um was also
sometimes inserted in the middle of the quire so that the paper would be
stitched between the two vellum sheets.

Originally the narrow columns of the papyrus roll were transferred to
the vellum page but gradually the lines were lengthened until the page
had one column or at most two. For example, the Sinaitic codex of the
Bible which dates from the 4th century has four columns to the page. The
Vatican codex also dated from the 4th century has three. The Alexandrian
codex which dates from the very late 4th or the early 5th has two, while
the codex of Beza which dates from the 6th century has but one column to
the page.

In order to prevent mistakes in the putting together of the quires a
quire mark was put on each quire, sometimes on the first sheet and
sometimes on the last sheet. In the 11th century catch-words were used
to show the connection of the quires.

The scribes took great pains with their manuscripts and ruled them
carefully before writing. The lines were pricked off carefully by the
use of compasses and ruled with a stylus which made a mark or crease on
the vellum. This was ordinarily applied with force enough to make a
raised line on the back of the page and sometimes with force enough to
show through two or three pages. Later these rulings were colored with
inks of brilliant hues and formed part of the decoration of the
manuscript. It has been claimed that a certain manuscript, probably
dating from the 13th century, shows signs of having been ruled with a
lead pencil. This is very doubtful, however. The first distinct mention
of lead pencils which we have is about 1565. These pencils were made of
wood and strips of natural graphite.

The older literary manuscripts were written entirely in capital letters
without any spacing between the words. The cursive or running hand with
the letters smaller and more or less connected appears in manuscripts of
later date. In the older manuscripts marks were introduced to show the
ends of sentences and occasionally dots were inserted to mark the
separation of words where otherwise the meaning would be ambiguous.
These marks, however, are not related to our modern punctuation.

The tendency to separate words appears first in non-literary documents,
such as legal documents or matters of record. As the tendency to
separate words developed at first only the long words were separated and
for a long time short words were connected with those before them as is