This book grew out of my contribution to Wolfgang Stammler's Deutsche Philologie im Aufriß entitled ‘Paläographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des deutschen Kulturgebiets’, in which the concentration was on the Germanic countries. In that essay it was only possible to sketch briefly the evolution of Latin script from Antiquity, and the forms of writing outside the Germanic countries. My suggestion that a new edition might develop these aspects was welcomed by the editor, and the expanded work enabled me to explain my views on controversial questions in the palaeography of Antiquity, and perhaps to bring one or two of them closer to a solution. I am grateful to Dr Ellinor Kahleyss(†) and to Hugo Moser, who inaugurated their series Grundlagen der Germanistik with this new volume. I also thank Michael Bernhard for his drawings of Latin abbreviations, and Gabriel Silagi for his help in correcting the proofs of the German editions.

A second, revised German edition (Berlin 1986) contains substantial additions to the notes and bibliography to keep abreast of the constant developments in international research on palaeography. Here Monsignor Leonard E. Boyle's bibliography (Medieval Latin Palaeography, Toronto 1984) and the critical surveys by Jan-Olof Tjäder in Eranos have proved particularly helpful. A French translation, by Hartmut Atsma and Jean Vezin, has also appeared (Editions Picard, Paris 1985) which included three new figures and twenty-three plates.