From the book
Manuscripts by Century
Manuscripts produced in Western Europe, sixth to fifteenth century, and the printed books that followed
Buringh and Van Zanden charted manuscript production across the Latin West from the sixth century to the fifteenth. The book keeps three of its numbers: about eleven thousand in the seventh century, five million in the fifteenth, and some twelve and a half million printed books from 1454 to 1500. This is the whole curve.
Supports Chapter 13, “Latin: A Republic of Letters Across Borders and Time.” The printed book points here for the detail it no longer carries.
The curve
- 6th14,000
- 7th11,000
- 8th44,000
- 9th200,000
- 10th140,000
- 11th210,000
- 12th770,000
- 13th1,800,000
- 14th2,700,000
- 15th5,000,000
- 1454 to 1500about 12,600,000
Gold: manuscripts copied by hand, per century. Blue: printed books in the incunabula period alone, forty-six years. Bars share one linear scale.
The table
| Century | Manuscripts produced | What was happening |
|---|---|---|
| 6th | 14,000 | Rome’s shadow; monasteries founding |
| 7th | 11,000 | The floor: the darkest century |
| 8th | 44,000 | Carolingian recovery begins |
| 9th | 200,000 | Carolingian peak |
| 10th | 140,000 | The dip |
| 11th | 210,000 | Recovery; Bologna founded 1088 |
| 12th | 770,000 | Universities; the market takes over from the scriptorium |
| 13th | 1,800,000 | Twenty universities by 1300 |
| 14th | 2,700,000 | Plague century, and still climbing |
| 15th | 5,000,000 | Sixty-six universities by 1500 |
| 1454 to 1500 | plus roughly 12,600,000 printed books | Gutenberg |
The three numbers the book keeps
Western Europe copied about eleven thousand manuscripts in the seventh century, the floor, the darkest century, when even the monasteries nearly stopped writing. By the fifteenth century it was five million. The incunabula period alone, 1454 to 1500, put out some twelve and a half million printed books, more than twice as many copies as all manuscript production in the entire fifteenth century.