Post by Admin on May 25, 2020 15:54:55 GMT -7
Money: £ = Libra, S = Solidi, D = Dinar
www.scottishhandwriting.com/cmmon.asp
Roman Numerals may be written in lower case, but they are usually in upper case.
I = 1, V = 5, X = 10, L = 50, C = 100, D = 500, M = 1,000. A Bar over a letter multiplies it by 1,000. Integers are written following two rules:
1. If a letter is followed by one of lesser or equal value the two sums are added.
VI = 6, XV =15, XX = 20
2. If a letter is followed by one of greater value, the first is subtracted from the second.
IV = 4, IX = 9, XL = 40, CM = 900
Examples: XLVII = 47, CXVI = 16, MCXX = 1120, MCMXIV = 1914
1 I i 40 XL
2 II ii 50 L
3 III iii 60 LX
4 IV iv 70 LXX
5 V v 80 LXXX
6 VI vi 90 XC
7 VII vii 100 C
8 VIII viii 101 CI
9 IX ix 102 CII
10 X x 200 CC
11 XI xi 300 CCC
12 XII xii 400 CD
13 XIII xiii 500 D
14 XIV xiv 600 DC
15 XV xv 700 DCC
16 XVI xvi 800 DCCC
17 XVII xvii 900 CM
18 XVIII xviii 1,000 M
19 XIX xix 2,000 MM
20 XX xx 5,000 V [BAR]
21 XXI xxi 10,000 X [BAR]
22 XXII xxii 100,000 C [BAR]
23 XXIII xxiii 1,000,000 M [BAR]
24 XXIV xxiv
25 XXV xxv
26 XXVI xxvi
27 XXVII xxvii
28 XXVIII xxviii
29 XXIX xxix
30 XXX xxx
In the later medieval and early modern periods in Scotland, clerks sometimes employed a way of writing dates which look distinctly odd to the modern reader. This is the form of dating which, instead of using Arabic numerals (e.g. 23rd June 1632), uses an archaic, corrupt Latin form (e.g. 23rd June JajvjC† and threttie twa yeiris). They look particularly odd to us because they are a mixture of bad Latin and longhand numbers in Scots. These are sometimes referred to by palaeographers as ‘Jaj dates’.
The ‘Jaj’ part is a corruption of the Latin ‘i m’, meaning ‘1000’, the ‘vj’ is the Latin numeral for ‘6’, the ‘C†’ is a contraction of the Latin word ‘centus’ (‘one hundred’).
Hence, Jaj = 1000
vjC† = 600
and threttie twa yeiris = 32
= 1632.
In plate 1 below, the date 1663 is rendered: the year of God Jajvj C& saxti three:
Jaj dates were still being written in the first decades of the eighteenth century, as plate 2 shows: Jajvijc and eight yeares:
Note that in plate 2 the c is not capitalised and there is no mark of abbreviation for centus.
This form of dating is easy enough to learn by breaking down into component parts:
The 'Jaj' part (= 1000)
The 'v', or 'vj', or 'vij' part (remember that the last 'i' is usually a 'j')
The abbreviation for centus and, which might appear as C† and’ or C†& or C& or C and
The rest of the year written longhand, usually in Scots.
Fairly Pure Secretary Hand
From a testament of 1564. The writing looks odd because many of the letters are in their Secretary Hand forms (e.g. 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'g', 'h', 'k', 'r', 's', and 't'). Other probelms are Latin numerals, archaic letters (the 'yogh' and the 'thorn'), Scots vernacular words, phonetic spelling, abbreviations, and interchangeable letters (at this time the letters 'u', 'v' and 'w' were variations of the same letter, as were the letters 'i' and 'j').
Mixture Of Secretary Hand, Cursive, Italic etc
From a testament of 1722. Some letters are recognisably Secretary Hand, but the writing is not as neat as the previous example. Many letters are cursive (either untidy versions of Secretary Hand, Italic, and other writing styles, or forms of the writer's own invention). Other problems include elaborate letters which interfere with other letters or make several words look like one continuous word).
Bibliography
Grant G Simpson, Scottish Handwriting 1150-1650, Edinburgh, 1973, is the only published attempt to look at early Scottish handwriting. It is available in paperback.
The Scottish Records Association's Scottish Handwriting 1500-1700, A Self Help Pack, Edinburgh 1994, contains examples of common types of document found in Scottish archives with transcripts and notes.
The following dictionaries, gazetteers etc. are helpful:
On archaic words and legal terms:
The Concise Scots Dictionary, Aberdeen University Press, 1985
Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, University of Chicago Press/ University of Oxford Press/ Aberdeen University Press. Begun in 1937, this several volume work is till being compiled.
Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh, begun 1929, finished 1976, 10 volumes.
D. Gibb, Students' Glossary of Scottish Legal Terms, Edinburgh, 1946.
Peter Goldsborough (comp.), Formulary of Old Scots Legal Documents, (Stair Society) Edinburgh, 1985.
R. E. Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-list from British and Irish Sources, London, 1965
Eileen Gooder, Latin for Local History, London, 2nd. edition, 1978
On place-names:
Ordnance Gazeteer of Scotland, ed. Francis H.Groome, Edinburgh and London, several editions.
HMSO, Index of Scottish Placenames, Edinburgh. 1981.
On Surnames:
George F. Black.The Surnames of Scotland. New York, 1946, reprinted 1956
On dating and regnal years
For complicated dating styles, such as the use of feast' days or regnal years, C. R. Cheney, Handbook of Dates for Students of English History, London, 1945; reprinted 1961.
www.scottishhandwriting.com/cmmon.asp
On 15 February 1971, Scotland, like the rest of the UK, started counting pounds using the decimal system, where the unit of counting is ten ie 100 pence make up 1 pound. Before that money was counted in pounds, shillings and pence. The system worked as follows: there were 12 pence in one shilling, 20 shillings in one pound and so there were 240 pence in a pound.
Most people are familiar with Lsd meaning pounds, shillings and pence, the letters being taken from the Latin librae, solidi and denarii. Sometimes it is uncertain whether the clerk always means the Latin word to be represented as you may find sch or sh instead of s. For this reason we have adopted the following convention transcribing L, s and d when it indicates money as L~ s~ d~. Should any other letters in the word be shown then include them eg Lib~.
Before the Act of Union, Scotland had its own currency, the pound Scots. The debasement of the Scottish coinage had resulted in the divergence of the Scottish and English currencies. However, from 1600 onwards the exchange rate was stabilised at 12:1. One pound Scots equalled 1s.
sterling and 1 pound sterling equalled 12 pounds Scots. Some Scottish documents refer to the Scottish merk which was mainly a unit of account, but was occasionally minted prior to 1707. 1 merk equalled two thirds of a Scots pound i.e. 13s 4d which was the equivalent to 1s 1d in sterling.
Most people are familiar with Lsd meaning pounds, shillings and pence, the letters being taken from the Latin librae, solidi and denarii. Sometimes it is uncertain whether the clerk always means the Latin word to be represented as you may find sch or sh instead of s. For this reason we have adopted the following convention transcribing L, s and d when it indicates money as L~ s~ d~. Should any other letters in the word be shown then include them eg Lib~.
Before the Act of Union, Scotland had its own currency, the pound Scots. The debasement of the Scottish coinage had resulted in the divergence of the Scottish and English currencies. However, from 1600 onwards the exchange rate was stabilised at 12:1. One pound Scots equalled 1s.
sterling and 1 pound sterling equalled 12 pounds Scots. Some Scottish documents refer to the Scottish merk which was mainly a unit of account, but was occasionally minted prior to 1707. 1 merk equalled two thirds of a Scots pound i.e. 13s 4d which was the equivalent to 1s 1d in sterling.Roman Numerals may be written in lower case, but they are usually in upper case.
I = 1, V = 5, X = 10, L = 50, C = 100, D = 500, M = 1,000. A Bar over a letter multiplies it by 1,000. Integers are written following two rules:
1. If a letter is followed by one of lesser or equal value the two sums are added.
VI = 6, XV =15, XX = 20
2. If a letter is followed by one of greater value, the first is subtracted from the second.
IV = 4, IX = 9, XL = 40, CM = 900
Examples: XLVII = 47, CXVI = 16, MCXX = 1120, MCMXIV = 1914
1 I i 40 XL
2 II ii 50 L
3 III iii 60 LX
4 IV iv 70 LXX
5 V v 80 LXXX
6 VI vi 90 XC
7 VII vii 100 C
8 VIII viii 101 CI
9 IX ix 102 CII
10 X x 200 CC
11 XI xi 300 CCC
12 XII xii 400 CD
13 XIII xiii 500 D
14 XIV xiv 600 DC
15 XV xv 700 DCC
16 XVI xvi 800 DCCC
17 XVII xvii 900 CM
18 XVIII xviii 1,000 M
19 XIX xix 2,000 MM
20 XX xx 5,000 V [BAR]
21 XXI xxi 10,000 X [BAR]
22 XXII xxii 100,000 C [BAR]
23 XXIII xxiii 1,000,000 M [BAR]
24 XXIV xxiv
25 XXV xxv
26 XXVI xxvi
27 XXVII xxvii
28 XXVIII xxviii
29 XXIX xxix
30 XXX xxx
Jaj Dates & Secretary Handwriting
In the later medieval and early modern periods in Scotland, clerks sometimes employed a way of writing dates which look distinctly odd to the modern reader. This is the form of dating which, instead of using Arabic numerals (e.g. 23rd June 1632), uses an archaic, corrupt Latin form (e.g. 23rd June JajvjC† and threttie twa yeiris). They look particularly odd to us because they are a mixture of bad Latin and longhand numbers in Scots. These are sometimes referred to by palaeographers as ‘Jaj dates’.
The ‘Jaj’ part is a corruption of the Latin ‘i m’, meaning ‘1000’, the ‘vj’ is the Latin numeral for ‘6’, the ‘C†’ is a contraction of the Latin word ‘centus’ (‘one hundred’).
Hence, Jaj = 1000
vjC† = 600
and threttie twa yeiris = 32
= 1632.
In plate 1 below, the date 1663 is rendered: the year of God Jajvj C& saxti three:
Jaj dates were still being written in the first decades of the eighteenth century, as plate 2 shows: Jajvijc and eight yeares:
Note that in plate 2 the c is not capitalised and there is no mark of abbreviation for centus.
This form of dating is easy enough to learn by breaking down into component parts:
The 'Jaj' part (= 1000)
The 'v', or 'vj', or 'vij' part (remember that the last 'i' is usually a 'j')
The abbreviation for centus and, which might appear as C† and’ or C†& or C& or C and
The rest of the year written longhand, usually in Scots.
Fairly Pure Secretary Hand
From a testament of 1564. The writing looks odd because many of the letters are in their Secretary Hand forms (e.g. 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'g', 'h', 'k', 'r', 's', and 't'). Other probelms are Latin numerals, archaic letters (the 'yogh' and the 'thorn'), Scots vernacular words, phonetic spelling, abbreviations, and interchangeable letters (at this time the letters 'u', 'v' and 'w' were variations of the same letter, as were the letters 'i' and 'j').
Mixture Of Secretary Hand, Cursive, Italic etc
From a testament of 1722. Some letters are recognisably Secretary Hand, but the writing is not as neat as the previous example. Many letters are cursive (either untidy versions of Secretary Hand, Italic, and other writing styles, or forms of the writer's own invention). Other problems include elaborate letters which interfere with other letters or make several words look like one continuous word).
Bibliography
Grant G Simpson, Scottish Handwriting 1150-1650, Edinburgh, 1973, is the only published attempt to look at early Scottish handwriting. It is available in paperback.
The Scottish Records Association's Scottish Handwriting 1500-1700, A Self Help Pack, Edinburgh 1994, contains examples of common types of document found in Scottish archives with transcripts and notes.
The following dictionaries, gazetteers etc. are helpful:
On archaic words and legal terms:
The Concise Scots Dictionary, Aberdeen University Press, 1985
Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, University of Chicago Press/ University of Oxford Press/ Aberdeen University Press. Begun in 1937, this several volume work is till being compiled.
Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh, begun 1929, finished 1976, 10 volumes.
D. Gibb, Students' Glossary of Scottish Legal Terms, Edinburgh, 1946.
Peter Goldsborough (comp.), Formulary of Old Scots Legal Documents, (Stair Society) Edinburgh, 1985.
R. E. Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-list from British and Irish Sources, London, 1965
Eileen Gooder, Latin for Local History, London, 2nd. edition, 1978
On place-names:
Ordnance Gazeteer of Scotland, ed. Francis H.Groome, Edinburgh and London, several editions.
HMSO, Index of Scottish Placenames, Edinburgh. 1981.
On Surnames:
George F. Black.The Surnames of Scotland. New York, 1946, reprinted 1956
On dating and regnal years
For complicated dating styles, such as the use of feast' days or regnal years, C. R. Cheney, Handbook of Dates for Students of English History, London, 1945; reprinted 1961.