How were medieval books written?

Before the copyist(s), i.e. the writer of a medieval book, could get to work, a so-called copy area was first created on each page with the help of a ruler and compass, i.e. the part of a page that then had to be filled with text. For example, guidelines were created to mark the line spacing and margins of the text. Space was also given for decorative elements such as pictures or initials, or they were sketched out. If one examines the pages of medieval codices more closely, the pre-drawn lines and the indentations of the compass can sometimes still be seen.

The actual writing process began with the selection of the ink: ink made from soot was extremely inexpensive to produce, but the writing could easily be smudged. In addition, this type of ink was not waterproof. Therefore, the copyists preferred to use an ink that could be made from thorn bark. The typeface was reddish-brown. The easiest to produce, however, was the black ink, which was obtained from gall apples and iron vitriol. However, it could happen that if the texts were stored in a damp place, acid formed and the material described was more and more decomposed by the dreaded "ink corrosion".

Different colored inks were used to emphasize initials or entire paragraphs; the red color made of lead oxide or red lead was the most popular. The red color of these letters or lines helped give the text some structure. Because of their coloring, they are also called rubrications after the Latin "rubrum" for the color red.

In order to create the colorful miniatures of book illumination, one had to fall back on a variety of other color nuances. In addition to the precious elements such as gold, silver or purple, pigmentations were obtained from numerous natural substances such as minerals or plant substances. The pictorial representations are also very different in terms of shape and range from full-page images to small representations with which individual letters were decorated. The motifs presented did not always have to be linked to the text. They often served to loosen up the visual appearance and to demonstrate the illuminator's manual skills.

The coloring was not necessarily uniform either, so the codices also contain pictorial elements that were created as pen drawings with the same ink as the typeface. In such cases one can assume that the copyist himself has expressed his skill. Other miniatures were created by specialized book illuminators and are correspondingly more elaborate, with the materials used being far more expensive.

Interesting are those depictions that, similar to modern comics, show different scenes of one and the same story line in chronological order, these are also called register pictures.