14-06-2026, 01:52 PM
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of manuscript on paper vs on parchment for those centuries.
I think enough had been said about the financial feasibility: it would have cost money, but nothing that's out of reach for the middle class. The manuscript was made on poor parchment, but that doesn't mean that this was all the makers had available to them. It just means they had parchment of this quality and made the MS with it. So going by financial means, you could have anyone from a worker to a king as the maker.
A more distinguishing question might be: who would have been interested in making a manuscript? We are used to literacy being the norm. All but the most unfortunate individuals in Western society can go to the store, pick up a notebook and start writing. Or type on their phones. Read a website. Participate in the group chat. Post on Facebook. But it takes some effort to us to imagine the scenario where the contents of books were the domain of the learned, and the ability and willingness to write restricted to certain parts of society.
Maybe making books was more like publishing in high ranking journals today. It's only about financial means to a certain degree, but the main question is: who is able to do this, and how many non-scholars would even be interested in this kind of thing? If you go out on the street and ask random people "have you ever wanted to submit a paper to a peer reviewed journal?", how long will it be before you get a yes? (Unless you're hanging out around a university campus).
I think enough had been said about the financial feasibility: it would have cost money, but nothing that's out of reach for the middle class. The manuscript was made on poor parchment, but that doesn't mean that this was all the makers had available to them. It just means they had parchment of this quality and made the MS with it. So going by financial means, you could have anyone from a worker to a king as the maker.
A more distinguishing question might be: who would have been interested in making a manuscript? We are used to literacy being the norm. All but the most unfortunate individuals in Western society can go to the store, pick up a notebook and start writing. Or type on their phones. Read a website. Participate in the group chat. Post on Facebook. But it takes some effort to us to imagine the scenario where the contents of books were the domain of the learned, and the ability and willingness to write restricted to certain parts of society.
Maybe making books was more like publishing in high ranking journals today. It's only about financial means to a certain degree, but the main question is: who is able to do this, and how many non-scholars would even be interested in this kind of thing? If you go out on the street and ask random people "have you ever wanted to submit a paper to a peer reviewed journal?", how long will it be before you get a yes? (Unless you're hanging out around a university campus).