SCRIPTORIUM. - According to Isidore (Orig., VI, 9, 2), it is the stylus used to impress signs on wax: but in medieval vocabulary it denoted the base on which the sheet was rested in the act of writing, and by extension the room in which the copyists attended to their work (writing workshop) and therefore the center of the diffusion of writing: this meaning has been preserved in the technical language of paleography.
For the classical age and the early Middle Ages there are not sufficient data on the organization and characteristics of scriptoria, and still less is it possible to identify their geographical distribution and paleographic peculiarities: the elements furnished by archaeology through paintings, mosaics, sculptures (cf. the miniature of the "Roman Virgil," cod. Vat. lat. 3867 in Enc. Catt., III, coll. 1921-22) refer rather to the moment of composition than to that of transcription. Information becomes more reliable, however, from the 8th century onward: the scriptoria are in this period, and until the late Middle Ages, overwhelmingly—perhaps exclusively—ecclesiastical and are located at the great monasteries or cathedral schools. There were undoubtedly also lay copyists (Lupus of Ferrières mentions a manuscript executed by a "scriptor regius": Epist., 5, in MGH, Epist. Karol. aevi, IV, p. 17), but they worked either individually, or at the chanceries, or at the same ecclesiastical scriptoria as homines of the church or monastery. In the hall used as a scriptorium were arranged the benches for the copyists, equipped with a footrest; the lecterns for supporting the exemplar from which the copy was made; a cupboard or chest containing the supply of parchment and the models to be copied (transcription by dictation was an exceptional procedure). The copyist laid the sheet to be filled on a tablet that he held on his knees or on a strongly inclined lectern (cf. the illustration in Enc. Catt., III, col. 1923), keeping within reach the horn with ink, the knife for sharpening the calamus or pen, the punctorium for marking the distance between the lines, the ruler for guiding the lines themselves (marked in dry point, or also in ink or lead), the sponge and the scraper for corrections. The work was overseen by a monk or a cleric—mostly the librarian himself—who assigned the parts to be transcribed, advised the copyists, prepared for them the exemplaria of writing as a model (cf. H. Leclercq, Gall. Saint, in DACL, VI, 1, col. 131). Thus a local tradition of writing was formed, open indeed to foreign influences (not only the models, but even the directors of the scriptorium could come from another seat), but which more or less consciously developed certain characteristic elements that allow the paleographer to distinguish the products of one center from those of others. The work was carried out either for the church or monastery to which the scriptorium belonged, or on commission from outsiders (in that case the person placing the order usually also supplied the parchment) and could be entrusted to a single copyist or distributed among several copyists. But it was always a laborious task, requiring constant attention, a steady hand, patience: so it is no wonder to find here and there in codices subscriptions or marginal notes that betray fatigue or a sense of liberation upon completion of the work (cf. H. Leclercq, Scribe, in DACL, XV, 1, coll. 1028-30). As a rule, once the copy was finished, it was revised, either by the copyist himself, or by the director of the scriptorium, or by another person in charge: sometimes, however, this task was simply left to the reader.
With the development of the Universities, lay scriptoria also came into being: the need to multiply texts for the use of the school led to the "industrialization" of the work of copying; the professors handed the emended text to a "contractor" (stationarius) who distributed the exemplar, divided into fascicles (pecia [v.]), among various copyists who thus worked simultaneously on the same manuscript, accelerating the multiple execution of the copy. The furnishing of the scriptoria remained more or less the same: however, the sheet to be filled was no longer held on the knees, but was placed on a table similar to modern school desks with a horizontal or slightly inclined surface. The humanistic age further modified the physiognomy of the work of transcription: on the one hand there were scholars who personally set out in search of texts in monastic libraries and personally copied them to enrich their own collections, on the other hand princes who, out of love of culture or political patronage, commissioned sumptuous codices from specialized workshops, which became true court scriptoria. Very soon, however, the affirmation of printing brought about the gradual but rapid disappearance of the scriptoria.
Bibliography
France and the period between the 8th and 12th centuries, but also useful for general references, is E. Lesne, Histoire de la propriété ecclésiastique en France, IV: Les livres, « I » et bibliothèques... (Mémoires et travaux publiés par des professeurs des facultés cathol. de Lille), Lille 1938; moreover see the mentions made of it in the manuals of paleography (v.) and the texts dealing with manuscript tradition (v.) and G. H. Hürle, Frühmittelalterliche Mönchsund Klärberbildung in Italien (Freib. Theol. Stud., 13), Freiburg 1914, pp. 33-35. For the rest one must have recourse to articles scattered in numerous periodicals, among which especially S. (Antwerp-Brussels 1946-47 ff.). Useful considerations are made in H. Fichrenau, Mensch und Schrift im Mittelalter, Vienna 1946, p. 58 ff. and passim. For the paleographic characteristics of individual scriptoria see the entries relating to the scripts and the monastic centers.