The History Of Man Versus Books – How manuscript Copying Worked

Books are one of the oldest forms of reading material used throughout history. While books were once written on loose leaves covered with leaves, the modern book is often written on a large paper usually with ink plates on which words are printed. A book is simply a medium for preserving information in the shape of text or pictures, usually written with many lines bound together and sometimes protected with a plastic cover. The modern physical structure of the book is called a codex. The modern techniques for binding have improved over the years and have allowed for books to be produced in hardback, softback, and the traditional paper cover formats.

Papyrus is the earliest known book material found in history. It was created out of the river Nile in Ancient Egypt. The earliest known papyrus tablets have been discovered in the Palace of Akhmara in ancient Iran. It is believed that scribes wrote the texts for Papyrus from a standing writing platform called a papyrus digger, on wood slates which were heated so that they would mould into the right shape, although this theory is largely unproven.

During the Medieval Times, during the time of the Crusades, as many as fifty to one hundred manuscripts could be kept in a leather bound notebook, called a scribe’s quilt. Medieval scribes made their living stitching together documents, especially if they were assigned specific manuscripts. They would take their tools, which included cord and yarns, nails, thimbles and pins, among other tools, to stitching the leather together into layers which would eventually become the layers of vellum used to create a book. One of the most important aspects of how medieval manuscripts were produced is that they were written with very little effort, often simply using a pen or a finger to make indentations into the leather. They also produced large quantities of copies of the same page, using margins to keep the copied text from being too thin or too long.