Blackletter

Blackletter, also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule or Gothic type, is a family of scripts, originally handwriting scripts, then adapted into typefaces and still used in calligraphy.
Blackletter was used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish until the 1870s, Finnish until the turn of the 20th century, Estonian and Latvian until the 1930s, and for the German language until the 1940s, when Adolf Hitler officially banned it in 1941. Fraktur is a notable script of this type, and sometimes the entire group of blackletter faces is referred to as Fraktur. Blackletter is not to be confused with the Old English language, which predates blackletter by many centuries and was written in the insular script or in Futhorc runes. Along with Italic type and Roman type, blackletter served as one of the major typefaces in the history of Western typography.

Etymology

The term Gothic was first used to describe blackletter in 15th-century Italy, in the midst of the Renaissance, because Renaissance humanists believed this style was barbaric, and Gothic was a synonym for barbaric. Flavio Biondo, in Italia Illustrata, wrote that the Germanic Lombards invented this script after they invaded Italy in the 6th century.
Not only were blackletter forms called Gothic script, but any other seemingly barbarian script, such as Visigothic, Beneventan, and Merovingian, were also labeled Gothic. This in contrast to Carolingian minuscule, a highly legible script which the humanists called littera antiqua, wrongly believing that it was the script used by the ancient Romans. It was in fact invented in the reign of Charlemagne, although only used significantly after that era, and actually formed the basis for the later development of blackletter.
Blackletter script should not be confused with either the ancient alphabet of the Gothic language nor with the sans-serif typefaces that are also sometimes called Gothic.

Forms

Early Gothic

It is difficult to be specific about the time at which Early Gothic was born and later died, because it was an interim script spanning Carolingian Minuscule and the Gothic textura scripts. It can generally be said that it was used in the 11th and 12th centuries. As universities began to populate Europe, a need for a more rapid writing technology led to the development of this script. The rounded forms of Carolingian became angular flicks of the quill, and both letters and words became compressed.
Early Gothic is characterized by a number of factors. There are no capital letters for this script. Instead Roman Rustic, Roman Square or Uncial letters were used. Versals were most often Lombardic Capitals usually painted in bright colors. Other features are split ascenders, a storied 'a', both the standard 'r' and a half 'r' 〈ꝛ〉 used after letters with bowls. The long 's' 〈ſ〉 is used primarily, but there are examples of the short 's' in some manuscripts. Punctuation is limited, usually only full stops and commas, and they are usually rendered at the mid-line.
As the script continued to evolve and become ever more angular, vertical and compressed, it began its transition to the textura hands.

Textura

Textualis, also known as textura or "Gothic bookhand", was the most calligraphic form of blackletter, and today is the form most associated with "Gothic". Johannes Gutenberg carved a textualis typeface—including a large number of ligatures and common abbreviations—when he printed his 42-line Bible. However, textualis was rarely used for typefaces after this.
According to Dutch scholar Gerard Lieftinck, the pinnacle of blackletter use was reached in the 14th and 15th centuries. For Lieftinck, the highest form of textualis was littera textualis formata, used for de luxe manuscripts. The usual form, simply littera textualis, was used for literary works and university texts. Lieftinck's third form, littera textualis currens, was the cursive form of blackletter, extremely difficult to read and used for textual glosses, and less important books.
Textualis was most widely used in France, the Low Countries, England, and Germany. Some characteristics of the script are:

Tall, narrow letters, as compared to their Carolingian counterparts.
Letters formed by sharp, straight, angular lines, unlike the typically round Carolingian; as a result, there is a high degree of "breaking", i.e. lines that do not necessarily connect with each other, especially in curved letters.
Ascenders are vertical and often end in sharp finials.
When a letter with a bowl is followed by another letter with a bowl, the bowls overlap and the letters are joined by a straight line.
A related characteristic is the half r, the shape of when attached to other letters with bowls; only the bowl and tail were written, connected to the bowl of the previous letter. In other scripts, this only occurred in a ligature with the letter.
Similarly related is the form of the letter when followed by a letter with a bowl; its ascender is then curved to the left, like the uncial. Otherwise the ascender is vertical.
The letters,,,,, and the hook of have descenders, but no other letters are written below the line.
The letter has a straight back stroke, and the top loop eventually became closed, somewhat resembling the number. The letter often has a diagonal line connecting its two bowls, also somewhat resembling an, but the long s is frequently used in the middle of words.
Minims, especially in the later period of the script, do not connect with each other. This makes it very difficult to distinguish between,,, and. A 14th-century example of the difficulty that minims produced is: mimi numinum niuium minimi munium nimium uini muniminum imminui uiui minimum uolunt. In blackletter, this would look like a series of single strokes. As a result, dotted and were subsequently developed. Minims may also have finials of their own.
The script has many more scribal abbreviations than Carolingian, adding to the speed in which it could be written.
Schwabacher

Schwabacher was a blackletter form that was much used in early German print typefaces. It continued to be used occasionally until the 20th century. Characteristics of Schwabacher are:

The small letter is rounded on both sides, though at the top and at the bottom, the two strokes join in an angle. Other small letters have analogous forms.
The small letter has a horizontal stroke at its top that forms crosses with the two downward strokes.
The capital letter has a peculiar form somewhat reminiscent of the small letter.
Fraktur

Fraktur is a form of blackletter that became the most common German blackletter typeface by the mid-16th century. Its use was so common that often any blackletter form is called Fraktur in Germany. Characteristics of Fraktur are:

The left side of the small letter is formed by an angular stroke, the right side by a rounded stroke. At the top and at the bottom, both strokes join in an angle. Other small letters have analogous forms.
The capital letters are compound of rounded -shaped or -shaped strokes.

Here is the entire alphabet in Fraktur, using the AMS Euler Fraktur typeface:

Cursiva

Cursiva refers to a very large variety of forms of blackletter; as with modern cursive writing, there is no real standard form. It developed in the 14th century as a simplified form of textualis, with influence from the form of textualis as used for writing charters. Cursiva developed partly because of the introduction of paper, which was smoother than parchment. It was therefore, easier to write quickly on paper in a cursive script.
In cursiva, descenders are more frequent, especially in the letters and, and ascenders are curved and looped rather than vertical. The letters, and are very similar to their Carolingian forms. However, not all of these features are found in every example of cursiva, which makes it difficult to determine whether or not a script may be called cursiva at all.
Lieftinck also divided cursiva into three styles: littera cursiva formata was the most legible and calligraphic style. Littera cursiva textualis was the usual form, used for writing standard books, and it generally was written with a larger pen, leading to larger letters. Littera cursiva currens was used for textbooks and other unimportant books and it had very little standardization in forms.

Hybrida

Hybrida is also called bastarda, and as its name suggests, is a hybrid form of the script. It is a mixture of textualis and cursiva, developed in the early 15th century. From textualis, it borrowed vertical ascenders, while from cursiva, it borrowed long and long s|, single-looped, and with an open descender.

Donatus-Kalender

The Donatus-Kalender is the name for the metal type design that Gutenberg used in his earliest surviving printed works, dating from the early 1450s. The name is taken from two works: the Ars grammatica of Aelius Donatus, a Latin grammar, and the Kalender. It is a form of textura.

Blackletter typesetting

While an antiqua typeface is usually a compound of roman types and italic types since the 16th-century French typographers, the blackletter typefaces never developed a similar distinction. Instead, they use letterspacing for emphasis. When blackletter is letterspaced, ligatures like,, or remain together without additional letterspacing.
The use of bold text for emphasis is also alien to blackletter typefaces.
Words from other languages, especially from Romance languages, including Latin, are usually typeset in antiqua instead of blackletter. The practice of setting foreign words or phrases in antiqua within a blackletter text does not apply to loanwords that have been incorporated into the language.