[47] "Design" has been associated so much with bad cleverness in the artist, or clever badness in the natural man, that if we use the word in a good sense it is apt to be misunderstood.
Decoration is derived from _decus_, _decor_ = comeliness or grace.
[48] Chequers in colours and gold were largely used in the fourteenth-century MSS. for backgrounds in miniatures. There is an example of very beautiful heraldic diapering (in enamel) on the shield of William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, in Westminster Abbey (A.D. 1296). On p. 336 of this book there is a diagram of a very fine shield bearing a diapered chequer.
[49] If the triangles were countercharged in colour and colour--_e.g._ red and blue--the zigzag would be made _white_, _black_, or _gold_, to separate and harmonise the colours (see pp. 182-83).
[50] A most beautiful twelfth-century MS., known as the "Golden Psalter," has many gold (decorated) Initials, Red, Blue, and Green (plain) Versals and Line-Finishings, every part being pen-made throughout the book.
[51] In a _spiral_ the stem, following _itself_, may be tied by an interlacing spiral, or the turns of the spiral may be held at rest by the interlocking of the leaves (see G, Plate XXII.).
[52] As an example of a good "rule of thumb," _use the ruled lines of a manuscript as a scale for other measurements and proportions_, leaving one, two, three, or more of the line-spaces for capitals, ornaments, &c.: you have this scale--as it were, a "ready reckoner"--present on every page, and following it enables you more easily to make the decoration agree and harmonise with the written text and with the book as a whole (see p. 128 & figs. 89, 91, 71).
CHAPTER XIV GOOD LETTERING----SOME METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION & ARRANGEMENT
Good Models -- The Qualities of Good Lettering -- Simplicity -- Distinctiveness -- Proportion -- Beauty of Form -- Beauty of Uniformity -- Right Arrangement -- Setting Out & Fitting In -- "Massed Writing" & "Fine Writing" -- Even Spacing -- Theory & Practice.
«If» lettering is to be rightly constructed and arranged, the study of good models is essential. Some of the writing and lettering in the old MSS., and the letters used on various old tombstones and brasses, weeded of archaisms, will be found almost perfect models. Yet to select one of these from the many which are "more or less" good, requires much discrimination.