"Since the 4th millennium B.C., scribes have
created books from within scriptoria. Before the
invention of moveable type, all books were written
by hand, and any copies, likewise were generated
manually. The book itself has seen radical
metamorphosis.
The first writings that can be called books were
made on clay tablets. The scribe, using a stylus,
wrote in the soft clay, and errors could be easily
smoothed over and corrected. After the clay
dried, it was an indelible book. Waxed boards
were an improvement over clay tablets as regards
to ease of handling and storage. As with clay,
errors in wax could be smoothed over and
corrected, and in addition, the waxed boards
could be reused later if necessary. Papyrus,
parchment, and paper were the next successive
developments which facilitated the creation of
books closer to the form we know today.
Papyrus books were in the form of scrolls or rolls.
Later, (c. 4th century) the parchment codex, a
loose-leaf manuscript, ultimately replaced the
papyrus scroll. There seems to have always been
a need to reuse writing materials, and during the
7th through the 9th centuries, many parchment
manuscripts from the 5th through the 7th
centuries were shaved, scrubbed and scoured to
be ready for rewriting. These "recycled" parchments are called palimpsests. Then in the
13th century, paper began displacing parchment.
All of this evolution in the book was accompanied
by one constant, the scriptorium. Scribes in
Hebrew history transcribed the books of the Law,
and the very earliest Christian cenobites copied
Biblical books, and other Christian writings. St.
Pachomius (292-346), founder of the first
cenobitic Christian community, does not mention
scribes in his Rule, however, other documents of
the period or shortly after his death confirm their
presence in his monasteries. St. Jerome
(331-420) saw the scriptorium as a source of
revenue for the monasteries - and for the monks,
a stimulus for reading.
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The director of the scriptorium, the armarius,
gave necessary instructions, assigned tasks,
distributed writing materials, and managed all
writing, art work, and collating. Copying text was
the scribe's primary task. Rubrics, ornate initials,
and other decorative flourishes were added to the
pages by the rubricators and/or miniators. Very
rarely was the scribe, rubricator, and miniator the
same monk.
The scribe, before writing, however, cut the
parchment into the desired size, which varied
greatly depending upon the client's instruction,
the purpose of the book, and the style of the
period and locale. Some books were pocket-size
prayerbooks, while others were large choir books
to be used in the monastery church. For cutting
the parchment, the scribe was given a sharp,
curved knife (novacula or rasorium) and a ruler
(regula, linula, norma, canon, or præductale). If
the parchment was torn or damaged, the scribe
would effect repair with glue or often sewing
artistic designs with needle and thread of
varicolored silk
The work of the scribes, miniators, and
rubricators was meticulous and painstaking, and
the armarii took great care to insure the absence
of errors. During the Middle Ages, to certify copy
fidelity, formulae tracing back to the ancient
Orient were often appended to manuscripts. St.
Jerome, who maintained his own personal
scriptorium and staff of scribes, has transmitted
such a formula of St. Irenaeus (d.202): "You who
will transcribe this book, I charge you, in the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His glorious
Second Coming, in which He will come to judge
the living and dead, compare what you have
copied against the original and correct it carefully.
Furthermore, transcribe this adjuration and place
it in the copy." (De Viris illustribus 35)
It should be comforting for us to know that in the
face of such a weighty admonition, the scribes
had the liberty of some personal expression (by
permission, of course) within the manuscripts they
copied. Hebrew scribes would often add at the
ends of books the words Amen, Sela, or Salom,
meaning, respectively, "So be it!", "Pause!" and
"Peace!" Latin monks, in addition to using the
now Christianized word Amen, added functional
terms such as Explicuit, "The End", or Explicuit
feliciter, "Thank goodness it's finished!", or other
expressions of relief.
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As today, the basic unit of the book was the
double sheet, diploma, plicatura, or rarely arcus.
Once folded, these diplomae were gathered
inside one another, just as books are gathered
today. Unlike today, it was a difficult task
coordinating a large number of diplomae so that
facing folia (individual pages) were in proper
numerical order, hence, the largest mediæval
book was usually a sexternion, or six diplomae.
Naturally smaller books were also made: five
diplomae or quinternion, four diplomae or
quaternion, and likewise ternion, and binion. On
the European continent until the 12th century
quaternions were the most popular book, with
binions, ternions, and quinternions not too far
behind in popularity.
Curiously, the preference of the Irish, as well as
that of the ancients, was the quinternion. In the
13th century, possibly as a result of the benefits
of the paper codex, sexternions became plentiful,
and even books of ten diplomae, decaternion
were made.
As mentioned above, St. Jerome maintained his
own personal scriptorium, as did other influential
men of the time such as Origen and St. Augustine
of Hippo. According to St. Clement of Alexandria
(d.c. 215), as early as the 5th century B.C.
Anaxagoras employed his private scriptorium, as
did Atticus in the time of Cicero.
The scriptoria were producing their last
parchment books in the 14th and on into the 15th
century. The paper codex was having its sway.
However, even as late as the 17th century,
parchment was used for precious liturgical
volumes and collectors' books (nostalgia is
nothing new). The 15th century invention of the
printing press cast an ominous shadow on the
monks' scriptoria.