17-04-2026, 07:43 AM
I had this thought experiment lately. Assuming that the VMS was not written in a scriptorium (i.e., not in an "official" place filled with dozens of professional scribes where one could easily notice that someone is writing a hundreds of pages of secret text in broad daylight), we could assume that it was written in a more secluded place, outside the scope of prying eyes.
One way to do so could be to take the vellum from a scriptorium using theft, and then write the MS in a "safe place". After all, iron gall ink was not difficult to make "at home", so all that was needed for writing the manuscript DYI-style was a lot of vellum.
So I wonder, how easy would it be to steal 100 sheets of vellum from a scriptorium, and whether such a theft would go unnoticed (are 100 sheets "a lot" or "a little" in the scope of a professional workshop)? Would such a theft be recorded in the inventory of a scriptorium?
One way to do so could be to take the vellum from a scriptorium using theft, and then write the MS in a "safe place". After all, iron gall ink was not difficult to make "at home", so all that was needed for writing the manuscript DYI-style was a lot of vellum.
So I wonder, how easy would it be to steal 100 sheets of vellum from a scriptorium, and whether such a theft would go unnoticed (are 100 sheets "a lot" or "a little" in the scope of a professional workshop)? Would such a theft be recorded in the inventory of a scriptorium?