The copyist monks in the past

The history of the copyist monks, men who dedicated their lives to copying the principal literary works of the Ancient period, helping to preserve all the knowledge that society had accumulated until the Middle Ages.

The book was not always cheap. During the Middle Ages, for example, Europe had few libraries, the largest did not even have 1000 books in its collection. For before the invention of the Gutenberg machine, the most popular and quickest way to reproduce a book was in manuscripts, with his own hands. It was doing this work that thousands of monks dedicated their lives. Using scrolls and ink, these men copied word for word writings of Plato, Aristotle, Herodotus, and other writers who survived the destruction of the library at Alexandria.

It is estimated that a good copyist could account for 20 to 30 pages per day. Some copies of books like the Bible took years to complete.
As at that time a very small part of the society was literate, and the reproduction of books was laborious, the works were inside churches, and libraries of monasteries, usually locked up by locks and chains, where consultation was only possible with the permission of some religious authority.

The copyist monks were instrumental in maintaining fundamental works of human history.