CURSIVE, SCRIPT. - By cursive writing is meant that traced rapidly, currenti calamo, as opposed to upright or set writing.
I. IN GREEK PALEOGRAPHY
In Greek antiquity, from the 3rd century B.C. onward, alongside the uncial (v.) there is found a more cursive type of writing, which served for ordinary correspondence, for contracts, wills, receipts, notes and, in short, for all the affairs of daily life. This type of writing, called cursive, is distinguished from the uncial by the fact that the letters present certain characteristics deriving from the scribe's carelessness or from the desire to lift the pen as little as possible, in order to write with greater speed; so that some letters turn out to be traced with a smaller number of strokes than the corresponding uncial ones (ata in two strokes, instead of three: h for H; tau in a single stroke, instead of two: v for T); others are linked to one another by a stroke that joins the last part of one letter with the first part of the next; the angles are sometimes rounded, sometimes narrowed or made to disappear; certain strokes are simplified, shortened or even suppressed. But, apart from the deformations that logically result from this, the fundamental form of the letters in cursive writing remains the same as in the uncial: it is essential,
therefore, not to confuse cursive writing with the minuscule (v.), which is a purely Byzantine product.
The oldest datable examples of Greek cursive writing that have come down to us go back to roughly the middle of the 3rd century B.C., but it is very difficult, if not altogether impossible, to fix a clear dividing line between uncial and cursive writing, because the transition between the two types is imperceptible. Some uncial papyri of the 3rd century B.C. also present characteristics of cursive writing: H and T in the form already mentioned (h and v) and various ligatures between the letters. One can therefore only affirm that in the 3rd century B.C. cursive writing was in full development.
As it is found in papyri, ostraka, wax tablets, etc., cursive writing is usually divided into three phases, corresponding to the three different dominations that Egypt underwent after the fall of the ancient Egyptian empire: the Ptolemaic, from 323 to 30 B.C.; the Roman, from the conquest of Augustus until the end of the 3rd century; and the Byzantine, until the date of the Arab conquest (640-43) and beyond. To each change of domination there corresponds a change in the general character of cursive writing, owing to the influence of the official writing of the time (cf. E. M. Thompson, p. 151). To attempt, however, a classification of cursive writing from the 3rd century B.C. to the 8th century A.D. is an almost vain undertaking, as with the writings of our own day, because cursive writing, except in official acts, has in other documents, as is natural, too subjective a character, so that even in the most recent centuries, alongside the new forms of the letters, the old ones are encountered. In any case, in very general terms, the cursive writing of the Ptolemaic age, as is seen in papyri of the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. (there is no material for judging the general characteristics of that of the 1st century B.C.) presents quite simple and unmistakable forms, compared with those of the Roman era, rounded and flowing. The cursive writing of the Byzantine period, on the other hand, is characterized by an artificiality of forms, which reveals itself in the exaggerated length of the strokes of certain letters, projected upward or downward into the spaces between the lines: one notices in the writer an effort toward originality. From cursive writing of Byzantine style the minuscule would later be born.
II. IN LATIN PALEOGRAPHY
Cursive forms are encountered in almost every type of script. Reference is therefore made to the individual entries, and in particular to minuscule c.