Scriptorium

I never realized how difficult it must have been to be a monk that always had to hand copy everything down manually. At the beginning of the writing lab, I internally thought that the exercise would be simple and easy. It wasn’t terribly difficult to see by candlelight at first, but as the time wore on, I had to move the candle so that I could see certain words better. After awhile, I noticed that my hand was cramping and my eyes were bothering me from straining them so much. The one thing I was not expecting to happen as a scribe was when my neck and upper back muscles began hurting. I felt a tension in my shoulders that doesn’t usually happen when I’m doing homework because all I do then is use my fingers to type. I really wanted to stand up and stretch, but I knew that the work needed to be completed and that I wouldn’t want to finish after everyone else was complete. Scribes have to use their whole arm and hand muscles to copy down information. I am grateful that I have the ability to be able to choose when and how I copy and retain information. It also made me aware of how quickly the scribes had to work because they, too, would have had an internal timeclock that made them always aware of how quickly they were working in comparison to others.

Another aspect of the writing lab that I didn’t realize was important was that I had to copy the words and calligraphy exactly as I saw it. Some of the words were difficult for me to decipher, so I would take my best guess in what it would have said. Similarly, scribes would have had to include many of their own interpretations of words along the way as they probably had difficulty deciphering other manuscripts from time to time. This is especially significant in the context of copying and distributing religious texts, and it could have led to discrepancy between major influencing factors within different sects of religion, specifically Christianity.

It is often easier for me to reflect on the physical factors that would have influenced the work of scribes and monks. I never really take the time to consider all of the mental influences the work would have had on them. During the writing lab, I found myself trying to pay attention to the meaning of the words. After awhile, though, I was just copying down information as my mind became blank. The chanting of the monks and the bells tolling in the background helped with that as I did not have to think about anything in particular. The words just became solitary terms on a page and did not make sense as sentences or ideas. In this, the work of scribes and monks could have been dangerous as they might have been just copying down information for the sake of it instead of critically thinking about the texts they were producing and promoting.

Related posts:

In the Pangcah age class, they move up a class every 3 to 4 years, with young adult in the second class being the most laborious and in charge of all the labor works. Moving up to the third class…

What would you rather, a job that pays little but that you like, or a job that pays much but you do not like? This week my roommate needed to do an interview for an assignment and this was the…

Our goal is to create a “network” of structures widely present throughout the world, in order to live and share more experiences possible to our members. CLABs are oriented to openings in dream…