The terms “uppercase" and “lowercase" come from the way in which print shops were organized hundreds of years ago. Individual pieces of metal type were kept in boxes called cases. The smaller letters, which were used most often, were kept in a lower case that was easier to reach.

Who invented capitalization?

By the 8th century there are a lot of different script sizes and variations with various flourishes. It is believed the the Carolingian chancellery scribes simplified and formalized upper and lower case alphabets and script type for purposes of communications across Charlemagne's empire.

When was capitalization invented?

Capital letters in Modern English derive from an Old Roman script used in the a.d. 200s. In those days, all caps was all there was! Lowercase letters hadn't been invented yet, so capital letters were used for everything.