English

A facsimile letter from Henry V of England, 1418, written in English chancery hand

Alternative forms

• Chancery hand

Noun

chancery hand ‎(plural chancery hands)

1. (calligraphy, historical) Either of two styles of handwriting: a written form of black letter used in France and England from about 1350, developed in the Lateran chancelry in the 13th century, or a style of cursive handwriting introduced in the 1420s by Niccolò de' Niccoli, developed from humanist minuscule; a variety of either of these styles.
   • 1819, Malcolm Laing, The History of Scotland, Volume 1, page 373,

     It begins like a transcript, at the top of the page, without the least appearance or form of an intended original : it is written in the common secretary hand of ,the age, which Crawford mistook for a chancery hand; […] .

   • 1830, John Pinkerton, The Literary Correspondence of John Pinkerton, Esq., Volume 2, page 112,

     Her name, from Crawford's example of it, seems to me to be written in the same chancery hand, which renders the supposed forgery a mere copy, mistaken by Welwood for the original.

   • 2009, Stanley Morison, Selected Essays on the History of Letter-forms in Manuscript and Print, page 165,

     But, unlike his posterity, Hercolani did not carry this sort of pleasantry too far, and his book remains a splendid specimen of the late chancery hand distinguished by decorative treatment of the ascenders and descenders and a discreet flourishing of initial and terminal letters.

Related terms

• Chancery English
• court hand
• secretary hand

See also

• black letter
• Carolingian minuscule
• humanist minuscule
• italic