22-10-2018, 04:00 AM
On that odd "n/m" shape...
Many scribes only used capital letters for important things like names and the extra loop was usually only added on capital letters, although it was sometimes at the beginning of lines if it was poetry or some kind of list. It's also rather large in comparison to many of the other letters. I've often wondered if it's someone else's handwriting, but it's hard to tell with a single letter and many people write small at the left of the line and then bigger as the pen moves toward the right, so the change in size may not be unusual.
So maybe it's "n" and the writer decided to give it more importance (an abbreviated name?)?
or...
If it's a loop-m shape then it is unusual, just as the first shape in anchiton/michiton is unusual, because loop-m almost always has a tail on the right lower side of the "m" except in very old manuscripts (c. 1200s and earlier), in which case the tail on the right is not always there. I've searched very hard for loop-m without the tail and have extreme difficulty finding it in 15th-century manuscripts and even when I do, there's usually a hint of a tail.
Many times I've wanted to suggest that it might mean "Maria" since M was a frequent abbreviation for "Maria", but maria is written out in full on the next line and it seems less likely that it would be included twice AND there is the problem of there not being a tail on the letter (which means it's more likely "n" than "m").
Many scribes only used capital letters for important things like names and the extra loop was usually only added on capital letters, although it was sometimes at the beginning of lines if it was poetry or some kind of list. It's also rather large in comparison to many of the other letters. I've often wondered if it's someone else's handwriting, but it's hard to tell with a single letter and many people write small at the left of the line and then bigger as the pen moves toward the right, so the change in size may not be unusual.
So maybe it's "n" and the writer decided to give it more importance (an abbreviated name?)?
or...
If it's a loop-m shape then it is unusual, just as the first shape in anchiton/michiton is unusual, because loop-m almost always has a tail on the right lower side of the "m" except in very old manuscripts (c. 1200s and earlier), in which case the tail on the right is not always there. I've searched very hard for loop-m without the tail and have extreme difficulty finding it in 15th-century manuscripts and even when I do, there's usually a hint of a tail.
Many times I've wanted to suggest that it might mean "Maria" since M was a frequent abbreviation for "Maria", but maria is written out in full on the next line and it seems less likely that it would be included twice AND there is the problem of there not being a tail on the letter (which means it's more likely "n" than "m").