Between the period of the decline of the Roman book trade, which continued possibly as late as the death of Pope Gregory the Great (A.D. 604), and the Carolingian renewal (renovatio) of learning at the end of the eighth century, important movements in the evolution of national scripts occurred generally across western Europe. Two minuscule scripts in France are to be noted especially, the Merovingian cursive, a tall, narrow, angular script, crabbed and clotted, and heavily decorated with clubs and wedges, together with its more formalized version, associated with Luxeuil (like St Gallen, a house subject to Irish influences) and found first in a lectionary from the end of the seventh century. A more satisfactory book script emerged towards the end of the eighth century at Tours and Corbie, where a tendency to simplify Merovingian can be seen. Crucial to its emergence was the renovatio of scripts, dated to the years 780-850 and associated with the educational ambitions of Charlemagne. The renovatio scribes were very familiar with late Roman scripts, especially with Half-uncial. At Corbie in north-east France a Half-uncial even seems to have redeveloped in this period as a book script, and from Corbie too comes the first dated example of Caroline minuscule, late in the eighth century. The revival of late antique Half-uncial is therefore seen by some as focal for the development of Caroline minuscule.

At first appearing as a book hand and succeeding several different cursive scripts used throughout Francia, this new script, Caroline minuscule, was not itself used in documents until the end of the ninth century. It is a clear script with few variant letter-forms, and easily read. Most vertical strokes are plain, ending on or just below the line (the descenders are p and q, and g is looped). The overall dates for the script are c. 800 - c. 1200. Once adopted in England, the plain minims of Caroline minuscule soon acquired feet under the influence of Insular minuscule, a feature that spread into Normandy and France by the late eleventh century. The dates generally accepted for the use of English Caroline minuscule are c. 950 - c. 1100. Caroline minuscule first appeared in England in the reformed Benedictine monasteries as a script for writing Latin, and it was used alongside Anglo-Saxon minuscule in both its square and round phases. Two main styles of English Caroline minuscule are recognized.