Blackletter

Blackletter is also known as Gothic minuscule or Gothic script. It was a script used in Western Europe from arounf 1150 to 17th century and was used in the Gothenburg Bible which is one of the first books printed in Europe. The style of Blackletter features dramatic thin and bold thick strokes and some of the letters has got swirls as well. The Blackletter also features condensed lettering and tight spacing which helps to reduce the amount of printings and money for book production. The Blackletter developed firther during mid twelfth century and more different styles of Blackletters appeared such as Textura, Rotunda, Schwabacher and Fraktur. 

Robert Bringhurst :  "Blackletter is the typographic counterpoint to the Gothic style in architecture."

http://dab1nmslvvntp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/BlackletterChart.png

From Type and National Identity by Peter Bain and Paul Shaw.

"Blackletter type is often misleadingly referred to as either Old English or gothic, two terms that are only partially accurate. Blackletter is an all encompassing term used to describe the scripts of the Middle Ages in which the darkness of the characters overpowers the whiteness of the page.

The basic blackletter scripts are textura and rotunda, the former primarily asscoiated with northern Europe and the latter with southern Europe. These are both book scripts.

Bastarda, a third category of blackletter origionallly confined to documents, was elevated to formal status in the 15th century French and Burgundian book of hours... Rotunda types soon followed, cut by printers in Switzerland, and more importantly in Italy.

After 1480 schwabacher types, based on local bastarda traditions, appeared in Bohemia, Switzerland and the German status.

Fraktur, another bastarda-influenced type style, developed from Imperial Chancery hands during the reign of Maximilian I. Its name is derived from the broken curves that distinguish many letters."

Website references:
- http://www.designhistory.org/Handwriting_pages/Blackletter.html
- http://www.sitepoint.com/the-blackletter-typeface-a-long-and-colored-history/