Editing Scriptorium (section)

==Books and transcription in monastic life==

Manuscript-writing was a laborious process in an ill-lit environment that could damage one's health. One prior complained in the tenth century:

<blockquote> 
"''Only try to do it yourself and you will learn how arduous is the writer's task. It dims your eyes, makes your back ache, and knits your chest and belly together. It is a terrible ordeal for the whole body''".<ref>Quoted in: Greer, Germaine. ''The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work''. Tauris Parke, 2001. p. 155.</ref> 
</blockquote>

The director of a monastic scriptorium would be the ''armarius'' ("provisioner"), who provided the scribes with their materials and supervised the copying process. However, the armarius had other duties as well. At the beginning of Lent, the armarius was responsible for making sure that all of the monks received books to read,<ref name="accessed 2 May 2007"/> but he also had the ability to deny access to a particular book. By the 10th century the armarius had specific liturgical duties as well, including singing the eighth [[responsory]], holding the lantern aloft when the abbot read, and approving all material to be read aloud in church, chapter, and [[refectory]].<ref>Fassler, Margot E., "The Office of the Cantor in Early Western Monastic Rules and Customaries," in ''Early Music History'', 5 (1985), pp. 35, 40, 42.</ref>

While at Vivarium c. 540–548, Cassiodorus wrote a commentary on the Psalms entitled ''Expositio Psalmorum'' as an introduction to the Psalms for individuals seeking to enter the monastic community. The work had a broad appeal outside of Cassiodorus' monastery as the subject of monastic study and reflection.

Abbot [[Johannes Trithemius]] of Sponheim wrote a letter, ''De Laude Scriptorum'' (In Praise of Scribes), to Gerlach, Abbot of Deutz in 1492 to describe for monks the merits of copying texts. Trithemius contends that the copying of texts is central to the model of monastic education, arguing that transcription enables the monk to more deeply contemplate and come to a more full understanding of the text. He then continues to praise scribes by saying "The dedicated scribe, the object of our treatise, will never fail to praise God, give pleasure to angels, strengthen the just, convert sinners, commend the humble, confirm the good, confound the proud and rebuke the stubborn".<ref name="Johannes Trithemius 1974 p.35">Johannes Trithemius, ''In Praise of Scribes (de Laude Scriptorum)'', Klaus Arnold, ed. (Lawrence, Kansas: Colorado Press, 1974), p. 35.</ref> Among the reasons he gives for continuing to copy manuscripts by hand, are the historical precedent of the ancient scribes and the supremacy of transcription to all other manual labor. This description of monastic writing is especially important because it was written after the first printing presses came into popular use. Trithemius addresses the competing technology when he writes, "The printed book is made of paper and, like paper, will quickly disappear. But the scribe working with parchment ensures lasting remembrance for himself and for his text".<ref name="Johannes Trithemius 1974 p.35"/> Trithemius also believes that there are works that are not being printed but are worth being copied.<ref>Johannes Trithemius, ''In Praise of Scribes (de Laude Scriptorum)'', Klaus Arnold, ed. (Lawrence, Kansas: Colorado Press, 1974), p. 65.</ref>

[[File:Manuscript-Alexander-Highsmith.jpeg|thumb|[[John White Alexander]], Manuscript Book mural (1896), Library of Congress [[Thomas Jefferson Building]], Washington, D.C.]]

In his comparison of modern and medieval scholarship, James J. O'Donnell describes monastic study in this way:

<blockquote> 
"''[E]ach Psalm would have to be recited at least once a week all through the period of study. In turn, each Psalm studied separately would have to be read slowly and prayerfully, then gone through with the text in one hand (or preferably committed to memory) and the commentary in the other; the process of study would have to continue until virtually everything in the commentary has been absorbed by the student and mnemonically keyed to the individual verses of scripture, so that when the verses are recited again the whole phalanx of Cassiodorian erudition springs up in support of the content of the sacred text''".<ref>{{cite web |first=James O. |last=O'Donnell |title=Cassiodorus |publisher=University of California Press |year=1979 |url=http://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/cassbook/chap5.html |access-date=13 November 2014}}</ref> 
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In this way, the monks of the Middle Ages came to intimately know and experience the texts that they copied. The act of transcription became an act of meditation and prayer, not a simple replication of letters.