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[[Image:Escribano2.jpg|thumb|"This miniature fr. Christopher De Hamel, ''Scribes and Illuminators'', (Toronto: U Toronto Press, 1992), 36. is a fanciful late fifteenth-century depiction of a scribe at work: he is shown copying a document or scroll from a bound book"]]

''''Scriptorium'''' is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European [[monasteries]] devoted to the copying of manuscripts by monastic [[scribes]]. Written accounts, surviving buildings, and archaeological excavations all show,  however, that contrary to popular belief such rooms rarely existed: most monastic writing was done in cubicle-like recesses in the cloister, or in the monks' own cells. References in modern scholarly writings to 'scriptoria' more usually refer to the collective written output of a monastery, rather than to a physical room. Scriptoria in the conventional sense probably only existed for limited periods of time, when an institution or individual wanted a large number of texts copied to stock a library; once the library was stocked, there was no further need for a room to be set aside for the purpose. By the start of the 13th century secular copy-shops developed; professional scribes may have had special rooms set aside for writing, but in most cases they probably simply had a writing-desk next to a window in their own house.                                   

''''Scriptorium'''' is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European [[monasteries]] devoted to the copying of manuscripts by monastic [[scribes]]. Written accounts, surviving buildings, and archaeological excavations all show,  however, that contrary to popular belief such rooms rarely existed: most monastic writing was done in cubicle-like recesses in the cloister, or in the monks' own cells. References in modern scholarly writings to 'scriptoria' more usually refer to the collective written output of a monastery, rather than to a physical room. Scriptoria in the conventional sense probably only existed for limited periods of time, when an institution or individual wanted a large number of texts copied to stock a library; once the library was stocked, there was no further need for a room to be set aside for the purpose. By the start of the 13th century secular copy-shops developed; professional scribes may have had special rooms set aside for writing, but in most cases they probably simply had a writing-desk next to a window in their own house.