Information and IdeasMediumInference about manuscript marginalia
Information and Ideas practice question
Medieval scribes spent years hand-copying texts, and some left unofficial notes in the margins: 'the ink is thin,' 'my hand is cold,' 'thank God it will soon be dark.' Historians once dismissed such scribbles as noise, but many now read them as something more valuable — ____
Which choice most logically completes the text?
- A. a record of the copyists' own working lives alongside the texts they copied.Correct
- B. proof that medieval scribes often could not read what they copied.
- C. corrections intended to improve the accuracy of the manuscripts.
- D. instructions left by monastery librarians for future readers.
Answer: A. a record of the copyists' own working lives alongside the texts they copied.
Complaints about cold, bad ink, and long hours are glimpses of the scribes' daily experience — a record of their working lives preserved in the margins.
Why the other answers are wrong
- B. proof that medieval scribes often could not read what they copied.
- Writing complaints shows literacy; nothing in the text suggests scribes could not read.
- C. corrections intended to improve the accuracy of the manuscripts.
- Complaints about cold hands and thin ink do not correct the text being copied.
- D. instructions left by monastery librarians for future readers.
- The notes are the scribes' own grumbling, not guidance from librarians.
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