In the European monasteries, which were centres of education in the Middle Ages, a great deal of reading and writing was done. Large monasteries maintained a school for Latin, a library and a scriptorium. The knowledge of the Antique was handed down here and Christian writings commented on and disseminated. Copying and illuminating books for use in the monastery, for aristocratic clients or later also as traded goods required special training as a scribe, illuminator or rubricator. Ink and paints were initially produced in the monastery itself or supplied by the client before they became available as purchasable goods in the Late Middle Ages. The material to be written on, generally parchment, was supplied by the parchment maker a specialised craftsman. The most important scriptoria were to be found in the monasteries of St. Gallen, Reichenau, Hirsau and Fulda. Individual scribe’s workshops can mostly be identified by their uniform style of writing and the particular arrangement of their codices. It was not until the Middle Ages that manuscripts could be identified as originating from only one region.

The high level of productivity in the large scriptoria meant that it was still possible in the 15th century to compete in the book trade with printed books. As books gradually became less of an exclusive good, it became too time-consuming and expensive to produce manuscripts and the scriptorium in many monasteries was replaced by a printing workshop.