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Romanesque capitals in inscriptions

This essay presents an overview of Romanesque capitals in inscriptions. They are first placed in the scene of the Romanesque period, then discussed in respect of their characteristics, both as individual letterforms and as part of inscriptions. The essay is fully illustrated. The research involved the collection of examples of Romanesque lettering, mostly in inscriptions but also from a number of manuscripts, from across Europe. The starting point is a critique of the view put forward by Nicolete Gray (A history of lettering, 1986) that the Romanesque letterform can only be described as a period of experimentation without stable forms, or by Walter Koch (Inschriftenpaläographie des abendländischen Mittelalters und der früheren Neuzeit, 2007) that the Romanesque is a mere transition between the Carolingian and the Gothic. The corpus of materials from across Europe was considered in respect of origins and the relationship between manuscript and inscriptional use, and typical letterforms tabulated and analysed. Explanations for the positioning and distribution of capitals in inscriptions are proposed. The essay concludes with a brief review of revivals of Romanesque capitals that have appeared in subsequent centuries, up to the present day. The research develops the argument that Romanesque letterforms can be seen as embodying a consistent set of formal characteristics, but in extremely and productive varied combinations. The positioning and distribution of these variant forms in sequences of text is also discussed, and argued to be a considered rather than random feature of lettering across this period.