Cerne — A Ninth-Century Script Font

The Cerne font is based on the Book of Cerne, a ninth-century prayerbook the main script of which is a beautiful pointed insular minuscule, cursive in appearance and yet formal. The font has two modes: modern (the default), in which letters likely to confuse modern readers have been replaced with more familiar shapes, and historic, which approximates the look of the original script. It is a color font: the script is reddish brown, capitals are filled by default with pale red, yellow, green or blue, and lowercase letters, accents, and punctuation can be filled as well (but by default are not).

The browsers I have tested all support color fonts: Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Edge. If your browser is not displaying color, but rather plain black text, try upgrading your browser to the latest version. If that fails, please open an issue at the development site.

The box below is editable: play with English, Latin or Old English text or enter (type or paste) your own. Have fun with the colors by checking the various boxes.

The font is not yet complete: download here, and use at your own risk.

Cerne font copyright © 2021 by Peter S. Baker.

Development Site

Licensed under the Open Font License, v. 1.1.