Old English Latin alphabet

W gained usage in late Old English under Norman influence, as seen towards the end of the Peterborough Chronicle manuscript, though in this period W was still a ligature and not a full-fledged letter.

The manuscripts MS Harley 208, Stowe MS 57, and Cotton Titus D 18 differ in how they arrange the non-standard Old English letters (Harley has Ƿ–ЖƖÞ, Stowe has Ƿ–ЖÞ, Titus has Ƿ–Þ–Ð), but all three manuscripts place them after the standard Latin letters.

In 597, the arrival of the Gregorian mission in Kent marked the beginning of the Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England, and with it the reintroduction of the Latin alphabet to Britain, where it was used to write English for the first time.

The earliest attested instances of Old English being written using the Latin script were in Anglo-Saxon law codes, including one drawn up in 616 on behalf of King Æthelberht of Kent.

This was used until the end of the 12th century when continental Carolingian minuscule replaced the Insular, along with a shift in spelling conventions toward the Old French alphabet, leading to Middle English.

A table entitled "The Saxon-Alphabet" on the last page of John Fortescue 's The Difference between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy (1st ed., 1714) [ 1 ] The first column ("Figure") of the table shows the letters of the Old English Latin alphabet, and the second column ("Power") their modern equivalents.