The name "Gothic" applies rather to the spirit than to the exact letter
forms of the style. The same spirit of freedom and restlessness
characterises the architecture of the period wherein this style of letter
was developed; and Gothic letters are in many ways akin to the fundamental
forms of Gothic architecture. Their effect is often tiring and confusing to
the eye because of the constant recurrence of very similar forms with
different letter meanings; yet this very similarity is the main cause of
the pleasing aspect of a page of Gothic lettering.

Unlike the Roman letters, which attained a complete and final development,
Gothic letters never reached authoritative and definitive forms, any more
than did Gothic architecture. Every individual Gothic letter has several
quasi-authoritative shapes, and all of these variants may be accepted, as
long as they display an intelligent conception of the spirit of the style
as a whole. Because of this lack of finality, however, it is impossible to
analyze each of the letter forms as we were able to do with the Roman
alphabet in Chapter I; yet this very variability and variety constitute at
once the peculiar beauty of Gothic and the great difficulty of so drawing
it as to preserve its distinctive character.

Any letter of Gothic form is usually called either "Gothic" or
"Blackletter" indiscriminately, but this use is inexact [128] and
confusing. The term "Blackletter" should, strictly, be applied only to
letters in which the amount of black in the line overbalances the white;
and the proper application of the title should be determined rather by this
balance or weight of the letter than by its form.

[Illustration: 141. ITALIAN ROUND GOTHIC SMALL LETTERS. 1500]

The original Gothic letter was a gradual outgrowth from the round Roman
Uncial. Its early forms retained all the roundness of its Uncial parent;
but as the advantages of a condensed form of letter for the saving of space
became manifest, (parchment was expensive and bulky) and the [131] beauty
of the resulting blacker page was noticed, the round Gothic forms were
written closer and narrower, the ascenders and descenders were shortened,
with marked loss of legibilty, that the lines of lettering might be brought
closer together, until a form was evolved in which the black overbalanced
the white--the Blackletter which still survives in the common German text
of to-day. Thus, though a Gothic letter may not be a Blackletter, a