Transcription:

The initial transcription of the text was at once the easiest and most time-consuming task in manuscript production.  By this point, a scribe would have already pricked and ruled the text, created the ink, and even assembled the leaves of parchment into quires, so all that remained was the process of copying the text from the exemplar -- the original manuscript from which the scribe read -- to the new page. While this task is seemingly simple, in reality it was a time-consuming, error-filled period. Scribes who caught their errors at the time of transcription could generally remove them with the aforementioned penknife, but errors that were allowed to dry on the parchment had to be corrected at a later stage.

Prior to the thirteenth century, "scribes would invariably enter the first line of text on each page above the uppermost ruled horizontal line."  As historians have now noted, however, during the thirteenth century "a change took place," and by its end "the general practice was for scribes to enter the first line of text below the top ruled line, that is, on the second line" (Graham and Clemens 21).  Fittingly, these practices are generally referred to as above top line and below top line.

During the initial transcription, scribes would be careful to leave room for planned illustrations or illuminated letters and colored initials.  Illuminated initials required the scribe to indent his text "in order to leave a blank area of suitable size and shape for the planned initial" (Graham and Clemens 21). After finishing the transcription phase -- which could take anywhere from weeks to months -- the scribe would pass off the leaves to an artisan for their next phase: rubrication.

To the left is an example of a manuscript carefully transcribed by a scribe.  The ink is notably brown; this could be due to fading over time, but is more likely indicative of a lighter original ink color, as the color seems uniform throughout the script.