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A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of before the invention of Printing press.
The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as secretarial and administrative duties such as the taking of dictation and keeping of business, judicial, and historical records for , nobility, , and City.
The profession of scribe first appears in Mesopotamia. Scribes contributed in fundamental ways to ancient and medieval cultures, including Egypt, China, India, Persia, the Roman Empire, and medieval Europe. Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam have important scribal traditions. Scribes have been essential in these cultures for the preservation of legal codes, religious texts, and artistic and didactic literature. In some cultures, social functions of the scribe and of the calligrapher overlap, but the emphasis in scribal writing is on exactitude, whereas calligraphy aims to express the aesthetic qualities of writing apart from its content.Cory MacPherson, Inventions in Reading and Writing: From Calligraphy to E-readers (Cavendish Square, 2017), pp. 22–23.
Previously a prominent fixture in literary cultures, scribes lost most of their prominence and status with the advent of the printing press. The generally less prestigious profession of scrivener continued to be important for copying and writing out legal documents and the like. In societies with low literacy rates, street-corner letter-writers (and readers) may still be found providing scribe service.
During the middle to late 3rd millennium BCE, Sumerian literature in the form of disputations proliferated, such as the Debate between bird and fish; the Debate between Summer and Winter, in which Winter wins; and others between the cattle and grain, the tree and the reed, silver and copper, the pickaxe and the plough, and the millstone and the gul-gul stone. Nearly all known Sumerian literary works were preserved as a result of young scribes apprenticing for their profession.Paul Delnero, "Memorization and the Transmission of Sumerian Literary Compositions," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 71:2 (October 2012), p. 189. In addition to literary works, the contents of the tablets they produced include word lists, syllabary, grammar book, and lists of personal names.Delnero, "Memorization and Transmission," p. 189.
To the extent that the curriculum in scribal schools can be reconstructed, it appears that they would have begun by studying lists and syllabaries and learning metrology, the formulas for writing Cuneiform law, and . They then might have advanced to praise poems and finally to copying more sophisticated works of literature.Delnero, "Memorization and Transmission," p. 190. Some scholars have thought that apprentice scribes listened to literary compositions read aloud and took dictation; others, that they copied directly from master copies. A combination of dictation, copying, and memorization for reproduction has also been proposed.As reviewed by Delnero, "Memorization and Transmission," p. 191.
Much of what is known about ancient Egypt is due to the activities of its scribes and the officials. But because of their ability to study in the vast Egyptian libraries, they were entrusted with jobs bigger than just copyists. Monumental buildings were erected under their supervision, (2025). 9780415235495, Routledge. ISBN 9780415235495 administrative and economic activities were documented by them, and stories from Egypt's lower classes and foreign lands survive due to scribes putting them in writing.
Scribes were considered part of the royal court, were not conscription into the army, did not have to pay taxes, and were exempt from the heavy manual labor required of the lower classes (corvée labor). The scribal profession worked with painters and artisans who decorated and other building works with scenes, personages, or hieroglyphic text. However, the physical aspect of their work sometimes took a toll Joint pain, with ancient bones showing some signs of arthritis that might be attributable to their profession.
The demotic scribes used rush pens which had stems thinner than that of a reed (2 mm). The end of the rush was cut obliquely and then chewed so that the fibers became separated. The result was a short, stiff brush which was handled in the same manner as that of a calligrapher.
Thoth was the god credited with the invention of writing by the ancient Egyptians. He was the scribe of the gods who held knowledge of scientific and moral laws.
Chinese scribes played an instrumental role in the imperial government's civil service. During the Tang dynasty, private collections of Confucian classics began to grow. Young men hoping to join the civil service would need to pass an exam based on Confucian doctrine, and these collections, which became known as "academy libraries" were places of study. Within this merit system, owning books was a sign of status. Despite the later importance of Confucian manuscripts, they were initially heavily resisted by the Qin dynasty. Though their accounts are likely exaggerated, later scholars describe a period of book burning and scholarly suppression. This exaggeration likely stems from Han dynasty historians being steeped in Confucianism as state orthodoxy. (2025). 9781602397064, Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN 9781602397064
Similarly to the west, religious texts, particularly Buddhist, were transcribed in monasteries and hidden during "times of persecution". (2025). 9781602397064, Skyhorse Publishing. ISBN 9781602397064 In fact, the earliest known copy of a printed book is of the Diamond Sutra dating to 868 CE, which was found alongside other manuscripts within a walled-in cave called Dunhuang. (2025). 9780500291153, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500291153
As professionals, scribes would undergo three years of training before becoming novices. The title of "scribe" was inherited from father to son. Early in their careers, they would work with local and regional governments and did not enjoy an official rank. A young scribe needed to hone their writing skills before specializing in an area like public administration or law. Archaeological evidence even points to scribes being buried with marks of their trade such as brushes, "administrative, legal, divinatory, mathematical, and medicinal texts", thus displaying a personal embodiment of their profession.
Rather later, Hindu texts were written, although the most sacred, especially the , were not written down until much later, and were learnt by heart by the priestly . Writing in the several scripts of Indic languages was generally not regarded as a distinct artistic form, in a situation similar to Europe, but different from East Asian traditions of calligraphy.
The earliest extant writings take the form of mokkan, wooden slips used for official memoranda and short communications and for practical purposes such as shipping tags;Joan R. Piggott, " Mokkan: Wooden Documents from the Nara Period," Monumenta Nipponica 45:4 (1990), pp. 449–450. inscriptions on metal and stone; and manuscripts of and commentaries. Mokkan were often used for writing practice.Kamei-Dyche, "The History of Books and Print Culture," p. 293, n. 8. Manuscripts first took the form of rolls made from cloth or sheets of paper,Kamei-Dyche, "The History of Books and Print Culture," p. 272. but when manuscripts began to appear as bound books, they coexisted with (makimono).
The influence of Chinese culture, especially written culture, made writing "immensely important" in the early Japanese court. The earliest Japanese writing to survive dates from the late Asuka period and Nara period periods (550–794), when Buddhist texts were being copied and disseminated. Because Buddhism was text-based, monks were employed in scribal and bureaucratic work for their skill in writing and knowledge of Chinese culture.Kamei-Dyche, "The History of Books and Print Culture," p. 294, n. 15. In portraits of Buddhist clerics, a handscroll is a symbol of scribal authority and the possession of knowledge.Radu Leca, "Dynamic Scribal Culture in Late Seventeenth-Century Japan: Ihara Saikaku's Engagement with Handscrolls," Japan Review 37 (2022), p. 82.
Government offices and Buddhist centers employed copyists on a wide scale, requiring an abundance of materials such as paper, glue, ink, and brushes; exemplars from which to copy; an organizational structure; and technicians for assembly, called sōkō or sō’ō.Bryan Lowe, "Texts and Textures of Early Japanese Buddhism: Female Patrons, Lay Scribes, and Buddhist Scripture in Eighth-Century Japan," Princeton University Library Chronicle 73:1 (2011), pp. 23–26. More than 10,000 Nara documents are preserved in the Shōsōin archives of the Tōdai-ji temple complex.Piggott, " Mokkan," p. 449. The institution of the ritsuryō legal state from the 8th to 10th centuries produced "a mountain of paperwork" employing hundreds of bureaucratic scribes in the capital and in the provinces.Alexander N. Mesheryakov, "On the Quantity of Written Data Produced by the Ritsuryō State," Japan Review 15 (2003), pp. 187, 193. The average Buddhist sutras copyist is estimated to have generated 3,800–4,000 characters a day.Mesheryakov, "On the Quantity of Written Data," p. 187. Scribes were paid by the "page," and the fastest completed thirteen or more sheets a day, working on a low table and seated on the floor.Lowe, "Texts and Textures," pp. 28–29. Both speed and accuracy mattered. Proofreaders checked the copy against the exemplar, and the scribe's pay was docked for errors.Lowe, "Texts and Textures," p. 29.
In the 8th century, the demand for vast quantities of copies meant that scribes in the Office of Sutra Transcription were lay people of common status, not yet ordained monks, some finding opportunities for advancement.Bryan D. Lowe, "The Discipline of Writing: Scribes and Purity in Eighth-Century Japan," Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 39:2 (2012), p. 210, 229. In Classical Japan, even lay scribes at some sutra copyist centers were required to practice ritual purity through vegetarian dietary restrictions, wearing ritual garments (jōe), ablution, avoiding contact with death and illness, and possibly sexual abstinence.Lowe, "The Discipline of Writing," pp. 201-221, 228–229. Outside Buddhist centers, professional scriveners practiced copyist craft.Lowe, "The Discipline of Writing," p. 227. Court-commissioned chronicles of the 8th century, such as Kojiki and Nihon shoki, survive in much later copies, as is the case for the first Japanese poetry anthologies.
The earliest printed books were produced under the Empress Shōtoku on a large scale in the 8th century, only three centuries after Japanese became a written language, and by the Edo period (1603–1868) bound printed books predominated. Manuscripts remained valued for their aesthetic qualities,Kamei-Dyche, "The History of Books and Print Culture," p. 273. and the scribal tradition continued to flourish for a wide range of reasons.P. F. Kornicki, "Manuscript, Not Print: Scribal Culture in the Edo Period," Journal of Japanese Studies 32:1 (2006), pp. 23-52. In addition to handwritten practical documents pertaining to legal and commercial transactions, individuals might write journals or , which involved copying out sometimes lengthy passages by hand.Kornicki, "Manuscript, Not Print," p. 28. This copying might extend to complete manuscripts of books that were expensive or not readily available to buy.Kornicki, "Manuscript, Not Print," pp. 28–30.
But scribal culture was not merely or always a matter of need or necessity. Copying Buddhist sutras was a devotional practice (shakyō). In the Nara period, wealthy patrons commissioned sutra copying on behalf of ancestors to gain them spiritual passage from the .Lowe, "Texts and Textures," pp. 18–20. The Edo period court noble Konoe Iehiro created a sutra manuscript in gold ink on dark blue paper, stating his purpose in the colophon as "to ensure the spiritual enlightenment of his departed mother."Kornicki, "Manuscript, Not Print," p. 29.
Creating a calligraphic and pictorial work by copying secular literature likewise was an aesthetic practice for its own sake and a means of study. Within the social elite of the court, calligraphy was thought to express the inner character of the writer.Kamei-Dyche, "The History of Books and Print Culture," pp. 293–294, n. 13. In the Heian period, the book collector, scholar-scribe, and literary artist Fujiwara no Teika was a leader in preserving and producing quality manuscripts of works of literature. Even so prolific an author of printed prose works as Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693) also produced handwritten works in several formats, including manuscripts, handscrolls, and poetry slips (tanzaku) and cards (shikishi).Leca, "Dynamic Scribal Culture," pp. 78, 89. Unique and prized handscrolls preserved the collaborative poetry sessions characteristic of renga and haikai poetic composition, distributed more widely in printed copies.Leca, "Dynamic Scribal Culture," pp. 86–88.
For authors not located near the major centers of publishing and printing, manuscripts were a route to publication.Peter Kornicki, "Keeping Knowledge Secret in Edo-Period Japan (1600–1868)," Textual Cultures 14:1 (2021), p. 3-18. Some authors self-published their books, especially romance novels (ninjōbon), in manuscript form.Kornicki, "Manuscript, Not Print," pp. 25–26. Women's prose writings in general were circulated as manuscripts during the Edo period.Kornicki, "Manuscript, Not Print," p. 34. Women were not prevented from writing and circulating their work, but private publication may have been a way for women to adhere to gender norms in not making themselves available in the public sphere.Kornicki, "Keeping Knowledge Secret," p. 18.
Manuscripts could more readily evade government censorship, and officially banned books that could no longer be printed were copied for personal use or circulated privately.Kornicki, "Manuscript, Not Print," pp. 31–32, 37–40. Lending libraries (kashihon'ya) offered manuscript books, including illicit texts, along with printed books.Kornicki, "Manuscript, Not Print," p. 25. Books might also be composed as manuscripts when their transmission was limited to a particular circle of interested parties or sharers in the knowledge, such as local history and antiquarianism,Local archives of handscrolls are referenced in village boundary disputes in Ihara Saikaku's story collection Honchō ōin hiji ( Trials under the Shade of Cherry Trees in Our Land, 1689); Leca, "Dynamic Scribal Culture," pp. 82–83. a family's accumulated lore or farming methods, or medical texts of a particular school of medicine.Kornicki, "Manuscript, Not Print," pp. 33–35. Intentional secrecy might be desired to protect arcane knowledge or trade secret with commercial value.Kornicki, "Keeping Knowledge Secret," pp. 3-19.
In the esoteric strand of Japanese Buddhism, scribes recorded oracles, the utterances of a kami-inspired person often in the form of dialogues in response to questions. The transcriber also filled in context for the transmission. After the text was verified, it became part of the canon, stored in secret places, viewable by affiliated monks, and used to legitimate forms of religious authority. Because they dealt with genealogies and sacral boundaries, oracle texts were consulted as references in questions of lineage and land ownership.Elizabeth Tinsley, "Indirect Transmission in Shingon Buddhism: Notes on the Henmyōin Oracle," The Eastern Buddhist 45:1/2 (2014), pp. 77-112, especially 77–78, 82, 84, 87–88, 92ff. (on lineage and land).
At contemporary Shinto or Buddhist shrines, scribal traditions still play a role in creating ofuda (talismans), omikuji (fortunes or divination lots), ema (votive tablets), goshuin (calligraphic visitor stamps), and gomagi (inscribed sticks for ritual burning), forms that may employ a combination of stamps and handwriting on media. Today these are often mass producedCaleb Carter, "Power Spots and the Charged Landscape of Shinto," Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 45:1 (2018), pp. 160 (on commercialization), 162 ( ofuda and omikuji), and 167 (goshuin). and commercialized for marketing to tourists.Yamanaka Hiroshi, 山中 弘, "Religious Change in Modern Japanese Society: Established Religions and Spirituality," Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 48:2 (2021), pp. 365-382, especially pp. 368, 372 (on goshuin), 374 (on gomagi and the importation of Western vocabulary such as "spiritual supplements"). Ema, for instance, began as large-scale pictorial representations that historically were created by professional artists. Small versions began to be produced and sold, and a complex symbology developed for the messages. Modern versions sold at shrines, often already stamped with their local affiliation, tend to be used more verbally, with space left for individuals to act as their own scribes in messaging the kami.Ian Reader, "Letters to the Gods: The Form and Meaning of Ema," Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 18:1 (1991), pp. 30–37.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> How Did Scribes and the Scribal Tradition Shape the Hebrew Bible?
Some scribes also copied documents, but this was not necessarily part of their job.
The Jewish scribes used the following rules and procedures while creating copies of the Torah and eventually other books in the Hebrew Bible.
The discovered texts have become known collectively as the "Dead Sea Scrolls". The Oxford English Dictionary records the name "Dead Sea Scrolls" from 1949 onwards - One complete book, plus fragments of every other book in the Hebrew Bible except Esther, have been identified amongst the texts. Fragments from each of the Hebrew canonical books have been discovered, including 30 fragments from the Book of Deuteronomy.
While there were other items found among the Dead Sea Scrolls not currently in the Hebrew Bible, and many variations and errors occurred when they were copied, the texts, on the whole, testify to the accuracy of the scribes. (1993). 9781857990966, Phoenix. ISBN 9781857990966 The Dead Sea Scrolls are currently the best route of comparison to the accuracy and consistency of translation for the Hebrew Bible because they are the oldest out of any Bible currently known.
(1993). 9781857990966, Phoenix. ISBN 9781857990966
Corrections by the scribes (Tiqqun soferim) refers to changes that were made in the original wording of the Hebrew Bible during the second temple period, perhaps sometime between 450 and 350 BCE. One of the most prominent men at this time was Ezra. He also hired scribes to work for him, in order to write down and revise the oral tradition. After Ezra and the scribes had completed the writing, Ezra gathered the Jews who had returned from exile, all of whom belonged to Kohen families. Ezra read them an unfamiliar version of the Torah. This version was different from the Torah of their fathers. Ezra did not write a new bible. Through the genius of his ‘editing', he presented the religion in a new light.M. Okouneff (2016). 9781523640430, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. . ISBN 9781523640430
In the city of Rome, the scribae worked out of the aerarium and government archive. They received a good salary. Scribae were often former slaves and their sons; other literary or educated men who advanced to the job through patronage; or even men as highly ranked as the equestrian order.David Armstrong, Horace (Yale University Press, 1989), p. 18. Among the writing duties of a scriba was the recording of sworn oaths on public tablets.Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (University of California Press, 2000), p. 96. The office afforded several advantages, including a knowledge of Roman law that was traditionally the privilege of the elite.T.R.S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (American Philological Association, 1951, 1986), vol. 1, pp. 166–168. People who needed legal documents drawn up and whose own literacy was low could make use of a public scribe.T. J. Kraus, "(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt: Further Aspects of the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Times," Mnemosyne 53:3 (2002), pp. 325–327; Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (University of California Press, 2000), p. 101. A scriba might also be a private secretary.Peter White, "Bookshops in the Literary Culture of Rome," in Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 269, note 4.
A tabellio (Greek agoraios) was a lower rank of scribe or notary who worked in civil service.Marcus Niebuhr Tod, “A New Fragment of the Edictum Diocletiani,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 24 (1904), pp. 195-202. A notarius was a stenographer.Nicholas Horsfall, “Rome without Spectacles,” Greece & Rome 42:1 (1995), p. 50.
An amanuensis was a scribe who took dictation and perhaps offered some compositional polish.Myles McDonnell, "Writing, Copying, and Autograph Manuscripts in Ancient Rome," Classical Quarterly 46:2 (1996), p. 473. Amanuenses were typically GreekClarence A. Forbes, "The Education and Training of Slaves in Antiquity," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 86 (1955), p. 341. and might be either male or female.Susan Treggiari, "Jobs for Women," American Journal of Ancient History 1 (1976), p. 78. Upper-class Romans made extensive use of dictation, and Julius Caesar was said to employ as many as four secretaries at once on different projects.Nicholas Horsfall, “Rome without Spectacles,” p. 51, citing Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.19; Cicero, Brutus 87. The Apostle Paul, a Roman citizen literate in Greek, made use of an amanuensis for his Pauline epistles.Chris Keith, "'In My Own Hand': Grapho-Literacy and the Apostle Paul," Biblica 89:1 (2008), pp. 39-58. It was considered impolite, however, to use a scribe for writing personal letters to friends; these were to be written by one's own hand.McDonnell, "Writing, Copying, and Autograph Manuscripts," p. 474. The Vindolanda tablets (early 2nd century CE) from a fort in Roman Britain contain several hundred examples of handwriting; a few tablets stand out as having been written by professional scribes.McDonnell, "Writing, Copying, and Autograph Manuscripts," p. 471.
Some domus had libraries extensive enough to require specialized staff including librarii, copyists or scribes, who were often slaves or freedmen, along with more general librarians (librarioli).George W. Houston, “The Slave and Freedman Personnel of Public Libraries in Ancient Rome,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 132:1/2 (2003), p. 147. Public libraries also existed under imperial sponsorship, and bookshops both sold books and employed independent librarii along with other specialists who constructed the . A copyist ( librarius or libraria) was said to need an "irrational knack" for copying text accurately without slowing down to comprehend it.McDonnell, "Writing, Copying, and Autograph Manuscripts," p. 473. Some literary slaves specialized in proofreading.McDonnell, "Writing, Copying, and Autograph Manuscripts," p. 477.
Occasionally even Roman senator took dictation or copied texts by hand for personal use, as did grammatici (“grammarians” or professors of higher education), but generally the routine copying of manuscripts was a task for educated slaves or for freedpersons who worked independently in bookshops.McDonnell, "Writing, Copying, and Autograph Manuscripts," p. 477 "et passim’’. Books were a favored gift for friends, and since they had to be individually written out, "deluxe" editions, made from higher-grade papyrus and other fine materials, might be commissioned from intellectuals who also acted as editors.McDonnell, "Writing, Copying, and Autograph Manuscripts," p. 479. Unscrupulous copyists might produce and trade in unauthorized editions, sometimes passing them off as autograph manuscripts by famous authors.McDonnell, "Writing, Copying, and Autograph Manuscripts," p. 478
The literacy of a librarius was also valued in business settings, where they might serve as clerks.Andrew Garland, “Cicero's Familia Urbana,” Greece & Rome 39:2 (1992), p. 167. For example, a libraria cellaria would be a woman who kept business records such as inventories.Garland, “Cicero's Familia Urbana,” p. 164. An early 2nd-century marble relief from Rome depicts a female scribe, seated on a chair and writing on kind of a tablet, facing the butcher who is chopping meat at a table.
Eleven Latin inscriptions uncovered from Rome identify women as scribes in the sense of copyists or amanuenses (not public scribae). Among these are Magia, Pyrrhe, Vergilia Euphrosyne, and a freedwoman whose name does not survive; Hapate, a shorthand writer of Greek who lived to the age of 25; and Corinna, a storeroom clerk and scribe. Three are identified as literary assistants: Tyche, Herma, and Plaetoriae.
Scribes woke to morning bells before dawn and worked until the evening bells, with a lunch break in between. They worked every day except for the Sabbath. The primary purpose of these scribes was to promote the ideas of the Christian Church, so they mostly copied classical and religious works. The scribes were required to copy works in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew whether or not they understood the language. These re-creations were often written in calligraphy and featured rich illustrations, making the process incredibly time-consuming. Scribes had to be familiar with the writing technology as well. They had to make sure that the lines were straight and the letters were the same size in each book that they copied. It typically took a scribe fifteen months to copy a Bible. (2025). 9781606060834, J. Paul Getty Museum. ISBN 9781606060834
Such books were written on parchment or vellum made from treated hides of sheep, goats, or calves. These hides were often from the monastery's own animals as monasteries were self-sufficient in raising animals, growing crops, and brewing beer. The overall process was too extensive and costly for books to become widespread during this period.
Although scribes were only able to work in daylight, due to the expense of candles and the rather poor lighting they provided, monastic scribes were still able to produce three to four pages of work per day. The average scribe could copy two books per year. They were expected to make at least one mistake per page.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, copying became more of a specialized activity and was increasingly performed by specialists. To meet expanding demand, the pecia system was introduced, in which different parts of the same text were assigned to hired copiers working both in and out of the monasteries.Lyons, M. (2011). Books: A Living History. Getty Publications.
In the 12th century within a Benedictine monastery at Wessobrunn, Bavaria there lived a female scribe named Diemut. She lived within the monastery as recluse and professional scribe. Two medieval book lists exist that have named Diemut as having written more than forty books. Fourteen of Diemut's books are in existence today. Included in these are four volumes of a six volume set of Pope Gregory the Great's Moralia in Job, two volumes of a three-volume Bible, and an illuminated copy of the Gospels. It has been discovered that Diemut was a scribe for as long as five decades. She collaborated with other scribes in the production of other books. Since the Wessobrunn monastery enforced its strict claustration it is presumed that these other scribes were also women. Diemut was credited with writing so many volumes that she single-handedly stocked the Wessobrunn's library. Her dedication to book production for the benefit of the Wessobrunn monks and nuns eventually led to her being recognized as a local saint. At the Benedictine monastery within Admont, Austria it was discovered that some of the nuns had written verse and prose in both Latin and German. They delivered their own sermons, took dictation on wax tablets, and copied and illuminated manuscripts. They also taught Latin grammar and biblical interpretation at the school. By the end of the 12th century they owned so many books that they needed someone to oversee their scriptorium and library. Two female scribes have been identified within the Admont Monastery; Sisters Irmingart and Regilind.
There are several hundred women scribes that have been identified in Germany. These women worked within German women's convent from the thirteenth to the early 16th century. Most of these women can only be identified by their names or initials, by their label as "scriptrix", "soror", "scrittorix", "scriba" or by the colophon (scribal identification which appears at the end of a manuscript). Some of the women scribes can be found through convent documents such as obituaries, payment records, book inventories, and narrative biographies of the individual nuns found in convent chronicles and sister books. These women are united by their contributions to the libraries of women's convents. Many of them remain unknown and unacknowledged but they served the intellectual endeavor of preserving, transmitting and on occasion creating texts. The books they left their legacies within were usually given to the sister of the convent and were dedicated to the abbess, or given or sold to the surrounding community. There are two obituaries that have been found that date back to the 16th century, both of the obituaries describe the women who died as a "scriba". In an obituary found from a monastery in Rulle, describes Christina Von Haltren as having written many other books.
Women's monasteries were different from men's in the period from the 13th to the 16th century. They would shift their order depending on their abbess. If a new abbess would be appointed then the order would change their identity. Every time a monastery would shift their order they would need to replace, correct and sometimes rewrite their texts. Many books survived from this period. Approximately 4,000 manuscripts have been discovered from women's convents from late medieval Germany. Women scribes served as the business women of the convent. They produced a large amount of archival and business materials, they recorded the information of the convent in the form of chronicles and obituaries. They were responsible for producing the rules, statutes and constitution of the order. They also copied a large amount of prayer books and other devotional manuscripts. Many of these scribes were discovered by their colophon.
Despite women being barred from transcribing Torah scrolls for ritual use, a few Jewish women between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries are known to have copied other Hebrew manuscripts. They learned the craft from male scribes they were related to, and were unusual because women were not typically taught Hebrew. Knowledge of these women scribes comes from their colophon signatures.
Town scribe
The scribe was a common job in medieval European towns during the 10th and 11th centuries. Many were employed at scriptoria owned by local schoolmasters or lords. These scribes worked under deadlines to complete commissioned works such as historic chronicles or poetry. Due to parchment being costly, scribes often created a draft of their work first on a wax or chalk tablet.
Notable scribes
Gallery
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