Specialists and advancement

[Jonathan.Link]

@LuciusT

I expect them to have no choice. By custom and societial expectation, their scribal staff is entiled to "loaf around" for six months. Do you expect the scribal staff to tolerate working conditions worse then those of the serfs in the fields? Also, they're not "loafing around" the whole time. They are also practicing, being trained or taught or reading.

Remember that for non-magi the whole business of seasons is abstracted. The scribes don't actually have 6 months of free time. Rather, that also represents the time they have to devote to study and self-improvement as part of regular tasks. In other words, we might consider that while Arnuld the Scribe is copying those 2 tractati per year, he are also being trained in Profession: Scribe (by the chief scribe who oversees his work) and practicing Charm (by courting the chambermaid). He isn't spending the entire time from June 21 to Sept 21 just being Trained any more then he is spending the whole time from Dec 21 to Mar 21 chatting up the chambermaid. He's copying, being trained and practicing at once throughout the year, in addition to spending time off "loafing around" on holy days.

As per City and Guild, working more hours and skipping holy days is actually socially unacceptable and, at the extreme, sinful. The thought of being "paid overtime" to copy more texts would not be attractive to an average 13th century scribe. Instead, it would "slave driving" on the part of his greedy and sinful masters... something sure to lower the scribes Loyality and give the covenant a bad reputation, making it harder to get new scribes after the overworked ones have run off with the chambermaids.

Do you play scribe specialists this way? Or are they always churning out books 4 seasons a year, or at least more than 2 seasons a year? I would imagine that most PC covenants, and even NPC covenants aren't thinking they can only get 2 books per year from their scribe(s). If they are, I'm a bit suprised.
Note, nothing in what I said is about working more days or extra hours. The amount of production is based on a Magus working a standard day, 10 hours, and has the sabbath off (or a rest day, if you prefer). The 10 hours, in the medieval paradigm is probably not all that long a work day. The serf in the field or pasture is probably going 12 hours or more a day. And knowing how farmers are, they are working all day, every day, despite holidays, so the scribe DOES have it easy.