scribe

A scribe is a person who writes things down. The term originates from the Latin scriba, writer, and originally referred to a literate worker responsible for recording information in a society that lacked widespread literacy.

In antiquity, scribes were essential to administration and culture. In Mesopotamia, professional scribes copied laws and business records on cuneiform tablets. In ancient Egypt, scribes held high status and wrote on papyrus with reed pens, maintaining temple, royal, and bureaucratic records in hieratic and demotic scripts. In classical Greece and Rome, scribes served as copyists, clerks, and secretaries, often educated in rhetoric and grammar.

During the medieval period, scribes worked in monasteries, scriptoria, chancelleries, and later courts. Monastic scribes copied biblical and secular texts by hand; secular scribes issued decrees, charters, and accounts. Notaries and chancery scribes developed standardized procedures for documenting legal and administrative acts. Writing tools included reed pens, quills, ink, parchment, and later paper.

In modern usage, the term scribe also denotes a professional transcriptionist. In medicine, a scribe accompanies clinicians to document encounters, enabling doctors to focus on patient care. In law and administration, a scribe or notary records contracts, deeds, and official correspondence. Although printing and digital records reduced traditional scribal duties, scribal skills persist in specialized fields and in some cultures as a historical or ceremonial role.