Between the seventh and ninth centuries the ancient Roman system of abbreviations gave way to a more difficult one that gradually grew up in the monastic houses and in the chanceries of the new Teutonic kingdoms.
Medieval manuscripts abound in abbreviations, owing in part to the abandonment of the uncial, or quasi-uncial, and the almost universal use of the cursive, hand.
The medieval writer inherited a few from Christian antiquity; others he invented or adapted, in order to save time and parchment.
The development of printing brought about the abandonment of many abbreviations, while it suggested and introduced new ones a process also favoured by the growth of ecclesiastical legislation, the creation of new offices, etc.
The means of abbreviation were usually full points or dots (mostly in Roman antiquity), the semicolon (eventually conventionalized), lines (horizontal, perpendicular, oblong, wavy curves, and commas).
It may be well to state at once that since 29 December 1878, by order of Leo XIII, the great papal documents (Litterae Apostolicae) are no longer written in the old Gothic hand known as bollatico; all abbreviations, with the exception of a few obvious ones, like S.R.E., were abolished by the same authority (Acta Sanctae Sedis, XI, 465–467).
A second class of abbreviations includes those used in the description of liturgical acts or the directions for their performance, e.g. the Holy Mass, the Divine Office (Breviary), the ecclesiastical devotions, etc.
(to which class belong the numerous Catacomb inscriptions); finally some miscellaneous abbreviations like those used in the publication of documents concerning beatification and canonization.