Pecia manuscript of St. Thomas
Aquinas with scribe’s note, Paris, ca.
1270. Yale MS 207, fol. 46. Courtesy
of Beinecke Library, Yale University.
lar and compact. The annotations surrounding the text were written by at least two
individuals in less formal styles of Gothic writing that are characterized by cursive
elements and an abundance of abbreviations; both of these features allowed the script to
be written more rapidly and permitted the commentary to be squashed into the margins
close to the relevant passage being discussed.
Because of the increased demand for inexpensive university books in 13th-century
Paris, special bookdealers, or university stationers, developed a system of mass
production for selected works. In the pecia, or piece, system of transcribing manuscripts,
the stationer’s “fair” copy (exemplar) of the text was divided into numbered pieces, each
of which could be rented out to individuals for copying. The system helped to guarantee
accuracy, since every new manuscript was made directly from the stationer’s exemplar,
and accelerated book production, since several scholars or scribes could copy from the
one complete work at the same time.
Among the many works copied and marketed according to the pecia system were
those of St. Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1224–1274), a Dominican friar who was master of
The Encyclopedia 1305