The Gothic system of scripts came into use gradually, overlapping with Protogothic across the years from the end of the twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth century. It must be stressed that development was continuous, but for practical descriptive purposes divisions are made. The origins for the system lie in the plain vertical strokes distinctive of Caroline minuscule, some with descenders which usually end on the line or just below. These features are, in Caroline hands, combined with the use of curves wherever possible. The increasing angularity in the writing of this script, accompanied by the pointed oval formation of the body of many letters, marks the transmutation into Protogothic, a phase in which feet proliferate and fusions between curved letters begin to appear. A new book script evolved around the turn of the twelfth century. The type that appeared first in Paris came to dominate throughout Europe, except for Italy where at much the same time a somewhat different Gothic minuscule script appeared. The Gothic scripts of northern Europe remained in general use into the sixteenth century. New cursive book hands were to develop also as part of the Gothic system of scripts: two of these, Anglicana and Secretary, are important for the history of the book in England and are therefore given separate introductory sections.

In Gothic textualis (or book hand) the curves of Caroline have been almost completely ironed out. The script is typically compressed and upright, and its ascenders and descenders are shorter. Carefully-made minims lie close together, and the pointed oval shapes of Protogothic have given way to a lozenge-like form. The narrowness of the script and its increased recourse to fusions or biting (not just the de and, later, pp fusions of Protogothic, but bo, pa, do, and many more letters are fused together), along with a lessening of space between ruled lines, allows more text to be crammed into the page, especially if a two-column layout is adopted. Very obviously, the more dense the block of writing, the more necessary it became to divide the page into columns, allowing the eye to absorb at a glance a manageable amount of material. It has been calculated that nearly a two-thirds saving of space is possible where the use of abbreviations flourishes.