Vellum->Paper in the Middle Ages

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Paper was invented in China in the 2nd century BCE, and it spread down the Silk Road very slowly towards the Middle East and reached Western Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries (During the High Middle Ages).

In the Middle Ages vellum was used to hand print manuscripts. Vellum was prepared animal skin (which was not cheap). Illuminated manuscripts consisted of illustrated copies of texts (with pictures and details). The manuscripts weren't just books; they were preserved art and a way to show wealth. Kings and nobles conscripted them from artists to leave on display. These manuscripts were laden with gold, rare pigments, and miniatures that made the manuscript as valuable as a jewel. Churches created bibles with pictures that would aid illiterate peasants and people that would see them, the illustrations provided a way for the illiterate population to experience religion when Latin-speaking priests/cardinals/monks were not around. These were aids to help people "read" the Bible by themselves.

These manuscripts were also good at teaching secular topics, and abstract topics. Illustrations, charts, and diagram made it easier for people to learn. The most preserved knowledge, philosophical, law, history, and medicine are found in these elaborate books. The fancy book that opens at the beginning of old Disney movies like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella, are examples of this manuscript.

Literacy in the Middle Ages varied greatly. In the Early Middle Ages only the Church (and its people) and a very select few nobles were literate in Latin. Peasant literacy was basically nonexistent. The High Middle Ages literacy expanded with the growth of the Church and Universities over Western Europe. The Aristocracy began learning Old French and Middle English, and merchant literacy began to expand as written correspondence, contracts, and accounts. In the Late Middle Ages literacy became a necessity for more jobs (clerks, scribes, merchants), but it was centered in urban areas. Some noble women could read and write (some is better than none!), especially devotional texts.

This spread of the groundwork of literacy explodes into the Renaissance, where the ideology of Grecco-Roman classic works becomes the new Thing. These illuminated manuscripts were the bridge between oral and written culture. Children grew up reading (if they were aristocratic) and learned with visual aids. The illuminated Bibles were a visual glossary for people, a beginning point for a lot of people learning to read. These manuscripts became more available to people the longer they were around, which increasingly advocated literacy in urban households. They set the groundwork for literacy in Europe. This form of literacy was quite devotional and remained majority in the elite classes, but the invention of the moveable printing press changes this literacy into something more practical and widespread.

Skinning animals is expensive. The invention of paper lessened the cost of books and allowed widespread diffusion of printed texts. Having access to something makes it a little more interesting. Don't you think?