THIS book is a successful attempt to take its readers into the scriptorium for a close look, introducing them to the ‘‘blood, urine, excrement and earwax” needed in the writing of a medieval manuscript. Except for the occasional “sign-off” by the scribe or illustrator, little contemporary visual portrayal of scribes at work survives to aid the mind’s eye; but much has been reconstructed in this readable account.
The late-11th-century Hugo Pictor is to be seen on the cover of this book in his well-known picture of himself in a blue robe at the end of Bodleian manuscript Bodl. 717, in which he had provided illuminations for Jerome’s Commentary on Isaiah. He would surely have been pleased to have his endeavours explained to the modern reader so clearly and accessibly.
Sara Charles begins each chapter with a lively fictional episode in italic. In the introduction and the first chapter, she begins at the beginning, explaining the inception of “writing” historically, on clay or wax tables in which the scriptor incised symbols, and then, as alphabets became available, used letters to form words.
Scripts developed styles for different purposes. “Uncial” Christian script was widely used by the fourth century. Papyrus replaced clay and wax and, in due course, vellum; and then paper became the norm. Texts written on flexible supports were rolled before the codex was invented and the first books appeared. Early Christian codices differed from classical texts in leaving spaces between the words.
The second chapter moves on to monasticism in the West between 500 and 1050. That brought together communities of literate monks. Book-hungry, they borrowed books from other houses to make their own copies. It is possible to trace different hands in a copy. Where the manuscript was illuminated, unfinished copies show that a series of contributors built them up in stages.
The third chapter addresses the main question of this book. Was a scriptorium an actual place (locus scribendi) where the writing was done? Medieval mentions are explored. They give a guide to the procurement of materials, and the seating and writing tables needed. Although pictures of scribes at work usually show a single figure, sometimes more than one may be shown together.
In chapter four, the preparation of parchment and ink is described, with paper coming into use only at the end of the Middle Ages, ready to make printing a possibility. Ink might be made from its ingredients, but it was also possible to buy it ready-made, to be diluted into a usable writing material. Chapter five moves on to “illumination” and “painting” and the materials that they needed, including additional preparation of the surface. Gold was attached leaf by leaf and fixed using egg white.
Then comes a chapter on what is known as the “long 12th century”, covering the late 11th century, the Romanesque period, and continuing some way into the 13th. From about 1200, the invention of universities created an expanding demand for copies of the set books, which lecturers expounded by reading them with their students. In Oxford (Catte Street) and Paris (Rue Neuve Notre-Dame), book-making streets brought together the trades needed to make the manuscripts. Bookshops provided students with a succession of rented “gatherings” of sections of a text to help them to keep up.
A final chapter covers the “end” of the scriptorium with the invention of printing. There are instructive illustrations, maps of centres of book-production in the British Isles and Europe, and an extensive bibliography.
Dr G. R. Evans is Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History in the University of Cambridge.
The Medieval Scriptorium: Making books in the Middle Ages
Sara J. Charles
Reaktion Books £16.99
(978-1-78914-916-6)
Church Times Bookshop £15.29