Editing Scriptorium

{{short description|Room in medieval European monasteries for writing}}
{{for|the website|Scriptorium (website)}}
[[File:BL Royal Vincent of Beauvais.jpg|thumb|Miniature of [[Vincent of Beauvais]] writing in a manuscript of the ''Speculum Historiale'' in French, Bruges, c. 1478–1480, [[British Library]] Royal 14 E. i, vol. 1, f. 3, probably representing the library of the [[Dukes of Burgundy]].]]

A '''scriptorium''' ({{IPAc-en|audio=En-us-scriptorium.ogg|s|k|r|ɪ|p|ˈ|t|ɔːr|i|ə|m}})<ref>{{Cite OED|term=scriptorium|id=3383765628}}</ref> was a writing room in medieval European [[monasteries]] for the copying and [[Illuminated manuscript|illuminating]] of [[manuscripts]] by [[scribes]].<ref name="Kauffmann">{{Cite book |last=Kauffmann |first=Martin |title=Grove Art Online |date=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |language=en |chapter=Scriptorium |doi=10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.t077202 |isbn=978-1-884446-05-4 |chapter-url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:246f3a57-cf61-41d2-bf6e-c067179ffe36}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Stones |first=Alison |date=2014-06-01 |title=Scriptorium: The term and its history |journal=Perspective |issue=1 |pages=113–120 |doi=10.4000/perspective.4401 |issn=1777-7852 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

The term has perhaps been over-used—only some monasteries had special rooms set aside for scribes. Often they worked in the monastery library or in their own rooms. Most medieval images of scribing show single figures in well-appointed studies, although these are generally [[author portrait]]s of well-known authors or translators. Increasingly, lay scribes and illuminators from outside the monastery also assisted the clerical scribes.<ref name="Kauffmann"/> By the later Middle Ages secular manuscript workshops were common, and many monasteries bought more books than they produced themselves.

== The functional outset ==
[[File:Tavernier Jean Mielot.jpg|thumb|Late 15th-century miniature of the author and translator [[Jean Miélot]] (died 1472)<ref>De Hamel, 1992, p. 36</ref> 
depicts him writing his compilation of the ''Miracles of Our Lady'', one of his many popular works.]]

When monastic institutions arose in the early sixth century (the first European monastic writing dates from 517), they defined European literary culture and selectively preserved the literary history of the West. Monks copied [[Jerome|Jerome's]] [[Latin Vulgate Bible]] and the commentaries and letters of early [[Church Fathers]] for missionary purposes as well as for use within the monastery.

In the copying process, there was typically a division of labor among the monks who readied the parchment for copying by smoothing and chalking the surface, those who ruled the parchment and copied the text, and those who illuminated the text. Sometimes a single monk would engage in all of these stages to prepare a manuscript.<ref>Barbara A. Shailor, ''The Medieval Book'', (Toronto: U Toronto Press, 1991), p. 68.</ref> 
The [[Illuminated manuscript|illuminators of manuscripts]] worked in collaboration with scribes in intricate varieties of interaction that preclude any simple understanding of monastic manuscript production.<ref>cf. Aliza Muslin-Cohen, ''A Medieval Scriptorium: St. maria Magdalena de Frankenthal'' series Wolfenbüttler Mittelalter Studien (Wiesbaden) 1990.</ref>

The products of the monasteries provided a valuable medium of exchange.
Comparisons of characteristic regional, periodic as well as contextual styles of [[handwriting]] do reveal social and cultural connections among them, as new hands developed and were disseminated by travelling individuals, respectively what these individuals represented, and by the examples of manuscripts that passed from one cloister to another. 
Recent studies follow the approach, that ''scriptoria'' developed in relative isolation, to the extent that [[Paleography|paleographers]] are sometimes able to identify the product of each writing centre and to date it accordingly.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=McKitterick |first=Rosamond |date=1990-03-01 |title=Carolingian Book Production: Some Problems |journal=The Library |language=en |volume=s6-12 |issue=1 |pages=1–33 |doi=10.1093/library/s6-12.1.1 |issn=1744-8581}}</ref>

By the start of the 13th century, secular workshops developed,<ref>
De Hamel, 1992, p. 5</ref> 
where professional scribes stood at writing-desks to work the orders of customers, and during the [[Late Middle Ages]] the [[Praxis (process)|praxis]] of writing was becoming not only confined to being generally a monastic or regal activity. However, the practical consequences of private workshops, and as well the invention of the [[printing press]] vis-a-vis monastic ''scriptoria'' is a complex theme.<ref>
for example, cf. De Hamel, 1992, p. 5</ref>

There is also evidence that women scribes, in religious or secular contexts, produced texts in the [[Middle Ages|medieval period]]. Archaeologists identified [[lapis lazuli]], a pigment used in the decoration of medieval illuminated manuscripts, embedded in the dental calculus of remains found in a religious women's community in Germany, which dated to the 11th-12th centuries.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Radini |first1=A. |last2=Tromp |first2=M. |last3=Beach |first3=A. |last4=Tong |first4=E. |last5=Speller |first5=C. |last6=McCormick |first6=M. |last7=Dudgeon |first7=J. V. |last8=Collins |first8=M. J. |last9=Rühli |first9=F. |last10=Kröger |first10=R. |last11=Warinner |first11=C. |date=2019-01-04 |title=Medieval women's early involvement in manuscript production suggested by lapis lazuli identification in dental calculus |journal=Science Advances |language=en |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=eaau7126 |doi=10.1126/sciadv.aau7126 |issn=2375-2548 |pmc=6326749 |pmid=30662947|bibcode=2019SciA....5.7126R }}</ref> [[Chelles Abbey]], established in France during the early medieval period, was also well known for its scriptorium, where nuns produced manuscripts and religious texts.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Scholarship in Women's Communities, from Suzanne Wemple's Women in Frankish Society . {{!}} Monastic Matrix |url=https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/monasticmatrix/commentaria/scholarship-women%E2%80%99s-communities-suzanne-wemples-women-frankish-society |access-date=2022-10-18 |website=arts.st-andrews.ac.uk}}</ref> There is also evidence of Jewish women working as scribes of Hebrew texts from the 13th to 16th centuries, though these women primarily worked out of their homes rather than religious institutions, as daughters and wives of scribes.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last1=Riegler |first1=Micheal |last2=Baskin |first2=Judith |date=2008 |title='May the Writer be Strong:' Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts Copied by and for Women |journal=Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues |volume=16 |issue=16 |pages=9–28 |doi=10.2979/nas.2008.-.16.9 |s2cid=161946788 |jstor=10.2979/nas.2008.-.16.9}}</ref> Women were not only the producers of these texts, but could also be the consumers or commissioners of them.<ref name=":1" /> There were also women who worked as professional, secular scribes, including [[Clara Hätzlerin]] in 15th century [[Augsburg]], who has at least nine surviving manuscripts signed by or attributed to her.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Feminae: Details Page |url=https://inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/DetailsPage.aspx?Feminae_ID=10021 |access-date=2022-10-18 |website=inpress.lib.uiowa.edu}}</ref>

[[File:Scriptorium - 15th Century - Project Gutenberg eText 16531.jpg|thumb|left|Saint Matthew in a mediæval scriptorium (''Book of Prayers'', 15th century ([[British Library]], Sloane MS 2468)<ref>
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16531 "Old St. Paul's Cathedral"] William Benham, 1902. (gutenberg.org). 
[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16531/16531-h/16531-h.htm#plate24 Plate 24]. 
Please also note [http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=18578 Sloane MS 2468]</ref> 
]]

==The physical scriptorium==
Much as medieval libraries do not correspond to the exalted sketches from [[Umberto Eco]]'s ''[[The Name of the Rose]]'',<ref>[https://medievalfragments.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/library-or-labyrinth/ "Library or labyrinth" Irene O'Daly. January 11, 2013 (medievalfragments.wordpress.com)]</ref> it seems that ancient written accounts, as well as surviving buildings, and archaeological excavations do not invariably attest to the evidence of scriptoria.<ref>[https://medievalfragments.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/pondering-the-physical-scriptorium/ "Pondering the physical scriptorium" Jenneka Janzen. January 25, 2013 by medievalfragments (medievalfragments.wordpress.com)]</ref> Scriptoria, in the physical sense of a room set aside for the purpose, perhaps mostly existed in response to specific scribal projects; for example, when a monastic (and) or regal institution wished a large number of texts copied.

References in modern scholarly writings to 'scriptoria' typically refer to the collective written output of a monastery, somewhat like the [[Chancery (medieval office)|chancery]] in the early regal times is taken to refer to a specific fashion of modelling formulars, but especially traditional is the view that scriptoria was a necessary adjunct to a library, as per the entry in du Cange, 1678 'scriptorium'.<ref>Du Cange, et al., ''Glossarium mediae et infimae Latinitatis'', Niort: L. Favre, 1883–1887 (10 vol.). [http://ducange.enc.sorbonne.fr/SCRIPTORIUM Scriptorium]</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Celenza|first1=Christopher S.|title=Creating Canons in Fifteenth-Century Ferrara: Angelo Decembrio's "De politia litteraria," 1.10|journal=Renaissance Quarterly|date=Spring 2004 |volume=57 |issue=1|pages=43–98|publisher=The University of Chicago Press|jstor=1262374|quote="Since the early medieval days of the foundling monastic orders, the library and the scriptorium had been linked. For the most part, the library was a storage space. Reading was done elsewhere."}}</ref>

===San Giovanni Evangelista, Rimini===
At this church whose patron was [[Galla Placidia]] (died 450), paired rectangular chambers flanking the apse, accessible only from each aisle, have been interpreted as paired (Latin and Greek) libraries and perhaps scriptoria.<ref>Janet Charlotte Smith, "The Side Chambers of San Giovanni Evangelista in Ravenna: Church Libraries of the Fifth Century" ''Gesta,'' '''29'''.1 (1990): 86–97)</ref> The well-lit niches half a meter deep, provisions for [[hypocaust]]s beneath the floors to keep the spaces dry, have prototypes in the architecture of Roman libraries.<ref>E. Mackowiecka, ''The Origin and the Evolution of the Architectural Forms of the Roman Library'' (Warsaw) 1978, noted by Smith 1990.</ref>

===Cassiodorus and the Vivarium===
The monastery built in the second quarter of the 6th century under the supervision of [[Cassiodorus]] at [[Vivarium (monastery)|the Vivarium]] near [[Squillace]] in southern Italy contained a scriptorium, for the purpose of collecting, copying, and preserving texts.

Cassiodorus' description of his monastery contained a purpose-built scriptorium, with a [[sundial]], a [[water-clock]], and a "perpetual lamp," that is, one that supplied itself with oil from a reservoir.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Perpetual Lamps |journal=Our Boys and Girls |date=February 15, 1868 |volume=3 |issue=59 |page=112 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KhwIU5qXGY4C&pg=PA112 |access-date=22 January 2019|last1=Optic |first1=Oliver }}</ref> The scriptorium would also have contained desks where the monks could sit and copy texts, as well as the necessary ink wells, penknives, and quills. Cassiodorus also established a library where, at the [[Decline of the Roman Empire|end of the Roman Empire]], he attempted to bring Greek learning to Latin readers and to preserve texts both sacred and secular for future generations. As its unofficial librarian, Cassiodorus collected as many manuscripts as he could, he also wrote treatises aimed at instructing his monks in the proper uses of texts. In the end, however, the library at the Vivarium was dispersed and lost, though it was still active around 630.

===Cistercians===
The scriptoria of the [[Cistercian]] order seem to have been similar to those of the Benedictines. The mother house at [[Cîteaux]], one of the best-documented high-medieval scriptoria, developed a severe "house style" in the first half of the 12th century. The 12th-century scriptorium of [[Cîteaux]] and its products, in the context of Cistercian scriptoria, have been studied by Yolanta Załuska, ''L'enluminure et le scriptorium de Cîteaux au XIIe siècle'' (Brecht:Cîteaux) 1989.

== Institutions ==
In [[Byzantium]] or [[Eastern Roman Empire]] learning maintained importance and numerous monastic 'scriptoria' were known for producing Bible/Gospel illuminations, along with workshops that copied numerous classical and Hellenistic works.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Books : a living history|last=Martyn|first=Lyons|date=2011|publisher=J. Paul Getty Museum|isbn=9781606060834|location=Los Angeles|oclc=707023033}}</ref> Records show that one such monastic community was that of [[Mount Athos]], which maintained a variety of illuminated manuscripts and ultimately accumulated over 10,000 books.<ref name=":0" />

===Benedictines===
Cassiodorus' contemporary, [[Benedict of Nursia]], allowed his monks to read the great works of the pagans in the monastery he founded at [[Monte Cassino]] in 529. The creation of a library here initiated the tradition of Benedictine scriptoria, where the copying of texts not only provided materials needed in the routines of the community and served as work for hands and minds otherwise idle, but also produced a marketable end-product. Saint [[Jerome]] stated that the products of the scriptorium could be a source of revenue for the monastic community, but Benedict cautioned, "If there be skilled workmen in the monastery, let them work at their art in all humility".<ref>''Rule of Saint Benedict'', Chapter 57, [http://www.kansasmonks.org/RuleOfStBenedict.html#ch57 Kansasmonks.org], accessed 2 May 2007.</ref>

In the earliest Benedictine monasteries, the writing room was actually a corridor open to the central quadrangle of the [[cloister]].<ref>Fr. Landelin Robling OSB, ''Monastic Scriptoria'', [http://www.osb.org/gen/robling/03script.html#location OSB.org], accessed 2 May 2007.</ref> The space could accommodate about twelve monks, who were protected from the elements only by the wall behind them and the vaulting above. Monasteries built later in the Middle Ages placed the scriptorium inside, near the heat of the kitchen or next to the [[calefactory]]. The warmth of the later scriptoria served as an incentive for unwilling monks to work on the transcription of texts (since the charter house was rarely heated).

====St. Gall====
The Benedictine [[Plan of St. Gall]] is a sketch of an idealised monastery dating from 819 to 826, which shows the scriptorium and [[Carolingian Libraries|library]] attached to the northeast corner of the main body of the church; this is not reflected by the evidence of surviving monasteries. Although the purpose of the plan is unknown, it clearly shows the desirability of scriptoria within a wider body of monastic structures at the beginning of the 9th century.<ref>A.C. Murray, ''After Rome's Fall,'' (Toronto: University Toronto Press, 1998), pp. 262, 283.</ref>

===Cistercians===
There is evidence that in the late 13th century, the Cistercians would allow certain monks to perform their writing in a small cell "which could not... contain more than one person".<ref>George Haven Putnam, ''Books and their Makers During the Middle Ages'', (New York: Hillary House, 1962), 405.</ref> These cells were called scriptoria because of the copying done there, even though their primary function was not as a writing room.

===Carthusians===
The [[Carthusian]]s viewed copying religious texts as their missionary work to the greater [[Roman Catholic Church|Church]]; the strict solitude of the Carthusian order necessitated that the manual labor of the monks be practiced within their individual cells, thus many monks engaged in the transcription of texts. In fact, each cell was equipped as a copy room, with parchment, quill, inkwell, and ruler. Guigues du Pin, or Guigo, the architect of the order, cautioned, "Let the brethren take care the books they receive from the cupboard do not get soiled with smoke or dirt; books are as it were the everlasting food of our souls; we wish them to be most carefully kept and most zealously made."<ref>C.H.Lawrence, ''Medieval Monasticism'', Ed.2 (London & New York: Longman, 1989) 162.</ref>

===The Orthodox church===

====The Resava====

After the establishment of [[Manasija]] Monastery by [[Stefan Lazarević]] in the early 15th century, many educated monks have gathered there. They fostered copying and literary work that by its excellence and production changed the history of the South Slavic literature and languages spreading its influence all over the Orthodox [[Balkans]]. One of the most famous scholars of the so-called School of Resava was Constantine the Philosopher /Konstantin Filozof/, an influential writer and biographer of the founder of the school (Stefan Lazarević).

====Rača====
During the Turkish invasions of the Serbian lands (which lasted from the end of the 14th to the beginning of the 19th centuries) the monastery was an important centre of culture. The scriptorium of each monastery was a bastion of learning where illuminated manuscripts were being produced by monk-scribes, mostly Serbian liturgical books and Old Serbian ''Vita.'' [[hagiographies]] of kings and archbishops.

Numerous scribes of the Serbian Orthodox Church books—at the term of the 16th and the beginning of the 18th centuries—who worked in the [[Rača monastery]] are named in Serbian literature – "The Račans". Among the monk-scribes the most renown are the illuminator Hieromonk Hristifor Račanin, [[Kiprijan Račanin]], [[Jerotej Račanin]], [[Teodor Račanin]] and [[Gavril Stefanović Venclović]]. These are well-known Serbian monks and writers that are the link between literary men and women of the late medieval ([[Late Middle Ages]]) and [[Baroque]] periods in art, architecture and literature in particular.

==Monastic rules==
[[File:Meister des Codex Amiatus 001.jpg|thumb|left|[[Ezra]] in the [[Codex Amiatinus]], believed to be based on a portrait of [[Cassiodorus]] in his library. [[Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey]], before 716]]

===Cassiodorus' ''Institutes''===
Although it is not a monastic rule as such, [[Cassiodorus]] did write his ''Institutes'' as a teaching guide for the monks at Vivarium, the monastery he founded on his family's land in southern Italy. A classically educated Roman convert, Cassiodorus wrote extensively on scribal practices. He cautions over-zealous scribes to check their copies against ancient, trustworthy [[exemplar (manuscript)|exemplars]] and to take care not to change the inspired words of scripture because of grammatical or stylistic concerns. He declared "every work of the Lord written by the scribe is a wound inflicted on Satan", for "by reading the Divine Scripture he wholesomely instructs his own mind and by copying the precepts of the Lord he spreads them far and wide".<ref>Cassiodorus, Institutes, I, xxx</ref> It is important to note that Cassiodorus did include the classical texts of ancient Rome and Greece in the monastic library. This was probably because of his upbringing, but was, nonetheless, unusual for a monastery of the time. When his monks copied these texts, Cassiodorus encouraged them to amend texts for both grammar and style.<ref>James O. O'Donnell, ''Cassiodorus,'' University of Californian Press, 1979. Postprint online (1995), [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/texts/cassbook/chap6.html Upenn.edu], accessed 2 May 2007.</ref>

===Saint Benedict===
The more famous monastic treatise of the 7th century, Saint [[Benedict of Nursia]]'s [[Rule of St Benedict|Rule]], fails to mention the labor of transcription by name, though his institution, the monastery of [[Montecassino]], developed one of the most influential scriptoria, at its acme in the 11th century, which made the abbey "the greatest center of book production in South Italy in the High Middle Ages".<ref>Newton 1999:3; the scriptorium is fully examined in Francis Newton, ''The Scriptorium and Library at Monte Cassino, 1058–1105'', 1999.</ref> Here was developed and perfected the characteristic "Cassinese" [[Beneventan script]] under [[Desiderius of Montecassino|Abbot Desiderius]].

The [[Rule of Saint Benedict]] does explicitly call for monks to have ready access to books during two hours of compulsory daily reading and during [[Lent]], when each monk is to read a book in its entirety.<ref name="accessed 2 May 2007">''Rule of Saint Benedict'', Chapter 48, [http://www.kansasmonks.org/RuleOfStBenedict.html#ch48 Kansasmonks.org], accessed 2 May 2007.</ref> Thus each monastery was to have its own extensive collection of books, to be housed either in [[armaria|armarium]] (book chests) or a more traditional library. However, because the only way to obtain a large quantity of books in the [[Middle Ages]] was to copy them, in practice this meant that the monastery had to have a way to transcribe texts in other collections.<ref>Geo. Haven Putnam, ''Books and Their Makers During the Middle Ages'', (New York: Hillary House, 1962), p. 29.</ref> An alternative translation of Benedict's strict guidelines for the oratory as a place for silent, reverent prayer actually hints at the existence of a scriptorium. In Chapter 52 of his Rule, Benedict's warns: "Let the oratory be what it is called, and let nothing else be done or stored there".<ref>''Rule of Saint Benedict'', Chapter 52, [http://www.kansasmonks.org/RuleOfStBenedict.html#ch52 Kansasmonks.org], accessed 2 May 2007.</ref> But ''condatur'' translates both as ''stored'' and ''to compose or write,'' thus leaving the question of Benedict's intentions for manuscript production ambiguous.<ref>Fr. Landelin Robling OSB, ''Monastic Scriptoria'', [http://www.osb.org/gen/robling/07script.html#rules OSB.org], accessed 2 May 2007.</ref> The earliest commentaries on the [[Rule of Saint Benedict]] describe the labor of transcription as the common occupation of the community, so it is also possible that Benedict failed to mention the scriptorium by name because of the integral role it played within the monastery.

====Saint Ferréol====
Monastic life in the [[Middle Ages]] was strictly centered around [[Liturgy of the Hours|prayer]] and manual labor. In the early Middle Ages, there were many attempts to set out an organization and routine for monastic life. [[Charles Forbes René de Montalembert|Montalembert]] cites one such sixth-century document, the Rule of [[Ferréol of Uzès|Saint Ferréol]], as prescribing that "He who does not turn up the earth with the plough ought to write the parchment with his fingers."<ref>Montalembert, ''The Monks of the West from St. Benedict to St. Bernard'', vol. 6, (Edinburgh, 1861–1879) p. 191.</ref> As this implies, the labor required of a [[scribe]] was comparable to the exertion of agriculture and other outdoor work. Another of Montalembert's examples is of a scribal note along these lines: "He who does not know how to write imagines it to be no labour, but although these fingers only hold the pen, the whole body grows weary."<ref>Montalembert, ''The Monks of the West from St. Benedict to St. Bernard'', vol. 6, (Edinburgh, 1861–1879) p. 194.</ref>

===Cistercians===
An undated Cistercian ordinance, ranging in date from 1119 to 1152 (Załuska 1989) prescribed ''literae unius coloris et non depictae'' ("letters of one color and not ornamented"), that spread with varying degrees of literalness in parallel with the Cistercian order itself, through the priories of Burgundy and beyond.

In 1134, the Cistercian order declared that the monks were to keep silent in the scriptorium as they should in the [[cloister]].

==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> 
</blockquote>

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.

==See also==
;Phenomena 
* [[Manuscript]] 
* [[Codex]] 
* [[Manuscript culture]] 
* [[Plan of Saint Gall]] 
* [[Rule of Saint Benedict]] 
;Names 
* [[Cassiodorus]] 
* [[Johannes Gutenberg]] 
* [[James Murray (lexicographer)]] 
; Category 
* [[:Category:Books by century|Books by century]]

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==Sources==
*{{cite book|last1=De Hamel|first1=Christopher|title=Scribes and illuminators|date=1992|publisher=Univ. of Toronto Press|isbn=0802077072|edition=Repr.}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin}} 
* Alexander, J. J. G. Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. 
* Bischoff, Bernard, "Manuscripts in the Age of Charlemagne," in ''Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne,'' trans. Gorman, pp.&nbsp;20–55. Surveys regional scriptoria in the early Middle Ages. 
* [[Diringer, David]]. ''The Book Before Printing: Ancient, Medieval and Oriental''. New York: Dover, 1982. 
* Lawrence, C.H. ''Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages'', Ed. 2. London: Longman, 1989. 
* [[Samuel Roffey Maitland|Maitland, Samuel Roffey]]. ''The Dark Ages''. London : J.G.F. & J.Rivington, 1844. [https://archive.org/details/a591588100maituoft Archive.org] 
* McKitterick, Rosamond. "The Scriptoria of Merovingian Gaul: a survey of the evidence." In ''Books, Scribes and Learning in the Frankish Kingdoms, 6th–9th Centuries'', VII 1–35. Great Yarmouth: Gilliard, 1994. Originally published in H.B. Clarke and Mary Brennan, trans., ''Columbanus and Merovingian Monasticism'', (Oxford: BAR International Series 113, 1981). 
* McKitterick, Rosamond. "Nun's scriptoria in England and Francia in the eighth century". In ''Books, Scribes and Learning in the Frankish Kingdoms, 6th-9th Centuries'', VII 1–35. Great Yarmouth: Gilliard, 1994. Originally published in ''Francia 19/1'', (Sigmaringen: Jan Thornbecke Verlag, 1989). 
* Nees, Lawrence. ''Early Medieval Art''. Oxford: Oxford U Press, 2002. 
* Shailor, Barbara A. ''The Medieval Book''. Toronto: U Toronto Press, 1991. 
* Sullivan, Richard. "What Was Carolingian Monasticism? The Plan of St Gall and the History of Monasticism." In ''After Romes's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History'', edited by Alexander Callander Murray, 251–87. Toronto: U of Toronto Press, 1998. 
* Vogue, Adalbert de. ''The Rule of Saint Benedict: A Doctrinal and Spiritual Commentary''. Kalamazoo: Cistercian, 1983. 
{{refend}}
* Cohen-Mushlin, Aliza. ''A Medieval Scriptorium, Sancta Maria Magdalena de Frankendal'' (Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien 3), Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1990, 2 vols.
* Cohen-Mushlin, Aliza. ''Scriptoria in Medieval Saxony: St. Pancras in Hamersleben'', Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 2004.

==External links==
{{commons category}}
* [http://www.stgallplan.org/en/index_plan.html The St. Gall Monastery Plan, "a two-dimensional meditation on the ideal early medieval monastic community"] 
* [http://www.newyorkcarver.com/scriptoria3.htm#Scriptorium New York Carver: Scriptorium] 
* [http://www.osb.org/gen/robling/01script.html Frère Landelin Robling "The Order of Saint Benedict : Monastic Scriptoria" (osb.org)]

{{Books}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Book terminology]]
[[Category:Manuscripts]]
[[Category:History of books]]
[[Category:Medieval literature]]
[[Category:Monasteries]]
[[Category:Textual scholarship]]