‘The Art of the Scribe’ – Winner in the British Book Awards

I was absolutely stunned and truly delighted that my latest book for the British Library (published in March 2025) won in the ‘Scholarly, Academic and Reference’ category of the British Book Awards sponsored by the British Printing Industries Federation.

I was thrilled when I heard that the British Library had nominated my book for this Award, even more so when it was shortlisted.

However, I did practise my loser’s smile, not looking too disappointed, but the other book was a worthy winner (as in the BAFTAs)!

When it came to this category, there were three other books that looked like very worthy winners, and having looked at them, I was pretty sure who would win – not mine.

When the book wasn’t even Highly Commended (Runner Up), I took a bit of a back seat – it had been a good evening, and at least the book was shortlisted.

Then came the ‘And the Winner is …’ moment. I absolutely couldn’t believe it when ‘The Art of the Scribe’ was announced with this citation on the left (also in the ‘Book of Winners and Nominees’ given to everyone afterwards)! It was just tremendous!

The Award was presented by Heather O’Connell, Publishing Consultant, Coach and Trainer at Bluebird Consulting. When I thanked her afterwards she actually said something on the lines of when we saw your book we hardly thought it worth looking at the others, it stood out so much! Also on the platform was heather herself and Lucy Mangan, artist and author (right)

And the double spread in the ‘Book of Winners and Nominees’ which was distributed after the presentations was a thrill too.

‘The Art of the Scribe’

‘The Art of the Scribe’ is the latest book published by the British Library in Spring 2025. It focuses on the scripts and the illumination and decoration used in the seven major periods of mediæval and Renaissance book production. Each of the seven chapters includes information about manuscripts of those times, what they were, who they were produced by – the scribes and illuminators – and the people associated with the books. There is also a detailed second section on tools, materials and techniques for calligraphy (including analysing texts, spacing of letters, words and lines, layouts, and serifs), illumination, painting, and simple book binding.

For each of the seven writing styles there are clear exemplar letters with guides for writing each one – here are Uncials as in the St Cuthbert Gospel in the British Library. Both the alphabet is shown as well as the letters arranged in families that have similar strokes – this makes learning and practising the letters much quicker.

Illustrations are large, often taking up the whole page as here – a page from one of the huge bibles produced at the monastery of St Martin, Tours, in France. The script is Caroline Minuscule and is a lovely dancing script, very legible, and wonderful to write.

At the end of each of the seven chapters are three graded projects – foundation, intermediate and advanced. This is a favourite from Caroline Minuscule – a zig zag or concertina book using text from Dorothy Wordsworth’s ‘Grasmere Journal’ describing the walk when the ‘host of golden daffodils’ was seen. The illustration along the bottom matches the text, with a few daffodils to start with and then more and more.

The second section consists of a comprehensive consideration of materials, tools and techniques; for tools and materials – what is needed, how to use them and how to take care of them. The pages here are how to mix gouache for ink and paint and how to mix repeat colours.

This double spread is about vellum, how it’s made, types of skin – vellum and parchment – and the differences in thickness in the skin which affects the final result in use.

Included in the section on tools is a section on quills, quill curing and quill cutting – all clearly illustrated with excellent photographs by the British Library photographer, Jonathan Vine, and with step-by-step instructions. Just visible on the left are the final steps for laying gesso, adding gold leaf (illumination) and painting a mediæval miniature.

Here is a sneaky peek inside the book showing the seven chapters – Uncial, Caroline Minuscule, English Caroline Minuscule, Gothic Textura (Black Letter), Bâtarde, Humanistic Minuscule and Italic – and also the second section of detailed information.

‘The Art of the Scribe’ is available from the British Library bookshop, and I have a limited number of copies for sale where I am happy to write in a name calligraphically; contact me through this website for this and for the cost of p+p (it is a heavy book, so that isn’t cheap!).

Fear no More the Heat of the Sun

‘Fear no more the heat of the sun’ is a poem from William Shakespeare’s ‘Cymbeline’. It is a poem of reassurance at death – nothing can touch the deceased now, not sun, cold, thunderstorms, whims of monarchs or tyrants, or even ghosts or witches.

I had been wanting to write this out for for time and thought it would be appropriate for my new book ‘The Art of the Scribe’, to be published by the British Library in 2024. It just wasn’t right though and so I went a different route in the end.

The first rough is here and the script I tried was Caroline Minuscule. This is one of the seven scripts featured in the new book. I had the idea of the sun colours changing from red to yellow through a couple of oranges for each verse, but it really didn’t work. The piece was far to large and it just didn’t hang together in these varied colours. The initial letters for each verse were emphasised here and I left space to write a gold initial for the first verse.

This lay on one side of my work bench for some time, mulling over the design and thinking of ways to improve it, I was spurred on by realising that it was the colours, size and script that were all wrong – not much right then! Quite a change was required. So I mixed one colour – a good orange (see here for colour mixing) using Schmincke Calligraphy Gouache, I cut a small nib on a swan’s quill, about the size of a Mitchell nib size 6, and wrote it out in rough.

I had the idea of a setting sun at the bottom of the piece. This is depicted in some mediæval manuscripts with alternate straight rays and wavy rays which I rather like – good to have that difference. Not being that good at sums, it took me a little while to work out the appropriate angles so that the rays were even, but once this was done and half-circles inscribed with compasses, it was not too difficult to draw and paint them in Schmincke Goldpearl.

I had done quite a bit of research for the new books into scripts of the Renaissance and decided on a style of Arrighi Italic. I used a lovely piece of prepared vellum (see here, and here). With a left aligned margin and a small quill I wrote out the text in orange gouache, painted the sun at the bottom, with the rays carefully measured out and was able to give the piece to friends. I was sorry in a way to see it go as I rather liked what I had done with it in the end, but pleased, too, that they would be able to enjoy it.

A Gift for The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

It is unlikely that anyone will experience a Platinum Jubilee again, so the celebrations in the UK of The Queen’s anniversary in 2022 were particularly special. It is traditional for organisations and institutions to mark this by presenting the sovereign with a small gift, but how to make yours stand out amongst so many? This was the challenge for Gallyon Guns. They were aware of work I had done before and particularly liked the words of the ‘Friendship’ poem. The relationship between The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh seemed to be not only a warm and loving one but one also based on friendship, and with HRH’s naval background, it seemed particularly relevant.

My challenge was to make this not only relevant to the occasion but I wanted to also make it personal. The Queen is the queen of the whole of the UK and so a design was created of the four flowers of the nations and principality at the top of the poem. A rosebud was included with the open rose to represent The Prince of Wales as heir to the throne.

This theme of national flowers was continued at the base of the text. The two open red roses represented The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh, with four rose buds representing The Prince of Wales, The Princess Royal and Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. Three thistles on the right-hand side represent George, Charlotte and Louis, and on the left, Archie and Lilibet.

It is always useful, and very much advised, to keep the roughs of work completed as, if it is repeated, one process is removed as the lines already written can be used as a template. So having already written this previously, I was able to use the lines as a guide. If photocopies of the finished work are made, these can also be used. Take two so one can be a record, and the second one can be cut up for the lines, but don’t throw them away at the end – there may be yet another repeat!

The way in which I work is, once the writing style and pen nib size have been determined, to write out all the text first, without worrying about mistakes. This takes all the tension out of the task – always a challenge for the scribe as tension usually results in cramped letters and tight spacing at the start which tends to be improve later; this then shows in the finished piece. Without these concerns, if a mistake is made, the word is simply written out again and inserted into the correct place in the text. If any parts of the text are written in a different size, style or pen nib, then these are also written out at this stage without worries or obvious tension. The lettering is then cut into strips and placed on a suitable size of paper. Margins are also determined at this stage. The strips are cut according to sense and design and laid out on the paper. Lines can be shortened or lengthened, moved around to be aligned left or right, centred or whatever seems to be the most appropriate arrangement. At this point, colour in the background or illustration can be added so that the balance of the whole piece can be determined. This is a wonderfully creative process, but it can also be rather time consuming!

Once the guidelines have been drawn on the chosen surface, then these strips of text act as a guide for writing out the finished piece. Placing them just above the line being written means that spelling mistakes or words missed out are avoided, and starting and finishing lines where they should are indicated exactly above the places where they should start and finish! (The image is from a different piece but it gives the idea.) To attach the lines I use Magic tape but remove some of the stickiness by tapping my fingers on the tape – I don’t want any of the writing surface to be removed as well!

Of course, anything to do with the royal is confidential, but I did hear through the grapevine that, unlike many of the presentations made ,The Queen did see this one and she was not displeased! That certainly made my week!

‘Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens’

The story of Elizabeth I, daughter of Ann Boleyn and Henry VIII, and Mary, Queens of Scots, is well-known from films and TV series, but this exhibition at the British Library (October 2021–February 2022) approaches these two monarchs from the point of view of documentary evidence – and much more. Bearing in mind how fragile much of these papers must be it is quite amazing how many have survived in good condition and are exhibited here. But don’t be put off by ‘boring’ letters and charters, there is much else here to excite the eye, but this post will focus on the written word.

But starting with images, here are two glorious miniatures of the two Queens painted by the incomparable Nicholas Hilliard. On the left, Elizabeth I in 1580–5, and on the right Mary, Queen of Scots in 1576. These are both really small and show well the amazing skill of the great artist. Both are in the Royal Collection Trust.

Elizabeth’s handwriting when she was young was neat, precise and very clear. There is certainly an Italic feel to this with the letter a, but there is also a touch of Humanistic Minuscule with the arches on the letters n and h. This is a translation into Latin, French and Italian of English prayers and meditations put together by Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s sixth wife. It was presented by Elizabeth to her father, the king, in December 1545.

By 1563, though, the precise and careful script of Elizabeth has deteriorated to what is described in the excellent catalogue as being written in her ‘atrocious cursive or ‘business’ hand, which had replaced the elegant italic hand of her youth’. Here she is reserving the right to choose whether she would ever marry, but had not decided not to marry!

The ‘scrawl’ of Elizabeth contrasts with the still precise handwriting of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1571. This is written by her to Elizabeth after the Ridolfi Plot had been discovered and Mary is writing in despair at her continued imprisonment, saying that if she can’t get support from Elizabeth then she must turn to other sources. Her neat and unadorned signature is at the bottom right of this letter – ‘Marie R’.

The famous signature of Elizabeth I and the ways in which she embellished with flourishes the descenders is well demonstrated here, in contrast with that of Mary. It seems to be pretty consistent throughout her life and was used here on a document which supported the Earl of Mar being regent to James VI in 1571. The script used for the body of the text – Gothic Cursive – contrasts with Elizabeth’s Italic signature. Note the four vertical slits on the left-hand side which indicate where the document would have been sealed after folding.

Mary was involved in plotting, if only to escape imprisonment, and codes were often used. Documents in code were also sent from the Tudor court. This document, though, is by Mary herself and written to Patrick, Master of Gray, as Scottish ambassador in 1584 to England. Mary wanted to return to Scotland or remain in England but to be free. This, of course, never happened and this letter was intercepted by one of Sir Francis Walsingham’s spies and deciphered by Thomas Phelippes.

This superb exhibition is certainly well worth seeing to give greater insight and background to these two queens, and the exhibition catalogue is, typical of the British Library, beautifully designed and a joy to read through, with thorough, well-researched text – and absolutely worth buying if you can’t make the exhibition.

Colour in the pen

Some people think that calligraphy is essentially black writing with perhaps a touch of red. How limiting! Calligraphy can be any and every colour. One way of using colour that I really like is where the pen actually mixes the colour, as on the right. It’s not one line one colour and one line another, but two colours which are mixed, somewhat randomly, as you write.

It is a good idea to choose two colours which have greater contrast than the two in the piece above, but the extract was about water and fishing, so to echo that I chose a bluey-green and a greeny-blue. The text was Welsh with an English translation. So, to start I wrote out the text in differing styles and heights of letters; after experimenting I decided on Italic for the Welsh and tiny dancing capitals for the English. I had a smallish piece of vellum so I didn’t want to use a large nib. I chose a Mitchell/Manuscript size 5 for both styles of writing, and a size 6 for the title and dedication line to be positioned at the bottom, and then wrote out the words

The lines were of very varied lengths, so a right or left alignment would leave a rather ragged edge. I decided on a centred arrangement after a bit of experimentation. I cut up the lines, measured each one and marked the centre point then placed them on another piece of paper to see how it would look, and where the title and dedication line should be positioned.

Once all the decisions had been made, I prepared the vellum (see my Illumination DVD and Illumination: Gold and Colour book here), ruled the lines and mixed up the paint. Writing with two colours in the pen is not quite as hit-and-miss as it may seem at first. With this process individual letters usually consist of more than one colour, and if this doesn’t come out of the pen then it needs to be ‘engineered’. The Calligraphy Clip (see below) shows how to do this. The pen isn’t filled as is usual, but one colour just ‘tipped’ on to the underneath of the pen with a brush, As each stroke is written, the colours in the previous letters and also the ones above need to be taken into account to ensure an overall even effect – not too much of one colour, not too much of the other, and not too much of the mix. Sometimes it’s necessary to go over some strokes with a different colour to ensure this. It certainly doesn’t encourage rhythm and flow, but can be most effective. I find it very appropriate for when I’m asked to write out pieces for weddings or anniversaries; each colour represents one person and the mix of colours suggests their lives together.

This piece has more contrast in the colours, as they are vermilion and ultramarine.

This Calligraphy Clip explains how to use two colours in the pen and demonstrates the process, and some of the pitfalls.

Patricia Lovett MBE

Calligraphy | Illumination | Design

‘The Art of the Scribe’ – Winner in the British Book Awards

‘The Art of the Scribe’

Fear no More the Heat of the Sun

A Gift for The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

‘Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens’

Colour in the pen

Mixing Colour in the Pen

Calligraphy – Italic 6

Calligraphy – Italic 5

Calligraphy – Italic 4