Medieval scribes seldom bothered to record when and where they copied
a given manuscript. Modern scholars must often rely on paleography–the
study of handwriting–to determine a manuscript’s age and its
place of origin. The key to this determination is an awareness of regional
variations in handwriting and the changes that took place in the script
of a given region over time. Paleographers have established the basic
historical characteristics of medieval handwriting by carefully examining
the few dated and localized examples available.