Tanya M. Scuccimarra

Professor Peggie Howerton

HUM Medieval and Renaissance

April 30, 2013

Medieval Scribes and The Hogarth Press: Creating Books For Society

During the Medieval era, scribes were employed by the church to hand-copy texts.

Mainly, the texts copied were biblical teachings that would inform society of God’s rules and

mandates. Scribes found themselves in the scriptorium of a monastery trying to decipher the

handwriting of Biblical writers and meticulously transcribing each word onto parchment paper

made from animal skins that were painstakingly prepared so that ink would adhere. Hand-copied

books could take twenty years or more to complete and therefore, books were rare, expensive,

and coveted by powerful people. Those with the means would often keep books locked away like

treasures. Therefore, the everyday man was illiterate, without access to books, and, essentially,

without access to knowledge. Over time, society demanded access to knowledge and a need

arose for more efficient means to mass-produce books, making them accessible and affordable,

and putting them in the hands of society.

Imagine a society without the ability to read or know history outside of oracles or the

church. All knowledge and information would be at the mercy of the persons with the power to

dictate what they considered news worthy. This is what society was like in the Middle Ages for

millions of people who were illiterate and without access to even the simplest means of

information. This practice creates a power struggle and a wide margin for the most wealthy and

dominant members of society to reign. Therefore, in 1440, when a German inventor, Johannes

Gutenberg, invented a printing press that allowed mass production of books, society finally

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gained affordable access to knowledge. Although Gutenberg originally mass-produced Bibles

and other means of communication on behalf of the church, his printing techniques eventually

paved the way for society to learn how to read along with an ability to possess secular texts. By

1449, more than fifteen million books had been produced; and, eventually, Greek and Roman

texts were copied and distributed, allowing society to learn about the history of the world.

It was this mass production of books and the sharing of antique texts that allowed the

middle classes to become educated and informed. It also allowed for a widening of ideas and

philosophies. The mass production of books gave authors a chance to be heard and provided a

platform for even the lowliest person to form their own beliefs and create a world for their

families that existed outside of monarchies and religion. Perhaps their laws were dictated to

them, but the middle classes could finally choose to educate themselves privately.

In keeping with the middle classes educating themselves, this evolution allowed for

private printing presses. In 1915, Leonard and Virginia Woolf were celebrating a birthday

dinner in a quaint restaurant when they made a list of things they desired for the year: to

purchase the Hogarth house; to buy a printing press; and, to buy a Bulldog they named John. It

was with this air of simplicity and homespun aspiration that the Woolfs’ created a printing press

to publish not only their own works, but also, the works of such authors as Sigmund Freud, F. M.

Dostoevsky, T. S. Eliot, and Gertrude Stein. These were progressive, forward thinkers who may

not have had the opportunity for their controversial books to be published elsewhere. What the

scribes initiated, and what Gutenberg helped to perfect, affected society thousands of years later

when Leonard and Virginia Woolf created a printing press for their friends.

I. THE QUESTION OF LITERACY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

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Pro remedio animae suae: That by reading he might fill his mind. – St. Jerome

(Winnifred 208)

For society to evolve, it must first recognize that there is a need for evolution. Whether it

is the individual that demands progress or those in power, change cannot happen unless there is a

catalyst. Change is birthed from a barren place. Perhaps change begins with the subconscious

understanding that something is lacking and this lack, this space, must be filled. In the Medieval

era, the lack in society was literacy, “when the majority of the population couldn’t read at all, a

certain percentage could read and not write, and the only way to be ‘literate’ at the time was if a

person could read Latin” (Woodbury).

According to Dr. de Valenzuela, associate professor of special education at the University

of New Mexico, “Literate…derives from Middle English and Latin terms meaning "marked with

letters" and "letters, literature."”” Dr. de Valenzuela makes a case for the ever-changing

definitions of literacy, which is redefined to encompass a changing society, “This definition is

important as it looks at literacy, at least to some extent, from a more contextualized perspective.

The definition of 'literate', then, depends on the skills needed within a particular environment..”

Literacy in the Middle Ages was not defined in the modern sense. Literacy meant that

some people were able to read but not write. Reading, in and of itself, could be considered the

totality of being literate. There is some argument about how literate people were in the Middle

Ages. As Thompson writes in The Literacy of the Laity in the Middle Ages, “A greater amount

of evidence pertinent to this subject is to be found in medieval sources than is generally believed.

Notwithstanding that the tendency of the Church's teaching was undoubtedly to depreciate

secular, and especially literary, education, we know that the Roman secular schools continued to

exist…” (v.).

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However, the idea that a person could write was considered remarkable and typically

reserved for the upper class, certain trades, and those chosen to record oral history and transcribe

anything from legal documents to the bible: “Literacy during the Middle Ages may be measured

almost wholly by the extent of the knowledge and use of the Latin language” (Thompson v).

Therefore, to state that society during the Middle Ages were literate, is to mean that the

individual, the layman, probably could not read or write but perhaps the upper class could read,

but not necessarily write. This distinction is important because in order to fully understand what

this meant to society, one must understand that reading and writing was considered a highly

specialized skill.

That many could not write, meant that what was read could not be reproduced. If most

could not read or write, then society received no information other than what was told to them.

Therefore, even if literacy was defined as perhaps being able to read but not write, what good is

reading if there are no books to read? Society was not educated to understand ideas that did not

exist within their direct proximity; the layman may not have a proper grasp of history on what

lay outside of his realm; and the powers that be could dictate what passed as education. An

illiterate society is a helpless society when there are not wide scale resources available to teach

the individual to read and write. Illiteracy in society allows for a dominating power such as the

church to control what society is taught. However, it was society that ultimately demanded more

books, which led to literacy and education and enlightenment. Society’s demand for more books

was the catalyst. The layman would eventually gain access to books and “[a]ny book, even

badly produced and riddled with errors, might well be the only one on that subject that anyone in

the community had ever seen” (Yu 8).

II. THE CHURCH

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Correxi libros: I corrected books. –Williram, German Abbot (Winnifred 210)

To describe a book as being a holy vessel is not inaccurate. Books brought a slow,

radical, sweeping revolution and evolution to society. That books did not exist, or did not exist

in abundance, meant death to the empowerment of mankind. Otto Pacht, in Book Illumination in

the Middle Ages: An Introduction, describes a society with books: “In the regions of northern

Europe which were untouched by classical culture, without any literary tradition…the book from

the beginning bore the charged atmosphere of a higher world…” (12). A higher world of

learning whereby laymen had the opportunity to learn how to read, which in turn meant

understanding history, questioning the present powers, and teaching society how to read and

write. Widespread reading and writing revolutionized and enlightened the world.

In early medieval times, the initial power that had the most interest in producing books

was the church and it “played a very important role in protecting ancient works, and monks

were…involved with the reproduction and preservation of…writers whose works had been

accepted as classics” (Yu 7). Monks had a strict schedule by which they had to produce a certain

number of hours in the scriptorium.

As the church grew in size and power, “the reading of the works of ‘pagan’ writers was

discouraged, and the manuscripts themselves were first neglected, and later suffered to fall into

decay” (Yu 6). Although the church recognized ancient writers, its “production of knowledge

remained patriarchal” (Yu 7). Due to the lack of books, literate people, and skilled scribes, the

church had a captive society.

When society cannot read or write, society is at the mercy of those in power. The church

held the power of dictating education, values, beliefs, and the written word, “Christianity…drew

no distinction between the book as an instrument of communication and the message it

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conveyed. The book was the source of faith made palpable: it not only contained the Gospel, it

was the Gospel” (Pacht 10). As an example of just how few books existed within a monastery,

in 1050, there were only five books found within Exeter Cathedral. When Bishop Leofric took

over, although he “immediately establish[ed] a scriptorium of skilled workers,” (Yu 7) twenty-

two years later, only sixty-six books had been created.

III. SCRIBES

The church delegated the task of hand copying books to scribes who worked within the

monastery, “the majority of books produced served as the liturgical books and were used by

priests and monks in churches and monasteries. These books - especially Bibles -were seen as

the property of the titular saint of the church or monastery…” (Baranov). Scribes played the

most important roles in the production of medieval manuscripts. Before the invention of the

printing press, scribes were people who hand copied original works of authors into books.

If writing is the act of “create[ing] something…to bring meaning into being through words

in a way that did not exist before,” then scribes were the inventors who brought forth something

for the public that did not readily exist: book (Fisher 9). Scribes were the initiators of books on a

massive scale. Not enough can be said about the monks who toiled away, often under dank

conditions, and painstakingly spent years—sometimes their entire life—hand copying a single

book. Scribes ushered in the intimacy between ‘author’ and reader. There is nothing more

intimate than a scribe hunched over a desk inside of the scriptorium with nothing more than their

hand as the machine, carefully transcribing ancient texts. These texts were not being hand copied

for nothing. Even though scribes hand-copied texts for the church, ultimately the task of hand-

copying texts also meant that society would eventually have access to literature. Scribes ushered

in and were the first to advance the enlightenment of society.

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There is a symbiotic relationship between scribes hand-copying texts and the individual

who would be impacted by accessibility to books. What the scribes accomplished impacts

society today. vScribes ensured that modernity occurred: “The historical record of manuscripts

traces the development of literacy from an exclusive and narrowly focused preserve of the

learned…to an instrument of education, entertainment and bureaucracy within society as a

whole” (Tillotson).

Manuscripts were brought to life before printing presses, before people had the ability to

even read what was hand copied: “Before the invention of printing, written works could be

reproduced only by manual copying from an existing manuscript. The accuracy with which

scribes reproduced their exemplars probably varied substantially between different societies and

texts” (Spence and Howe 311). But, this is not an argument that takes away the fact that scribes

toiled in earnest so that the layman had the possibility of education.

“Our library is our arsenal. From it we bring forth, like so many sharp arrows…,” wrote

Canon Gottfried of Sainte-Barbe-en-Auge regarding the way books in a monastery gave life to

the people when literacy allowed them to become educated. (Winnifred 208) The thought that a

monastery would not possess books meant that it was “a town without resources, a kitchen

without food, a garden without vegetables…” (Winnifred 208) The scribe bore the responsibility

of every aspect of creating a book: preparing parchment paper, making the ink, pens, and to

“grind the colors” for the manuscripts. (Winnifred 208)

Scribes were also responsible for understanding the content and message of the text they

were hand copying. If the scribe did not understand the words they were writing, they had to

possess the education and know-how to convey “what they believed the text meant,” and

“sometimes made changes that reinforced contemporary religious beliefs” (Spencer and Howe

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311). A scribe became so familiar with the text that they began to possess the words as their

own and took liberties to adjust meaning and rearrange portions of a text to suit their own

understanding. This is not unrealistic of them to do because a scribe could sit with the same

book for thirty years before it was finished. One book may be their life’s work. Hand-copying

one book may have created a sense that this was their highest calling, a noble deed, and became

their own mission. For with the scribe’s “fingers he gives life to men, and arms against the wiles

of the devil” (Winnifred 208). If a scribe believes that the texts they copy brings life and

protection to a man, perhaps it is a fair assumption that the scribe felt he possessed the words he

transcribed.

Each scribe created their own connection with their work and had the foresight to discern

that what they were doing had epic meaning within their society and the world that would exist

long after they deceased. It is the scribes’ personal belief of the monumental consequences of

hand copying books that lends an air of holiness to books. The scribe wrote not just for the

church and the ruling powers, but also for the common man, “What he writes in his cell will be

scattered far and wide over distant provinces (Winnifred 208).

A scribe would insert himself into the very book that he was copying, “Arduous above all

arts in the art of the scribe. His labor is difficult. It is hard to bend the neck and furrow

parchment for twice three hours” (Winnifred 210). Modern writers have the privilege of

working from the comfort of their home or office where there is nourishment and central air and

heat. A writer today is able to enjoy lighting, interruptions, and antics from co-workers,

neighbors, friends and family. While still a very intimate act, the modern writer is also privy to

modern accessories: computers, spell check, a plethora of publishers, plenty of paper, ready-

made writing utensils and ink, and the understanding that maybe their article will take mere

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months to finish. A scribe not only prepared their own parchment, ink, pen, and binding, but

they labored knowing that they could decease before finishing one book.

Scribes had a single book in front of them, often religious text, and before they could

begin their task, they had to literally invent it. They were truly inventing the prototype that

would become the backbone of manuscript making. Outside of preparing the parchment paper,

ink, pens, font, and coloring, their task was to lay themselves out for the work at hand. There

was no end in sight. Perhaps they could rejoice in finishing a single chapter:

“Dearly beloved who reads this, I beg you by Him who formed us to pray for me,

an unworthy sinner and the worst of writers, if you would have your reward with

the Lord, our Savior. As the harbor is sweet to the sailor, so is the last line to the

writer. He who does not know how to write thinks it is no labor. Yet, although

the scribe writes with three fingers, his whole body toils.” (Winnifred 210)

It is not hard to imagine the scribe toiling throughout the evening, under nighttime, by

candlelight, as he sits on a stool trying to decipher Latin. The sheer exhaustion alone could undo

most modern writers. If a book could take thirty years to complete, this meant a scribe sat night

after night on the same stool, copying the same book, without any thought for reward. How

could a scribe even think of their reward when they were faced with a never-ending deadline?

These weren’t books being mass-produced by a machine. This was not typing on a keyboard

with a delete button. This was a person using their hand to slowly etch each word perfectly, “Be

it on the conscience of everyone who may handle my beautiful little book that he bestow a

blessing on the soul of the poor wretch who coped it,” (Winnifred 211) writes the scribe who

copied The Book of Deer.

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There is something intimate and holy in a scribe’s work that translates powerfully the

absolute necessity of books. Theirs was a work that had to be completed so that the church, and

eventually society, would have books to learn by. This was not a project that could have been

overlooked. Society had to progress and needed educating. Society had to learn how to read and

write and they needed books. The debt that scribes paid in making it their life’s work to

complete one book is awe inspiring and should be acknowledged as one of the single most

powerful acts of enlightenment to modern day society. Not enough can be said of these vessels

that hand copied letters. Not only did they face strict schedules, but Scribes had their share of

hardships, “O that all the sky were parchment and all the sea were ink,” (Winnifred 210) laments

a scribe when faced with dwindling parchment. There was no stock for this scribe to reach for

and there was no company to deliver this parchment. In order to keep writing, the scribe had to

stop and make more.

This sort of labor, in turn, created quite a wry personality in scribes. Writes a scribe from

One from Christ’s Church, Canterbury: “If any one removes this book from Christ’s

Church…may he suffer the curse of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary” (Winnifred 211).

Another implores that the eventual reader, “pay attention to the arduous labor of writing: Take up

the book, read it, do not harm it, put it away” (Winnifred 211). It is important to realize that

these were human beings attempting to bring literature to their world. Also noteworthy is the

fact that these scribes had to be totally capable of reading and writing. This cannot be stressed

enough because it is not like today when we assume someone can read and write. This was a

gift, reading and writing, and, even more so, to scribes, an act of God. These are but a few

sentiments written by scribes in the margins of books they were hand-copying:

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“It is cold today; It is time for us to begin to do some work; I feel quite dull

today—I do not know what is wrong with me; Thank God it will soon be dark;

Oh, that a glass of good old wine were at my side; Oh my, that’s a hard page and

a weary work to read it.” (Winnifred 212)

In mid to late medieval times, scribes were given antiquities to copy and this meant

ancient texts from Greece and Rome were handwritten in Latin and, eventually, placed into the

hands of society. This sentence from a scribe given the task of copying Virgil’s The Aeneid

perhaps echoes the sentiments of every modern reader today, “I am greatly grieved at the above-

mentioned death [of Hector].” Beside these words, the scribe concludes: “Virgil, a great poet,

and not an easy one either” (Winnifred 213). Not only did this particular scribe understand what

he was reading, but had to translate it properly so that it could be read by society. Given the task

of hand-copying Virgil, the scribe was moved by Virgil’s storytelling.

IV. GUTTENBERG PRESS

A German goldsmith by the name of Johannes Gutenberg invented a moveable press in

1436 that completely changed the way books were produced. Suddenly, it was no longer just

certain schools and monasteries that possessed books. Scribes no longer had to sit and hand

copy the lines of a book for a decade. Books were no longer rare artifacts inaccessible to the

common man. This press made it possible to mass-produce books in large quantities, over a

short period of time, and without fatigue. For it was a machine, and not man, that now had the

task of copying and binding books: “The initial demand for printed books came from

universities, the clergy, monasteries and convents, the Civil Service, the feudal nobility (and

their ladies), lawyers and physicians, and schoolboys and their teachers” (Yu 10).

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The Guttenberg Press helped fulfill society’s demand for more books. Society became

privy to books and this not only provided a way to become literate, but introduced history and

other philosophies that went beyond the church’s theology. It is hard to maintain power over

people and dictate thought when people’s minds are being enlightenment with foreign works,

world history, and secular teachings. Scribes initiated the production of books—hand copying

texts and creating the whole of a book—and the Guttenberg Press expounded on this by

populating the world with the written word at a mass level. By allowing individuals to choose

how they were educated and by what means, books put the power of information back into the

hands of the individual.

V. HOGARTH PRESS: Books for The Middle Class

This process of choosing what is written and shared, and allowing society to become

literate and informed on a worldwide level, influenced generations for thousands of years. In

fact, so much so that it gave people the right to decide what books they wanted to read and by

what authors. This freedom also extended to writers who realized they too could regain control

over their own books. An example of this is Leonard and Virginia Woolf. When the Woolfs

realized that what they wanted to write and what their peers wanted to write was not necessarily

in line with the current establishment, they took matters into their own hands. Just as the church

originally mandated what books would be hand-copied by scribes and what information was

allowed to leak into society, so did the Woolfs.

In 1915, Leonard and Virginia were celebrating a birthday dinner in a quaint restaurant

when they made a list of things they desired for the year: 1) to purchase the Hogarth house, 2) to

buy a printing press, and 3) to buy a Bulldog they named John. It was with this air of simplicity

and homespun aspiration that Leonard began to search for a printing press they could afford. It

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was two years before their dream of owning a printing press came to pass. The Woolfs

purchased their press in 1917 at a time when publishing houses were abundant and modern and

afforded mass production of books. Perhaps the Woolf’s fundamental need, like that of the

church employing scribes during medieval times, was the same: to produce books that would not

ordinarily see the light of day unless someone took it upon themselves to see that they did. The

Woolf’s wanted “the inestimable prize of editorial freedom…without the real or imagined

criticism of a publisher’s reader” (Moffat 71).

What the Woolf’s were wishing to establish was a means by which they had total control

over the content that was distributed. The Hogarth Press produced “ongoing political

conversations that challenged traditional boundaries of gender, nation, and colonial

relationships,” (McTaggart 64) which they would not have had the freedom to do if a public

press was the mediator between writer and reader. The Woolf’s were establishing “their own

literary interests,” (65) for the purpose of informing society of literature that wasn’t readily

available through a public press. The Woolf’s believed that “literature was common ground,”

and should be accessible by everyone (65). At a time when “ownership of publishing houses and

newspapers began to consolidate in the hands of a few men,” (65) the Woolf’s saw fit to embark

on literary freedom.

In J.H. Willis, Jr.’s Leonard and Virginia Woolf as Publishers, he writes that their initial

desire came out of “an opportunity to enjoy the sensuous delights of ink and paper, the balanced

pleasures of centering the text, sewing and binding” (Moffat 69). This description sounds

medieval and has its roots in what the scribes endured before starting a manuscript: creating ink,

parchment, and materials for binding. It was a medieval approach, a trade to learn while

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producing “some sort of engaging relief from their strenuous literary, journalistic, and political

activities” (Willis 9).

The Woolf’s home became the scriptorium. In the beginning the press was placed on

their dining room table and in the first fifteen years, thirty-four hand printed books were

produced. Everything from machining, setting the type, sewing the stitching, and hand packing

the books for delivery was done within their home. Ms. Woolf had to adjust to writing her

novels in their basement as every room was taken over by The Hogarth Press. This “amusing

and exciting pastime they were beginning would so complicate and enrich their lives for the next

twenty-five years,” (Willis 3) and would publish some of the eras most prominent, forward, and

groundbreaking thinkers. All of this was a result of Leonard and Virginia Wolf feeling that the

works they wanted to write and to publish would not be well handled in a large corporate

printing press. Therefore, instead of utilizing the modernity and juggernaut of the printing

world, they put the power back into their own hands.

VI. CLOSING

Writing and publishing started as a holy, intimate act. Namely, it started with a scribe in

the scriptorium of a monastery—hunched over a desk, hand-copying ancient texts with no end in

sight. The scribe’s one book slowly turned into two books. This act of hand copying books for

the church, and then society, evolved into Guttenberg inventing a moveable press to mass-

produce books for the church and society. But, the written word and the process of how it is

spread was always in the hands of the people. The act of making a book started by scribes hand-

copying text and ended with people understanding their absolute right to publish what they

chose: “…the book was not merely an object, a thing to be used: it had its own special meaning

as witness to the promise of salvation, and in this respect was scarcely less potent a symbol than

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the Cross” (Pacht 10). While Pacht’s passage may speak to the Christian theology of salvation,

books became a salvation to society.

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Fisher, Matthew. Scribal Authorship and The Writing of History In Medieval England.

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McTaggart, Ursula. "Opening the Door: The Hogarth Press as Virginia Woolf's Outsiders." Tulsa

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(1994): 69-71. Print.

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