I haven't found any data on this from this time period and the one book that might shed light I can't get hold of. We've got two later options, the first from a book circa 1100 and contained 152(ish) folios, costing 53 shillings (636 pennies). The second is from around 1000, where Aelfric Bata's Colloquies describes a conversation where the cost of a missal is put at 12 mancuses (360 pennies) - the 'A' section of Leofric's Missal (which isn't really indicative of all missals but it's the only one I can track down quickly and is circa 900AD) is about 37 folios (148 pages) Neither actually describes whether this is just the cost of the materials, or whether it includes the scribal fee.

You want 4 pages, so you want 1 fo(lio). If the first option is correct, then

• Option 1 (152 folios @ 636 pennies): 1 fo at 4 silver pennies.
• Option 2 (37 folios @ 360 pennies): 1 fo at ~10 pennies

Given that a sheep costs ~10d, a pig 20d, and a cow ~64-88d it makes a big difference whether you want this on parchment or vellum and that will inflate your costs accordingly. Parchment would be 2s per dozen, vellum 8s per dozen, but that's from the middle ages.

/r/theydidthemathprobablywrong

Edit: spelling

Out of pure curiosity, is there a particular reason your question is so specific?

Assuming that you would like to get a cheapest possible deal, meaning a 4-page letter written in the fastest cursive script on the cheapest parchment available, that would be 2 dennars for the parchment and 1 dennar at most for the work.

Thats 3 denars total, which was about as much as an average worker or lower tier artisan would make in a day, or an equivalent of one fat capon (castrated rooster) or a rabbit.

However, between 642 and 700, the prices for parchment skyrocketed, since the shipping of papyrus from Egipt stopped due to Arab invasion, forcing cancellaries and scriptories to switch fully to parchment. This forced mediterrean scribes to buy out all available parchment from known Europe, even at exorbitant prices.

Source:

M. Barczynski, Scribal tools and supplies in the Medieval and Early Modern times, 2014, Lodz