Nib asked for
Books Before Print
Before printing, every book was copied by hand, so each one cost months of skilled labor, and that is why books were rare and expensive.
6 steps, drawn by Nib. Read it here, or watch him draw it. Updated .
1the scribe
Start with a blank slate: no printing in Europe, no copy machines. If you wanted a second copy of a book, a person had to sit down and write out every word again, letter by letter. The book was a handmade object, closer to a piece of furniture than a product.
One book meant one person rewriting every word by hand.
a common mix-upPeople often picture old books as easy to duplicate, but there was no shortcut; every copy started from zero.
If you owned one book and your friend wanted a copy, what was the only way to make it?
Show the answer
A person had to copy the whole thing out by hand.
2copy by hand
Original book on the left, blank book on the right. The scribe copies line by line, letter by letter, with a quill. No shortcut exists.
3who copied
The copyists were usually trained scribes, often monks working in monasteries, though by the later Middle Ages many worked in city workshops, too. They prepared the writing surface, ruled lines, and wrote in a careful, regular script. Good copying took years of training, so this was skilled work, not casual labor.
Scribes were trained specialists, in monasteries and workshops.
4months of work
Even a skilled scribe was slow. Copying a large book, such as a Bible, could take many months of steady work, and fancy books added more steps: decorated capital letters, small painted pictures, and a binding. Every one of those steps was done by hand, so time stacked up.
A big book could take months of one person's work.
Why did adding decorations and binding make a book even more costly?
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Each extra step was more handwork, and more skilled labor meant more time and money.
5labor wins
The writing surface cost money too. Many books were written on parchment, which is treated animal skin, and a single large book could need the skins of many animals. Paper existed in Europe by this time and was cheaper, but labor remained the main cost either way.
Materials were costly, but the scribe's time cost the most.
6rare treasures
Put it together: months of skilled labor plus costly materials meant each book was priced like a treasure. Churches, universities, and wealthy people owned books; most families owned none. And because each copy was made by a human hand, copies could differ, since slips and changes crept in with every recopying.
Books were rare, costly, and each copy could differ slightly.
a common mix-upIt is easy to assume a copied book was identical to the original, but handwork meant variation.
Why might two handwritten copies of the same book not match exactly?
Show the answer
A human copied each one, so small errors and changes could slip in.
Hold onto this: when every book costs months of a person's life, books stay rare, and that is the wall printing was about to break.