You have made an interesting observation. While I am certainly no expert in penmanship, it may be that the scribe, on occasion, used two short vertical strokes as place holders, until the structure of some of the more elaborate gallows could be figured out. It seems that the four basic gallows structures, however, were written in two strokes, a single vertical stroke top to bottom either by itself or to the left of parallel strokes, followed by the finishing stroke beginning at the top of the initial vertical stroke. There may or may not be a loop on the top left, but there is always a loop to the top right in these four basic gallows. The power, strength, and beauty that the gallows add to the manuscript is significant, even with understanding the underlying interpretation of the text. It seems very improbable to me that the tops of the gallows were added at a later date. Even the very first stroke in the manuscript is the vertical stroke of a gallows character. The type of pen, ink, hand of the scribe, and texture of the vellum would also have contributed to the appearance of the gallows. In the final assessment, it would probably be proven that the same black ink was used throughout the manuscript for the major portion of the text (though it would be quite interesting if there were different mixtures of black ink used). Regards, Dana Scott
|