Social Studies SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS(3 Mark)

i. As handwritten books were expensive, only the rich, the aristocrats and the Church could employ scribes. The scribes wrote only for aristocratic circles and rich monastic libraries.
ii. As the demand for books increased, booksellers all over Europe began exporting books to many different countries. Book fairs were held at different places.
iii. Production of handwritten manuscripts was also organised in new ways to meet the expanded demand.
iv. Scribes or skilled hand writers were no longer solely employed by wealthy or influential patrons but increasingly by booksellers as well.
v. One bookseller could employ 50 scribes due to the new technology in printing. It was no longer the monopoly of the rich and the influential.

Bengal Gazette was a weekly magazine that described itself as 'a commercial paper open to all, but influence by none.' From 1780 James Augustus Hickey began to edit the magazine. Gradually, it was became private English enterprise, proud of its independence from colonial influence that began English printing in India. Hickey published freely, right from the advertisements related to the import and sale of slaves to gossips of company’s senior officials in India. As a result, it enraged the colonial masters and Hickey was persecuted by General Warren Hastings.