"The size most in fashion was that now known as the demy folio, of which
the leaf is about ten inches wide and fifteen inches long, but smaller
sizes were often made. The space to be occupied by the written text was
mapped out with faint lines, so that the writer could keep his letters on
a line, at even distance from each other and within the prescribed
margin. Each letter was carefully drawn, and filled in or painted with
repeated touches of the pen. With good taste, black ink was most
frequently selected for the text; red ink was used only for the more
prominent words, and the catch-letters, then known as the rubricated
letters. Sometimes texts were written in blue, green, purple, gold or
silver inks, but it was soon discovered that texts in bright color were
not so readable as texts in black.

"When the copyist had finished his sheet he passed it to the designer,
who sketched the border, pictures and initials. The sheet was then given
to the illuminator, who painted it. The ornamentation of a mediaeval book
of the first class is beyond description by words or by wood cuts. Every
inch of space was used. Its broad margins were filled with quaint
ornaments, sometimes of high merit, admirably painted in vivid colors.
Grotesque initials, which, with their flourishes, often spanned the full
height of the page, or broad bands of floriated tracery that occupied its
entire width, were the only indications of changes of chapter or subject.
In printer's phrase the composition was "close-up and solid" to the
extreme degree of compactness. The uncommonly free use of red ink for the
smaller initials was not altogether a matter of taste; if the page had
been written entirely in black ink it would have been unreadable through
its blackness. This nicety in writing consumed much time, but the
mediaeval copyist was seldom governed by considerations of time or
expense. It was of little consequence whether the book he transcribed
would be finished in one or in ten years. It was required only that he
should keep at his work steadily and do his best. His skill is more to be
commended than his taste. Many of his initials and borders were
outrageously inappropriate for the text for which they were designed. The
gravest truths were hedged in the most childish conceits. Angels,
butterflies, goblins, clowns, birds, snails and monkeys, sometimes in
artistic, but much oftener in grotesque and sometimes in highly offensive
positions are to be foun