Penmanship

Penmanship is the art of writing clearly and quickly. Different styles of writing have been popular at different times and in different countries, but the standardization of handwriting throughout the English-speaking world began with the publication of The Spencerian Key to Practical Penmanship by Platt Rogers Spencer in 1866. This "Spencerian Method" was taught in schools until about the mid-20th century, when it was phased out in favor of the Palmer Method, introduced by A. N. Palmer in his Palmer's Guide to Business Writing published in 1894.

The result of the switch from Spencer to Palmer resulted in a distinct difference in writing styles between older and younger people; the result was that an "old-fashioned" style of handwriting would identify the writer as elderly. (This was less noticeable in centuries past, due to the lack of standardization.) However, since the Palmer Method continues to be taught into the 21st century, barring a change to a newer cursive method this distinction will probably disappear as older Spencer-method writers die out (although it will remain valuable in the dating of manuscripts).

History

At different times of Europe's history the quality of penmanship has varied considerably. During the Roman Empire standards were high and quality writing implements and materials easy to come by. With the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Dark Ages the quality of handwriting declined markedly. The Carolingian period saw the development of a standardized script (Carolingian minuscule) and the era saw a vast improvement in the quality of penmanship. The documents from this period were of such superior quality when compared with the periods before and after that later historians would often describe this period as a Carolingian Renaissance. The actual Renaissance saw a rejection of the messier Gothic scripts and a return to those of the classical period, again much easier for historians to read.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in part because printing replaced most formal communications, handwriting became extremely cramped, small, and difficult to read. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw another revival of clean formalized handwriting. In the early twenty-first century, with the increasing popularity of electronic communication, some note a decline in the quality of penmanship similar to that brought on by the advent of printing.