Johannine script (Portuguese:letra joanina) was ahistorical style of handwriting used in the Portuguese RoyalChancery starting around the reign ofJohn I (1385–1433) that was used until the reign ofManuel I (1495–1521). It is, thus, a national variation ofchancery hand, a form ofblackletter.
Johannine script is essentially cursive, with a shortcorpus size (but with longascenders anddescenders), letters slope slightly to the right, words are clearly separated one from the other with no ligatures,punctuation is mostly absent, andArabic numerals are not used (instead, numbers are given in full, or inRoman numerals). The shape of the lettersv andb (and Roman numeral 5) are practically indistinguishable. Abbreviations are commonplace, mostly marked with anoverline and/orsuperscript.[1]
The prevailing script in documents from (and from the land that would eventually become) Portugal from the 8th to the 12th centuries wasVisigothic script; from the mid-12th century onwards, for about a century,Carolingian minuscule and, later on, an incipientGothic script. From 1385 onwards, that is, afterJohn I was crowned putting an end to thePortuguese Interregnum, there is radical change in the writing style of the documents issued by the Royal Chancery: this new script (first called "Johannine script" by paleographerEduardo Borges Nunes)[2] has influences of the Frenchlettre bâtarde and Gothic scripts.
Notable scribes who wrote mostly on Johannine script includeÁlvaro Gonçalves (fl. 1385–1401),Gonçalo Caldeira (fl. 1386–1426), andJoão de Lisboa (fl. 1388–1431).[1]
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