Record type is a family of

typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...

s designed to allow

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

manuscripts (specifically those from England) to be published as near-

facsimile A facsimile (from Latin ''fac simile'', "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of r ...

s of the originals. The typefaces include many special characters intended to replicate the various

scribal abbreviation Scribal abbreviations, or sigla (grammatical number, singular: siglum), are abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek language, Greek, Old English and Old Norse. In modern Textua ...

s and other unusual

glyph A glyph ( ) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A ...

s typically found in such manuscripts. They were used in the publication of archival texts between 1774 and 1900.

History

Record type was originally developed in the 1770s when plans were under way for the publication of Domesday Book. Early experiments in using special typefaces were not successful, but in 1773 the printer John Nichols designed a record type for an extract from Domesday to be included in John Hutchins' ''History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset'' (published in 1774). He was so pleased with the result that he and the co-editor of Domesday, Abraham Farley, persuaded the

Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry; in a business context, corporate treasury. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be ...

that the typeface should be adopted for the main Domesday project. It was consequently used in Farley's edition of Domesday Book, published in 1783. Nichols regarded the design as among his greatest achievements, stating that "on the correctness and beauty of this important Work, I am prepared to stake my typographical credit". The original Domesday type was destroyed in the fire at Nichols' office in 1808, but a modified form of record type was widely used during the first half of the 19th century in the publications of the Record Commission. It was subsequently used in the publications of the Pipe Roll Society from 1884 until 1900; and in 1890 in a single volume published by the

Selden Society The Selden Society is a learned society and registered charity concerned with the study of English legal history. It functions primarily as a text publication society, but also undertakes other activities to promote scholarship within its sphere ...

(despite the misgivings of the society's founder, F. W. Maitland). The Selden Society's experiment was not repeated, and at a General Meeting held in 1903 the Pipe Roll Society decided to abandon record type in favour of publishing its texts "''in extenso''" (i.e. with all abbreviations extended).

Legacy

Record type fell out of favour because its merits (primarily the fact that, given accurate transcription, the reader was presented with a faithful representation of what appeared on the manuscript page) were increasingly felt to be outweighed by its disadvantages: the high costs of typesetting and proofreading, and the challenges to the reader presented by a text prepared with minimal editorial intervention. Moreover, technical advances by the late 19th century meant that, in cases where there was a genuine argument for facsimile publication, this could be achieved more satisfactorily, cheaply and accurately by means of

photozincography Photozincography, sometimes referred to as heliozincography but essentially the same process, known commercially as zinco, is the photographic process developed by Sir Henry James FRS (1803–1877) in the mid-nineteenth century. This method ...

and other photographic printing techniques. Paul Harvey regards record type as falling "badly between two stools, giving less than a facsimile on the one hand, less than an extended text on the other". Nevertheless, L. C. Hector has argued that the modest amount of rationalisation and standardisation required to set a manuscript in record type resulted in a "half-way stage towards the interpretation of the abbreviations" that remains a useful tool to assist the novice in medieval

palaeography Palaeography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, UK) or paleography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, US) (ultimately from , , 'old', and , , 'to write') is the study and academic disciplin ...

. Charles Trice Martin's ''The Record Interpreter'' (first edition 1892; second edition 1910), which remains a standard handbook for the interpretation of English medieval manuscript texts, employs a version of record type to present abbreviated words. A more recent example of a text printed in record type format – in practice, improvised from a variety of existing typographical characters – is an edition of the late 14th-century "Jubilee Book" of the

City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...

, from a 15th-century manuscript, published by the London Record Society in 2021. The choice is justified by the complexities of the linguistic evidence presented by the source text. A continuing desire in the digital age to represent the special characters of medieval texts in typographical form is also demonstrated by the establishment in 2001 of the

Medieval Unicode Font Initiative In digital typography, the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI) is a project which aims to coordinate the encoding and display of special characters in medieval texts written in the Latin alphabet or in runes, which are not otherwise encoded ...

, which aims to coordinate the encoding and display of such characters.

References

Sources

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Record Type Typography Academic publishing Palaeography Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1774 Serif typefaces Letterpress typefaces Latin-script typefaces