Occupation for Scribes

Copyist—A Medieval Occupation

A scribe is not going to spend three years working on a manuscript if Chaucer was not well known, or well respected. The copies of Chaucer’s drafts for the Canterbury Tales were completed quickly and with great care and with beautiful illustration, which suggests that Chaucer may have been well-known in the Middle Ages. Why was the work finished so quickly during a time where few books were available? Did Chaucer have a good reputation, or was his work needed? There is not much history about Chaucer’s involvement with his own people in England, because he was mostly traveling to other countries as a diplomat. According to Avrin, in the Late Middle Ages, there was a need for textbooks: the growth of the cathedral schools and universities created a need for many more texts than ever before. City workshops of scribes and artists began to meet this demand.” (p. 227). The high demand for books to be copied, implies that there was a new job market available for men. The scribe was a trade that many men during the Middle Ages could learn and be hired to do and be paid. It is unclear why Chaucer wrote drafts of his tales, or for whom they were meant, but the fact that during his time there was a high demand for scribes, and books, it is not impossible to think that Chaucer’s tales may have been included as literature of the period. The best question is: who needed books during the Middle Ages? According to Avrin, it was students.