Probatio pennae

As probatio pennae, a spring sample refers to the handwritten traces left by practicing with a pen and ink recorder. Such traces are found not infrequently in ancient manuscripts or as marginalia to the unprinted edges before printing units as well as their non-printed sides and intentions.

Most of the writers tried out the swing of spring with the words and signs that they needed in their manuscript; in some cases literary certificates were handed down by such a finger exercise, for example, some verses from the arms of Heinrich Hartmann von Aue.

As a template for the writing exercises often served the Proba centum scripturarum, a writing sample book that had the Benedictine and writer monk Leonhard Wagner (1453-1522) worked since 1507 as a teacher, mainly in St. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg, but also in other monasteries worked.