Scriptorium: Your turn!

Your turn!

Assignment

Now it’s your turn. Remember that there are several steps to complete to finish the assignment, so here are some things to keep in mind.

First and foremost, Mrs. Brown’s goal is to make sure that you understand the making of manuscripts. As you understand after looking through the other pages, there are a lot of parts that go into making one manuscript!

  • First, you need an appropriate place for your scribes to work: scriptorium? carrels in the cloister?
  • They need the appropriate writing surface (parchment), which means they need sheep to keep them and everything that goes into raising sheep and into making the parchment — including a space for all of the steps that go into getting the hides prepared. (Don’t forget this information in your guide!)
  • They need access to the materials to make inks and the means to make them.
  • They need tools and accessories to ensure they can write with little interruption.
  • They need to be able to protect the books with bindings and coverings.

Here are the items you’re responsible for creating (information can be found on the Context page as well):

  1. Create a detailed step-by-step guide to set up the scriptorium and the other parts of the monastery that you’ll need to make all of the pieces and tools that you need to create these sacred texts.
  2. Once you have your partner groups guide, set up a scriptorium space. How? That’s up to your group! Create a diorama of the scriptorium or cloister carrels. Sketch the details. Create a computer-generated layout. There are many ways to go about this, so go with your group’s strengths on this project!
  3. Include a detailed view of what you think the scribe’s desk would look like (include tools of the trade!) and how he might have set it up to work. Remember to look at the pictures and engravings of scribes at work to get an idea. You can be creative with this one as well (drawing, 3-D model, etc.).
  4. Provide a review of the guide you were working from. What was left out? What did you discover that wasn’t in your own guide? Should you have included it or was it something that you think wasn’t needed?