the scribes came to have commercial value. When the work of preparing manuscripts was transferred from the monasteries to the universities, dictation became the rule, and individual copying the exception. West finds evidence that as early as the time of Alcuin, the monks trained by him or in his schools, wrote from dictation. “In the intervals between the hours of prayer and the observance of the round of cloister life, come hours for the copying of books under the presiding direction of Alcuin. The young monks file into the _scriptorium_ and one of them is given the precious parchment volume containing a work of Bede or Isidore or Augustine, or else some portion of the Latin Scriptures, or even a heathen author. He reads slowly and clearly at a measured rate while all the others, seated at their desks, take down his words; thus perhaps a score of copies are made at once. Alcuin’s observant eye watches each in turn and his correcting hand points out the mistakes in orthography and punctuation. The master of Charles the Great, in that true humility that is the charm of his whole behaviour, makes himself the writing-master of his monks, stooping to the drudgery of faithfully and gently correcting many puerile mistakes, and all for the love of studies and for the love of Christ. Under such guidance and deeply impressed by the fact that in the copying of a few books they were saving learning and knowledge from perishing, and thereby offering a service most acceptable to God, the copying in the _scriptorium_ went on in sobriety from day to day. Thus were produced those improved copies of books which mark the beginning of a new age in the conserving and transmission of learning. Alcuin’s anxiety in this regard was not undue, for the few monasteries where books could be accurately transcribed were as necessary for publication in that time as are the great publishing houses to-day.”[98]