All the earliest scribes had a special education for their profession, being sent to some monastery for that purpose; hence they were either foreigners, or educated under foreign monks, either French or Italian, and the effect of this teaching is clearly demonstrated by the similitude which exists all over Europe between manuscripts of the early Middle Ages. In England the Norman Conquest overruled most of the previous customs and styles. Vast crowds of Normans emigrated continuously to our shores. This went on more or less for at least three or four centuries, and then prejudice against foreigners asserted itself, and the Saxon element, which still remained among the lower classes of the people, gained the ascendant. In the reign of Henry V. alien priories were suppressed, and foreign monks and priests no longer travelled backwards and forwards from the Norman abbeys to the junior houses or cells in England. The rich merchants, who resorted here from the Low Countries and Germany, brought with them their own customs and fashions; and at this time will first be noticed the use of a written character, like the modern German, which steadily came more and more into use until the end of the seventeenth century, when it died out and the style altered to a rounder, freer hand. So long as education was almost entirely monastic, or at least conducted by teachers trained in monastic institutions, we find (as we should naturally expect to do) a regularity, carefulness and formality in the handwriting of the period; but so soon as England had shaken off the authority of Rome and the educated communities had been scattered and disbanded, a marked change took place in the quantity and quality of all kinds of writing. The monks and nuns, rendered homeless by the Reformation, returned to their native villages, thus spreading education among all classes and creating a desire after learning. But the primary cause of the alteration in handwriting, so very marked in the sixteenth century, was perhaps attributable to the introduction of the art of printing, which naturally was fatal to handwriting as a profession. The scribe was no longer required to multiply the author’s productions; so that lawyers and public office clerks only remained out of the large class who had formerly earned their living as professional writers. In the actual writing, also, a change took place. The old elaborate letters were supplanted by the simple capitals copied from the printer’s blocks. Some day, maybe, writing will die out altogether; every year fresh improvements and inventions are increasing; now type-writers and multiplying machines are used in place of handwriting in many offices, while sooner or later typing by machine will be universal.