Quote:RenegadeHealer: ...
Do we have any good idea what kind of writing utensil the scribe used, and how it was likely wielded?...
Yes, we do. It's still possible to make medieval quills and medieval styluses in the same way as in the Middle Ages. The quills were cut with a knife, which is pretty much how we do it now.
You can still buy parchment prepared in the same way. I've used a quill pen on parchment. It's more ink-resistant than paper (it takes more practice and you have to be even more careful to not brush against it and smear the ink as it takes longer to dry), but the process of laying down the strokes (in terms of stroke order) is essentially the same as writing with a quill on paper.
A quill pen has to be held and used in a certain direction in order to create the thick and thin strokes (this is partly based on the cut of the quill and partly based on the angle). This is true for all calligraphy, and the style will partly depend on the cut and breadth of the quill.
The VMS scribes weren't very good at this. If you look at medieval bookhands, you can see the scribe was very aware of which direction created the thicks and thins. The VMS is less this way. It doesn't look like the work of a professional scribe (it's more like the handwriting of students who copied their own textbooks).
A quill also has to be pulled in a certain direction or the tines will split too far apart, or the pressure is on the wrong direction related to the flow of ink.
The direction of the strokes in any form of calligraphy is optimized to avoid drawing against the direction of the quill. To not do so produces splots and stutters and if the scribe really forces the pen, can actually spray the ink over the work area. Start up and work down, start left and work right (if you are right-handed) and you won't be pushing the nib in the wrong direction.
A really good scribe will also modify the pressure on the pen as the ink is fresh to when the ink is starting to run out. You need a lighter hand to deal with a full quill and you can put more pressure as the ink runs out and needs to be re-dipped. This way the dark-to-light pattern that occurs as the ink level changes is a little less apparent.
Using a fountain pen is much easier than a quill, the ink doesn't run out (as quickly) and there is a more measured load of ink on the nib, and you don't have to trim the metal every few pages as with a quill. But if it is a broad pen (a calligraphy nib), many people have trouble using a fountain pen.
They did have metal styluses in those days, but when I read up on it, I got the impression that most scribes used quills in the early 15th century. It depended partly on where you lived, your socio-economic class, and whether you were a professional scribe or amateur writer.