One of the most
distinctive aspects of book production, ownership, and
circulation is evident from early in this period: manuscript
remains a significant means of transmission of written
material, long after the introduction of printing into
Scotland and continues to be an important medium for
the preservation of legal and literary works to the
end of the period. Networks of contacts in and among
particular families remain a key element in the creation,
circulation, and preservation of this kind of witness.
The comparatively
localised nature of Scottish political and social life
led, initially, to the production of books within aristocratic
and clerical households. The royal court was not a major
locus for literary production until well into the sixteenth
century. Nor did monastic scriptoria have much importance
for the copy of manuscripts. Rather, a major role was
played by notaries public, who copied works for a variety
of institutions and individuals throughout the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries.
Many Scots continued
their education in Paris or the Low Countries in the
later Middle Ages, and these places are also important
sources for the dissemination of a huge range of manuscript
and printed books into Scotland. Scottish books continued
to be printed outwith Scotland during the sixteenth
century, but the native printing trade developed, particularly
after 1550.
The Scottish
Reformation of 1560 played a crucial part in the production,
and destruction, of texts in the second half of the
sixteenth century. The Union of the Crowns in 1603 did
not lead to a decline in the volume of Scottish printing:
that increased vastly in the seventeenth century. But
the story of which writers were printed where, in Scotland,
England, and on the Continent, remains complex. The
breaking-up of monastic libraries led to the loss of
many pre-Reformation texts, but also to the growth of
significant individual book collections. This antiquarian
element in Scottish book production is also connected
with a nationalistic interest in historical matters
which caused the recopying of texts and the highly politicised
publishing projects of certain printers in the run-up
to the Union of the Parliaments in 1707.
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