Written sources are most valuable for historical research. It allows us to study even the little facts and compare them in order to find out the truth, studying the written sources, a person must read in between the lines in order to extract the truth out of the written information inside.
The Theology Department
Each of the medieval period books were written by hand, starting in the early until the medium middle age when talking about Europe, a majority of books were written by people who were in the theology sphere, the monks, nuns and even the priests. This wasn’t a problem because the christian faith was really spread out across all of Europe and a good portion of monks were available for this time period.
In a monastery where monks were living, each day they would copy a book. They would write the exact things inside that book, making it a brand new copy. This was the printing of the middle ages, because books were wrote on material that could be easily destroyed and the work must be copied.
Starting to Advance
As time passed by and Europe was slowly coming out of it’s dark age more and more people were increasing their knowledge. They were attending schools and there was an increase in the people that knew how to write. Professional scribes started writing and copying the books and also when the universities developed more and more students started to work on the books.
In this period papyrus wasn’t used and they used animal skin instead, until the 1300 and after. Animal skin was harder to obtain and it must be gathered from a young calf, it provided a strong material. While papyrus was more cheap in a way, the skin of an animal was much harder to be destroyed and if needed could be used to remove the ink and re-write something else.
