overview

Overview

In the 1300's, most books were created by hand copying in workshops such as the fictional Scriptorium Fontenay. The name scriptorium refers to monastery workshops for the copying of books. Most book production shifted from the monasteries to lay craftworkers in cities-like the bookseller in this feature-in the 1200's.

Today, book publishers print copies of a book and then attempt to sell them. In contrast, nearly all the books produced in scriptoriums such as Fontenay's were commissioned works. People who wanted a personal copy of a particular book would pay a scriptorium to copy an existing manuscript. The scriptorium might produce copies of a few popular books, such as Bibles and prayerbooks, that were likely to sell. Even then, however, the copies often were personalized to meet a client's requests.

Unfortunately, Fontenay's customers never would have been able to order copies of The Canterbury Tales or Commedia or even the Italian choir books. They would have been available only in the countries where they had been written.