What were books made of in the Middle Ages?

Answer 1

During the entire Middle Ages, books were copied by hand, and this was laborious and very expensive work.

In the Early Middle Ages, books were originally on papyrus or vellum and in the form of scrolls. Later on, but still in the Early Middle Ages, books took the more modern form of folded pages sewn into gatherings and bound together. Some large books were bound in wooden covers, and the really expensive ones were jewelled. The Book of Kells was of this form, though was stolen at one point, and the thieves took the cover for the jewels, abandoning the content pages, which were recovered. Later on, some smaller books were made, bound in lighter materials. During the High Middle Ages, real paper was introduced, made of flax or cotton fibers, and these displaced papyrus for the less expensive books. It outlasted the vellum, however, and many later medieval manuscripts remain in very nice condition.

Answer 2

Books were copied by hand. The materials were pen and vellum (a membrane taken from a hide), papyrus (smashed and dried plant pulp, glued together in strips), or paper, which was introduced to Europe during the Middle Ages.

Copyists worked in places called scriptoria, where, it is believed, one person would read a text aloud and a number of others would copy down what he read. The scriptoria were mostly in monasteries. There were also commercial scriptoria, as records clearly show; Christine de Pizan, for example, supervised her own scribes in their work.

Most of the books were copies of religious texts, and these represent the greater portion of surviving books. Some were secular, and I rather suspect the majority of surviving titles from the Middle Ages are secular, because there is a large amount of vernacular literature surviving from the time. The originals of these books were either written by the author, or dictated by the author. Christine de Pizan doubtless wrote her own; Marco Polo dictated his, despite the fact that he was literate.
Not many. The ones that were written were done by monks. The Book of Kells is a good example of the type of book that was handwritten by monks. It is art. The printing press wasn't invented until the mid 1400's and most people couldn't read or write so anything that was done was religious in nature.

Answer 3

During the whole time of the Middle Ages, books were written by hand, both the originals produced by authors, and whatever copies were made. They were usually written out in monasteries, though there were some commercial scribes who could copy books. This was true at the beginning of the era and at the end.

Answer 4

Yes. Most books were written in Latin but a few were written in the native languages of the author. Hardly any books were written in English because the nobilty spoke and read Norman French. The most popular book was The Bible which was held by many larger churches and cathedrals

Answer 5

For most of the middle ages books were made by hand. The text was written by a trained scribe (in the case of a bible probably a monk) and decorations and illustration were added by artists. Because for the large amount of man hours needed to produce them, books were expensive, and were found mostly in the hands of the church or the wealthy.

Johannes Gutenberg developed a number a ideas, including a movable type screw press, oil based inks, and a system for mass producing movable type pieces. These were combined into a system for economically viable mass production of texts around 1450. In 1455 he printed his now famous bible folio, of which 48 substantially complete copies are known to survive. The book was still quite expensive at the time it was produced, but was substantially less expensive than the manuscript bibles of the day. This marked the beginning of the change from hand written manuscripts to mass produced printing.

Answer 6

they were sewn together, probably with a leather cover.

Answer 7

During the Middle Ages, books were produced by writing them by hand, one at a time. That is why they were so expensive.