MAIN SCRIBE
He is responsible for the letter of transmission, all of the titles written in capitalis rustica, and the majority of the other
titles. Most of these titles are written in dark brown ink.
The main scribe, Bischoff points out, writes in a crisp and delicate Carolingian minuscule of a kind that was common
among younger Carolingian scribes. His style of writing has a slightly insular touch and discloses clearly that he was not
trained in the Alamannic tradition of St. Gall and of the monastery of Reichenau. Certain peculiarities of his script suggest
that before joining the scriptorium of Reichenau, he spent some time in the abbey of Fulda. The particulars of his writing
Bischoff defines as follows: "He writes vertically and places his letters closely. The letters a and d appear in two variations,
on one hand in their closed Carolingian form (at the end of the word on occasion terminating with a sharp upstroke),
on the other hand open, with two points, more closely corresponding to the insular tradition, although the latter is usually
smaller. A long d alternates with a round d. In the g both arcs are closed; z rises above the letters of intermediate length,
and begins and ends with an almost horizontal stroke. Favorite ligatures are the letter combinations ct, en, er, et, rt; and
l, n, t when followed by an i. His favored abbreviations are: um (a simple r or the ligature -or with cross stroke; -us (dom');
also -ur (recitat') and insular symbols for est and id est.[68]
