Schwabacher
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The
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
word Schwabacher (pronounced ) refers to a specific style of blackletter
typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are list of type ...
s which evolved from Gothic
Textualis Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...
(''Textura'') under the influence of
Humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...
type design in
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
during the 15th century. Schwabacher typesetting was the most common typeface in Germany, until it was replaced by
Fraktur Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. The blackletter lines are broken up; that is, their forms contain many angles when compared to the curves of the Antiqu ...
from the mid 16th century onwards.


Etymology

The term may derive from the
Franconia Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch''). The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper Fr ...
n town of
Schwabach Schwabach () is a German city of about 40,000 inhabitants near Nuremberg in the centre of the region of Franconia in the north of Bavaria. The city is an autonomous administrative district (''kreisfreie Stadt''). Schwabach is also the name of th ...
, where, in 1529, the
Articles of Schwabach Beginning in July 1529,Johann Michael Reu, ''The Augsburg Confession'' (1930), p. 28. Philipp Melanchthon, along with Martin Luther and probably Justus Jonas, wrote the Articles of Schwabach (so named because they were presented at the Convention ...
, a
Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...
creed, were adopted. The Articles became the basis of the 1530 Confessio Augustana, and possibly also promoted the use of Schwabacher types.


Characteristics

Similar to Rotunda, the rounded Schwabacher types were nearer to handwriting than the former Textualis style, though it also includes sharp edges. The lower-case ''g'' and upper-case ''H'' have particularly distinctive forms. In the context of German language texts, Schwabacher appeared vibrant and popular.


History

While the Latin
Gutenberg Bible The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the " Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed ...
was still set in Textualis type, the oldest preserved Schwabacher incunable dates from 1472, and was printed in
Augsburg Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...
. Schwabacher types appeared in the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg from about 1485:
Anton Koberger Anton Koberger (c. 1440/1445 – 3 October 1513) was the German goldsmith, printer and publisher who printed and published the ''Nuremberg Chronicle'', a landmark of incunabula, and was a successful bookseller of works from other printers. In 147 ...
(–1513) used them for the publication of the '' Nuremberg Chronicle'' (in both Latin and German) in 1493, and Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) for his '' Apocalypse'' series in 1498. Schwabacher became widely known with the spread of
Luther Bible The Luther Bible (german: Lutherbibel) is a German language Bible translation from Latin sources by Martin Luther. The New Testament was first published in September 1522, and the complete Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments with Apocry ...
s from 1522. After Schwabacher was displaced by Fraktur as the most-used German language type style from about 1530, it remained in common use as a secondary typeface for emphasis in a similar way to italic.Steinberg, S. H. (1961) ''Five Hundred Years of Printing''; 2nd ed. Penguin Books; p. 41 It was still used occasionally until the mid 20th century. When the
Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
officially abandoned the widely used Fraktur type by Martin Bormann's ' of 3 January 1941, it was called ' ("Jew-letters of Schwabach"): The statement ignores the fact that Schwabacher originated from the earlier Rotunda blackletter script and late medieval
Bastarda Bastarda (or bastard) was a blackletter script used in France, the Burgundian Netherlands and Germany during the 14th and 15th centuries. The Burgundian variant of script can be seen as the court script of the Dukes of Burgundy. The early pri ...
types. Actually, there is no evidence of any connection between Jews and the Schwabacher typeface. At the time of its origin the ownership of printing houses was reserved for Christian citizens.


Samples

The German sentence in the figures reads: " xample of Old Schwabacher ". This is a nonsense sentence meaning "Victor chases twelve boxers across the dike of Sylt", but contains all 26 letters of the alphabet plus the German umlauts and is thus an example of a
pangram A pangram or holoalphabetic sentence is a sentence using every letter of a given alphabet at least once. Pangrams have been used to display typefaces, test equipment, and develop skills in handwriting, calligraphy, and keyboarding. Origins The ...
.


Notes and references


Further reading

* Friedrich Beck: ''„Schwabacher Judenlettern“ - Schriftverruf im Dritten Reich''. in: Die Kunst des Vernetzens, Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 2006,
pdf
* Philipp Luidl: ''Die Schwabacher – Die ungewöhnlichen Wege der Schwabacher Judenletter''. Maro Verlag, Augsburg 2004. * ''"Vergessen und verdrängt" Schwabach 1918-1945,'' Ausstellungskatalog Stadtmuseum Schwabach, p. 172


External links

* {{Typography terms Blackletter Blackletter typefaces German orthography