There were four major centres of Merovingian script: the monasteries of Luxeuil, Laon, Corbie, and Chelles.
The Luxeuil type uses distinctive long, slim capital letters as a display script.
These capitals have wedge-shaped finials, and the crossbar of ⟨a⟩ resembles a small letter ⟨v⟩ while that of ⟨h⟩ is a wavy line.
The Liber glossarum, a major medieval reference work, was written in the "a-b type" script of Corbie.
Along with resemblances to Carolingian and Visigothic, Merovingian shares some features with Beneventan script.
Merovingian script sample from an evangelary internally dated to AD 754, from F. Steffens's
Lateinische Paläographie
(1929):
ego hacse jnperitus gundohinus poscen- / te fulculfo monacho et si non ut dibui / psaltjm ut ualui a capite usque ad sui con[summacionis finem...]
Folio 144 of the
Lectionary of Luxeuil
, manuscript Lat. 9427, at the
National Library of France
, written in the Luxeuil type. The folio's content consists of
Acts
5:17-25.
Tempore illo exsur- / gens autem princeps sacerdotum: et omnes / qui cum illo erant· quae est heresis sadducaeorum
·...
