Wednesday, November 11, 2026
Hard Labor
Sara J. Charles, The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages (London: Reaktion Books, 2024), p. 12:
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[T]he making of a medieval manuscript was dirty, smelly, often boring and certainly back-breaking. It involved blood, urine, excrement and earwax. From the visceral process of preparing animal skin, to the wrist-straining tedium of endless writing, to the foul-smelling ingredients of illumination, to the finger-numbing effort of sewing tough parchment together — making a manuscript was an act of hard labour.
