In case any of you were wondering why the study of handwriting matters, and why the elimination of the chair in paleography at King’s College London is a grave loss: Below is an image containing four discrete pieces of late medieval English writing (compiled together as a comparative collection). Can you decipher any of them?
Anyone who successfully deciphers all four may choose a topic or question on which I will write a future blog post.
Clue #1 (02/10/2010): All four words are in fact numerals.
Clue #2 (02/11/2010): They are Roman numerals, each six characters in length.
Glossographia 
I haven’t got my Capelli’s to hand, but I think they all say ‘prolim’ – just a guess.
Trish – good guess, but unfortunately incorrect.
If they all say the same thing, I’m going to guess “MVI” or 1006, just based on the top-right one.
Sol – Nope, although I will tell you that you are correct (possibly – I’ll explain later) that they all say the same thing.
To me, all but the last one looks like MVII, but I would hazard a guess it says that too.
Stirling – Good guess – I promise, though, that each numeral contains six characters.
what is it? :)