these books needed to be produced quickly to keep up with demand. carolingian, though legible, was time-consuming and labour-intensive to produce. it was large and wide and took up a lot of space on a manuscript in a time when writing materials were very costly. as early as the eleventh century, different forms of carolingian were already being used, and by the mid-twelfth century, a clearly distinguishable form, able to be written more quickly to meet the demand for new books, was being used in north-eastern france and the low countries.