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| Scriptorium | Wine
biographies of Christian role models canonized by the church and
a widely popular genre from the early Middle Ages on.
- a monk in a monastic Scriptorium
who physically wrote text in a manuscript and was sometimes responsible
for illumination and rubrication. Depending on time and place,
distinctions in class varied as librarii, or apprentices,
sometimes trained under the tutelage of antiquarii
or senior scribes. Under this arrangement, the bibliothecarius,
or librarian, might assume administrative duties.
- a term used for the constantly changing style
of handwriting used in manuscripts that generally establishes
a time period or location in which a manuscript was written; distinguished
by majuscule (uppercase) and minuscule (lowercase)
lettering; cursive (rapidly written) or formata (formal)
and arguably falling into the following eras: Uncials 400-600;
Insular minuscules 500-1000; Anglo-Saxon 600-1100; Carolingian
minuscule 800-1200 Early Gothic ca. 1150; Late Gothic ca. 1400.
- the place within the monastery where manuscripts were
written. A typical Benedictine scriptorium included a large central
table and writing desks placed along the walls. Another arrangement
may have consisted of small individual writing rooms, or scriptoriolum
and in some instances the cloister alcoves were screened off
into writing chambers, or carrells.
- the initial drawing laid down before ink or paint
was applied. Completed in Hard
Point in early scriptoria, and later in Lead
- See Parchment.
- the regional language, as opposed to the customary
Latin used in a great many monastic manuscripts, first seen in
Ireland and Britain as early as the 6th century.
Initial - a decorated initial formed wholly or in part
from real or imaginary animals, as below: