Historical context

Who wrote the documents

The hand on the page is often not the hand of the person named in it. Many documents were written by someone paid or asked to write them.

Who held the pen

Clerks: Men trained to write for a court or an office, often in a hand of its ownD&K-S p. 10
Scriveners: Professional writers of letters, deeds and bonds. In London they had their own guild by 1357.Hector p. 54
A hand for hire: A will or a letter was often written by a clerk, a scrivener or a neighbour who could write, and then signed or marked by the person it namesSpufford

School: Secretary hand was taught in schoolsPetti p. 18; D&K-S p. 9
Copybooks: Writing masters printed model alphabets. An early English one is by Jean de Beauchesne and John Baildon: copies are dated 1570 and 1571.Hector p. 57; Petti p. 15; D&K-S p. 30

Secretary: The usual hand of business, records and letters, from before 1525 to about 1650D&K-S p. 8
Italic: Reached England about 1525 and spread after 1550. It had overtaken secretary by 1650.D&K-S pp. 9, 11–12
Who used which: The nobility and many gentry wrote italic and signed in it, while their secretaries wrote secretary. Most women who wrote were taught italic.Petti p. 19; D&K-S p. 10
Both at once: Many writers used both: secretary for English, italic for Latin, names and headingsPetti p. 19; D&K-S p. 9

Petti: A. G. Petti, English Literary Hands from Chaucer to Dryden (1977)
D&K-S: G. E. Dawson and L. Kennedy-Skipton, Elizabethan Handwriting 1500–1650 (1966)
Hector: L. C. Hector, The Handwriting of English Documents (1958)
Spufford: M. Spufford, 'First steps in literacy', Social History 4 (1979)

Facts from these sources, in our own words. Page numbers are the printed pages.