Pat Doran, M.ED
- Early History of Reading Instruction
Accuracy in transcribing was critical to Charlemagne who insisted that scribes replicate every letter exactly. He was concerned that those scribes who were unable to read would just copy meaningless shapes of letters. If the illiterate scribes were inattentive, inaccurate, or lazy, then doctrinal errors could occur when religious documents were copied. Therefore, Charlemagne required that all monks and priests were to be thoroughly educated in both reading and writing.