1300 the expensive vellum could be dispensed with and the 
cheaper paper made the accumulation of many books a matter 
of industry rather than of wealth.” Since, however, the student 
went to lectures pen in hand and “it was the lecturer’s task to 
dictate the book he was expounding to his audience,” there is a 
great body of these reportata  which constitute a very complex 
problem for editors. (37) 

     Circumstances such as these described by Goldschmidt 
serve to illustrate the extent of the Gutenberg revolution which 
made possible uniform and repeatable texts:

          It cannot be doubted that for many medieval writers 
     the exact point at which they ceased to be ‘scribes’ and 
     became ‘authors’ was not at all clear. What amount of 
     ‘comportation’ of acquired information entitled a man to