How are the manuscripts dated?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘Documentary Evidence, Textual Criticism and Translation’ (2007).

Sometimes people have used carbon-14 methods, but carbon-14 has such a wide area of doubt that it is frequently so that you can't get the same accuracy of dating by that method as you can by what is called palaeography. Palaeography is a study of the style of writing—the way people shape their letters—and the style of writing differs all down the centuries. If you are used to looking at manuscripts you can tell what sort of manuscript it is—'I can tell that one is mediaeval,' you would say. That is how the experts in these matters tend to date manuscripts.