The Codex - The Early Bound "Book"

The codex was the early form of what we know as a book--that is, pages bound together (the term codex is Latin for "block of wood.")

Papyrus codices date from the First Century A.D. and by the Fourth Century A.D. codices (of papyrus or parchment) had supplanted scrolls as the reading devices of choice. Codex users valued the format over scrolls for the same qualities we value in books today: portability, ease of finding your place, and the ability to write on both sides of the page (save parchment!)

The codex form became more refined as paper-making and book binding and book case-making became more sophisticated. But until the middle of the 13th Century, books required a tremendous amount of effort to produce. Each copy was transcribed by hand and sometimes "illuminated" (that is, decorated with gold and silver paint and illustrations) and it took months--or years--of labor to complete a single volume. The process was so laborious that the work was usually reserved for religious texts.

Then, in the mid-1400s, ">Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press rendered book making much, much easier.