You've probably seen some pages of a medieval manuscript but never really considered how they were perceived the Middle Ages. First, paper hadn't been invented yet so the pages were made of vellum. Literally a flock would have to be slaughtered to make a full book, which was expensive. That's why it's rare to find a whole Bible in a medieval library; it's just too much for the whole thing. Then someone has to sit down and write this shit down. Go find some random book. Now copy that entire shit by hand. And remember, you can't use your shit handwriting; this has to be exemplary. Also, there's no premade loose leaf paper back then; you had to measure out the lines yourself. Oh, and do this in a room that has no heating or air conditioning. It's really fucking long, painful, and annoying.

Then consider everything you're copying is in Latin. With abbreviations because the scribe before you was too tired from this shit to write out the full word yourself. So you come across something like "ei" or "i h l." If you don't know Latin that well, how the hell are you supposed to tell from context that stands for enim or in hoc loco? Or even if you did know Latin, how would you know this particular abbreviation? And even if you did have all that knowledge, how are you certain the book you're copying from actually had a learned scribe for that and hadn't made mistakes?

Hence books were sacred things. Some so sacred, they weren't actually supposed to be read but rather just be a holy object in and of itself, like the Book of Kells. Remember, about 99% of the population couldn't read at that point, particularly in the early Middle Ages, so all this shit was just mystical to start out with.

Therefore you can imagine people are pretty possessive of their books. One for the price, one for the labor, and one for the power: You have knowledge from this book that few other people have. That's what happened with St. Columba and St. Finnian, two Irish monks in the 500s. Columba was visiting Finnian's monastery and noticed they had a Psalter in their library. He asked if he could borrow it to read for the night, and during that time he hastily copied the whole thing. If you believe Columba's supporters, his fingers started shining so brightly during the procedure that it filled the whole church. And when a kid came to see what was up with this light show, Columba's pet crane pecked out his eyes for interrupting him. But I digress. Finnian was so pissed off that this had happened and went to King Diarmait to complain, who judged the copy must be returned to Finnian. Columba refused and actually instigated the Uí Néill clan to rebel and have a battle at Cúl Dreimhne. Because so many people died, Columba had to leave Ireland altogether. All this for a Psalter.

So when I hear about copyright issues today, I think: "Well, at least no one's having a pitched battle against the MPAA or RIAA. Because we've gone there."