> what's the bit rate of information encoded in writing style? Over a whole copy, high enough to distinguish the handwriting or writing style of different pers

> what's the bit rate of information encoded in writing style? Over a whole copy, high enough to distinguish the handwriting or writing style of different persons, and to probe whether a text is a first account text, a contemporaneous copy or a forged later one? > And in any case, how much of that subtle, undocumented writing feature would one expect to find in a given document throughout history? There's a reason original artefacts are kept with great care and their high resolution copy have more interest than the full text-only transcription (which itself can be subject to interpretation in some cases). > Obviously it was the latter. Was it? Were ornamented, illuminating manuscripts about quick and efficient production? or about effective and subtle communication? Particularly in the case of illuminated scripts, where illustrations could bring either additional context or critique of the first-order reading of the text, either visual support to the text meaning to the less literate.