Histoire de l'écrit

Letter from Matthias August to Petter Claesson, 17 June 1776
Finnish National Archives, http://digi.narc.fi/digi/view.ka?kuid=6117123.

Eighteenth-century diction remained basically the same as it had been in the previous century. However, some handwriting features were many times more pronounced than before. For example, the loop between the letter stem and strokes became more pronounced and heightened compared to other parts of the letter, and letter loops became many times deeper, so that for example it became more difficult to distinguish between the letters a, m and r. Sometimes, particularly in official documents, handwriting may be even excessively slanted to the right. This is attributed to the fact that the scribes were paid according to the number of sheets used, and this way the text would have required more sheets. In general, eighteenth–century hand–written text is characterized by ornamentation and the attempt to create an aesthetic impression.