Making books in Low-Tech & LT:Companions 1 & 3

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by ArchonShiva

I love GURPS.

This really reinforces why religious books were so prevalent compared to non-religious books, though: the church didn't need to pay its monks the going rate.

The interesting question here is how rare scribal ability is.

Out in the mundane medieval world, it was quite rare, and so scribal work was expensive. Very few townsfolk were literate and able to do decent caligraphy, and so they could demand high wages, well above the cost of materials, mainly parchment and ink.

But in the monasteries, you had a significant minority of monks (a majority in some monasteries, or at least close to it) who could perform this work, and all you had to do was to feed, clothe and roof them, and cheaply at that, since they were supposed to live austere lives. They didn't always, but even in luxury monasteries, their upkeep still wasn't very expensive.

Also, to the OP: Are you familiar with an early online work by S.John Ross, titled GURPS Books or GURPS Libraries or something? I think it is still somewhere on his The Blue Room web page, or if not then you may have to try to find it via the Wayback Machine.