Daniel said:

>thanks, the use is unchanged then. this rings a bell now with the
>little history I learned in calligraphy training. so does the history
>follow as: letter glyps were the "caps" as we label them today, they
>were enlarged for emphasis, small (unemphasized) letters then morphed
>into the their own shapes over time?

Depends on what script, of course.

But no, what you have is monumental shapes being carved in stone (in
Latin and Greek anyway) and then at the same time over a period of
time their letterforms changed into "minuscules" for ease in writing
manuscript. At that time sometimes they were enlarged for emphasis or
decoration. At some stage in manuscript (certainly even in Old
English MSS the monumental capitals were mixed with minuscules. Case
evolved from this.
--
Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com