The style is called Blackletter or Gothic script. It was very common (maybe the most common) in Europe for several hundred years. When I was little, it had pret

The style is called Blackletter or Gothic script. It was very common (maybe the most common) in Europe for several hundred years. When I was little, it had pretty much disappeared in the UK, and I only discovered it as a curiosity in a handful of books in my mum's old book collection. Apparently, when she was at school they were still taught to read it as part of learning German as most of the German texts they were given used it.