3. _The horizontal strokes becoming thicker_ (_c_) gave stronger and less elegant forms. [p044]
4. _The vertical strokes becoming thinner_ (_d_) (with oblique or pointed ends--not square ended) increased the tendency to narrow letters.
It is to be noted that the Caroline letters--though written with a "slanted pen"--kept the open, round appearance of the earlier forms. [p046]
_TENTH, ELEVENTH, AND TWELFTH CENTURY WRITING._--The easy use of the slanted pen, and the lateral compression of the letters which naturally followed, resulted in a valuable economy of time and space in the making of books. This lateral compression is strongly marked in the tenth century (see fig. 12), and in the eleventh and twelfth centuries it caused curves to give place to angles, and writing to become "_Gothic_" in character (see Plate XI.).
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Psalter: English tenth century. (See also Plate VIII.)]
_THIRTEENTH, FOURTEENTH, AND FIFTEENTH CENTURY WRITING._--The tendency to compression continued, and a further economy of space was effected in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the general use of much smaller writing (see fig. 13). In the fifteenth century writing grew larger and taller again, but the letters had steadily become [p047] narrower, more angular, and stiffer, till the written page consisted of rows of perpendicular thick strokes with heads and feet connected by oblique hair-lines--which often look as if they had been dashed in after with a fine pen--all made with an almost mechanical precision (see Plate XVII.).
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--_Colophon_ of English MS., dated 1254.]
_ITALIAN WRITING._--In Italy alone the roundness of the earlier hands was preserved, and though in course of time the letters were affected by the "Gothic" tendency, they never lost the curved forms or acquired the extreme angularity which is seen in the writings of Northern Europe (compare Plates X. and XI.).
At the time of the Renaissance the Italian scribes remodelled their "hands" on the beautiful Italian writing of the eleventh and twelfth centuries (see Plates X. and XVIII., XIX., XX.). The early Italian printers followed after the scribes and modelled their types on these round clear letters. And thus the fifteenth century Italian formal writing became the foundation of the "_Roman_" _small letters_, which have superseded all others for the printing of books. [p048]