Lit. 'writing room' (in a monastery). The only means of reproducing any text or of making books was by hand until the advent of the printing press, c. 1458. The scribe was a crucial part of society, writing letters for the illiterate, copying literary and legal texts or the Bible, or producing great works such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Book of Cerne, or the Book of Kells. A goose quill was used for text with ink made from gum and galls. Although many texts were illustrated in monasteries, by the 14c there were lay professionals who might be commissioned by an individual to produce something like the Luttrell Psalter or by a monastery which lacked the skills. A Bible might take three or four years. There had been scriptoria in monasteries since the 7c. -
Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases. Christopher Coredon with Ann Williams.