История письма и чтения. Асафова Г.К. - 72 стр.

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until smooth. For a work of 340 leaves, such as the 8

-century masterpiece of

Celtic art, the Book of Kells, around 200 calfskins were needed.

The scribe marked up the first page of parchment with a master grid that

indicated where the lines of text and margins would fall. He might copy the grid by

making small score marks with a knife or awl through the first page onto a pile of

pages beneath.

Next he had to prepare his pen. Although pens made from metal were

available, the most common writing implement was the quill, made from a light

feather of a large bird, such as a goose. To prepare a quill, the scribe soaked it in

the water and then heated it to make it hard and flexible. He then cut the nib to the

correct shape for the thickness of the lettering he wished to use. Ink was kept in a

hollow animal horn. Black ink was made from lampblack, oak galls or the bark of

trees mixed with gum. Red ink, also called “red lead” or “red vermilion”, was

made from toasted lead or mercuric sulphide respectively, and was mostly used to

write some initial letters or the first lines or titles of some texts.

The book to be copied, called the exemplar, was laid open on a lectern

arranged close to the scribe’s desk, and copying could begin. One of the great

skills of the scribe was the ability to make the text fit the line, and to make blocks

of the text fit the page, without obviously bunching or squeezing the letters. The

best handwritten texts have a measured regularity, giving a sense of orderliness and

poise.

Tricks of the trade

For most of the Middle Ages, scribes generally used the “Gothic” script,

which was designed to be compact so as to save parchment. For the same reason

they used abbreviations – such as ampersand (&) for “and” – and joined up letters.

The untrained eye often finds medieval manuscripts very hard to decipher.

If a scribe made a mistake, he would scratch away the offending letter or

passage with his knife – one of the advantages of a resilient surface like parchment.