My sister asked about the handwriting in the "White Book." For someone who knows German, it would be fairly straightforward to read. For us who don't know German, the Swiss Staatsarchiv Obwalden has made it easier by transliterating a few lines.
First let's find the good example they provide, which I copied within my post #40. Start there, in the description at the bottom of the page, with the German quotation in italics (beginning at "Weisses Buch" S. 447:). Let's compare that to Hans' calligraphy.
After opening a new tab to save your place in the post, click on "S. 447". This will take you to the "White Book" website, immediately to that page (Seite). Zoom to the third level. Scroll to the last paragraph on the page. Now, compare the transliterated version from the Staatsarchiv, which I copied into my post #40, to the script that Hans wrote in 1470 in old (or Middle?) German.
It is a reference to Wilhelm Tell (also written "Tall" or "Thall"). Start with the first words, Nu was der Tall..." Word for word, for three-and-a-half lines, you can pick out the quotation. Here we read that Tall was a good marksman. Do you see the word "öpfel" at the very end of the third line of that paragraph? That refers to the apple placed on the head of Tell's young son. Tell's perfectly-aimed arrow shot the apple without harming the boy.
This is "educated" German, not a dialect or even very Allemanisch-like. This German script actually looks closer (to me) to modern German, than English of the 15th century looks to modern English. Maybe my Swiss friend can deny or confirm that statement. I am comparing Hans' extremely polished writing to many Pfarrars (pastors) or Schreibers (scribes) of future centuries, whose handwritings were cryptic and unreadable, abbreviated and plain bad. Those crudely-taught "non-professionals" didn't care for clarity. Clarity and polish is so important in handwriting!
Hans truly cared that more than 500 years later, we can still decipher his clear handwriting, even if we don't know the language he used. He trusted that we could figure out his language as long as we could read the letters. It makes me wonder whether he corrected the wordings of the treaties and alliances.
Indeed, if he had thought otherwise, he would not have bothered to spend his life doing this writing. It was his goal that his writing be understood centuries later.
Hans actually has "his" own article in the German Wikipedia. In the article, we learn that his father was a Schreiber, in a village called Wolfenschiessen. Hans' brother Jost, a Benedictine priest, was pastor in Küssnacht. In the 15th century, this was a family with education. Maybe that is how the family got their surname, from a family history of skill in handwriting. This was the book printing of the era.
We can easily believe that Hans was brought up to his profession by his father. Hans started writing at a young age. As an apprentice, Hans learned (from his father, surely) how to whittle the end of a quill to make a nib for writing. Hans would have made many, many quills in his lifetime! When he was writing his "White Book" a trainee was preparing quills for Hans, so that Hans could spend all his time copying and writing.
Hans was a professional. See how straight his lines are, as if he were writing on ruled paper, almost perfectly. That is very hard to accomplish. Normally nowadays, a calligrapher draws light, fine lines in pencil, calligraphs above the penciled lines, and then erases the lines. This is time-consuming.
It is very hard to write a straight line. I admire Hans for his skill. When I calligraphed addresses on wedding invitation envelopes, I took a short cut. I scotchtaped three strands of dental floss to a board on which I was working. Then I placed the envelope underneath the floss and used the strands as guidelines. This way I did not have to erase lines.
It looks to me as if he was writing the lines freehand (or maybe he was using a string). There are two vertical (left and right) and two horizontal guidelines (top and bottom) on each page. He wrote the first line of the page on a guideline, and the last line was written above the bottom guideline. He was so good, he could make parallel all the in-between lines. He wrote on the backs of the pages as well.
Above all notice his letters. They are regular and well done, it appears that the copy is engraved or carved, as if it were published. With only a little practice, by observing how he draws his letters, you can pick out words easily, especially proper nouns. On page 454, see how many times he wrote the word "Bern." I counted six times. Because Hans is so precise, one can work out the code quite well.
When I published the post #40 on Monday, there was a large number of "hits" overnight, almost all from the U.S. In this post #41 I have avoided using the full name of the "White Book," so as not to attract so many people. This is a small, esoteric blog, and the audience is my family and those special people who are willing to return repeatedly to read about an ordinary family from Switzerland who immigrated to Texas and became the family who are US.
Welcome, and thanks, to the U.S. readers and to those in Europe who are following my blog! I am honored, as much for your attention as for the opportunity to share this information.
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