A book hand was any of several stylized handwriting scripts used during ancient and medieval times. It was intended for legibility and often used in transcribing official documents (prior to the development of printing and similar technologies).
In contrast to book hand's library or liturgical use cases, court hand developed as its cursive counterpart for business and departmental record keeping throughout the 12th to 17th centuries.
In palaeography and calligraphy, the term hand is still used to refer to a named style of writing, such as the chancery hand.