Omniana/Volume 1/Payment of a Copyer of Books
84. Payment of a Copyer of Books.
The form of a written agreement, which is preserved in the Partidas, happens to relate to a curious subject. It is the bargain of a copyer or scribe.
"Know all men to whom this writing shall come, that Pero Martinez the scribe, promiseth, consenteth, and bindeth himself to the Dean of Toledo, to write for him the text of such a book, and that he will write it and go on with it till it be completed, in such a hand as he hath written for a sample in the first leaf of this book, before me N. Notary Public, who have made this writing, and the witnesses whose names are hereunto subjoined.—Also the aforesaid Scribe promiseth that he will not labour in writing any other work till this book be finished. And he engageth to do this for the sum of thirty maravedis, ten of which he acknowledged to have received from the aforesaid Dean, and the other maravedis are to be paid in this manner: ten when half the book shall have been written, and the other ten when it is finished."