Product Code Database
A hornbook ( horn-book) is a single-sided alphabet tablet, which served from medieval times as a primer for study, (1897). 9780405090356, The Leadenhall Press. ISBN 9780405090356 and sometimes included vowel combinations, numerals or short verse. (1969). 9780713515336, G. Bell and Sons Ltd. ISBN 9780713515336 The hornbook was in common use in England around 1450, but may have originated more than a century earlier.Plimpton, George A. "The Hornbook and Its Use in America". Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 26 (1916): 264-72. The term (hornbook) has been applied to different study materials in different fields but owes its origin to children's education, represented by a sheet of vellum or paper displaying the alphabet, religious verse, etc., protected with a translucent covering of horn (or mica) and attached to a frame provided with a handle. Definition of hornbook from dictionary.com
Hornbooks consist of a lesson sheet illustrating the letters of the alphabet, mounted on a paddle of wood, bone, leather, silver, lead alloy or stone and protected by a thin sheet of translucent horn, or mica, held in place by narrow brass strips (latten) tacked through the horn to the paddle to protect the lesson sheet.Folmsbee, B. Op. Cit., pp 5-14 The paddle often had a handle with a hole for a cord or ribbon suspended from the child's girdle at their waist. The lesson sheet, which was first of vellum and later of paper, were typically inscribed with a large cross, followed by alphabet letters, numbers and in later version, short verse. Hornbooks displayed letters of the alphabet, a and prayers for novice readers. Andrew Tuer described a typical hornbook with a line separating the lower case and capital letters from the syllabary. This syllabarium or syllabary, likely added to the hornbook in 1596, taught pronunciations of vowel and consonant combinations.Bailey M.L, Op. Cit., p 10
These syllables are possible ancestors to the modern instructional practice of new readers working with Syllable onset and syllable in word families. From the first hornbook, the alphabet format cemented the learning progression from syllables to words. The inscriptions appear either in block print (illustrated upper left), best suited for learning to read or hand-written (illustrated lower right), best suited for learning to write.Tuer A.W, Op. Cit., p 11
Present
oak Hornbook]]The memory of "hornbooks" in modern culture has faded partly because of the extreme scarcity of original exemplars as they fell out of use. Hornbooks were educational tools for children, but children had other uses for hornbooks, which contributed further to their dearth.Bailey, M.L. Op. Cit., pp12-134Folmsbee, B. Op. Cit., p 4 By the time that antiquarians had realised their lack in the 19th century, it was too late; most had been destroyed.Tuer A.W, Op. Cit., p 7 Those few authentic hornbooks in existence today are preserved either because of their intrinsic value (their owners were rich and famous e.g. Queen Elizabeth I), or because they were mislaid by their owners, lost beneath floor-boards, behind panelling, lodged in thatched rafters, or more recently buried, in various states of preservation. The rarity of hornbooks increased their value in the 19th century, which when combined with gaps in knowledge, opened the doors to counterfeit.Tuer, A.W. Op. Cit., pp 178-190 Even the name itself (hornbook) has been appropriated, becoming synonymous with child education (e.g. The Horn Book Magazine), as a benchmark for essential education (e.g. Hornbook (law)), or used as a pejorative term (e.g. poorly educated). Today, there are certainly many more "spurious" hornbooks in circulation than genuine but, in the absence of verified exemplars, skilled counterfeit can be hard to discount.
Memory preserved in art
Images of hornbooks are variously preserved in the margins of old manuscripts,Tuer, A.W. Op. Cit., p453 as a prop in portraiture (illustrated above) or referred to in verse:
Have seen her glued unto that piece of cedar,
That fine well-timber'd gallant; and that here
The letters may be read, through the horn,
That make the story perfect.
Use in United States legal education
In United States law, a hornbook is a text that gives an overview of a particular area of law. A law hornbook is a type of legal treatise, usually one volume, which could be a briefer version of a longer, multi-volume treatise. Students in American often use hornbooks as supplements to .
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