I've already answered this question a couple of times.
We don't have to guess at the medieval mindset, we just have to listen. When a daughter of a medieval physician asked her father why a manuscript had to be encrypted, he said that it protected the contents and gave it more value. I posted a more complete and accurate version of this a couple of years ago.
Trade secrets almost don't exist any more. On the Internet people pry into everything and give everything away, but trade secrets were an extremely important aspect of business and professional worlds for thousands of years. It was part of every professional adult's consciousness in the Middle Ages.
We don't have to guess at the medieval mindset, we just have to listen. When a daughter of a medieval physician asked her father why a manuscript had to be encrypted, he said that it protected the contents and gave it more value. I posted a more complete and accurate version of this a couple of years ago.
Trade secrets almost don't exist any more. On the Internet people pry into everything and give everything away, but trade secrets were an extremely important aspect of business and professional worlds for thousands of years. It was part of every professional adult's consciousness in the Middle Ages.