Before a scribe could copy out a text from an exemplar, they needed some basic tools. One of the most obvious being ink, but they couldn’t just run to the local Walmart and buy a bottle of ink. They had to make it.

Inks used on parchment couldn’t be just any type of ink. A special mixture was needed so that it would sink into the parchment. This type of ink could be made from oak galls, a type of wasp egg. “The oak galls contain tannic and gallic acids…” says Graham and Clemens on page 19. Black ink was made by mixing the acid with metallic salts.  Black ink fades over time and exposure. That is why the ink on manuscripts today hardly looks consistent in color. In many, the ink has faded to many shades of brown.

Once a scribe had made ink, they would also need and ink pot or inkwell to store it in. Ink pots could be used by traveling scribes to make the ink more portable.