In their illustrations the scribes often showed how literal was their interpretation of Scriptural text.  For instance, in a passage in the book known as the Utrecht Psalter, there is an illustration of the verse, “The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver tried in the furnace, purified seven times.”  A glowing forge is seen, and two craftsmen are working with bellows, pincers, and hammer, to prove the temper of some metal, which is so molten that a stream of it is pouring out of the furnace.  Another example of this literal interpretation, is in the Psalter of Edwin, where two men are engaged in sharpening a sword upon a grindstone, in illustration of the text about the wicked, “who whet their tongue like a sword.”

There is evidence of great religious zeal in the exhortations of the leaders to those who worked under them.  Abbot John of Trittenham thus admonished the workers in the Scriptorium in 1486:  “I have diminished your labours out of the monastery lest by working badly you should only add to your sins, and have enjoined on you the manual labour of writing and binding books.  There is in my opinion no labour more becoming a monk than the writing of ecclesiastical books....  You will recall that the library of this monastery... had been dissipated, sold, or made way with by disorderly monks before us, so that when I came here I found but fourteen volumes.”

It was often with a sense of relief that a monk finished his work upon a volume, as the final word, written by the scribe himself, and known as the Explicit, frequently shows.  In an old manuscript in the Monastery of St. Aignan the writer has thus expressed his emotions:  “Look out for your fingers!  Do not put them on my writing!  You do not know what it is to write!  It cramps your back, it obscures your eyes, it breaks your sides and stomach!” It is interesting to note the various forms which these final words of the scribes took; sometimes the Explicit is a pathetic appeal for remembrance in the prayers of the reader, and sometimes it contains a note of warning.  In a manuscript of St. Augustine now at Oxford, there is written:  “This book belongs to St. Mary’s of Robert’s Bridge; whoever shall steal it or in any way alienate it from this house, or mutilate it, let him be Anathema Marantha!” A later owner, evidently to justify himself, has added, “I, John, Bishop of Exeter, know not where this aforesaid house is, nor did I steal this book, but acquired it in a lawful way!”

The Explicit in the Benedictional of Ethelwold is touching:  the writer asks “all who gaze on this book to ever pray that after the end of the flesh I may inherit health in heaven; this is the prayer of the scribe, the humble Godemann.”  A mysterious Explicit occurs at the end of an Irish manuscript of 1138, “Pray for Moelbrighte who wrote this book.  Great was the crime when Cormac Mac Carthy was slain by Tardelvach O’Brian.”  Who shall say what revelation may have been embodied in these words?  Was it in the nature of a confession or an accusation of some hitherto unknown occurrence?  Coming as it does at the close of a sacred book, it was doubtless written for some important reason.