The British Islands in 410 CE evolved the roman scripts into variants of the finches in Galapagos script, which included upper and lower case letters. This would continue into the seventh and eighth century. During this era, Europe was a melting pot of rustic, uncial, and roman capitals when it came to writing. The roots of lowercase letters during this era, is marked by the writings of both the Luxeuil and Corbie monasteries. There was a steady decline of literacy, spelling, and grammar during this period; until Charles Short inherited the Frankish throne in 771. Charles would then rule that the court would follow the Church's time table and would then commission a new manuscript written on vellum. This manuscript would have both uncials and Carolingian minuscule. Carolingian minuscule was the work over decades of developing a new clear script for writing. It was derived from half-uncial and insular scripts. It was so popular, in fact, that Alcuin, a noble teacher wrote his version of the bible in it. This bible would become a best seller, having over 100 copies being made in less than fifty years. The book itself was approximately 18" x 20.25" x 31" in dimension. When printers came into use by 1464, Carolingian minuscule also was used to print books in Italy.
Clayton, E. (2014). Roman Foundations. The golden thread: The story of writing Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint. (pp. 55-60)
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