Medieval letter tiles are one-

letter Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or o ...

s that were employed in

monasteries A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

and churches of the

late Middle Ages The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renai ...

for the creation of Christian inscriptions on floors and walls. They were created by pressing stamps bearing a reverse image into soft

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

, which was then baked hard, and they were used to form words by assembling single-letter tiles in the desired order. The decoration technique is notable for being an early form of

movable type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuation m ...

printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...

which essentially is nothing but the stringing together of identically created individual letters for the purpose of producing an image. Compared to the conventional printing technique later established by Johannes Gutenberg, though, medieval tile alphabets were created in an inverse order: In a first step, the (im)printing was done, and only then the process of

typesetting Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or '' glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random ...

occurred, by spreading out the individual letter tiles onto the floor and composing them into words and lines of text. The use of such movable letter tiles is documented for the English

Chertsey Abbey Chertsey Abbey, dedicated to St Peter, was a Benedictine monastery located at Chertsey in the English county of Surrey. It was founded in 666 AD by Saint Erkenwald who was the first abbot, and from 675 AD the Bishop of London. At the same time ...

, from whose ruins specimens dating to the second half of the 13th century were recovered, as well as for the early 14th‑century flooring of the Dutch

Aduard Abbey Aduard Abbey ( nl, Abdij van Aduard, ''Abdij Sint-Bernardus in Aduard'') is a former Cistercian abbey in the village of Aduard about 8 kilometres to the north-west of Groningen in the Netherlands, founded in 1192 and dissolved in 1580. History T ...

. In

Zinna Abbey Zinna Abbey (german: Kloster Zinna) is a former Cistercian monastery, the site of which is now occupied by a village also called Kloster Zinna, today part of Jüterbog in Brandenburg, Germany, about south of Berlin. The village was established b ...

south of

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, there is an extant ''

Ave Maria The Hail Mary ( la, Ave Maria) is a traditional Christian prayer addressing Mary, the mother of Jesus. The prayer is based on two biblical passages featured in the Gospel of Luke: the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary (the Annunciation) and Mary's ...

'' embedded in the floor before the altar. Each letter appears as a

relief print Relief printing is a family of printing methods where a printing block, plate or matrix, which has had ink applied to its non-recessed surface, is brought into contact with paper. The non-recessed surface will leave ink on the paper, whereas t ...

on an unglazed, red-brown terracotta tile measuring 14 x 14 cm. The

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

inscription dates to the 13th or 14th century and was composed in Gothic majuscule. The

Prüfening dedicatory inscription The Prüfening dedicatory inscription (german: Prüfeninger Weiheinschrift) is a high medieval inscription impressed on clay which was created in 1119, over three hundred years before Johannes Gutenberg, by the typographic principle. The inscr ...

is a

church inscription on a single clay tablet using a different principle, apparently made by stamping out the words with individual letter stamps or types. __NOTOC__

References

Sources

* * * * {{Citation , last = Meijer , first = Frank , title = De stenen letters van Aduard , publisher = Omnia Uitgevers , edition = 2nd , year = 2004 , location = Groningen , isbn = 978-90-75354-08-9

References

Sources

Further reading