Catalog of Scribes

A major concern for scribes and decorators was maintaining the unity of a manuscript. Standardization of scripts and decoration was essential for achieving this unity.  The Gothic textualis script was standard.  Within this standardization, one can detect variations which reflect the habits of an individual scribe.

The following table charts scribal samples for each of the manuscripts the identified scribes contributed to:

A comparison of the treatment of individual letters brings out the differences between the different scribes and the consistency within an individual scribe's work:

Scribal habits are another way to distinguish the work of an individual decorator. This is most evident in catchword decoration:

The distinctions extend to other scribal habits. For example, Oudin de Carvanay regularly uses a characteristic line filler, while the Cleres femmes Scribe C uses a distinctive flourish on periods at the end of lines. This flourish is also found in this scribe's catchword decoration.