The doubling of consonants, too, was often a matter of doubt, and the Middle Ages, possibly again for reasons of space, used many words with single consonants instead of two—­difficilimus, Salustius, consumare, comodum, opidum, fuise.  The letter h was the source of infinite trouble.  Sometimes it was surprisingly omitted, as in actenus, irundo, Oratius, ortus—­in the latter cases perhaps under Italian influence; sometimes it appears unexpectedly, as in Therentius, Theutonia, Thurcae, Hysidorus, habundare, and even haspirafio; or in abhominor, where it bolstered up the derivation from homo:  or it might change its place from one consonant to another, as in calchographus, cartha.  Papias found it a great trouble, and indeed was quite muddled with it, placing hyppocrita, hippomanes among the h’s, but hippopedes and several others under the i’s, though without depriving them of initial h.  In France, h between two short i’s was considered to need support, and so we find michi, nichil, occurring quite regularly.  The difficulty of i and y was met by the suppression of the latter; so that though it sometimes appears unexpectedly, as in hysteria, it is only treated as i.  Between f and ph there was much uncertainty; phas, phanum, prophanus are well-known forms, or conversely Christofer, flenbothomari, Flegeton.  B and p were often confused, as in babtizare, plasphemus; and p made its way into such words as ampnis, dampnum, alumpnus.  A triumph of absurd variation is achieved by Alexander Neckam, who begins a sentence ‘Coquinarii quocunt’.

With the increased learning of the Renaissance these varieties gradually disappear.  The printers, too, rendered good service in promoting uniformity, each firm having its standard orthography for doubtful cases, as printers do to-day.  The use of e for ae is abundant in the first books printed North of the Alps; but it steadily diminishes, and by 1500 has almost vanished.  In manuscripts, where it was easy to forget to add the cedilla, the plain e lasts much longer.  There was also confusion in the reverse direction.  Well into the sixteenth century the cedilla is often found wrongly added to words such as puer, equus, eruditus, epistola; in 1550 the Froben firm was still regularly printing aedo, aeditio; and in the index to an edition of Aquinas, Venice, 1593, aenigma and Aegyptus, spelt in this way, are only to be found under e.  Other forms of error persisted long.  To the end of his life Erasmus usually wrote irito, oportunus; in 1524 he could still use Oratius.  The town of Boppard on the Rhine he styles indifferently Bobardia or Popardia:  just as, much later, editors described the elder Camerarius of Bamberg as Bapenbergensis in 1583, as Pabepergensis in 1595.  As late as 1540 a little book was printed in Paris to demonstrate that michi and nichil were incorrect.

In such a state of flux we need not wonder that the mediaeval writers of dictionaries found the alphabetical arrangement not the way of simplification they had hoped, but rather to be full of pitfalls; nor again that the men of the Renaissance thought the work of their predecessors so lamentably inadequate.  We shall do better to admire in both cases the brilliance and constancy which could achieve so much with such imperfect instruments.