Lexicon Browse - H

Hadith - Records of the sayings, actions, or customs of the Prophet Muḥammad.Hagiography - The study of saints' lives.Hair side - The side of a piece of parchment that originally faced outwards on the animal.Hairstroke - A very thin stroke as part of a letter.Half-sheet - see SingletonHalf-uncial - A minuscule bookhand of the 4th-6th centuries, developed from the documentary cursives of late antiquity.Hand - A script as practiced by a particular scribe.Haplography - see Scribal CorruptionHarag; also Ḥarag, ḥarags - see HeadingHardpoint - A pointed implement of metal or bone (often a stylus) used for ruling, drawing, and annotation.Hasta - A horizontal stroke like the middle stroke of the letter E.Head - The top edge of a manuscript.Headband - see EndbandsHeadcap - The leather covering the head and foot of the spine in a book binding.Heading - A decorative framework marking the beginning of a text.Headline - A notional line running along the top of minim-height in a given script, or along the tops of most of the letters in a majuscule script.Headpiece - A panel of ornament, sometimes incorporating a rubric or heading, that stands at the beginning of a text.Headstroke - A horizontal stroke at the top of a letter such as E or T.Heraldry - The science of describing armorial bearings.Herbal - A text dealing with plants and their properties, often medicinal.Hexapla - An edition of the Bible with six parallel versions.Hexateuch - The first six books of the Old Testament, which were sometimes contained in a single, separate volume.Hiberno-Saxon - see InsularHierarchy (of decoration) - A system for arranging elements in a series according to formal or functional degrees of importance.Hierarchy (of scripts) - A convention whereby scripts of a higher grade than the main text script of a manuscript were used for major headings, titles, subtitles, and so on, in a predictable descending order of prestige.Historiated initial - A letter containing an identifiable scene or figures, sometimes relating to the text.Hollow back - A binding method developed in the 2nd half of the 18th century, France and England.Homiliary - A book containing homilies (discussions of biblical passages, usually from the Gospels), arranged according to the ecclesiastical year.Homoeoarcton - see Scribal CorruptionHomoeoteleuton - see Scribal CorruptionHorae - see Book of HoursHorae Mariae - see Book of HoursHorarium - see Book of HoursHumanist minuscule - The script created by Italian humanists of the 14th & 15th century in imitation of Caroline minuscule.Hybrida - A group of scripts of the 15th century that combine features of Gothic textualis and cursiva scripts.Hymnal - A book, also called a hymnary, containing metrical hymns sung in the Divine Office and arranged according to the liturgical year.