Medieval runes
| Medieval runes |
|
|---|---|
| Type |
alphabet
|
| Languages | North Germanic languages |
|
Time period
|
12th to 17th centuries |
|
Parent systems
|
|
|
Child systems
|
Dalecarlian runes |
The medieval runes, or the futhork, was a Scandinavian 27 letter runic alphabet that evolved from the Younger Futhark after the introduction of dotted runes at the end of the Viking Age and it was fully formed in the early 13th century. Due to the expansion, each rune corresponded to only one phoneme, whereas the runes in the preceding Younger Futhark could correspond to several.
The medieval runes were in use throughout Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, and provided the basis for the appearance of runology in the 16th century.
Towards the end of the 11th century, the runic alphabet met competition from the introduced Latin alphabet, but instead of being replaced, the runes continued to be used for writing in the native Old Norse language. The Latin alphabet, on the other hand, was mainly used by the clergy for writing in Latin, but also Latin prayers could be written down with runes. Whereas the Latin letters were written with quill and ink on expensive parchment, the runes were carved with sharp objects on prepared wood staffs that were cheaper (see e.g. the Bryggen inscriptions).
Although, it may at first appear that the church did not provide a congenial environment for tradition of writing in medieval runes, there are many known church objects that were engraved with runes, such as reliquaries, bells, baptismal fonts, iron work on church doors, church porches and church walls. In fact, one of the last runestones was raised in memory of the archbishop Absalon (d. 1201).
Most of the runes in the medieval runic alphabet can be traced back to forms in the Younger Futhark as the runemasters preferred to use, or modify, old runes for new phonemes rather than invent new runes.
At the end of the 10th century, or the early 11th century, three dotted runes were added in order to represent the phonemes in a more exact manner. Rather than create new runes for the /e/, /ɡ/ and /y/ phonemes, dots were added to the i, k and u runes.
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