“Although by some reports he was illiterate except to sign his name, Charlemagne fostered a revival of learning and the arts. The England of the 700s had seen much intellectual activity, and Charlemagne recruited the English scholar Alcuin of York to come to his palace at Aachen and establish a school. . . . Many manuscripts were difficult, if not impossible, to read. Charlemagne mandated reform by royal edict in A.D. 789. . . .

Efforts to reform the alphabet succeeded. For a model, the ordinary writing script of the late antique period was selected [and] combined with Celtic innovations, including the use of four guidelines, ascenders, and descenders. . . . The Caroline miniscule is the forerunner of our contemporary lowercase alphabet. . . . Roman capitals were studied and adopted for headings and initials. . . . The use of a dual alphabet was not fully developed in the sense that we use capital and small letters today, but a process in that direction had begun.”

—Phil Meggs & Alston Purvis, Meggs’ History of Graphic Design, 2006.