# In the olden days when paper was quite expensive, what did Lawyers takes notes on? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 10, 2006, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305 "2006-01-10T14:08:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/1 "2006-01-10T14:08:39Z")
Just curious. Say a ye olde lawyer in the time of Henry the 8th or thereabouts needed to make extensive notes about a complex case. Paper was expensive. How did they do it? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/2 "2006-01-10T14:17:10Z")
Several options: Parchment, made from sheeps and goats, was reusable to a great extent - to “erase”, you’d scrape the ink off with a knife, and the piece was more or less clean for another use. Slate could be written on and erased for short term notes. There were also lots better memories in those days. Educated people were trained from early childhood to memorize lots of things: speeches, ship’s inventories, household accounts, dates and facts. A good lawyer simply wouldn’t need to take many notes, he’d just remember what he needed to. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/3 "2006-01-10T14:18:50Z")
I’ll bet in really old times they didn’t take notes at all – they call them “hearings” because everything was spoken, rather than written. Lawyers and judges had to have good memories. Even by Henry VIII’s time I’ll bet they didn’t do a lot of note-taking. Paper was available – I don’t know how expensive it was. But the kind of obsessive documentation we use today, and which keeps Kno’s in business in the business sections of town just didn’t exist. there are notes, rather than transcripts, of a lot of early American colonial court cases – I’ve been through them in the NJ archives. But they’re pretty terse. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/4 "2006-01-10T15:23:24Z")
Romans used wax tablets for some things. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/5 "2006-01-10T15:26:16Z")
They took notes on their briefs, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/6 "2006-01-10T15:29:45Z")
I also know that to save paper, things weren’t written in duplication. I recently read Pillars of the Earth by Follet and he seems to do a lot of research into the middle ages for his books. He describes complex laws or regulations simply being repeated over and over. If I apply for the rights to have a market in my town, I may be granted market rights “as at Hampton” meaning my market has the same rules and regs as the one that already exists at Hampton. There’s no need to re-invent the wheel! ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/7 "2006-01-11T12:09:21Z")
The glib answer to the OP would be that the cost of paper wasn’t an issue for lawyers as they would just have passed the expense on to the client. More seriously, paper was expensive, but not so much so that it could not be used for many everyday tasks. For a sixteenth-century lawyer, it would have been just one more of many costs that he would have expected to cover from his fees, just as most modern lawyers can meet the costs of running a well-equiped office. There are even a few examples of collections of rough working notes made by sixteenth-century lawyers that survive. Although not those of a lawyer, the multi-volumed casebooks of the astrologer, Simon Forman, would be the best-known example of how someone of that period with a lucrative practice would routinely make notes about his clients. It should also be said that sixteenth-century lawyers were as fond of redundant verbiage as those of any other period. Few legal documents from that period could be described as concise. Duplication of even the lengthiest of documents was common. Moreover, some court records could be remarkably extensive, with this depending more on the rules of particular jurisdictions than on the costs involved. Some courts, such as Chancery, received evidence mostly in writing rather than orally. No one looking at the vast series of court records that survive from the sixteenth century would ever believe that the costs of the materials and of the scribes were serious deterrants to their production. But there is one factor that did make a difference. What they almost never recorded, whether in formal court records or in unofficial notes, were verbatim accounts of what was actually said in court. However, that was because there was no really effective system of shorthand. Lawyers instead usually took notes only on what had been decided. In England there was a long tradition of circulating collections of such unofficial notes as law reports and by the sixteenth century those were being printed or, more commonly, circulated widely in manuscript. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/8 "2006-01-11T15:37:39Z")
I’m not sure where I heard this, but I’ve heard Medieval writers made notes (with ink or scratching) on shards of pottery. Remains of broken pottery were everywhere and had no other use anyway. Pottery offers a clean smooth and somewhat flat surface, and potteryshards are light and durable and can be taken with you anywhere. They’d be comparable to us writing on the back of storereceipts, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/9 "2006-01-11T16:38:03Z")
To pin down the timeline a bit more regarding paper: 1380’s-- exotic and exhorbitant, either imported or made at one or two mills in Europe. Using parchment instead, which can be reused. 1420s-- less expensive. Enough so that printers can start selling inexpensive prints as pilgrimage souveniers, etc. 1475-1500-- getting towards something like inexpensive. Papermills popping up all over the place. By Henry the VIII: not a real issue. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/10 "2006-01-11T16:55:12Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Even by Henry VIII’s time I’ll bet they didn’t do a lot of note-taking. Yeah, they did. David Starkey in his book “Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII” reveals a document which was ignored until now because of it’s illegibility. It’s a transcript of the examination of Thomas Culpepper, the supposed lover of Katheryn Howard. Katherine of Aragon’s speech at the Blackfriars examination was recorded word-for word. (Unlike the speeches of the king, hers was a surprise-- no one expected her to even show up, let alone speak on her own behalf, so the speech \*must \*have been recorded as she said it.) Even earlier, word-for-word trial transcipts for Jeanne D’Arc were taken. As a result, we know more about Jeanne’s life than we know about any other historical personage (including kings) of that time. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/11 "2006-01-11T17:17:52Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > complex laws or regulations simply being repeated over and over. > > If I apply for the rights to have a market in my town, I may be granted market rights “as at Hampton” meaning my market has the same rules and regs as the one that already exists at Hampton. There’s no need to re-invent the wheel! I once worked for a legal publishing company that specialized in municipal codes. A lot of city councils in Ohio simply adopted the Ohio state traffic code wholesale, or certain portions of it. The locally adopted state code then got the status of municipal law. The point being that if a cop pulls you over in Massillon or Chillicothe, and they’ve adopted their own local traffic code, the fine you pay goes to the local municipality instead of to the state. Since a traffic code had already been written, they don’t bother rewriting the wheel, so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/12 "2006-01-11T17:22:23Z")
> [@APB](#): > > What they almost never recorded, whether in formal court records or in unofficial notes, were verbatim accounts of what was actually said in court. However, that was because there was no really effective system of shorthand. > [@Lissa](#): > > Katherine of Aragon’s speech at the Blackfriars examination was recorded word-for word. […] Even earlier, word-for-word trial transcipts for Jeanne D’Arc were taken. OK, these two statements seem to contradict one another. Someone please help me out here. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/13 "2006-01-11T18:18:06Z")
I’ve seen the “transcripts” of Joan of Arc’s trials, and they are more in the form of paraphrases of her answers than verbatim renderings. By the way, what really and finally made paper cheap was the invention of a method of turning wood pulp into paper in the 1860s. Before then, paper was made from rags. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/14 "2006-01-11T20:46:17Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Parchment, made from sheeps and goats, was reusable to a great extent - to “erase”, you’d scrape the ink off with a knife, and the piece was more or less clean for another use. Just because it’s a cool word, I’d like to mention that a document written on bulk-erased parchment pages is called a “palimpsest.” (Gk. “Palin” (again) - “psestos” (worn smooth.) ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/15 "2006-01-11T21:13:12Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > Just because it’s a cool word, I’d like to mention that a document written on bulk-erased parchment pages is called a “palimpsest.” (Gk. “Palin” (again) - “psestos” (worn smooth.) Lovely word, one of my favorites. Thanks for adding it - I couldn’t figure out how to drop it in without sounding like an insufferable know-it-all. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/16 "2006-01-11T21:32:07Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > I’ve seen the “transcripts” of Joan of Arc’s trials, and they are more in the form of paraphrases of her answers than verbatim renderings. Check out [this page.](http://www.stjoan-center.com/Trials/) It has the actual transcripts translated into English. For example, from the fourth private examination: > [@](#): > > What was the sign you gave your King ?" > > “Will you be satisfied that I should perjure myself?” > > “Have you promised and sworn to Saint Catherine that you will not tell this sign?” > > “I promised and swore not to tell this sign, and for my own sake, because I was pressed too much to tell it, and then I said to myself: ‘I promise not to speak of it to any one in the world.’ The sign was that an Angel assured my King, in bringing him the crown, that he should have the whole realm of France, by the means of God’s help and my labors; that he was to start me on the work - that is to say, to give me men-at-arms; and that otherwise he would not be so soon crowned and consecrated.” > > “Have you spoken to Saint Catherine since yesterday?” > > “I have heard her since yesterday, and she has several times told me to reply boldly to the Judges on what they shall ask me touching my Case.” > > “How did the Angel carry the crown? and did he place it himself on your King’s head ?” > > “The crown was given to an Archbishop - that is, to the Archbishop of Reims - so it seems to me, in the presence of my King. The Archbishop received it, and gave it to the King. I was myself present. The crown was afterwards put among my King’s treasures.” Seems pretty verbatim to me. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/17 "2006-01-11T22:22:14Z")
In the olden days when paper was quite expensive, what did Lawyers takes notes on? > [@astro](#): > > Just curious. Say a ye olde lawyer in the time of Henry the 8th or thereabouts needed to make extensive notes about a complex case. Paper was expensive. How did they do it? At first reading I thought you were a lawyer getting prepared for time travel. :rolleyes: So now I see you were “Just curious.” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/18 "2006-01-11T22:25:15Z")
> [@APB](#): > > What they almost never recorded, whether in formal court records or in unofficial notes, were verbatim accounts of what was actually said in court. However, that was because there was no really effective system of shorthand. Lawyers instead usually took notes only on what had been decided. In England there was a long tradition of circulating collections of such unofficial notes as law reports and by the sixteenth century those were being printed or, more commonly, circulated widely in manuscript. When did English/British/American courts begin recording testimony verbatim? When did it become mandatory? ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2006, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/19 "2006-01-12T12:33:52Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > Katherine of Aragon’s speech at the Blackfriars examination was recorded word-for word. (Unlike the speeches of the king, hers was a surprise-- no one expected her to even show up, let alone speak on her own behalf, so the speech \*must \*have been recorded as she said it.) Which speech? It makes a difference, not least because the two of them actually illustrate the opposite point in different ways. Her speech on 18 June 1529, which was when she turned up unexpectedly, was her reading of her written protestation. That was recorded only because, when she finished speaking, she made a point of handing the text over to the court and asking that it be copied into the records. Which she would have done precisely because the clerk would not have been recording what she was saying as she was speaking. As for her more famous speech on 21 June, nothing approaching a verbatim text of that survives. The version usually used is that by George Cavendish, but Cavendish was not writing until almost thirty years later, so, although the rest of his account has some value, the speech itself is unlikely to reliable. All the other sources only give the gist of what she said, not direct speech, and are almost certainly not based on any record, official or unofficial, made as she was speaking. As for the records of the trial of Joan of Arc, Daniel Hobban’s [introduction](http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:xbKNeh-e5CkJ:www.hup.harvard.edu/pdf/HOBTRI_excerpt.pdf+&hl=en) to the latest scholarly edition explains in detail why they are emphatically not verbatim accounts. See, in particular, his comments that, > [@](#): > > \*…it is not a word-for-word transcript. This point bears emphasizing, given the claim in the title of an older translation that one particular manuscript offers a “verbatim report” of the trial. The record of the interrogations in its original form is better described as a summary of the interrogations…During the sessions, the notaries Manchon and Colles took notes. We should not imagine a dictation system. Often, the scribes omitted questions and collapsed an entire series of Joan’s answers which then appear as streaming monologue. This accounts in a large part for the apparant incoherence in some of her responses. Each evening after supper, in the presence of some of the assessors, the notaries compared their notes and drafted a text of that day’s proceedings. This original record is known as the French minute. > > …Soon after the end of the trial, Cauchon ordered Thomas de Courcelles, along with the notary Manchon, to gather the many documents relating to the trial, to translate the French interrogations into Latin, and to put all of this material in order as a new copy of the entire proceedings. This task involved more than just translation; it was in part a work of authorship, producing what was essentially a new text, a narrative tissue weaving together the French minute and the supporting documentation.\* Just because it seems pretty verbatim to you doesn’t mean that it is. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2006, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305/20 "2006-01-12T17:42:19Z")
> [@APB](#): > > Which speech? It makes a difference, not least because the two of them actually illustrate the opposite point in different ways. > > Her speech on 18 June 1529, which was when she turned up unexpectedly, was her reading of her written protestation. That was recorded only because, when she finished speaking, she made a point of handing the text over to the court and asking that it be copied into the records. Which she would have done precisely because the clerk would not have been recording what she was saying as she was speaking. > > As for her more famous speech on 21 June, nothing approaching a verbatim text of that survives. The version usually used is that by George Cavendish, but Cavendish was not writing until almost thirty years later, so, although the rest of his account has some value, the speech itself is unlikely to reliable. All the other sources only give the gist of what she said, not direct speech, and are almost certainly not based on any record, official or unofficial, made as she was speaking. > > As for the records of the trial of Joan of Arc, Daniel Hobban’s [introduction](http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:xbKNeh-e5CkJ:www.hup.harvard.edu/pdf/HOBTRI_excerpt.pdf+&hl=en) to the latest scholarly edition explains in detail why they are emphatically not verbatim accounts. See, in particular, his comments that, > > Just because it seems pretty verbatim to you doesn’t mean that it is. Thanks for the infor. It appears that I was mistaken. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-olden-days-when-paper-was-quite-expensive-what-did-lawyers-takes-notes-on/339305.md?page=2)