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Medieval Manuscripts:
Falling of Roman Empire in fifth Century of AD reduced its cultural influence on remaining world. In Western Roman Empire, traditions of writings using Latin were remained in monasteries, as initially Kassidore in monastery Vivaria, and later Benedict Nursiski in 6th century have stressed on importance of re-writing of texts. This was very much influenced on importance of books during medieval period, though that time basically priesthood only read the books.
Prior to invention and launching of printing machine, all the books were re-written manually, in the result of which books were very costly and rarely. There were four types of scriveners:
«Copyist», they were involved in mass production and correspondence.
«Calligrapher», who were involved in production of important books
«Correctors», who were involved in comparison and matching of completed books with manuscript, from which it was copied
«Painters», who were drawing red color letters; and «Illustrators», who have made illustrations.
Irish monks have introduced spaces between the words in 7th century. This was made easy in reading, as they did not know Latin well. But up to 12th century, spaces could not get wide usage. There were assumptions that, switchover to usage of spaces between the words reflects the switchover from «semi singing» reading to reading «to talk to oneself».
Parchment or wove (bull calf leather) was used for pages in first books. Covering pages were made from wood and were covered with leather. As dried parchment poorly formats, books were equipped with clamps or braces. In the late medieval, when first public libraries have appeared, frequently books were fixed to the book shelve or table for preventing stealing of them. Latin: libri catenati were used up to 18th Century.
First books were copied basically in monasteries one book at a time. With development of Universities in XIII century, demand for books rose and new method of copying has come out. Books were divided in to separate sheets («petsia»), which were distributed among copyists. In this way, books production rate was increased significantly. Guilds of traders like this method, who have started production of religious and non-religious material.
Xylography and incunabula
In beginning of XIV century, in Western Europe, xylography (it was developed long back in East) has appeared. In xylography, matrix with image of page was cut from wooden piece. This wooden piece could be dipped in ink and used for making several pages. People have started producing the books and as well as playing cards and religious works by xylography. But creation of book was very laborious process, as for each page there was a requirement in making of its own carving. Apart from this, wood was of short duration – easily it was getting erased and chapped.
Chinese inventor Pi Sheng has developed the ceramic composing matrix approximately in 1045, but examples of its printing are absent. He arranged the symbols in small palate, coated with melted wax. Then applied a board on it until all the symbols got aligned in one level. When wax got cooled, he used this palate for printing.
In XV century, Iogani Gutenberg has designed the printing machine with metallic composing elements, which made books comparatively accessible (though for many people its was very costly).
Printed books, individual sheets and illustrations, which were made in Europe before 1501, known as incunabula (Latin incunabula — «cradle»).
Paper
Though manufacturing of paper in Europe has started approximately from 11th century to down up to XVI century, paper and wove were produced in same volumes, but wove was costlier and stronger. Printers and publishers were frequently issued the same publication on both the materials so as to satisfy all the users. As many other medieval inventions, first paper was made in China in 200 year of BC and reached Europe through Muslim territories. Initially it was made from fabric, but industrial revolution provided to make the paper from cheaper material – Cellulose.
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