx. 200 years. It became a unique style of writing to England. This style of handwriting used a broad nib which created a higher contrast between thick and thin strokes and was able to be written much faster than the Carolingian style.

1400's - In the mid 1400's, the increase in commercial growth meant that writing became more necessary and was no longer a limited skill exclusive to scribes. Educated men and women began to wrtie too. However, as English became more popular than Latin, a new style of handwriting was needed to accommodate this movement. 'This new form of writing was Secretary Hand, which was designed to be written quickly in English. It was the predominant hand from the 1500's to the early 1700's. Handwriting manuals were published to meet the growing demand for writing.'

1500-1600's - Italic handwriting started to over take the Secretary Hand.

Round Hand was an evolution of the Italic Hand, producing the shapes of the letters we recognise today.

1800's - Those who could afford paper and writing tools became prolific letter writers. Handwriting in this era gained a significant slant as the writers would start to speed up, making the letterforms much smaller and less distinct.

'The Round Hand used in business records is often known as Copperplate. It was written with a very fine nib and over the next century, school children used copy books such as the one shown above to practice Copperplate writing.' (This explains why the handwriting I found dated back to early 1900's have such an elegant style - because this is how they were taught to write in school.)

Copperplate calligraphy is something which is coming back into fashion among modern day calligraphers due to its elegance and distinct flourish.

Chancery Hand - used to write all legal documentation. ‘It was used in the royal Chancery at Westminster for writs, patents and other kinds of documents written under the Great Seal.  All Acts of Parliaments were written in Chancery Hand until 1836.’ 

‘The process of writing out the final copy of a legal document onto parchment is known as engrossing. Engrossing Hand was similar to Chancery Hand in being round and evenly spaced. This hand was commonly used for deeds throughout the 1800s.’

Technology - new technology and machines meant that writing tools, such as pens and papers, were able to be mass produced resulting in costs dropping - making it more affordable for society. Before the 1800′s, people used to make their own writing tools. The most common tool was a quill pen, made from a goose feather cut at an angle with a sharp knife. 

Metal pen nibs were created in the late 1700′s but it wasn’t until much later when the designs improved that they became more popular. Metal nibs lasted much longer than feather and therefore again, increased literacy rates as writing became more accessible. 

‘Towards the end of the 1800s, with smooth paper, steel nibs and the rising popularity of the fountain pen, handwriting became broader and less angular than it had been at the beginning of the century. This didn't make it necessarily easy to read, as this example from 1896 shows.'

1900′s - The typewriter was became more popular and pushed out the need for handwriting for some business purposes. Over the next century,  handwriting remained important but the typewriter, and later the computer, gradually took over.