CS100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Scriptorium, Middle Ages, Printing
16 Sep 2013
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Document Summary
From the invention of cuneiform (clay) (summer, c. 3100 bce) Standardization of the alphabet (ancient greece, c. 7th bce) Use of writing for bureaucracy (roman empire, 1st bce-ce 476) People could have power now, since they could have power over what could be written. Roman empire couldn"t survive because they relied on a media that was space biased (scrolls) and they were burned by ceasar. In the years of the dying rome the christian hierarchy modeled their organization on the imperial administration. Reserved for the elites, mostly monks/priest, within the church. Because of the monopoly over writing, historians argue that the clergy exercised authority over secular affairs (government affairs) as well as over religious affairs. For centuries after the decay of the roman empire only the monks had access to literacy. They formed a group called monastic scriptorium- they would just re-write the bible. This biased time, but they wanted to gain territory.
