Thanks for the reply, and the interesting table of characters. It looks to me very much as though the alphabet was designed for ease of writing. However the point I was trying to make about the gallows was that they often look as though they were written not in a single stroke for each 'leg' as you suggest (and as would seem sensible for speed of writing), but with each leg drawn in two parts with a break about half way down. It's as though they were originally drawn as two (or one) small 'i' strokes and the top halves of the verticals drawn in separately. Sometimes it looks as though the bottom half is more like a 'c' that is then overdrawn by the tall vertical.
I've attached some examples taken from F106r (top row) and F82v (bottom row). They show some of the kinks, breaks and overdrawing that I referred to. There are many more examples in the VMS!
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it seems there must have been a reason for drawing the characters in this way.
Regards,
Jon.
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Gallows.jpg
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