The Hidden Role of Women in Copying Medieval Manuscripts

In their study, researchers from the University of Bergen used the vast Catalogue of Benedictine Colophons , published between 1965 and 1982. It lists 23,774 colophons from manuscripts held in European institutional collections. The team carried out a systematic reading of these texts, looking for explicit feminine indicators. They were looking in particular for Latin terms such as scriptrix Or soror , or even identifiable women's names.

This work identified 254 colophons unambiguously attributable to women, representing 1.1% of the total. This modest rate reflects a conservative methodological choice. Only certain cases were retained. However, this proportion applied to overall estimates of manuscript production allows us to conclude that at least 110,000 manuscripts were copied by women between the 9th and 17th centuries.

Women: a continuous, but invisible presence

The study thus reveals a constant female participation in medieval manuscript production, although largely overlooked. Far from being limited to a few famous female scriptoria, women's activity was long-term, spanning several centuries and in varied contexts. Analysis of colophons shows that women regularly copied manuscripts from the 9th century onward. However, their visibility remains very limited in the sources.

From the 15th century onwards, there was a marked increase in colophons written by women. This progression coincided with the development of texts in vernacular languages. In other words, in local languages ​​rather than Latin. This evolution of the book market seems to have opened up new opportunities for women, particularly in less strictly cloistered religious circles or in secular literary circles.

But this visibility remains partial. Many women copyists probably never signed their works, either by convention or social constraint. In other cases, they may have used neutral or masculine formulas to mask their identity. The fact that some names appear only in the margins or in secondary annotations prevents their detection in analyses based solely on colophons.

This invisibility is not insignificant. It reflects deep inequalities in access to recognition for intellectual work. It also serves as a reminder that current research tools, while rigorous, remain dependent on the nature and limitations of available sources.

Women who are shaking up historical research

The results of this study force historians to reconsider the circuits of knowledge production and dissemination in the Middle Ages. Indeed, the recorded female scriptoria, such as that of Chelles Abbey, remain too few in number to explain the scale of manuscripts copied by women. In fact, there are other workplaces, now invisible or forgotten.

These women may have worked outside of traditional religious structures. One can imagine urban workshops, bourgeois homes, or within small literate communities. The traditional model centered on scribe-monks is no longer sufficient to account for the complexity of the medieval landscape of handwritten copying. This requires a rereading of available sources and an openness to documents previously considered peripheral. It then becomes interesting to study: notarial deeds, registers of brotherhoods, inventories of private libraries.

This need for reexamination echoes another recent development. Historians have rediscovered the active role of women within the medieval Avignon papacy. Unearthed documents have revealed that they were copyists, translators, and notaries, directly involved in the functioning of the papal curia. This female presence in spheres of power, although barely visible in traditional accounts, demonstrates that they occupied essential intellectual functions.

These cases, which are geographically and institutionally very different, converge towards the same observation. Women participated, in a concrete and sometimes decisive way, in the written transmission of medieval knowledge.

A handwritten memory to preserve and enhance

Of the approximately 10 million manuscripts produced in the Latin West between the Early Middle Ages and the early modern period, only 750,000 have survived the centuries. According to historian Eltjo Buringh's estimates, this represents a loss of over 90%. Applying this rate to the estimated female output, approximately 8,000 manuscripts copied by women are still preserved today.

These texts, often anonymous or difficult to identify, represent a fragile and under-exploited heritage. Yet they offer direct access to gestures, know-how, and life contexts that have long escaped the attention of historians. Their study would, on the one hand, allow us to better understand the concrete modalities of women's intellectual work. On the other hand, it would allow us to raise new questions about the circulation of knowledge, the uses of books, and even unofficial forms of transmission.

This work of rediscovery is anything but marginal. It contributes to a necessary rewriting of our collective memory, based on precise, documented, and now quantified traces. Through these manuscripts, another map of medieval culture emerges, one more faithful to the complexity of its time.

Source: Ommundsen, Å., Conti, AK, Haaland, Ø.A. et al. “ How many medieval and early modern manuscripts were copied by female scribes? A bibliometric analysis based on colophons ”. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 12 , 346 (2025).