Abbreviations (Forms and methods of abbreviation in the high and later middle ages)

Latin scribal practice employed abbreviations extensively. Amongst the Romans already in pre-Christian times first names, diurnal signs in calendars, and numerous formulae from official business and especially legal language were abbreviated in inscriptions and otherwise by ‘litterae singulares’, as well as the syllables -bus and -que; the grammarian M. Valerius Probus (first century AD) collected and explained these symbols. In the period after Probus, at any rate when Roman tachygraphy was already in use, new abbreviations were fashioned for use in normal script: above all for particles, relative and demonstrative pronouns which could be used for general requirements, and in addition to that very many abbreviations of legal terms. Late antique legal manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries such as the Verona Gaius, the fragment of the Formula Fabiana, and the Fragmenta Vaticana show their use.

In these manuscripts the abbreviations consist either of groups of several (usually two) elements – in general the first letters of syllables – or words after which the others are left out (by ‘suspension’). In contrast, short or frequent words, final syllables, and also some legal terms are abbreviated by means of various signs or suprascript letters. In a few technical terms the final syllables too could be attached. Abbreviation was indicated mostly by a stroke above, in part also by a crossbar.