![Scribes with typewriters outside Post Office, Mandi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Scribes_with_typewriters_outside_Post_Office%2C_Mandi.jpg)
A scribe is a person who serves as a professional
copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of
automatic printing.
The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its prominence and status with the advent of the
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
. The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as secretarial and administrative duties such as the taking of dictation and keeping of business, judicial, and historical records for
king
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
s,
nobles
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteri ...
,
temple
A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...
s, and
cities
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
. The profession has developed into
public servants,
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
s,
accountants,
bookkeepers,
typist Typist is a person who types, a clerical worker who writes documents, using a typewriter.
Skills and occupations
Typist may also refer to:
*Data entry clerk, someone who types data into a database via a computer or terminal.
* Audio typist, someone ...
s, and
lawyers. In societies with low literacy rates, street-corner letter-writers (and readers) may still be found providing scribe service.
Ancient Egypt
![Model of a Granary with Scribes MET DP351558](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Model_of_a_Granary_with_Scribes_MET_DP351558.jpg)
One of the most important professionals in ancient Egypt was a person educated in the arts of writing (both
hieroglyphics
Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,00 ...
and
hieratic scripts, as well as the
demotic
Demotic may refer to:
* Demotic Greek, the modern vernacular form of the Greek language
* Demotic (Egyptian), an ancient Egyptian script and version of the language
* Chữ Nôm, the demotic script for writing Vietnamese
See also
*
* Demos (disa ...
script from the second half of the first millennium BCE, which was mainly used as shorthand and for commerce) and arithmetic. Sons of scribes were brought up in the same scribal tradition, sent to school, and inherited their fathers' positions upon entering the civil service.
Much of what is known about ancient Egypt is due to the activities of its scribes and the officials. Monumental buildings were erected under their supervision,
administrative and economic activities were documented by them, and stories from Egypt's lower classes and foreign lands survive due to scribes putting them in writing.
![Ancient Egyptian Scribe's palette HARGM7677](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Ancient_Egyptian_Scribe%27s_palette_HARGM7677.jpg)
Scribes were considered part of the royal court, were not
conscripted
Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day und ...
into the army, did not have to pay taxes, and were exempt from the heavy manual labor required of the lower classes (
corvée
Corvée () is a form of unpaid, forced labour, that is intermittent in nature lasting for limited periods of time: typically for only a certain number of days' work each year.
Statute labour is a corvée imposed by a state for the purposes of ...
labor). The scribal profession worked with painters and artisans who decorated
relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
s and other building works with scenes, personages, or hieroglyphic text.
The hieroglyph used to
signify the scribe, ''to write'' and ''writings'', etc., is
Gardiner sign Y3,
Y3 from the category of 'writings, & music'. The hieroglyph contains the scribe's ink-mixing palette, a vertical case to hold writing-reeds, and a leather pouch to hold the black and red ink blocks.
The demotic scribes used rush pens which had stems thinner than that of a reed (2 mm). The end of the rush was cut obliquely and then chewed so that the fibers became separated. The result was a short, stiff brush which was handled in the same manner as that of a calligrapher.
Thoth
Thoth (; from grc-koi, Θώθ ''Thṓth'', borrowed from cop, Ⲑⲱⲟⲩⲧ ''Thōout'', Egyptian: ', the reflex of " eis like the Ibis") is an ancient Egyptian deity. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or ...
was the god credited with the invention of writing by the ancient Egyptians. He was the scribe of the gods who held knowledge of scientific and moral laws.
Egyptian and Mesopotamian functions
![Tablet with Cuneiform Writing](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Tablet_with_Cuneiform_Writing.jpg)
![Egyptian - Scribe Statue of Min-nakht - Walters 22230 - Three Quarter](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Egyptian_-_Scribe_Statue_of_Min-nakht_-_Walters_22230_-_Three_Quarter.jpg)
In addition to accountancy and governmental politicking, the scribal professions branched out into literature. The first stories were probably creation stories and religious texts. Other genres evolved, such as
wisdom literature
Wisdom literature is a genre of literature common in the ancient Near East. It consists of statements by sages and the wise that offer teachings about divinity and virtue. Although this genre uses techniques of traditional oral storytelling, it w ...
, which were collections of the philosophical sayings from wise men. These contain the earliest recordings of societal thought and exploration of ideas in some length and detail.
In
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
during the middle to late 3rd millennium BCE, the
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of c ...
ians originated some of this literature in the form of a series of debates. Among the list of
Sumerian disputations
The Sumerian disputation or Sumerian debate is a topical short story created in the middle-to-late 3rd millennium BC. Seven major debates are known, with specific titles.
The list of the majority of the known debates is as follows (from Kramer): ...
is the ''
Debate between bird and fish
The "Debate between bird and fish" is an essay written in the Sumerian language on clay tablets, dating back to the mid to late 3rd millennium BC.
Seven ''"debate"'' topics are known from Sumerian literature, falling in the category of 'disputati ...
.'' Other Sumerian examples include the ''
Debate between Summer and Winter
Debate is a process that involves formal discourse on a particular topic, often including a moderator and audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for often opposing viewpoints. Debates have historically occurred in public meetings, ...
'' where Winter wins, and disputes between the cattle and grain, the tree and the reed, silver and copper, the pickaxe and the plough, and the millstone and the gul-gul stone.
An Ancient Egyptian version is
''The Dispute between a man and his Ba'', which comes from the Middle Kingdom period.
China
The written word can be traced back as far as 1400 BCE in ancient China. It was originally used for divination, with characters etched onto turtle shells to interpret cracks caused by exposure to heat. By the sixth century BCE, scribes were producing books called "jiance or jiandu," . These books were made from bamboo strips, each containing a single column of script, bound together with hemp, silk, or leather. Paper, the scribal tool China is known for originating, was likely invented by an imperial eunuch named
Cai Lun in 105 CE. The invention of paper later allowed for the invention of wood block printing, where paper was rubbed onto an inked slab to copy the characters. Despite this invention, calligraphy remained a prized skill due to the belief that: "...the best way to absorb the contents of a book was to copy it by hand," .
Chinese scribes played an instrumental role in the imperial government's civil service. During the Tang dynasty, private collections of Confucian classics began to grow. Young men hoping to join the civil service would need to pass an exam based on Confucian doctrine, and these collections, which became known as "academy libraries" were places of study. Within this merit system, owning books was a sign of status. Despite the later importance of Confucian manuscripts, they were initially heavily resisted by the Qin dynasty. Though their accounts are likely exaggerated, later scholars describe a period of book burning and scholarly suppression. This exaggeration likely stems from Han dynasty historians being steeped in Confucianism as state orthodoxy.
Similarly to the west, religious texts, particularly Buddhist, were transcribed in monasteries and hidden "...during times of persecution..." . In fact, the earliest print book found was a copy of the
Diamond Sutra from 868 CE, which was found in a walled-in cave called
Dunhuang.
As professionals, scribes would undergo three years of training before becoming novices. The title "scribe" was inherited from father to son. Early in their careers, they would work with local and regional governments and did not enjoy an official rank. A young scribe needed to hone their writing skills before specializing in an area like public administration or law. Archeological evidence even points to scribes being buried with marks of their trade such as brushes "...administrative, legal, divinatory, mathematical, and medicinal texts.." thus showing a personal understanding of the importance of their profession
The
Triptaka, Buddhist texts, emerged at the beginning of the first century. Buddhist texts were treasured and sacred throughout Asia and were written in different languages. Buddhist scribes believed that, “The act of copying them could bring a scribe closer to perfection and earn him merit.”
Judaism
Scribes of
ancient Israel
The history of ancient Israel and Judah begins in the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. "Israel" as a people or tribal confederation (see Israelites) appears for the first time in the Merneptah Stele, an inscri ...
were a literate minority in an
oral based-culture. Some of them belonged to the
priestly class
Priestly is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Miranda Priestly, a character in ''The Devil Wears Prada''
* Paul Priestly, a character in ''EastEnders''
See also
* Priestley (disambiguation)
* Priestly source, one of the propo ...
, other scribes were the record-keepers and letter-writers in the royal palaces and administrative centers, affiliated with the ancient equivalent of
professional guilds.
There were no scribal schools in Israel during the early part of the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
(1200–800 B.C.E.). Between the 13th and 8th centuries B.C.E., the
Hebrew alphabetic system had not been developed. Only after the appearance of the
Kingdom of Israel,
Finkelstein Finkelstein ( he, פֿינק(ע)לשׁטײַן or , russian: Финкельштейн) is a German and Yiddish surname originating from Old High German ''funko'' (spark) and ''stein'' (stone).
''Fünkelstein'' meant pyrite (George J. Adler A Dictio ...
points to the reign of
Omri
Omri ( ; he, , ''‘Omrī''; akk, 𒄷𒌝𒊑𒄿 ''Ḫûmrî'' 'ḫu-um-ri-i'' fl. 9th century BC) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the sixth king of Israel. He was a successful military campaigner who extended the northern kingdom of ...
, did the scribal schools begin to develop, reaching their culmination in the time of
Jeroboam II
Jeroboam II ( he, יָרָבְעָם, ''Yāroḇə‘ām''; el, Ἱεροβοάμ; la, Hieroboam/Jeroboam) was the son and successor of Jehoash (alternatively spelled Joash) and the thirteenth king of the ancient Kingdom of Israel, over which ...
, under Mesopotamian influence. The eventual standardization of the Hebrew writing system between the eighth and sixth centuries B.C.E. would presumably have given rise to codified rules and principles of language that scribes would then have learned. The education of scribes in ancient Israel was supported by the state, although some scribal arts could have been taught within a small number of families.
Some scribes also copied documents, but this was not necessarily part of their job.
![Tomb of Ezekiel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Tomb_of_Ezekiel.jpg)
The Jewish scribes used the following rules and procedures while creating copies of the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
and eventually other books in the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...
.
# They could only use clean animal skins, both to write on, and even to bind manuscripts.
# Each column of writing could have no less than 48, and no more than 60, lines.
# The ink must be black, and of a special recipe.
# They must say each word aloud while they were writing.
# They must wipe the pen and wash their entire bodies before writing the most Holy Name of God,
YHVH
The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are ''yodh'', '' he'', '' waw'', and ' ...
, every time they wrote it.
# There must be a review within thirty days, and if as many as three pages required corrections, the entire manuscript had to be redone.
# The letters, words, and paragraphs had to be counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other. The middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document.
# The documents could be stored only in sacred places (synagogues, etc.).
# As no document containing God's Word could be destroyed, they were stored, or buried, in a
genizah (Hebrew: "storage").
Sofer
Sofers (Jewish scribes) are among the few scribes that still do their trade by hand, writing on
parchment
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins o ...
. Renowned
calligrapher
Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "t ...
s, they produce the Hebrew
Torah scrolls
A ( he, סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה; "Book of Torah"; plural: ) or Torah scroll is a handwritten copy of the Torah, meaning the five books of Moses (the first books of the Hebrew Bible). The Torah scroll is mainly used in the ritual of Tor ...
and other holy texts.
Accuracy
Until 1948, the oldest known manuscripts of the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...
dated back to CE 895. In 1947, a shepherd boy discovered some scrolls dated between 100 BCE and CE 100, inside a cave west of the
Dead Sea. Over the next decade, more scrolls were found in caves and the discoveries became known collectively as the
Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...
. Every book in the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...
was represented except the
Esther
Esther is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther. In the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian king Ahasuerus seeks a new wife after his queen, Vashti, is deposed for disobeying him. Hadassah, a Jewess who goes by the name of Esther, is chosen ...
. Numerous copies of each book were discovered, including 25 copies of the book of
Deuteronomy.
While there were other items found among the Dead Sea Scrolls not currently in the Hebrew Bible, and many variations and errors occurred when they were copied, the texts, on the whole, testify to the accuracy of the scribes. The Dead Sea Scrolls are currently the best route of comparison to the accuracy and consistency of translation for the Hebrew Bible because they are the oldest out of any
biblical text currently known.
Corrections by the scribes and editing biblical literature
Priests who took over the leadership of the Jewish community preserved and edited biblical literature. Biblical literature became a tool that legitimated and furthered the priests' political and religious authority.
Corrections by the scribes (
Tiqqun soferim
''Tiqqūn sōferīm'' ( he, תיקון סופרים, plural ''tiqqūnēi sōferīm'') is a term from rabbinic literature meaning "correction/emendation of the scribes" or "scribal correction" and refers to a change of wording in the Tanakh in o ...
) refers to changes that were made in the original wording of the Hebrew Bible during the second temple period, perhaps sometime between 450 and 350 BCE. One of the most prominent men at this time was
Ezra the scribe
Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe (''sofer'') and priest (''kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρας ...
. He also hired scribes to work for him, in order to write down and revise the oral tradition. After Ezra and the scribes had completed the writing, Ezra gathered the Jews who had returned from exile, all of whom belonged to
Kohanim
Kohen ( he, , ''kōhēn'', , "priest", pl. , ''kōhănīm'', , "priests") is the Hebrew word for "priest", used in reference to the Aaronic priesthood, also called Aaronites or Aaronides. Levitical priests or ''kohanim'' are traditionally be ...
families. Ezra read them an unfamiliar version of the Torah. This version was different from the Torah of their fathers. Ezra did not write a new bible. Through the genius of his ‘editing', he presented the religion in a new light.
Europe in the Middle Ages
![Archive-ugent-be-2563040A-7640-11E8-B87C-CA810AD9BE4D DS-15 (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Archive-ugent-be-2563040A-7640-11E8-B87C-CA810AD9BE4D_DS-15_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Monastic scribes
In the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, every book was made by hand. Specially trained monks, or scribes, had to carefully cut sheets of parchment, make the ink, write the script, bind the pages, and create a cover to protect the script. This was all accomplished in a monastic writing room called a
scriptorium
Scriptorium (), literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the writing, copying and illuminating of manuscripts commonly handled by monastic scribes.
However, lay scribes an ...
which was kept very quiet so scribes could maintain concentration.
A large scriptorium may have up to 40 scribes working.
Scribes woke to morning bells before dawn and worked until the evening bells, with a lunch break in between. They worked every day except for the
Sabbath.
The primary purpose of these scribes was to promote the ideas of the Christian Church, so they mostly copied classical and religious works. The scribes were required to copy works in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew whether or not they understood the language.
These re-creations were often written in calligraphy and featured rich illustrations, making the process incredibly time-consuming. Scribes had to be familiar with the writing technology as well. They had to make sure that the lines were straight and the letters were the same size in each book that they copied.
It typically took a scribe fifteen months to copy a Bible.
Such books were written on parchment or vellum made from treated hides of sheep, goats, or calves. These hides were often from the monastery's own animals as monasteries were self-sufficient in raising animals, growing crops, and brewing beer.
The overall process was too extensive and costly for books to become widespread during this period.
Although scribes were only able to work in daylight, due to the expense of candles and the rather poor lighting they provided, monastic scribes were still able to produce three to four pages of work per day.
The average scribe could copy two books per year.
They were expected to make at least one mistake per page.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, copying became more of a specialized activity and was increasingly performed by specialists. To meet expanding demand, the ''
pecia
A manuscript culture is a culture that depends on hand-written manuscripts to store and disseminate information. It is a stage that most developed cultures went through in between oral culture and print culture. Europe entered the stage in c ...
'' system was introduced, in which different parts of the same text were assigned to hired copiers working both in and out of the monasteries.
Female scribes
Women also played a role as scribes in Anglo-Saxon England, as religious women in convents and schools were literate. Excavations at medieval convents have uncovered
styli
A stylus (plural styli or styluses) is a writing utensil or a small tool for some other form of marking or shaping, for example, in pottery. It can also be a computer accessory that is used to assist in navigating or providing more precision w ...
, indicating that writing and copying were done at those locations. Also, female pronouns are used in prayers in manuscripts from the late 8th century, suggesting that the manuscripts were originally written by and for female scribes.
Most of the evidence for female scribes in the early middle ages in Rome is
epigraphic. There have been eleven Latin inscriptions uncovered from Rome that identify women as scribes. In these inscriptions we meet with Hapate who was known as a shorthand writer of Greek and lived until the age of 25. Corinna who was known as a storeroom clerk and scribe. Three were identified as literary assistants; Tyche, Herma, and Plaetoriae. There were also four women who have been identified by the title of ''libraria. Libraria'' is a term that not only indicates clerk or secretary but more specifically literary copyist. These women were Magia, Pyrrhe, Vergilia Euphrosyne and a freed woman who remains nameless in the inscription. To the inscriptions and literary references we can add one final piece of Roman-period evidence for female scribes: an early-2nd-century marble relief from Rome that preserves an illustration of a female scribe. The woman is seated on a chair and appears to be writing on some kind of a tablet, she is facing the butcher who is chopping meat at a table.
In the 12th century within a
Benedictine
, image = Medalla San Benito.PNG
, caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal
, abbreviation = OSB
, formation =
, motto = (English: 'Pray and Work')
, foun ...
monastery at
Wessobrunn
Wessobrunn is a Municipalities of Germany, municipality in the district of Weilheim-Schongau in Bavaria in Germany.
Paterzell airfield
Paterzell airfield is located in Wessobrunn. , Bavaria there lived a female scribe named Diemut. She lived within the monastery as recluse and professional scribe. Two medieval book lists exist that have named Diemut as having written more than forty books. Fourteen of Diemut's books are in existence today. Included in these are four volumes of a six volume set of
Pope Gregory the Great
Pope Gregory I ( la, Gregorius I; – 12 March 604), commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great, was the bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to his death. He is known for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregoria ...
's ''Moralia in Job'', two volumes of a three-volume Bible, and an illuminated copy of the Gospels. It has been discovered that Diemut was a scribe for as long as five decades. She collaborated with other scribes in the production of other books. Since the Wessobrunn monastery enforced its strict claustration it is presumed that these other scribes were also women. Diemut was credited with writing so many volumes that she single-handedly stocked the Wessobrunn's library. Her dedication to book production for the benefit of the Wessobrunn monks and nuns eventually led to her being recognized as a local saint. At the Benedictine monastery within
Admont
Admont is a town in the Austrian state of Styria. It is historically most notable for Admont Abbey, a monastery founded in 1074.
Gesäuse National Park, in which Admont lies, is an area of outstanding beauty. The town is situated in the middle of ...
, Austria it was discovered that some of the nuns had written verse and prose in both Latin and German. They delivered their own sermons, took dictation on wax tablets, and copied and illuminated manuscripts. They also taught Latin grammar and biblical interpretation at the school. By the end of the 12th century they owned so many books that they needed someone to oversee their scriptorium and library. Two female scribes have been identified within the Admont Monastery; Sisters Irmingart and Regilind.
There are several hundred women scribes that have been identified in Germany. These women worked within German women's convent from the thirteenth to the early 16th century. Most of these women can only be identified by their names or initials, by their label as "scriptrix", "soror", "scrittorix", "scriba" or by the
colophon (scribal identification which appears at the end of a manuscript). Some of the women scribes can be found through convent documents such as obituaries, payment records, book inventories, and narrative biographies of the individual nuns found in convent chronicles and sister books. These women are united by their contributions to the libraries of women's convents. Many of them remain unknown and unacknowledged but they served the intellectual endeavor of preserving, transmitting and on occasion creating texts. The books they left their legacies within were usually given to the sister of the convent and were dedicated to the abbess, or given or sold to the surrounding community. There are two obituaries that have been found that date back to the 16th century, both of the obituaries describe the women who died as a "scriba". In an obituary found from a monastery in Rulle, describes Christina Von Haltren as having written many other books.
Women's monasteries were different from men's in the period from the 13th to the 16th century. They would shift their order depending on their abbess. If a new abbess would be appointed then the order would change their identity. Every time a monastery would shift their order they would need to replace, correct and sometimes rewrite their texts. Many books survived from this period. Approximately 4,000 manuscripts have been discovered from women's convents from late medieval Germany. Women scribes served as the business women of the convent. They produced a large amount of archival and business materials, they recorded the information of the convent in the form of chronicles and obituaries. They were responsible for producing the rules, statutes and constitution of the order. They also copied a large amount of prayer books and other devotional manuscripts. Many of these scribes were discovered by their colophon.
[
Despite women being barred from transcribing Torah scrolls for ritual use, a few Jewish women between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries are known to have copied other Hebrew manuscripts. They learned the craft from male scribes they were related to, and were unusual because women were not typically taught Hebrew. Knowledge of these women scribes comes from their colophon signatures.
]
Town scribe
The scribe was a common job in medieval European towns during the 10th and 11th centuries. Many were employed at scriptoria owned by local schoolmasters or lords. These scribes worked under deadlines to complete commissioned works such as historic chronicles or poetry. Due to parchment being costly, scribes often created a draft of their work first on a wax or chalk tablet.
Notable scribes
* Ahmes
Ahmes ( egy, jꜥḥ-ms “, a common Egyptian name also transliterated Ahmose) was an ancient Egyptian scribe who lived towards the end of the Fifteenth Dynasty (and of the Second Intermediate Period) and the beginning of the Eighteenth Dyna ...
* Amat-Mamu
* Amina, bint al-Hajj ʿAbd al-Latif
Amina bint al-Hajj ʿAbd al-Latif, Arabic: أمينة بنت الحاج عبد اللطيف (fl. 1802 - 1812) was a Moroccan jurist and scribe, who worked in Tetouan during the nineteenth century.
Biography
In the nineteenth century it was mor ...
* Baruch ben Neriah
Baruch ben Neriah ( he, בָּרוּךְ בֶּן־נֵרִיָּה ''Bārūḵ ben Nērīyyā''; c. 6th century BC) was the scribe, disciple, secretary, and devoted friend of the Biblical prophet Jeremiah. He is traditionally credited with autho ...
* Ben Sira
* Dubhaltach MacFhirbhisigh
Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh (), also known as Dubhaltach Óg mac Giolla Íosa Mór mac Dubhaltach Mór Mac Fhirbhisigh, Duald Mac Firbis, Dudly Ferbisie, and Dualdus Firbissius (fl. 1643 – January 1671) was an Irish scribe, translator, histori ...
* Demetrius Erasmius
* Ezra
Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe ('' sofer'') and priest (''kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρα ...
* Matthew the Apostle
Matthew the Apostle,, shortened to ''Matti'' (whence ar, مَتَّى, Mattā), meaning "Gift of YHWH"; arc, , Mattai; grc-koi, Μαθθαῖος, ''Maththaîos'' or , ''Matthaîos''; cop, ⲙⲁⲧⲑⲉⲟⲥ, Mattheos; la, Matthaeus a ...
* Máel Muire mac Céilechair
Máel Muire ("servant of Mary") mac Céilechair (died 1106) was an Irish cleric of the monastery of Clonmacnoise, County Offaly, and one of the principal scribes of the manuscript ''Lebor na hUidre''.
He came from a prominent clerical family wi ...
* Metatron
Metatron ( ''Meṭāṭrōn'', ''Məṭaṭrōn'', ''Mēṭaṭrōn'', ''Mīṭaṭrōn'', ''Meṭaṭrōn'', ''Mīṭṭaṭrōn'') or Mattatron ( ''Maṭṭaṭrōn'') is an angel in Judaism mentioned three times in the Talmud in a few br ...
* Poggio Bracciolini
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (11 February 1380 – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He was responsible for rediscovering and recovering many classi ...
* Sidney Rigdon
Sidney Rigdon (February 19, 1793 – July 14, 1876) was a leader during the early history of the Latter Day Saint movement.
Biography Early life
Rigdon was born in St. Clair Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, on February 19, 1793. He was ...
* Sîn-lēqi-unninni
* Zayd ibn Thabit
Zayd bin Thabit () was the personal scribe of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, serving as the chief recorder of the Quran text. He hailed from the ansar (helpers), but later joined the ranks of the Muslim army at age 19. After Muhammad's passing i ...
See also
* Asemic writing Asemic may refer to:
* Asemia
Asemia is the term for the medical condition of being unable to understand or express any signs or symbols.
It is a more severe condition than aphasia, which is the inability to understand linguistic signs. Asemia i ...
* List of ancient Egyptian scribes
This is a list of Egyptian scribes, almost exclusively from the ancient Egyptian periods.
The hieroglyph used to signify the scribe, ''to write'', and ''"writings"'', etc., is Gardiner sign Y3, Y3 from the category of: 'writings, games, & mu ...
* Scrivener
A scrivener (or scribe) was a person who could read and write or who wrote letters to court and legal documents. Scriveners were people who made their living by writing or copying written material. This usually indicated secretarial and ad ...
* ''The Seated Scribe
The sculpture of the ''Seated Scribe'' or ''Squatting Scribe'' is a famous work of ancient Egyptian art. It represents a figure of a seated scribe at work. The sculpture was discovered at Saqqara, north of the alley of sphinxes leading to the Se ...
''
* Worshipful Company of Scriveners
The Worshipful Company of Scriveners is one of the 110 livery companies of the City of London. The Scriveners Company was originally known as the ''Mysterie of the Writers of the Court Letter'' and, since its incorporation, as ''Master Wardens ...
References
Further reading
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*
* Tahkokallio, Jaako. (2019). “Counting Scribes: Quantifying the Secularization of Medieval Book Production”. ''Book History'', 22(1), pg. 1-42.
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External links
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{{Authority control
Ancient Egyptian culture
Clay tablets
Historical legal occupations
Obsolete occupations
Textual scholarship
Writing occupations