Adaptations in the Scribal Industries in England, 1300-1650

Written manuscripts underwent massive changes in terms of style and content due to the economic changes in the period between the 1348 plague and 1650, often listed as the end of the renaissance.What has already been studied is the effect these economic changes had on the production of manuscripts.In study of the 1348 plague, it was concluded that the mass death of literate clergy and the labor reconstruction that followed began a causal change leading eventually to a literate population and, in turn, a great increase in production.This trend continued until the introduction of the printing press in 1476, where the low cost of printing was proven to outweigh the social value of the manuscript.While the facts of the matter have been discerned in a clear, statistical manner, research has yet to be done in order to better understand the events from a humanistic lens.Yes, we understand the changes in the manuscript industry, but how did the people directly affected by these changes react?The author uses categorical analysis of digitized manuscripts, ranging from 1350 and 1650 in an effort to determine this.Manuscripts, pulled from the Cambridge and Oxford libraries, are analyzed for the script or scripts used within and are given a rating based on their decorative content.The resulting findings suggest three main ways in which a scribe would adjust to the changing environment: reduction, imitation, and degradation.The simplest of the three, reduction consists simply of the decrease of decorative content, this was primarily pursued in the creation of scientific manuscripts.When it came to literary manuscripts, scribes would seek to imitate the style of the printed book.This served two purposes: reducing variation and therefore work, and creating a manuscript more similar to the style a consumer was accustomed to.The third, degradation, was reserved primarily for religious manuscripts.Degradation consisted not of a decrease in quantity of decorative content, but a decrease in quality.