Ferreolus, in his rules (c. 550), deems reading and copying fit occupations for monks too weak for severer work.[183] Later, in some monasteries, less labour in the field and more writing was done. At Tours, Alcuin took the monks away from field labour, telling them study and writing were far nobler pursuits.[184] But it was not commonly the case to find in monasteries “ech man a scriveyn able.”
When books were not otherwise obtainable, or not obtainable quickly enough, it was the practice to hire scribes from outside the house. Abbot Gerbert, in a letter to the abbot of Tours, mentions that he had been paying scribes in Rome and various parts of Italy, in Belgium, and Germany, to make copies of books for his library “at great expense.”[185] At Abingdon hired scribes were sometimes employed, and the rule was for the abbot to find the food, and the armarius, or librarian, to pay for the labour.[186] This was commonly done when libraries were first formed. When Abbot Paul began to collect a library at St. Albans none of his brethren could write well enough to suit him, and he was obliged to fill his writing-room with hired scribes. He supplied them with daily rations out of the brethren’s and cellarer’s alms-food; such provision was always handy, and the scribes were not retarded by leaving their work.[187] Sometimes scribes were employed merely to save the monks trouble. At Corbie, in the fourteenth century, the religious neglected to work in the writing-room themselves, but allowed benefactors to engage professional scribes in Paris to swell the number of books. The Gilbertine order forbade hired scribes altogether, perhaps wisely.
The scribe’s method of work was simple. First he took a metal stylus or a pencil and drew perpendicular lines in the side margins of his parchment, and horizontal lines at equal distances from top to bottom of the page. Then the task of copying was straightforward. If the book was to be embellished he left spaces for the illuminator to fill in. When the illuminator took the book over, he carefully sketched in his designs for the capitals and miniatures, and then worked over them in colour, applying one colour to a number of sketches at a time. Anybody who is curious as to medieval methods of illuminating should read a little fifteenth-century treatise which describes “the crafte of lymnynge of bokys.” “Who so kane wyesly considere the nature of his colours, and kyndely make his commixtions with naturalle proporcions, and mentalle indagacions connectynge fro dyvers recepcions by resone of theyre naturys, he schalle make curius colourys.” Thereafter follow recipes to “temper vermelone to wryte therewith”; “to temper asure, roset, ceruse, rede lede,” and other pigments; “to make asure to schyne bryȝt,” “to make letterys of gold,” “blewe lethyre,” and “whyte lethyre”; with other curious information.[188]
In monasteries where the rule was strict the scribe wrought at his task for six hours daily.[189] All work was done by daylight, artificial light not being allowed. Lewis, a monk of Wessobrunn in Bavaria, in a copy of Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel, speaks of writing when he was stiff with cold, and of finishing by the light of night what he could not copy by day.[190] Such diligence was not usual.
In summer-time work in the cloister may well have been pleasant; in winter quite the contrary, even when the cloister and carrells were screened, as at Durham and Christ Church, Canterbury. Imagine the poor scribe rubbing his hands to restore the sluggish circulation, and being at last compelled to forgo his labour because they were too numbed to write. Cuthbert, the eighth-century abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow, writes to a correspondent telling him he had not been able to send all Bede’s works which were required, because the cold weather of the preceding winter had paralysed the scribes’ hands.[191] Again, Ordericus Vitalis winds up the fourth book of his ecclesiastical history by saying—nunc hyemali frigore rigens—he must break his narrative here, and take up other occupations for the winter.[192] Jacob, abbot of Brabant (1276), built scriptoria, or possibly carrells, round the calefactory, or warming-room, where the common fire was kept burning, and the lot of the scribe was made somewhat easier to bear.
A scribe could only write what the abbot or precentor set him. When his portion had been given out he could not change it for another.[193] If he were set to copy Virgil or Ovid or some lives of the saints the task would conceivably be pleasant. But such was seldom the scribe’s fortune. The continual transcription of Psalters and Missals and other service books must have been infinitely wearisome, at any rate, to the less devout members of the community. In some large and enterprising houses a scribe copied only a fragment of a book. Several brethren worked upon the same book at once, each beginning upon a skin at the point where another scribe was to leave off.[194] Or the book to be transcribed was dictated to the scribes, as at Tours under Alcuin. Both methods had the advantage of “publishing” a book quickly, but the work was as mechanical as is that of the compositor to-day. Under Abbot Trithemius of Sponheim, subdivision of labour was carried to its extreme limit. One monk cut the parchment, another polished it, the third ruled the lines to guide the scribe. After the scribe had finished his copying, another monk corrected, still another punctuated. In decorating, one artist rubricated, another painted the miniatures. Then the bookbinder collated the leaves and bound them in wooden covers. Even in the case of waxed tablets, one monk prepared the boards, another spread the wax. The whole process was designed to expedite production.
When a manuscript was fully written the scribe wrote his colophon or “explicit,” a short form of the phrase “explicitus est liber.” Sometimes the scribe plays upon words, thus: “Explicit iste liber; sit scriptor crimine liber”; or he exultantly praises: “Deo gratias. Ego, in Dei nomine, Warembertus scripsi. Deo gratias”; or he is modest: “Nomen scriptoris non pono, quia ipsum laudare nolo”;[195] or he feels querulous: “Be careful with your fingers; don’t put them on my writing. You do not know what it is to write. It is excessive drudgery: it crooks your back, dims your sight, twists your stomach and sides. Pray then, my brother, you who read this book, pray for poor Raoul, God’s servant, who has copied it entirely with his own hand in the cloister of St. Aignan.” Another inscription, in a manuscript at Worcester Cathedral, suggests that books were not read: why, argues this monk, write them?—nobody is profited; books are for the edification of readers, not of scribes. Note also the following:—
Finito libro sit laus et gloria Christo
Vinum scriptori debetur de meliori
Hic liber est scriptus qui scripsit sit benedictus. Amen.[196]