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Chapter 1 - Our Knowledge of the Past

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2024

Robert Bartlett
Robert Bartlett
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
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Summary

This chapter considers the physical production of writing in a pre-print world, from the clay tablets of Mesopotamia through the papyrus scrolls of antiquity to the birth of the parchment codex in the early Christian period. There follows a discussion of the speed and number of scribes in the world of the medieval parchment book.

Keywords

Writing materialspapyrusparchmentcodexscribespaper
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Chapter
Information
History in Flames
The Destruction and Survival of Medieval Manuscripts
 , pp. 1 - 17
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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