English

A section of the 1616 will of William Shakspeare, written in secretary hand

Alternative forms

• Secretary hand

Noun

secretary hand ‎(countable and uncountable, plural secretary hands)

1. (historical, calligraphy) A style of handwriting developed in Europe and used during the 16th and 17th centuries for writing English, German, Welsh and Gaelic; a variety of this style.
   • 1961, Bernard Mellor, The Poems of Sir Francis Hubert, page 280,

     It is written in three different Secretary hands: the first finishing at stanza 9 but with stanzas unnumbered, […] .

   • 1998, Eve Rachele Sanders, Gender and Literacy on Stage in Early Modern England, page 173,

     When Mercy Harvey advised the nobleman to imitate her handwriting, she specified that he should write the address on the outside of the letter in "a small raggid secretary hand."

   • 2004, Introduction, Stephen H. A. Shepherd (editor), Turpines Story, page xvi,

     There are five scribes, all using variations on Secretary hands consistent with the third quarter of the fifteenth century.

   • 2004, Introduction, Helen Ostovich, Elizabeth Sauer (editors), Reading Early Modern Women: An Anthology of Texts in Manuscript and Print, 1550 — 1700, page 7,

     While originating at the end of the medieval period, the secretary hand was not widely employed until the early modern period, by which time it had completely displaced the earlier court hands.

   • 2006, Grace Ioppolo, Dramatists and Their Manuscripts in the Age of Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton and Heywood, page 84,

     Most authors, including dramatists, used both a separate secretary and an italic hand; in many cases the secretary hand was used for composing (that is, cursive or fluent) writing and italic for more formal copying.

Related terms

• court hand
• chancery hand / Chancery hand
• Italian hand

See also

• black letter