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“Soon after the printing press emerged in the 15th century, the scriptoriums for copying manuscripts in monasteries rapidly began shutting down,” said Fidler, now 81 and living in retirement in Santa Fe, N.M.

“I feel like I’m a monk in a scriptorium keeping something alive,” Matthews said.

Site supervisor Andrew Shobbrook, from Dyfed Archaeological Trust, described the priory as a significant complex of buildings with dormitories, scriptoriums - rooms devoted to writing and manuscripts - stables and a hospital.

While the exact age of the two-sided page is unknown, it is believed to have been written in the abbey's scriptorium between 1225 and 1250.

The friar folded it and took it to the scriptorium to seal before sending it off, then gave it to John-go-in-the-Wynd, who waited.