BOOKS AND THEIR MAKERS
DURING THE MIDDLE AGES
A STUDY OF THE CONDITIONS OF THE PRODUCTION AND
DISTRIBUTION OF LITERATURE FROM THE FALL OF
THE ROMAN EMPIRE TO THE CLOSE OF
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
BY
GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM, A.M.
AUTHOR OF "AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLIC IN ANCIENT TIMES"
"THE QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT," ETC.
VOLUME I.
476-1600
SECOND EDITION
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK LONDON
27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 34 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND
&t finithcrbacher $)rcsa
1898
COPYRIGHT, 1896
BY
G. P..PUTNAM'S SONS
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
Ube ftnicberbocfcer press, 1fte\ tftocbelle,
TO
THE MEMORY OF MY WIFE
WHO SERVED ME FOR YEARS BOTH AS EYESIGHT
AND AS WRITING-ARM
AND EY WHOSE HAND THE FOLLOWING PAGES
WERE IN LARGE PART TRANSCRIBED
THIS WORK IS DEDICATED
iii
PREFACE.
IN a previous volume I undertook to describe, or rather
to indicate, the methods of the production and distribu-
tion of the earlier literature of the world and to sketch out
the relations which existed between the author and his
public during the ages known, rather vaguely, as classic,
that is, in the periods of literary activity in Greece and
ancient Rome. The materials for such a record were at
best but fragmentary, and it was doubtless the case that,
in a first attempt of the kind, I failed to get before me
not a few of the references which are scattered through
the works of classic writers, and which in any fairly com-
plete presentation of the subject ought to have been
utilised.
Imperfect as my study was, I felt, however, that I was
justified in basing upon it certain general conclusions. It
seems evident that in Greece, even during the period of
the highest literary development, there did not exist any-
thing that could be described as a system for the produc-
tion and distribution of books. The number of copies of
any work of Greek literature available for the use of the
general public must at any time have been exceedingly
limited, and it would probably be safe to say that, be-
fore the development of Alexandria as a centre of book-
production, a book-buying public hardly existed. The
few manuscripts that had been produced, and that pos-
sessed any measure of authenticity, were contained in
royal archives or in such a State collection as that of
vi Preface
Athens, or in the studies of the small group of scholarly
teachers whose fame was sometimes in part due to the
fact that they were owners of books.
The contemporary writers, including the authors of
works treasured as masterpieces through all later ages,
were not only content to do their work without any
thought of material compensation, but appear to have
been strangely oblivious of what would seem to us to be
the ordinary practical measures for the preservation and
circulation of their productions. The only reward for
which they could look was fame with their own genera-
tion, and even for this it would seem that some effective
distribution of their compositions was essential. The
thought of preserving their work for the appreciation of
future generations seems to have weighed with them but
little. The ambition or ideal of the author appears to
have been satisfied when his composition received in his
own immediate community the honour of dramatic pres-
entation or of public recitation. If his fellow citizens had
accorded the approbation of the laurel crown, the approval
of the outer world or of future generations was a matter
of trifling importance. The fact that, notwithstanding this
lack of ambition or incentive on the part of the authors,
the non-existence of a reading public, and the consequent
absence of any adequate machinery for the production
and distribution of books, the knowledge of the " laurel-
crowned " works, both of the earlier poets and of con-
temporary writers, should have been so widely diffused
throughout the Greek community, is evidence that the
public interest in dramatic performances and in the reci-
tations of public reciters (" rhapsodists ") made, for an
active-minded people like the Greeks, a very effective
substitute for the literary enlightenment given to later
generations by means of the written or the printed word.
A systematised method of book-production we find first
in Alexandria, where it had been developed, if not origi-
Preface vii
nally instituted, by the intelligent and all-powerful interest
of the Ptolemaic kings, but there appears to be no evi-
dence that, even in Alexandria, which for the greater part
of two centuries was the great book-producing mart of the
world, was there any practice of compensation for authors.
It is to be borne in mind, however, in this connection,
that, with hardly an exception, the manuscripts produced
in Alexandria were copies of books accepted as classics,
the works of writers long since dead. For the editors of
what might be called the Alexandrian editions of Greek
classics, compensation was provided in the form of honor-
aria from the treasury of the Museum library or of salaried
positions in the Museum Academy.
In Rome, during the Augustan period, we find record
of a well organised body of publishers utilising connec-
tions with Athens, with Asia Minor, and with Alexandria,
for the purpose of importing Greek manuscripts and of
collecting trained Greek scribes, and carrying o;i an active
trade in the distribution of books not only with the
neighbouring cities of Italy, of Spain, and of Gaul, but with
such far off corners of the empire as the Roman towns in
Britain. There are not a few references in the literature
of this period, and particularly in the productions of
society writers like Martial and Horace, to the relations
of authors with their publishers and to the business inter-
ests retained by authors in the sale of their books. This
Augustan age presents, in fact, the first example in the
history of publishing, of a body of literature, produced by
contemporary writers, being manifolded and distributed
under an effective publishing and bookselling machinery,
so as to reach an extensive and widely separated reading
public. When the Roman gentleman in his villa near
Massilia (in Gaul), Colonia (on the Rhine), or Eboracum
(in far off Britain), is able to order through the imperial
post copies of the popular odes of Horace or epigrams of
Martial, we have the beginnings of an effective publishing
Vlll
Preface
organisation. It is at this time also that we first find
record of the names of noteworthy publishers, the book-
makers in Athens and in Alexandria having left their
names unrecorded. It is the period of Atticus, of Try-
phon, and of the Sosii. Concerning the matter of the
arrangements with the authors, or the extent of any com-
pensation secured by them, the information is at best but
scanty and often confusing. It seems evident, however,
that, apart from the aid afforded by imperial favour, by the
interest of some provincial ruler of literary tendencies, or
by the bounty of a wealthy private patron like Maecenas,
the rewards of literary producers were both scanty and
precarious.
With the downfall of the Roman Empire, the organised
book-trade of Rome and of the great cities of the Roman
provinces came to an end. This trade had of necessity
been dependent upon an effective system of communica-
tion and of transportation, a system which required for
its maintenance the well built and thoroughly guarded
roads of the empire ; while it also called for the exist-
ence of a wealthy and cultivated leisure class, a class
which during the periods of civil war and of barbaric
invasions rapidly disappeared. Long before the reign of
the last of the Roman emperors, original literary produc-
tion had in great part ceased and the trade in the books
of an earlier period had been materially curtailed ; and by
476, when Augustulus was driven out by the triumphant
Odovacar, the literary activities of the capital were very
nearly at a close.
In the following study I have taken up the account of
the production of books in Europe from the time of the
downfall of the Empire of the West. I have endeavoured
to show by what means, after the disappearance of the
civilisation of the Roman State, were preserved the frag-
ments of classic literature that have remained for the use
of modern readers, and to what agencies was due the
Preface ix
maintenance, throughout the confusion and social dis-
organisation of the early Middle Ages, of any intellectual
interest or literary activities.
I find such agencies supplied in the first place by the
scribes of the Roman Church, the organisation of which
had replaced as a central civilising influence the power of
the lost Roman Empire. The scriptoria of the monas-
teries rendered the service formerly given by the copyists
of the book-shops or of the country houses, while their
armaria, or book-chests, had to fill the place of the
destroyed or scattered libraries of the Roman cities or
the Roman villas. The work of the scribes was now
directed not by an Augustus, a Maecenas, or an Atticus,
but by a Cassiodorus, a Benedict, or a Gregory, and the
incentive to literary labour was no longer the laurel crown
of the circus, the favours of a patron, or the honoraria of
the publishers, but the glory of God and the service of
the Church. Upon these agencies depended the exist-
ence of literature during the seven long centuries between
the fall of the Western Empire and the beginning of the
work of the universities, and, in fact, for many years after
the foundation of the universities of Bologna and of Paris,
the book-production of the monasteries continued to be
of material importance in connection with the preservation
of literature.
In a study of the organisation of the earliest book-trade
of Bologna and Paris and of the method under which the
text-books for the universities were produced and sup-
plied, I have attempted to indicate the part played by
the universities in the history of literary production. In
a later chapter I have presented sketches of one or two of
the more noteworthy of the manuscript dealers, who
carried on, for a couple of centuries prior to the invention
of printing, the business of supplying books to the
increasing circles of readers outside of the universities.
In 1450 comes the invention of printing, which in
x Preface
revolutionising the methods of distributing intellectual
productions, exercised such a complex and far-reaching
influence on the thought and on the history of mankind.
I have described with some detail the careers of certain
of the earlier printer-publishers of Europe, and have been
interested in noting how important and distinctive were
the services rendered by these publishers to scholarship
and to literature.
The concluding chapter sketches the growth of the
conception of the idea of property in literature, and the
gradual development and extension throughout the States
of Europe of the system of privileges which formed the
precedent and the foundations for the modern system of
the law of literature and of interstate copyright legis-
lation. I have taken pleasure in pointing out that the
responsibility for securing this preliminary recognition of
property in literary productions and of the property rights
of literary producers rested with the printer-publishers,
and that the shaping of the beginnings of a copyright
system for Europe is due to their efforts. It was they
also who bore the chief burden of the contest, which
extended over several centuries, for the freedom of the
press from the burdensome censorship of Church and
State, a censorship which in certain communities appeared
likely for a time to throttle literary production altogether.
I can but think that the historians of literature and the
students of the social and political conditions on which
literary production is so largely dependent, have failed to
do full justice to men like Aldus, the Estiennes, Froben,
Koberger, and Plantin, who fought so sturdily against the
pretensions of pope, bishop, or monarch to stand between
the printing-press and the people and to decide what
should and what should not be printed.
I have thought it worth while, in giving the business
history of these old-time publishers, to present the lists of
their more characteristic publications, lists which seem
Preface
XI
to me to possess pertinence and value as giving an
impression of the nature and the range of the literary
interests of the time and of the particular community in
which the publisher was working, while they are also, of
course, indicative of the personal characteristics of the
publisher himself. When we find Aldus in Venice devot-
ing his presses almost exclusively to classical literature,
and in the classics, so largely to Greek ; while in Basel
and Nuremberg the early printers are producing the works
of the Church Fathers, in Paris the first Estienne (in the
face of the fierce opposition of the theologians) is
multiplying editions of the Scriptures, and in London,
Caxton and his immediate successors, disregarding both
the literature of the old world and the writings of the
Church, are presenting to the English public a long series
of romances and fabliaux, we may understand that we
have to do not with a series of accidental publishing
selections, but with the results of a definite purpose and
policy on the part of capable and observing men, a policy
which gives an indication of the nature and interests of
their several communities, while it characterises also the
aims and the individual ideals of the publishers them-
selves. Some of these earlier publishers were willing
simply to produce the books for which the people about
them were asking, while others, with a higher ambition
and a larger feeling of responsibility, proposed themselves
to educate a book-reading and a book-buying public,
and thus to create the demand for the higher literature
which their presses were prepared to supply.
These earlier printer-publishers took upon themselves,
in fact, the responsibility which had previously rested
with the universities, and, back of the universities, with
the monasteries, of selecting the literature that was to be
utilised by the community and through which the intel-
lectual life of the generation was to be in large part shaped
and directed. They thus took their place in the series of
xii Preface
literary agencies by means of which the world's literature
had been selected, preserved, and rendered available for
mankind, a chain which included such diverse and widely
separated links as the Ptolemies of Alexandria, the
princely patrons of Rome, Cassiodorus, S. Benedict and
his monasteries, the schools of Charlemagne and Alcuin,
the universities of Bologna and Paris, and, finally, the
printer-publishers who utilised the great discovery of
Gutenberg.
The fact that, during both the manuscript period and
the first two centuries of printing, the writings of Cicero
were reproduced far more largely than those of any other
of the Roman writers, is interesting as indicating a dis-
tinct literary preference on the part of successive genera-
tions both of producers and of readers. The pre-eminence
of Aristotle in the lists of the mediaeval issues of the
Greek classics has, I judge, a different significance. Aris-
totle stood for a school of philosophy, the teachings of
which had in the main been accepted by the Church, and
copies of his writings were required for the use of stu-
dents. The continued demand for the works of Cicero
depended upon no such adventitious aid, and can, there-
fore, fairly be credited to their perennial value as litera-
ture.
My readers will bear in mind that I have not undertaken
any such impossible task as a history of literary produc-
tion, or even a record of all the factors which controlled
literary production. I have attempted simply to present
a study of certain conditions in the history of the mani-
folding and distribution of books by which the production
and effectiveness of literature was very largely influenced
and determined, and under which the conception of such
a thing as literary property gradually developed. The
recognition of a just requirement or of an existing injus-
tice must, of course, always precede the framing of legis-
lation to meet the requirement or to remedy the injustice,
Preface xiii
and the conception of literary property and a recognition
of the inherent rights (and of the existing wrongs) of
literary producers had to be arrived at before copyright
legislation could be secured.
I have specified as the limit of the present treatise the
close of the seventeenth century, although I have found
it convenient in certain chapters to make reference to
events of a somewhat later date. It has been my pur-
pose, however, to present a study of the conditions of
literary production in Europe prior to copyright law, and
the copyright legislation of Europe may be said to begin
with the English statute of 1710, known as the Act of
Queen Anne.
I trust that in the near future some competent authority
may find himself interested in preparing a history of copy-
right law, and I shall be well pleased if the present
volumes may be accepted by the historian of copyright
and by the students of the subject as forming a suitable
general introduction to such a history.
G. H. P.
NEW YORK, January, 1896.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE , v
BIBLIOGRAPHY xvii
PART I. BOOKS IN MANUSCRIPT.
INTRODUCTORY 3
I. THE MAKING OF BOOKS IN THE MONASTERIES 16
Cassiodorus and S. Benedict . . . . . . .17
'The Earlier Monkish Scribes . . . . . . . . 30
The Ecclesiastical Schools and the Clerics as Scribes ... 36
Terms Used for Scribe-Work 42
S. Columba, the Apostle to Caledonia ..... 45
Nuns as Scribes . . . . . . . . . .51
Monkish Chroniclers 55
The Work of the Scriptorium . . . . . . .61
The Influence of the Scriptorium . . . . . .81
The Literary Monks of England ...... 90
The Earlier Monastery Schools 106
The Benedictines of the Continent . . . . . .122
The Libraries of the Monasteries and Their Arrangements for
the Exchange of Books . . . . . . .133
II. SOME LIBRARIES OF THE MANUSCRIPT PERIOD . . .146
Public Libraries .......... 161
Collections by Individuals . . . . . . . .170
III. THE MAKING OF BOOKS IN THE EARLY UNIVERSITIES . .178
IV. THE BOOK-TRADE IN THE MANUSCRIPT PERIOD . . .225
Italy 225
Books in Spain .......... 253
The Manuscript Trade in France 255
Manuscript Dealers in Germany 276
The Manuscript Period in England 302
xvi Contents
PART II. THE EARLIER PRINTED BOOKS.
I. THE RENAISSANCE AS THE FORERUNNER OF THE PRINTING-
PRESS 317
II. THE INVENTON OF PRINTING AND THE WORK OF THE FIRST
PRINTERS OF HOLLAND AND GERMANY .... 348
III. THE PRINTER-PUBLISHERS OF ITALY, 1464-1600 . . . 403
Aldus Manutius . . . . . . . . . .417
The Successors of Aldus 440
Milan 445
Lucca and Foligno ......... 455
Florence 456
Genoa 458
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PART I.
BOOKS IN MANUSCRIPT.
PART I.
BOOKS IN MANUSCRIPT.
INTRODUCTORY.
IN the year 410, Rome was captured and sacked by
Alaric the Visigoth. At this time, S. Jerome, in his
cell at Bethlehem, was labouring at his Commentaries
on Ezekiel, while it was the downfall of the imperial city
which incited S. Augustine to begin the composition of
his greatest work, The City of God : " the greatest city of
the world has fallen in ruin, but the City of God abideth
forever." The treatise required for its completion twenty-
two books. " The influence of France and of the printing-
press," remarks Hodgkin, " have combined to make im-
possible the production of another De Civitate Dei. The
multiplicity of authors compels the controversialist who
would now obtain a hearing, to speak promptly and con-
cisely. The examples of Pascal and of Voltaire teach him
that he must speak with point and vivacity." * S. Augus-
tine was probably the most voluminous writer of the
earlier Christian centuries. He was the author of no less
than 232 books, in addition to many tractates or homilies
and innumerable epistles. 1 His literary work was con-
1 Italy and Her Invaders, ii. , 246.
'Victor Vitensis, cited by Hodgkin, ii., 247.
3
4 Books in Manuscript
tinued even during the siege of Hippo by the Vandals,
and he died in Hippo (in 431), in his seventy-sixth year,
while the siege was still in progress.
In regard to the lack of historical records of the time, I
will again quote Hodgkin, who, in his monumental work
on Italy and Her Invaders, has himself done so much to
make good the deficiency : " It is perhaps not surprising
that in Italy itself there should have been during the fifth
century an utter absence of the instinct which leads men
to record for the benefit of posterity events which are
going on around them. When history was making itself
at such breathless speed and in such terrible fashion, the
leisure, the inclination, the presence of mind necessary for
writing history might well be wanting. He who would
under happier auspices have filled up the interval between
the bath and the tennis court by reclining on the couch in
the winter portico of his villa and there languidly dictating
to his slave the true story of the abdication of Avitus, or
the death of Anthemius, was himself now a slave keeping
sheep in the wilderness under a Numidian sun or shrink-
ing under the blows of one of the rough soldiers of
Gaiseric."
Hodgkin finds it more difficult to understand " why the
learned and leisurely provincial of Greece, whose country
for nearly a century and a half (395-539) escaped the
horrors of hostile invasion, and who had to inspire them
the grandest literary traditions in the world, should have
left unwritten the story of the downfall of Rome."
" The fact seems to be," he goes on to say, " that at
this time all that was left of literary instinct and historio-
graphic power in the world had concentrated itself on
theological (we cannot call it religious) controversy, and
what tons of worthless material the ecclesiastical historians
and controversialists of the time have left us ! . . .
Blind, most of them, to the meaning of the mighty drama
which was being enacted on the stage of the world . . .
Introductory 5
they have left us scarcely a hint as to the inner history of
the vast revolution which settled the Teuton in the lands
of the Latin. . . . One man alone gives us that
detailed information concerning the thoughts, characters,
persons of the actors in the great drama which can make
the dry bones of the chronologer live. This is Caius
Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius, man of letters, imperial
functionary, country gentleman, and bishop, who, notwith-
standing much manifest weakness of character and a sort
of epigrammatic dulness of style, is still the most interest-
ing literary figure of the fifth century." *
Sidonius was born at Lyons, A.D. 430. His father,
grandfather, and great-grandfather had all served as Prae-
torian Prefects in Gaul, in which province his own long
life was passed. In 472, Sidonius became Bishop of
Arverni, and from that time, as he rather naively tells us,
he gave up (as unbecoming ecclesiastical responsibilities)
the writing of compositions " based on pagan models."
In 475, the year before the last of the western emperors,
Augustulus, was driven from Rome by Odovacar,* the
Herulian, the Visigoth king, Euric, became master of
Auvergne. Sidonius was at first banished, but in 479 was
restored to his diocese, and continued his work there
as bishop and as writer until his death, ten years later.
At the time of the death of Sidonius, Cassiodorus, who
was, during the succeeding eighty years, to have part in so
much of the eventful history of Italy, was ten years old.
There are some points of similarity in the careers of the
two men. Both were of noble family and both began
their active work as officials, one of the Empire, the other
of the Gothic kingdom of Italy, while both also became
ecclesiastics. Each saw his country taken possession of
by a foreign invader, and for the purpose of serving his
countrymen, (with which purpose may very possibly have
1 Italy, ii., 297, 298.
1 For this form of the name I am following the authority of Hodgkin.
6 Books in Manuscript
been combined some motives of personal ambition,) each
was able and willing to make himself useful to the new
ruler and thus to retain official position and influence ;
and finally, both had literary facility and ambition, and,
holding in regard the works of the great classic writers,
endeavoured to model upon these works the style of their
own voluminous compositions. The political work of
Cassiodorus was of course, however, much the more note-
worthy and important, as Sidonius could hardly claim to
be considered a statesman.
In their work as authors, the compositions of Sidonius
are, as I judge from the description, to be ranked higher
in literary quality than those of the later writer, and to
have been more successful also in following the style of
classic models. The style of Cassiodorus is described as
both verbose and grandiloquent. In his ecclesiastical, or
rather his monastic work, taken up after half a century of
active political life, it was the fortune of Cassiodorus,
as will be described later, to exercise an influence which
continued for centuries, and which was possibly more far-
reaching than was exerted by the career of any abbot or
bishop in the later history of the Church.
The careers of both Sidonius and Cassiodorus have a
special interest because the two men held rather an
exceptional position between the life of the old empire
which they survived and that of the new Europe of the
Middle Ages, the beginning of which they lived to see.
Of the writings of Sidonius, Hodgkin speaks as follows :
"A careful perusal of the three volumes of the Letters
and Poems of Sidonius (written between the years 455
and 490) reveals to us the fact that in Gaul the air still
teems with intellectual life, that authors were still writing,
amanuenses transcribing, friends complimenting or criti-
cising, and all the cares and pleasures of literature filling
the minds of large classes of men just as when no empires
were sinking and no strange nationalities suddenly arising
Introductory 7
around them. ... A long list of forgotten philoso-
phers did exist in that age, and their works, produced in
lavish abundance, seem to have had no lack of eager
students."
As an example of the literary interests of a country
gentleman in Gaul, Hodgkin quotes a letter of Sidonius,
written about 469 : " Here too [/. e. in a country house in
Gaul] were books in plenty ; you might fancy you were
looking at the breast-high book-shelves (plantei) of the
grammarians, or the wedge-shaped cases (cunei) of the
Athenaeum, or the well-filled cupboards (armaria) of the
booksellers. I observed, however, that if one found a
manuscript beside the chair of one of the ladies of the
house, it was sure to be on a religious subject, while those
which lay by the seats of the fathers of the family were
full of the loftiest strains of Latin eloquence. In making
this distinction, I do not forget that there are sme
writings of equal literary excellence in both branches, that
Augustine may be paired off against Varro, and Prudentius
against Horace. Among these books, the works of
Origen, the Adamantine, were frequently perused by
readers holding our faith. I cannot understand why some
of our arch-divines should stigmatise him as a dangerous
and heterodox author."
In summing up the work of Sidonius, Hodgkin points
out the noteworthy opportunities for making a literary
reputation which were missed by him. " He might have
been the Herodotus of mediaeval Europe. He could
have given authentic pictures of the laws and customs of
the Goths, Franks, and Burgundians ... a full por-
traiture of the great apostle of the Germanic races, Ulfilas,
and the secret causes of his and their devotion to the
Arian form of Christianity ; and he could have recorded
the Gothic equivalents of the mythological tales in the
Scandinavian Edda and the story of the old Runes and
1 Italy ', ii., 319.
8 Books in Manuscript
their relation to the Moeso-Gothic alphabet. All these
details and a hundred more, full of interest to science, to
art, to literature, Sidonius might have preserved for us
had his mind been as open as was that of Herodotus to
the manifold impressions made by picturesque and strange
nationalities."
It was doubtless fortunate for the literary reputation of
Sidonius that his father-in-law, Avitus, came to be em-
peror. The reign of Avitus was short, but he had time
to give to his brilliant son-in-law a position as Court poet
or poet-laureate, while it was probably due to the im-
perial influence that the Senate decreed the erection (dur-
ing the lifetime of the poet) of the brass statue of Sidonius,
which was placed between the two libraries of Trajan.
These libraries, containing the one Greek and the other
Latin authors, stood between the column of Trajan and
the Basilica Ulpia. Sidonius describes his statue as
follows :
Cum meis poni statuam perennem
Nerva Trajanus titulis videret,
Inter auctores utriusque fixam Bibliotheca.
(Sidonius, Ex., ix., 16.)
Nil vatumprodest adjectum laudibus illud
Ulpia quod rutilat porticus are meo.
(Sidonius, Carm., via., 7, 8.) l
(Since Nerva Trajanus decreed the erection of a permanent
statue, which is inscribed with the records of my honours, and
is placed between the authors of the two libraries.
The fact that the entrance to the Ulpian Library is aglow
with the bronze of my statue, can add nothing to the laurels of
other poets.)
1 Cited by Hodgkin, iv., 119, 120.
Introductory 9
In the opinion of Hodgkin, the books in these two
collections in the Bibliotheca Ulpia may very well have
been of more importance to later generations than those
of the library of Alexandria. The books from Trajan's
libraries were, according to Vopiscus, transported in all
or in part to the Baths of Diocletian. Hodgkin under-
stands that, between 300 and 450, they were restored to
their original home. 1
In the year 537 A.D., the rule of the Goths in Italy,
which had been established by Theodoric in 493, was
practically brought to a close by the victories of Beli-
sarius, the general of the Eastern Empire, and, thirty years
later, the destruction of the Gothic State was completed
by the invasion of the Lombards. With the Lombards
in possession of Northern Italy, and the Vandals, in a
series of campaigns against the armies from Constanti-
nople, overrunning the southern portions of the pen-
insula, the social organisation of the country must have
been almost destroyed, and the civilisation which had
survived from the old Empire, while never entirely disap-
pearing, was doubtless in large part submerged. A cer-
tain continuity of Roman rule and of Roman intellectual
influence was, however, preserved through the growing
power of the Church, which was already claiming the in-
heritance of the Empire, and which, as early as 590, under
the lead of Pope Gregory the Great, succeeded in making
good its claims to ecclesiastical supremacy throughout the
larger part of Europe. In its control of the consciences
of rulers, the Church frequently, in fact, secured a domina-
tion that was by no means limited to things spiritual.
The history of books in manuscript and of the produc-
tion and distribution of literature in Europe from the
beginning of the work of S. Benedict to the time when
the printing-press of Gutenberg revolutionised the
methods of book-making, a period covering about nine
1 Vita Probi, ii., cited by Hodgkin.
io Books in Manuscript
centuries, may be divided into three stages. During the
first, the responsibility for the preservation of the old-
time literature and for keeping alive some continuity of
intellectual life, rested solely with the monasteries, and
the work of multiplying and of distributing such books as
had survived was carried on by the monks, and by them
only. During the second stage, the older universities,
the organisation of which had gradually been developed
from schools (themselves chiefly of monastic origin), be-
came centres of intellectual activity and shared with the
monasteries the work of producing books. The books
emanating from the university scribes were, however, for
the most part restricted to a few special classes, classes
which had, as a rule, not been produced in the monas-
teries, and, as will be noted in a later chapter, the univer-
sity booksellers (stationarii or librarii) were in the earlier
periods not permitted to engage in any general distribu-
tion of books. With the third stage of manuscript litera-
ture, book-producing and bookselling machinery came
into existence in the towns, and the knowledge of reading
being no longer confined to the cleric or the magister,
books were prepared for the use of the larger circles of
the community, and to meet the requirements of such cir-
cles were, to an extent increasing with each generation,
written in the tongue of the people.
The first period begins with the foundation by S. Bene-
dict, in 529, of the monastery of Monte Cassino, and by
Cassiodorus, in 531, of that of Vivaria or Viviers, and
continues until the last decade of the twelfth century,
when we find the earliest record of an organised book-
business in the universities of Bologna and Paris. The
beginning of literary work in the universities, to which I
refer as indicating a second stage, did not, however, bring
to an end, and, in fact, for a time hardly lessened, the
production of books in the monasteries.
The third stage of book-production in Europe may be
Introductory n
said to begin with the first years of the fifteenth century,
when the manuscript trade of Venice and Florence became
important, when the book-men or publishers of Paris, out-
side of the university, had developed a business in the
collecting, manifolding, and selling of manuscripts, and
when manuscripts first find place in the schedules of the
goods sold at the fairs of Frankfort and Nordlingen. The
costliness of the skilled labour required for the production
of manuscripts, and the many obstacles and difficulties in
the way of their distribution, caused the development of
the book-trade to proceed but slowly. It was the case,
nevertheless, and particularly in Germany, that a very
considerable demand for literature of certain classes had
been developed among the people before the close of the
manuscript period, a demand which was being met with
texts produced in constantly increasing quantities and at
steadily lessening cost. When the printing-press arrived
it found, therefore, already in existence a wide-spread
literary interest and a popular demand for books, a
demand which, with the immediate cheapening of books,
was, of course, enormously increased. The production of
books in manuscript came to a close, not with the inven-
tion of the printing-press in 1450, but with the time when
printing had become generally introduced, about twenty-
five years later.
It was in the monasteries that were preserved such
fragments of the classic literature as had escaped the
general devastation of Italy ; and it was to the labours of
the monks of the West, and particularly to the labours of
the monks of S. Benedict, that was due the preservation
for the Middle Ages and for succeeding generations of the
remembrance and the influence of the literature of classic
times. For a period of more than six centuries, the safety
of the literary heritage of Europe, one may say of the
world, depended upon the scribes of a few dozen scattered
monasteries.
12 Books in Manuscript
The Order of S. Benedict was instituted in 529, and the
monastery of Monte Cassino, near Naples, founded by
him in the same year, exercised for centuries an influence
of distinctive importance upon the literary interests of the
Church, of Italy, and of the world. This monastery
(which still exists) is not far from Subiaco, the spot
chosen by S. Benedict for his first retreat. It was in the
monastery of Subiaco (founded many years afterwards)
that was done, nearly a thousand years later, the first
printing in Italy. The Rule of S. Benedict, comprising
the regulations for the government of his Order, contained
a specific instruction that a certain number of hours in
each day were to be devoted to labour in the scriptorium.
The monks who were not yet competent to work as
scribes were to be instructed by the others. Scribe work
was to be accepted in place of an equal number of hours
given to manual labour out-of-doors, while the skilled
scribes, whose work was of special importance as instruct-
ors or in the scriptorium, were to be freed from a certain
portion of their devotional exercises or observances. The
monasteries of the Benedictines were for centuries more
numerous, more wealthy, and more influential than those
of any other Order, and this provision of a Rule which
directed the actions, controlled the daily lives, and in-
spired the purposes of thousands of earnest workers
among the monks of successive generations, must have
exercised a most noteworthy influence on the history of
literary production in Europe. It is not too much to say
that it was S. Benedict who provided the " copy " which
a thousand years later was to supply the presses of Guten-
berg, Aldus, Froben, and Stephanus.
I have not been able to find in the narratives of the
life of S. Benedict' any record showing the origin of his
interest in literature, an interest which was certainly
exceptional for an ecclesiastic of the sixth century. It
seems very probable, however, that Benedict's association
Introductory 13
with Cassiodorus had not a little to do with the literary
impetus given to the work of the Benedictines. Cassio-
dorus, who, as Chancellor of King Theodoric, had taken
an active part in the government of the Gothic kingdom,
passed the last thirty years of his life first as a monk and
later as abbot in the monastery of Vivaria, or Viviers, in
Calabria, which he had himself founded in 531. Cassio-
dorus is generally classed by the Church chronicles as a
Benedictine, and his monastery is referred to by Monta-
lembert as the second of the Benedictine foundations.
Hodgkin points out, however, that the Rule adopted by
the monks of Viviers, or prescribed for them by its found-
er, was not that of S. Benedict, but was drawn from the
writings of Cassian, the founder of western monachism,
who had died a century before. 1 The two Rules were,
however, fully in accord with each other in spirit, while
for the idea of using the convent as a place of literary toil
and theological training, Benedict was indebted to Cassio-
dorus. "At a very early date in the history of their
Order," says Hodgkin, " the Benedictines, influenced
probably by the example of the monastery of Vivaria,
commenced that long series of services to the cause of
literature which they have never wholly intermitted.
Instead of accepting the . . . formula from which some
scholars have contended that Cassiodorus was a Benedic-
tine, we should perhaps be rather justified in maintaining
that Benedict, or at least his immediate followers, were
Cassiodorians." *
It was the fortune of Cassiodorus to serve as a connect-
ing link between the world of classic Rome and that of
the Middle Ages. He saw the direction and control
of the community pass from the monarchs and the
leaders of armies to the Church and to the monas-
1 The Letters of Cassiodorus. Translated, with an Introduction, by
Thomas Hodgkin, London, 1884, p. 57.
8 Letters of Cassiodorus, p. 59.
14 Books in Manuscript
teries, and he was himself an active agent in helping
to bring about such transfer. Born in 479, only
three years after the overthrow of the last of the
Emperors of the West, he grew up under the rule
of Odovacar, the Herulian. While still a youth, he
had seen the Herulian kingdom destroyed by Theodoric,
and he had lived to mourn over the ruins of the realm
founded by the Goth, which he had himself helped to
govern. He saw his beloved Italy taken possession of by
the armies of Narses and Belisarius from the east, and a
little later overrun by the undisciplined hordes of the
Lombards from the north. The first great schism between
the Eastern and the Western Churches began during his
boyhood and terminated before, as Abbot of Vivaria, it
became necessary for him to take a decided part on the
one side or the other. A Greek by ancestry, a Roman by
training, the experience of Cassiodorus included work and
achievements as statesman, orator, scholar, author, and
ecclesiastic. He had witnessed the extinction of the
Roman Senate, of which both his father and himself had
been members ; the practical abolition of the Consulate,
an honour to which he had also attained ; and the close of
the schools of philosophy in Athens, with the doctrines of
which he, almost alone in his generation of Italians, was
familiar. He had done much to maintain in the Court and
throughout the kingdom of Theodoric, such standard of
scholarly interests and of literary appreciation as was
practicable with the resources available ; and, in like man-
ner, he brought with him to his monastery a scholarly
enthusiasm for classic literature, of which literature he
may not unnaturally have felt himself to be almost the
sole surviving representative. It is difficult to over-estim-
ate the extent of the service rendered by Cassiodorus to
literature and to later generations in initiating the training
of monks as scribes, and in putting into their hands for
their first work in the scriptorium the masterpieces of
Introductory 15
classic literature. He belonged both to the world o
ancient Rome, which he had outlived, and to that of the
Middle Ages, the thought and work of which he helped to
shape. With the close of the official career of Cassiodorus
as Secretary of State for the Gothic kingdom of Italy, the
history of ancient Europe may, for the purpose of my
narrrative, be considered to end. With the consecration
of Cassiodorus, as Abbot of the monastery of Vivaria,
(which took place about 550, when he was seventy years
of age), and the instituting by him of the first European
scriptorium, I may begin the record of the production of
books during the Middle Ages.
CHAPTER I.
THE MAKING OF BOOKS IN THE MONASTERIES.
I HAVE used for the heading of the chapter the term
" the making of books " rather than " literary work,"
because the service rendered by the earlier monastic
scribes (a service of essential importance for the intellect-
ual life of the world) consisted chiefly, as has been indi-
cated, not in the production of original literature, but in the
reproduction and preservation of the literature that had
been inherited from earlier writers, writers whose works
had been accepted as classics. While it was the case that
in this literary labour it was the Benedictines who for cen-
turies rendered the most important service, the first of the
European monasteries in which such labour was carried
on as a part of the prescribed routine or rule of the
monastic life was that of Vivaria or Viviers, founded by
Cassiodorus, which was never formally associated with
the Benedictine Order, and which had, in fact, adopted, in
place of the Benedictine Rule, a rule founded on the teach-
ings of Cassian, who had died early in the fifth century.
The work done, under the instructions of Cassiodorus, by
the scribes of Viviers, served as an incentive and an ex-
ample for Monte Cassino, the monastery founded by S.
Benedict, while the scriptorium instituted in Monte Cas-
sino was accepted as a model by the long series of later
Benedictine monasteries which during the succeeding
seven centuries became centres of literary activity.
After the destruction of the Gothic kingdom of Italy,
16
Cassiodorus and S. Benedict 1 7
it was with these monasteries that rested the intellectual
future of Europe. Mankind was, for the time at least, to
be directed and influenced, not so much by royal chancel-
lors or praetorian guards, as by the monks preaching from
their cells and by the monastic scribes distributing the
world's literature from the scriptorium.
Cassiodorus and S. Benedict In the literary history
of Europe, the part played by Cassiodorus was so im-
portant and the service rendered by him was so distinc-
tive, that it seems pertinent for the purposes of this
story to present in some detail the record of his life
and work. As is indicated by the name by which he
is known in history, Cassiodorus was of Greek lineage,
his family belonging to the Greek city of Scyllacium
in Southern Italy. His full name was Magnus Aure-
lius Cassiodorus Senator. His ancestors had, for several
generations, held under the successive rulers of Italy posi-
tions of trust and honour, and the family ranked with the
patricians. The father of the author and abbot, usually
referred to as Cassiodorus the third, was finance minister
under Odovacar, and when the Herulian King had
been overcome and slain by Theodoric, the minister
was skilful enough to make himself necessary to the
Gothic conqueror, from whom he received various import-
ant posts, and by whom he was finally appointed Prae-
torian Prefect. The Cassiodorus with whom this study
is concerned, known as Cassiodorus the fourth, was born
about 479, or three years after the Gothic conquest. 1 He
began his official career as early as twenty, and it was
while holding, at this age, the position of Consilarius, that
he brought himself to the favourable attention of Theo-
doric by means of an eloquent panegyric spoken in praise
of that monarch.
Theodoric appointed him Quaestor, an office which
made him the mouth-piece of the sovereign. To the
1 Cassiodorus, Letters, 8.
1 8 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
Quaestor belonged the duty of conducting the official
correspondence of the Court, of receiving ambassadors,
and of replying in fitting harangues to their addresses, so
that he was at once foreign secretary and Court orator.
He also had the responsibility of giving a final revision to
all the laws which received the signature of the King, and
of seeing that these were properly worded and did not
conflict with previous enactments. 1 Theodoric, who had
received what little education he possessed from Greek
instructors in Constantinople, was said never to have
mastered Latin, and he doubtless found the services of
his eloquent and scholarly minister very convenient.
It was the contention of Theodoric that his kingdom
represented the natural continuation of the Roman Em-
pire, and that he was himself the legitimate successor of
the emperors. He took as his official designation not
Rex Italia, but Gothorum et Romanorum Rex. This con-
tention was fully upheld by the Quaestor, who felt him-
self to be the representative at once of the official
authority of the new kingdom and of the literary pres-
tige of the old Empire, and who did what was in his
power to preserve in Ravenna the classical traditions of
old Rome and to make the Court the centre of literary
influence and activity. Theodoric and his Goths had
accepted the creed of the Arians, but the influence of his
minister, who was a Christian of the Athanasian or Trini-
tarian faith, was sufficient to preserve a spirit of toleration
throughout the kingdom. It is to Cassiodorus that is due
what was probably the first official utterance of toleration
that Europe had known, an utterance that in later Euro-
pean history was to be so largely set at nought : Religio-
nem imperare non possumus y quia nemo cogitur ut credat
invitus? [We must not enforce (acceptance of) a creed,
since no one can be compelled to believe against his will.]
It is not one of the least of the services of Cassiodorus that
1 Cassiodorus, Letters, 14. * Varies, ii., 17.
Cassiodorus and S. Benedict 19
he should at this early date, when the bitterness of con-
troversy was active in the Church, have been able to set
a standard of wise and Christian toleration. His action
had a good effect later in his own monastery and in the
monasteries whose work was modelled on that of Viviers.
It was only in monastic centres like Viviers and Monte
Cassino, where Christian influence and educational work
were held to be of more importance than theological issues,
that literary activity became possible, and it was only
in such monasteries thai labour was expended in preserv-
ing the writings of " pagan " (that is, of classic) authors.
In 514, Cassiodorus became Consul, a title which, while
no longer standing for any authority, was still held to
be one of the highest honours, and in 515 he received
the title of patrician. In 519, he published, under the
title of Chronicon, an abstract of history from the deluge
to the year 5 19. Hodgkin points out that in his record of
events of the fifth century, a very large measure of favour-
able, or rather of partial attention is given to the annals
of the Goths. Shortly after the publication of the Chroni-
con, Cassiodorus began work on his History of the Goths,
which was finally completed in twelve books, and the chief
purpose of which was to vindicate the claims of the Goths
to rank among the historic nations of antiquity, by bring-
ing them into connection with Greece and Rome, and by
making the origin of Gothic history Roman. This his-
tory of Cassiodorus is known only by tradition, not a
single copy of it having been preserved. The system of
scribe-work in the monasteries, to which we owe nearly all
of the old-world literature that has come down to us, did
not prove adequate to preserve the greatest work of its
founder. A treatise on the origin of the Goths by a later
writer named Jordaeus, concerning whom little is known,
is avowedly based upon the history of Cassiodorus, and is
the principal source of information concerning the char-
acter of this history.
2O The Making of Books in the Monasteries
At the time of the death of Theodoric, Cassiodorus was
holding the important place of Master of the Offices, a
post which combined many of the duties that would to-
day be discharged by a Home Secretary, a Secretary of
War, and a Postmaster-General. Under the regency of
Queen Amalasuentha, Cassiodorus received his final offi-
cial honour in his appointment as Praetorian Prefect. In
the collection of letters published under the title of
Varies, Cassiodorus gives accounts of the work done by
him in these various official stations, and these letters
present vivid and interesting pictures of the methods of
the administration of the kingdom, and also throw light
upon many of its relations with foreign powers.
Cassiodorus continued to do service as minister for the
successors of Amalasuentha, Athalaric, Theodadad, and
Witigis, and retired from official responsibility only a few
months before the capture of Ravenna by Belisarius, in
540, brought the Ostrogothic monarchy to an end. At
the time of the entry of the Greek army, Cassiodorus,
now a veteran of sixty years, was in retirement in his
monastery in Bruttii (the modern Calabria). It was doubt-
less because of the absence of Cassiodorus from the capi-
tal, that no mention is made of him in the narrative of
the campaign written by Procopius the historian, who, as
secretary to Belisarius, entered Rome with the latter after
the victories over Witigis.
Cassiodorus must have possessed very exceptional adapt-
ability of character, not to say elasticity of conscience,
to be able, during a period extending over nearly half a
century, to retain the favour of so many of the successive
rulers of Italy and apparently to make his services neces-
sary to each one of them. It is certain, however, that
Italy benefited largely by the fact that through the various
contests and changes of monarchs, it had been possible to
preserve a certain continuity of executive policy and of
administrative methods. The further fact that the " per-
Cassiodorus and S. Benedict 21
petual " or at least the continuing minister was at once a
Greek and a Roman, and not only a statesman but a
scholar, and that he had succeeded in preserving through
all the devastations of civil wars and of foreign invasions
a great collection of classic books and a persistent (even
though restricted) interest in classic literature, exercised
an enormous influence upon the culture of Europe for
centuries to come. The career of Cassiodorus had, as we
have seen, been varied and honourable. It was, however,
his exceptional fortune to be able to render the most im-
portant and the most distinctive service of his life after
his life's work had apparently been completed.
Shortly after his withdrawal to Bruttii, and when, as
said, he was already more than sixty years old, he retired
to his monastery, Vivaria, and during the thirty-six years
of activity that remained for him, he not only completed
a number of important literary productions of his own,
but he organised the literary work of the monastery scrip-
torium, which served as a model for that of Monte Cas-
sino, and, through Monte Cassino, for the long series of
Benedictine monasteries that came into existence through-
out Europe. It was the hand of Cassiodorus which gave
the literary impetus to the Benedictine Order, and it was
from his magnificent collection of manuscripts, rescued
from the ruins of the libraries of Italy, that was supplied
material for the pens of thousands of monastic scribes.
After his retirement to Bruttii, Cassiodorus founded a
second monastery, known as Mons Castellius, the work of
which was planned for a more austere class of hermits
than those who had associated themselves together at
Vivaria. Of both monasteries he retained the practical
control, and, according to Trithemius (whose opinion is
accepted by Montalembert) of Vivaria he became abbot. 1
1 Hie post aliquot conversionis SUCK annos abbas electus est, et monasterio
multo tempore utiliter prafuit. Quoted by Migne, Patrologia, Ixix., 498.
(He was elected abbot here several years after his conversion, and fora
long time he ruled the monastery wisely.)
22 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
Hodgkin, while himself citing the extract from Trithemius,
thinks it possible that Cassiodorus never formally became
abbot, but says that the direction and supervision of the
work of the two monasteries rested in any case in his
hands. 1
His treatise on the Nature of the Soul (De Animal) was
probably completed just before he began his monastic life,
and was itself an evidence of the change in the direction
of his thoughts and of his ideals. Cassiodorus had now
done with politics. As Hodgkin points out, the dream
of his life had been to build up an independent Italian
State, strong with the strength of the Goths, and wise
with the wisdom of the Romans. It is evident that he
also felt himself charged with a special responsibility in
preserving for later generations the literature and the
learning of the classic world. With the destruction of the
Gothic kingdom, that dream had been scattered to the
winds. The only institutions which retained a continuity
of organisation were those belonging to the Church, and
it was through the Church that must be preserved for
later generations the thought and the scholarship of an-
tiquity. It was with a full understanding of this change
in the nature of his responsibilities, that Cassiodorus de-
cided to consecrate his old age to religious labours and to
a work even more important than any of his political
achievements : the preservation, by the pens of monastic
copyists, of the Christian Scriptures, of the writings of
the early Fathers, and of the great works of classical an-
tiquity.
Some years before his retirement from Ravenna, Cassi-
odorus had endeavoured to induce Pope Agapetus (535-
536) to found a school of theology and Christian literature
at Rome, modelled on the plan of the schools of Alexan-
dria and Nisibis. The confusion consequent on the in-
vasion of Italy by Belisarius had prevented the fulfilment
1 Letters of Cassiodorus, 54.
Cassiodorus and S. Benedict 23
of this scheme. The aged statesman was now, however,
planning to accomplish, by means of his two monasteries,
a similar educational work.
Hodgkin summarises the aims of earlier monasticism,
(aims which were most fully carried out in the monasteries
of the East and of Africa,) as follows : In the earlier days
of monasticism, men like the hermits of the Thebaid had
thought of little else but mortifying the flesh by vigils and
fastings, and withdrew from all human voices in order to
enjoy an ecstatic communion with their Maker. The life
in common of monks like those of Nitria and Lerinum had
chastened some of the extravagances of these lonely en-
thusiasts, while still keeping in view their main purpose.
S. Jerome, in his cell at Bethlehem, had shown what great
results might be obtained for the Church of all ages from
the patient literary toil of one religious recluse. And
finally, S. Benedict, in that Rule of his, which was for cen-
turies to be the code of monastic Christendom, had sancti-
fied work as one of the most effectual preservatives of the
bodily and spiritual health of the ascetic.
" It was the glory of Cassiodorus/' says Hodgkin, 1 " that
he first and pre-eminently insisted on the expediency of
including intellectual labour in the sphere of monastic
duties. . . . This thought [may we not say this divinely
suggested thought ?] in the mind of Cassiodorus was one of
infinite importance to the human race. Here, on the one
hand, were the vast armies of monks, whom both the un-
settled state of the times and the religious ideas of the
age were driving irresistibly into the cloister ; and who,
when immured there with only theology to occupy their
minds, became, as the great cities of the East knew only
too well, preachers of discord and mad fanaticism. Here,
on the other hand, were the accumulated stores of two thou-
sand years of literature, sacred and profane, the writings of
Hebrew prophets, Greek philosophers, Latin rhetoricians,
1 Italy, iv., 391.
24 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
perishing for want of men with leisure to transcribe them.
The luxurious Roman noble with his slave amanuenses
multiplying copies of his favourite authors for his own and
his friends' libraries, was an almost extinct existence.
With every movement of barbarian troops over Italy,
whether those barbarians called themselves the men of
Witigis or of Justinian, some towns were being sacked,
some precious manuscripts were perishing from the world.
Cassiodorus perceived that the boundless, the often weari-
some leisure of the convent might be profitably spent
in arresting this work of denudation, in preserving for
future ages the intellectual treasure which must other-
wise inevitably have perished. That this was one of the
great services rendered by the monasteries to the human
race, the most superficial student has learned, but not all
who have learned it know that the monks' first decided
impulse in this direction was derived from Cassiodorus."
The German biographer of Cassiodorus, Franz, uses
similar language :
Das Verdienst, zuerst die Pflege der Wissenschaften in den
Bereich der Aufgaben des Kloster lichen Lebens aufgenom-
men zu haben, kann man mit vollem Rechte fur Cassiodorus
in Anspruch nehmen. 1
In the account given by Cassiodorus of the scriptorium
of his monastery, he describes, with an enthusiasm which
ought to have been contagious, the noble work done there
by the antiquarius ' . "He may fill his mind with the
Scriptures while copying the sayings of the Lord ; with
his fingers he gives life to men and arms against the
wiles of the devil. As the antiquarius copies the words
of Christ, so many wounds does he inflict upon Satan.
What he writes in his cell will be scattered far and wide
over distant provinces. fsMan multiplies the words of
Heaven, and, if I may dare so to speak, the three fingers
1 Franz, Cassiodorus^ p. 42.
3 De Institutions Div. Lift. xxx. Letters, 57.
Cassiodorus and S. Benedict 25
of his right hand are made to express the utterances
of the Holy Trinity. The fast travelling reed writes
down the holy words and thus avenges the malice of
the Wicked One, who caused a reed to be used to smite
the head of the Saviour." /The passage here quoted
refers only to the work of the copyists of the Christian
Scriptures. There are other references, however, in the
same work to indicate that the activity of the scriptorium
was not confined to these, but was also employed on
secular literature. 1
The devotion and application of the monks produced
in the course of years a class of scribes whose work in the
transcribing and illuminating of manuscripts far surpassed
in perfection and beauty the productions of the copyists
of classic Rome. In the monasteries north of the Alps
the work of the scribes was, for the earlier centuries, de-
voted principally to the production of copies of missals
and other books of devotion and of portions of the Scrip-
tures. In Italy, however, where classical culture never
entirely disappeared, attention continued to be given to
the transcription of the Latin texts of which any manu-
scripts had been preserved, and it was these transcripts of
the monks of Cassiodorus and S. Benedict that gave the
" copy " for the first editions of Cicero, Virgil, and the
other classic writers, produced by the earliest printers of
Germany and Italy.
Cassiodorus took pains to emphasise the importance of
binding the sacred codices in covers worthy of the beauty
of their contents, following the example of the house-
holder in the parable, who provided wedding garments
1 In chapter xv., after cautioning his copyists against rash corrections of
apparent faults in the Sacred MSS., he says: Ubicunque paragrammata
in disertis hominibus [Hodgkin interprets this term as referring to classical
authors] repertafuerunt, intrcpidus vitiosa recorrigat. (Wherever mistakes
in syntax are found in classical authors, let him fearlessly correct them.) The
larger part of chapter xxviii. is devoted to an argument against resfiuere
scccularium literarum studio, (rejecting the study of secular literature).
26 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
for all who came to the supper of his son. One pattern
volume had been prepared containing samples of various
sorts of covers, from which the scribe might choose that
which pleased him best. The abbot had also provided,
to help the nightly toil of the scriptorium, mechanical
lamps of some ingenious construction which appears to
have made them self-trimming and to have insured a con-
tinuously sufficient supply of oil. The labour of the
scribes was regulated on bright days by sun-dials, and on
cloudy days and during the hours of the night by water-
clocks.
In order to set an example of literary diligence to his
monks, and to be able to sympathise with the difficulties
of scribe work, Cassiodorus himself transcribed (proba-
bly from the translation of Jerome) the Psalter, the
Prophets, and the Epistles. In addition to his labours
as a transcriber, Cassiodorus did a large amount of work
as an original author and as a compiler. According to
the judgment of Migne, Franz, and Hodgkin, the im-
portance of his original writings varied very considerably,
and is by no means to be estimated in proportion to
their bulk. One of the most considerable of these was
his great commentary on the Psalms, in the text of
which he was able to discover refutations of all the
heresies that had thus far racked the Church, together
with the rudiments of all the sciences which had become
known to the world. This was followed by a com-
mentary on the Epistles and by a history of the Church,
the latter having been undertaken in co-operation with
his friend Epiphanius. This history, known as the Historia
Tripartite is said to have had a larger circulation than
any other of the author's works. A fourth work, which
gives more of the personality of the writer, was an edu-
cational treatise entitled, Institutiones Divinarum et Hu-
manarum Lectionum. In the first part of this treatise,
which bore the title of De Institutione Divinarum Lit-
Cassiodorus and S. Benedict 27
terarum^ the author gives an account of the organisa-
tion of his scriptorium. In the second division of the
treatise, entitled De Artibus ac Disciplinis Liber alium Lit-
terarum, the author states his view of the relative import-
ance of the four liberal arts, Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic,
and Mathematics, the last named of which he divides into
the four " disciplines " of Arithmetic, Geometry, Music,
and Astronomy. Geometry and Astronomy occupy to-
gether one page, Arithmetic and Music each two pages,
Grammar two pages, Rhetoric six pages, while to Logic
are devoted eighteen pages. The final production of his
industrious life was a treatise called De Orthographia^ which
was completed when its author was ninety-three years
old, and which was planned expressly to further the work
of the monastic scribes in collecting and correcting the
codices of ancient books.
The death of Cassiodorus occurred in 575, in the
ninety-sixth year of his age. An inheritor of the tradi-
tions of imperial Rome, Cassiodorus had been able, in a
career extending over nearly a century, to be of signal
service to his country under a series of foreign rulers.
He had succeeded, through his personal influence with
these rulers, in maintaining for Italy an organisation
based on Roman precedents, and in preserving for the
society of the capital an interest in the preservation and
cultivation of classic literature. When the political institu-
tions of Italy had been shattered and the very existence
of civilisation was imperilled, he had transferred his ser-
vices to the Church, recognising, with the adaptability
which was the special characteristic of the man, that with
the Church now rested the hopes of any continuity of
organised society, of intellectual interest, of civilisation
itself. He brought to the Church the advantage of ex-
ceptional executive ability and of long official experience,
and he also brought a large measure of scholarship and
an earnest zeal for literary and educational interests. It
28 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
is not too much to say that the continuity of the thought
and civilisation of the ancient world with that of the Mid-
dle Ages was due, more than to any other one man, to the
life and labours of Cassiodorus.
S. Benedict. The Life of S. Benedict, written by Pope
Gregory I. (who was born in 543, the year of the death of
the saint), was for centuries one of the most popular books
circulated in Europe. The full title is : Vita et Miracula
Venerabilis Benedict i conditoris, vel Abbatis Monasterii ;
quod appellatur arcis Provincice Campania. " The Life and
Miracles of the Venerable Benedict, Founder and Abbot
of the Monastery which is called (of) the Citadel of the
Province of Campania." This biography was, later, trans-
lated by Pope Zacharias from the original Latin into
Greek.
The great achievement of Benedict was the one literary
product of his life, the Regula. It comprises seventy-
three short chapters, probably not designed by the author
for use beyond the bounds of the communities under his
own immediate supervision. It proved to be the thing
for which the world of religious and thoughtful men was
then longing, a complete code of monastic duty. By a
strange parallelism, almost in the very year in which the
great Emperor Justinian was codifying the results of seven
centuries of Roman secular legislation for the benefit of
the judges and the statesmen of the new Europe, Benedict,
on his lonely mountain top, was composing his code for
the regulation of the daily life of the great civilisers of
Europe for seven centuries to come.
The Rule of S. Benedict, Chap. 4.8. Concerning Daily
Manual Labour. " Idleness is the enemy of the soul :
hence brethren ought at certain seasons to occupy them-
selves with manual labour, and again at certain hours
with holy reading. Between Easter and the calends of
October let them apply themselves to reading from the
fourth hour until the sixth hour. From the calends
S. Benedict
29
of October to the beginning of Lent, let them apply them-
selves to reading until the second hour. During Lent,
let them apply themselves to reading from morning until
the end of the third hour, and in these days of Lent, let
them receive a book apiece from the library and read it
straight through. These books are to be given out at the
beginning of Lent." l
This simple regulation, uttered by one the power and
extent of whose far-reaching influence have rarely been
equalled among men, gave an impulse to study that grew
with the growth of the Order, and that secured a contin-
uity of intellectual light and life through the dark ages,
the results of which have endured to modern times.
" Wherever a Benedictine house arose, or a monastery of
any one of the Orders, which were but offshoots from the
Benedictine tree, books were multiplied and a library
came into existence, small indeed at first, but increasing
year by year, till the wealthier houses had gathered to-
gether collections of books that would do credit to a
modern university." *
It was, of course, the case that the injunction to read,
an injunction given at a time when books were very few
and monks were becoming many, carried with it an in-
struction for writing until copies of the books prescribed
should have been produced in sufficient numbers to meet
the requirements of the readers. The armaria could be
filled only through steady and persistent work in the
scriptoria, and, as we shall see later, such scribe-work was
accepted not only as a part of the " manual labour " pre-
scribed in the Rule, but not infrequently (in the case of
the skilled scribes) in lieu of some portion of the routine of
religious observance. Benedict would not have his monks
limit themselves to spiritual labour, to the action of the
soul upon itself. He made external labour, manual or
literary, a strict obligation of his Rule. The routine of
1 From the version by Clark. 2 Clark, 15.
30 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
the monastic day was to include seven hours for manual
labour, two hours for reading. 1 In later years, the Bene-
dictine monasteries became centres of instruction, supply-
ing the place, as far as was practicable, of the educational
system of the departed empire. As Order after Order
was founded, there came to be a steady development of
interest in books and an ever increasing care for their
safe-keeping. S. Benedict had- contented himself with
general directions for study ; the Cluniacs prescribed the
selection of a special officer to take charge of the books,
with an annual audit of them and the assignment to each
brother of a single volume.
" The followers of the Saint continued in their patient
labour, praying, digging, and transcribing. The scrip-
toria of the Benedictine monastery will multiply copies
not only of missals and theological treatises, but of the
poems and histories of antiquity. Whatever may have
been the religious value or the religious dangers of the
monastic life, the historian at least is bound to express
his gratitude to these men, without whose life-long toil
the great deeds and thoughts of Greece and Rome might
have been as completely lost to us as the wars of the
buried Lake-dwellers or the thoughts of the Palaeolithic
man. To take an illustration from S. Benedict's own be-
loved Subiaco, the work of his disciples has been like one
of the great aqueducts of the valley of the Anio some-
times carried underground for centuries through the
obscurity of unremembered existence, sometimes emerg-
ing to the daylight and borne high upon the arcade of
noble lives, but equally through all its course, bearing the
precious stream of ancient thought from the far off hills
of time into the humming and crowded cities of modern
civilisation." a
The Earlier Monkish Scribes. The literary work
begun under the direction of Cassiodorus in the scrip-
1 Montalembert, ii., 45. 2 Hodgkin, Italy, iv., 497, 498.
The Earlier Monkish Scribes 31
torium of Viviers, and enjoined by S. Benedict upon his
monks at Monte Cassino, was, as said, carried on by suc-
cessive generations of monastic scribes during a number
of centuries. In fact, until the organisation of the older
universities, in the latter part of the twelfth and the be-
ginning of the thirteenth century, the production and
the reproduction of literature was practically confined to
the monasteries. " The monasteries," says Maitland, in
his erudite and vivacious work, The Dark Ages, " were, in
those days of misrule and turbulence, beyond all price
not only as places where (it may be imperfectly, but bet-
ter than elsewhere) God was worshipped, . . . but as cen-
tral points whence agriculture was to spread over bleak
hills and barren downs and marshy plains, and deal its
bread to millions perishing with hunger and its pestilential
train ; as repositories of the learning which then was, and
as well-springs for the learning which was to be ; as nurs-
eries of art and science, giving to invention the stimulus,
the means, and the reward ; and attracting to themselves
every head that could devise and every hand that could
execute ; as the nucleus of the city which in after days of
pride should crown its palaces and bulwarks with the
towering cross of its cathedral." ' It was fortunate for
the literary future of Europe that the Benedictine Order,
which had charged itself with literary responsibilities,
should have secured almost from the outset so consid-
erable a development and should for centuries have
remained the greatest and most influential of all the
monastic orders. At the beginning of the ninth cen-
tury, Charlemagne ordered an inquiry to be made (as
into a matter requiring careful research) as to whether
there were any monks who professed any other rule than
the Rule of S. Benedict ; from which it would appear
that such monks were considered as rare and noteworthy
exceptions.
1 The Dark Ages, London, 1845, Preface.
32 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
While the two monasteries of Cassiodorus in Calabria and
the Benedictine foundation of Monte Cassino near Naples,
were entitled to first reference on the ground of the ex-
ceptional influence exercised by them upon the literary
development of the monks, they were by no means the
earliest of the western monastic foundations. This honour
belongs, according to Denk, 1 to the monastery of Liguge,
near Poitiers (Monasterium Locociagense), founded in 360
A.D. by Bishop Martin of Tours. The second in point of
date, that of Marmoutier, near Tours, was instituted by
the same bishop a year or two later. Gaul proved to be
favourable ground for the spread of monastic tenets and
influence, and by the year 400 its foundations included
over two thousand monks.
In 405, S. Honoratus, later Bishop of Aries, founded a
monastery on the island of Lerin, on the south coast of
France, which became a most important centre of learning
and the mother of many monasteries.* In the educational
work carried on at Lerin, full consideration was given to
classic authors, such as Cicero, Virgil, and Xenophon, as
well as to the writings of the Fathers, and the scribes
were kept busied in the production of copies.
There must have been a certain amount of literary
activity also in the monasteries of the East and of Africa
some time before any of the monastic foundations in
Europe had come into existence. The numerous writings
of the Fathers secured a wide circulation among the faith-
ful, a circulation which could have been possible only
through the existence of efficient staffs of skilled scribes
and in connection with some system of distribution
between widely separated churches. Teachers like Origen
in Caesarea, in the third century, and S. Jerome in Bethle-
hem and S. Augustine in Hippo, in the fifth century, put
1 Gesch. dcs Gallo Frankischen Unterrichts und Bildungs-wescns von den
altesten Zeileit bis auf Karl dtn Crossen, Mainz, lSt,2, p. 37.
* Montalembert, The Monks of the West, i. f 225.
The Earlier Monkish Scribes 33
forth long series of writings, religious, philosophical, and
polemical, with apparently an assured confidence that
these would reach wide circles of contemporary readers,
and that they would be preserved also for generations to
come. The sacking of Rome by Alaric (in 410) is used
by S. Augustine as a text or occasion for the publication
of his beautiful conception of " The City of God " in
much the same manner as a preacher of later times might
have based a homily on the burning of Moscow or the
fall of Paris. The preacher of Hippo speaks as if he were
addressing, not the small circle of his African diocese, but
mankind at large. And he was, of course, justified in his
faith, for the De Civitate Dei was the book which, next to
the Scriptures, was most surely to be found in every
monastery in Europe, while when the work of the scripto-
rium was replaced by the printing-press, it became one of
the most frequently printed books in Europe. It appears
from a reference by S. Augustine, that nuns as well as
monks were included among the African scribes. In
speaking of a nun named Melania, who, early in the fifth
century, founded a convent at Tagaste, near Carthage, he
says that she had "gained her living by transcribing
manuscripts," and mentions that she wrote swiftly, beauti-
fully, and correctly, scribebat et celeriter et pulchre, citra
err or em?
The scribe-work in the monasteries of Africa and of the
East was, therefore, sufficiently effective to preserve large
portions of the writings of the Fathers and of other early
Christian teachers, and it is, in fact, to the libraries of
these Eastern monasteries that is chiefly due the pre-
servation of the long series of Greek texts which found
their way into Europe after the Renaissance. I have, how-
ever, been able to find no record of the system pursued in
the scriptoria and armaria of the Greek monasteries, and
the narrative in the present chapter is, therefore, confined
1 Epistle, 225. Cited by Montalembert.
34 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
to a sketch of the literary undertakings of the monks of
the West.
The earliest known example of the work of a European
monk dates from the year 517. The manuscript is in the
Capitular library in Verona, and has been reproduced
in fac-simile by Ottley. The script is that known as half
uncial. 1 At the time this manuscript was being written,
Theodoric the Goth was ruling in Italy, with Cassiodorus
as his minister, and the monastery at Viviers was still to
be founded.
S. Gregory the Great, who became Pope in 590, exer-
cised an important influence over the intellectual interests
of his age. Gregory had been charged with having
destroyed the ancient monuments of Rome, with having
burned the Palatine library, including the writings of
Cicero and Livy, with having expelled the mathematicians
from Rome, and with having reprimanded Bishop Didier
of Vienna (in Gaul) for teaching grammar to children.
Montalembert contends that these charges are all slanders
and that the Pope was not only an unequalled scholar, but
that he fully appreciated the importance for the intellect-
ual development of the Church, of a knowledge of the
classics. Gregory is quoted as saying, in substance:
" The devils know well that the knowledge of profane
literature helps us to understand sacred literature. In
dissuading us from this study, they act as the Philistines
did when they interdicted the Israelites from making
swords and lances, and obliged that nation to come
to them for the sharpening of their axes and plough-
shares." a Gregory was himself the author of a considerable
series of writings, and, while his Latin was not that of
Cicero, he contributed (according to Ozanam) as much as
did S. Augustine to form the new Latin, what might be
called the Christian Latin, which was destined to become
1 Denk, 127.
* Liv. v. Primum Regum, ch. xxx., Sec. 30. Montalembert, i., p. 144.
The Earlier Monkish Scribes 35
the language of the pulpit and the school, and which
forms the more immediate foundation of an important
group of the languages of modern Europe.
His works include the Sacramentary , which determined
the language and the form of the Liturgy, a series of
Dialogues, and a Pastoral, in which were collected a series
of discourses planned to regulate the vocation, life, and
doctrines of the pastors. Of this book, Ozanam says
that it gave form and life to the entire hierarchical body.
Then came a series of commentaries on the Scriptures,
followed by no less than thirty-five books called Moralia,
which were commentaries on the Book of Job. His last
important production was a series of Epistles, comprised
in thirteen volumes. He may possibly have been the most
voluminous author since classic times, and his books had
the special advantage of reaching circles of readers who
were waiting for them, and of being distributed through
the already extended machinery of the Church.
Another important ecclesiastical author of the same
generation was Isidore, Bishop of Seville. The Spanish
Liturgy compiled by him and known as the Mozarabic,
survived the ruin of the Visigothic Church and was
thought by the great Cardinal Ximenes worthy of resusci-
tation. Isidore also wrote a history of the Goths and a
translation of the philosophy of Aristotle. He may be
considered as the first scholar to introduce to Europe of
the Middle Ages the teachings of Greek philosophy. His
greatest undertaking was, however, in the form of an
encyclopaedia, treating, under the heading of the Seven
Liberal Arts, of all the learning that was within his reach.
It was entitled Twenty Books of Etymologies, or The
Origin of Things, and included in its volumes a number
of classical fragments which, without the care of its
editor, would probably have perished forever.
Isidore is the first Christian who arranged and edited
for Christians the literature of antiquity. He died in 636,
36 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
but the incentive that he had given to learning and to
literature survived him in a numerous group of disciples. 1
Among Isidore's pupils was King Sisebut, whose interest
in scholarship caused him to endow liberally a number of
the Spanish monasteries.
The Ecclesiastical Schools and the Clerics as
Scribes. The so-called secular clergy were, during the
earlier Middle Ages, employed very largely in connection
with the business of the government, being in fact in
many regions the only class of the population possessing
the education necessary for the preparation of documents
and the preservation of records. In Italy, towards the
close of the thirteenth century, there came into existence
the class of notaries who took charge of a good many busi-
ness details which in Germany and France were cared for
by the clergy. Under the Merovingian kings, there were
government officials and judiciary officials who were lay-
men. During the rule of the Carlovingians, however, the
writing work of the chapel and of the government offices
was consolidated, falling into the hands of the clerics, or
secular clergy. For a number of centuries, outside of
Italy, it was very exceptional for any documents or for
any correspondence to be written by other than the
clergy. Eyery citizen of importance was obliged to have
his special clericus, clerc, or pfaff y who took care of his
correspondence and accounts. A post of this kind was
in fact the surest means for an ambitious priest to secure
in the first place, a footing in the world, and later, ecclesi-
astical positions and income. The secretary or chancellor
of the king, was almost always, as a matter of routine,
sooner or later rewarded with a bishopric.
Charlemagne took from among the poor boys in the
court school, one, who was described as optimus dictator
et scriptor, and having trained him as chaplain and sec-
retary, provided for him later a bishopric.*
1 Ozanam, La Civilisation Chrjtienne c he zles Francs, c. 9.
2 Koepke, Otton. Studien, ii., p. 387.
The Schools and the Clerics as Scribes 37
The use of the word dictator is to be noted as indicating
the mediaeval employment of the term in connection with
writing. Dictare seems, from an early date, to have been
used in the first place to indicate instruction in the art of
writing, while later it is employed constantly to specify the
direct work of the writer or composer, in the sense in
which one would say to-day that he had indited a letter.
With the same general sense, the term dictamen is used
for the thing indited or for a composition. Hroswitha, the
nun of Gandersheim (whose poems later had the honour
of forming the material for one of the first books printed
in South Germany), used the term dictare continually for
activity in authorship. Wattenbach quotes from the
Legenda Aurea of S. Ambrose the words libros quos dicta-
bat propria manu scribebat (he wrote out with his own
hand the books that he composed).
As long as any portions of the Roman Empire held to-
gether and the classic culture still preserved its influence,
a considerable class of men secured their support through
work as scribes. In Italy this class seems never entirely
to have disappeared. Some small circles of the people
retained, even after the land had been many times over-
run by invaders, some interest in the classics, and were
prepared to pay for more or less trustworthy manu-
script copies of these. In Italy also there appears to have
been a much larger use of writing in connection with trade
and commerce than obtained throughout the rest of
Europe until a much later time. While in Germany and
France such scholarship as remained was restricted almost
entirely to the ecclesiastics and to the monastery centres,
in Italy the Church, during the earlier period, took a
smaller interest in scholarship. There came into exist-
ence, however, a group of literary laymen, who were in a
measure a continuation of or a succession to the old Latin
grammarians, and who maintained some of their interest
in classic culture and preserved, however imperfectly, some
remnants of classic knowledge.
38 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
Wattenbach quotes the words of Gerbert, 1 Nosti Quot
Scriptores in Urbibus aut in Agris Italics Passim Habeantur
(you know how many writers there are here and there
throughout the cities and fields of Italy).
The schools established under the rule of the Lombards
helped to preserve the art of writing and to widen the
range of its experts. By the time, therefore, of the
establishment of the earlier Italian universities, an organ-
ised class of scribes was already in existence whose skill
could be utilised for university work, and, as will be
shown more specifically in a later chapter, the universi-
ties took these scribes under their jurisdiction and ex-
tended over them the protection of university privilege.*
In France, after the time of Charlemagne, it was the
case, as we have seen, that those who had any educa-
tional or literary ambitions were almost necessarily
obliged to become ecclesiastics, as it was only in monas-
teries and in the training schools attached to the mon-
asteries, that the necessary education could be secured.
As one result of this, the number of ecclesiastics increased
much more rapidly than the number of places in which
they could be occupied or of foundations upon which
they could be supported. Priests for whom no priestly
work was found became, therefore, what might be called
lay-clerics, and were employed in connection with the
work of the courts, or of magistrates, or as scribes and
secretaries.
In this manner there came into the hands of these
lay-clerics, not only the management of correspondence,
personal, official, and diplomatic, but a very large pro-
portion of the direction of the affairs with which such
correspondence had to do. As far, therefore, as the
clerical personality represented ecclesiastical purposes and
aims, the influence of ecclesiasticism must have been very
1 Ep. 130.
8 Wattenbach, Das Schriftiuescn im Mittelalter , p. 396.
The Schools and the Clerics as Scribes 39
much greater during the age in which the art of writing
was confined to the Church than at any earlier or any
later period of the world's history. Such influence was,
however, probably less in fact than in appearance, as it
seems to have been the case that a very large proportion
of such clerics were priests in name only, and that their
interests, purposes, and ambitions were outside of the
Church, and were not necessarily even in sympathy with
the development of the control of the Church over the
affairs of the world.
Wattenbach is of opinion that the scribes of this period
secured a larger return for their work than came to any
other class of labourers or officials. Among many other
examples, he gives a quotation from Dummler concerning
a Lombard cleric of Rotland, named Anselm, who, in
1050, prided himself upon the number of books he had
written, and said : Multos oportet libros scriberes, ut inde
prccium sumeres, quo a tuis lenonibus te redimeres. 1 (You
ought to write many books in order to obtain money with
which to buy yourself off from those having claims upon
you.)
Notker wrote in 1020 to the Bishop of Sitten, who
wanted to obtain some books : Si vultis ea, sumtibus enim
indigent, mittite plures pergamenas et scribentibus pr&mia
et susdpietis eorum exempla? (If you want these books,
you must send more parchment and also moneys for the
scribes. You will then receive your copies.)
In the twelfth century, the monks of Tegernsee, under
the Abbot Rupert, were working on the production of the
books for the library of some noble lady. 3 The Brother
Liaupold, in Mallersdorf, spoke of having " earned much
money through his pen." This happened in the last
quarter of the twelfth century. The lines quoted by
1 DUmmler, Anselm der Peripatetiker, 32.
2 Grimm, J., Kleine Schriftcn, v., 190.
3 Fez, Thes., vi.,2.
40 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
Wattenbach were found upon a manuscript bearing Liau-
pold's name. 1
For the libraries of their own monasteries, the monks
worked without direct pay, and it was only later, as the
ambition of the librarians increased or as the business of
distributing copies of manuscripts became more important,
that the monasteries found it worth while to employ,
either in place of or in addition to their own monks,
scribes from outside. In Salzburg, Pastor Peter Gril-
linger paid, in 1435, to the scribes of the neighbouring
monasteries three hundred gulden for the production of a
Bible (probably an illuminated copy), and presented this
to the library of the Cathedral. 9
In the accounts of the monastery at Aldersbach, Rock-
inger finds entries, in 1304, of payments for scriptores
librorum.
The well-known manuscript of Henri Bohic was written
in 1374 by a monk of Corbie, who, according to the cash
record of his monastery, received for his work, in addition
to the parchment and other materials, the sum of thirty-
six solidos. For the monastery at St. Gall, Mathias Burer,
of Lindau, who was chaplain in Meminger, and who died
in 1485, wrote twenty-four volumes.
In 1470, the same Burer gave to the monastery, in ex-
change for a benefice, his entire library. The record does
not specify how many volumes the library comprised. In
1350, a certain Constantine was arrested in Erfurt as a
heretic. Special efforts were made to save him from
death or banishment on the ground that he was a skilled
scribe. The record does not appear to show whether or
not this plea was successful.
Conrad de Mure speaks of women working as scribes
during the latter part of the thirteenth century. It is
probable that these women were nuns, but it is not so
1 Das Sckriftwesen, p. 399.
- Barstch, im anz. d. Germ. Mus., v. 293.
The Schools and the Clerics as Scribes 41
specified. In the Histoire de Vlmprimerie 1 reference is
made to a woman who appears to have acted as an in-
dependent scribe that is to say, not to have been attached
to the university or to the guild of booksellers.
On the tax list of Paris, in 1292, are recorded twenty-four
escrivains? It is probable that the actual number was
much greater, as the scribes who were ecclesiastics were
exempt from taxation, and their names, therefore, would
not have appeared upon the list.
In 1460, a certain Ducret, clerc & Dijon, received from
the Duke for his work as scribe, a groschen for each sheet,
which is referred to as the/rwr accoustumJ.*
In 1401, Peter of Bacharach, described as a citizen of
Mainz, wrote out for the Court at Eltville (Elfeld) a Schwa-
benspiegel. This is to be noted because it is an example of
scribe work being done by one who was not a cleric.
Burkard Zink tells us that in 1420, being in Augsburg, he
took unto himself a wife. She had nothing and he had
nothing, but she earned money with her spinning-wheel
and he with his pen. In the first week he wrote vier
sextern des grossen papier s, karta regal, and the ecclesias-
tics for whom the work was being done were so well
pleased with it that they gave him for two sexterns four
groschen. His week's work brought him sixteen groschen,
or forty cents. 4 Clara Hatzlern, a citizen of Augsburg, is
recorded as having written for money between the years
1452 and 1476. A copy of a Schwabenspiegel transcribed
by her was contained in the collection at Lambach. 6
The examples named indicate what was, in any case,
probably the only class of scribe work done outside of the
monasteries and outside of the universities or before the
1 Paris, 1852, page 54.
9 Geraud, Paris sous Philippe-le-Bel, 1837, p. 506.
3 Lalanne, Curiositts Bibl., p. 318.
4 Die Chroniken der Deutscken Stadte, v., 129.
6 Barack, Handsehriften zu Donaueschingen^ p. 564.
42 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
university period, by the few laymen who were able to
write. Their labour was devoted exclusively to the pro-
duction of books in the tongue of the people ; if work in
Latin were required, it was still necessary (at least until
the institution in the thirteenth century of university
scribes) to apply to the monasteries. With the develop-
ment of literature in Italy, during the following century,
there came many complaints concerning the lack of edu-
cated scribes competent to manifold the works. These
complaints, as well as to the lack of writers as concerning
the ignorance and carelessness shown in their work, con-
tinued as late as the time of the Humanists, and are
repeated by Petrarch and Boccaccio.
Terms Used for Scribe-Work. With the Greeks,
the term ypajtjjarevs denoted frequently a " magistrate."
The term raxvypd<poi corresponded as nearly as might
be with our " stenographer." For this the Romans used
the form notarius. The scribes whose work was devoted
to books were called, under the later empire, bibliographoi
or xaKXiy pdtpoi. The name xakXiypdcpos was applied
to the Emperor, Theodosius II. Montfaucon gives a list
of the names of the Greek scribes who were known to
him. 1 The oldest dates from 759, and the next in order
from 890 A.D. The oldest Plato manuscript in the
Bodleian library was written in 896 for the Diaconus
Arethas of Patras. Arethas was, later, Archbishop of
Caesarea, and had also had written for him a Euclid, and
in 914 a group of theological works. His scribes were the
calligraph John, a cleric named Stephen, and a notarius
whose name is not given.*
The terms librarius, scriptor, and antiquarius were also
used for scribes making copies of books, while notarius
was more likely to denote a clerk whose work was limited
to the preparation of documents. Alcuin speaks of em-
ploying notarii.
1 Wattenbacb., 351. * Wattenbach, 351.
Terms Used for Scribe-Work 43
In the inscription in a manuscript by Engelberg of the
twelfth century, we find the lines: Hie Augustini liber est
atque Frowini ; alter dictavit, alter scribendo notavit. 1 This
indicates that Augustine was the author, while Frowin
served as scribe. A manuscript of the sixth century, con-
tained in the Chapter-House library in Verona, bears the
signature Antiquarius Eulalius. A manuscript of Orosius,
written in the seventh century, is inscribed : Confectus codex
in statione Viliaric Antiquarii. (A codex completed in the
writing-stall of Viliaric the scribe.) This scribe was prob-
ably a Goth, as among the signatures in a Ravenna docu-
ment, containing the list of the clerics of the Gothic
Church, occurs the name Viljaric bokareis? Otto von
Freising says of his notarius, Rage win : Quihanc historian
ex ore nostro subnotavit (who wrote down this story from
my lips) ; and Gunther, in 1212, complains of a head-
ache which he had brought upon himself ut verba inventa
notario vix possim exprimere, that is in the attempt to
shape the words that he was dictating to his clerks. It
was in Italy that the notarii first became of sufficient im-
portance to organise themselves into a profession and to
undertake the training, for other work, of young scribes,
and it was from Italy that the scribes were gradually
distributed throughout Europe. Their most important
employment for some time in Italy was in connection
with the work of the Church, and particularly in the prep-
aration and manifolding of the documents sent out from
Rome. The special script that was adopted for the work
of the Papal office was known as scripta notarial
According to Wattenbach, the use of papyrus for the
documents of the Church, and even for the Papal Bulls,
extended as late as the tenth century. Sickel speaks of a
1 Rahn, Gesch. der Bildenden Kunste in der Schweiz^ i., 34.
'* Massmann, Die Goth. Urkunden -von Neapel bnd Arezzo^ Wien, 1838,
402.
8 Wattenbach, 90.
44 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
Bull of Benedict VIII., of 1022, as the latest known to him
which is written on papyrus.
The term chartularii, or cartularii, was applied to cler-
ics originally trained for the work of the Church, but who
occasionally devoted themselves also to the manifolding
of books. In the memoir of Arnest, who was the first
Archbishop of Prague, it was related that he always kept
three cartularii at work in the transcribing of books. In
the twelfth century, Ordericus speaks of the monks who
write books both as antiquarii and as librarii. 1 Richard
de Bury uses the term in describing the renewal of old
manuscripts, and restricts it to scribes who possessed
scholarly and critical knowledge. Petrarch makes a simi-
lar application. 9 The term dictare was, during the Middle
Ages, usually employed to describe the author's work in
composing, or in composing and writing with his own hand,
and bears but seldom the meaning of " dictate." The
proper rendering would be more nearly our word " indite."
The term used during the earlier Middle Ages to denote
the Scriptures was not Biblia, but Bibliotheca. According
to Maitland, the latter term has its origin with S. Jerome,
who, in offering to lend books to his correspondent
Florentius, writes : . . . et quoniam largiente Domino,
multis sacrcs bibliotheca codicibus abundamus, etc.* (And
since by the grace of God, we possess a great many co-
dices of the sacred writings.)
In nearly every instance in which reference is made to
the complete collection of the Scriptures, the term used
is Bibliotheca integra, or Bibliotfieca tota. It was evidently
the case that for centuries after the acceptance of the
Canon, the several divisions or books of which the Bible
consists were still frequently considered in the light of
separate and independent works, and were transcribed
and circulated separately.
1 Wattenbach, 357.
J De Remediis Utriusqw Fortuna, lib. i., dial. 43.
3 Ep. vi., Ad Flor., i., 19.
S. Columba, the Apostle to Caledonia 45
S. Columba, the Apostle to Caledonia. One of the
earliest of the monks of the North of Europe whose life
was associated with scholarship and intellectual influence,
was S. Columba, the Apostle to Caledonia, whose life cov-
ered the term between the years 521 and 597. Columba
belongs to the list of Irish saints, although the larger por-
tion of his life's work was done in Scotland. Before he
had reached the age of twenty-five, he had presided over
the foundation of no less than twenty-seven monasteries
in Ireland, the oldest of which were Darrow and Derry ;
the latter, having long been the seat of a great Catholic
bishopric, became, under its modern name of London-
derry, the bulwark of the Protestant contest against the
efforts of the last of the Stuart kings.
The texts have been preserved of a number of songs
ascribed to Columba, and, whether or not these verses
were really the work of the monk, the tradition that he
was the first of the Irish poets doubtless has foundation.
In the time of Columba, the Irish monasteries already
possessed texts in greater quantity than could be found
in the monasteries of Scotland or England, but even in
Ireland manuscripts were rare and costly, and were pre-
served with jealous care in the monastic libraries. Not
only was very great value put upon these volumes, but
they were even supposed to possess the emotions and the
passions of living beings. Columba was himself a collector
of manuscripts, and his biography by O'Donnell attributes
to him the laborious feat of having transcribed with his
own hand three hundred copies of the Psalter. Accord-
ing to one of the stories, Columba journeyed to Ossory in
the south-west to visit a holy and very learned recluse, a
doctor of laws and philosophy, named Longarad. Col-
umba asked leave to examine the doctor's books, and
when the old man refused, the monk burst out in an
imprecation : " May thy books no longer do thee any-
good, neither to them who come after thee, since thou
46 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
takest occasion by them to show thine inhospitality."
The curse was heard, and after Longarad died, his books
became unintelligible. An author of the ninth century
says that the books still existed, but that no man could
read them. 1
Another story speaks of Columba's undertaking, while
visiting his ancient master Finnian, to make a clandestine
and hurried copy of the abbot's Psalter. He shut him-
self up at night in the church where the Psalter was
deposited, and the light needed for his nocturnal work
radiated from his left hand while he wrote with the right.
A curious wanderer, passing the church, was attracted by
the singular light, and looked in through the keyhole, and
while his face was pressed against the door his eye was
suddenly torn out by a crane which was roosting in the
church. The wanderer went with his story to the abbot,
and Finnian, indignant at what he considered to be a
theft, claimed from Columba the copy which the monk
had prepared, contending that a copy made without per-
mission ought to belong to the owner of the original, on
the ground that the transcript is the offspring of the
original work. As far as I have been able to ascertain,
this is the first instance which occurs in the history of
European literature of a contention for copyright.
Columba refused to give up his manuscript, and the
question was referred to King Diarmid, or Dermott, in
the palace at Tara. The King's judgment was given in a
rustic phrase which has passed into a proverb in Ireland :
" To every cow her calf \le gach boin a boinin~\, and conse-
quently to every book its copy." a
Columba protested loudly, and threatened the King
with vengeance. He retired to his own province chanting
the song of trust, the text of which has been preserved
and which is sacred as one of the most authentic relics of
1 Festilogium of Angus the Culdee. Quoted by O'Curry.
9 Montalembert, iii., 122.
S. Columba, the Apostle to Caledonia 47
the ancient Irish tongue. He succeeded in arousing
against the King the great and powerful clans of his
relatives and friends, and after a fierce struggle the
King was overcome and was obliged to take refuge at
Tara.
The manuscript which had been the object of this
strange conflict of copyright, a conflict which developed
into a civil war, was afterwards venerated as a kind of na-
tional military and religious palladium. Under the name
of Cathac, or " the fighter," the Latin Psalter said to have
been transcribed by Columba was enshrined in the base of a
portable altar as the national relic of the O'Donnell clan.
It was preserved for 1300 years in the O'Donnell family,
and as late as 1867, belonged to a baronet of that name,
who placed it on exhibition in the Museum of the Royal
Irish Academy. O'Curry prints a fac-simile of a fragment
of the manuscript, which he believes to be in the hand-
writing of S. Columba, and O'Curry and Reeves are in
accord in the opinion that the famous copy of the Gospels
known as the " Book of Kells " is also the work of the
poet monk. 1
After the successful issue of his contest with Finnian,
S. Columba journeyed through the land, making a kind
of expiatory pilgrimage for the purpose of atoning for
the bloodshed of which he had been the cause. He went
for counsel to his soul-friend or confessor, S. Laisren.
The saint bade him as a penance leave Ireland and go
and win souls for Christ, as many as the lives that had
been lost in the battle of Culdreimhne, and never again
look upon his native land. He finally took up his abode
in the desolate little island of lona, on the coast of Scot-
land. Other refugees were attracted to the island by the
fame of the saint, and there finally came into existence on
the barren rocks a great monastery which for centuries
exercised throughout Britain and North Europe a wide-
1 Montalembert, Hi., 127.
48 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
spread influence in behalf of higher Christianity and of
intellectual life.
From lona and its associated monasteries of Ireland and
Scotland came scholarly teachers to France and Germany
whose influence was important in giving a new direction
to the work of later generations of monks. Among
the Continental monasteries in which was developed
through such influence a higher range of scholarly activity,
were Luxeuil (in the Vosges Mountains), Corbie (on the
Somme), Bobbio (in Lombardy), and St. Gall (in Switzer-
land). Wattenbach says that, notwithstanding their
scholarly knowledge, these Scotch monks were wild and
careless in their orthography. As an example of the
barbarity of style and of form, he quotes a manuscript of
the date of 750 (written during the rule of Pepin).
A number of years later, when, through the monks of
lona and under the general direction of S. Columba, a
number of monasteries had been founded throughout
Scotland, Columba had occasion to plead before the
Parliament of Drumceitt in behalf of the Bards, who
might be called the authors of their time, and with whom
the poet monk had a keen personal sympathy. The
Bards of Ireland and Britain were at once the poets, the
genealogists, the historians, and the musicians of their
countries, and their position and their influence constituted
a very characteristic feature of Celtic life in the centuries
between 500 and 800.
The Irish nation, always enamoured of its traditions,
its fabulous antiquity, and its local glories, regarded with
ardent sympathy the men who could clothe in a poetic
dress all the law and the superstitions of the past, and
who could give literary form and force to the passions
and the interests of the present. The Bards were divided
into three orders : The Fileas, who sang of religion and
war; the Brehons, whose name is associated with the
ancient laws of the country which they versified and
S. Columba, the Apostle to Caledonia 49
recited ; and the Seanachies, who enshrined in verse the
national history and antiquities, and, above all, the gene-
alogies and the prerogatives of the ancient families who
were regarded as especially representative of the national
and warlike passions of the Irish people. 1
The great influence and power enjoyed by the Bards
had naturally produced not a few abuses, and at the time
of the Parliament of Drumceitt their popularity had
suffered and a violent opposition had been raised against
them. They were charged with insolence and with greed,
and they were particularly censured for having made a
traffic and a trade of their poetry, a charge which recalls
some of the criticisms of classic times.
The enmities raised against them had gathered so much
force that King Aedh found himself compelled to propose
to the Assembly of Drumceitt the abolition of the Order
and the abandonment, or, as one authority suggests, the
massacre of the Bards. It would appear as if Ireland had
been suffering from an excess of poetic utterances and
felt that some revolutionary methods were required in
order to restore to the land quiet and peace. Montalem-
bert is of opinion that the clergy did not take any
part in the prosecution of a class which they might, not
unnaturally, have regarded as their rivals. The Bards
had, however, for the most part kept in friendly relations
with the bishops, monks, and saints, and each monastery,
like each prince and lord, possessed a Bard (who in later
years became an annalist) whose chief office it was to sing
the glory and record the history of the community.
Nevertheless, the Bards were certainly, as a body, a
residuum of the paganism that had been so recently
supplanted, and it is probable that the Church, if not join-
ing in the onslaught upon their body, was not prepared
to take any active part in their defence. It seems as if
the decision of the Assembly, under the influence of King
1 Montalembert, iii., 193.
50 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
Aedh, would certainly have been adverse to the poets.
It was Columba, the poet monk, who saved them. He,
who was born a poet and who, to the last day of his life,
remained a poet, interceded for the Bards with such elo-
quence and earnestness that his plea had to be listened
to. He claimed that the general exile of the poets would
be the death of a venerated antiquity and of a literature
which was a part of the country's life. " The bright corn
must not be burned," he said, " because of the weeds that
mingled with it." * Influenced by his impassioned plea,
the Assembly yielded at length, under the condition that
the number of Bards should be henceforth limited and
that the Order should be placed under certain rules to be
framed by Columba himself. Thus poetry was to con-
tinue to exist, but it was not to be allowed to oppress the
community with its redundance.
It is doubtless the case that one reason for the excep-
tional fame of Columba and the large amount of legend-
ary detail that has been preserved of his achievements,
was this great service that he had rendered to the poets
of his time. They showed their gratitude by exalting
his glory in numberless songs and recitals, and it is chiefly
from these that has been made up the narrative of the
saint's life. Another result of this intervention on the
part of the monk for the protection of the poets was a
still closer association between the Church and the literary
spirit of the age. All antagonism between the religious
ideal and the influence of the poetry of the Bards seems
from this time to have disappeared. The songs of the
Bards were no longer in any measure devoted to the
cause of paganism, but music and poetry became closely
identified with the ideals of the Church and with the
work of the monasteries. The Church had preserved the
poets, and poetry became the faithful handmaid of the
Church.
1 Adamnani, Vita S. Columbz, edit. J. T. Forster, Introduction.
Nuns as Scribes 51
Nuns as Scribes. One of the oldest rules relating to
convents, that of S. Caesarius of Aries, instituted in the
fifth century and brought a hundred years later to Poi-
tiers by S. Radegonde, required that all the sisters should
be able to read and that they should devote two hours a
day to study Omnes bones litteras discant, etc. 1
While the educational work in the convent schools was
for the most part not carried on beyond what might be
called elementary classes, there were not a few examples
of abbesses whose scholastic attainments would rival
those of the abbots. Montalembert speaks of convents
founded, under the auspices of S. Jerome, by S. Paula
and her daughter, and is not prepared to admit that in
any essential detail the history of S. Paula is legendary.
He reminds us that Hebrew and Greek were the daily
study of these two admirable women, who advised S.
Jerome in all his difficulties and cheered him under all
discouragements.* Montalembert is probably on firmer
ground when he speaks of the scholarly attainments of
S. Aura, the friend of S. Eloi, and of the nun Bertile,
whose learned lectures on Holy Scripture drew to Chelles
in the sixth century a large concourse of auditors of both
sexes. S. Radegonde, known by her profound studies of
the three Fathers, S. Gregory, S. Basle, and S. Athanasius,
is commemorated by Fortunatus, as is also Gertrude,
Abbess of Nivelle, who sent messengers to Rome and to
Ireland to buy books. 3 I do not find a record of the date
of these book-buying expeditions of the abbess.
In Germany, the list of the learned nuns includes S.
Lioba, who was said to be so eager for knowledge that
she never left her books except for divine service.
She was a pupil of S. Boniface, and to her was due
the framing of the system of instruction instituted
after the mission of S. Boniface in North Germany.
1 Montalembert, vi., 167. 2 Montalembert, vi., 169.
3 Fortunat. Oper.^ lib. viii., c. i.
52 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
Hroswitha, the illustrious nun of Gandersheim (who died
in 997), has been referred to more than once. Hroswitha's
dramatic poetry has been preserved for nearly eight
centuries, and has had the honour of being reprinted as
late as 1857. Her writings included a history in verse of
Otho the Great, and the lives of several saints. Her
most important works, however, were sacred dramas com-
posed by her to be acted by the nuns of the convent. M.
Magin points out that these dramas show an intimate
acquaintance with the authors of classic antiquity. 1 Curi-
ously enough, there was, nearly a century earlier, another
Hroswitha in Gandersheim, who was the daughter of the
Duke of Saxony, and who became the fourth abbess of
the convent. She composed a much esteemed treatise on
logic. 8
Cecilia, daughter of William the Conqueror, who was
Abbess of Kucaen, won fame for her school in grammar,
philosophy, and in poetry. Herrad of Landsberg, who
governed forty-six noble nuns at Mont St. Ociile in Alsace,
composed, under the name of Hortus Delictarum, a sort
of cosmology, which is recorded as the first attempt at a
scientific encyclopaedia, and which is noted for the breadth
of its ideas on painting, philosophy, mythology, and his-
tory. This was issued shortly after the death of William
the Conqueror. 8 To the Abbess of Eichstadt, who died
about 1 1 20, Germany is indebted for the preservation of
the Heldenbuch, a treasury of heroic stories. 4
The principal and most constant occupation of the
learned Benedictine nuns was the transcription of manu-
scripts. It is difficult to estimate too highly the extent of
the services rendered by these feminine hands to learning
and to history throughout the Middle Ages. They brought
1 Th/dtre de Hroswitha, Paris, 1857.
8 Hist. Lift, de France, ix., 130.
1 Engelhart, Herrad von Landsberg und ihr Werk, Stuttgart, 1818.
4 Gorres, Histor. Polit. Blatter, xviii., 482.
Nuns as Scribes 53
to the work a dexterity, an elegance of attainment, and an
assiduity which the monks themselves could not attain,
and some of the most beautiful specimens of caligraphy
which have been preserved from the Middle Ages are the
work of the nuns. The devotion of nuns as scribes
began indeed with the early ages of Christian times.
Eusebius speaks of young maidens whom the learned
men of his time employed as copyists. 1 In the fifth
century, S. Melania the younger distinguished herself by
the beauty and exactness of her transcripts. 9 In the
sixth century, the nuns of the convent at Aries, incited
by the example of the Abbess of St. Csaire, acquired a no
less brilliant reputation. In the seventh century, S. Ger-
trude, who was learned in the Holy Scriptures, sent to
Rome to ask not only for works of the highest Christian
poetry, but also for teachers capable of instructing her
nuns to comprehend certain allegories.* In the eighth
century, S. Boniface begged the abbess to write out for
him in golden letters the Epistle of S. Peter. Caesarius of
Aries gave instructions that in the convents which had
been founded by him and the supervision of which rested
with his sister, the " Virgins of Christ " should give their
time between their prayers and psalms to the reading and
to the writing of holy works. 4 In the eighth century the
nuns of Maseyk, in Holland, busied themselves in a
similar fashion, not only in writing, but particularly in
illuminating (etiam scribendo atque pingendd), in which they
became proficients. 6
In the ninth century, the Benedictine nuns of Eck on
the Meuse, and especially the two abbesses Harlinde and
Renilde, attained great celebrity by their caligraphic
Pere Cahier, c. i., 215.
Mabillon, Traiti, etc., 39.
Montalembert, iv., 174.
Vita Ccesarii, i., 33, 375.
Vita Harlindiset Reinilce (written between 850 and 880), p. 5.
54 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
work and by the beauty of the illuminated designs used in
their manuscripts. 1 In the time of S. Gregory VII., a nun
at Wessobrunn, in Bavaria, named Diemude, undertook
to transcribe a series of important works, the mere enum-
eration of which would startle modern readers. These
works formed, as we read in the saint's epitaph, a whole
library, which she offered as a tribute to S. Peter. The
production of this library still left time for Diemude to
carry on with Herluca, a nun of the neighbouring
convent of Eppach, a correspondence remarkable as
well for its grace of expression as for its spiritual
insight. 1 A list of her transcripts is given in the section
on the scriptorium.
Among other convent scribes is recorded the name of
the nun Gita, in Schwarzenthau, who made transcripts,
about 1175, of the writings of her abbot, Irimbert. In
Mallesdorf, at about the same time, a nun of Scottish
parents, named Leukardis, who understood Greek, Latin,
and German, was active in the scriptorium, and her work
excited so much admiration that the monk Liaupold,
himself a famous scribe, instituted in her memory an
anniversarium. *
Brother Idung sent his dialogues concerning the monks
of Clugni and the Cistercians to the nuns of Niedermu'n-
ster, near Regensburg, ut legibiliter scribatur et diligenter
emendetur ab aliquibus sororibus* In the same century
(the twelfth) the names of Gertrude, Sibilia, and other
nuns appear on the transcript of the codex written for the
Domini Monasterienses, which codex came into the library
of Arnstein in exchange for a copy of the Pastorals of
Gregory. Johann Gerson, writing in 1423, refers with
cordial approbation to some beautiful copies prepared by
the nuns, of the works of Origen. 6 In St. Gall, where the
1 Montalembert, iv., 375. * Leuter, Hist. Wessofont., i., 166.
* Rockinger, ii., 7. 4 Rockinger, ii., 13.
* De Laudf Scriptorum, ii., 697. Paris, 1708.
Monkish Chroniclers 55
literary activity of the monks has already been referred to,
the nuns in the convent of S. Catharine were, in the
thirteenth and in the first half of the fourteenth centuries,
also engaged in preparing transcripts of holy books.
Monkish Chroniclers. In addition to the services
rendered by the monks in the preservation of classic litera-
ture, and in addition also to the great amount of work
required of them in the routine of their monastery for the
preparation of books of devotion and instruction, a most
valuable task was performed by many of the monastic
scribes in the production of the records or annals of their
times. The work of the literary monks included the
functions not only of scribes, but of librarians, collectors,
teachers, and historians. The records that have come
down to us of several centuries of mediaeval European
history are due almost exclusively to the labours of the
monastic chroniclers. Even those who did not compose
books which can properly be described as historical, have
left in their cartularies documents by the help of which
the archaeologists can to-day solve the most important
problems relating to the social, civil, domestic, and agri-
cultural life of their ancestors. The cartularies, says M.
C. Giraud, were the most curious monuments of the his-
tory of the time. 1
Without the monks, says Marsham (a Protestant writer),
we should have been as ignorant of our history as chil-
dren. 9 Britain, converted by her monks, has special
reason to be proud of the historians furnished by her
abbeys.' One chronicler, Gildas, has painted with fiery
touches the sad misery of Britain after the departure
of the Romans. To another, the Venerable Bede, author
of the ecclesiastical history of Britain, we owe the de-
tailed account of the Catholic Renaissance under the
1 Recherches sur la Bretagne^ 579.
3 Marsham, Ilpoitv'kaiov, \nMonast. Anglican., i.
*DcExcidio Britannorum, London, 1586.
56 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
Saxons. Bede's chronicle extends to the year 731. Its
author died four years later. Among later monkish
chroniclers may be mentioned Ingulphus, Abbot of Croy-
land, whose history extends to 1091 *; Vitalis, a monk of
Shrewsbury, whose chronicle reached to 1141, and many
others. The chronicle of Vitalis gives an animated pict-
ure of the struggle between the Saxons and the Nor-
mans, and of the vicissitudes during this period of the
Church of England. Later monastic historians were:
William of Malmesbury (circa 1095-1143), Geoffrey of
Monmouth (circa 1090-1154), Henry of Huntingdon
(circa 1120-1180), Roger of Wendover (circa 1169-1237),
Matthew Paris (circa 1185-1259), and Ralph Higden (circa
1 280- 1 370). Further reference to the work of these English
chroniclers is made in the chapter on Books in England
during the Manuscript Period. This series of monkish
chronicles presents, says Montalembert, an inexhaustible
amount of information as to the manners, laws, and ideas
of the times, and unites with the important information
of history the personal attractiveness of biography."
Among the chroniclers of France are to be noted S.
Gregory of Tours ; S. Abbon, of St. Germain des Prs,
who wrote the history of the wars of King Eudes and an
account of the sieges of Paris by the Normans ; Frodoard,
who died in 968, and who wrote the annals of the tenth
century ; Richer, whose history covers the period between
880 and 995 ; Helgaud, who wrote the life of King Robert ;
Aimoin, a monk of Fleury, who died in 1008, and who
wrote a very curious life of S. Abbon and a record of the
miracles at Fleury of S. Bnoit ; Chabanais, a monk of
St. Cybar in Angoulme, who died in 1028, and whose
record reaches to 1025. It has been republished by Pertz
in the fourth volume of the Scriptores. Raoul Glaber, a
monk of St. Germain d'Auxerre, wrote a history of his own
time in five books, which covers the period from the
1 Palgrave proves the chronicle of Ingulph to be a forgery.
'Mont., iv., 204.
Monkish Chroniclers 57
accession of Hugh Capet to 1046. Hugh, Abbot of Fla--
vigny, wrote with considerable detail the history of the
eleventh century. These various monkish chronicles have
served as a basis for the first national and popular monu-
ments of French history. The famous chronicles of S.
Denys, which were written very early in Latin, were trans-
lated into French in the beginning of the thirteenth
century. They contain the essence of the historic and
poetic traditions of old France.
The mediaeval history of Italy is in like manner de-
pendent almost entirely upon the records of the literary
monks. The great collection of Muratori is based upon
the monkish chronicles, especially of those of Volturna,
Novalese, Farfa, Casa Aurio, and of Monte Cassino. From
the latter abbey, there sprang a series of distinguished
historians: Johannes Diaconus, the biographer of S.
Gregory the Great, who wrote after the reign of Charle-
magne ; Paulus Diaconus, the friend of Charlemagne ;
Leo, Bishop of Ostia, first author of the famous chronicle
of Monte Cassino, and Peter Diaconus, who continued its
chronicle. Another monk of Monte Cassino recounts the
wonderful story of the conquest gained by the Norman
chivalry in the two Sicilies, a story reproduced and com-
pleted by the Sicilian monk Malaterra.
The list of the learned historians in the German monas-
teries is also an important one. The German collections
of scriptories, such as those of Eckard, Fez, Leibnitz, and
others, present an enormous mass of monastic chronicles.
Among the earlier chroniclers were to be noted Eginard,
Theganus, and Rodolphus of Fulda, who preserved the
records of the dynasty of the Carlovingians. One of the
earlier historians of Charlemagne was a monk of St. Gall,
while the chronicles of that abbey, carried on by a long
series of its writers, have left a most valuable and pictur-
esque representation of successive epochs of its history.
Regino, Abbot of Priim, wrote a history of the ninth
58 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
century. Wittikind, a monk of Corvey, wrote the chroni-
cles of the reign of Henry I., and of Otho the Great.
Ditmar, who was at first a monk of Magdeburg and later
Bishop of Mersebourg, has left a detailed chronicle, ex-
tending from 920 to 1018, of the emperors of the House
of Saxony. Among the eleventh-century writers, is Her-
mannus Contractus, son of the Count of Woegen, who
was brought up at St. Gall but was later attached to
Reichenau. The history of the great struggle between
the Church and the Empire was written by Lambert, a
monk of Hersfeld, and continued by Berthold of Reiche-
nau, Bernold of St. Blaise, and by Ekkhard, Abbot of
Aurach. 1 The first historian of Poland was a French
monk named Martin, while another monk of Polish origin,
named Nestor, who died in 1116, composed the earliest
annals of Russia (then newly converted to Christianity)
which were known to Europe. Among the monkish histo-
rians of the eleventh century, the most noteworthy were
William of Malmesbury, Gilbert of Nogent, Abbot Suger,
and Odo of Deuil.
The persistent labour given by these monkish chroni-
clers to works, the interest and importance of which were
largely outside the routine of their home monasteries and
had in many cases no direct connection with religious
observances, indicates that they were looking to a larger
circle of readers than could be secured within the walls of
their own homes. While the evidences concerning the
arrangements for the circulation of these chronicles are
at best but scanty, the inference is fairly to be drawn that
through the interchange of books between the libra-
ries of the monasteries, by means of the services of travel-
ling monks, and in connection with the educational work
of the majority of the monasteries, there came to be, as
early as the ninth century, a very general circulation of the
long series of chronicles among the scholarly readers of
1 Mabillon, Annal. Bened., book Ixxii., ch. xlvi.
Monkish Chroniclers 59
Europe. Even the literary style in which the majority of
the chronicles were written gives evidence that the writers
were addressing themselves, not to one locality or to re-
stricted circles of readers, but to the world as they knew
it, and that they also had an assured confidence in the
preservation of their work for the service and information
of future generations. The historian Stenzel (himself a
Protestant) points out that these monkish historians wrote
under certain exceptional advantages which secured for
their work a larger amount of impartiality and of accuracy
of statement than could safely be depended upon with, for
instance, what might be called Court chronicles, that is to
say, histories which were the work of writers attached to
the Courts. The monks, said Stenzel, in daring to speak
the truth of those in power, had neither family nor prop-
erty to endanger, and their writings, prepared under the
eye of their monastic superiors and under the sovereign
protection of the Church, escaped at once the coercion or
the influence of contemporary rulers and the dangers of
flattery for immediate popular appreciation. 1 In the same
strain, Montalembert contends that the literary monks
worked neither for gain nor for fame, but simply for the
glory of God. They wrote amidst the peace and freedom
of the cloister in all the candour and sincerity of their
minds. Their only ambition was to be faithful interpre-
ters of the teaching which God gives to men in history by
reminding them of the ruin of the proud, the exaltation
of the humble, and the terrible certainty of eternal judg-
ment. He goes on to say that if princes and nobles never
wearied of founding, endowing, and enriching monas-
teries, neither did the monks grow weary of chronicling
the services and the exploits of their benefactors, in order
to transmit these to posterity. Thus did they pay to the
Catholic chivalry a just debt of gratitude. 8
This pious opinion of Montalembert is a little naive
1 Gesch. der Frank. Kaiser ; ii., 15, 16. 8 Mont., vi., 213.
6o The Making of Books in the Monasteries
in its expression when taken in connection with his
previous conclusion that the records of the monks could
be trusted implicitly for candour, sincerity, and impartial-
ity. It is difficult to avoid the impression that in record-
ing the deeds of the noble leaders of their time, the monks
would naturally have given at least a full measure of atten-
tion and praise to those nobles who had been the greatest
benefactors to their Order or to the particular monastery
of the writer. The converse may also not unnaturally be
assumed. If a monarch, prince, or noble leader should be
neglectful of the claims of the monastery within his realm,
if there might be ground to suspect the soundness of his
faith to the Catholic Church, or doubt in regard to the
adequacy of his liberality to his ecclesiastical subjects, it
is probable that his exploits in war or in other directions
were minimised or unrecorded. It is safe to assume also
that after the Reformation, the Protestant side of the long
series of complicated contests could hardly have been pre-
sented by the monkish chroniclers with perfect impartial-
ity. Bearing in mind, however, how many personal influ-
ences may have operated to impair the accuracy and the
impartiality of these chroniclers, they are certainly entitled
to a full measure of appreciation for the inestimable ser-
vice rendered by them in the long ages in which, outside
of the monasteries, there were no historians. It seems
also to have been the case that with many of the monks
who devoted the larger portion of their lives to literary
work, their ambition and ideals as authors overshadowed
any petty monkish zeal for their Order or their monas-
tery, and that it was their aim to present the events of
their times simply as faithful historians.
An example of this high standard of work is presented
by Ordericus Vitalis, who, as an English monk in a Nor-
man abbey, 1 was able to say : " I will describe the revolu-
tions of England and of Normandie without flattery to
1 Mont., vi., 215.
The Work of the Scriptorium 61
any, for I expect my reward neither from the victors nor
the vanquished." *
The Work of the Scriptorium. The words em-
ployed at the consecration of the scriptorium are evidence
of the spirit in which the devout scholars approached their
work : Benedicere digneris, Domine, hoc scriptorium famtc-
lorum tuorum, ut quidquid scriptum fuerit, sensu capiant,
opere perficiant. (Vouchsafe, O Lord, to bless this work-
room of Thy servants, that they may understand and
may put in practice all they write.) 8
Louis IX. took the ground that it was better to tran-
scribe books than to purchase the originals, because in
this way the mass of books available for the community
was increased. Louis was, however, speaking only of
religious literature ; he could not believe that the world
would be benefited by any distribution of the works of
profane writers. Ziegelbauer is in accord with Montalem-
bert and others in giving to the Benedictines of Iceland
the credit for the collections made of the Eddas and for
the preservation of the principal traditions of the Scandi-
navian mythology. He also confirms the conclusion
arrived at by the Catholic historians generally, that the
literary monuments of Greece and Rome which escaped
the devastation of the barbarians were saved by the monks
and by them alone. He cites, as a few examples from the
long list of classics that were thus preserved, five books of
the Annals of Tacitus, found at Corbie; the treatise of
Lactantius on the Death of Persecutors, preserved at
Moissac; the Auluraria of Plautus, and the Commentaries
of Servius on Virgil, preserved in Fleury ; the Republic of
Cicero, found in the library of Fleury in the tenth cen-
tury, etc. 3
1 Vitalis, book iii., chap. xv.
2 D'Achery, in Not. Oper. Guibert Novig.
3 Ziegelbauer, ii., 520.
62 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
In confirmation of the statement that the classics were
by no means neglected by the earlier monastery collectors,
Montalembert cites Alcuin, who enumerated among the
books in his library at York the works of Aristotle, Cicero,
Pliny, Virgil, Statius, Lucan, and Trogus Pompeius. A
further reference to this library will be found in the
chapter on the Monastery Schools. In Alcuin's corre-
spondence with Charlemagne, he quotes Ovid, Horace,
Terence, and Cicero, and acknowledges that in his youth
he had been more moved by the tears of Dido than by
the Psalms of David. 1 Loup de Ferrieres speaks of
having borrowed from his friends the treatise De Oratore
of Cicero, a Commentary on Terence, the works of Quin-
tilian, Sallust, and Suetonius. He says further that he
was occupying himself in correcting the text of the
oration of Cicero against Verres, and that of Macrobius.*
Abbot Didier of Monte Cassino, who later became Pope,
succeeding Gregory VII., had transcripts made by his
monks of the works of Horace and Seneca, of several
treatises of Cicero, and of the Fasti of Ovid.' S. Anselm,
Abbot of Bee in the time of Gregory VII., recommends to
his pupils the careful study of Virgil and of other profane
writers, "omitting the licentious passages." Exceptis
his in quibus aliqua turpitudo sonat* It is not clear
what method the abbot proposed to have pursued in
regard to the selection of the passages to be eliminated.
It is hardly probable that at this time there had been
prepared, either for the use of the monks or of any other
readers, anything in the form of expurgated editions. S.
Peter Damian seems to have expressed the true mind of
an important group at least of the churchmen of his time,
when he referred to the study of pagan writers. He says :
"To study poets and philosophers for the purpose of
rendering the wit more keen and better fitted to penetrate
1 Mont., vi., 185. Giesebrecht, De Litter. Studiis apud Italos, 52.
2 Mont., vi., 1 86. *Epist., i., 55.
The Work of the Scriptorium 63
the mysteries of the Divine Word, is to spoil the Egypt-
ians of their treasures in order to build a tabernacle for
God. 1 "
Montalembert is of opinion, from his study of monastic
history in France, that, at least during the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, classic writers were probably more
generally known and more generally appreciated than at
the present day. He points out that the very fact of
the existence of various ordinances and instructions
intended to repress any intemperate devotion to the pagan
writers is sufficient evidence of the extent of the interest
in or passion for pagan literature. He cites among other
rulers of the Church who issued protests or cautions
against pagan literature, S. Basil, S. Jerome, S. Gregory,
S. Radbert, S. Peter Damian, Lanfranc, etc., etc.* In the
Customs of Clugni, there is a curious passage prescribing
the different signs that were to be used in asking for
books during the hours of silence, which indicates at once
the frequency of these pagan studies, and also the grade
of esteem in which they ought to be held by the faithful
monk. The general rule, when asking for any book, was
to extend the hand, making motions similar to those of
turning over the leaves. In order, however, to indicate a
pagan work, a monk was directed to scratch his ear as a
dog does, because, says the regulation, unbelievers may
well be compared to that animal. 3
As before indicated, the work of transcribing manu-
scripts was held under the monastic rules to be a full
equivalent of manual labour in the fields. The Rule of S.
Ferreol, written in the sixth century, says that, " He who
does not turn up the earth with the plough ought to write
the parchment with his fingers." 4 It is quite possible
1 Petri Dam. Opusc.^ c. ix., p. 635.
9 Mont., vi., 188.
'Martene, De Antiq. Monach. Ritibus, book iv., c. xviii., p. 289.
4 Mont., vi., 191.
64 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
that for men of the Middle Ages, who had little fondness
for a sedentary life, work in the scriptorium may have
been a more exacting task than work that could be
carried on out-of-doors. There were no fires in the cells
of the monks, and in many portions of Europe the cold
during certain months of the year must, in the long hours
of the day and night, have been severe. Montalembert
quotes a monk of St. Gall who, on a corner of one of the
beautiful manuscripts prepared in that abbey, has left
the words: "He who does not know how to write
imagines it to be no labour, but although these fingers
only hold the pen, the whole body grows weary." It
became, therefore, natural enough to use this kind of
labour as a penitential exercise. 1 Othlo, a monk of
Tegernsee, who was born in 1013, has left an enumera-
tion of the work of his pen which makes it difficult to
understand how years enough had been found for such
labour. The list includes nineteen missals, written and
illuminated with his own hand, the production of which,
he tells us, nearly cost him his eyesight. 8
Dietrich or Theodoric, the first Abbot of St. Evroul
(1050-1057), who was himself a skilled scribe (Ipse manu
propria scribendo volumina plura], and who desired to in-
cite his monks to earnest work as writers, related to them
the story of a worldly and sinful Brother, who, notwith-
standing his frivolities, was a zealous scribe, and who had,
in industrious moments, written out an enormous folio
volume containing religious instruction. When he died,
the devil claimed his soul. The angels, however, brought
before the throne of judgment the great book, and for each
letter therein written, pardon was given for one sin, and
behold, when the count was completed, there was one letter
over ; and, says Dietrich naively, it was a very big book.
Thereupon, judgment was given that the soul of the monk
1 Mont., vi., 194.
8 Mabillon, Analect., booklv., p. 448.
The Work of the Scriptorium 65
should be permitted again to enter his body, in order that
he might go through a period of penance on earth. 1
In the monastery of Wedinghausen, near Arnsberg in
Westphalia, there was a skilled and zealous scribe named
Richard, an Englishman, who spent many years in adding
to the library of the institution. Twenty years after his
death, when the rest of his body had crumbled into dust,
the right hand, with which this holy work had been accom-
pHshed, was found intact, and has since been preserved
under the altar as a holy relic. 9
There has been more or less discussion as to whether in
the scriptoria, it was the practice for monks to write at
dictation. Knittel " takes the ground that the larger por-
tion of the work was done so slowly, and probably with
such a different degree of rapidity on the part of the dif-
ferent scribes, that it would have been as impracticable
for it to have been prepared under dictation as it would
be to do copper engraving under dictation. Ebert, 4 con-
firming Knittel's conclusions, points out that when works
were needed in haste, it was probably arranged to divide
up the sheets to be copied among a number of scribes.
He finds evidence of this arrangement of the work in a
number of manuscripts, the different portions of which,
put together under one cover, are evidently the work of
different hands. Wattenbach specifies manuscripts in
which not only are the different pages in different script,
but the divisions have been written with varying arrange-
ments of space ; in some cases the space, which had been
left for an interpolated chapter having evidently been
wrongly measured, so that the script of such interpolated
chapter had to be crowded together instead of having the
^rdericus Vitalis, cited by Mabillon, A. S. ix., 137.
8 Ccesar. Heisterb., xii., 47. W. Schmidt. Im Anz. des Germ. Mus. Iq. %
328-366.
3 Ulphilce Fragm., 380.
4 Zur Handschriftenkunde, 138-140.
66 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
same spacing as that of the body of the work. Sickel
presents examples of the letters of Alcuin which are
evidently the work of a number of scribes. Each began
his work with a new letter, and where, at the end of the
divisions, leaves remained free, other letters were later
written in. In the later Middle Ages, however, there is
evidence of writing at dictation, and this practice began
to obtain more generally as the results of the work of the
scribes came to have commercial value. When the work
of preparing manuscripts was transferred from the monas-
teries to the universities, dictation became the rule, and
individual copying the exception. West finds evidence
that as early as the time of Alcuin, the monks trained
by him or in his schools, wrote from dictation. " In
the intervals between the hours of prayer and the ob-
servance of the round of cloister life, come hours for
the copying of books under the presiding direction of
Alcuin. The young monks file into the scriptorium and
one of them is given the precious parchment volume con-
taining a work of Bede or Isidore or Augustine, or else
some portion of the Latin Scriptures, or even a heathen
author. He reads slowly and clearly at a measured rate
while all the others, seated at their desks, take down his
words ; thus perhaps a score of copies are made at once.
Alcuin's observant eye watches each in turn and his cor-
recting hand points out the mistakes in orthography and
punctuation. The master of Charles the Great, in that
true humility that is the charm of his whole behaviour,
makes himself the writing-master of his monks, stooping
to the drudgery of faithfully and gently correcting many
puerile mistakes, and all for the love of studies and for
the love of Christ. Under such guidance and deeply im-
pressed by the fact that in the copying of a few books
they were saving learning and knowledge from perishing,
and thereby offering a service most acceptable to God t
the copying in the scriptorium went on in sobriety from
The Work of the Scriptorium 67
day to day. Thus were produced those improved copies
of books which mark the beginning of a new age in the
conserving and transmission of learning. Alcuin's anxiety
in this regard was not undue, for the few monasteries
where books could be accurately transcribed were as neces-
sary for publication in that time as are the great publish-
ing houses to-day." 1
Among the monasteries which, as early as the time of
Charlemagne, developed special literary activity, was that
of S. Wandrille, where the Abbot Gerwold (786-806) in-
stituted one of the earlier schools of the empire. A priest
named Harduin took charge of this school. He was said
to be in hac arte non mediocriter doctus. It was further
stated that, plurima ecclesics nostrce proprio sudore con-
script a reliquit volumina, id est volumen quatuor evangelio-
rum Romana litera scriptum? (He had left for one church
many books written by the sweat of his brow, that is to
say, a volume of the four Evangelists written in the
" Roman letter.") This expression, litera Romana, occurs
frequently in the monastery chronicles and appears to
indicate the uncial script. The scriptorium of St. Gall, in
which was done some of the most elaborate or important
of the earlier literary work of the monks, is frequently
referred to in the chronicles of the monasteries. Another
important scriptorium was that in the monastery of
Tournai, which, under the rule of the Abbot Odo, won
for itself great fame, so that its manuscripts were sought^
by the Fathers of the Church far and wide, for the purpose
of correcting by them copies with less scholarly authority.'
The work of the scribes was not always voluntary ;
there is evidence that it was not unfrequently imposed as
a penance. In a codex from Lorch 4 occur after the words,
1 Alcuin and the Rise of the Christian Schools ; 73.
2 Gesta Abb. Fontanell., iii., 16. Mon. Germ., xi., 292.
3 Man. Germ., ii., 95.
4 Laurisheim, in Hesse-Darmstadt.
68 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
Jacob scripsitj written in by another hand, the lines r
Quandam partem hujus libri non spontanea voluntate, sed
coactus, compedibus constrictus sicut oportet vagum atque
fugitivum vincire. 1 (Jacob wrote ... a certain portion
of this book not of his own free will but under compulsion,
bound by fetters, just as a runaway and fugitive has to be
bound.)
The aid of the students in the monastery schools was
not unfrequently called in. Fromund of Tegernsee wrote
under a codex : Ccepi hunc libellum, sed pueri nostri quos
docui, meo juvamine perscripserunt* (I began this book,
but the students whom I taught, finished transcribing it
with my help.)
The monk who was placed in charge of the armarium
was called the armarius, and upon him fell the responsi-
bility of providing the writing materials, of dividing the
work, and probably also of preserving silence while the
work was going on, and of reprimanding the writers of
careless or inaccurate script. In some monasteries the
armarius must also have been the librarian, and, in fact,
as much of the work done in the writing-room was for the
filling up of the gaps in the library, it would be natural
enough for the librarian to have the planning of it. It
was also the librarian, who, being in correspondence with
the custodians of the libraries of other monasteries, was
best able to judge what work would prove of service in
securing new books in exchange for duplicates of those in
his own monastery. Upon the librarius or armarius, or
both, fell the responsibility of securing the loans of the
codices of which copies were to be made. On such loans
it was usually necessary to give security in the shape of
pledges either of other manuscripts or of property apart
from manuscripts.
The scribes were absolved from certain of the routine
of the monastery work. They were called into the fields
1 Reifferscheid, Ivi., 451. 8 Maitland, 371.
The Work of the Scriptorium 69
or gardens only at the time of harvest, or in case of spe-
cial need. They had also the privilege of visiting the
kitchen, in order to polish their writing tablets, to melt
their wax, and to dry their parchment. 1
The custom of reading at meals, while a part of the
usual monastic routine, was by no means confined to the
monasteries. References to the use of books at the tables
of the more scholarly noblemen are found as early as the
time of Charlemagne. Eginhart records that Charlemagne
himself while at supper was accustomed to listen to his-
tories and the deeds of ancient kings. He delighted also
in the books of S. Augustine and especially in the Civi-
tate Dei?
In England, after the Norman conquest, there was for
a time a cessation of literary work in the Saxon monas-
teries. The Norman ecclesiastics, however, in taking pos-
session of certain of the older monasteries and instituting
also new monasteries of their own, carried on the produc-
tion of manuscripts with no less zeal. One of the most
important centres of literary activity in England was the
monastery of St. Albans, where the Abbot Paul secured,
about the year 1 100, funds for instituting a scriptorium,
and induced some wealthy friends to present some valu-
able codices for the first work of the scribes. As the
monks at that time in St. Albans were not themselves
skilled in writing, Paul brought scribes from a distance,
and, through the liberality of his friends, secured funds
by which they were paid daily wages, and were able to
work undisturbed. It would appear from this description
that some at least among these scribes were not them-
selves monks.
In the thirteenth century, Matthew Paris compiled his
chronicles, the writing in which appears to have been, for
the greater part at least, done by his own hand, but at
this time, in a large proportion of the literary work car-
1 Winter, Die Cisterc., ii., 145. ' Cited by Maitland, 341.
70 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
ried on in the English monasteries, the transcribing was
done by paid scribes. This, however, was much less the
case in the Continental monasteries. In Corbie, towards
the latter half of the century, there is a record of zealous
writing on the part of a certain Brother Nevelo. Nevelo
tells us that he had a penance to work off for a grave sin,
and that he was allowed to do this by work in the scrip-
torium. 1 During this century, the monasteries of the
Carthusians were particularly active in their literary
work, but this work was limited almost entirely to
theological and religious undertakings. An exception
is presented in the chronicles of the Frisian monk Emo.
While Emo was still a school-boy, he gave the hours
which his companions employed in play, to mastering
penmanship and the art of illuminating. Later, he was,
with his brother Addo, a student in the schools in Paris,
Orleans, and Oxford, and while in these schools, in addi-
tion to their work as students, they gave long hours of
labour, extending sometimes through the entire night, to
the transcribing of chronicles and to the preparation of
copies of the so-called heathen literature.
Emo was the first abbot of the monastery in Witte-
wierum (1204-1237), and it is recorded that the abbot,
while his brothers were sleeping, devoted his nights to the
writing and illuminating of the choir books. In this
monastery, Emo succeeded in bringing together in the
armarium librorum an important collection of manuscripts,
and he took pains himself to give instructions to the
monks in their work as scribes.
The quaint monastic record entitled the Customs of
Clugni was written by Ulrich, a monk of Clugni, some
time between the years 1077 and 1093, at the request or
under the instructions of William, Abbot of Hirschau.
This was the Abbot William extolled by Trithemius as
having restored the Order of S. Benedict, which had
1 Delisle, Recherches sur rAncienne Bibliothcque de Corbie, xxiv., 288.
The Work of the Scriptorium 71
almost fallen into ruin in Germany. Trithemius speaks of
his having founded eight monasteries and restored more
than one hundred, and says that next to the reformation
wrought by the foundation and influence of Clugni, the
work done by Abbot William was the most important
recorded in the annals of his Order.
William trained twelve of his monks to be excellent
writers, and to these was committed the office of tran-
scribing the Holy Scriptures and the treatises of the
Fathers. Besides these, there were in the scriptorium of
Hirschau a large number of lesser scribes, who wrought
with equal diligence in the transcription of other books.
In charge of the scriptorium was placed a monk " well
versed in all kinds of knowledge," whose business it was
to assign the task for each scribe and to correct the mis-
takes of those who wrote negligently. William was Abbot
of Hirschau for twenty-two years, and during this time his
monks wrote a great many volumes, a large proportion of
which were distributed to supply the wants of other and
more needy monasteries.
There was often difficulty, particularly in the less
wealthy monasteries, in securing the parchment required
for their work. It is evident from such account-books as
have been preserved, that throughout the whole of Europe,
but particularly in the north of the Continent and in
England, parchment continued to be a very costly com-
modity until quite late in the thirteenth century. It was
not unnatural that, as a result of this difficulty, the mon-
astic scribes should, when pressed for material, have occa-
sionally utilised some old manuscript by cleaning off the
surface, for the purpose of making a transcript of the
Scriptures, of some saintly legend, or of any other reli-
gious work the writing of which came within the range
of their daily duty.
There has been much mourning on the part of the
scholars over the supposed value of precious classics which
72 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
may thus have been destroyed, or of which but scanty
fragments have been preserved in the lower stratum of the
palimpsest. Robertson is particularly severe upon the
ignorant clumsiness of the monks in thus destroying, for
the sake of futile legends, so much of the great literature
of the world. Among other authors, Robertson quotes in
this connection Montfaucon as saying that the greater
part of the manuscripts on parchment which he had seen
(those of an ancient date excepted), are written on parch-
ment from which some former treatise had been erased.
Maitland, who is of opinion that the destruction of ancient
literature brought about by the monks has been much
overestimated, points out that Robertson has not quoted
Montfaucon correctly, the statement of the latter being
expressly limited to manuscripts written since the " twelfth
century." It is Maitland's belief that a large proportion
of the palimpsests or doubly written manuscripts which
bear date during the twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth
centuries, represent, as far as they are monastic at all, not
monastery writings placed upon classic texts, but monas-
tery work replacing earlier works of the monastery scrip-
toria. Partial confirmation of this view is the fact that so
large an interest was taken by monks in all parts of
Europe in the preservation and transcribing of such
classical works as came into their hands. In fact, as
previously pointed out, the preservation of any fragments
whatsoever of classical literature is due to the intelligent
care of the monks. To the world outside of the monas-
tery, the old-time manuscripts were, with hardly an
exception, little more than dirty parchments.
It seems probable that a great part of such scraping of
old manuscripts as was done was not due to the require-
ments of the legends or missals, but was perpetrated in
order to carry on the worldly business of secular men.
An indication of the considerable use of parchment for
business purposes, and of instances of what we should
The Work of the Scriptorium 73
to-day call its abuse, is the fact that, as late as the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries, notaries were forbidden to
practise until they had taken an oath to use none but new
parchment. 1
The belief that the transcribing of good books was in
itself a protection against the wiles of the evil one, natur-
ally added to the feeling of regard in which the writer
held his work, a feeling under the influence of which it
became not unusual to add at the close of the manuscript
an anathema against any person who should destroy or
deface it. A manuscript of St. Gall contains the following :
Auferat hunc librum nullus hinc omne per cKVum
Cum Gallo par tern quisquis habere cupit?
[Let no one through all ages who wishes to have any part
with Callus (the Saint or the Abbey) remove (or purloin) this
book.]
In a Sacramentary of the ninth century given to St.
B6noit-sur-Loire, the donor, having sent the volume as a
present from across seas, devotes to destruction like to
that which came upon Judas, Ananias, and Caiaphas any
person who should remove the book from the monastery."
In a manuscript of S. Augustine, now in the Bodleian
Library is written : " This book belongs to S. Mary of
Robert's Bridge ; whosoever shall steal it or sell it, or in
any way alienate it from this house, or mutilate it, let him
be anathema maranatha. Amen." A later owner had
found himself sufficiently troubled by this imprecation to
write beneath: "I, John, Bishop of Exeter, know not
where the aforesaid house is, nor did I steal this book,
but acquired it in a lawful way." *
In an exhortation to his monks, delivered in 1486, by
Johann Trittenheim (or Trithemius), Abbot of Sponheim,
1 Maitland, 40.
* Canis. Ant. Lect. ii., 230, cited by Maitland.
3 Martene, Voy. Lit., 67.
4 Wanley, Cat. Lib. Sept., p. 152.
74 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
the abbot, after rebuking the monks for their sloth and neg-
ligence, goes on to say : " I have diminished your labours
out of the monastery, lest by working badly you should
only add to your sins; and have enjoined on you the
manual labour of writing and binding books. . . .
There is, in my opinion, no labour more becoming a
monk than the writing of ecclesiastical books, and prepar-
ing what is needful for others who write them, for this
holy labour will generally admit of being interrupted by
prayer and of watching for the food of the soul no less
than of the body. Need also urges us to labour diligently
in writing books if we desire to have at hand the means
of usefully employing ourselves in spiritual studies. For
you will recall that all the library of this monastery, which
formerly was so fine and complete, had been dissipated,
sold, and made away with by the disorderly monks before
us, so that when I came here, I found but fourteen vol-
umes. It is true that the industry of the printing art,
lately, in our own day, discovered at Mentz, produces
many volumes every day ; but depressed as we are by
poverty, it is impossible for us to buy them all." *
It was certainly the case that, after the invention of
printing, there was a time during which manuscripts came
to be undervalued, neglected, and even destroyed by
wholesale, but Maitland is of opinion that this time had
been prepared for by a long period of gradually increasing
laxity of discipline and morals in many monastic institu-
tions. This view is borne out by the history of the
Reformation, the popular feeling in regard to which was
undoubtedly very much furthered by the demoralisation
of the monasteries, a demoralisation which naturally
carried with it a breaking down of literary interests and
pursuits. There had, for some time, been less multipli-
cation, less care, and less use of books, and many a fine
collection had mouldered away. According to Martene
1 Martene, Voy. Lit., 56.
The Work of the Scriptorium 75
and Mabillon, the destruction due to the heedlessness of
the monks themselves was largely a matter of the later
times, that is, of the fifteenth century and the last half of
the fourteenth century.
Maitland is of the opinion that in the later portions of
the Middle Ages the work of the monastic scribes was
more frequently carried on not in a general writing-room,
but in separate apartments or cells, which were not usually
large enough to contain more than one person. Owing to
the fact that writing was the chief and almost only in-doors
business of a monk not engaged in religious service, and be-
cause of the great quantity of work that was done and the
number of cells devoted to it, these small rooms came to be
generally referred to as scriptoria, even when not actually
used or particularly intended for the purpose of writing.
Thus we are told that Arnold, Abbot of Villers in Brabant,
from 1240 to 1250, when he resigned his office, occupied a
scriptorium (he called it a scriptoriolum or little writing
cell), where he lived as a private person in his own apart-
ment. 1 These separate cells were usually colder and in
other ways less comfortable than the common scriptorium.
Lewis, a monk of Wessobrunn in Bavaria, in an inscrip-
tion addressed to the reader, in a copy he had prepared
of Jerome's Commentary on Daniel, says : Dum scripsit
friguit, et quod cum lumine solis scribere non potuit, per fecit
lumine noctis? (He was stiff with cold, while he wrote,
and what he could not write by the light of the sun, he
completed by the light of night.) There is evidence,
however, in some of the better equipped monasteries, of
the warming of the cells by hot air from the stove in the
calefactory. Martene mentions that when S. Bernard,
owing to the illness produced by his early austerities, was
compelled by the Bishop of Chalons to retire to a cell, he
could not be persuaded to relax the severity of his asceti-
1 Mait., 405.
8 Fez, Thes. Anecd. Noviss. Diss. Isagog. in torn, i., 20.
76 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
cism so far as to permit the introduction of any fireplace
or other means of warming it. His friends, however,
contrived, with pious fraud, to heat his cell without his
knowledge, by introducing hot air through the stone floor
under the bed. 1
The scriptorium of earlier times was, however, as pre-
viously described, an apartment specially set aside as a
general workroom and capable of containing many work-
ers, and in which many persons did, in fact, work together,
usually under the direction of a librarius or chief scribe,
in a very business-like manner, in the transcription of
books. Maitland quotes from a document, which is, he
states, one of the very few existing specimens of French
Visigothic manuscripts in the uncial character, and which
dates from the eighth century, the following form of conse-
cration or benediction, entitled (in monastic Latin) Ora-
tionem in scriptorio : " Vouchsafe, O Lord, to bless this
scriptorium of Thy servants and all that work therein :
that whatsoever sacred writings shall be here read or writ-
ten by them, they may receive with understanding and
may bring the same to good effect." * (see also page 61).
In the more carefully constructed monasteries, the
scriptorium was placed to adjoin the calefactory, which
simplified the problem of the introduction of hot air.
A further evidence, if such were needed, that the
larger literary undertakings were carried on in a scripto-
rium common room and not in separate cells, is given by
the regulation of the general Chapter of the Cistercian
Order in 1134, which directs that the same silence should
be maintained in the scriptorium as in the cloister : In omni-
bus scriptoriis ubicunque ex consuetudine monachi scribunt,
silentium teneatur sicut in claustro.*
Odo, who in 1093 became Abbot of S. Martin at Tour-
' Voy. Lit., 99.
* Nouv. Traitt de Diplom., iii., 190, cited by Mait., 407.
1 Ap. Nomast. Cisterc., cap. Ixxxvii. 272.
The Work of the Scriptorium 77
nai, writes that he confided the management of the
outside work of the monastery to Ralph, the prior. This
left the abbot free to devote himself to reading and to
supervising the work in his scriptorium. Odo exulted in
the number of writers whom the Lord had given to him.
"If you had gone into the cloister during the working
hours, you would have seen a dozen scribes writing, in
perfect silence, at tables constructed for the purpose."
Odo caused to be transcribed all of Jerome's Commentar-
ies on the Prophets, all the works of S. Gregory, and all the
works that he could find of S. Augustine, S. Ambrose,
Bishop Isidore, the Venerable Bede, arid Anselm, then
Abbot of Bee and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.
Odo's successor, Heriman, who gives this account, says
with pride that such a library as Odo brought together in
S. Martin could hardly be paralleled in any monastery in
the country, and that other monasteries were begging for
texts from S. Martin's with which to collate and correct
their own copies. 1
Maitland mentions that certain of the manuscripts writ-
ten in Odo's scriptorium, including the fourth volume of
the Gregorialis of Alulfus, were (in 1845) in the library of
Dr. Todd, of Trinity College, Dublin.*
In estimating the extent of book production of the
manuscript period, we may very easily place too large a
comparative weight on the productive power of the Press.
Maitland points out that although the power of multipli-
cation of literary productions was, of course, during the
Dark Ages infinitely below that which now exists, and
while the entire book production of the two periods may
not be compared, yet as regards those books which were
considered as the standard works in sacred literature and
in the approved secular literature, the difference was not
so extreme as may easily be supposed. He enquires, to
1 Herimanni Narratio Rest. Abb. S. Martini Torn., 79 ; Ap. Dach. Spi-
ciltg., ii., 913. * Mait., 414.
78 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
emphasise his point, what proportion the copies of Augus-
tine's City ofGodz.T\& of Gregory's Morals, printed between
the years 1700 and 1800, bear to those written between the
years noo and 1200.'
I think, with Maitland, that, according to the evidence
on record, for books such as those given above as typical
examples, the written production during the century
selected would probably have exceeded the number of
copies of the same books turned out by the printing-
presses during the eighteenth century. We must recall to
ourselves that for a term of six or seven centuries, writing
was a business, and was also a religious duty ; an occupa-
tion taken up by choice and pursued with a degree of
zeal, persistence, and enthusiasm for which in the present
day there is no parallel.
Mabillon speaks of a volume by Othlonus, a monk of
S. Emmeram's at Ratisbon, who was born about the year
1013. In this book, which is entitled De ipsius tentationi-
bus, varia fortuna, et scriptis, the monk gives an account
of his literary labours and of the circumstances which led
to his writing the various works bearing his name.
" For the same reason, I think proper to add an account
of the great knowledge and capacity for writing which
was given me by the Lord in my childhood. When as
yet a little child, I was sent to school and quickly learned
my letters, and I began, long before the usual time of
learning and without any order from the master, to learn
the art of writing. Undertaking this in a furtive and un-
usual manner, and without any teacher, I got a habit of
holding my pen wrongly, nor were any of my teachers
afterwards able to correct me on that point ; for I had
become too much accustomed to it to be able to change.
Those who saw my earlier work unanimously decided that
I should never write well. After a short time the facility
came to me, and while I was in the monastery of Tegern-
1 Mail., 416.
The Work of the Scriptorium 79
see (in Bavaria) I wrote many books. . . . Being sent
to Franconia while I was yet a boy, I worked so hard at
writing that before I returned I had nearly lost my
sight. . . . After I became a monk in the monastery
of S. Emmeram, I was appointed the schoolmaster. The
duties of this office so fully occupied my time, that I
was able to do the transcribing in which I was interested
only by night and on holidays. ... I was, however,
able, in addition to writing the books which I had myself
composed, and the copies of which I gave away for the
edification of those who asked for them, to prepare
nineteen missals (ten for the abbots and monks in our
own monastery, four for the brethren at Fulda, and five
for those in other places), three books of the Gospels,
and two with the Epistles and Gospels, which are
called Lectionaries ; besides which, I wrote four service-
books for matins. , I wrote in addition a good many
books for the brethren at Fulda, for the monks at Hirsch-
feld and at Amerbach, for the Abbot of Lorsch, for cer-
tain friends at Passau, and for other friends in Bohemia,
for the monastery of Tegernsee, for the monastery of
Pryel, for the monastery of Obermunster and for that of
Niedermiinster, and for my sister's son. - Moreover, to
many others I gave or sent, at different times, sermons,
proverbs, and edifying writings. . . . Afterwards, old
age's infirmity of various kinds hindered me."
If there were many hundred scribes of the diligence of
Othlonus, the mass of literature produced in the scripto-
rium may very easily have rivalled the later output of the
printing-presses. The labours of Othlonus were, if the
records are to be trusted, eclipsed by those of the nun
Diemude or Diemudis of the monastery of Wessobrunn.
An anonymous monk of this monastery, writing in the
year 1513, says:
" Diemudis was formerly a most devout nun of this our
1 Mabillon, Anal., iv., 448.
8o The Making of Books in the Monasteries
monastery of Wessobrunn. [Fez states that Diemudis
lived in the time of Gregory VII., who became Pope in
1073. She was, therefore, though probably somewhat
younger, a contemporary of the monk Othlonus of Ratis-
bon.] For our monastery was formerly double or divided
into two parts ; that is to say, of monks and nuns. The
place of the monks was where it now is ; but that of the
nuns, where the parish church now stands. This virgin was
most skilful in the art of writing : for though she is not
known to have composed any work, yet she wrote with
her own hand many volumes in a most beautiful and legible
character, both for divine service and for the public library
of the monastery. Of these books she has left a list in a
certain plenarius. 1 The titles are as follows :
" A Missal, with tlte Gradual and Sequences. Another
Missal, with the Gradual and Sequences, given to the
Bishop of Treves. Another Missal, with the Epistles,
Gospels, Graduals, and Sequences. Another Missal, with
the Epistles and Gospels for tlie year, the Gradual and Se-
quences, and the entire service for baptism. A Missal, with
Epistles and Gospels. A Book of Offices. Another Book of
Offices, with the baptismal service (given to the Bishop of
Augsburg). A Book, with the Gospels and Lessons. A
Book, with the Gospels. A Book, with the Epistles. A
Bible, in two volumes, given for the estate in Pisinberch.
A Bible, in three volumes. S. Gregory ad regaredum. S.
Gregory on EzekieL Sermons and Homilies of certain
ancient Doctors, three volumes. Origen on the Old Testa-
ment. Origen on the Canticles. Augustine on the Psalms,
three volumes. Augustine on the Gospels and on the First
Epistle of S. John, two volumes. Augustine, Epistles, to
the number of Ixxv. Augustine, Treatises. S. Jerome's
Epistles, to the number of clxiv. The Tripartite History
of Cassiodorus. The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius.
1 A Missal, containing, in addition to its usual contents, the Epistles and
Gospels.
The Influence of the Scriptorium 81
S. Augustine, Fifty Sermons. The Life of S. Silvester.
Jerome against Vigilantius. Jerome, De Consolatione Mor-
tuorum. The Life of S. Blasius. The Life of John the
Almoner, Patriarch of Alexandria early in the seventh cen-
tury. Paschasius on the Body and Blood of Christ. The
Conflict of Lanfranc with Berengarius. The Martyrdom
of S. Dionysius. The Life of S. Adrian. S. Jerome, De
Hebraicis Quastionibus. S. Augustine, Confessions. Can-
ons. Glossa per A. B. C. Composita (i.e., a Gloss alphabeti-
cally arranged).
" These are the volumes written with her own hand by
the aforesaid handmaid of God, Diemudis, to the praise
of God and of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, the
patrons of the monastery." '
The same writer says that Diemudis (whom he calls
exaratrix diligentissimd) carried on a correspondence by
very sweet letters (epistolcs suaves valde) with Herluca,
who was for thirty-six years a nun at Eppach, and that
the letters were in his time (1513), that is four and a half
centuries later, extant in the monastery of Bernried.
The Influence of the Scriptorium. Hildebrand,
who, under the name Gregory VII., became Pope in
1073, appears to have made large use of the literary
facilities of the monasteries to bring effectively before the
public the doctrinal teachings which seemed to him essen-
tial for the wholesome development of the strength of
the Church in its great contest with the imperial power
and for the proper rule of the world. The histories of
the time speak of monks travelling throughout the Empire
circulating writings in favour of the Church, by means of
which writings schism could be withstood and the zeal of
good Catholics aroused.*
Certain of the monasteries, in connection with their
1 Fez, Thfs. Anec. Noviss. Diss. Isagog. in torn, i., p. 20.
8 Mont, vi., p. 445.
82 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
literary activity in behalf of the Pope, came into special
disfavour with the Emperor. Among them was Hirschau,
the importance of whose literary work has been previously
referred to. This monastery fell under the displeasure of
the Emperor Henry IV., but the monks, says their
own annalist, sustained by their prayers, braved the
sword of the tyrant and despised the menaces of offended
princes. 1 Abbot William of Hirschau had for twenty-two
years been the soul of monastic regeneration in Germany.
He was one of the great scholars of his time and had
done not a little to further the literary pre-eminence of
his monastery, and he became one of the most valiant
defenders of the popes during this contest. Among other
ecclesiastical writers whose pens were active in the defence
of the papal decrees and in assailing the utterances of the
schismatics, and whose work, by means of the distributing
machinery which had already been organised between
the monasteries, secured for the time a large circulation,
were Bernard, at one time master of the schools of Con-
stance, but later a monk at Hirschau ; Bernold, a monk of
St. Blaise ; Adelbert, a monk of Constance ; and Gebhard,
another monk of Hirschau.*
Gregory was possibly the first pope who made effective
and extended use of the writings of devout authors for
the purpose of influencing public opinion. If we may
judge by the results of his long series of contests with the
imperial power in Germany, the selection of these literary
weapons was one proof of his sagacity. In this contest,
the scriptoria of the monasteries proved more powerful
than the armies of the emperors ; as, five hundred years
later, the printing-presses of the Protestants proved more
effective than the Bulls of the Papacy.
The most important, in connection with its influence
and consequences, of the discoveries made by scholars
concerning the fraudulent character of historic documents,
1 Trithemius, 235, 268. 9 Trithemius, 266.
The Influence of the Scriptorium 83
occurred as late as the beginning of the fifteenth century.
It was about 1440 when Laurentius Valla, at that time
acting as secretary for King Alphonso of Naples, wrote
his report upon the famous Donation of Constantine, the
document upon which the Roman Church had for nearly
a thousand years based its claims to be the direct repre-
sentative in Western Europe of the old imperial authority.
Valla brought down upon his head much ecclesiastical
denunciation. The evidences produced by him of the
fact that the document had been fabricated a century or
more after the death of Constantine could not be gotten
rid of, and, although for a number of years the Church
continued to maintain the sacred character of the Donation,
and has, in fact, never formally admitted that it was
fraudulent, it was impossible, after the beginning of the
sixteenth century, even for the ecclesiastics themselves to
base any further claims for the authority of the Church
upon this discredited parchment.
Of almost equal importance was the discovery of the
fabrication of the pseudo Isidoric Decretals. The Decretals
had been concocted early in the ninth century by certain
priests in the West Prankish Church, and had been
eagerly accepted by Pope Nicholas I., who retained in the
archives of the Vatican the so-called originals. The con-
clusion that the Decretals had been fraudulently imposed
upon the Church was not finally accepted until the begin-
ning of the fourteenth century. It was with the human-
istic movement of 'the Renaissance that historical criticism
had its birth, and a very important portion of the work
of such criticism consisted in the analysis of the lack of
foundation of a large number of fabulous legends upon
which many of the claims of the Church had been based.
There were evidently waves of literary interest and
activity in the different monasteries, between which waves
the art of writing fell more or less into disuse and the
libraries were neglected. In the monastery at Murbach,
84 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
for instance, in which, in the beginning of the century,
important work had been done, it is recorded that in
1291 no monks were found who were able to write, and
the same was said in 1297 of the more famous monastery
of St. Gall. 1 On the other hand, the newly organised
Orders of travelling or mendicant monks took an active
interest in preparing and in distributing manuscript copies
of works of doctrine at about the time when, in the older
and richer Orders, literary earnestness was succumbing to
laziness and luxury. With these mendicant monks,
began also to come into circulation a larger proportion
of original writings, transcribed and corrected, and proba-
bly to some extent sold by the authors themselves.
Richard de Bury makes bitter references in his Philobib-
lon (chapters v. and vi.) to the general antagonism of the
Church towards literature, but speaks with appreciation
of the educational services rendered by the mendicant
monks. Writing was done also by the monks of the
Minorite Order, but their rules and their methods of
life called for such close economy that the manuscripts
left by them are distinguished by the meagreness and"
inadequacy of the material and the closely crowded script,
which, in order further to save space, contains many ab-
breviations.
Roger Bacon is said to have come into perplexity
because, when he wished to send his treatises to Pope
Clement IV., he could find no one among the Brothers of
his Order who was able to assist him in transcribing the
same, while scribes outside of the Order to whom he
attempted to entrust the work gave him untrustworthy
and slovenly copies.*
With the beginning of the fourteenth century, it is pos-
sible to note a scholarly influence exercised upon certain
of the monasteries by the universities. The most enter-
J Ncugart, Cod. Dipl. A lent. y ii., 334-338.
* Oper. Incdita, ed. Brewer, ii. f p. 13.
The Influence of the Scriptorium 85
prising of the monks made opportunities for themselves
to pass some years of their novitiate in one or more of
the universities, or later secured leave of absence from the
monasteries for the purpose of visiting the universities.
It also happened that from the monasteries where literary
work had already been successfully carried on, monks
were occasionally called to the universities in order to
further the literary undertakings of the theological facul-
ties. Finally, the abbots, and other high officials of the
monasteries, were, after the beginning of the fourteenth
century, more frequently appointed from among the
ecclesiastics who had had a university training.
The library in Heidelberg, the university of which
dates from 1386, received from the monastery at Salem a
large number of beautiful manuscripts, and finally, an
illuminated breviary was completed in 1494 by the Cister-
cian Amandus, who, after the destruction of his monastery
in Strasburg, had found refuge in Salem, where in 1529
he became abbot. There is evidence that, at this time,
both in Salem and in other monasteries in which the busi-
ness of manifolding and of selling or exchanging manu-
scripts became important, a large proportion of the work
of illustrating or illuminating was done by paid artists.
After the reform movement which began with the
Council of Basel, there came into existence, in connection
with the renewal of theological discussions, a fresh literary
activity in many of the monasteries. In the monastery at
Camp, in 1440, the library was renewed and very much
extended, and here were written by Guillaume de Reno,
scriptor egregius nulli illo tempore in arte sua secundus,
the Catholicon, books of the Mass, and other devotional
works. Abbot Heinrich von Calcar provided Guillaume
for eighteen years with a yearly supply of parchment,
valued at seventeen florins, and of other writing material.
In Michelsberg, Abbot Ulrich III. (1475-1483) and his
successor Andreas restored the long-time deserted library,
86 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
and by work by the scribes of the monastery and through
the exchange of works for the productions of other mon-
asteries, secured an important collection of manuscripts.
In 1492, Andreas, abbot of the monastery of Bergen, near
Magdeburg, renewed the scriptorium, which, later, became
active in the production of copies of works connected with
this earlier reformation.
Adolph von Hoeck, who died in 1516, Prior of Schedain
Westphalia, was a skilled scribe as well as a zealous
reformer. In Monsee, a certain Brother, Jacob of Breslau,
who died in 1480, was said to have written so many vol-
umes that six horses could with difficulty bear the burden
of them. 1 In the monastery at Tegernsee, already
referred to, there was, under Abbot Conrad V. (1461-
1492), an active business in the manifolding and distribu-
tion of writings. The same was the case in Blaubeuern,
where, as early as 1475, a printing-press was put into
operation, but the preparation of manuscripts continued
until the end of the century. Among the works issued
from Blaubeuern in manuscript form after the beginning
of printing, were the Chronicles of Monte Cassino, by
Andreas Ysingrin, completed in 1477, and the Life of the
Holy Wilhelm of Hirschau y by Brother Silvester, completed
in 1492.*
This year of 1492 appears to have been one of except-
ional intellectual as well as physical activity. It records
not merely the completion of a number of important
works marking the close of the manuscript period of liter-
ary production, but the publication, as will be noted in a
later chapter, of a long series of the more important of
the earlier printed books in Mayence, Basel, Venice, Milan,
and Paris.
In Belgium, through the first half of the fifteenth cen-
tury, while many of the monasteries had fallen into a con-
dition of luxurious inactivity, work was still carried on
1 Fez, Tfos., JDiss., i., p. 4. 8 Afon. Germ. SS. y xiii., 557.
The Influence of the Scriptorium 87
in the Laurentium monastery of Lige by Johann of
Stavelot, and by other zealous scribes, and in several other
of the Benedictine monasteries of the Low Countries the
scriptoria were kept busied. Towards the end of the
fifteenth century, and for some years after the beginning
of the work of the German printers, the production of
manuscripts in Germany continued actively in the monas-
tery of S. Peter at Erfurt, and in the monasteries of S.
Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg, the work of which has been
recorded with full precision and detail in the famous cata-
logue of Wilhelm Wittwer.
In 1472, in this latter monastery, Abbot Melchior
founded the first printing-office at Augsburg in order to
give to the monks continued employment, and in order
also to be able to enlarge the library by producing copies
of books for exchange. It was a long time, however, be-
fore the work of the printing-press came to be sufficiently
understood to bring to a stop the labours of the scribes in
manifolding manuscripts for sale and for exchange. The
writings of the nun Helena of Hroswitha, the Chronicle of
Urspergense, and other works continued to be prepared in
manuscript form after printed editions were in the market.
The same was the case with the great choir books, which
continued during nearly half the century to be very largely
prepared by hand in the scriptoria. This persistence of
the old methods was partly due to habit and to the diffi-
culty of communication with the centres in which the
printing-presses were already at work, but was very largely,
of course, the result of the fact that in the monasteries was
always available a large amount of labour, and that the use
of this labour for the preparation of sacred books had come
to form part of the religious routine of the institution.
With the development of the system of common
schools^ the educational work which had previously been
carried on in the convents was very largely given up, thus
throwing upon the hands of the monks a still greater pro-
88 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
portion of leisure time. In 1492, Johann Trittenheim,
Abbot of Sponheim, wrote to the Abbot Gerlach of Deutz
a letter, De Laude Scriptorum, in which he earnestly in-
vokes the scribes (he was addressing the scribes of the
monasteries) by no means to permit themselves to be de-
terred from their holy occupation by the invasion of the
printing-presses. Such admonitions might continue the
work of the monks in certain of the scriptoria, but were,
of course, futile in the attempt to preserve for any length
of time the business of circulating manuscript copies in
competition with the comparatively inexpensive, and often
beautiful, productions of the printers.
An important part in the work of the preparation and
distribution of manuscripts was taken by the so-called
" Brothers of common life " (clerici de vita communi), who
later, also occupied themselves with the new invention of
printing. They cannot properly be classed with the
scribes of the monasteries, for they made their work a
trade and a means of revenue. This practice obtained, to
be sure, also with certain of the monasteries, but it must
be considered as exceptional with them. The Brothers
differed also from the writers in the university towns and
elsewhere, who prepared manuscripts for renting out to
students and readers, partly because of the special condi-
tions of their Brotherhood, under which the earnings of
individual Brothers all went into a common treasury, but
chiefly because they made their work as scribes a means
of religious and moral instruction. The earnings secured
from the sale of manuscripts were also largely devoted to
the missionary work of the Brotherhood. The chief
authority for the history of the Brotherhood is the work
of Delprat, published in Amsterdam in 1856.
The Brotherhood house in Deventer, Holland, founded
by Gerhard Groote in 1383, became an important work-
shop for the production and distribution of manuscripts.
Delprat states that the receipts from these sales were
The Influence of the Scriptorium 89
for a time the main support of the Brotherhood house.
In 1389, a copy of the Bible which had been written out
by Brother Jan von Enkhuizen was sold for five hundred
gulden in gold. 1 In Lige, the Brothers were known as
Breeders van de Penne, because they carried quill pens in
their caps. Groote seems himself to have taken a general
supervision of this business of the production of books,
selecting the books to be manifolded, verifying the tran-
scripts, and arranging for the sale of the copies which were
passed as approved. Florentius Radewijus had the gen-
eral charge of the manuscripts (filling the r61e which
to-day would be known as that of stock clerk) and of
preparing the parchment for the scribes and writing in
the inscriptions of the finished manuscripts. Later, with
the development of the Order and the extension of its
book business, each Brotherhood house had its librarius,
or manager of the manufacturing and publishing depart-
ment; its rubricator, who added the initial letters or
illuminated letters in the more expensive manuscripts;
its ligator, who had charge of the binding, etc.
It was a distinctive feature of the works prepared by
the Brothers that they were very largely written in the
language of the land instead of in Latin, which elsewhere
was, as we have seen, the exclusive language for literature.
It was, in fact, one of the charges made by the ecclesiast-
ics against the Order that they put into common language
doctrinal instruction which ordinary readers, without direct
guidance of the Church, were not competent to under-
stand, and which tended, therefore, to work mischief. In
1398, the Brothers took counsel on the point whether it
were permissible to distribute among the people religious
writings in Low German, and they appear to have se-
cured the authorisation required. They laid great stress
upon the precision of their script, and they were, as a rule,
opposed to needless expenditure for ornamentation of
1 Dclprat, p. 324.
90 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
text or of covers. Under the influence of Groote, the
work^of preparing manuscripts of good books was taken
up by the monks and the nuns of Windesheim, but,
according to Busch, the books produced in Windesheim
were but rarely sold. In some cases these seem to have
been distributed gratis, while in others they were given in
exchange for other books required for the library of the
monastery or convent. 1
Wattenbach says that the Brothers in the Home at
Hildesheim were called upon for an exceptional amount
of labour in preparing books of the Mass and other devo-
tional works in connection with the reform movement in
the monasteries of lower Saxony, which was active in the
middle of the fifteenth century. In the year 1450 (the
year in which Gutenberg perfected his printing-press) it is
recorded that the Hildesheim Brothers earned from the
sale of their manuscripts no less than a thousand gulden.*
In connection with their interest in the production and
distribution of cheap literature, the Brothers did not fail
to make very prompt and intelligent utilisation of the
new invention of printing, and among the earlier printing-
offices established in Germany and in the Low Countries
were those organised by the Brothers at Deventer, Zwoll,
Gouda, Bois-le-duc, Brussels, Louvain, Marienthal, Ros-
tock, etc.
The Literary Monks of England. In accepting the
influence of literary ideals, the Anglo-Saxon monks were
much slower and less imaginative than the quicker and
more idealistic Celts. The quickening of the intellectual
development of the monasteries in England was finally
brought about through the influence of Celtic missionaries
coming directly from Ireland or from the Irish monaster-
ies of the Scottish region, such as lona and its associates.
Before the literary work of the English monasteries
1 Johann Busch, Chron. Wind., ii., 35, 409.
9 Libn. SS. Brunswick, ii., 855.
The Literary Monks of England 91
began, there was already in existence a considerable body
of literature, which was the expression of the pre-christian
conceptions and ideals of the Anglo-Saxons and their
Scandinavian kinsmen. Certain of the most famous of
the literary creations of the Anglo-Saxons were probably
produced subsequent to the time of the acceptance by the
people of Christianity, but these productions continued to
represent the imagination and the methods of thought of
the pagan ancestry, and to utilise as their themes the old-
time legends. These Saxon compositions were almost
exclusively in the form of poems, epics, and ballads de-
voted to accounts of the achievements of heroes (more or
less legendary) in their wars with each other, and in their
adventures with the gods and with the powers of magic
and evil. In these early epics, devoted chiefly to strife,
women bear but a small part, and the element of love
enters hardly at all.
While it is doubtless the case that the Saxon epics, like
the Greek poems of the Homeric period and the composi-
tions of the Celtic bards, were preserved for a number of
generations in the memories of the reciters, there are
references indicating that the writing of the texts on the
parchment began at a comparatively early date after the
occupation of England. This would imply the existence
of some trained scribes before work was begun in the
scriptoria of the Saxon monasteries. Such lay scribes
must, however, have been very few indeed, and the task
of handing down for posterity the old legendary ballads
must have depended chiefly upon the scops, which was the
name given to the poets or bards attached to the court of
a prince or chieftain. It is, however, not until the accept-
ance of Christianity by the Saxons that there comes to be
any abiding interest in letters. As Jusserand puts it:
" These same Anglo-Saxons, whose literature at the time
of their invasion consisted of the songs mentioned by
Tacitus, carmina antiqua, which they trusted to memory
92 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
alone, who compiled no books, and who for written monu-
ments had Runic inscriptions graven on utensils or on
commemorative stones, now have in their turn monks who
compose chronicles and kings who know Latin. Libraries
are formed in the monasteries; schools are attached to
them ; manuscripts are thus copied and illuminated in
beautiful caligraphy and in splendid colours. The volutes
and knots with which the worshippers of Woden orna-
mented their fibula, ttyeir arms, the prows of their ships,
are reproduced in purple and azure, the initials of the
Gospels. The use made of them is different, the taste re-
mains the same."
It is undoubtedly the case that the preservation of such
fragments of Anglo-Saxon literature as have come down
to us, and probably of most of the Scandinavian composi-
tions which were transmitted through the Saxons, was due
to the monastery scribes whose copies were in part tran-
scribed from the earlier parchments and in part were taken
down from the recitals made in the monasteries by the
bards or minstrels. The service was in fact similar to that
previously rendered by the Irish monks to Celtic litera-
ture, and by the scribes of Gaul and Italy to the writings
of classic times.
The identity or kinship of much of the heroic poetry of
the Anglo-Saxons with that of the Scandinavians is
pointed out by Grein in his Anglo-Saxon Library, and by
Vigfusson and York-Powell in their Corpus Poeticum
Boreale. The greatest of the old English epics, Beowulf,
sometimes called " the Iliad of the Saxons," was put into
written form some time in the eighth century and, like all
similar epics, was doubtless the result of the weaving to-
gether of a series of ballads of varied dates and origins.
The text of the poem has been preserved almost complete
in a manuscript, now placed in the Cottonian collection in
the British Museum, which dates from the latter part of
the tenth century
The Literary Monks of England 93
It will be understood that, as a matter of convenience
in a brief reference of this kind, I am using the term
Saxon and Anglo-Saxon in no strict ethnological sense,
but simply to designate the Teutonic element of the
people of England, an element whose influence is usually
considered to have begun with the landing of Hengist and
Horsa in 449.
The first of the Anglo-Saxon monks to be ranked as a
poet appears to have been the cowherd Caedmon, a vas-
sal of the Abbess Hilda and a monk of Whitby. Csed-
mon's songs were sung about 670. He is reported to have
put into verse the whole of Genesis and Exodus, and,
later, the life of Christ and the Acts of the Apostles, but
his work was not limited to the paraphrasing of the Scrip-
tures. A thousand years before the time of Paradise Lost,
the Northumbrian monk sang before the Abbess Hilda
the Revolt of Satan. Fragments of this poem, discovered
by Archbishop Usher, and printed for the first time in
1655, have been preserved, and have since that date been
frequently published. 1 Caedmon died in 680, and Milton
in 1674. The Abbess Hilda, who was herself a princess
of royal family, appears to have had a large interest in
furthering the study of literature, not only in the nunnery
founded by her, but in a neighbouring monastery which
came largely under her influence. In both nunnery and
monastery, schools for the children of the district were
instituted, which schools were probably the earliest of
their class in that portion of Britain.
The Northumbrian poet Cynewulf, whose work was
done between the years 760 and 800, may be referred to as
a connecting link between the group of national or popu-
lar bards and the literary workers of the Church. His
earlier years were passed as a wandering minstrel, but
later in life he passed through some religious experience
and entered a monastery, devoting himself thereafter to
1 Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, iv., c. 3.
94 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
religious poetry. His conversion was doubtless the means
of preserving (through the scriptorium of his monastery)
such of his compositions as have remained, and thus
of making a place for his name among the authors of
England.
Among the earlier Saxon monks whose educational
work was important are to be included S. Wilfred (634-
709) and S. Cuthbert (637-687). Wilfred introduced into
England the Rule of the Benedictines, and exercised a
most important influence in instituting Benedictine mon-
asteries and in bringing these monasteries into relations
with the Church of Rome. His life was a stormy one,
but notwithstanding the various contentions with the
several monarchs who at that time divided between them
the territory of England, and in spite of several periods of
banishment, he found time to carry on a great work in
furthering the intellectual life of his Benedictine monks.
It was largely due to him that the Benedictine monasteries
accepted almost from the first the responsibility of con-
ducting the schools of the land. These schools achieved
so great repute that Anglo-Saxons of high rank were
eager to confide their children to Wilfred to be brought
up in one of his monastic establishments. At the close
of their school training they were to choose between the
service of God and that of the King. Wilfred is also
to be credited with the establishing within the English
monasteries of a course of musical instruction, the teachers
of which had largely been trained in the great school of
Gregorian music at Canterbury.
Another of the Saxon abbots whose name remains
associated with the intellectual life of the monasteries was
Benedict Biscop. Montalembert speaks of Biscop as
representing science and art in the Church, as Wilfred had
stood for the organising of the English Church as a public
body, and Cuthbert for the renewal and development of
its life. The monasteries of Wearmouth and of Yarrow,
The Literary Monks of England 95
founded by Biscop, were endowed with great libraries and
became the centres of an active literary life. Biscop made
no less than six journeys to Rome in the interest of his
monastery work, and, in the seventh century, a journey
to Rome from Britain was not an easy experience. His
fourth expedition, begun in the year 671, was undertaken
partly in the interests of literature and for the purpose of
securing books for the education of his monks. He
obtained in the Papal capital a rich cargo of books, some
of which he had purchased while others were given to
him. In Vienne, the ancient capital of Gaul, he secured
a further collection. The monastery of Wearmouth,
founded in 673, had the benefit of a large portion of the
books brought from Italy by the abbot. It was his desire
that each monastery for which he was responsible should
possess a library, which seemed to him indispensable for
the instruction, discipline, and the good organisation of
the community. Biscop's fifth journey was made partly
for the purpose of securing pictures, coloured images, and
artistic decorations for the chapel of the monastery, but
the sixth pilgrimage, made in 685, was again devoted
almost entirely to the collection of books.
For the details of the work of Biscop in the organisa-
tion of his monasteries and in the supervision of the work
in their scriptoria, and concerning his various architectural
and artistic undertakings, we are largely indebted to the
historian Beda, or Bede. Bede was a pupil of Biscop in
the monastery of Jarrow, and it was in this monastery
that were written the famous Chronicles. It was the time
of comparative peace in the island which preceded the
first Danish invasion. The fame of the scholar who pro-
duced these chronicles was destined to eclipse that of
nearly all the Saxon saints and kings, who were in fact
known to posterity principally through the pen of the
Venerable Bede. It is to Biscop, however, that should be
credited the literary surroundings under which Bede was
96 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
educated, and it is probable that without the stimulating
influence of the books secured by the abbot in his weari-
some journeys to Southern Europe, the monk would
hardly have had the capacity or the incentive to complete
his work.
Coelfried, who later became Abbot of Jarrow, and who,
after the death of Biscop, was in charge also of the monas-
tery of Wearmouth, continued the interest of his prede-
cessor in the libraries and in the work done by the scribes
in the scriptoria. Among the books brought from Rome
by Biscop was a curious work on cosmography, which
King Alfred was very anxious to possess. Abbot Coel-
fried finally consented to let the King have the book in
exchange for land sufficient to support eight families.
Coelfried had had made in the scriptorium of Wearmouth
two complete copies of the Bible according to the version
of S. Jerome, the text of which had been brought from
Rome. These copies were placed, one in the church of
Wearmouth and one in that of Jarrow, and were open
for the use not only of the monks, but of any others who
might desire to consult them and who might be able to
read the script. Montalembert refers to this instance as
a refutation of " the stupid calumny " which represents
the Church as having in former times interdicted to her
children the knowledge of the sacred Scriptures. 1
When Aldhelm, who became Bishop of Sherborn in the
year 705, went to Canterbury to be consecrated by his old
friend and companion Berthwold (pariter literis studu-
erant, pariterque viam religionis triverant together they
had studied literature and together they had followed the
path of religion), the Archbishop kept him there many
days, taking counsel with him about the affairs of his
diocese. Hearing of the arrival during this time of ships
at Dover, he went there to inspect their unloading and
to see if they had brought anything in his way (si quid
1 Montalembert, iv., 464.
The Literary Monks of England 97
forte commodum ecclesiastico usui attulissent nauta qui
e Gallico sinu in Angliam prove ctilibr or um copiam apport-
assent to see whether the ships which had arrived
from the French coast had brought, with the books which
formed a part of their cargoes, any volumes of value for
the work of the Church). Among many other books he
saw one containing the whole of the Old and New Testa-
ments, which book he bought, and which, according to
William of Malmesbury, who in the twelfth century wrote
the life of Aldhelm, was at that time still preserved at
Sherborn. 1
The great Bible given by King Offa, in 780, to the
church at Worcester is described in the chronicle of
Malmesbury as Magnam Bibliam? As before indicated,
however, the common name of this time for a collection
of the Scriptures was not Biblia but Bibliotheca. In
a return of their property which the monks of St. Riquier
at Centule made in the year 831, by order of Louis the
Debonnaire, we find, among a considerable quantity of
books : Bibliotheca integra ubi continentur libri Ixxii., in
uno volumine (a complete Bible, in which seventy-two
books are comprised in one volume), and also Bibliotheca
dispersa in voluminibus xiv? (a Bible divided into four-
teen volumes).
Fleury says of Olbert, Abbot of Gembloux : Etant
abbe 1 , il amassa a Gembloux plus de cent volumes d'auteurs
eccttsiastiques, etcinquante d'auteursprofanes, cequipassoit
pour une grande Bibliotheque? Warton, using Fleury for
his authority, speaks of the "incredible labour and
immense expense " which Olbert had given to the forma-
tion of this library. There is, however, no authority in the
quotation from Fleury for such a description of the except-
ional nature of the labour and of the outlay. On the
contrary, Fleury goes on to say that Olbert, who had been
l Ang. Sac.,\i., 21. 3 Chron. Centul. ap. Dach. Sp., ii., 311.
, i.,470. 4 Liv. Iviii., chap. Hi., p. 424.
7
98 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
sent to reform and restore the monastery, which was in a
state of great poverty and disorder, had put the monks to
work at writing, in order to keep them from being idle.
He himself set an example of industry as a scribe by writ-
ing out, with his own hand, the whole of the Old and the
New Testament, a work which was completed in the year
1040.' Maitland calculates that a scribe must be both
expert and industrious to perform in less than ten months
the task of transcribing all the books of the Old and the
New Testament. He estimates, further, that at the rate
at which the law stationers of London paid their writers
in his time (1845), such a transcript would cost, for the
writing only, between sixty and seventy pounds.*
The sterling service rendered by King Alfred to the liter-
ary interests of England was important in more ways than
one, and while his work does not strictly belong to the
record of the English monasteries, it may properly enough
be associated with the literary history of the English
Church ; for the King had been adopted as a spiritual son
by Pope Leo IV., and in organising and supervising the work
of the Church, he took upon himself a large measure of
the responsibilities which later were discharged by the
Primate. Alfred ruled over the West Saxons from 871 to
901. His reign was a stormy one, and during a number
of years it seemed doubtful whether the existence of the
little Saxon Kingdom could be maintained against the
assaults of the Danes. There came finally, however, a
period of peace when Alfred, with Winchester as his
capital, was able to give attention to the organisation of
education in his kingdom.
During the long years of invasions and of petty wars,
the literary interests and culture that had come to the
island through the Romans had been in great part swept
away. The collections of books had been burned and
could not be replaced because the clerics had forgotten
1 Mab., A. S., vii., 36. 8 Maitland. 202.
The Literary Monks of England 99
their Latin. Alfred complained that at the time of his'
accession in Winchester he could not find south of the
Thames a single Englishman able to translate a letter
from Latin into English. " When I considered all this, I
remembered also how I saw, before it had all been ravaged
and burned, how the churches throughout the whole of
England stood filled with treasures and books, and there
was also a great multitude of God's servants, but they had
very little knowledge of the books ; they could not under-
stand any of them because they were not written in
their own language." Alfred can find but one explanation
for the omission of the "good and wise men who were
formerly all over England " to leave translations of these
books. " They did not think that men could ever be so
careless and that learning could so soon decay." The
King recalls, however, that there are still left many who
" can read English writing." " I began therefore among
the many and manifold troubles of this Kingdom, to trans-
late into English the book which is called in Latin Pastor-
alis and in English Shepherd's Book (Hirdeboc\ sometimes
word for word and sometimes according to the sense, as I
had learned it from Plegmund, my Archbishop, and Asser,
my Bishop, and Grimbold my Mass-priest, and John my
Mass-priest." * It will be noted in these references of
King Alfred, that the collections of books, the loss of
which he laments, had been contained in the churches. It
was also to the ecclesiastics that he was turning for help
in the work of rendering into English the instruction for
his people to be found in the few Latin volumes that had
been preserved.
Jusserand says that Asser was to Alfred what Alcuin
had been to Charlemagne, and that he helped the King, by
means of the production of translations and by founding
schools, to preserve and to spread learning. King Alfred
1 Sweet, H. King Alfred's version of Gregory's Pastoral Care. Early
English Text Society. Lond., 1871-1872.
ioo The Making of Books in the Monasteries
was, however, not content with using his royal authority
and influence for the instituting of schools, but himself
gave to work as a translator personal time and labour which
must have been spared with difficulty from his duties as a
ruler and as a military commander. He chooses for his
translations books likely to fill up the greatest gaps in the
minds of his countrymen, " some books that are most
needful for all men to know " : the Book of Orosius, which
is to serve as a hand-book of universal history ; the Chron-
icles of Bede, that will instruct them concerning the his-
tory of their own ancestors ; the Pastoral Rule of 5.
Gregory, which will make clear to churchmen their eccles-
iastical duties ; and the Consolation of Philosophy of
BoethiuSj recommended as a guide for the lives of both
ecclesiastics and laymen. These royal translations are at
once placed in the scriptoria of the monasteries and in
the writing-rooms of the monastery schools for manifold-
ing, and secure through these channels an immediate and
important educational influence.
It is also under the instructions of Alfred that the old
national chronicles, written in the Anglo-Saxon tongue,
are copied, corrected, and continued. Of these chronicles,
seven, more or less complete and differing from each other
to some extent, have been preserved. The history of the
world presents possibly no other instance of a monarch
who devoted himself so steadfastly, with his own personal
labour, to the educational and spiritual development of his
people.
In the latter portion of the tenth century, S. Dunstan,
Archbishop of Canterbury under King Edgar, takes up
the task of instructing the clergy and people. Under his
influence, new monasteries are endowed, a further series
of monastery schools is instituted, and special attention
is given in the scriptoria and in the writing-rooms of the
schools to the production of copies of translations of pious
works. The special literary feature of the work done in
The Literary Monks of England 101
Dunstan's school was the attention given to the produc-
tion of collections of sermons in the vulgar tongue. A
number of these collections has been preserved, an ex-
ample of which, known as the B tickling Homilies (from
Blickling Hall, Norfolk, where the MS. was found) was
compiled before 971. The series also included homilies
by ^Ifric, who was Abbot of Eynsham in 1005, and ser-
mons of Wulfstan, who was Bishop of York in 1002.
The canons of ^Elfric were written between the years
950 and 1000. The authorities do not appear to be clear
whether these canons were the work of the Archbishop or
of a grammarian of the same name, while, according to
one theory, the Archbishop and the grammarian were the
same person. The canons were addressed to Wulfin,
Bishop of Sherborn, and they were written in such a form
that the Bishop might communicate them to his clergy as
a kind of episcopal charge. The twenty-first canon orders :
" Every priest also, before he is ordained, must have the
arms belonging to his spiritual work; that is, the holy
books, namely, the Psalter ', the Book of Epistles, the Book
of Gospels, the Missal, the Book of Hymns, the Manual,
the Calendar (Compotus), the Passional, the Penitential, the
Lectionary. These books a priest requires and cannot do
without, if he would properly fulfil his office and desires
to teach the law to the people belonging to him. And let
him carefully see that they are well written." ]
The library of the English monastery or priory was
under the care of the chantor, who could neither sell,
pawn, nor lend books without an equivalent pledge ; he
might, however, with respect to neighbouring churches or
to persons of consideration, relax somewhat the strictness
of this rule. In the case of a new foundation, the King
sometimes sent letters-patent to the different abbeys re-
questing them to give copies of theological and religious
books in their own collections. In certain instances, the
1 Maitland, 29.
102 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
King himself provided such transcripts for the new found-
ation. In the catalogue of the abbatial libraries of
England, prepared by Leland, record is found of only the
following classics : Cicero and Aristotle (these two appear
in nearly all the catalogues), Terence, Euclid, Quintus
Curtius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Julius Frontinus, Apuleius,
and Seneca. 1 It is difficult from such a list to arrive at the
basis or standard of selection.
Thomas Duffus Hardy gives some interesting informa-
tion concerning the later literary and historical work done
in the monasteries of Britain,* and for a portion of the
following notes concerning this work I am chiefly in-
debted to him. The Abbey of St. Albans was founded
towards the close of the eighth century, but it was not
until the latter part of the eleventh century, or nearly
three hundred years later, that the scriptorium was insti-
tuted. The organisation of the scriptorium was due to
Paul, the fourteenth abbot, who presided over the monas-
tery from 1077 to 1093, and who had the assistance in this
work of the Bishop Lanfranc. Paul was by birth a Nor-
man, and was esteemed a man of learning as well as of
piety. After the scriptorium had been opened, the abbot
placed in it eight Psalters, a Book of Collects, a Book of
Epistles, a book containing the Gospels for the year, two
Gospels bound in gold and silver and ornamented with
gems, and twenty-eight other notable volumes. In addi-
tion to these, there was a number of ordinals, costumals,
missals, troparies, collectories, and other books for the use
of the monks in their devotions. This summary of the
first contents of the library is taken by Hardy from the
Gesta Abbatum, a chronicle of St. Albans.
The literary interests of Paul were, it appears, continued
by a large proportion at least of his successors, and many
1 Collect., iii., 7, 17.
f Descriptive catalogue of materials relating to the History of Great Brit-
ain and Ireland, vol. iii., preface
The Literary Monks of England 103
of these made important contributions to the library.
Geoffrey, the sixteenth abbot, gave to the scriptorium a
missal bound in gold, and another missal in two volumes,
both incomparably illuminated in gold and written in an
open and legible script. He also gave a precious illumi-
nated psalter, a book containing the benediction and
sacraments, a book of exorcism, and a collectory. (The
description is taken from the Gesta.)
Ralph, the seventeenth abbot, was said to have be-
come a lover of books after having heard Wodo of Italy
expound the Scriptures. He collected with diligence a
large number of valuable manuscripts. Robert de Gor-
ham, who was called the reformer of the liberty of the
Church of St. Albans, after becoming prior, gave many
books to the scriptorium, more than could be men-
tioned by the author of the Gesta. Simon, who be-
came abbot in 1166, caused to be created the office of
historiographer. Simon had been educated in the ab-
bey, and did not a little to add to its fame as a centre of
literature. He repaired and enlarged the scriptorium, and
he kept two or three scribes constantly employed in it.
The previous literary abbots had for the most part brought
from without the books added to the collection, but it was
under Simon that the abbey became a place of literary
production as well as of literary reproduction. He had
an ordinance enacted to the effect that every abbot must
support out of his personal funds one adequate scribe.
Simon presented to the abbey a considerable group of
books that he had himself been collecting before his ap-
pointment as abbot, together with a very beautiful copy
of the Old and New Testaments.
The next literary abbot was John de Cell, who had been
educated in the schools of Paris, and who was profoundly
learned in grammar, poetry, and physics. On being
elected abbot, he gave over the management of the
temporal affairs of the abbey to his prior, Reymond,
IO4 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
and devoted himself to religious duties and to study.
Reymond himself was a zealous collector, and it was
through him that was secured for the library, among
many other books, a copy of the Historica Scholastica cum
Allegoriis, of Peter Comester. The exertions of these
scholarly abbots and priors won for St. Albans a special
distinction among the monasteries of Britain, and natu-
rally led to the compilation of the historic annals which
gave to the abbey a continued literary fame. Hardy is
of opinion that these historic annals date from the admin-
istration of Simon, between the years 1166 and 1183.
Roger of Wendover, who succeeded Walter as historio-
grapher, compiled, between the years 1230 and 1236,
the Flares Historiarum, one of the most important of the
earlier chronicles of England. Hardy points out that it
could have been possible to complete so great a work
within the term of six years, only on the assumption that
Richard found available much material collected by Wal-
ter, and it is also probable that other compilations were
utilised by Richard for the work bearing his name. It is
to be borne in mind that the monastic chronicles were but
seldom the production of a single hand, as was the case
with the chronicles of Malmesbury and of Beda. The
greater number of such chronicles grew up from period to
period, fresh material being added in succeeding genera-
tions, while in every monastic house in which there were
transcribers, fresh local information was interpolated until
the tributary streams had grown more important than the
original current. In this manner, the monastic annals
were at one time a transcript, at another time an abridg-
ment, and at another an original work. " With the
chronicler, plagiarism was no crime and no degradation.
He epitomised or curtailed or adapted the words of his
predecessors in the same path with or without alteration
(and usually without acknowledgment), whichever best
suited his purpose or that of his monastery. He did not
The Literary Monks of England 105
work for himself but at the command of others, and thus
it was that a monastery chronicle grew, like a monastery
house, at different times, and by the labour of different
hands."
Of the heads that planned such chronicles or of the
hands that executed them, or of the exact proportion
contributed by the several writers, no satisfactory record
has been preserved. The individual is lost in the com-
munity.
In the earlier divisions of Wendover's chronicle, cover-
ing the centuries from 231 down to about 1000, Wendover
certainly relied, says Hardy, upon some previous compila-
tion. About the year 1014, that narrative, down to the
death of Stephen, showed a marked change in style, giv-
ing evidence that after this period some other authority
had been adopted, while there was also a larger introduc-
tion of legendary matter. From the accession of Henry
II., in 1235, when the Flares Historiarum ends, Wendover
may be said to assume the character of an original author.
On the death of Richard, the work of historiographer was
taken up by Matthew Paris. His Lives of the Two Off as
and his famous Chronicles were produced between the
years 1236 and 1259.
In certain of the more literary of the English monas-
teries, the divine offices were moderated in order to allow
time for study, and, under the regulations of some founda-
tions, " lettered " persons were entitled to special ex-
emption from the performance of certain daily services,
and from church duty. *
At a visitation of the treasury of St. Pauls, made in the
year 1295, by Ralph de Baudoke, the Dean (afterwards
Bishop of London), there were found twelve copies of the
Gospels adorned, some with silver, and others with pearls
and gems, and a thirteenth, the case (capsa) containing
which was decorated not merely with gilding but with
1 Wilkins, Monast., ii., 708.
io6 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
relics. 1 The treasury also contained a number of other
divisions of the Scriptures, together with a Commentary
of Thomas Aquinas. Maitland says that the use of relics
as a decoration was an unusual feature. He goes on to
point out that the practice of using for manuscripts a
decorated case, caused the case, not infrequently, to be
more valuable than the manuscript itself, so that it would
be mentioned among the treasures of the church, when
the book contained in it was not sufficiently important to
be even specified.
The binding of the books which were in general use in
the English monasteries for reference was usually in
parchment or in plain leather. The use of jewels, gold, or
silver for the covers, or for the capsce, was, with rare excep-
tions, limited to the special copies retained in the church
treasury. William of Malmesbury in the account which
he gives of the chapel made at Glastonbury by King Ina,
mentions that twenty pounds and sixty marks of gold
were used in the preparation of the Coopertoria Librorum
Evangelii?
The Earlier Monastery Schools. At the time when
neither local nor national governments had assumed any
responsibilities in connection with elementary education,
and when the municipalities were too ignorant, and in
many cases too poor, to make provision for the education
of the children, the monks took up the task as a part of
the regular routine of their duty. The Rule of S. Bene-
dict had in fact made express provision for the education
of pupils.
An exception to the general statement concerning the
neglect of the rulers to make provision for education
should, however, be made in the case of Charlemagne,
whose reign covered the period 790 to 830. It was the
aim of Charlemagne to correct or at least to lessen the
provincial differences and local barbarities of style, ex-
J Dugd., Monast., iii., 309. * Ap. Gale, ser., xiv., 311.
The Earlier Monastery Schools 107
pression, orthography, etc., in the rendering of Latin, and
it was with this end in view that he planned out his great
scheme of an imperial series of schools, through which
should be established an imperial or academic standard of
style and expression. This appears to have been the first
attempt since the time of the Academy of Alexandria to
secure a scholarly uniformity of the standard throughout
the civilised world, and the school at Tours may be con-
sidered as a precursor of the French Academy of modern
times. For such a scheme the Emperor was dependent
upon the monks, as it was only in the monasteries that
could be found the scholarship that was required for the
work. He entrusted to Alcuin, a scholarly English Ben-
edictine, the task of organising the imperial schools. The
first schools instituted by Alcuin in Aachen and Tours,
and later in Milan, were placed in charge of Benedic-
tine monks, and formed the models for a long series of
monastic schools during the succeeding centuries. Alcuin
had been trained in the cathedral schools founded in
York by Egbert, and Egbert had been brought up by
Benedict Biscop in the monastery of Jarrow, where he
had for friend an.d fellow pupil the chronicler Bede. The
results of the toilsome journeys taken by Biscop to collect
books for his beloved monasteries of Wearmouth and
Jarrow 1 were far-reaching. The training secured by
Alcuin as a scribe and as a student of the Scriptures, the
classics, and the " seven liberal arts " was more immedi-
ately due to his master Albert, who afterward succeeded
Egbert as archbishop.
The script which was accepted as the standard for the
imperial schools, and which, transmitted through success-
ive Benedictine scriptoria, served seven centuries later as
a model for the first type-founders of Italy and France,
can be traced directly to the school at York.
Alcuin commemorated his school and its master in a
1 See p. 95.
io8 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
descriptive poem On the Saints of the Church at York,
which is quoted in full by West. 1 In 780, Alcuin suc-
ceeded Albert as master of the school, and later, was
placed in charge of the cathedral library, which was at
the time one of the most important collections in Christ-
endom. In one of his poems he gives a kind of metrical
summary of the chief contents of this library. The lines
are worth quoting because of the information presented
as to the authors at that time to be looked for in a really
great monastic library. The list includes a distinctive
though very restricted group of Latin writers, but, as
West points out, the works " by glorious Greece trans-
ferred to Rome " form but a meagre group. The cata-
logue omits Isidore, although previous references make
clear that the writings of the great Spanish bishop were
important works of reference in York as in all the British
schools. It is West's opinion that the Aristotle and other
Greek authors referred to were probably present only in
Latin versions. These manuscripts in the York library
were undoubtedly for the most part transcripts of the
parchments collected for Wearmouth and Jarrow by
Biscop.
The Library of York Cathedral.
There shalt thou find the volumes that contain
All of the ancient Fathers who remain ;
There all the Latin writers make their home
With those that glorious Greece transferred to Rome,
The Hebrews draw from their celestial stream,
And Africa is bright with learning's beam.
Here shines what Jerome, Ambrose, Hilary thought,
Or Athanasius and Augustine wrought.
Orosius, Leo, Gregory the Great,
Near Basil and Fulgentius coruscate.
Alcuin, 31.
The Earlier Monastery Schools 109
Grave Cassiodorus and John Chrysostom
Next Master Bede and learned Aldhelm come,
While Victorinus and Boethius stand
With Pliny and Pompeius close at hand.
Wise Aristotle looks on Tully near,
Sedulius and Juvencus next appear.
Then come Albinus, Clement, Prosper too,
Paulinus and Arator. Next we view
Lactantius, Fortunatus. Ranged in line
Virgilius Maro, Statius, Lucan, shine.
Donatus, Priscian, Phobus, Phocas, start
The roll of masters in grammatic art.
Entychius, Servius, Pompey, each extend
The list. Comminian brings it to an end.
There shalt thou find, O reader, many more
Famed for their style, the masters of old lore,
Whose many volumes singly to rehearse
Were far too tedious for our present verse. 1
Alcuin's work on the Continent began in 782, when,
resigning his place as master of the cathedral school in
York, he took charge of the imperial or palace school at
Tours. His work in the palace school included not only
the organisation of classes for the younger students, but
the personal charge of a class which comprised the Em-
peror himself, his wife Luitgard, and other members of
the royal or imperial family. Whether for the younger
or for the older students, however, the instruction given
had to be of a very elementary character. The distinc-
tive value of the work was, it is to be borne in mind,
not in the extent of the instruction given to the im-
mediate pupils, but in making clear to the Emperor and
to his sons who were to succeed him, the importance of
1 Cited by West, 34.
no The Making of Books in the Monasteries
securing a certain uniformity of script and of educational
work throughout the Empire.
It is very probable that not a few of the earlier copyists
who completed in the scriptoria the tasks set for them by
the instructors trained in Tours and in Aachen, tran-
scribed texts the purport of which they had not mastered.
It'was through their work, however, that the texts them-
selves were preserved and were made available for later
scribes and students who were competent to comprehend
the spirit as well as the letter of their contents.
Mabillon is in accord with later authorities such as
Compayre' and West, as to the deplorable condition of
learning at this time throughout the Empire ruled by
Charles. Says West : " The plight of learning in Frank-
land at this time was deplorable. Whatever traditions had
found their way from the early Gallic schools into the
education of the Franks had long since been scattered
and obliterated in the wild disorders which characterised
the times of the Merovingian kings. . . . The copying
of books had almost ceased, and all that can be found
that pretends to the name of literature in this time is the
dull chronicle or ignorantly conceived legend."
A description such as this emphasises the importance
of the work initiated by Alcuin, work the value of which
the ruler of Europe was fortunately able to appreciate
and ready to support. In his relation to scholarly inter-
ests in Europe and to the preservation of the literature
of the past, Alcuin may fairly be considered as the suc-
cessor of Cassiodorus. He was able in the eighth century
-to render a service hardly less distinctive than that
credited to Cassiodorus three hundred years earlier.
There is the further parallel that, like Cassiodorus, he
possessed a very keen and intelligent interest in the form
given to literary expression, and in all the details of the
work given to the copyists. The instructions given in
1 Alcuin^ 42.
The Earlier Monastery Schools 1 1 1
Alcuin's treatise on orthography for the work of the
scribes, follow very closely in principle, and differ, in fact,
but slightly in detail from, the instructions given by
Cassiodorus in his own treatise on the same subject. A
couplet which stands at the head of the first page reads
as follows : " Let him who would publish the sayings of
the ancients read me, for he who follows me not will
speak without regard to law." ' Alcuin's care in regard
to the consistency of punctuation and orthography and
his intelligent selection of a clearer and neater form of
script than had heretofore been employed, have im-
pressed a special character on the series of manuscripts
dating from the early portion of the ninth century and
written in what is termed the Caroline minuscule. In a
letter written to Charles from Tours in 799, Alcuin men-
tions that he has copied out on some blank parchment
which the King had sent him a short treatise on correct
diction, with illustrations from Bede. He goes on to
speak of the special value to literature of the distinctions
and subdistinctions of punctuation, the knowledge of
which has, he complains, almost disappeared : " But even
as the glory of all learning and the ornaments of whole-
some erudition begin to be seen again by reason of your
noble exertions, so also it seems most fitting that the use
of punctuation should also be resumed by scribes. . . .
Let your authority so instruct the youths at the palace
that they may be able to utter with perfect elegance
whatsoever the clear eloquence of your thought may
dictate, so that whatsoever may go to the parchment
bearing the royal name it may display the excellence of
the royal learning." ' A very delicate hint, remarks West,
for Charles to mind his commas and his colons.
Up to the time of Charlemagne there appears to have
been so little facility in writing and so few scribes were
available, that government records were not kept even
1 Version of West, 102. * Ep. 101, Migne ; 112, Jaffe, cited by West.
1 1 2 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
at the Courts. The schools established by Alcuin at
Tours, under the direction of Charlemagne, were in fact
the first schools for writers which had existed in Western
Europe for centuries. One of the earlier applications
made of the knowledge gained in the imperial schools was
for the critical analysis of certain historical /locuments
which had heretofore been accepted as final authorities.
In the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages, anything that
was in writing appears to have been accepted as neces-
sarily trustworthy and valuable, very much as in the
earlier times of printing the fact that a statement was in
print caused it to be accepted as something not to be
contradicted. The critical faculty, combined with the
scholarly knowledge necessary and properly applied,
was, however, of slow growth, and centuries must still
have passed before, in this work of differentiating the
value of documents, the authority of scholars secured its
full recognition.
After this work of Alcuin began, that is to say, after
the beginning of the ninth century, it became the rule of
each properly organised monastery to include, in addition
to the scriptorium, an armarium, or writing-chamber,
which was utilised as a class-room for instruction in
writing and in Latin. In a letter of Canonicus Geoffrey,
of St. -Barbe-en-Auge, dated 1170, occurs the expression,
Claustrum sine armario est quasi castrum sine arma-
mentaria? (a monastery without a writing-chamber is like
a camp without a storehouse of munitions or an armory.)
The Capitular of Charlemagne, issued in the year 789,
addressed itself to the correction of the ignorance and
carelessness of the monks, and to the necessity of pre-
serving a standard of correctness for the work of tran-
scribing holy writings. It contains the phrase :
Et pueros vestros non sinite eos vel legendo vel scribendo
corrumpere. Et si opus est evangelium, psalterium et mis-
1 Wattenbach, p. 362.
The Earlier Monastery Schools 113
sale scribere y perfects atatis homines scribant cum omni
diligentia.
(Do not permit your pupils, either in reading or writing,
to garble the text ; and when you are preparing copies
of the gospel, the psalter, or the missal, see that the work
is confided to men of mature age, who will write with due
care.)
The following lines were written by Alcuin as an injunc-
tion to pious scribes :
AD MUSEUM LIBROS SCRIBENTIUM.
Hie sedeant sacra scribentes famina legis,
Nee non sanctorum dicta sacrata patrum.
His inter ser ere caveant sua frivola verbis,
Frivola ne propter erret et ipsa manus,
Correctosque sibi qu&rant studiose libellos,
Tramite quo recto penna volantis eat.
Per cola distinguant proprios et commata sensus.
Et punctos ponant or dine quosque suo,
Ne vel falsa legat taceat vel forte repente.
Ante pios fratres lector in ecclesia.
' i
(Quoted from the Vienna Codex, 743. Denis, i., 313.)
Wattenbach is of opinion that these lines stood over
the door of the scriptorium of S. Martin's Monastery.
West says that the lines were written as an injunction
to the scribes of the school at Tours. He gives the fol-
lowing version, which takes in certain further lines of the
original than those cited by Wattenbach :
" Here let the scribes sit who copy out the words of
the Divine Law, and likewise the hallowed sayings of the
holy Fathers. Let them beware of interspersing their
own frivolities in the words they copy, nor let a trifler's
hand make mistakes through haste. Let them earnestly
seek out for themselves correctly written books to tran-
scribe, that the flying pen may speed along the right path.
1 14 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
Let them distinguish the proper sense by colons and
commas, and let them set the points each one in its due
place, and let not him who reads the words to them either
read falsely or pause suddenly. It is a noble work to
write out holy books, nor shall the scribe fail of his due
reward. Writing books is better than planting vines, for
he who plants a vine serves his belly, but he who writes a
book serves his soul." '
In a manuscript which was written in S. Jacob's Monas-
tery in Li6ge, occurred the following lines :
Jacob Rebecca dilexit simplicitatem,
Altus mens Jacobi scribendi sedulitatem.
Ille pecus pascens se divitiis cumulavit,
Iste libros scribens meritum sibi multiplicavit.
Ille Rachel typicam pra cunctis duxit amatam,
Hie habcat vitamjustis super astra paratam?
[(The Hebrew) Jacob loved the simplicity of Rebecca,
The lofty soul of (the monk) Jacob (loved) the work of the
scribe.
The former accumulated riches in pasturing his flocks,
The latter increased his fame through the writing of books.
The former won his Rachel, loved beyond all others.
May the scribe have the eternal life which is prepared above
the stars for the just.]
The most important of the works of Alcuin that can be
called original were his educational writings, comprising
treatises On Grammar, On Orthography, On Rhetoric and
the Virtues, On Dialectics, A Disputation with Pepin, and
a study of astronomy entitled De Cursu et Saltu Luna ac
Bissexto. West mentions three other treatises which have
been ascribed to him : On the Seven Arts, A Disputation
for Boys, and the Propositions of Alcuin* Alcuin was
more fortunate than his great predecessor Cassiodorus in
1 West, 72. 9 Wattenbach, 366. 3 Alcuin, 92.
The Earlier Monastery Schools 115
respect to the preservation of his writings. Manuscripts
of all of these remained in existence until the time came
when the complete set of works could be issued in printed
form, and the work of the old instructor could be appreci-
ated by a generation living a thousand years after his
life had closed. He died at Tours in 804, in his seventieth
year. Mabillon speaks of Alcuin as " the most learned
man of his age." Laurie is disposed to lay stress upon
the monastic limitations of his intellect, and thinks that
his principal ability was that of an administrator ; West
emphasises the " pure unselfishness of his character," and
adds, with discriminating appreciation : " We must also
credit him with a certain largeness of view, in spite of his
circumscribed horizon. He had some notion of the con-
tinuity of the intellectual life of man, of the perils that
beset the transmission of learning from age to age, and of
the disgrace which attached to those who would allow
those noble arts to perish which the wisest of men among
the ancients had discovered. . . . Perceiving that the
precious treasure of knowledge was then hidden in a few
books, he made it his care to transmit to future ages
copies undisfigured by slips of the pen or mistakes of the
understanding. Thus in every way that lay within his
power, he endeavoured to put the fortunes of learning for
the times that should succeed him in a position of advan-
tage, safeguarded by an abundance of truthfully tran-
scribed books, interpreted by teachers of his own training,
sheltered within the Church and defended by the civil
power." Professor West's appreciative summary does
full justice to the work and the ideals of Charlemagne's
great schoolmaster. I should only add that in the special
service he was in a position to render in the preservation,
transmission, and publication of the world's literature,
Alcuin must be accorded a very high place in the series of
literary workers which, beginning with Cassiodorus, in-
1 Alcuin, 122, 123.
u6 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
eludes such names as Columba, Biscop, Aurispa, Guten-
berg, Aldus, Estienne, and Froben.
The most noteworthy of the successors of Alcuin in the
palace school at Tours was John Scotus Erigena, who in
845 was appointed master by Charles the Bold. The
influence of the Irish monk widened the range of study and
gave to it an active-minded and speculative tendency that
brought about a wide departure from the settled conserva-
tism which had always characterised the teaching of
Alcuin. The list of books given to the scribe for copying
was increased, and now included, for instance, works of
such doubtful orthodoxy as the Satyricon of Martianus
Capella, a voluminous compilation constituting a kind of
cyclopaedia of the seven liberal arts. Its composition
dates from about 500.'
In a treatise, De Institute Clericorum, written in 819
(that is, during the reign of Louis I.), by Rabanus Mau-
rus, who was Abbot of Fulda and later, Archbishop
of Mayence, is cited the following regulation : " The
canons and the decrees of Pope Zosimus have decided
that a clerk proceeding to holy orders shall continue five
years among the readers ... and after that shall
for four years serve as an acolyte or sub-deacon." (The
Zosimus referred to was Pope for but one year, 417-418.)
Rabanus had just before remarked, " Lectores are so called
a legendo" He goes on to say that " he who would
rightly and properly perform the duty of a reader must be
imbued with learning and conversant with books, and
must further be instructed in the meaning of words and in
the knowledge of the words themselves," etc. a Rabanus
follows this with a series of very practical instructions and
suggestions for effective education on the part of the
readers. These were based upon the treatise on elocu-
tion written nearly two hundred years earlier by the
1 Mullinger, 197.
9 Lib. i., cap. xiii., Ap. Bib. Pat., torn, x., 572, cited by Maitland.
The Earlier Monastery Schools 1 1 7
learned Bishop Isidore of Seville, and they were again
copied three years after the time of Rabanus by Ibo,
Bishop of Chartres, in the treatise De Rebus Ecclesiasticis.
Maitland, to whom I am indebted for this citation, finds
cause for indignant criticism of the historian Robertson
for the superficial and misleading references made by. the
historian to the dense ignorance of the Church in the
Middle Ages. Maitland suggests that if Robertson had
applied for holy orders to the Archbishop of Seville in the
seventh century, the Archbishop of Mayence in the ninth,
or the Bishop of Chartres in the eleventh, he would have
found the examination rather more of a task than he
expected. West speaks of Rabanus as " Alcuin's greatest
pupil," and as intellectually " a greater man than his
master." 1 He wrote a long series of theological and
educational treatises.
From the Constitutions of Reculfus, who became Bishop
of Soissons in 879, it is evident that he expected the
clergy to be able both to read and to write. The Bishop
says: "We admonish that each one of you should be
careful to have a Missal, a Lectionary, a Book of the
Gospels, a Martyrology, an Antiphonary, a Psalter, and
a copy of the Forty Homilies of S. Gregory, corrected and
pointed by our copies which we use in the holy mother
Church; and also fail not to have as many sacred and
ecclesiastical books as you can get, for from these you
shall receive food and condiment for your souls. . . .
If, however, any one of you is not able to obtain all the
books of the Old Testament, at least let him diligently
take pains to transcribe for himself correctly the first book
of the whole sacred history, that is, Genesis, by reading
which he may come to understand the creation of the
world." a The counsel was good, even although a perfectly
clear understanding of the creation might after all not
have been secured.
3 Akuin^ 134. * Const., ix., 418.
n8 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
By the close of the ninth century, a large proportion of
the monasteries of the Continent and of England carried
on schools which were open to the children of as large a
district as could be reached. In many cases, the ele-
mentary classes were succeeded by classes in advanced
instruction, while from these were selected favourites or
exceptionally capable pupils, who enjoyed in still higher
studies the advantage of the guidance and service of the
best scholars in the monastery. West, in summing up
the later influence of Alcuin, speaks of the stream of
learning as having flowed from York to Tours and from
Tours (through Rabanus) to Fulda, thence to Auxerre,
Ferrieres, Corbies (old and new), Reichenau, St. Gall, and
Rheims, one branch of it finally reaching Paris. 1 Mabillon
speaks of the abbey schools of Fleury as containing during
the tenth and eleventh centuries as many as five thousand
scholars.
In Italy, the most important schools were those insti-
tuted at Monte Cassino, Pomposa, and Classe. Giese-
brecht is, however, of opinion that the educational
work of the Italian monasteries was less important than
that carried on by the monasteries in Germany, France,
or England. In Germany, the monasteries which have
already been mentioned as centres of intellectual activity
were also those which had instituted the most important
and effective of the schools, the list including St. Gall,
Fulda, Reichenau, Hirschau, Wissembourg, Hersfeld, and
many others.
In France and Belgium, the names of the conspicuous
abbey schools include those of Marmoutier, Fontenelle,
Fleury, Corbie, Ferri&res, Bee, Clugni. In England, the
most noteworthy of the abbey schools were St. Albans,
Glastonbury, Malmesbury, Croyland, and S. Peter's of
Canterbury. From the epoch of Charlemagne to that
of S. Louis, the great abbeys of Christian Europe served
1 Akuin, 164.
The Earlier Monastery Schools 1 19
in fact not only as its schools but as its universities.
The more intelligent of the nobility and the kings
themselves were interested in securing for their children
the educational advantages of the monastery schools.
Among the French kings who were brought up in this
way are to be named Pepin the Little, Robert the Pious,
and Louis the Fat. In Spain, Sancho the Great, King of
Navarre and of Castile, was a graduate of the monastery
of Leyre.
In England, we have the noteworthy example of Alfred,
who was not ashamed, after having reached mature years,
to repair his imperfect education by attending the school
established in Oxford by the Benedictines, where he is
said to have studied grammar, philosophy, rhetoric,
history, music, and versification. 1
A large number of the convents, following the example
of the abbeys, contained schools in which were trained not
only the future novices, but also numbers of young girls
destined for the life of the Courts or of the world.
Mabillon finds occasion to correct the impression on the
part of some writers of the sixteenth century, that the
monasteries had been established solely for the purpose
of carrying on educational work. He writes: C'est une
illusion de certains gens qui ont e"crit dans le siecle prtce'dent
que les monastires navaient este" d 'abord ttablis que pour
servir d* holes faisantes profession d'enseigner les sciences
humaines.
De Ranc, who wrote a Traitt de la sainctettetdu devoir
de la vie monastique, took the ground that the pursuit of
literature was inconsistent with the monastic profession,
and that the reading of the monks ought to be confined
to the Scriptures and a few books of devotion. The
treatise was understood to be an attack upon the Benedic-
tine monks of St. Maur, for that they were learned was a
matter of general knowledge, and the monks of La
1 Ziegelbauer, i. , 326.
120 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
Trappe, the Order with which De Ranc had associated
himself, had an old-time antagonism to their scholarly
neighbours. It may be considered as a good service
for literature and for monastic history that the treatise of
De Ranc, narrow and unimportant in itself as it was,
should have been published. Nine years later, in the
year 1691, was issued the reply of the Benedictines, the
learned and valuable Traitt des Etudes Monastiques of
Dom Mabillon, which will be referred to more particularly
in the following chapter.
The historians of these monastic schools have laid stress
upon the limited conceptions possessed by their founders
and by the instructors, of the purpose and possibilities of
education, conceptions which of necessity affected not
only the work done in the school-room, but the character
of the literature produced in the scriptoria. Laurie, for
instance, writes as follows : " The Christian conception of
education was, unfortunately (like that of old Cato), nar-
row. It tended steadily to concentrate and to contract
men's intellectual interests. The Christian did not think
of the culture of the whole man. He could not consist-
ently do so. His whole purpose was the salvation of the
soul. . . . Salvation was to be obtained through
abnegation of the world and through faith. . . .
Christianity, accordingly, found itself necessarily placed in
mortal antagonism to * Humanitas ' and to Hellenism, and
had to go through the troublous experiences of nearly
1400 years before the possibility of the union of reason
with authority, of religion with Hellenism, could be con-
served. . . . As was indeed inevitable, theological dis-
cussion more and more occupied the active intellect of the
time, to the subordination, if not total neglect of humane
letters and philosophy. The Latin and Greek classics
were ultimately denounced. As the offspring of the
pagan world, if not indeed inspired by demons, they were
dangerous to the faith." '
1 Rise and Institution of Universities, 26.
The Earlier Monastery Schools 121
From the Apostolic Constitutions, ascribed to the mid-
dle of the fourth century, Mr. Bass Mullinger quotes
the injunction : " Refrain from all the writings of the
heathen : for what hast thou to do with strange discourses,
laws, or false prophets, which, in truth, turn aside from
the faith those who are weak in the understanding . . .
wherefore abstain scrupulously from all strange and devil-
ish books." '
It was S. Augustine who said Indocti ccelum rapiunt
" It is the ignorant who take the kingdom of heaven/'
and Gregory the Great who asserted that he would blush to
have Holy Scripture subjected to the rules of grammar. 1
West speaks of the conceptions of grammar and of
rhetoric taught by Alcuin as " crude " and " puerile," and
of his theories of language as " childish."
It is, of course, a truism to point out that the educa-
tional work done by Alcuin and the other great instruc-
tors of the monastic schools is not to be judged by the
standard of later ages. The students for whose training
they were responsible, whether children or adults, princes
or peasants, must have been, with hardly an exception, in
a very elementary condition of mental development, and
it was necessary for the instruction to be in like manner
elementary. In this study, I am- however, not undertak-
ing to consider the history of education in early Europe,
a subject which has been so ably presented in the works
of Mullinger, Laurie, Compayr6, and West. I am con-
cerned with the work of these early schoolmasters simply
because to their persistent efforts was due the preserva-
tion of literature in Europe. If Alcuin and his successors
had done nothing else than to secure a substantially uni-
form system of writing throughout the great schools in
which were trained abbots and scribes for hundreds of
monasteries, they would have conferred an inestimable
service upon Europe. But their work did go much further.
Notwithstanding the various injunctions and warnings of
1 Schools of Charles the Great, 8. 9 Cited by West, Alcuin, n.
122 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
ecclesiastical leaders against " pagan " literature, it proved
impracticable to prevent this literature from being pre-
served and manifolded in numberless scriptoria. The
record of the opposition has been preserved in a series of
edicts and injunctions. But the fact that the interest in
the writings of the ancients proved strong enough to with-
stand all the fulminations and censures is evidenced by
the long series of manuscripts of the classics produced in
the monasteries during the tenth and eleventh centuries.
The writers of these manuscripts were the product of the
schools instituted by Charlemagne and Alcuin.
The Benedictines of the Continent. The two writers
who have given the largest attention to the record of the
literary and scholarly work of the Benedictines during the
seven centuries between 500 and 1200 A.D., are Mabillon
and Ziegelbauer. Dom Mabillon was himself a Benedict-
ine monk and had a full inheritance of the literary spirit
and scholarly devotion which characterised the Order.
He was born in Rheims in 1632, and his treatise on mon-
astic studies, Trait^ des Etudes Monastiques, which has
remained the chief authority on its subject, was published
in Paris in 1691. Ziegelbauer's Observation?* Liter aria
S. Benedicti appeared a century later. 1
Mabillon's work forms a magnificent monument not
only to the learning, diligence, and literary skill of its
writer, but to the enormous value of the services rendered,
during a number of centuries, by the monks of his Order,
in the preservation of literature from the ravages of bar-
barism and in the development of scholarship. Mabillon
also makes clear the lasting importance of the original
initiative given to the literary labour of the Benedictines
by the Rule of their founder. An important portion of
the material upon which Mabillon's treatise was based,
was collected during a series of journeys made by him in
company with his brother under the instructions first of
1 Aug. Vindeloc, 4 vols., 1784.
The Benedictines of the Continent 123
the great minister Colbert, and later, of Le Tellier, Arch-
bishop of Rheims, for the purpose of examining or of
searching for documents relating to the royal family and
of procuring books for the royal library. The first of
these journeys, undertaken in the year 1682, was com-
pleted entirely within French territory and was entitled
Iter Burgundicum. The second covered a considerable
portion of South Germany and Switzerland, and is known
as the Iter Germanicum. The third was devoted to Italy,
and is described under the title of Iter Italicum ; while the
fourth investigation was made in Alsace and Lorraine,
and the record is entitled Iter Liter arium in Alsatiam
et Lotharingiam.
The plan of the journeys involved a thorough ransack-
ing of as many libraries as they could secure admission
to, the libraries being, with but few exceptions, contained
in the monasteries. The immediate result of these jour-
neys was the addition to the royal library of some three
thousand volumes, chiefly collected in Italy, and the later
result, the publication of the records above specified,
which form a most valuable presentation of the condition
of the monastic collections in the seventeenth century,
and which give in their lists the titles of a considerable
number of valuable works which have since entirely dis-
appeared.
A century later than S. Benedict, an unknown hermit
called " the Master " prepared a Rule under which monks
were required to study until they reached the age of
fifty. 1 The Rule of S. Aurelian and S. Ferreol rendered
this regulation universal, and that of Grimlaicus identified
the character of the hermit with that of " doctor." * In
all countries where the Benedictine Orders flourished,
literature and scholarship exercised an abiding influence.
It is impossible, contends Montalembert, to name an
abbey famed for the number and holiness of its monks
1 Cassiod., Insl., ch. xxiii. * Mabillon, TVatV/, 43, 44.
1 24 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
which is not also noted for learning and for its school of
literature. The Benedictine monks during the four or
five centuries after the foundation of the Order certainly
appear to have held themselves faithful to the precept of
S. Jerome, " A book always in your hand or under your
eyes." (Nunquam de manu necque oculis recedat liber. 1 }
They also accepted very generally the example of Bede,
who said that it had been for him always delightful either
to learn, to teach, or to write. 8 Warton is authority for
the statement that in the year 790 Charlemagne granted
to the abbot and monks of Sithiu an unlimited right of
hunting, in order that they might procure from the skins
of the deer killed, gloves, girdles, and covers for their
books. He goes on to say : " We may imagine that these
religious were more fond of hunting than of reading.
It is certain that they were obliged to hunt before they
could read, and it seems probable that under these cir-
cumstances they did not manufacture many volumes. " *
Maitland, in referring to the original text of the conces-
sion, finds, however, that this has been misread by War-
ton. The permission to hunt, for the useful purpose
specified, was given not for the monks but for the ser-
vants of the monastery.
With all the great Benedictine monasteries, it was the
routine to institute first a library, then a scriptorium for
the manifolding of books, and finally schools, open, not
. only to students who were preparing for the Church, but
to all in the neighbourhood who had need of or desire for
instruction. The copies prepared in the scriptorium of the
texts from the library were utilised in the first place for
the duplicates needed of the works in most frequent
reference, but more particularly for securing by exchange
copies of texts not already in the library, and, in many
instances, also for adding either to the direct wealth of
1 Epist. ad Rustic. 8 Epist. ad Occam. Quoted by Mabillon, 80.
3 History of Poetry, dissert, ii.
The Benedictines of the Continent 125
the monastery (by exchange for lands or cattle) or to its
income by making sale of the works through travelling
monks or by correspondence with other monasteries.
The list of monasteries which became in this manner
literary and publishing centres would include nearly all
the great Benedictine foundations of both Britain and
the Continent. There was probably, however, a greater
activity during the period between 600 and 1200, in the
matter at least of collecting and circulating books, in the
monasteries of France than in those of Italy, Germany, or
Britain ; but more important even than Clugni, Marmou-
tier, or Corbie, in France, was the great Swiss abbey of
St. Gall, an abbey the realm of which reached almost to
the proportions of a small municipality. In the shade of
its walls, there dwelt a whole nation, divided into two
branches, the familia intus, which comprised the labourers,
shepherds, and workmen of all trades, and the familia
forisj composed of serfs, who were bound to do three
days' work in each week.
Within the monastery itself, there were, in the latter
half of the tenth century, no less than five hundred monks,
together with a great group of students. In Germany,
the most noted of what might be called the literary mon-
asteries during the ninth and tenth centuries were those
of Fulda, Reichenau, Lorsch, Hirschau, and Gandersheim.
It was in the latter that the nun Hroswitha composed her
famous dramas. In France, in addition to those already
specified, should be mentioned Fleury, St. Remy, St.
Denis, Luxeuil, S. Vincent at Toul, and Aurillac. In
Belgium, S. Peter's at Ghent was, during the tenth cen-
tury, the most important of the scholarly monasteries.
In England, in addition to the earlier foundations, already
referred to, of Wearmouth and Jarrow, St. Albans and
Glastonbury became the most famous. Before the
eleventh century, the literature that came into existence
from contemporary writers or reproductions of the works
126 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
of classic writers outside of the monasteries must have
been very trifling indeed. One of the most noteworthy
publications which emanated from St. Gall was the great
dictionary or Vocabulary bearing the name of Solo-
mon (Abbot of St. Gall and later, Bishop of Constance),
a work which was in fact a kind of literary and scientific
encyclopaedia. This manuscript, comprising in all 1070
pages, was put into print in the latter part of the fifteenth
century. 1 The records of the famous library of the mon-
astery have been brought together by later scholars, and
it is their testimony that the manuscripts contained in it
were among the most beautiful and accurate specimens of
caligraphy known. These St. Gall manuscripts were also
noted for their exquisite miniatures and illuminations.
The parchment used for them was prepared by the hands
of the monks, and they also did their own binding.' The
fame of Sintram, one of the most noteworthy of the copy-
ists, was known throughout all the countries north of the
Alps ; Omnis orbis cisalpinus Sintramni digitos miratur*
In the two schools attached to St. Gall, lectures were
given, in the latter half of the tenth century, on Cicero,
Quintilian, Horace, Terence, Juvenal, Persius, Ovid, and
Sophocles. 4 There was even said to be among the monks
of St. Gall a society established for the study of Greek,
called the Hellenic Brothers/ The Duchess Hedwig of
Suabia herself taught Greek to Abbot Burckhart II. when
he was a child, and rewarded him by the gift of a
" Horace " for his readiness in verse-making. The Abbot
later described in verse the embarrassment caused to him
by a kiss with which the learned Duchess had favoured
him." The Duchess had, when a young woman, learned
Latin from the Ekkehart who, later, became Dean of St.
Gall (Ekkehart I.), in partnership with whom she wrote
1 Montalembert, 147. 4 Ekkehart, Lib. Benedict., 345.
8 Digby, Mores Catkolica, x., 242. * Ibid. t 247.
8 Ekk. in Casstt., c. i., p. 20. Ekkehart, in Cassib., c. x.
The Benedictines of the Continent 127
a commentary on Virgil. A very charming account of
the tuition of this fascinating young Duchess is given in
Scheffel's famous romance called Dcr Treue Ekkehart.
Arx states that Ekkehart III. and IV. and NotkerLabeo
were familiar with Homer, Plato, and Aristotle, and made
from them Greek verses. 1
There is every evidence to indicate that there was
during the tenth century a knowledge of Greek in certain
monastery centres of South Europe, which knowledge,
two centuries later, had disappeared almost entirely, so
that the re-introduction into Italy of the writings of Greek
poets and philosophers in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries came as a fresh revelation. Mabillon contended
that while the monks made Holy Scripture the basis for
their theological studies, it is certain that they acquired
apart from these studies, a mass of other knowledge, and
notably all that they could gather with regard to physical
science. Thence it arose that in mediaeval works the
term scriptures, or even scriptures sacrce, does not always
mean the Holy Scriptures, but stands for all books which
treat of Christian or ecclesiastical truths or which are
useful aids in understanding the Word of God. 1 Mon-
talembert, commenting on this passage, goes on to. say
that to the monk of the tenth century no knowledge was
unfamiliar. Philosophy in its scholastic form, grammar
and versification, music, botany, mechanics, astronomy,
geometry in its most practical application, all of these
were the objects of their research and of their writings.
The curious poem addressed by the monk Alfano to
Theodoric, son of the Count Marses and at the time a
novice at Monte Cassino, is cited in support of this view.
The poem presents a detailed account of the daily occu-
pations in the great monastery, in which occupations
literary work holds a very large place. It also gives a
1 Arx, i. , 260.
9 Mabillon, Reflexions sur laRtpwise de M. VAbb^de la Trappe, i., 199.
128 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
summary of the scholastic pursuits carried on in the
monastery. 1
A service possibly even greater than that of the pre-
servation of literature and of the keeping alive of an in-
tellectual spirit, was rendered by the monks in the great
educational work carried on by them. In the Monasterium
Resbacense, in Brieggan, founded by Bishop Andoenus in
634, whose first abbot, S. ^Egilius, was a pupil of S. Co-
lumban's, the list of books in the scriptorium included
Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Terence, Donatus, Priscian, and
Boethius. Of later authors, the works of Beda, Isidore,
Aldhelm, the Gesta Francorum, etc. 3 By the time of
Charles Martel and the battle of Poitiers, there had been
much plundering and devastation of the monasteries and
convents, the effects of which remained even after the
Arabs were driven back. During the tumultuous reigns
of the Pepins, many clerics returned to or took up the
profession of arms, and devotion and literature were alike
neglected. 3 The biographer of S. Eligius, writing in 760
(under Pepin) says : *
" What do we want with the so-called philosophies of
Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, or with the
rubbish and nonsense of such shameless poets as Homer,
Virgil, and Menander ? What service can be rendered to
the servants of God by the writings of the heathen Sallust,
Herodotus, Livy, Demosthenes, or Cicero?" Fredegar,
called Scholasticus, wrote his chronicle in a Burgundian
monastery, about 600. He complains that " the world is
in its decrepitude. Intellectual activity is dead, and the
ancient writers have no successors."
The man to whom the revival of the literary interests
of the northern monasteries was largely due was the Arch-
bishop Chrodegang of Metz, 742-766, Chancellor of Charles
Martel, a Benedictine. He framed rules for the monas-
1 Giesebrecht. Quoted by Montalembert, vi., 150. 9 Denk, 260.
3 Denk, 270. * D'Achery, SpicilL, ii., 77 (Vita S. Eligii).
The Benedictines of the Continent 129
teries which restored discipline and infused new life. His
code was adopted throughout France, Italy, and Germany,
and even in England. A certain uniformity of instruc-
tion was thus secured in the monastery schools in sing-
ing, language, and script, which persisted almost until the
time of Alcuin, and the influence of which extended even
beyond the monasteries.
Mabillon tells a story of Odo, Abbot of Clugni (who
died about 942), who was so seduced by the love of
knowledge that he was led to employ himself with the
vanities of the poets, and resolved to read the works of
Virgil regularly through. On the following night, how-
ever, he saw in a dream a large vase of marvellous beauty,
but filled with innumerable serpents, which, springing
forth, twined about him, but without doing him any in-
jury. The holy man, waking and prudently considering
the vision, took the serpents to stand for the figments of
the poets, and the vase to represent Virgil's book, which
was painted outwardly with worldly eloquence, but was
internally defiled with the vanity of impure meaning.
From thenceforward, renouncing Virgil and his pomps,
and keeping the poets out of his chamber, he sought his
mental nourishment solely from the sacred writings. l
Honorius, the reputed author of the Gemma Animce,
writes in 1120: "It grieves me when I consider in my
mind the number of persons who, having lost their senses,
are not ashamed to give their utmost labour to the investi-
gation of the abominable figments of the poets, and the
captious arguments of the philosophers, which are wont
inextricably to bind the mind that is drawn away from
God in the bonds of vices and to be ignorant of the
Christian profession whereby the soul may come to reign
everlastingly with God ; as it is the height of madness to
be anxious to learn the laws of an usurper and to be
ignorant of the edicts of the lawful sovereign. Moreover,
1 Mab., Traitt* vii., 187.
9
130 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
how is the soul profited by the strife of Hector, or the
argumentation of Plato, or the poems of Virgil, or the
elegies of Ovid, who now, with their like, are gnashing
their teeth in the prison of the infernal Babylon, under
the cruel tyranny of Pluto."
Peter the Venerable, who was Abbot of Clugni in the
middle of the twelfth century, is referred to by the his-
torian Milner as a flagrant example of the ignorance of
the monastic authorities of his time. Maitland finds cause
for no little indignation with the hasty and ill-founded
statements of Milner, and devotes several chapters to an
account of the monastery of Clugni under the rule of
Peter, presenting very ample evidence of the literary
activity and scholarly interests of the abbot and of his
close relations with the intellectual leaders of his time,
leaders who were, with hardly an exception, monks and
ecclesiastics. " Who will venture to say," writes Mait-
land, " that Peter would have been pilloried as an ignorant
and trifling writer if Milner had happened to have any
personal knowledge of his history and his works and if
he had read in one of the long series of Peter's Epistles
the words, Libri et maxime Augustiniani, ut nosti, apud
nos auro preciosiores sunt" ' (Books, and especially those
of S. Augustine, are esteemed by us as more precious
than gold.)
The literary journeys of Mabillon were followed by
similar journeys on the part of Father Montfaucon and
Edouard Martene, who were both, like Mabillon, members
of the learned Benedictines of St. Maur. Mabillon's jour-
neys covered the period of the long wars following the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes (in 1685), including the
campaigns between France and England in the Low
Countries. It was probably due to these campaigns that
his researches did not include any of the monasteries of
the lower Rhine, of Flanders, or of Brabant. Martene's
1 Prov. Bib. Pat., x., 1179. * Maitland, 364.
The Benedictines of the Continent 131
journeys continued during a term of six years, in
which time he examined manuscripts in more than one
hundred cathedrals and at least eight hundred abbeys.
The materials collected were utilised first in the new
edition of the Gallia Christiana, and later, in five folio
volumes, comprising only matter previously unpublished,
issued under the title Thesaurus Novum Anecdotorum.
The account of the journey was printed under the title
Voyage Litte'raire de Deux Religieux Benedictins.
In 1718, Martene and Montfaucon were again sent on
their literary travels, and the later collections were issued
in 1724 in nine folio volumes, under the title Veterum
Scriptorum et Monumentorum Historicorum, Dogmati-
corum, Moralium, Amplissima Collectio. I specify these
works of the literary Benedictines because, although by
their date they do not properly belong to my narrative, they
form a very important authority for what is known of the
literary history of the monasteries. In some of the monas-
teries which had in earlier times been famous as centres of
literary activity, the libraries were found by Mabillon and
Martene in a grievous condition of destitution and dilapi-
dation. At Clugni, for instance, they describe the cata-
logue (itself six hundred years old), written on parchment-
covered boards three feet and a half long and eighteen
inches wide (grandes tablettes qu on ferme comme un livre\
containing some thousands of titles, but of the books
there remained scarcely one hundred. Martene was told
that the Huguenots had carried them off to Geneva. At
Novantula, of all its former riches Mabillon found but two
manuscripts ; and at Beaupr<, of the great collection of
manuscripts there remained but two or three ; while many
other famous libraries were in similar condition. The
destruction of so large a portion of the collection of manu-
scripts and of the earlier printed books was due to a
variety of causes. During the ninth century, the ravages
of the Danes and Normans brought desolation upon
132 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
a long list of the monasteries throughout Europe which,
could most easily be reached from the coast. In the
index to the third volume of Mabillon's annals, is given a
long list of the Benedictine monasteries pillaged or
destroyed by the Normans. The record begins Nor-
manni, monasteria et cis incensa, eversa, direpta. In many
of these visitations the loss of books must have been con-
siderable. When, for instance, the abbey of Peterborough
in Northamptonshire was burned by the Danes in the
year 870, Ingulph records the destruction of a large col-
lection of books, sanctorum librorum ingens bibliotheca?
Maitland points out that this expression probably stood
for really a great library, as when Ingulph speaks of the
destruction in 1091 of the collection of 700 volumes
belonging to his own monastery, he does not so describe
it. 9
Serious ravages were also made in Central Europe in
the tenth century by the Hungarians. Martene says that
after the battle on the river Brenta, the pagans advanced
to Novantula, killed many of the monks, and burned the
monastery with a number of books, codices multos con-
cremavere? The monasteries in Italy suffered primarily
from the Saracens, and those in Spain from the Moors.
The losses caused by the religious wars of the later cen-
turies were, however, according to Mabillon, much more
serious than those brought about by the pagans. The
Calvinists are held responsible for the destruction, among
others, of St. Theodore, near Vienna, of St. Jean, Grim-
berg, Dilighen, of Jouaire, and, most important of all, of
Fleury. 4 The ravages caused by fire were possibly greater
than those produced by war, many of the collections
having been kept in wooden buildings. Among the noted
monasteries which suffered in this way were Gembloux,
Lie"ge, Lucelle, Loroy, St. Gall, Fulda, Lorsch, Croyland,
1 Ingulph, Ap. Gale, ser., v. 23. 3 Voy. Lit., 252, cited by Maitland
Maitland, 229. 4 Voy. Lit., ii., 13.
The Libraries of the Monasteries 133
and Teano near Monte Cassino. In the burning of the
latter perished, as Mabillon was informed, the original
manuscript of the famous Rule of S. Benedict. Martene
speaks of the Church of Romans in Dauphiny as having
been ruined six times : by the Moors, by the Archbishop
Sebon, twice by fire, by Guigne Dauphin in the twelfth
century, and finally by the Calvinists. The library at the
time of his visit still contained a few manuscripts.
In view of these various classes of perils, it may well be
a matter of wonder, not that the monastic collections have
so largely perished, but that so considerable a number of
manuscripts has been preserved. The fact that so many
mediaeval manuscripts have escaped destruction by fire
and flood, and have been saved from the ravages of
invading pagans or of contending Christians, seems indeed
to be good presumptive evidence of the enormous activity
of literary production in the monastery scriptoria during
the centuries between 529 and 1450, the date of the
founding of Monte Cassino, and that of the invention of
printing.
The Libraries of the Monasteries and Their
Arrangements for the Exchange of Books. Geoffrey,
sub-prior of S. Barbe, in Normandy, is the author of a
phrase which has since been frequently quoted. In a let-
ter written in 1170 to Peter Mangot, a monk of Baugercy,
in the diocese of Tours, he says : " A monastery (claustrum)
without a library (sine armarid) is like a castle (castrum)
without an armory (sine armamentaria). Our library is
our armory. Thence it is that we bring forth the sen-
tences of the Divine Law like sharp arrows to attack the
enemy. Thence we take the armour of righteousness, the
helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, and the sword of
the spirit, which is the Word of God." l
Among the monasteries whose collections of books
were noteworthy and whose literary exchanges were not
1 Maitland, 200 (cited also by Wattenbach, see p. 112).
134 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
infrequently sufficiently important to be described as a
publishing or bookselling trade, may be mentioned the
following: Wearmouth and Jarrow, already referred to,
the book production in which was active as early as the
seventh century ; St. Josse-sur-Mer, where, in the ninth
century, the Abbot Loup of Ferrieres is reported to have
kept a depot of books, from which he carried on an
active trade with England 1 ; Bobbio in Lombardy, the
literary treasures in which have been largely preserved in
the Ambrosian library; the monastery of Pomposa near
Ravenna, whose library, collected by Abbot Jerome in
1093, was said to be finer than any other of the time in
Italy ; La Chiusa, whose collection rivalled that of Pom-
posa ; Novalese, whose library, at the time of the destruc-
tion of the abbey by the Saracens in 905, is reported to
have contained no less than 6500 volumes *; and Monte
Cassino, which under the Abbot Didier, a friend of
Gregory VII., possessed a very rich collection. This col-
lection was the result of the researches in Italy of the
African Constantine, who, after having passed forty years
in the East studying the scientific treatises of Egypt,
Persia, Chaldea, and India, had been driven from Carthage
by envious rivals. He came to the tomb of S. Benedict,
where he assumed the monastic habit, and he endowed
his new dwelling with the rich treasures collected in his
wanderings. 8 There are also to be mentioned Fulda,
whose library at one time surpassed all others in Ger-
many, excepting perhaps that of St. Gall ; Croyland, whose
library in the eleventh century numbered 3000 volumes ;
and many others.
The work of Ziegelbauer gives in detail the old cata-
logue of the library of Fulda and those of a number of
other abbeys. The estimates of the relative importance
of these collections are in the main based upon Ziegel-
1 Loup Ferrar, Epist., 62. 8 Mont., vii., 178.
8 Petr. Diac. Chron. Cassin Z., iii., chap. xxxv.
The Libraries of the Monasteries 135
bauer's statistics. There seems to be no question that
these monastery libraries carried on with each other an
active correspondence and exchange of books, and that
this exchange business developed in not a few cases, as in
that of St. Josse-sur-Mer, into what was practically a book-
trade. It is the conclusion of Mabillon, as of Montalem-
bert, that during the time in which Christian Europe
was covered with active monasteries and convents in
which thousands of monks and nuns were engaged in con-
stant transcription, books could hardly have been really
rare, at least as compared with the extent of the circle of
scholars and readers who required them.
Cahier points out that in addition to these great mon-
astery collections, there were libraries of greater or less
importance in nearly all the cathedrals, in many of the
collegiate churches, and in not a few of the castles.
Mabillon is of opinion that the prices of books during
the Middle Ages have been very much overestimated,
and that the impression as to such prices has been
largely based upon isolated and misunderstood instances. 1
Robertson speaks of the collection of Homilies bought
in 1056 by Grecia, Countess of Arizon, for two hundred
sheep, a measure of wheat, one of millet, one of rye, sev-
eral marten skins, and four pounds of silver, but Robert-
son omits to mention that the volumes so purchased were
exceptionally beautiful specimens of caligraphy, of paint-
ing, and of carving. Maitland points out that it would
be as reasonable to quote as examples of prices in the
nineteenth century the exorbitant sums paid at special
sales by the bibliomaniacs of to-day. " May not some
literary historian of the future/' he goes on to say, " at a
time when the march of intellect has got past the age of
cumbersome and expansive penny magazines and is rev-
elling in farthing cyclopaedias, record as an evidence of
the scarcity and costliness of books in the nineteenth cen-
1 Mabillon, Annal., book 70, chap. vi.
136 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
tury, that in the year 1812 an English nobleman gave
2260 and another ;io6o for a single volume, and that
the next year a Johnson's Dictionary was sold by public
auction for ^"200. A few such facts would quite set up
some future Robertson, whose readers would never dream
that we could get better reading, and plenty of it, very
much cheaper at that very time." *
It is, of course, the case that there has been such a
thing as bibliomania since there have been books in the
world, no less in the manuscript period than after the age
of printing. " The art of printing," says Morier, " is un-
known in Persia, and beautiful writing is, therefore, con-
sidered a high accomplishment. It is carefully taught in
the schools, and those who excel in it are almost classed
with literary men. They are employed to copy books,
and some have attained to such eminence in this art, that
a few lines written by one of these celebrated penmen are
often sold for a considerable sum. I have known seven
pounds given for four lines written by Dervish Musjeed,
a celebrated penman, who has been dead for some time,
and whose beautiful specimens of writing are now
scarce." '
Robertson quotes in support of his general contention
a statement of Naud6 to the following effect: " In 1471,
when Louis XI. borrowed from the Faculty of Medicine
in Paris the works of Rasis, the Arabian physician, he not
only deposited as a pledge a considerable quantity of
plate, but was obliged to procure a nobleman to join with
him as surety in a deed, binding himself, under a great
forfeiture, to restore the volumes." In the eighteenth
century, however, when Selden wished to borrow a manu-
script from the Bodleian Library, he was required to give
1 Maitland, 67.
2 Travels in Persia, ii., 582.
3 Gabr. Naude, Addit. a FHistoire de Lowys XL, par Commas, edit, de
Fresnoy, iv., 281.
The Libraries of the Monasteries 137
a bond for a thousand pounds. It does not, therefore,
follow that the reign of George II. was a dark age in
English literature. 1
Maitland points out one very important detail, which
served to give to some individual manuscript a value that
might, when later referred to, appear disproportionate to
the expense of the hand labour in its preparation. Under
the process of the multiplication of books by printing,
each copy of a given edition must of course be a fac-
simile of all the other copies, sharing their measure of
correctness, and equally sharing their blunders. In the
manuscript period, however, every copy of a work was of
necessity unique, and the correctness of a particular manu-
script was no pledge for the quality even of those which
had been copied directly from it. " In fact, the correct-
ness of every single copy could be ascertained only by
minute and laborious collation, and by the same minute-
ness of method which is now requisite from an editor who
revises the text of an ancient writer. . . . If a manu-
script had received such a collation at the hands of trust-
worthy scholars, and if it had been shown to present a
text of such completeness and accuracy as might safely be
trusted as copy for future transcripts, such a manuscript
would undoubtedly be valued at an exceptional price." a
Muratori speaks of books when presented to churches
being offered at the altar, pro remedio animce sues* and on
this quotation Robertson bases a further argument con-
cerning the high value of books. It was, however, the
ordinary routine that when a person made a present of
anything to a church, it was offered at the altar, and it
was understood, if not always specifically expressed, that
such offering was made either for his own spiritual benefit
or for that of some other person. It was doubtless the
case that gifts of books to a church were rare as com-
pared with the gifts of other things, for the simple reason
1 Maitland, 68. 2 Maitland, 70. 3 Muratori, iii., 836.
138 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
that nearly all the books that came into existence were
produced in the churches or in the attendant monasteries.
Delisle says that the loan of books from monastery
libraries was considered one of the most meritorious of all
acts of mercy. Against this view there are many examples
of the formal prohibition of the lending of any books out-
side of the walls of the monastery. Some communities
placed the books of their libraries under an anathema,
that is to say, they forbade under pain of excommunica-
tion either borrowing or lending. This selfish policy was,
however, formally condemned in 1212 by the Council of
Paris, the Fathers of which urged more charitable senti-
ments on these bibliophiles : " We forbid monks to bind
themselves by any oath not to lend books to the poor,
seeing that such a loan is one of the chief works of mercy.
We desire that the books of a community should be
divided into two classes, one to remain in the house for
the use of the Brothers, the other to be lent out to the
poor according to the judgment of the abbot." l
In support of his contention concerning the general dis-
appearance of literature during the Middle Ages, Robert-
son quotes the authority of Muratori to the effect that,
" even monasteries of considerable note had only one mis-
sal." * Maitland has no difficulty in showing that the
passage cited has been wrongly understood, and that the
generalisation based upon it is absurd. Muratori was re-
ferring to a letter of a certain Bonus, who was for thirty
years (1018-1048) Abbot of the monastery of S. Michael,
in Pisa. In this letter, Bonus gives an account of the
founding of the monastery, and says that when he came
to Pisa he found there, not a monastery, but simply a
chapel, which was in a most deplorable and destitute con-
dition, wanting vessels, vestments, bells, and nearly all
1 Montalembert, vi., 184.
* Murat., Antiq., iv., 789. (Quoted by Robertson as vol. ix. The work
contains but six volumes.)
The Libraries of the Monasteries 139
the requisites for the performance of divine service,
and having no service-books but a missal (nisi unum mis-
sale). The statement so worded is of course no evi-
dence that there may not have been several copies of
the missal. It simply shows that there were no other
books (such as texts of the Epistles or Gospels) for use in
the service. Bonus goes on to say, with commendable
pride, that in fifteen years' time " the little hut," as he
calls it, had expanded into a monastery, with suitable
offices and with a considerable estate in land, the single
tin cup had been exchanged for gold and silver chalices,
and in place of one " missal," the monks rejoiced in the
possession of a library of thirty-four volumes. It is dif-
ficult to understand how Robertson could have justified
himself in basing, on a careless version of a statement
concerning a missal in a single half-ruined chapel, a broad
and misleading generalisation concerning the general
absence of books from monasteries. The list of the library
later secured by the abbot includes copies of the Gospels,
the Psalms, and the Epistles, the Rule of S. Benedict, the
Book of Job, the Book of Ezekiel, five Diurnals, eight
Antiphonarii, three Nocturnals, a tractate by S.Augustine
on Genesis, a book of Dialogues, a Glossary, a Pastoral, a
book of Canons, a book entitled Summum Bonum, five
Missals, a book entitled Passionarum unum novum ubisunt
omnes passiones ecclesiastics (I give the wording from the
catalogue), and the Liber Bibliotkeca. " Bibliotheca " is
the term very generally applied at this period to the
Bible, and often used for a collection comprising but a few
books of the Bible. The catalogue shows that the good
Abbot had made a very fair beginning towards a monastic
library.
The letters of Gerbert, Abbot of Bobbio (who, in 999,
became Pope under the name of Sylvester II.), throw
some light upon the literary interests of that famous mon-
astery and of the time. He writes (about 984) to a monk
140 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
named Rainald (letter 130 of the collection) : "You know
with what zeal I seek for copies of books from all quar-
ters, and you know how many scribes there are everywhere
in Italy, both in the cities and in the rural districts, I
entreat you then . . . that you will have transcripts
made for me of M. Manilius' De Astrologia, Victorinus'
De Rhetorica, and of the Ophthalmicus of Demosthenes.
. . . Whatever you lay out I will repay you to the
full, according to your accounts." In letter 123, Gerbert
writes to Thietmar of Mayence for a portion of one
of the works of Boethius, his copy being defective.
In letter 9, written to Abbot Giselbert, he asks for assist-
ance in making good certain deficiencies in his manuscript
of the oration of Cicero, Pro Rege Deiotaro. In letter 8,
to the Archbishop of Rheims, he requests that prelate to
borrow for him from Abbot Azo a copy of Caesar's Com-
mentaries. In return he offers the loan of eight volumes
of Boethius. In letter 7, he requests his friend Airard to
attend to the correction of the manuscript of Pliny, and
to preparing transcripts of two other manuscripts. In
letter 44, to Egbert, Abbot of Tours, he states that he has
been much occupied in collecting a library, and that he
had for a long time been paying transcribers in Rome, in
other parts of Italy, in Germany, and in Belgium, and in
buying at great expense texts of important authors. He
asks the Abbot to aid in doing similar work in France, and
he gives a list (unfortunately lost) of the works for tran-
scripts of which he is looking. He is ready to supply the
parchment and to defray all the expenses of the work.
In other letters he makes reference to his own writings on
rhetoric, arithmetic, and spherical geometry.
These letters, for the reference to which I am indebted
to Maitland, 1 assuredly give the impression that even in
the dark period of the tenth century, there was no little
activity in certain ecclesiastical circles and monastic cen-
1 55, note.
The Libraries of the Monasteries 141
tres in the transcribing, collecting, and exchanging of
books, and not merely of missals, breviaries, or monkish
legends, but of literature recognised as classic.
Another letter, written a century and a half later, makes
reference to the practice of exchanging books or of using
them as pledges. A prior writes to an abbot in 1150:
" To his Lord, the Venerable Abbot of wishes health
and happiness. Although you desire to have the books
of Tully, I know that you are a Christian and not a
Ciceronian. But you go over to the camp of the enemy
not as a deserter, but as a spy. I should, therefore, have
sent you the books of Tully which we have, De Re Agraria,
the Philippics, and the Epistles, but that it is not our cus-
tom that any books should be lent to any person without
good pledges. Send us, therefore, the Noctes Attica of
Aulus Gellius and Origen on the Canticles. The books
which we have just brought from France, if you wish for
any of them, I will send you." The Abbot replies at the
end of a long letter : " I have sent you as pledges for
your books, Origen on the Canticles, and instead of Aulus
Gellius (which I could not have at this time), a book which
is called Strategematon, which is military." l
The custom of securing books by chains, which pre-
vailed with the libraries of all the earlier religious institu-
tions, did not originate with these. Eusebius mentions
that the Roman Senate in the time of Claudius ordered
the treatise of Philo Judseus on the Impiety of Caligula to
be chained in the library as a famous monument. There
appears to have been an early appreciation on the part of
certain of the monastery scholars of the importance of
indexes. Fosbroke quotes among others the example of
John Brome, Prior of Gorlestone, who, in the fifteenth
century, put indexes to almost all the books in his library.
From an examination of the catalogues of various of the
ecclesiastical libraries, Fosbroke arrives at the calculation
1 Maitland, 177.
142 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
that the proportion of the works contained under the
several main sub-headings was approximately as follows :
Divinity, 175; scholastic literature, 89; epistles and con-
troversial literature, 65 ; history, 54 ; biography, 32 ; arts,
mathematics, and astrology, 31 ; philosophy, 13 ; law, 6. '
This classification does not give any separate heading
for allegory, although this was a subject in which not
a few of the earlier monkish writers largely interested
themselves.
As an example of monkish allegorical literature, Fos-
broke mentions a work written in 1435, under the instruc-
tions of a cloth shearer in France, whose name he does
not give. The cloth cutter, being a great lover of tennis,
had written a ballad upon that game. When he was old,
he wished to atone for his early sins and frivolities, and
he secured the services of a Dominican monk, who wrote,
at his instance and expense, an allegory on the game of
tennis. The wall of the tennis court stood for faith,
which should always rest on a solid foundation, while in
the other conditions of the game the Dominican finds the
cardinal virtues, the evangelists, active and contemplative
life, the old and the new law, etc.
In the thirteenth century, Omons, who might be de-
scribed as the Lucretius of his day, wrote a work entitled
The Picture of the World, from which one could gather an
impression of the character of the philosophy of the early
Middle Ages. In the department of metaphysics, Omons
(using largely material borrowed from Thales, Anaxa-
goras, Epicurus, and Plato) described God as compara-
tively an idle being, and speaks of Him as having at the
time of creating Matter also created Nature. Nature exe-
cuted the will of God as an axe executes the will of the
carpenter ; it sometimes, however, through want or excess
of matter, produces deformities.
The Liberal Arts, Omons divides under the usual sep-
1 Fosbroke, 172.
The Libraries of the Monasteries 143
tenary arrangement, which is adopted as early as the fifth
century by Capella. Omons makes mathematics, however,
not a mere science of numbers, but the knowledge of
everything that is produced in any regular order whatever,
while rhetoric includes judicial verdicts, decretals, laws,
etc. The term " liberal " he applied only to an art
which explicitly appertained to the mind ; and therefore,
medicine, painting, sculpture, navigation, the military art,
architecture, etc., although in their theories as intellectual
as are mathematics and astronomy, were, because applic-
able to bodily purposes, denominated trades. The term
"philosopher " means only men versed in the occult
sciences of nature, and among the later philosophers
Omons held no one so eminent as Virgil. This was not
the Bard of Mantua, but an ugly little Italian conjurer,
who, during the tenth century, had performed various
feats of legerdemain.
When Peter of Celle had borrowed two volumes of S.
Bernard's works, he wrote to him : "Make haste and quickly
copy these and send them to me ; and according to my
bargain, cause a copy to be made for me, and both those
which I have sent to you, and the copies, as I have said,
send to me, and take care that I do not lose a single tittle."
Writing to the Dean of Troyes, he says : " Send me the
Epistles of the Bishop of Le Mans, for I want to copy
them " ; and, indeed, he seems to have a constant eye to
the acquisition and multiplication of books. 1
As to this commercium librorum, it would be easy, says
Maitland, to multiply examples. In a letter of the Abbot
Peter to Guigo, Prior of Chartreuse, he mentions that he
had sent him the Lives of S. Nazianzen and S. Chrysostom,
and the argument of S. Ambrose against Symmachus.
That he had not sent the work of Hilary on the Psalms
because his copy contained the same defect as the Prior's.
That he did not possess Prosper against Cassius, but that
1 Maitland, 441.
144 The Making of Books in the Monasteries
he had sent to Aquitaine for a copy. He begs the Prior to
send the greater volume of S. Augustine, containing the
letters which passed between him and S. Jerome, because
a great part of their copy, while lying in one of the cells,
had been eaten by a bear (casu comedit ursus), 1 a novel
difficulty in the way of preserving literature.
Peter of Clugni, known as Peter the Venerable, became
abbot of the monastery in 1122. Clugni, the Caput Or-
dinis, was at that time the most considerable of the Bene-
dictine foundations, and might, in fact, be termed the
most important monastery of its age. The correspond-
ence of Peter and of his secretary Nicholas, who was for
a time also secretary of Bernard of Clairvaux, forms an
important contribution to the monastic history of the
country and contain not a few references throwing light
on the literary conditions of the time. Nicholas had, in
addition to his business as the Abbot's amanuensis, what
Mabillon calls a librorum commercium with various per-
sons. It appears from his letters that he used to lend
books on condition that a copy should be returned with
the volume lent. Nicholas, while a diligent scribe and
an active-minded scholar, was discovered later, to be a
very untrustworthy person. He left Clairvaux with books,
money, and gold service that did not belong to him, and
also (which Abbot Bernard mentions as a special griev-
ance) with three seals, his own, the prior's, and the abbot's.
His further career was a checkered one, but does not be-
long to this narrative.
Abbot Peter of Clugni, writing to Master Peter of
Poitiers in 1170, lays some emphasis on the inadvisability
of devoting too much time to the study of the ancients.
" See, now, without the study of Plato, without the dispu-
tations of the Academy, without the subtleties of Aristotle,
without the teaching of philosophers, the place and the
way of happiness are discovered . . . You run from
1 Lib. i., ep. xxiv., Bib. Chin., 653.
The Libraries of the Monasteries 145
school to school, and why are you labouring to teach and
to be taught ? Why is it that you are seeking through
thousands of words and multiplied labours, what you
might, if you pleased, obtain in plain language and with
little labour? Why, vainly studious, are you reciting with
the comedians, lamenting with the tragedians, trifling
with the metricians, deceiving with the poets and deceived
with the philosophers ? Why is it that you are now tak-
ing so much trouble about what is not in fact philosophy
but should rather (if I may say it without offence) be
called foolishness."
Counsels of this kind give some indication at least of
the tendency in Poitiers, and doubtless also in Clugni,
to devote to the old-time poetry and philosophy some of
the hours which, under a stricter observance, should be
reserved for the Scriptures or the Fathers. The venerable
Abbot must himself have had some fairly comprehensive
knowledge of the literature he was criticising, and the
gentle satire of the phrase " deceived with the philo-
sophers " does not give one the impression of coming from
a clumsy-minded and ignorant monk such as Robertson
describes Peter the Venerable to have been.
A further evidence not only of comprehensive know-
ledge but of a liberal spirit, is afforded by the fact that
Peter gave to the West a translation (possibly the first)
of the Alkoran. This is the form used by Peter himself
for the Mohammedan scriptures. In a letter to S. Bernard,
he speaks of having had this translation prepared of a work
which had so greatly influenced the thought of the world
that it ought to be known to Europe. He says further
that the defenders of the true faith should familiarise
themselves with the contentions of the Mohammedan
heretics, in order to be able to refute these when the
necessity arose. 1
1 Lib. iv., ch. xvii., Bib. Clun., 843.
CHAPTER II.
SOME LIBRARIES OF THE MANUSCRIPT PERIOD.
THE following are some of the more important collec-
tions referred to in the records of the Middle Ages.
In Constantinople the Patriarch had a library in
Thomaites which was said to be of considerable import-
ance, and the works in it are referred to very often in the
transactions of the Synods. This collection was destroyed
by fire in 780, but was speedily replaced. Many of the
monasteries of the Greek Church possessed libraries, and
in some of these libraries were preserved the oldest manu-
scripts known to the world. Among the most important
of these collections was that contained in the monastery
of Mt. Athos, some of the treasures of which have been
preserved to the present day. During the time of Basilius
Macedo (867-886), much work was said to have been done
by the scribes of this monastery. 1
In Egypt it is claimed that until the conquest by the
Arab, there was a good deal of literary activity in the
monasteries, and in the monastery of S. Catherine of the
Sinai range were preserved some specimens of the earlie^
manuscripts, of which the Testament discovered by
Tischendorf is the most important example.
The Library of S. Giovanni in Naples, from which many
valuable Greek manuscripts were secured for the Royal
Library in Vienna, was not an old monastery collection,
but had its origin, according to Blume, with Janus Par-
1 Watt., 482.
146
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 147
rhasius. 1 The Augustin monks presented the collec-
tion in 1729 to the Emperor Charles VI., in order that
they might not be disturbed in their seclusion by the visits
of zealous scholars.'
The earliest of ecclesiastical libraries was probably that
collected by Bishop Alexander, in Jerusalem, at the begin-
ning of the third century. Fifty years later a library was
founded at Cesarea by Origen, which is described as
extensive and important. 8 Collections were also made at
an early date at Hippo, at Cirta, at Constantinople, and
at S. Peter's and the Lateran in Rome. All these earlier
libraries were apparently connected with the churches, and
in most cases places had been found for them within the
church walls. Clark quotes from a narrative of the perse-
cution of 303-304 a paragraph saying that the officers
" went to the church where the Christians used to assem-
ble, and spoiled it of chalices, lamps, etc., but when they
came to the library (bibliothecam), the presses (armarid)
were found empty." * From this reference we may conclude
that the several vessels and the books were in different
parts of the same building.
The library of S. Augustine was bequeathed to the
church of Hippo, and the collection was preserved within
the church building.
The regulations of the libraries in all the Benedictine
monasteries were based upon the Rule of S. Benedict (see
ante, p. 28). As Order after Order was founded, there
came to be a steady development of feeling in regard to
books, and an ever increasing care for their safe-keeping.
S. Benedict had contented himself with general directions
for study ; the Cluniacs prescribe the selection of a special
officer to take charge of the books, with an annual audit
1 Iter Ital., iv., 3.
2 Valery, Correspondence de Mabillon et de Montfauccn, i., 185.
3 J. W. Clark, Libraries in Mediaeval Periods, 12.
4 Clark, 13.
148 Books in Manuscript
of the collection, and the assignment to each Brother of a
single volume for his year's study. The Cistercians
and Carthusians provide for the loan of books to out-
siders under certain conditions, and the practice was
later adopted by the Benedictines. The Augustinians
prescribe the kind of press (armartum) in which the
books are to be kept, and both they and the Premon-
stratensians permit their books to be lent on receipt of
pledges of sufficient value. Even the Mendicant Friars,
who, under the original Rule of their Order, had restrained
themselves from holding possessions of any kind, found
before long that books were indispensable, so that their
libraries came to excel those of most other Orders.
Richard de Bury, in his Philobiblon, says of the Mendi-
cants : " These men are as ants, ever preparing their meat
in the summer, or as ingenious bees continually fabricat-
ing cells of honey. . . . although they lately at the
eleventh hour have entered the Lord's vineyard, they
have added more in this brief hour to the stock of sacred
books than all the other vine-dressers."
Clark points out that the word Library was used by the
Benedictines long before any special room was assigned in
the Benedictine House as a storage place for the books.
He is of opinion that until the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries the books were for the most part kept in the
cloisters, the only portions of the monastery buildings,
except the refectory and occasionally the califactorium
(warming-house), in which the monks were allowed to con-
gregate. The books so stored in the cloisters were shut
up in presses, which secured for them a certain amount of
protection. The term applied to these presses, armaria,
was that used by the Romans for their book-cases. The
monk charged with the care of the books took his name
not from the books themselves, as in later times, but from
the presses which contained them, and was generally styled
armarius.
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 149
In some of the monasteries where literary studies were
pursued with special ardour, the more persistent readers
and scribes were provided with small wooden compart-
ments or studies called carrells. In the book called the
Rites of Durham is given the following description of
these carrells : " In the north syde of the cloister, from the
corner over againste the church dour to the corner over
againste the Dorter dour, was all fynely glased from the
hight to the sole within a little of the ground into the
Cloister garth, and in every window iij Pewes or Carrells,
where every one of the old monks had his carrell, several
by himselfs, that, when they had dyned, they dyd resort to
that place of Cloister, and there studyed upon these
books, every one in his carrell, all the after nonne, unto
evensong tyme. This was there exercise every daie. ...
In every carrell was a deske to lye there books upon, and
the carrell was no greater than from one stanchell of the
wyndowe to another, and over againste the carrells
againste the church wall, did stande certain great almeries
(or cupbords) of waynscott all full of bookes (with great
store of ancient manuscripts to help them in their study)
wherein did lye as well the old anncyent written Doctors
of the Church as other prophane authors, with dyverse
other holie men's wourks, so that every one did studye
what Doctor pleased them best, havinge the Librarie at
all tymes to goe studye in besydes there carrells/' *
In the Customs of the Augustinian priory of Barnwell,
written towards the end of the thirteenth century, the
following passage occurs : " The press in which the books
are kept ought to be lined inside with wood, that the
damp of the walls may not moisten or stain the books.
This press should be divided vertically as well as horizon-
tally by sundry partitions, on which the books may be
ranged so as to be separated from one another : for fear
they be packed so close as to injure each other, or to
delay those who want them."
1 Quoted by Clark, 21.
150 Books in Manuscript
The catalogue of the House of the White Canons at
Titchfield in Hampshire, dated 1400, shows that the
books were kept in a small room, on shelves called
columpnce, and set against the walls. A closet of this kind
was evidently not a working place, but simply a place of
storage. By the beginning of the fifteenth century, the
larger monasteries had accumulated many hundred vol-
umes, and it began to be customary to provide for the
collections separate quarters, rooms constructed for the
purpose. The presses in the cloisters were still utilised
for books in daily reference.
In Christ Church, Canterbury, where as early as the
fourteenth century, the collection comprised as many as
698 books, a building for the library was put up in 1425
by Archbishop Chichele : the library at Durham was built
about the same time by Prior Wessyngton. That at
Citeaux, which was placed over the scriptorium, dates from
1480, and that of St. Germain des Prs from 1513. The
collection of the latter foundation was one of the earliest
in France, and as early as the beginning of the thirteenth
century, there is record of its being consulted by strangers.
At the time of the French Revolution, it contained 7000
manuscripts and 4900 printed books. 1
The Queen of Sicily, who in 1517 visited Clairvaux, one
of the two great Cistercian foundations in France,
describes the library as follows : " On the same side of
the cloister are fourteen studies, where the monks do their
reading and writing, and over these studies, one mounts
by a broad spiral staircase to the new library. This
library is 189 feet long by 17 feet wide. It contains 48
seats (banes) and in each bane four shelves (poulpitres)
furnished with books on all subjects, but chiefly theology ;
the greater number of the said books are of vellum and
are written by hand, richly storied and illuminated."
The phrase " written by hand," indicates that the Queen
1 Clark, 27.
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 151
was already acquainted with books produced from type,
some of which had in fact been produced in Italy as early
as 1464.
Another description, written in 1723 by the author of
the Voyage Litte'raire, speaks of " the fifteen little cells, all
in a row, where the Brethren formerly used to write books,
for which reason they are still called the writing rooms.
Over these cells is the library, the building for which is
large, vaulted, well lighted, and stocked with a large num-
ber of manuscripts, fastened by chains to desks ; but there
are not many printed books."
The provisions of the statutes affecting the library
imposed upon the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge,
were evidently borrowed directly from the customs of the
monasteries. The statutes of Oriel College, Oxford, dated
1329, present an example: "The common books (libri
communes) of the House are to be brought out and in-
spected once a year, on the feast of the Commemoration
of Souls (November 2d) in the presence of the Provost or
his deputy, and of the scholars (Fellows). Each one of
the scholars, in the order of seniority, may select a single
book which either treats of the science to which he is
devoting himself, or which he requires for his use. This
he may keep until the same festival in the succeeding
year, when a similar selection of books is to take place,
and so on, from year to year. If there should happen
to be more books than persons, those that remain are to
be selected in the same manner."
A statute of Archbishop Lanfranc, for the English
Benedictines, dated 1070, and based, as he tells us, on the
general monastic practice of his time, gives the following
regulation: "On the Monday after the first Sunday in
Lent, before Brethren come into the Chapter House, the
librarian [here called not armarius but custos librorum}
shall have a carpet laid down and all the books got
together upon it, except those which the year previous
152 Books in Manuscript
had been assigned for reading. These the Brethren are to
bring with them, when they come into the Chapter House,
each his book in his hand. Then the librarian shall read
a statement as to the manner in which Brethren have had
books during the past year. As each Brother hears his
name pronounced, he is to give back the book which had
been entrusted to him for reading ; and he whose con-
science accuses him of not having read through the book
which he had received, is to fall on his face, confess his
fault, and entreat forgiveness. The librarian shall then
make a fresh distribution of books, namely a different
volume to each Brother for his reading."
It would appear from this reference as if Lanfranc's
monks were under obligations to read through but one
book each year, which was certainly a very moderate al-
lowance. It is also to be noted that the books appear not
to have been distributed according to the preferences of
the readers, but to have been assigned at the will of the
librarian. There must certainly have been no little differ-
ence in the character and extent of the duty imposed of
reading through one book (even with so long an allowance
of time) according to the particular volume which the
custos saw fit to assign. The worthy Archbishop writes,
however, as if a book were a book and one as good for
edification or as fitting for penance as another.
It is evident that there were two classes of volumes,
one utilised for distribution for separate reading, and the
other reserved for reference and placed in a separate room
(first called armarium and later bibliothecd) where they
were fastened with iron chains to lecterns or reading-
desks.
In the various details concerning the distribution of
books, the arrangement of the lecterns for the chained
books, etc., the practice in the early colleges was evident-
ly modelled on that of the monasteries. The system of
chaining, as adopted in England, would allow of the books
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 153
being readily taken down from the shelves and placed on
the lectern for reading. One end of the chain was at-
tached to the middle of the upper edge of the right-hand
board or cover ; the other to a ring which played on a bar
which set in front of the shelf on which the book stood.
The fore-edge of the books, not the back, was turned to
the front. A swivel, usually in the middle of the chain,
prevented tangling. The chains varied in length accord-
ing to the distance of the shelf from the desk. 1
In a copy of Locke's Treatise on the Epistles, printed in
1711, Maitland found inscribed the following " advertise-
ment " : " Since, to the great reproach of the nations and
a much greater one of our Holy Religion, the thievish
disposition of some that enter into libraries to learn there
no good, hath made it necessary to secure the innocent
books, and even the sacred volumes themselves, with
chains (which are better deserved by those ill persons who
have too much learning to be hanged and too little to be
honest), care should be taken hereafter that as additions
shall be made to this library (of which there is a hopeful
expectation), the chains should neither be longer nor
more clumsy than the use of them requires, and that the
loops whereby they are fastened to the books may be
rivetted on such a part of the cover and so smoothly as
not to gall or raze the books while these are removed from
or to their respective places." *
Isidore, Bishop of Seville (c. 560-636), possessed prob-
ably the largest collection of books at that time in Europe.
It was contained in fourteen presses or armaria, each of
which was ornamented with a bust and inscribed with
verses. The series of verses concludes with the following
notice addressed ad interventorem, a term which may be
interpreted a talkative intruder :
Non patitur quemquam coram se scriba loquentem y
Non est hie quod agas, gar rule, per ge for as.
1 Clark, 42. 8 Maitland, 286.
154 Books in Manuscript
(The scribe allows no one to speak in his presence ;_
there is nothing for you to do here, chatterbox ; you had
better go outside) a motto which would serve very well
for a reading-room of to-day.
In Rome the Church had, from an early date, preserved
a collection of manuscripts which related more particularly
to church matters, but which included also some specimens
of the Roman Classics. In 855, Lupus, of Ferrieres, writes
to Pope Benedict III., begging for the loan of certain
texts from which to make transcripts. He specifies the
Commentary of S. Jerome on Jeremiah, Cicero de Ora-
tore, Quintilian, and Terence. 1
In the centuries following, however, as the Roman
Church sank into a condition of ignorance and strife, and
Italy was continuously upset by invasions, the library in
Rome and the collections which had been instituted in
certain churches outside of Rome were either seriously
lessened or entirely destroyed. As late, however, as
1276, a few valuable manuscripts were still to be found in
the church collections. Wattenbach speaks of the collec-
tion in Verona, in the library of the Town Hall, as one of
the most important of those in Italy in which old manu-
scripts have been preserved to the present time. Next in
importance among the older collections, he mentions
that of Hexham in England, which had been originally
collected by Bishop Acca in the year 700, and which is
referred to by Bede. a
With this is to be mentioned the library of York, which
is first described by Alcuin.*
Among the earlier important library collections was that
of the monastery of Vivaria, which had been founded
by Cassiodorus ; the writings were classified according to
their contents, and were arranged in a series of armaria.
1 Blume, Iter Ital., i., 41.
4 Bede, v., 20.
8 Alcuin, De Epp. Eborac, v., 532. (See p. 108.)
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 155
After the beginning of the seventh century, the most
noteworthy collection was that of Bobbio, a portion of
which remained as late as 1618, and was taken by Paul
V. for the Vatican Library. Another portion found its
way to Turin.
The literary activity of the monastery of Corbie has
already been mentioned, and the library there continued
in existence during the entire lifetime of the monastery.
After 1350 the monks appear to have themselves given up
the work of writing, fitienne de Conty is recorded as
one of the special benefactors of the library. He col-
lected books for it, and he employed special scribes to add
to the collection. 1
In Germany, the monastery of Reichenau was noted as
early as 821 for its excellent collection of manuscripts.
The librarian Reginbert prepared in 821 an exhaustive
catalogue of the collection. Not a few of the manuscripts
were, as appeared by the notes in the catalogue, the work
of his own hands. Of these manuscripts, which he had
prepared with so great zeal and labour, there have re-
mained but five sheets of one book, with a portion of the
catalogue.
Of nearly as early a date is the first catalogue of the
library of St. Gall, previously referred to ; in the cata-
logue of this there are beneath the titles various critical
notes. There is record of the loan of books to the Em-
peror Charles III., to Frau Rickert, and to Liutward,
Bishop of Vercelli. 8
In the monastery of Pomposa, in Lombardy, Abbot
Jerome brought together in the eleventh century (in spite
of certain grumblings on the part of the monks, the
ground for which is not clearly explained) a great collec-
tion of manuscripts. 3 A certain Henricus Clericus, writ-
1 Recherches sur VAncienne Bibliothtque de Corbie, par Leopold Delisle.
de F Institut> xxiv., 266-342.
3 Geseh. der Stifts-Bibliothek, Weidmann, 1841 (p. 486, Watt.).
3 Wattenbach, 486.
156 Books in Manuscript
ing in 1093, describing this collection to a friend, says
that in no church, not even in Rome, could so wonderful
a group of books be found. Henricus prepared a cata-
logue of the library, and at the close of the catalogue he
finds it necessary, as a matter of consistency, to apologise
for the abbot who had ventured to include in the collec-
tion heathen books. The presence of such books, known
at the time as libri scholastic!, was, however, by no means
exceptional in monastery collections, and in many of these
were to be found copies of Virgil, Ovid, and particularly
Cicero. While this was more frequently the case in Italy,
it occurred also in Germany. An inventory made in 1233
of the monastery of Neumunster, near Wurzburg, includes
in a special list the titles of a number of the Classics.
A similar separate catalogue of libri scholastici was
made in 1297 for the collection in the cathedral library of
Lubeck.
While the principal increase in the monastery libraries
had been secured through the work of scribes and through
exchanges, and occasionally through purchases, a con-
siderable proportion of the books came to them through
gifts or bequests. The gift that it was customary for a
novice to make on entering a monastery very frequently
took the form of books.
In 1055, tne priest Richlof, in placing his son with the
Benedictines, gave as an accompanying present a farm
and some books, and his mother gave a copy of a treatise
of S. Ambrose. 1
Lon Maitre says that in Fleury, each new scholar was
expected to present at least two codices. Towards the end
of the eleventh century, a noble cleric, who entered as a
monk the monastery at Tegernsee, brought with him so
many books that, according to the account, when placed by
the principal altar they covered this from top to bottom.*
1 Mon. Boic., vii., 40, cited by Wattenbach.
J Chron. Tfg. in Fez, Thts., iii., 3, 516.
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 157
In what was known as the Scottish Monastery, near
Vienna, there was kept in the thirteenth century a record
of gifts, which record includes a long list of presents of
books. In the latter part of the century, the monastery
appears to have degenerated, the library fell into disuse,
and the presents of books ceased. In 1418 the so-called
Scottish monks were driven out, and the foundation was
taken possession of by Germans. From this date the
record of gifts of books again began.
In 1453, the monastery received as a bequest from Dr.
Johannes Polzmacher his entire library. The library came
to include a considerable list of works on jurisprudence
together with a series of classics, including several copies
of Ovid. The latter appears to have been a special favour-
ite in the monastic collections. The books on jurispru-
dence were utilised for the profit of the monastery by
being loaned out to the jurisprudence Faculty of the uni-
versity. They were, it appears, also occasionally loaned
to the students for transcribing. In the chance of the
manuscripts suffering damage while out on hire, the bor-
rower was compelled to deposit an adequate pledge in the
shape either of money or other valuable property. 1
The monastery in Bobbio received books from wander-
ing Irishmen, as is indicated by the following inscription :
Sancte Coiumba, tibi Scotto iuus incola Dungal,
Tradidit hunc librum, quo fratrum cor da beentur.
Qui legis ergo, Deus prctium sit muneris ora?
(Holy Columba of Scotland, thy votary Dungal has be-
stowed upon thee this book, whereby the hearts of the brothers
may be gladdened. Do thou who readest it pray that God
may be the reward of my gift.)
1 " Die Kongregation der Schottenkloster, " Archaol Zeitschrift von
Otte. und Quast., i., 55.
1 Reifferscheid, quoted by Wattenbach, p. 489.
158 Books in Manuscript
In the monastery of St. Pere-de-Chartres the Abbot
Alveus, who died in 955, presented to S. Peter a book
Pro Vita Sterna. 1
Dietrich Schreiber, a citizen of Halle, who, notwithstand-
ing his name, is said not to have been a scribe, gave, in
1239, for the good of his soul, to the preaching Brothers
of Leipzig, a canonistic manuscript, with the condition
that either of his sons should have the privilege of re-
deeming the same for the sum of five marks, in case he
might require it in connection with his study of the law. 9
Robert of Lille, who died in 1339, left in his will to his
daughters a certain illuminated calendar, with the con-
dition attached that after their death the calendar was to
be given to the nuns of Chikessaund. 8
It is also the case that bequests securing an annual in-
come were occasionally given with the specific purpose of
founding or endowing monastery scriptoria and libraries.
The Abbot of St. Pere-de-Chartres ordered, in 1145, that
the tenants or others recognising the authority of the
monastery must take up each year for the support of the
library the sum of eighty-six solidos. 4
His successor, Fulbert, instituted a new room for the
collection and kept the monks themselves at work, so that
in 1367 a catalogue, inscribed in four rolls, gives the titles
of 201 volumes. 6
Also in Evesham, in Worcestershire, England, a statute
enacted in 1215 provides that certain tenths coming into
the priory should be reserved for the purpose of buying
parchment and for the increase of the library. During
the following year the amount available for this purpose
was five solidos, eighteen deniers. 8
1 Cod. 93, Scbrift. v. Merlet, s. 263.
* Schulte, in d. Wiener, Ixviii., 37 (Wattenbach, p. 490).
8 Arundel Cafa/., p. 22.
4 Guerard, Cartulaire de St. Pere-de-Ch., ii., 395.
6 Merlet, Catal. des Livres de VAbbaye de St. P.-de-Ch. au Xle Sticle.
Merryweather, p. 134. Dugdale, Monast. Anglican, ii., 24.
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 159
The account books of the monks of Ely showed that in
the year 1300 they purchased five dozen sheets of parch-
ment, four pounds of ink, eight calf-skins, four sheep-
skins, five dozen sheets of vellum, and six pairs of book
clasps. In the same year they paid six shillings for a
Decretal and two shillings for a Speculum Gregor. In
1329, the Precentor received six shillings and seven pence
with which he was instructed to go to Balsham to pur-
chase books. In the same year, four shillings were paid
for twelve iron chains (used, of course, for fastening the
books safely to the reading-desks). Between 1350 and
1356, the purchases appear to have included no less than
seventy dozen sheets of parchment and thirty dozen sheets
of vellum. 1
Prince Borwin, of Rostock, in 1240 presented the mon-
astery of Dargun with a hide of land, the proceeds of
which were to be used for the repairing and preservation
of the books in the library.* Adam, treasurer of the
Chapter of Rennes, in 1231, presented his library to the
abbey of Penfont, with the condition that the books
were never to be diverted from the abbey, and that
copies were to be lent only against adequate pledges.
In 1345, a library was founded in the House of the
German Brothers of Beuggen, near Rheinfelden, through
the exertions of Wulfram of Nellenberg. He directed
that all books left by deceased Brothers throughout
Elsass were to be brought to this library, and the living
Brothers were also earnestly urged to present their own
books to the same collection.*
The great library of the monastery of Admont was
catalogued in 1380 by Brother Peter of Arbonne. The
Chapter of S. Pancras, in Leyden, received in 1380,
1 Bentham, Church of Ely, p. 52, and Stevenson's supplement to the same,
p. 167.
9 Mecklenburger Urkundenbuch, i., 501.
8 Mone, Zeitsckr.f. Gesch. d. Obcrrh., viii., 308.
160 Books in Manuscript
through a bequest of Philip of Leyden, a collection of
eighty manuscripts, the catalogue of which has been
preserved. 1
As before indicated, the Monastery Reform, which was
instituted with the beginning of the fifteenth century,
exercised a very decided influence upon the interest in
books and upon the development of libraries. In Tegern-
see, where the once noted library had fallen into ruins,
the Abbot Casper (1426-1461) reorganised it, restored
such of the old manuscripts as were still in existence,
bought new codices, and put to work a number of hired
scribes. His successor, Conrad V., carried on the work
actively and purchased for the sum of eleven hundred
pounds heller no less than 450 volumes, in addition to
which he secured a number of gifts or devout presents.*
In Salzburg, the Archbishop Johann II. (1429-1441)
caused a new library building to be erected, and collected
for it many beautiful manuscripts. In the monastery of
Bergen, near Magdeburg, the Abbot Bursf elder (1450-
1478) organised a library, and utilised for his books an
old chapel. In 1477, the Prior Martin instituted a library
in Bordesholm, and Brother Liborius, who was a pro-
fessor in Rostock, gave over, in 1405, to this library, for
the good of his soul, his works on jurisprudence, with the
provision that they were to be placed in chains and to
remain forever in the reading-room. A catalogue of this
collection, which was prepared in 1498, and which contains
more than five hundred titles, has been preserved.' The
library of the Benedictine monastery of St. Ulrich, near
Augsburg, retained its early importance until the inven-
tion of printing, and in 1472, as before mentioned, a print-
ing office was instituted in connection with the monastery,
by the Abbot and the Chapter, in which active work was
carried on. Abbot Trithemius presented to the mon-
1 Watt., p. 495. Fez, Thes., iii., 3, 541.
8 Merzdorf, Bibliothek Unterh., N. S., 1850, p. 7.
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 161
astery of Sponheim, in 1480, the sum of fifteen hundred
ducats for the enlargement of its library.
As before stated, the Brothers of Common Life planned
their collections of books expressly with reference to the
service of the students in their schools, and these libraries
contained, therefore, a much larger proportion of books
in the vernacular than were to be found in other monas-
teries. In some of the Brotherhood Homes, the library
was divided into the collection for the Brothers and the
collection for the students. It was ordered that at least
once a year all books that were not out on loan should be
called in and should be inspected in the presence of the
Brothers.
Public Libraries. Of the libraries of antiquity, only a
single one, and that the latest in foundation, the Imperial
Library of Constantinople, continued in existence as late
as the Middle Ages. This library, founded in 354 by
the Emperor Constantius, was largely added to by Julian
the Philosopher. Under the Emperor Basiliscus, the
original library, which at that time was said to have con-
tained no less than 120,000 volumes, was destroyed
by fire. It was afterwards reinstituted by the Emperor
Zeno, the prefect of the city, Julian, having given
to the work his personal supervision. References are
made to this library in 1276, and again early in the
fourteenth century, when John Palaeologus was able to
present from it certain manuscripts (probably dupli-
cates) to the well known manuscript dealer Aurispa
of Venice. It is probable that the manuscripts of the
imperial collection had been to some extent scattered
before the fall of the city in 1453. Such manuscripts
as had escaped destruction during the confusion of
the siege of the city were hidden away by the scholars
interested, in various monasteries and in out-of-the-way
corners, from which they were brought out by degrees
during the following two or three centuries.
1 62 Books in Manuscript
Large quantities of these manuscripts found their way,
however, very promptly to Italy, chiefly through Venice,
and, as is described in another chapter, not a few of the
Greek scholars who were driven from the Byzantine terri-
tories, or who refused to live under the rule of the Turk,
brought with them into Italy, as their sole valuable pos-
sessions, collections of manuscripts, more or less import-
ant, which they used either as texts for their lectures or
for transcribing for sale.
The collections in the monasteries of the West, brought
together in the first place simply for the requirements of
the monks and restricted (at least in theory) to devotional
or doctrinal books, were, in large measure at least,
placed at the disposal of scholars and readers outside of
the monasteries, as the interest in literature came to ex-
tend beyond the class of ecclesiastics. With this exten-
sion of the use of the libraries, there came a natural
development in the range of the books collected.
Long after the monks or ecclesiastics had ceased to
exercise any control over the books or to be themselves
the only readers interested in their preservation and use,
the most convenient space for the collection was to be
found in the church buildings. Many of the collections
came, in fact, to be known as cathedral libraries.
In certain cases, books or money for the purchase of
books was bequeathed in trust to ecclesiastical authorities
with the direct purpose of providing a library for the use
of the general public. The cathedral Prior of Vercelli (in
Piedmont), Jacob Carnarius, who died in 1234, left his
books to the Dominicans of S. Paul. He made it, how-
ever, a condition of the bequest that under proper security
of deposit or pledge, the books should be placed at the
disposal of any scholars desiring their use, and particularly
of instructors in the Theological Faculty of the University
of Vercelli.
Petrarch's library was bequeathed in 1362 to the Church
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 163
of S. Mark in Venice, with the condition that the collec-
tion was to be for the use of the general public. The
books were neglected, and for some time disappeared al-
together, and it was only in 1635 that a portion of them
were recovered. The famous library of S. Mark dates from
1468, when Cardinal Bessarion presented to the city eight
hundred manuscripts, assigning as his reason for the gift
the generous hospitality extended by Venice to the refu-
gees from Constantinople. These books were to be for
the use of any qualified citizens of the city, a pledge of
double the value being deposited for any manuscript bor-
rowed. The library of Boccaccio, who died in 1375, was
bequeathed to the monks of the Holy Ghost in Florence.
This library was afterwards added to by the collection of
the famous theologian, Luigi Marsigli, and that of Niccolo
Niccoli.'
To Florence, which stood at the front of the intellectual
development of Italy, belongs the credit of instituting the
largest and most important of the earlier public libraries
of Italy. Niccolo Niccoli, one of the most energetic of
the scholarly book collectors, specified in his will, made
in 1430, that his manuscripts should be placed in the
Camaldulensian monastery of S. Maria, where his friend
Traversari was prior, and that these manuscripts were
to be available for public use. In 1437, however, the day
before his death, he added a codicil to his will, under
which the decision as to the abiding-place for his manu-
scripts was left to sixteen trustees.
He died in debt, however, and the books would have
been seized by his creditors if they had not been redeemed
by Cosimo de' Medici. Cosimo placed them in the Do-
minican monastery of S. Mark, the collection in which, in
1444, comprised four hundred Latin and Greek manu-
scripts. Cosimo gave much care to the further develop-
ment of this collection. As has already been mentioned,
1 Blume, Iter Hal., ii., 78.
164 Books in Manuscript
he used for the purpose the services of the great manu-
script dealer, Vespasiano. After the earthquake of 1453,
he caused the library building to be restored with greater
magnificence than before. The care of the library was
continued, after the death of Cosimo, by his son Pietro,
and the collection finally became the foundation of the
famous Laurentian library, which is in existence to-day.
Pietro took pains to send the Greek grammarian,
Laskaris, twice to the Orient to collect further manu-
scripts. From his first journey, Laskaris brought back no
less than two hundred works, of which eighty had not
heretofore been known in Italy. On his second journey,
Laskaris died.
The library suffered much during the invasion of
Charles VIII., but a large proportion of the books were
redeemed from the French invaders by the Dominican
monks, who paid for them three thousand gulden.
Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici (later Pope Leo X.) took
the collection from the monastery with him to Rome, but
it was afterwards returned to Florence by Pope Clemens
VII.
Clemens gave to Michel Angelo the commission to
build a hall for the library, but both Pope and architect
died before the work was completed, and the building
took shape only finally in 1571, the plan of Michel Angelo
having been carried out in substance.
The library of the Vatican passed through various
vicissitudes according to the interest or the lack of inter-
est of the successive popes, but under Pope Nicholas V.
(1447-1455) it became one of the most important collec-
tions in the world for the use of scholars. In 1471, Sixtus
IV. completed the library building and the rooms for the
archives and added many works, and it was under this
Pope that the use of the books was thrown open (under
certain conditions) to the general public.
Frederick, Duke of Urbino, is reported to have spent as
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 165
much as 40,000 ducats on the ducal collection in Urbino,
and Vespasiano rendered important services in the selec-
tion and development of this library. The books were, in
1657, under the papacy of Alexander VII., transferred to
the Vatican.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there was
very considerable interest in literary work in Hungary and
some noteworthy collections of manuscripts were there
brought together. The collectors in Italy found in fact
some of their richest treasures, particularly in manuscripts
in Greek, in the monasteries of Hungary and of Transyl-
vania. The cause of literature was much furthered by
King Matthias Corvinus, who brought together a very val-
uable collection in Ofen. He kept four scribes in Flor-
ence preparing works for the Ofen library, and thirty were
continually at work in Ofen itself. His wife, Beatrix, who
was a daughter of King Ferdinand of Naples, and a grand-
daughter of Alfonso the Good, is said to have exercised
no little influence upon the literary culture of the Hun-
garian Court. At her instance, many Italian scholars
were brought to Hungary, and their aid utilised in com-
pleting the library. The codices Budenses came to be well
known in the scholarly world, and secured fame both for
the beauty of their script and the richness of their adorn-
ment. Wattenbach says of these, however, that their
text is very largely inaccurate, giving the impression that
the transcripts had been prepared hurriedly and to order.
After the death of King Matthias, a number of his books
came into the possession of Emperor Maximilian, who used
them for the foundation of the Court Library of Vienna.
This was the only portion of the original Hungarian col-
lection which escaped destruction at the hands of the
Turks.
Among the public libraries in France is to be noted
that of Louis IX., which was open for the use of scholars,
but which, being limited almost entirely to devotional
1 66 Books in Manuscript
books, could not have been of any great scholarly service.
In the middle of the thirteenth century, Richard de Fur-
nival, chancellor of the Cathedral of Amiens, instituted a
public library, and himself wrote, as a guide for the same,
a work entited Biblionomia.
The libraries of S. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg have
already been referred to. 1
According to Savigny, there were before the time of
printing no university libraries in Italy. The stationarii
provided both instructors and students with such books
as were prescribed in the courses, and the demand for
others appears not to have been great. In Paris, on the
other hand, a collection of books for the use of the stu-
dents was instituted as early as 1270, the first benefactor
being Stephen, Archdeacon of Canterbury. Stephen gave
his books to the church of Notre Dame to be loaned to
poor students of theology. In 1297, Peter of Joigny, in
continuation of the same work, gave a collection of books
in trust to the university directly for the use of these
poor students of theology. The famous College of the
Sorbonne probably dates from 1253. The librarium of the
college was instituted in 1289, and it was specified that the
books were for the common use of the instructors and stu-
dents. The catalogue of this collection, prepared in the fol-
lowing year, is still in existence and contains 1017 titles. 2
Each socius of the college had a key to the library rooms
and was permitted to take guests in with him. The books
were all fastened to the wall or to the reading-desks by
chains, so that the risk of abstraction was not a serious
one. The statutes of 1321 prescribed that of every work
issued, one copy in the best form must be preserved for
the Sorbonne collection. This is probably the first stat-
ute of the kind having in view the preservation, in a pub-
lic collection, of copies of all works produced. It is to be
borne in mind, however, in the first place, that it could
1 ffistoire Lit. de la France, xxiii., 710-714. a A. Franklin, 224.
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 167
have had reference only to books produced under the di-
rect supervision of the college, and secondly, that there
was here no question of original literary production, but
merely of copies of the older works accepted as possessing
doctrinal authority. The books in this library (and prob-
ably in other similar libraries) which were not protected
by chains were called libri vagantes, and these could, un-
der certain restrictions, be loaned out. Wattenbach is of
opinion, however, that no books other than duplicates
were placed in this class.
Another library of importance was contained in the
College of Narbonne, which had been founded in 1316,
and which was itself a continuation of an earlier founda-
tion instituted in 1238 by the Archbishop Peter, at the
time he was about to take part in the Crusade. The
books were to be open for the use of students as well in
Paris as of Narbonne. 1
In the College of Plessis, the statutes of 1455 described
that all books, with the exception of the Missals, must be
chained, and that no unchaining should be permitted
except with the authorisation of the master of all the
bursars. In the College of the Scots, the loaning of books
outside of the building was absolutely forbidden.
To the College of the Sorbonne belongs the credit of
taking the initiative step in inviting the first printers to
Paris. In 1469, the prior and the librarian made them-
selves responsible for finding work and support for two
printers, called to Paris from Mayence. The fact that the
Prior Johann Heynlin was himself a German was doubt-
less of influence in bringing to the college early informa-
tion concerning the importance of the new art. 8 The
first book which was printed in Paris was the letters of
Gasparin of Bergamo, which appeared in 1470 (twenty
years after the perfecting of the Gutenberg press), arid
bore the imprint in cedibus Sorbonnce.
1 Franklin, i., 340. 2 Franklin, i., 257.
1 68 Books in Manuscript
In England, the foundation of the Franciscans in
Oxford took, early in the thirteenth century, active part
in furthering library facilities for the clerics and the
students. They appear to have had two collections, one
called libraria conventus, doubtless restricted to theologi-
cal and religious books, and one described as libraria
scholarium or studentium, which contained a number of
examples of the classics. It was to the Franciscans that
Bishop Grosseteste, who died in 1253, bequeathed all his
books.
The interest in literature of Richard de Bury, the friend
of Petrarch, has already been referred to. He was the
instructor of King Edward III., and exercised later, im-
portant official responsibilities. He served as a foreign
representative more than once, and was for a time chan-
cellor of the kingdom. At the time of his death in 1345,
he was Bishop of Durham. He had a passion for the col-
lecting of books, and with the exceptional advantages of
wealth, official station, and knowledge of distant countries,
he had advantages in this pursuit possessed by no other
Englishman of the time. It is said that the other rooms
in his house having already been crowded with books,
these were massed in his bedroom also in such quantities
that he could get to his bed only by stepping upon them.
His library was bequeathed to Durham College in Oxford,
which had been founded by himself. The college was
discontinued by Henry VIII., and the books were scat-
tered, not even the catalogue, which Bury had himself
prepared, having been preserved. In confiding his books
to Oxford for the use of the students, Richard gives vari-
ous earnest injunctions as to the proper respect in which
they should be held and the care with which they should
be handled. A reader who should handle the books with
dirty hands or while eating or drinking, could, in Bury's
opinion, be fitly punished with nothing less than banish-
ment. The collection of Durham College was to be open
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 169
not only to the use of the members of the college itself,
but of all masters and students in Oxford, but no books
of which there were no duplicates were to be taken out
of the building.
The earliest university library of Germany was that of
the College Carolinum in Prague, instituted by Charles
IV. The next in date appears to have been that of
Heidelberg, where as early as 1386 the Faculty of Arts
had a library for itself in addition to the general collection
belonging to the university. As before stated, there was
also a collection in the Castle which was open for the use
of all readers, students, citizens, or strangers. The uni-
versity library in Vienna dates from 1415, and that in
Erfurt from 1433. The town library in Leipzig had for
its origin a collection possessed by the Augustinian monks
in the monastery of S. Thomas, which collection v/as
thrown open for the use of the public in 1445. Additions
to the library were to be made only under the inspection
and supervision of the monastery authorities.
The most noteworthy library which had no connection
with any university was instituted at Alzei (in Hesse
Cassel) in 1409. Its founders were Johannes of Kirch-
dorf, Prebendary of the Cathedral of Worms and chaplain
of King Rupert.
The books were given in order that the clerics and
other scholarly people who belonged to the city of Alzei
" could use the same for entertainment and instruction,
and could spread among the community at large the
learning contained therein." l
In Hamburg there was, as early as 1469, a collection
comprising forty volumes of medical books, for the use
more particularly of the city physician and his assistant,
and also for general reference. In 1480 the burgermeister
Neuermeister left a considerable legacy for the founda-
tion of a city library. In Frankfort, the library of the
1 J. Monc, Im Anz. d. deutsch. Vorzeit, vi., 255.
170 Books in Manuscript
Carmelite monastery was taken over in 1477 for the use
of the city, in order that the " books could be made of
service for the enlightenment of the community to the
greater glory of God and of the Mother of God."
Collections by Individuals. Among the laity (out-
side, at least, of Italy) it was particularly the kings who
from time to time interested themselves in collecting
books. Pepin received from Pope Paul I., at his own
urgent request, a collection of books which included
certain Greek manuscripts. The latter could, however,
hardly have been of any particular service either to the
King or to any members of his Court. 1
The collection formed by Charlemagne has already
been referred to, and also the provision of his will, under
which, after his death, the books were to be sold and the
proceeds given to the poor. Charles the Bald, with whose
name it is not easy to associate intellectual activity, ap-
pears to have been a great collector of books. After his
death his library was, under his directions, divided be-
tween St. Denis, Compiegne, and his son. 1 It is recorded
of William the Great of Aquitaine, who died in 1030,
and who was the father of the Empress Agnes, that " he
had many books and read zealously therein." ' Count
Baldwin of Guines, who died in 1205, brought together a
collection of books which he had translated into the Ro-
mance tongue. Louis IX. of France was interested in the
idea of bringing together a collection of devout books,
and, although he did not live to carry out his plan, the
manuscripts which were left by him served for the scholar
Vincennes of Beauvais in the preparation of his great
encyclopedia.
Louis heard, during his crusade, of some sultan who
had caused to be prepared transcripts of all the noted
works of philosophy. This example incited the zeal
1 Codex Carolinus, Jaffe. Bibl., iv.,.JOl.
8 Watt., p. 501. 3 Adem. Caban., iii., 54.
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 171
of Louis, who gave directions that all the "authentic,
useful, and devout books'* which were to be found
within his realm were to be transcribed, and the tran-
scripts placed in the Royal Library. The collection was,
however, not allowed to remain complete, as in his
will Louis directed that the books should be divided
between the preacher monks and the Minorites of Paris,
the Abbey Royaumont, and the Dominican monks of
Compiegne. 1
John, Duke of Berry, son of the Good King John, and
brother of King Charles V., found opportunity, even
during the troublous times which culminated with the
battle of Poitiers and the imprisonment of his father, to
bring together a noteworthy collection of books. It was
this collection that made the beginning of the library of
the Louvre, instituted by Charles V., a library for which
Gilles Mallet prepared in 1373 a very complete catalogue.
Barrois published in 1830, in Paris, a work devoted en-
tirely to a description of the books collected by Prince
John and his brother Charles.
David Aubert, whose translation of the History of the
Emperors was published a in 1457, makes, in the preface
to this history, special mention of the literary tastes of
Philip, Duke of Burgundy. He says that Philip made a
daily practice of having read to him ancient histories and
that he kept employed a great number of skilled transla-
tors, learned historians, and capable scribes who were
busied in adding to his great library. This collection of
Philip appears later to have been scattered as there is no
record of its preservation.
The Duke of Bedford found time, between his frequent
campaigns, to interest himself in the collection of manu-
scripts, and more particularly of works which were beauti-
fully illuminated. He purchased, for 1200 francs, a
portion of the library of Charles V., which had been
1 Watt., p. 502. 2 Barrois, iv., 2.
172 Books in Manuscript
captured, and, these books being taken to Oxford, finally
found place in the Bodleian collection.
Philip of Cleves, who died in 1528 and who was con-
nected with the Burgundy House, shared the passion of
his relatives for magnificent manuscripts.
An inventory of Margaret, Duchess of Brittany, con-
tains the descriptive titles of eleven books of devotion
and four romances, " all bound in satin." '
The name of Anne of Brittany, the wife of King
Charles VIII., and later of Louis XII., has long been
famous in connection with her fondness for books of
devotion and with the great collection which she suc-
ceeded in making of these. An inventory of 1498 gives
the titles of 1140 books as belonging to Anne's collec-
tion.'
In Italy, it was not until the time of Petrarch that there
came to be any general interest in the collection of books.
This interest was naturally associated with the great
Humanistic movement of which it may be considered as
partly the cause and partly the effect. The development
of literary interests in Italy during the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries will be considered in the chapter on
the Renaissance.
In Germany, the collections outside of the monasteries
appear to have been less important than in Burgundy and
in France, the difference being probably in part due to
the narrower cultivation of the German noblemen, and
probably also in part to their smaller resources. In fact,
the more important collections do not appear to have
been in the possession of the nobility at all, but to have
come into existence through the public spirit of citizens
of lower degree. The library of two hundred volumes
brought together as early as 1260 by Hugo Trimberg, a
schoolmaster of St. Gangolf, has already been referred to.
1 Bibliothlq-ue d. rcole de Ckartres, serie v., iii., 45.
2 Le Roux d. Lincy, in the Bibl. de Lee. des Ch. t serie iii., i., 151.
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 1 73
Duke Ludwig of Brieg is described as having had as
early as 1360 a considerable collection of books, and as
having had written, in 1353, by some scribe whose name
has not been preserved, the Hedwig legends.
The Electors of the Palatinate interested themselves
in the formation of libraries, having possibly been in-
fluenced to some extent by their relations with their
neighbours on the other side of the Rhine. Authors
such as Matthias of Kemnat and Michel Behaim worked
at the instance of the Electors and under pay from
them. The books of Kemnat and Behaim were either
originally written in German, or were promptly trans-
lated into German for the use of the Electors and of
their wives. A number of books in this series are also
ornamented with pictures, but, according to the descrip-
tions, the art work in these illustrations was much inferior
to that done at the same time in Burgundy.
The most important group of the Heidelberg manu-
scripts was collected by Ludwig III., who died in 1437.'
His daughter Mechthild, whose first husband was the
Count Ludwig of Wurtemberg, and whose second, the
Archduke Albrich, retained in her widowhood in her
castle at Rotenburg a collection of ninety-four volumes of
the mediaeval poets, whose works were written in the ver-
nacular. 3 Ulbrich of Rappoldstein kept two scribes
engaged for five years in transcribing the Parsival, and
the cost of the work amounted to .200.
It is apparent from the preceding sketch that the de-
velopment of literature and the circulation of books during
the Middle Ages were considerable, notwithstanding the
serious difficulties there were to contend with during the
ten centuries between the fall of the Roman Empire of
the West and the time of the invention of printing.
1 Wilkens, Gesch. d. Heidelb. Biichersammlungen.
5 Martin, Erzherzogin Mechthild, in Der Zeitschrift fur Gesch. Fret-
burgs. 1871.
174 Books in Manuscript
Under the " Peace of the World " secured by the
imperial rule, there had come to be an active literary pro-
duction and a development of literary interests through-
out the community which called for a wide distribution
and a general use of books. There was available for the
use of publishers a great list of accepted classics, Greek
and Latin, and there were also various epochs during
which there came into existence works by contemporary
writers of distinctive importance, many of which have
been preserved as classics for future generations.
The publishers of this period had a convenient and
inexpensive material to use for the making of books,
and they had available for book production the labour
of skilled and inexpensive scribes, chiefly slaves. The
well established means of communication throughout the
Empire enabled the publishers of Rome and Massilia
and other literary centres to keep open connections with
cities in the farthest districts of the realm, and there
is adequate evidence of a well organised trade in the dis-
tribution of books over almost the entire civilised world,
a trade which continued active until the latter part of the
fourth century.
With the fall of the Empire of the West and with the
destruction of so much of the civilised organisation and
machinery which had been dependent upon Roman rule,
the bqok trade, or, at least, the trade outside of Italy,
practically disappeared. There remained, however, with
certain classes a knowledge of the classics and an interest
in their preservation, and there remained also in the monas-
teries the knowledge and practice of writing and the col-
lections of the works of the early Church Fathers, the
multiplication of which, for the use of the increasing num-
ber of priests, called for continued labour on the part of
the clerical scribes.
When the work of writing came to be instituted,
particularly in the Benedictine Order, as a part of the
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 1 75
regular routine of the life of a properly ordered mon-
astery, and when such work came to be accepted as a
part of the daily or weekly services rendered by the
monks, the preservation of the art of writing and the
preservation of the manuscripts, the existence of which
depended upon this continued knowledge, were assured.
For centuries after 476, such literary vitality as there
was depended practically upon these Benedictine monas-
teries. After the tenth century, we find a wider literary
interest throughout the community, and in certain Courts
and circles of nobility, literature began to be accepted as
fashionable, and an interest in literature to be accepted as
part of the proper outfit of a gentleman.
The second stage, therefore, in the development of the
interest in books which secured the multiplication of
enough copies of many of the older books to prevent them
from passing out of existence, was in the formation of the
collections by princes and nobles, collections which were,
as we have noted, usually under the charge of clerical
scribes.
The third and more important stage of development
came with the recognition, on the part of the newly
founded universities of Bologna, Paris, Prague, Heidel-
berg, and Oxford, of the fact that the work of higher
education required the use of collections of books for the
reference of instructors and for the direct use of the
students. With the instituting in the universities of a
class of scribes (stationarii, librarii) recognised as univer-
sity officials, a recognition which carried with it certain
privileges and protection, and which went far to offset
the hampering restrictions of university and ecclesiastical
supervision, the book production of Europe took a more
assured form.
The fourth step in the extension of literary interests
was taken by the towns-people, partly at the instance of
priests who were themselves sprung from the people, and
176 Books in Manuscript
partly under the^influence of students returning from uni-
versity work to their native towns ; and collections of
books were made for the use of the towns-people, while
libraries, originally planned only for the work of the
monasteries and for the use of clerics, were thrown open
to students generally. There appear to have been in
the manuscript period and in the earlier ages of printing
a larger number of such town libraries and a larger extent
of literary interest among the citizen class in Germany
than in either France or England.
In Italy, the development of literary interests and of
literary production worked from an early date much more
outside of church organisations than was the case either
in Germany or in France.
In such centres of literary activity as Florence, Milan,
Padua, Rome, and later, Venice, the production of the
classics and the multiplying of the books of the Italian
writers themselves was carried on at the instance and to a
large extent with the money of the wealthier citizens,
citizens who in many cases held no official positions what-
ever. The intellectual life of Italy was, however, from an
early date, very largely influenced by the thought and the
learning that came to it from the Greeks of Constantino-
ple, an influence which was increasing in importance for
a quarter of a century before the fall of the Greek Em-
pire, and which, after 1453, was naturally still more ex-
tended and emphasised by the large immigration of Greek
scholars flying from Turkish rule and bringing with them
Ihe literary treasures of the East. It was this invasion of
Greek thought and the restoration of the knowledge of
the poetry and philosophy of classic Greece, which gave
the immediate impetus to the great intellectual movement
known as the Renaissance.
As the Renaissance movement took hold of the imagi-
nation of Italian scholars, it found ready for its use the
new invention of printing, and through the presses of
Some Libraries of the Manuscript Period 177
Aldus and his associates, the thought of the Old World,
reshaped with the knowledge of the fifteenth century,
gave a fresh inspiration to the intellectual life of Europe.
In Germany, where the Renaissance movement also in-
fluenced the intellectual life of the time, a more important
impetus to the intellectual activity came with the work
of the Reformation. The printing-press made the teach-
ings of Luther and his associates available for the widest
popular distribution, and the towns-people and villagers
who bought from the book peddlers the tracts containing
the vigorous statements of the Reformers, and who bought
also the answering arguments of the defenders of the
Roman Church, were not merely wrestling with a religious
or theological issue, but were furthering the general
education of the community and were helping to lay
the foundation of the book trade of the future. From
the earliest date of the printing-press, it was the case that
there was in Germany a larger distribution of books,
printed in the vernacular, among what one may call (for
purposes of classification) the lower orders of the com-
munity, than was the case in either Italy, France, or Eng-
land. The development of the relation between literature
and the community, which came after the establishment
of the new art of printing, belongs, however, to a later
chapter.
CHAPTER III.
THE MAKING OF BOOKS IN THE EARLY UNIVERSITIES.
THE first revival of the long slumbering trade in
manuscripts took place in Italy, the cradle of the
universities. Although after the breaking down of
the old civilisation of the Western Empire, Italy had
suffered more through invasions and devastations than
any other country of Europe, it had nevertheless succeeded
in preserving a certain continuity of cultivation and some
remnants of learning or germs of intellectual life, from
which germs there came again into growth an intellectual
development for Europe. For the purposes of this study,
I am concerned with the history of the early universities
of Europe only in connection with their relations to the
production of books. I propose, therefore, to give a brief
description of the organisation and the character of the
book-trade that came into existence in one or two of the
representative university towns, with some reference to
the general influence of the first universities upon the
development and the distribution of literature.
As has been indicated in the introductory chapter, it
is my understanding that, with the beginning of the
thirteenth century, the responsibility for the preservation
and the development of the intellectual life of Europe,
for the mental training of the increasing proportion of
the community which was conscious of intellectual ex-
istence, and for the transmission to the existing genera-
tions of what had been preserved of the thought and
178
Books in the Early Universities 179
learning of the past, was transferred from the monasteries
and the ecclesiastical schools to the newly organised
universities.
This change meant among other things that the control
and direction of education no longer rested with the
ecclesiastics, that the class of scholars was no longer limited
to the clerics, and that there were other directions in
which scholarly achievement was to be sought than those
heretofore marked out by the Church. I do not mean to
say that after the beginning of the thirteenth century,
when the schools of Bologna and Paris had developed
into universities, the Church consciously abandoned the
control of education, a control which had rested in its
hands for eight centuries. The representatives of the
Church authority themselves took an important part in
bringing into existence not a few of the universities, and
in connection with the organisation of the theological
Faculties and in other ways, the popes and the bishops
retained for a long series of years an important and
abiding influence over much of the university work.
Heretical doctrines, or what Rome believed to be hereti-
cal doctrines, were taught not infrequently in university
lecture-rooms, but the authority on the part of the Church
to interfere with such teaching, and to secure the with-
drawal of the license from the lecturer, was continually
claimed and was frequently enforced. The fact remained,
however, that the general direction and control of the
work of higher education rested no longer with ecclesias-
tics but with laymen. Of the four great divisions of uni-
versity instruction, Theology, Philosophy (or Art), Law,
and Medicine, the first remained of necessity under the
direction of the Church, while in the supervision of the
second the Church undertook to exercise an influence
which of necessity varied greatly from time to time ac-
cording to the institution and according also to the char-
acter of the particular popes and bishops. The third
180 Books in Manuscript
and fourth Faculties were, however, entirely independent
of ecclesiastical influence, and the mere fact of the ex-
istence outside of the Church of an important division of
learning and of a great body of scholars must have had
a powerful effect on the imagination of communities
which had for so many generations been accustomed to
look to the Church as the source or as the interpreter of
all knowledge.
The principal authorities on the rise and the general
history of the earlier universities are Denifle, Laurie,
Mullinger, and Compayre". The titles of their several
works, on which have in the main been based such state-
ments or conclusions as are expressed in the following
pages, are given in full in the bibliography. The details
concerning the work of the university scribes and the
manuscript dealers are chiefly derived from the works of
Wattenbach and KirchhoftV
It is to be noted that several centuries before the insti-
tution in Christian Europe of the first of the universities,
and at a time when, outside of a few monastic scriptoria,
the interest in literature in Christian states was almost
non-existent, in the countries which had accepted the
faith of Mahomet a system of higher education had been
effectively organised, and in connection with the intel-
lectual activity of the universities and libraries of Bagdad,
Alexandria, Cairo, and Cordova, there had been a very
considerable production of literature in the departments
of jurisprudence, philosophy, and science. In fact, the
first knowledge that came to the Europe of the Middle
Ages concerning Greek thought and Greek literature was
brought to it through Arabian scholars, and it was by
means of the lecturers of Cordova that the doctrines of
1 The great work of Rashdall on the Universities of the Middle Ages was,
unfortunately for me, published too late in 1895, to be available for use in
the preparation of this chapter. It seemed proper, however, to include iU
title in my bibliography.
Books in the Early Universities 181
Aristotle were made known to the philosophers of Paris.
The list of the scholarly writers who were associated
during the eleventh and twelfth centuries with the great
Arabian schools is a long one, and the books produced
by them included not a few works which had an abiding
influence on the thought of Europe. I have, however,
no information concerning the methods employed for
the manifolding and distribution of the books, and a con-
sideration of them does not properly find place in this
study. The names of Avicenna (d. 1027) and Averrhoes
(d. 1 198) will be recognised as representative of the class
of authors referred to, the men who, by their translations
of Hippocrates, Galen, Aristotle, and other Greek classics,
recalled what Laurie calls the university life of the
Greeks. 1
In explaining how the universities are to be distin-
guished from the cathedral schools or the Benedictine
schools out of which they were developed, Laurie gives
the following definition of the first universities : " They
were specialised schools, as opposed to the schools of Arts,
and they were open to all, without restriction, as studia
publica or generalia, as opposed to the more restricted
ecclesiastical schools, which were under a Rule." a
For the older institutions, it is not practicable to fix
with any precision the date of their beginning, and no
year can be named in which they first exercised the func-
tions of a university. The first university that was form-
ally founded was that of Prague, which dates from April,
1348. Bologna, Paris, Padua, Oxford, and Cambridge
were not founded but grew, that is, were developed under
special influences out of pre-existing schools. The first
European school which, while never developing into a
university, did do specialised university work, was that of
Salerno, which may be said to have initiated for Europe
systematised and scientific instruction in medicine. Fans
1 Laurie, 69. Laurie, 101.
1 82 Books in Manuscript
Medicines was the name given to it by Petrarch. The
school of Salerno has one special claim to commemoration
in any general sketch of the intellectual life of Europe,
Its foundation and early development were due to the
famous Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, the
monastery which had been established by S. Benedict (in
529), and the scriptorium in which was the creation of
Cassiodorus. Salerno, which was later affiliated with the
University of Naples, fills, therefore, the place of a con-
necting link between the educational work of the old-time
Benedictine scriptorium and the scientific activities and
intellectual life of the new university system of Europe.
Indeed, through that wonderful old man, Cassiodorus, at
once Greek, Roman, and Goth, statesman, author, and
monk, the chain of continuity is borne directly back to
the classic world of imperial Rome.
The study of letters in Monte Cassino had come to
include medicine, and the writings of Galen and Hippo-
crates were transcribed in the scriptorium, and were later
made the first text-books in the medical school established
by the monks at Salerno. Charlemagne is said to have
interested himself in the school and in 802 to have ordered
certain Greek medical treatises to be translated for its use
from the Arabic into Latin. 1 The man who finally devel-
oped the monks' medical school (then known as the civitas
Hippocratica) into a great and specialised studium pub-
licum was, however, Constantine, a Carthaginian Christian.
His work was done between the years of 1065 and 1087,
under the special favour and patronage of Robert Guis-
card, who was at that time ruler of Apulia. In the time
of Robert the school contained some women students,
probably the earliest in Europe. There are references
also at this period to several female writers on medical
subjects. Salerno dates as a privileged school from 1 100.
The University of Naples, with which the medical college
1 Compayre, 112.
Books in the Early Universities 183
of Salerno was later affiliated, was instituted by Frederick'
II. (the "Wonder of the World") in 1224. Notwith-
standing the brilliancy of the Court of Frederick and the
feverish energy of the monarch himself, the literary work
done in his university was not of abiding importance, and
it is Bologna which serves as the type of the earlier uni-
versities of Europe, and which divides with the University
of Paris the honour of having served as a general model
for later foundations.
The University of Bologna lays claim to be the oldest
in Europe. According to one tradition it was founded by
Charlemagne about 800, but the celebration in 1890 of its
thousandth anniversary indicates that its modern historians
have contented themselves with a somewhat later date.
The jurist Irnerius, who gave instruction in civil law in
Bologna between nooand 1135, was able to do for the
school of law a very similar work to that done by Con-
stantine a century earlier for the school of medicine at
Salerno, and under his direction the school became a
studium publicum or generale. Bologna dates as a privi-
leged studium from 1158, when the Vniversitas secured a
formal recognition from Frederick I. Tiraboschi speaks
of the university as having been in a flourishing condition
as early as the twelfth century, and in 1224, when the
Emperor Frederick II., in his zeal on behalf of his newly
founded university at Naples, undertook to suppress that
of Bologna, the latter is reported to have had no less than
10,000 students. Its great jurist of that time was Azo or
Azolinus. The edict was revoked in 1227, an d the schools
of the university were, in fact, never closed. The Uni-
versity of Padua dates from about 1215, and that of
Vercelli (in Piedmont) from 1228. In 1248, Innocent IV.
established the University of Piacenza, with privileges
similar to those enjoyed by Paris and Bologna. Pisa
dates from about 1340, Florence from 1321, and Pavia
from 1362. Galeazzo Visconti secured for Pavia from
184 Books in Manuscript
Charles IV. a charter with the privileges of Paris, Bologna,
and Oxford. Notwithstanding the competition of so
many rival institutions, and the special favour shown from
time to time to certain of these by one prince or another
(as in the case of the Emperor Frederick to Naples),
Bologna not only retained its pre-eminence among the
universities of Italy, but secured for itself a great reputa-
tion throughout Europe, attracting students of every
nationality. In Bologna, Padua, and Pavia special atten-
tion was given to jurisprudence, while the school of
Florence was noted for the liberal remuneration granted
to its instructors in rhetoric and in belles-lettres. In this
respect, however, Florence stood almost alone. The in-
structors in literature, classed as Humanists, were obliged
for the most part to seek appreciation and remuneration
not in the universities, but at the Courts of the cultivated
princes and in the palaces of the more intellectual of the
noblemen, and, fortunately for the literary life of Italy,
literature had, during the fourteenth and fifteenth cen-
turies, a popularity and acceptance among princes and
nobles to an extent not known elsewhere in Europe.
While the university life of Italy dates from the close
of the twelfth century, it is not until the beginning of the
thirteenth century that we find any trace of regulations
concerning the production and distribution of manuscripts.
It appears that for a term of perhaps a quarter of a cen-
tury there had been in Bologna and in the other older
university towns a certain amount of interest in the pro-
duction, hiring, and selling of manuscripts, a trade which
had been carried on without any supervision or restriction
on the part of the university authorities, and the same was
the case with the work of the earlier manuscript dealers
in Paris.
The term stationarii, which first appears in Bologna in
1259 and in Paris some years later, indicates at once a
change in the method of work of these university scribes
Books in the Early Universities 185
as compared with previous writers who had been ready to
do work in one place or another as opportunity offered.
For a number of years there was, in connection with this
university work, practically no selling of books. The
special responsibility of the stationarii was to keep in
stock a sufficient number of authorised and verified tran-
scripts or copies of the books ordered or recommended
in the educational courses of the university, and to rent
these to the students or to the instructors at rates which
were prescribed by university regulations. The stationarii
also took over the books of the students who died while
in the university, or of departing students, as in most of
the universities it was a misdemeanour to carry any books
at all out of the university town.
In Bologna, Padua, and probably other Italian universi-
ties, the Jews were forbidden to carry on any trade in
books. If, therefore, Jews coming into a town had manu-
scripts which they wished to dispose of, it was necessary
for them to place these manuscripts in the hands of the
stationarii, and they would make sale of them on commis-
sion. As before specified, however, the buyers of books
in a university town could purchase only the use of the
books during their sojourn in such town. On leaving the
town, it was necessary that the books should be placed
again with the stationarii for sale to others connected
with the university. It is probable, however, that this
regulation applied only to the special list of text-books or
reference books authorised and prescribed by the univer-
sity. A certain Heinrichs of Kirchberg relates that on
leaving Padua in 1256, he had managed to bring away
with him a considerable package of books. He had ac-
complished this by hiding the books in a load of hay
which he took with him through the town gates without
being discovered. 1 In 1334, the university regulation was
modified so that after having secured the special permis-
1 Tiraboschi, Girolamo, Litteratura Italiana, torn, v., lib. i., p. 4.
1 86 Books in Manuscript
sion of the authorities, a student could take with him from
the university books which he had purchased.
Until the time when the manuscript traders were re-
placed by the dealers in printed books, the most important
function of the university dealers was not in the sale, but
in the hiring out of manuscripts, and the term stationarius
came from a very early date to be limited to the function-
ary who, under the regulations of the university, provided,
for hire, the students, and in some cases the instructors,
with the material required for their work.
In order to facilitate the manifolding and prompt dis-
tribution of the texts needed, and in order also to lessen
for the students the cost of securing these texts, the prac-
tice obtained from the beginning of dividing the manu-
scripts into portions, to which portions were given the
name pecice or petice or in the Italian form, pezze. At
first, the extent of these divisions must have been more
or less arbitrary, but later, the number of pages or sheets
to be contained in them was made a matter of specific
university regulation. According to the regulation, the
pecia was to contain sixteen columns, each with sixty-
two lines, and each line with thirty-two letters, and the
material was to be written on sheets comprising together
a form, quaterne.
The pecia served as the unit of the calculation for the
charge for the rental. The older manuscripts had been
written in a much larger format than that found con-
venient for university work, and the above specified form
was now arrived at as, on the whole, best meeting the
requirements of the students and the convenience of the
scribes.
For some years after the formal recognition by the
university statutes of the stationarii, the number of these
was naturally limited, a limitation which had a service for
the university authorities in facilitating the supervision
considered important, and which was, of course, of business
Books in the Early Universities 187
value for the stationarii themselves. A certain amount
not only of scholarly knowledge but also of capital must
have been requisite on the part of the stationarii in
order to bring together for manifolding authentic codices
or .texts, and also to keep themselves supplied with writ-
ing materials, which during the thirteenth century con-
tinued to be costly. There is evidence that in certain
cases, particularly in Padua, a salary was- paid from the
university chest to the" 'stationarii, which was an admission
on the part of the university authorities that the prices
prescribed for the rent of thefecue were not in themselves
adequate to secure a living income for the scribes.
The stationarii were occasionally known in the Italian
universities by the name of bedelli, or bidellL The bedelli
were originally university officials, whose functions prob-
ably covered some such disciplinary work as that which is
to-day in the hands of the Oxford proctors. The name
suggests also the English term beadle, applied to the
English parish official who was charged with the duty of
keeping the peace, and I find that the lexicographers de-
rive the word beadle directly from the earlier term bedel,
the name given to the English university functionary who
had to do with matters of discipline and particularly with
the direction of public functions, processions, etc. The
name is derived irompedum,a. stick, the allusion being prob-
ably to the baton or staff of office. The use in Italy of the
term bidellus for the scribes hiring out manuscripts, was
evidently due to the fact that the privileges of this busi-
ness were in certain cases given to the university officials,
in addition, probably, to their other duties.
The name of peciarii was sometimes applied to the
officials whose duty it was to supervise the work of the
stationarii. In 1300, there is reference to six peciarii in
Bologna.
The earliest Italian reference to university scribes dates
from 1228, and concerns not the University of Bologna,
1 88 Books in Manuscript
but the smaller institution of Vercelli in Piedmont. The
Vercelli regulations order the employment of two exem-
platores, who were to be charged with the duty of provid-
ing the texts required for the use of the instructors and
students in the Faculties of jurisprudence and theology.
The prices to be paid for these manuscripts were to be
fixed by the rector of the university. As this is the
earliest regulation of which there is record concerning
bookselling in the universities, I think it worth while to
cite the text itself :
Item Jiabebit Commune Vercellarum duos exemplatores,
quibus taliter providebit, quod eos scholar es habere possint^
qui habeant exemplantia in utroque Jure t in Theologia
competentia et correcta tarn in textu quam in glossa ; ita
quod solutio fiat a scholaribus pro exemplis secundum quod
convenit, ad taxationem Rector is?
[The University of Vercelli shall also employ twoexem-
platores, for whom suitable provision shall be made, so
that they may be at the service of the scholars who
require manuscripts authoritative and correct both as to
the text and in the commentaries, either in the depart-
ment of law or in that of theology, and in return for the
copies (or for the use of the copies) received from the
exemplatores, the students shall pay a fitting price (or
rental) to be fixed by the Rector of the university.]
In similar fashion, the statutes of the University of
Padua of the year 1283 provide that two stationarii or
bidelli should be employed, one of whom should be at the
service of the Faculty of jurisprudence, and the other
should serve those of arts and of medicine. The theologi-
cal Faculty was not instituted in Padua until much later.
The two bidelli drew salaries, the first of eight ducats per
year, and the second of two ducats, forty sols. They were
charged with the duty of keeping a supply of pecia of the
texts prescribed in the lists and of placing these supplies
1 Tiraboschi, v., ii. f 39.
Books in the Early Universities 189
at the disposal of the students and scholars calling for the
same. In the year 1420, the statutes of the High School
of Modena prescribed that the stationarius (there appears
to have been question of but one official for the entire
institution) must keep a supply of the texts of the Roman
and Canonical law, the summa not aria, the speculum, the
Lectures of Cinus and of Innocentius.
The stationarius was to charge for the rent of &pecia of
the prescribed texts four denarii, of the glossarii five
denarii, and of other texts six denarii. I do not find in
the regulations any specification of the term covered by
this rental. The city was to assure the stationarius of
freedom from military service, and was to give him the
yearly compensation of ten lire." J
A reference by the Italian scholar Filelfo indicates that
from this university arrangement the term bidellus came
to be applied to scribes outside of university towns.
Filelfo speaks of a librarius publicus, " who, in the
ordinary speech, is called bidellus."
With the increase in the larger universities, such as
Bologna and Padua, of the number of students and
instructors requiring literary material, the practice gradu-
ally took shape of purchasing instead of hiring the texts
required, and the stationarii developed into librarii. In
its original signification, the term librarius stood for
librarian ; and as late as the fourteenth century the French
word librairie was used for a library or a collection of
books. It seems to have been only after the introduction
of printing that the use of the term librairie finally came
to be restricted in France to a collection of books held for
sale, that is to say, to a book-shop.
The book-dealers, who in the earlier years of the manu-
script period devoted themselves to keeping collections of
manuscripts, filled, in fact, rather the role of librarians
than of booksellers. They were ready to rent out their
1 Savigny, i., 590.
190 Books in Manuscript
manuscripts for a consideration, or to permit customers
to consult the texts without taking them from the shop.
The practice of making from their original stock of texts
-authenticated copies for general sale, was a matter of com-
paratively slow development.
Bologna had become the most important school in
, Europe for the study of Roman and Canonical law, and it
was in Bologna that the undertakings of the university
bookseller first became important. The booksellers were
not only subject to the supervision of the university, but
were also brought under the regulations of the town, and
the town authorities undertook to prescribe prices as well
for the renting as for the selling of the manuscripts, and
also to prescribe penalties for the renting or selling of
incorrect or incomplete texts.
The university regulations specified that there must be
on the part of the booksellers no modification of the text
under which new readings or glosses should be inserted to
replace those accepted as authoritative, and a penalty was
attached to the selling or renting of the texts in any other
form than that in which they were prescribed by the
instructors of the Faculty to which the study belonged.
In 1289, the penalty for the contravention of this regula-
tion, previously fixed at ten lire, was raised to one hundred
lire. 1
A few years later, a university regulation specified that
the stationarii peciarum who undertook to rent out the
authoritative texts, must keep in stock sufficient supplies
of 117 specified works. In the year 1300, there were in
the university six official stationarii, of whom three were
Italians and three, foreigners. They had to be appointed
each year, but it seems probable that when their work
proved satisfactory they were re-appointed from year to
year.
The responsibility for the general supervision of the
1 Kirchhoff, 23.
Books in the Early Universities 191
texts and for their correctness and completeness rested
with the bidellus generalis. Any reader who should dis-
cover blemishes or omissions in the /*? was under obli-
gation to report the same to the bidellus generalis, and
the stationarius who was responsible for the preparation
of the defective text was fined five solidos, one half of
the fine going to the university chest, one quarter to the
bidellus, and one quarter to the informant.
The stationarii were ordered to post up in a conspicu-
ous place in their shops all the regulations having to do
with their trade, in order that all buyers could know
what they were entitled to receive. They were not at
liberty to decline to rent to university members any
pecia on the official list. On the other hand, if they
rented o\itpecicz to students who had been expelled or who
were under suspension, they were themselves liable to
fine. The usual rental at this time, that is to say, the
beginning of the thirteenth century, was four denarii for
a quaterne (four sheets) and two denarii for &pecia. The
denarius was the equivalent of about ten cents.
The rental for works not on the official list was some-
what higher, as these would not be called for so continu-
ously and as the preparation of supplies of the same
must, therefore, be more of a speculation. In renting
manuscripts outside of Bologna (which could be done only
under special permission of the university authorities and
which occurred as a rule only with members of other uni-
versities) an additional two denarii for a quaterne could
be demanded. Students renting the pecia were obliged
to deposit a pledge of sufficient value to secure the sta-
tionarii against loss. Between the regulations applying
to the stationarii peciarum, and those controlling the
general stationarii, who had authority to sell as well as to
rent and whose business lay outside of the university,
there were various differences. The general stationarius
appeared to have undertaken from time to time the sale
192 Books in Manuscript
of books on commission, which to the university station-
arius was forbidden.
One of the earlier university regulations prohibited
students from purchasing manuscripts with a view of
selling them again for a profit, but this, according to
Savigny, fell into disuse in the course of the fourteenth
century. As late as 1334, the regulations of Bologna
strictly prohibited students from taking with them, on
leaving the universities, any books whatsoever, without a
special authorisation on the part of the heads of their re-
spective Faculties. Regulations of this kind naturally in-
terfered with the normal development of the book trade
in a city so largely dependent upon its university as was
Bologna, and formed one cause for the greater activity of
the general book trade in cities like Venice, where the
regulations of the commune were not supplemented by
those of university authorities.
The city statutes of Bologna of 1259, prohibited the
stationarii librarii from taking a higher commission on
the sale of manuscripts than two and a half per cent.
It was also specified that no sale of a work left on com-
mission should be made without the direct knowledge of
the owner. The stationarius peciarum belonged at the
outset to the membership of the university, and, in accept-
ing the authority of its supervision and its regulations,
enjoyed also the university privileges, which included
freedom from certain municipal obligations. Many of
the university stationarii belonged, as mentioned, to the
class of bidelli.
It was forbidden for any member of the university to
promise or to engage, either directly or indirectly, to pay
to the stationarius a higher commission or compensation
than that prescribed in the regulations. The penalty for
an infraction of this rule, a penalty imposed upon both
the parties concerned, was a fine of five livres. The stu-
dent was also under obligations to denounce to the rec-
Books in the Early Universities 193
tor any attempt on the part of the dealer to secure an
additional compensation. 1 The very severity of these
prohibitions gives indication of difficulty in securing
enforcement of the system.
The statutes of Padua and of the other Italian univer-
sities of the manuscript trade, were similar to, and were
probably in the main based upon, those of Bologna. In
Padua, the earliest regulations which have been preserved
bear date as late as 1465, which is one year later than the
introduction into Italy of the printing-press. The regu-
lations of 1465 prescribed the size of the pecia and
confirmed the rental prices to the schedule of those of
Bologna. The renting of manuscripts could, however,
have continued but for a short period after the issue of
these regulations. In Padua, as in Bologna, the stationarii
peciarum had to make a deposit, in entering upon their
business, of four hundred lire. They had also to go
through with an examination at the hands of the univer-
sity authorities, and they then had to take an oath of
loyalty to the university. This entitled them to their
formal appointment, which needed, however, as stated,
to be confirmed from year to year.
In Padua, as in Bologna, there were fixed commissions
for the sale of manuscripts, and these commissions, in
themselves quite moderate, were to be paid half by the
buyer and half by the seller. It appears, however, that
the prices were probably not fully controlled by these
regulations, as there are examples of so-called " presents "
being given by buyers to the sellers after the sale of
manuscripts on the commission basis specified in the
regulations had been duly recorded.
In Padua, as in Bologna, it was strictly forbidden for
Jews to take any part in the buying and selling of manu-
scripts. The only way in which a Jew could secure a
manuscript desired by him was through the intervention
1 Denifle, op. '/., iii., 295.
'3
194 Books in Manuscript
of the university authorities, who might make purchase
of the same on his behalf. The bidellus was the official
usually employed for the purpose. It may be assumed
that some additional commission was here required, and
that the Jews had to pay more dearly for their university
texts than the Christians.
There does not appear to be record of the loaning
of manuscripts to students for their own transcribing,
although in Paris this evidently formed an important por-
tion of the manuscript business. In Bologna, as in Padua,
the trade in bookbinding was directly associated with that
of manuscript selling, and the ligatori librorum carried on
their work in the shops of the librarii. In Bologna, the
manuscripts were in the main devoted to the subjects of
the law and scholastic theology, while in Padua the more
important division was medicine.
The literary requirements, however, for doctors of law
as for doctors of medicine, must have been at best but
moderate. Savigny states that in the thirteenth century
the collection of books belonging to a doctor of the law
in Bologna rarely comprised more than from four to six
volumes, and the medical collections were hardly as large.
It is with the beginning of the fifteenth century that there
comes to be a larger understanding of the relations of lit-
' erature to education and a material increase in the demand
in the university towns for supplies of books outside of
the texts actually in use in the lecture room.
Compayr gives the following list of the books required
in the ordinary and in the extraordinary courses of law in
Bologna, a list which was, he says, practically the same at
Montpellier : The several works of the Corpus Juris of
Justinian, comprising the Codex (which dates from 529),
the Digestum Vetus, the Infortiatum, the Digestum No-
vum. These were identical with the three parts which
the pupils of Irnerius distinguished as the Pandects or
Digest, the Institutes, the Authenticum. To these sources
Books in the Early Universities 195
of the Roman law were later added the Constitutions of
Frederick I. and Frederick II., and in Montpellier the
Usus Feudorum, a collection of feudal laws.
The statutes of the universities fixed the time within
which the reading of the prescribed books must be com-
pleted. Professors were obliged, in entering upon their
duties, to take the following oath : " I swear to read and
to finish reading within the time fixed by the statutes, the
books or parts of books which have been assigned for my
lectures." Severe penalties were inflicted on those whose
courses had not been completed within the required time. 1
There ought, as a rule, to have been no difficulty in com-
pleting the task assigned, for each Faculty had, as a rule,
only a single work or at most a single author assigned for
its consideration. The Faculty of Arts had Aristotle,
that of Civil Law the Corpus Juris of Justinian, that of
Common Law the Decretals of Gratian. Compayr sug-
gests that, according to the maxim of Seneca, timeo
hominem unius libri, the Faculties of the Middle Ages
might well have been awe-inspiring.
The list of the texts of the medical Faculties was, how-
ever, somewhat more considerable. The course in Mont-
pellier, where medicine became still more important than
law, followed in the main that of Salerno. The first place
was given to Hippocrates and Galen. It is somewhat sur-
prising that as late as 1250 the teachings of these old-time
practitioners (whose work was done respectively in the
fourth century B.C. and the second century A.D.) should
still have remained the chief authorities in medical science.
Compayr refers to them as the Aristotles of Medicine.
In the program of the Faculty of Paris of 1270, however,
the names of Hippocrates and Galen do not appear.
With the two Greeks were associated the original
works of Constantine and his translations from Rhazes
Hali-Abbas, Ysaac, Avicenna, Johannicus, and other
1 Compayre, 231.
196 Books in Manuscript
Arabic and Persian writers, and finally the treatise of
John of St. Amand, and of Nicholas of Salerno. The
Antidotarium, or Book of Antidotes ', known also as the
Book of Medicaments, was for some centuries a work of
standard reference and of popular sale. The influence of
the Arabs in the instructional literature of medicine seems
to have been almost as controlling as that of the Greeks
in philosophy and of the Romans in law.
Rabelais, who studied medicine in Montpellier between
1520 and 1530, is said to have been the first among the
students who was able to read his Greek authors in the
original instead of in Latin translations. ' Rabelais found
time while in college not only for Greek and medicine,
but for literature. The first part of the Pantagruel was
written before he had secured his final diploma.
By the middle of the thirteenth century, the number of
the books required for use in the university courses had
increased to such an extent that four catalogues were
issued, one for each of the four Faculties Law, Medicine,
Theology, and Arts. The lectures and the instruction
were given entirely in Latin, which was the only language
that could have been understood by all of the various
nationalities represented, or even by the representatives
of the different Italian dialects.
In Spain, the earliest university was that of Palencia,
which was founded in 1212. Salamanca, founded a few
years later, soon exceeded Palencia in importance, and,
particularly in connection with the work of its medical
Faculty, secured for itself, before the close of the thirteenth
century, a repute throughout Europe. Compayr is of
opinion that the instruction given in Salamanca, not only
in medicine but in science generally and in philosophy,
was very largely influenced by the presence in the penin-
sula of Moorish scholars. " The philosophy of Averrhoes
and the medicine of Avicenna exerted a manifest influence
1 Compayre, 250.
Books in the Early Universities 197
on the development of studies at Salamanca." l It seems
probable, if this belief is well founded, that the Arabian
literature, produced and manifolded in Cordova, found its
way to Salamanca, and through Salamanca to Salerno,
Bologna, and Paris.
The formal constitution of the University of Paris dates
from 1 202. Certain of its historians, however, claim for
its first work as an educational institution a much earlier
date. CreVier, for instance, says : " The University of
Paris as a school goes back to Alcuin . . . Charle-
magne was its founder." a Charlemagne's practical inter-
est in education has caused his name to be associated with
the schools of Tours, Aachen, Milan, Salerno, Bologna,
and Paris. The most recent writer on the subject, Com-
payre, is of opinion that this is an exaggerated statement.
He finds evidence of an unbroken succession of Benedic-
tine schools, such as those of Rheims, Tours, Angers,
Laon, Bee, and others, which had preserved a continuity
of educational work from the time of Charlemagne to
that of Louis VIII., and which, under such leaders as
Lanfranc (1005-1089), and S. -Anselm (1033-1109), had
developed and maintained a high degree of intellectual
activity. He considers these to have constituted the
direct succession to the schools of the palace of Charle-
magne, but he fails to find in them the prototype of the
university system. For Compayr, the actual founder
of the University of Paris was Abelard, who died sixty
years before the university secured its organisation. It
is his contention that it was Abelard who, by his learning,
his independence of thought, his eloquence, and his mas-
tery over the minds of men, is to be credited with the
initiation of the great movement from which was to pro-
ceed not only the University of Paris, but the long series
of universities for which Paris served as an incentive and
the type. It was Abelard, says Compayre", who, if not
1 Compayre, 61. 2 Crevier, Hist, de T University de Paris, vii., 92.
198 Books in Manuscript
first, at least with the most direct and far-reaching influ-
ence, introduced dialectics into theology and reason into
authority, breaking away from the mere passive trans-
mission of the beliefs and timid dialectics accepted by the
schools of theology, and thus making possible the develop-
ment of a true university spirit. " The method of Abelard
is the soul of scholastic philosophy," 1 the philosophy
which, until the Renaissance, reigned supreme in the Uni-
versity of Paris. Abelard's method, says Pere Denifle, is
presented in the book which during several centuries
served as the text for theological instruction, the Sentences
of Peter Lombard, and its influence is also to be noted in
that other noteworthy work which became the authority
for the schools of common law, the Decretals of Gratian.
Abelard may be called the first professor of superior in-
struction. His work was certainly begun with e'clat, for his
classes are said to have numbered at times no less than
five thousand pupils. " First of the French philosophers
. . . he may justly be considered as the precursor of
Ramus and Descartes, in other words, of the Renais-
sance and of the modern spirit." ' Apart from this more
far-reaching influence, he was able to do for the school of
Paris what the jurist Irnerius was, during nearly the same
years, accomplishing for the school of Bologna, making
possible, namely, its development into the university. It
was through the work done by Abelard that " the theo-
logical school of Paris became the seminary of Christian
Europe." ' This influence continued through the succeed-
ing centuries in which Paris still remained the centre of
theological instruction, a result which necessarily had later
an important effect in shaping the character of the earlier
issues'of the Paris Press.
The term University is not a synonym of the university
of science, but simply of the university of teachers and
students who composed a group and who instituted asso-
1 Compayre, 19. 1 1bid., 23. * Ibid., 24.
Books in the Early Universities 199
ciation of studies. " In the language of the Civil Law,"
says Maiden, " all corporations were called Universitates,
as forming one whole out of many individuals." *
The organisation of the University of Paris, while dif-
fering in certain important details from that of Bologna,
was substantially identical with the Italian institutions
in respect to the privileges conceded to instructors and
students. In successive enactments or crown edicts, the
members of the universities of Paris, Montpellier, and
Poitiers were exempted, not only from the regular national
taxes and from the town dues (octroi), but also from
special war taxes. In 1295, Philip the Fair decreed that
under no pretext could the goods of the members of the
universities be taken or their revenues attached. 8 The
following statute of the University of Padua represented
fairly enough the status of students in all the universities
of France and of Italy : " Students must be considered as
citizens in what concerns the advantages, but not in that
which constitutes the burdens of citizens." Under this
same principle, members of the universities were also
exempt from military service.
The authorities of the University of Paris exercised a
very direct control from the outset over all the details
of the business of making, renting, and selling books.
This authority became in Paris a matter of much more
immediate importance and abiding influence than in Bo-
logna. In the latter, as we have seen, the business of the
book-dealers was very closely limited to the production of
the texts immediately required for the work of the class-
room. In Paris, however, in the manuscript period, two
and a half centuries before the introduction of the print-
ing-press, the book-trade of the university had become in
great measure the book-trade of the city. During a large
part of this time, moreover, Paris shared with Florence
the position of the centre of the intellectual activities of
1 Maiden, 15. 2 Fournier, i., 8, cited byCompayre.
200 Books in Manuscript
Europe. The scribes and their masters who were mani-
folding manuscripts in the Latin quarter, were not only
supplying text-books to the students of the university,
but were preparing literature for the scholarly readers of
Paris, of France, and of Europe. The book-dealers of
Paris constituted, however, for several centuries, with a
few exceptions, a guild organised within the university.
The members of this guild, the libraires jurts, were mem-
bers of the university, and the operations of the guild
were under the direct control of the university authorities.
This arrangement gave to the book-dealers material ad-
vantages in the possession of university privileges and in
the control of a practical monopoly of the business of
producing books. It involved, however, certain corre-
sponding disadvantages. University control meant su-
pervision, censorship, restriction, regulation of prices,
interference with trade facilities, and various hampering
conditions which delayed very seriously, both before and
after the introduction of printing, the development of the
business of making and of circulating books, and, as a
result of this, placed not a few obstacles in the way of the
literary and the intellectual development of the commu-
nity. Chevillier says : " The book-trade of Paris owes its
origin to the university, by which, under the approval of
the king, it was organised into an association of masters.
This association was, from the outset, controlled directly
by the university, from the authorities of which it received
its statutes and regulations, and by which the master
libraires were licensed, jurts."
" The reproduction of a work of scholarship (to which
class belonged of necessity the text-books prescribed for
the work of the university)" remarks Delalain, " called for
on the part of the scribe a considerable' measure of schol-
arly knowledge and also for a detailed and careful super-
vision. It was held, therefore, by the university authorities
1 Chevillier, Preface.
Books in the Early Universities 201
that the responsibility properly belonged to them to super-
vise the series of operations by means of which these
university texts were prepared and were circulated. It
was essential that the completeness and the correctness of
each copy should be verified, and that these copies should
be confided to trustworthy persons for their sale or their
hire, in order that there should be no risk of inaccuracies
in the texts themselves or of any unnecessary enhance-
ment of the cost to instructors or to students of their
purchase or their hire. On this ground, the university
of Paris asserted from the beginning of its history the
right to control the book-trade of the city, a contention
which was confirmed and maintained by all the kings of
France after Philip Augustus." *
The " book-trade " was held to include all the dealers
and artisans who were concerned with the production and
distribution of manuscripts ; that is, the copyists and their
employers, the binders, the illuminators, the sellers of
parchment, and, later, the manufacturers of paper. While
the control of the university was exercised over the entire
book-trade, the interest of the authorities was naturally
much keener in regard to the divisions having to do with
the production of books than in the work of the book-
sellers. The matter of chief importance, in fact, accord-
ing to the accepted theory, the sole purpose for the
existence of the book-trade, was to secure for the mem-
bers of the university a sufficient supply, at a fixed and
moderate charge, of correct and complete texts of the
prescribed works ; while it was also essential to protect
those members from the contamination of heretical
writings or of heretical comments on books of accepted
orthodoxy.
A regulation of December, 1316, prescribes that no
stationarius shall employ a copyist until such employee
shall have been duly sworn before the university, or before
1 Delalain, xi.
202 Books in Manuscript
the Rector and four procureurs, to execute his functions
faithfully, and, having been accepted as a trustworthy
scribe, shall have had his name inscribed on the official
register.
As a partial offset to the series of restrictions and lim-
itations under which was carried on the work of these
early publishers, it is in order to specify certain privileges
and exemptions enjoyed by them as members of the uni-
versity. These included exemption from taxes ; exemp-
tion from service on the watch or on the city guard ; and
the privilege of jurisdiction, commonly known as commit-
timus. Under this last, they were empowered in suits
or cases, civil or personal, and whether engaged as plain-
tiffs or defendants, to bring witnesses or other principals
before the Juges Conservateurs, functionaries charged with
the maintenance or protection of privileges. 1
Issues concerning personal rights arising between the
members of the university were decided before the tribu-
nal or court of the Rector. Cases affecting realty, and all
cases between the members and outsiders, were tried be-
fore the Conservateurs des Privileges, an authority of neces-
sity favourably disposed to the members of the university.
The ground assigned for this privilege was that instruct-
ors and pupils, and those engaged in aiding their work
(*'. e. the makers of books), should not be exposed to loss
of valuable time by being called away from their work to
distant parts.' An edict of Philip Augustus, in 1200,
confirmed by S. Louis in 1229, and by Philip the Fair in
1302, directed that the cases of university members be
brought before the Bishop of Paris. The university found
disadvantages in being under the jurisdiction of the Bishop
(whose censorship later proved particularly troublesome
for the publishers), and applications were made to replace
the authority of the ecclesiastical courts with that of the
1 JRecueil des Privileges de Paris, 1-9.
2 Cartulaire de I* Univ. de Paris, i. f 59.
Books in the Early Universities 203
royal courts. In 1334, letters-patent of Philip of Valois
directed the provost of Paris, who was at that time con-
servateur of the royal privileges, to take the university
under his special protection, and in 1341 the members of
the university were forbidden to enter proceedings before
any other authority. In 1361, under an edict of King
John, the members of the university were again declared
exempt from taxes and assessments of all kinds (portes,
gabelles, impositions, aides, et subsides]. The repetition
from reign to reign of certain edicts and regulations such
as the above does not imply that the earlier ones had
been recalled, but that they had to some extent fallen
into desuetude, or that attempts had been made to over-
ride them.
By letters-patent issued in 1369, Charles V. declared
that all dealers in books and makers of books required
for the use of " our scholars " should be exempt from all
taxes, etc. The exemption included binders, illuminators,
parchment-makers, etc. It appears that some abuses had
crept in under this exemption, as in 1384 it was ordered
that no book-dealers should be freed from taxes if they
carried on for gain any other occupation. 1
The policy of favouring the production and sale of books
by freeing the publishers and dealers from taxes and other
burdens was continued and even developed after the in-
troduction of printing. The kings, impressed with the
possibilities of this great discovery, recognised that it was
for the interest of the realm to free books, printed or
written, not only from octroi or city duties, but from cus-
toms or importation charges. Letters-patent of Henry
II., dated IS53 read as follows: Avons ordonne 1 et ordon-
nons lesdits livres, escrits ou imprimez, relies ou non relies,
estre et demeurer exempts desdits droits de traicte foraine,
Domaine forain et haut passage? This was a more liberal
policy than at that time prevailed in Italy or in England,
1 Recneil des Privileges, \. , 88. 9 Recueil des Privileges.
2O4 Books in Manuscript
or, in fact, than has as yet been accepted in the nineteenth
century by the United States. In order to obtain the
advantage of such exemption, the publishers had to secure
from the Rector of the university a passport or certificate
for their packages.
One of the earlier regulations of the university affecting
the book-trade was that under which the supervision of
the sale of parchment was left in the hands of the Rector.
This sale was usually authorised only at the annual Lendit
fair. The dealers, bringing their parchment, exposed this
for inspection. Before any other purchases were per-
mitted, the Rector selected the quantity needed for
the university, for which payment was made at a price
fixed in advance. He then received from the parchment-
dealers, for the treasury of the university, or for the spe-
cial fund of the book guild, a gratuity which amounted
to from two thousand to three thousand francs.
In Paris, as in Bologna, during the whole of the thir-
teenth century and the first portion of the fourteenth, the
principal work of the university book-dealers was not the
selling but the renting of books. The regulations con-
cerning the division of manuscripts into chapters or pecia
were, however, not carried out with the same precision in
Paris as in the Italian universities, nor was it practicable
to exercise in the larger city, or even within the confines
of the Latin Quarter, as close a supervision as in Bologna
or Padua over the rates for renting and over the stock of
copies kept by the stationarii. The general purpose of
the regulations was, however, the same, and the routine
of renting prices and the general rate of commission on
the books sold were, as said, matters of university regula-
tion. With a community of students ranging in number
from ten thousand to (in the most prosperous days of the
university) as high as thirty thousand, the monopoly of
supplying text-books, whether through sale or through
renting, must have constituted an important business. It
Books in the Early Universities 205
was not until some time after the introduction of printing
that the importance and prospect of profit of publishing
done outside of the university limits, and freed from a por-
tion of the university restrictions, came to be sufficient to
make it worth while for certain of the more enterprising
of the printers to give up the trade in text-books and their
privileges as libraires jurts and to establish themselves as
independent dealers.
In the University of Paris we find in use in the twelfth
century, in addition to the terms librarii, stationarii, and
petiarii, the term mangones. The word mango originally
designated a merchant or dealer, but appears to have car-
ried an implication of untrustworthiness or slipperiness.
It is satisfactory, therefore, to understand that mangones
very speedily went out of use as a name for dealers in
books. 1 The petiarii are not mentioned in the statutes
of the university, where they appear to be replaced by
the parcheminii?
Gu6rard interprets the term stationarius as standing
first for a scribe with a fixed location (un tcrivain stden-
taire\ as opposed to a copyist who was prepared to ac-
cept work in any place where it could be secured. Later,
the term was understood to designate a master scribe
who directed the work of a bureau of copyists ; and still
later, the stationarius, sometimes then called stationarius
librorum, possessed a complete book-making establish-
ment, where were employed, in addition to the copyists,
the illuminators, binders, and other artisans. At this
stage of his development, the stationarius has become the
equivalent of the printer-publisher of a later generation.
Guerard is inclined to limit the earlier use in Paris of the
term librarius to the keeper of a shop in which books
were kept for sale, but in which no book-production was
carried on. 3 It is evident, however, that in France, as in
1 Pierre de Blois, cited by Vallet de Vifiville, 96. ' Delalain, xi.
* Guerard, Cartulaire de rglise de Notre Dame de Paris, iii. , 73. 1270.
206 Books in Manuscript
Italy, there was no very definite or consistent use of the
several terms, and that before the introduction of print-
ing, librarius and stationarius were applied almost indif-
ferently to dealers having to do either with the production
or with the sale of books. Chassant is authority for the
statement that at the time of the introduction of printing
into France there were in the two cities of Paris and
Orleans more than ten thousand individual scribes or
copyists who gained their living with their pens. 1 It is
not surprising that the first printers, whose diabolical in-
vention took the bread away from these workers, had
their lives threatened and their work interrupted.
The letters-patent of Charles V., dated November 5,
1368, specify fourteen libraires and eleven tcrivains (em-
ploying stationarii) as at that time registered in Paris.
No one was admitted to the profession of librarius or
stationarius who was not a man of approved standing and
character, and who had not also given evidence of an
adequate and scholarly knowledge of manuscript inter-
pretation and of the subject to which he proposed to give
attention. The examination was made before the four
chief publishers (les quatre grands libraires). Having
secured the approval of the board of publishers, the ap-
plicant was obliged to secure also acceptance from the
representatives of the Rector, and to submit certain
guarantees for the satisfactory performance of his respon-
sibilities. He was called upon to submit, for himself and
heirs, all his property as well as his person to the control
of the court of Paris as a pledge for the execution of his
trust. As late as 1618, in the reign of Charles IX., the
master printers (/. e., printer-publishers) were obliged to
hold certificates from the Rector and the university, to
the effect that they were skilled in the art of printing, and
that they possessed full knowledge of Latin and of Greek.
1 Chassant, Diet, des Abre'viations Latines ft Franqaiscs Usittes dans Its
Manuscrits, Paris, 1864.
Books in the Early Universities 207
The libraires jure"s comprised two classes, the libraires
grands (pfficium magni librariatus), and the libraires
petits (officium parvi librariatus). 1 The immediate re-
sponsibility for the government of the body rested with
the four chief libraires (les quatre grands libraires). It
was they who fixed the prices for the sale or hire of
manuscripts, and who supervised the examination of
manuscripts with reference, first, as to their admission
into the official list of the university texts, and, secondly,
as to the completeness and accuracy of the particular
parchment submitted. They also inspected the book-
shops and the workrooms of the copyists, and verified
from time to time the accuracy and the quality of the
copies prepared from these accepted texts ; they passed
upon the qualifications of applicants for the position
of librairejurt; and, finally, they exercised a general
supervision over the enforcement of all the university
regulations affecting the book-trade, and gave special at-
tention to those prohibiting any interference with this
trade by an outside dealer, one who was not a libraire
fart. These four chief libraires were each under a bond
or " caution " for the amount of 200 livres. In addition
to the exemption from general taxes and guard duty
conceded to all the libraires jurh y these four enjoyed
from time to time certain special privileges. In October,
1418, by a regulation of Charles VI., the four chief li-
braires are exempted by name from certain special duties
on wine, etc., which had been imposed for the purpose
of securing funds pour la recouvrance de nos Villes et
Chaste I de Monstreau ou Faut- Yonne.* It was also neces-
sary for him to find two responsible bondsmen for an
amount of not less than 100 livres each.* * In Bologna in
1 Chevillier, op. cit., 347.
2 Rectuil des Privileges , 1674, 89, 95.
3 Actes Concernants le Pouvoir^ etc., de I* University de Paris.
4 The livre Parisis. De Wailly, cited by Delalain, xxix.
208 Books in Manuscript
1400 the bond was also fixed at 200 livres the equivalent
of 5065 francs. 1
The special obligations imposed upon and accepted by
the librarii and stationarii, as specified in documents
between the years 1250 and 1350, can be summarised as
follows :
I. To accept faithfully and loyally all the regulations of
the university concerning the production and the sale of
books.
II. Not to make within the term of one month any
agreement, real or nominal, transferring to themselves the
ownership of books which had been placed in their hands
for sale.
III. Not to permit the loss or disappearance of any
book so consigned for the purpose later of acquiring own-
ership of the same.
IV. To declare conscientiously and exactly the just and
proper price of each book offered for sale, and to specify
such price, together with the name of the owner, in some
conspicuous place in the work itself.
V. To make no disposition of a consigned book without
having in the first place informed the owner or his repre-
sentative of the price to be secured for the same, and to
make immediate report and accounting of such price when
received.
VI. To charge as commission for the service of selling
such book not more than four deniers to a member of the
university and not more than six deniers to an outsider.
This commission was to be paid by the purchaser, who
seems to have been considered the obliged party in the
transaction.*
., 29.
* The livre Parisis was the equivalent of twenty sols or twenty-five francs.
The sol equalled twelve deniers or one franc, or twenty cents. The denier
was of the value of one and three-fifths cents. In considering these " equi-
valents," due allowance must of course be made for the very much larger
purchasing power possessed by money in the fourteenth century than in
the nineteenth. De Wailly, cited by Delalain, xxix., xl.
Books in the Early Universities 209
VII. To place conspicuously in the windows of their
shops a price list of all works kept on sale.
The stationarii on their part were also held :
I. To employ no scribes for the production of manu-
scripts other than those who had been accepted and certi-
fied before the Rector.
II. To offer for sale or for hire no manuscripts that had
not been passed upon and "taxed" by the appointed
authority.
III. To refuse to no applicant who was a member of
the university the loan for hire of a manuscript, even
though the applicant should require the same for the pur-
pose of producing copies.
It is evident that a regulation of this character would,
in the case of an original work by a contemporary author,
have operated as a denial of any author's rights. Such
original work constituted, however, at this time the very
rare exception, and their authors were evidently obliged
to content themselves with the prestige of securing circu-
lation. The case of a manuscript representing outlay and
skilled labour on the part of the dealer, who might have
had to make a toilsome journey to secure it, and who had
later paid for the service of one or more editors for its
collation and revision, was, of course, of much more fre-
quent occurrence. It is difficult to understand why this
class of effort and enterprise should not have been encour-
aged by the university authorities instead of being so
largely nullified by regulations which made of such a
manuscript common property. This regulation is, how-
ever, identical with that of Bologna. The penalty there
for refusing to place a manuscript at the service of a
member of the university was five livres. 1
IV. To offer for rent no texts that were not complete
and correct.
V. In the event of a work being brought to Paris by a
stranger, to give immediate information to the authorities
M * Denifle, iii., 280.
2io Books in Manuscript
in order that before such work could be copied for hire or
for sale it should be passed upon by the authorities as
orthodox and as suitable for the use of the members of
the university, and as being complete and correct in its
own text.
Any libraire who, having been duly sworn, should be
convicted of violation of these regulations, forfeited his
office, and all the rights and privileges thereto appertain-
ing ; and all members of the university, instructors or
students, were strictly prohibited (under penalty of for-
feiture of their own membership) from having further
dealings with such a delinquent. *
These various regulations, while possibly required in
connection with the general interests of the university,
were certainly exacting and must have interfered not a
little with any natural development of the book-trade. It
is nevertheless the case that the makers of books and the
book-dealers in Paris occupied a more independent and a
more dignified position than had been accorded to their
brethren in Bologna. The latter appear to have risen
hardly above the grade of clerks or lower-class function-
aries, while these earlier Parisian publishers secured from
the outset recognition as belonging to the higher educa-
tional work of the university, work in the shaping of which
they themselves took an important part.
In 1316 (the year of the accession of Philip V.) the as-
sociation of libraires jurts (authorised or certified book-
dealers) comprised but thirteen members.' A year earlier
there had been twenty-two, and I can only assume that
the war troubles had had their natural influence in de-
pressing and breaking up the book business. In 1323, the
list comprises twenty-nine names, including the widow of
De Peronne. In 1368, the number had again fallen to
twenty-five. In 1488, the university list gives the names
1 This regulation was identical with that of Bologna.
5 Delalain, p. xxxvi.
Books in the Early Universities 211
of twenty-four libraires, in addition to whom were regis-
tered two illuminators, two binders, and two Scrivains. 1
The e'crivains specified were undoubtedly master scribes,
the register here quoted apparently not including the
names of the copyists employed. At this date, however,
the work of the printers had been going on in Paris for
fourteen years, and the business of those concerned with
the production of books in manuscript form must have
been very largely reduced. The work of the master scribes
continued, however, in the sixteenth century, but by the
close of the fifteenth had become limited to the produc-
tion, for collectors, of manuscripts as works of art.
While the majority of libraires jure f s were naturally
Frenchmen, there was no regulation to prevent the hold-
ing of such a post by a foreigner, and the list always, as a
matter of fact, included several foreign names. The pres-
ence in the university of large groups of foreign students
made it quite in order, and probably necessary, that they
should find among the book-dealers some who could speak
their home language and who could make clear to them
the requirements concerning the university texts. The
presence of these foreign book-dealers also facilitated the
arrangements for the exchange of manuscripts between
Paris and foreign universities. These foreign book-dealers,
while obliged in ordinary routine to take an oath of fealty
to the university, were not called upon to become citizens
of France.
The list includes from time to time the names of women
libraires, these women being usually widows of libraires
who had duly qualified themselves. The women must
themselves, however, in order to secure such appoint-
ments, have been able to pass the examination in Latin,
in palaeography, and in the technicalities of manuscript
book-making. In respect as well to the admission of for-
eigners as to that of women, the Paris guild of the uni-
1 Delalain, p. xxxvi.
212 Books in Manuscript
versity book-dealers practised a more liberal policy than
that followed by the university authorities of Bologna
or the Stationers' Hall of London. Later, this liberal
policy was restricted, and in 1686 it was ordered that no
foreigners should be admitted to the lists of the master
libraires of the university.
The purchase of a manuscript during the fourteenth
century was attended with almost as many formalities and
precautions as are to-day considered necessary for the
transfer of a piece of real estate. The dealer making the
sale was obliged to give to the purchaser guarantees to the
effect, first, that he was himself the owner or the duly
authorised representative of the owner of the work ; and,
secondly, that the text of this was complete and correct,
and as security for these guarantees he pledged his goods,
and sometimes even his person. As a single example of
a transaction illustrating this practice, I quote a contract
cited by Du Breuil. This bears date November, 1332, and
sets forth that a certain Geoffrey de Saint Lger, a duly
qualified clerc libraire, acknowledges and confesses that
he has sold, ceded, and transferred to the noble gentle-
man Messire Gerard de Montagu, Avocat du Roi au
Parlement (counsellor at the royal court), all right, title,
and interest in a work entitled Speculum Historiale in con-
suetudines Parisienses, contained in four volumes bound in
red leather. The consideration named is forty livres Pari-
sian, the equivalent, according to the tables of de Wailly,
of 1013 francs. The vendor pledges as security for the
obligation under the contract all his worldly goods, to-
gether with his own person (tous et chacun de ses biens, et
guarantie de son corps m$me\ and the contract is attested
before two notaries. 1
While the university assumed the strictest kind of con-
trol and supervision over the work of the book-dealers, it
conceded, as an offset, to the association of these dealers
1 Du Breuil, op. cit., 608.
Books in the Early Universities 213
a very substantial monopoly of the trade of making and
selling books. It was prohibited, under severe penalties,
for a person not a libraire jure" to do business in a book-
shop or at any fixed stand ; that is to say, he could not
sell as a stationnaire, but had to carry on his trade as a ped-
lar or chap-man, from a pack or a cart. The value of the
manuscript that such pedlar was permitted to offer for
sale was restricted to ten sous, the equivalent of half a
franc. At the price at which manuscripts were held
during the fourteenth century, this limitation restricted
the trade of the peripatetic vendors to single sheets, or
broadsides, containing usually a Pater, an Ave, or a Credo,
or a brief calendar or astrological table. Successive edicts
were issued from reign to reign, renewing the prohibition
upon the selling of books, whether in French or Latin
(excepting only of such maximum value), by any drapers,
grocers, pedlars, or dealers of any kind. 1
In all the official references of the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries to the book-dealers, the ground is taken
that they formed a class apart from mechanics or from
traders in ordinary merchandise. They were considered
to be engaged in an intellectual pursuit, and were treated
as members of a profession upon whose service the work of
the university and that of the Church were largely depend-
ent. Thus in 1649 the Recueil makes nse of these words :
Les Marchands-Libraires, Imprimeurs et Relieurs seront
toujours censes du corps de nostre bien ayme'e fille aisnte
V Universite 1 ; du tout se'pare's des arts mfahaniques, et autres
Corps de Mestiers ou marchandises ; et come tels, conserve's
en la jouissance de tours les droicts ; privileges, franchises,
libertez, pre'se'ances et prerogatives attributes a ladite uni-
versite et a eux par les Royes nos pre'de'cesseux et par nous*
1 Kirchhoff, 68. Delalain (xl.) specifies a limit of 10 sols, 10.13 francs.
This is, I think, an error.
2 Lettres Obtenues par des Imprimeurs et Libraires, etc., 1649. Recueil %
i.,3-
214 Books in Manuscript
It was, therefore, not permitted to the libraire to
bring discredit upon his profession by also engaging in
any " sordid pursuits " (viles occupations), and in so doing
he rendered himself liable to being deposed from his high
post (declar^ de f chu de son noble office). He could, how-
ever, unite with his work as libraire that of a notary, or
that of a royal counsellor or practitioner in the higher
court (avocat du rot au Parlemenf).
Notwithstanding the personal prestige and the sub-
stantial advantages which were thus enjoyed by the book-
dealers of the university, there were from time to time
instances of protest, amounting occasionally to insubordi-
nation, on the part of the libraires, who, as their business
aims and possibilities developed, became restive under the
long series of trammels and restrictions, and particularly
in connection with those imposed by the ecclesiastical di-
vision of the university authorities. The dread, however,
of losing any portion of their privileges, and particularly
the risk of any impairment of their monopoly of the book-
trade of the university and of Paris, operated always as a
sufficient consideration to prevent the insubordination
from going to extremes. Throughout the entire period
of the Middle Ages the control of the university con-
tinued, therefore, practically absolute over the book-trade
of Paris, the influence of the Church and the (more or
less spasmodic) authority of the Crown being exercised
by means of the university machinery.
This state of affairs continued for some period of years
after the introduction of printing. The university still
insisted upon its responsibility for the correctness and
the completeness of the texts issued from the Paris press,
although it gave up of necessity the routine of examining
individual copies of the printed editions. On the other
hand, the censorship control on the part of the theologi-
cal Faculty over the moral character and orthodoxy of
the works printed was insisted upon more strenuously
Books in the Early Universities 215
than ever as the Church began to recognise the enormous
importance of the influence upon public opinion of the
widely distributed printed volumes. The effect of this
ecclesiastical control upon the business of printing books
is set forth with some detail in the chapter on the early
printers of Paris. It is sufficient to say here that the
contention on the part of the university to control, as a
portion of the work of higher education, the business of
the makers and sellers of books, while sharply attacked
and materially undermined after the middle of the seven-
teenth century, was not formally abandoned until the
beginning of the eighteenth. At this time the Crown
took over to itself all authority to regulate the press, an
authority which disappeared only with the revolution
of 1789.
For six centuries the book-trade of Paris and of France,
whether it consisted in the production of manuscripts for
the exclusive use of members of the university, or of
printed books for the enlightenment of the general pub-
lic, had been obliged to do its work under the hampering
and burdensome regulations and restrictions of a varying
series of authorities. The rectors of the university, the
theologians of the Sorbonne, the lawyers of the Parlia-
ment of Paris, the chancellors of the Crown, the kings
themselves, had all taken a hand, sometimes in turn, not
infrequently in conflict with each other, in the task of
" regulating " the trade in books. The burden of the
restrictions was, in pretence at least, offset by various
privileges and exemptions, but they remained burdens
notwithstanding. It may well be a cause of surprise that
in the face of such a long series of hampering difficulties,
difficulties more serious than those with which any pub-
lishers in the world, outside of Rome, had to contend, the
manuscript publishers and the later printer-publishers of
Paris should have been able to do so much to make Paris
a literary and a publishing centre. As has been already
216 Books in Manuscript
indicated, it was certainly the case that during the thir-
teenth and fourteenth centuries Paris shared with Florence
the position of being the centre of the manuscript trade
of Europe. It was also the case, as will be set forth in a
later chapter, that the first printer-publishers of Paris did
most noteworthy* work in furthering the development of
scholarly publishing and the production of scholarly
books. It required, however, the revolution of 1789 to
establish the principle that the business of producing and
distributing books could secure its legitimate develop-
ment only when freed from censorship restrictions and
regulations, and that it was a business the control of
which belonged properly not to the university, the Courts
of Parliament, or the Crown, but to the people themselves.
Considering the scarcity and the costliness of books in
the Middle Ages, it is somewhat surprising that the work
of instruction rested so directly upon books, that is,
depended upon the mastery of a text. Thurot says : " It
is the distinctive character of instruction in the Middle
Ages that the science was not taught directly and in
itself, but by the explanation of books which derived their
authority solely from their writers." Roger Bacon
formulates it : " When one knows the text, one knows all
that concerns the science which is the object of the text." '
Instead of taking a course of logic or of ethics, says Com-
payre, the phrase was reading a book on logic or ethics,
legere or audire librum. This close adherence to the text
secured, of course, an assured demand in the university
towns first for the hired pecias and later for the purchased
manuscripts.
The foundation of the College of the Sorbonne dates
from 1257. It was organised by Robert de Sorbon,
chaplain to Louis IX. The college was at once affiliated
with- the University of Paris, of which it became the
1 Thurot, p. 65, cited by Compayre, 188.
9 Opus Major , cited by Compayre, 188.
Books in the Early Universities 217
theological Faculty, and in the general direction of which
it exercised at times a controlling influence. The college
is connected with my subject on the ground of its assump-
tion of the theological censorship of the Paris book-trade
and of its frequent attempts to exercise a general censor-
ship over all the productions of the Paris printing-press.
As we shall note later in the history of the Paris book-
trade, various complications arose between the publishers
and booksellers possessing a university license (the libraires
jur/s) and certain unlicensed dealers who undertook to
come into competition with them. The locality occupied
by these unlicensed booksellers was on the Island of the
Cite", immediately by the precincts of Notre Dame. In
fact it was the case with the book-trade generally north
of the Alps that its business was very largely carried on
in the portals of a church if not under the immediate
shadow of the cathedral.
While in Italy the Church furthered but slightly the
early production of books and, later, did not a little to
hamper the undertakings of the publishers, it was the case
in France and quite largely also in South Germany, that
the publishers found themselves very largely dependent
upon the scholary interests and the scholarly co-operation
of the clerics, and the association of the Church with
the book-trade was, for a large proportion at least of the
fifteenth century, an important one.
In Paris, the booksellers licensed by the university were
all in the Latin Quarter, akd in the same region were to
be found the sellers of parchment, the illuminators, the
scribes, binders, etc., who also carried university licenses
and were under university supervision. It is probable
that the specification in the Tax Roll of 1292 of eight
librarii in Paris refers only to the booksellers licensed by
the university and carrying on their business in the Latin
Quarter.
In Bayeux, in 1250, certain clerics were exempted from
218 Books in Manuscript
taxation if they dealt in parchment or if they were engaged
in the copying of manuscripts, and the book-shops along
the walls of the cathedral were also exempt from taxation.
It is not clear to me in looking up this record, whether
the tax mentioned was a town tax or a general tax, or
whether it was one of the ecclesiastical levies. 1
Roger Bacon's reference to the scribes of Paris has
already been mentioned. He could not secure from the
Brothers of his Order a transcript of his work which he
desired to present to Pope Clement, because they were
too ignorant to write the same out intelligently, while he
was afraid to confide the work to the public scribes of
France lest they might make improper use of the material. 9
It is Wattenbach's opinion that the wrongful use of his
production dreaded by Bacon was the sale of unauthorised
copies of it by the scribes to whom the preparation of the
authorised copies should be confided.
In 1292, Wenzel, King of Bohemia, presented to the
monastery of Konigsaal, 200 marks in silver for the pur-
chase of books, and the purchases were made from the
book-sellers in Paris. Richard de Bury extols Paris as the
great centre of the book-trade. Of the value of the book
collections in Rome and the possibility there of securing
literary treasures, he had already spoken, but the treasures
of Paris appear to have impressed him still more keenly.
There he found occasion to open his purse freely and took
in exchange for base gold, books of inestimable value.
Joh. Gerson, in his treatise De Laude Scriptorum ex-
presses the dread lest the persistent carrying away from
Florence of his books by wealthy visitors may not too
seriously diminish its literary treasures.
The Paris publishers appear to have sent out travelling
salesmen or representatives to take orders for their wares.
'As early as 1480, a publisher named Guillaume Tous,
1 Delisle, Cartulaire de Normandie^ M&n. des Antiquaires de Normandie,
1852, ii., 6, 326. 9 Oper. Jnedila. Ed. Brewer, p. 13, Watt., 470.
Books in the Early Universities 219
of Paris, made complaint to the chancellor of Brittany to
the effect that he had entrusted a commission to a certain
Guillaume de 1'Espine to carry books into Lower Brittany
and to make sale of the same during a period of six
months. He had taken with him books to the value of
five hundred livres and was to have a salary of ten crowns
for the six months* work. He, had, however, failed to
return or to make report of his commission. Tous
secured a judgment against his delinquent traveller, but
the record does not show whether he ever succeeded in
getting hold of him again. 1
In the universities of Oxford and of Cambridge, the sta-
tionarii began their work some years later than in Paris
or Bologna. They had the advantage, however, of free-
dom from the greater portion of the restrictions and spe-
cial supervision which hampered the work of the scribes in
the Italian and French universities, and as a result their
business developed more promptly and more actively, and
in the course of a few years, they became the booksellers
of the university towns. It was, of course, from this uni-
versity term stationarii that the name of stationers came
at the outset to be applied to the organised book-dealers
of Great Britain. The Guild of the British book-dealers
completed its organisation in 1403, nearly sixty years
before the introduction into England of the printing-
press."
The art work put into the manuscripts produced in the
Low Countries, particularly in Belgium, was more highly
developed and was a more important part of the industry
than was the case in any other portion of the world.
1 Broderie, Bibl. de Vcole de Chartres, v., 3. 49. Watt., p. 472.
a The " Stationers or Text- Writers who wrote and sold all sorts of books
then in use " secured their privileges as a Guild in 1403 from the Lord
Mayor and Board of Aldermen of London.
The Company had, however, no control over printed books until it re-
ceived its charter from Mary and Philip, in 1557. Curwen, 18.
220 Books in Manuscript
In the earlier German universities, the stationarii also
found place and found work, but this work seems to have
been of less importance and the scribes appear to have
secured for themselves a less definite university recognition
than in Italy or in France. The explanation given by Wat-
tenbach is that the German students, being better informed
and more industrious, did for themselves a larger portion
of the transcribing required and were, therefore, freed
from the necessity of hiring their hefts.
The statutes of the universities of Prague and of Vienna
permitted the masters and the baccalaureates to secure
from the university archives, under certain pledges, the
loan of the books authorised as text-books or of works of
reference, for the purpose of making trustworthy copies
of the same. The copyists were enjoined as follows :
Fideliter et correcte, tractim et distincte, assignando para-
grafikos, capitales liter as, virgulas etpuncta, prout sententia
requirit. 1 The practice also obtained in these universities
of having texts dictated to the students by the magisters
or the Bachelors of Arts. This was described as librum
pronuntiare, and also as ad pennam dare.
In this phrase, Karoch sent word to Erfurt that ad
pennant dabit his treatise Arenga.*
The text-books utilised in the German universities in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were as limited in
range and in number as those of Bologna and of Padua.
The instruction in the medical departments of Prague
and Vienna was based in the main on the works of Hippo-
crates and Galen, with some of the later commentaries,
principally from Arabian writers. In philosophy the
chief authority was Aristotle, in mathematics Euclid, and
in astronomy Ptolemy. A few works of later date were
utilised, such as the Summula of Petrus Hispanus and the
De Sp/uzra Mundi of Johannes de Sacro Bosco. Bosco
is otherwise known as John Holy wood or Halifax. He
1 Kirchhoff, 115. 3 Kirchhoff, 187.
Books in the Early Universities 221
held the chair of mathematics in the University of Paris
about the middle of the thirteenth century. The use of
his treatise for classes in Prague is evidence of a certain
interchange between the universities of books in manu-
script.
An important reason for the very large membership of
the universities of the Middle Ages as compared with
their successors of to-day, is to be found in the fact that
they undertook to supply not only the higher education
which belongs to the present university curriculum, but
also the training now furnished by the gymnasia or High
Schools, which were at that time not in existence. We
find, therefore, in their membership, thousands of students
who were little more than boys either in their years or in
their mental development.
The universities also, on the other hand, attracted to
their membership very many students of mature age, who
came sometimes for special purposes, but more frequently
because it was only in the university towns that circles of
scholars could be found, that books were available, and
that any large measure of intellectual activity was to be
experienced. As Savigny puts its: " The universities were,
during the Middle Ages, practically the only places where
men could study or could exercise their minds with any
degree of freedom." It was inevitable therefore, that,
WJth the generations succeeding the discovery of printing,
there should be a decrease in the influence and in the
relative importance for the community of the universities.
With the establishment of secondary schools, the training
of the boys was cared for to better purpose elsewhere ;
and with the increasing circulation of printed books, it
became possible for men to come into relations with liter-
ature in other places than in the lecture room. The uni-
versities were no longer the sole depositories of learning
or the sole sources of intellectual activity. This lessening
of the influence of the universities represented, or was at
222 Books in Manuscript
least coincident with, a wider development of intellectual
activity and of interest in literature on the part of the
masses of the people. The universities alone would
never have been in a position so to direct the thought
of the community as to render the masses of citizens com-
petent to arrive at conclusions for themselves and suffi-
ciently assured in such conclusions to be prepared to make
them the basis of action. This was, of course, partly be-
cause, notwithstanding the large membership and the fact
that this membership represented nearly all the classes in
the community, the universities could at best come into
direct relations but with a small proportion of the people.
A more important cause for such lack of intellectual
leadership is to be found in the fact that the standard of
thought and of instruction in the universities concerned
itself very little with the intellectual life or issues of the
immediate time. As Biot puts it (speaking, to be sure,
of a later century) : " The universities were several centu-
ries in arrears with all that concerned the sciences and the
arts. Peripatetics, when all the world had renounced
with Descartes the philosophy of Aristotle, they became
Cartesians when the rest were Newtonians. That is the
way with learned bodies which do not make discoveries."
It was the dissemination of literature through the new
art of printing rather than the diffusion of education
through the university lecture rooms, which brought to
the masses of the people the consciousness of mental
existence and of individual responsibility for arriving
at sound conclusions. Prior to the printing-press, this
responsibility had been left by the people with their
" spiritual advisers," who were charged with the duty of
doing the thinking for their flocks. It was this change
in the mental status of the people which was the pre-
cursor (although at a considerable space of years) of the
Reformation.
With the beginning in Germany of the movement
Books in the Early Universities 223
known as Humanism, the representatives of the new
thought of the time were not to be found in the univer-
sity circles, and had not received their inspiration from
the lecture rooms. Says Paulsen : " The entire tradi-
tional conduct of the universities, and in particular of the
instruction in arts and theology, was rejected with the
utmost scorn by the new culture through its representa-
atives, the poets and orators, to whom form and substance
alike of this teaching seemed the most outrageous barbar-
ism, which they never wearied of denouncing. In the
Epistolce Obscurorum Virorum, which were issued about
1516 from the band of youthful poets gathered about
Mutianus at Erfurt, the hatred and detestation felt by the
Humanists for the ancient university system raised to
itself a lasting monument."
Within a few years from the publication of the Epis-
tolce, the influence of the Humanists had so far extended
itself as to have effected a large modification in the sys-
tems of study in all the larger universities. " The old
ecclesiastical Latin was replaced by classical Latin ; Ro-
man authors, particularly the poets, were made the sub-
ject of lectures, and the old translations of Aristotelian
texts were driven out by new translations on principles
advocated by the Humanists. Greek was taken up in
the Faculty of arts and courses in the language and litera-
ture were established in all universities." *
An immediate result of these changes and extensions
was an active demand for printed texts. The Humanistic
movement, itself in a measure the result of the printing-
press, was a most important fact in providing business
for the German printers during the earlier years of the
sixteenth century. The strifes and contentions of the
Reformation checked the development in the universities
of the studies connected with the intellectual movement
of the Renaissance and lessened the demand for the litera-
1 Paulsen, 41.
224 Books in Manuscript
ture of these studies. The active-minded were absorbed
in theological controversies, and those who could not un-
derstand the questions at issue could still shout the shib-
boleths of the leaders. As Erasmus put it, rather bitterly,
ubi regnat Lutheranismus, ibi interitus litterarum. The
literature of the Reformation, however, itself did much to
make good for the printing-presses the lessened demand
for the classics, while a few years later, the organisation
of the Protestant schools and universities aroused intel-
lectual activities in new regions, and created fresh re-
quirements for printed books. Within half a century, in
fact, of the Diet of Worms, the centre of the book-
absorbing population of Germany had been transferred
from the Catholic states of the south to the Protestant
territories of the north, and the literary preponderance
of the latter has continued to increase during the suc-
ceeding generations.
CHAPTER IV.
THE BOOK-TRADE IN THE MANUSCRIPT PERIOD.
Italy. It seems probable that the book-trade which
had been introduced into Gaul from Rome still ex-
isted during the sixth century. F. J. Mone finds
references to such trade in the chronicles of Caesarius of
Aries. 1 In the code of laws of the Visigoths, it is provided
that copies of the volume containing the laws shall be
sold at not more than six sols.*
Wattenbach is of opinion that not only in Rome but in
other Italian centres some fragments of the classic book-
trade survived the fall of the Empire and the later invasions
and changes of rulers, and he finds references to book-deal-
ers in Italy as late as the sixth century.' He takes the
ground that, notwithstanding the destruction of buildings,
library collections, and in fact of whole cities, during the
various contests, first with the Barbarian invaders and later
between these invaders themselves, there still remained
scholarly people who retained their interest in Latin
literature ; and he points out that, notwithstanding the
many changes in the rulers of Italy between the year 476
and the beginning of the eleventh century, Latin never
ceased to remain the official language and, as he maintains,
the language of literature.
In the Tetralogus of Wipo are the following lines which r
have a bearing upon this belief in the continuation of
some literary interests in Italy :
1 Grieck. u. Lat. Mcsscn., p. 155. 9 (V., 4, 22.) p. 449-
15 225
226 Books in Manuscript
Hoc servant Itali post prima crcpundia cuncti,
Et sudare scholis mandatur tota juvtntus.
Salts Teutonicis vacuum vel turpe vidctur,
Ut doceant aliqucm, nisi clericus accipiatur. 1
(From their cradle up all Italians pay heed to learning,
and their children are kept at work in the schools. It is
only among the Germans that it is held to be futile and
wrong to give instruction to one who is not to become a
cleric.)
Giesebrecht, in his treatise De Litterarum Studiis apud
ItaloSj confirms this view. He refers to a manuscript of
Orosius which was written in the seventh century and
which contains an inscription stating that this copy of the
manuscript was prepared by the scribe in the Statione
Magistri Viliaric Antiquarii.
This is one of the earlier examples of the use of the
term static, from which is derived the term stationarii, in-
dicating scribes whose work was done in a specific work-
shop or headquarters, as contrasted with writers who were
called upon to do work at the homes of their clients. As
is specified in the chapter on the universities, this term
came to be used to designate booksellers (that is to say,
producers of books) who had fixed work-shops. In the
Acts of the Council of Constantinople, the scribe who
wrote out the record of the fifth Synod is described as
Theodorus librarius qui habuit stationem ad S. Johannem
Phocam?
In such work-shops, while the chief undertaking was
the production of books, the scribes were ready to pre-
pare announcements and to write letters, as is even to-day
the practice of similar scribes in not a few Italian cities
and villages.
From the beginning of the seventh century, Rome was
for a considerable period practically the only book market
in the world, that is to say, the only place in which books
1 Wipo, Tftralogus, v., 197 /". * Wattenbach, 450.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 227
could be obtained on order and in which the machinery
for their production continued to exist. In 658, S. Ger-
trud ordered for the newly founded monastery at Nivelle
certain sacred volumes to be prepared in the city of
Rome. 1 Beda reports that the Abbot Benedict of Wear-
mouth, in 671, secured from Rome a number of learned
and sacred works, non paucos vel placito pretio emtos vel
amicorum dono largitos retulit. (He brought back a num-
ber of books, some of which he had purchased at the
prices demanded, while others he had received as gifts
from his friends.) Later, the Abbot repeated his jour-
neys, and in 678, and again in 685, brought back fresh col-
lections. The collections secured on his last journey
included even certain examples of the profane writers. 1
A similar instance is noted in the chronicles of the
monastery of St. Wandrille. The Abbot Wandregisil
sent his nephew Godo to Rome in 657, and Godo brought
back with him as a present from the Pope Vitalian, not
only valuable relics, but many volumes of the sacred
Scriptures containing both the New and the Old Tes-
tament.' During the time of the Abbot Austrulf (747-
753) a chest was thrown up by the sea on the shore. It
contained relics and also a codicem pulcherrimum, or beau-
tiful manuscript, containing the four gospels, Romana
Littera Optime Scriptum.
This term Romana Littera has been previously referred
to as indicating a special script which had been adopted
in Rome by the earlier instructors for sacred writings.
Alcuin relates of the Archbishop Albert of York
(766-780):
Non semel externas peregrine tramite terras,
Jam peragravit ovans, Sophia deductus amore,
Si quid forte novi librorum seu studiorum,
1 Mab. Acta. &., ii., 445, Ed. Yen.
9 Vita Benedict* Abb., c. 4, 6, 9, cited by Wattenbach, p. 45<x
Chron. Fontanell., c. 7 ; Mon. Germ., ii., 274.
228 Books in Manuscript
Quod secum ferret, terris reperiret in illis.
Hie quoque Romuleam venit devotus ad urbem. 1
(More than once he has travelled joyfully through re-
mote regions and by strange roads, led on by his zeal for
knowledge, and seeking to discover in foreign lands novel-
ties in books or in studies which he could take back with
him. And this zealous student journeyed to the city of
Romulus.)
During the Italian expeditions of the German Emper-
ors, books were from time to time brought back to Ger-
many. Certain volumes referred to by Fez as having been
in the Library at Passau, in 1395, contain the inscription
isti sunt libri quos Roma detulimus.
Wattenbach finds record of an organised manuscript
business in Verona as early as 1338,* and of a more im-
portant trade in manuscripts being carried on in Milan at
the same time. In the fourteenth century, Richard de
Bury speaks of buying books for his library from Rome.
The references to this early manuscript business in Italy
are, however, so fragmentary that it is difficult to deter-
mine how far the works secured were the remnants of old
libraries or collections, or how far they were the produc-
tions of scribe work-shops engaged in manifolding copies
for sale.
It seems evident, however, that while a scattered trade in
manuscripts was carried on both by the scribes in the towns
and between the monastery scriptoria, the facilities for
the production and manifolding of manuscript copies were
hardly adequate to meet the demand or requirements of
readers and students. As early as 250, Origen, writing in
Cappadocia, was complaining that he found difficulty in
getting his teachings distributed. A zealous disciple,
named Ambrosius, secured for the purpose a group of
scribes whose transcripts were afterwards submitted to
1 De Pontiff Eborae., v. 1453 ; Akuini Opera, ii., 256 ; Bibl. % vi., 125.
J P. 45L
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 229
Origen for revision before being sent out through the
churches. It is further related that Origen became so
absorbed in the work of correcting these manuscripts that
he could not be called from his desk either for exercise or
for meals. 1 S. Jerome, a century later, when he was
sojourning in Bethlehem, found similar difficulty. He
had among his monks some zealous scribes, but he com-
plained that their work was untrustworthy. 1
Abbot Lupus of Ferrieres was obliged (in the ninth
century) to apply to monks in York in order to secure the
transcribing work that he required.
In connection with this difficulty in securing books, it
became customary, when copies were loaned from libra-
ries, to secure from the borrower a pledge or security
of equal or greater value. The correspondence of the
time gives frequent instances of the difficulty in getting
back books that had been loaned, notwithstanding the
risk of the forfeiture of the pledges. In 1020, Notker
writes from St. Gall to the Bishop of Sitten that certain
books belonging to the Bishop, for which the Bishop was
making demand, had been borrowed by the Abbot Aregia,
and that, notwithstanding many applications, he had not
succeeded in getting even a promise of their return.' In
Vercelli, a beautiful mass book which had been loaned by
the Abbot Erkenbald of Fulda (997-1011) to the Bishop
Henry of Wurzburg, was to have been retained for the
term of the Bishop's life. After the death of the Bishop,
reclamation was made from Fulda for the return of the
volume, but without success. During the years 1461-1463,
the Legate Marinus de Fregeno travelled through Sweden
and Norway and collected there certain manuscripts which
he claimed were those that had been taken away from
Rome at the time of its plunder by the Goths. He evi-
dently took the ground that where books were concerned,
1 Georg. Cedrenus., i., 444, Ed. Bonn. * Wattenbach, 452.
3 Grimm, Kleine Schriften, v., 191.
230 Books in Manuscript
a term of one thousand years was not sufficient to consti-
tute a " statute of limitations."
Louis IX. of France is quoted as having taken the
ground that books should be transcribed rather than bor-
rowed, because in that way the number would be increased
and the community would be benefited. In many cases,
however, there could, of course, be no choice. The King,
for instance, desired to possess the great encyclopedia of
Vincenzo of Beauvais. He sent gold to Vincenzo, in
consideration of which a transcript of the encyclopedia
was prepared. The exact cost is not stated. 1
In 1375, a sum equivalent to 825 francs of to-day was
paid for transcribing the commentary of Heinrich Bohic
on the Decretals of 1375. In the cost of such work was
usually included a price for the loan or use of the manu-
script. A fee or rental was, in fact, always charged by
the manuscript-dealers. Up to the close of the fourteenth
century, the larger proportion of transcripts were prepared
for individual buyers and under special orders, one of the
evidences of this being the fact that upon the titles of the
manuscripts were designed or illuminated the arms or
crests of the purchasers. After the beginning of the fif-
teenth century, there is to be found a large number of
manuscripts in which a place has been left blank on the
title-pages for the subsequent insertion of the crest or
coat-of-arms, indicating that in these instances the manu-
script had been prepared for general use instead of under
special order.*
As already mentioned, Charlemagne interested himself,
not only in the training of scribes, but in the collection
of books, but he does not appear to have considered it
important that the works secured by him should be re-
tained for the use of his descendants, as he gave instruc-
tions in his will that after his death the books should be sold.
1 Vita S. Ludovici, Gaufrido de Belloloco, Bouq. ., 15.
'Wattenbach, 457.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 231
One of the oldest illuminated Irish manuscripts is that
of S. Ceaddae. This was purchased, at what date is not
specified, by some holy man in exchange for his best
steed, and was then presented by him to the church at
Llandaff. The manuscript finally made its way to Ma-
drid and thence to Stockholm ; according to the record,
it had, before the purchase above mentioned, been saved
out of the hands of Norman pirates. 1 It is certain that
very many of the monasteries which were within reach of
the incursions of the Normans were bereft by them of
such books as had been collected, although it is not
probable that, as a rule, the pirates had any personal in-
terest in, or commercial appreciation for, the manuscripts
that fell into their hands.
Gerbert, whose literary interests have been previously
referred to, and who is described as the most zealous
book collector of his time, tells us that he made pur-
chases for his library in Italy, in South Germany, and in
the Low Countries, but he does not mention whether he
was purchasing from dealers or individuals. He was a
native of Auvergne, and in 999 became Pope (under the
name of Sylvester II.). Abbot Albert of Gembloux, who
died in 1048, states that he brought together, at great
cost, as many as one hundred and fifty manuscripts.*
A certain Deopert records that he purchased for the
monastery of St. Emmeran, from Vichelm, the chaplain
of Count Regimpert, for a large sum of money (the price
is not specified), the writings of Alcuin.'
Notwithstanding the very strict regulations to the con-
trary, it not unfrequently happened that monasteries and
churches, when in special stress for money, pledged or
sold their books to Jews. As the greater proportion at
least of the sacred writings of the monasteries would have
1 Westwood, Miniatures and Ornaments , xxii., 6.
'Gesta. Abb. Gemblacensium, Man. Germ. Ss., viii., 540.
Wattenbach, 459.
232 Books in Manuscript
had no personal interest for their Hebrew purchasers, it
is fair to assume that these were taken for re-sale, and
that, in fact, there came to be a certain trade in books on
the part of financiers acting in the capacity of pawn-
brokers. In 1320, the monastery of S. Ulrich was in
need of funds, and the Abbot Marquard, of Hagel,
pawned to the mendicant monks a great collection of
valuable books, among which were certain volumes that
had been prepared as early as 1175 under the directions
of the Abbot Heinrich. The successor of Marquard, Con-
rad Winkler, in 1344, succeeded in getting back a portion
of the books, by the payment of 27 pounds heller, and
15 pfennigs. 1 Instances like these give evidence that a
certain trade in manuscript books, in Northern Europe at
least, preceded by a number of years the organisation of
any systematised book-trade.
Kirchhoff speaks of usurers, dealers in old clothes, and
pedlars, carrying on the trade in the buying and selling
of books during the first half of the fifteenth century. In
Milan, a dealer in perfumery, Paolino Suordo, included in
his stock (in 1470) manuscripts for sale, and later an-
nounced himself as a dealer in printed books. Both in
England and France at this time manuscripts were dealt
in by grocers and by the mercers. The monastery of
Neuzelle, in 1409, pawned several hundred manuscripts
for 130 gulden, and the monastery at Dobrilugk, in 1420,
sold to the Prebendary of Brandenburg 1441 volumes.
In 1455, the Faculty of Arts of the University of Hei-
delberg bought valuable books from the estate of the
Prior of Worms. In 1402, the cathedral at Breslau rented
a number of books from Burgermeister Johann Kyner,
for which the Chapter was to pay during the lifetime
of said Kyner a yearly rental of eight marks, ten groschens.*
The Bishop of Speier rented to the precentor of the
1 Wittwer, in Steichele's Arch, f. Gesch. der Bisth., Augsburg, iii., 164.
9 Wattenbach, p. 465.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 233
cathedral in 1447 some separately written divisions of
the Bible, which were to be held by the precentor during
his lifetime only, and were then to be returned to the
Bishop's heirs. The rental is not mentioned. The Chap-
ter of the Cathedral of Basel arranged to take over certain
books from the owner or donor, whose name is not given,
and to pay as consideration for the use of the same, each
year on the anniversary of the gift, 16 sols. 1
Richard de Bury makes a reference to the book-trade
of Europe, as it existed in the fourteenth century, as
follows :
Stationariorum ac librariorum notitiam non solum intra
natalis soli provincial, sed per regnum Francice^ Teutonics
et Italics comparavimus dispersorum faciliter pecunia prce-
volante, nee eos ullatenus impedivit distantia neque furor
marts absterruit, nee eis ces pro expensa defecit, quin ad
nos optatos libros transmitterent vel afferrent?
(By means of advance payments, we have easily come
into relations with the stationarii and librarii who are
scattered through our native province, and also with those
who are to be found in the kingdoms of France, Germany,
and Italy ; and neither the great distances, nor the fury
of the sea, nor lack of money for their expenses has been
permitted to prevent them from bringing or sending to
us the books that we desired.)
In the same work, De Bury uses the term bibliator t
which he afterwards explained as being identical with
bibliopole, a seller of books.
The record of the production of books that was carried
on in the earlier universities, such as Bologna and Padua,
is presented in the chapter on the universities.
In connection with the very special requirements of the
earlier Italian universities, and with the close control ex-
ercised by them over the scribes, it is evident that a book-
1 Mone, in der Zeitsch. f. Gesch. der Oberrh., i., 309, 310.
2 Philobiblon. c. 8.
234 Books in Manuscript
trade in the larger sense of the term could not easily
come into existence. The first records of producers and
dealers of books of a general character were to be found,
not in the university towns, but in Milan, Florence, and
particularly in Venice. In 1444, a copy of Macrobius was
stolen from the scholar Filelfo, or Philelphus, which copy
he recovered, as he tells us, in the shop of a public scribe
in Vincenza.
Blume mentions that in Venice the Camaldulensers of
S. Michael in Murano carried on during the earlier part
of the fifteenth century an important trade in manu-
scripts, including with the older texts verified copies
which had been prepared under their own direction. 1
The headquarters, not only for Italy but for Europe, of
the trade of Greek manuscripts, was for a number of
years in Venice, the close relations of Venice with Con-
stantinople and with the East having given it an early
interest in this particular class of Eastern productions.
Joh. Aretinus was busied in Florence between the
years 1375 and 1417 in the sale of manuscripts, but he
appears to have secured these mainly not by production
in Florence, but by sending scribes to the libraries in the
monasteries and elsewhere to produce the copies required.
A reference in a letter of Leonardo Bruni, written in
1416, gives indication of an organised book-trade in
Florence at that time :
Priscianum quern postulas omnes tabernas librarias per-
scrutatus reperire nondum potui? (I have hunted through
all the book-shops, but have not been able to find the
Priscian for which you asked.)
Bruni writes again concerning a certain Italian transla-
tion of the Bible that he had been trying to get hold of :
Jam Bibliothecas omnes et bibliopolas requisivi ut si qua
beniant ad manus eligam quceque optima mihi significent.
(I have already searched all the libraries and book-shops
1 Her Ital., iv., 179. 9 Epp. Leon. Aret., Ed. Mehus., iv., 8.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 235
in order to select from the material at hand the manu-
scripts which are for me the most important*)
Ambrogio Traversari wrote in 1418 in Florence:
Oro ut convenias bibliopolas civitatis et inquiri facias
diligent er, an inveniamus deer et ales in parvo volumine*
(I beg you to make search among the booksellers of the
city and ascertain whether it is possible to secure in a
small volume a copy of the Decretals.)
The use for book-dealers of the old classic term biblio-
pola in place of the more usual stationarius is to be
noted.
From these references, we have a right to conclude that
there were during the first quarter of the fifteenth cen-
tury in Florence a number of dealers in books who
handled various classes of literature.
The great publisher of the fifteenth century, Philippi
Vespasianus, or Vespasiano, who was not only a producer
and dealer in manuscripts, but a man possessed of a wide
range of scholarship, called himself librarius florentinus.
He held the post for a time of bidellus of the University
of Florence. His work will be referred to more fully in
a later division of this chapter.
Kirchhoff points out that the dealers of this time,
among others Vespasiano himself, were sometimes termed
chartularii, a term indicating that dealers in books were
interested also in the sale of paper and probably of other
writing materials. The Italian word cartolajo specifies a
paper-dealer or perhaps more nearly a stationer in the
modern signification of the term.
The influx of Greek scholars into Italy began some
years before the fall of Constantinople. Some of these
scholars came from towns in Asia Minor, which had fallen
under the rule of the Turks before the capture of Con- .
stantinople. When the Turkish armies crossed the Bos-
phorus, a number of the Greeks seem to have lost hope
1 Ambrogii EpistoltZy Ed. Mehus., p. 517.
236 Books in Manuscript
at a comparatively early date of being able to defend
the Byzantine territory, and had betaken themselves with
such property as they could save to various places of
refuge in the south of Europe, and particularly in Italy.
As described in other chapters, many of these exiles
brought with them Greek manuscripts, and in some cases
these codices were not only important as being the first
copies of the texts brought to the knowledge of European
scholars, but were of distinctive interest and value as being
the oldest examples of such texts in existence.
The larger number of the exiles who selected Italy as
their place of refuge found homes and in many cases schol-
arly occupation, not in the university towns so much as in
the great commercial centres, such as Venice and Florence.
Many of these Greeks were accepted as instructors in the
families of nobles or of wealthy merchants, while others
made use of their manuscripts either through direct sale,
through making transcripts for sale, or through the loan
of the originals to the manuscript-dealers.
A little later these manuscripts served as material and
as " copy " for the editions of the Greek classics issued
by Aldus and his associates, the first thoroughly edited
and carefully printed Greek books that the world had
known. It was partly as a cause and partly as an effect
of the presence of so many scholarly Greeks, that the study
of Greek language, literature, and philosophy became
fashionable among the so-called higher circles of Italian
society during the last half of the fifteenth century.
The interest in Greek literature had, however, as
pointed out, begun nearly twenty-five years earlier. As
there came to be some knowledge of the extent of the
literary treasures of classic Greece which had been pre-
served in the Byzantine cities, not a few of the more en-
terprising dealers in manuscripts, and many also of the
wealthier and more enterprising of the scholarly noblemen
and merchants, themselves sent emissaries to search the
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 237
monasteries and cities of the East for further manuscripts
which could be purchased.
One reason, apparently, for the preference given by the
Greeks to Venice and Florence over Bologna and Padua
was the fact that the two great universities were devoted,
as we have seen, more particularly to the subjects of law,
theology, and medicine, subjects in which the learning of
the Greeks could be of little direct service. 1 The philo-
sophy and the poetry which formed the texts of the lec-
tures given by the Greek scholars attracted many zealous
and earnest students, but these students came, as stated,
largely outside of the university circles. The doctors of
law and the doctors of theology were among the last of
the Italian scholars to be interested in Homeric poetry or
in the theories of the Greek metaphysicians.
Towards the middle of the fifteenth century and a few
years before the introduction of printing, a new term came
to be used for dealers in manuscripts. The scribes had
in many cases naturally associated their business interests
with those of the makers of paper, cartolaji, and the
latter name came to be applied not only to the paper
manufacturers, but to the purchasers of the paper upon
which books were inscribed. In some cases the paper-
makers, or cartolaji, appear themselves to have organised
staffs of scribes through whose labour their own raw
material could be utilised, while the name of paper-maker,
cartolajo, came to be used to describe the entire
concern.
After the introduction into Italy of printing, the asso-
ciation of the paper-makers with books became still more
important, and not a few of the original printer-publishers
were formerly paper manufacturers, and continued this
branch of trade while adding to it the work of manufac-
turing books. Among such paper-making publishers is
1 The Faculty of theology in Bologna was not established until 1352, but
the statement is sufficiently correct for the period here referred to.
238 Books in Manuscript
to be noted Francesco Cartolajo, who was in business in
Florence in i $07, and whose surname was, of course, de-
rived from the trade in which his family had for some
generations been engaged. Bonaccorsi turned his paper-
making establishment in Florence into a printing-office
and book manufactory as early as 1472, and Montali, in
Parma, took the same course in 1482 ; Di Sasso who, in
1481, came into asssociation with the Brothers Brushi,
united his printing-office with their paper factory.
Fillippo Giunta, one of the earlier publishers in Flor-
ence, calls himself libraries et cartolafus. It is possible
that he reversed the business routine above referred to,
and united a paper factory with his printing-office.
One result of the influx of Greek scholars, many of
whom were themselves skilled scribes while others brought
with them scribes, was the multiplying of the number of
writers available for work and a corresponding reduction
in the cost of such work.
The effect of this change in the business conditions was
to lessen the practice of hiring manuscripts for a term of
days or weeks, or of dividing manuscripts into pectas, and
to increase the actual sale of works in manuscripts.
The university regulations, however, controlling the
loaning of manuscripts and of the pecias appear to have
been continued and renewed through the latter half of the
fifteenth century, that is to say, not only after the trade
in manuscripts, at popular prices, had largely developed
in cities like Florence, Venice, and Milan, but even after
the introduction of printing. It would almost seem as if
in regard to books in manuscript, the system which had
been put into shape by the university authorities had had
the effect of delaying for a quarter of a century or so the
introduction into Bologna and Padua of the methods of
book production and book distribution which were already
in vogue in other cities of Italy. I do not overlook the
fact that there was in Florence also a university, but it is
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 239
evident that the book-trade in that city had never been
under the control of the university authorities, and that
the methods of the dealers took shape rather from the
general, common-sense commercial routine of the great
centre of Italian trade than from the narrow scholastic
theories of the professors of law or of theology.
During the twenty-five years before the art of printing,
introduced into Italy in 1464, had become generally dif-
fused, the years in which the trade in manuscripts was at
its highest development, Florence succeeded Venice as
the centre of this trade, both for Italy and for Europe.
The activity of the intellectual life of the city, and the
fact that its citizens were cultivated and that its scholars
were so largely themselves men of wealth, the convenient
location of the city for trade communications with the
other cities of Italy and with the great marts in the East,
in the West, and in the North, and the accumulation in
such libraries as those of the Medici of collections, no-
where else to be rivalled, of manuscripts, both ancient and
modern, united in securing for Florence the pre-eminence
for literary production and for literary interests.
Scholars, not only from the other Italian cities, but
from France, Germany, and Hungary, came to Florence
to consult manuscripts which in many cases could be
found only in Florence, or to purchase transcripts of these
manuscripts, which could be produced with greater cor-
rectness, greater beauty, and smaller expense by the
librarii of Florence than by producers of books in any
other city. After the Greek refugees began their lecture
courses, there was an additional attraction for scholars
from the outer world to visit the Tuscan capital.
The wealthy scholars and merchant princes of Florence,
whose collections of manuscripts were given to the city
during their lifetime, or who left such collections after
their death to the Florentine libraries, made it, as a rule,
a condition of such gifts and such bequests that the
240 Books in Manuscript
books should be placed freely at the disposal of visitors
desiring to make transcripts of the same. Such a condi-
tion appears in the will of Bonaccorsi, 1 while a similar
condition was quoted by Poggio 3 in his funeral oration
upon Niccolo de' Niccoli, as having been the intention of
Niccolo for the books bequeathed by him to his Flor-
entine fellow-citizens.
Foreign collectors who did not find it convenient them-
selves to visit Florence, such as the Duke of Burgundy,
and Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, kept employed in the
city for a number of years scribes engaged in the work of
preparing copies of these Florentine literary treasures for
the libraries of Nancy and of Buda-Pesth.
Matthias was, it seems, not content with ordering the
transcripts of the works desired by him, but employed a
scholarly editor, resident in Florence, to supervise the
work and to collate the transcripts with the originals,
and who certified to the correctness of the copies for-
warded to Buda.' At the death of Matthias, there appear
to have been left in Florence a number of codices ordered
by him which had not yet been paid for, and these were
taken over by the Medici. 4
In a parchment manuscript of the Philippian orations is
inscribed a note by a previous owner, a certain Dominicus
Venetus, to the effect that he had bought the same in
Rome from a Florentine bookseller for five ducats in gold
in 1460.* Dominicus goes on to say that he had used
this manuscript in connection with the lectures of the
learned Brother Patrus Thomasius.
During the thirteenth century, there was a considerable
development in the art of preparing and of illuminating
Blume, Iter, vol. ii., p. 71.
Poggii Florentine, Opera, Argentina, 1513, vol. ii., 102.
Schier, De Regia Bibliotheca Budensis, Viennae, 1799, vol. viii., 21.
Denis, torn, i., 849.
Mittarelli, p. 258.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 241
and illustrating manuscripts. One author is quoted by
Tiraboschi as saying that the work on a manuscript now
required the services not of a scribe, but of an artist.
For the transcribing of a missal and illuminating the
same with original designs, a monk in Bologna is quoted
as having received in 1260 two hundred florins gold, the
equivalent of about one hundred dollars. For copying
the text of the Bible, without designs, another scribe
received in the same year eighty lire, about sixteen dol-
lars. 1
The work of the manuscript-dealers in Florence was
carried on not only for the citizens and sojourners in the
city itself, but for the benefit of other Italian cities in
which there was no adequate machinery for the manifold-
ing of manuscripts. Bartholomaeus Facius, writing from
Naples in 1448, speaks of the serious inadequacy of the
scribes in that city. There were but few men engaged in
the business, and these were poorly educated and badly
equipped. 3 Facius was, therefore, asking a correspondent
in Florence to have certain work done for him which
could not be completed in Naples. Poggio writes from
Rome about the same date to Niccolo in Florence
to somewhat similar effect. He speaks with envy of
the larger literary facilities possessed by his Florentine
friends. 8
Next to Florence, the most important centre for the
manuscript trade of North Italy was Milan. As early as
the middle of the fourteenth century, there is record of no
less than forty professional scribes being at work in the city.
Such literary work as was required by Genoa and other
Italian towns within reach of the Lombardy capital came
to Milan. At the beginning of the thirteenth century,
when the population of the city was about 200,000, there
had been in the city but two registered copyists. More im-
portant, however, than that of either Florence or Milan,
1 Tiraboschi, ii., 40. 9 Mittarelli, 383. Mittarelli, 933.
16
242 Books in Manuscript
was the manuscript trade of Venice, the position of which
city gave it exceptional advantages as well for the collec-
tion of codices from the East as for securing the services
of skilled scribes from Athens or from Constantinople.
One of the more noteworthy of the Venetian importers of
manuscripts was Johannes Galeotti, a Genoese by birth,
who made various journeys to Constantinople, and whose
special trade is referred to in an inscription on a manu-
script dating from 1450 and containing the speeches of
Demosthenes. 1
Reference has already been made to Aurispa, who
appears to have been the most important manuscript-
dealer of his time, not only in Venice, but possibly in the
world. Aurispa sent various agents to Greece and to
^the farther East to collect manuscripts and kept scribes
busied in his work-shop in Venice in preparing authentic
copies of these texts. One of his travellers was Plantin-
erus, who was sent to the Peloponnesus in 1415, and who
succeeded in securing there some valuable codicps. 1
Plantinerus found, in executing his commissions, that he
had to come into competition with a traveller sent out by
Cosimo de* Medici on a similar errand.
Venice possessed an advantage over the other Italian
cities, not only in the collection of texts, and in its facili-
ties for manifolding these, but in its position for securing
wide sales for the same in the cities outside of Italy, with
which it was, in connection with its active commerce, in
regular relations. The lines of the Oxford printers, Theo.
tRood and Thomas Hunt, printed in their edition of the
Letters of Phalaris % give an indication of the relations of
the English university in the early part of the sixteenth
century with the literary marts of Southern Europe.
1 Mucciolo, J. M., Calalogus Codd. Mss. Malatest Ccesan. Biblioth.
Fratr. Min. Convent, i., 95. Caesanae, 1780.
* Petit-Radel, RecherchessurUs Bibliolhtques Ancienncs, etc., Paris, 1819,
p. 155-
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period. 243
Celatos, Vcncti) nobis transmitter libros
Ccdite, nos aliis vendimus, O Vcntti ! '
[Celatos should read Caelatos.]
(Cease, Venetians, to send us engraved [i. e. printed]
books, [for] we ourselves, O Venetians ! sell [such books]
to others.) This Oxford edition of the Ptialaris was
printed in 1485.
There is evidence in fact of a very active book-trade
between Venice and England for many years before the
introduction into Italy of the printing-press. The work
of Aldus and of those who were associated with him in
carrying on printing and publishing undertakings in Venice
naturally very largely extended these relations with the
English scholars, but the channels for the same had
already been opened. The manuscript-dealers in Venice
fixed their place of business in the most frequented parts
of the city the Bridge of the Rialto, and the Plaza of
S. Mark.
The trade of the Italian dealers in manuscripts was not
brought to an immediate close by the introduction of
printing. The older scholars still preferred the manu-
script form for their books, and found it difficult to divest
themselves of the impression that the less costly printed
volumes were suited only for the requirements of the
vulgar herd. There are even, as Kirchhoff points out, 1
instances of scribes preparing their manuscripts from
printed " copy," and there are examples of these manu-
script copies of printed books being made with such liter-
alness as to include the imprint of the printer.
The work of Aldus (continued with scholarly enterprise
later by such men as Froben of Basel and Estienne of
Paris) in the printing of Greek texts, although begun as
early as 1495, and although exercising a very wide influ-
ence upon the distribution of Greek literature, was insuffi-
cient to supply the eager demand of the scholars, while
not many other printers were, in the early years of the
1 Kirchhoff, p. 40. * p. 41.
244 Books in Manuscript
exercise of the art, prepared to incur the very considerable
risk and expense required for the production of Greek fonts
of type. The risk was, of course, by no means limited to
the cost of the type ; the printers of the earlier Greek
books had themselves but slight familiarity with the litera-
ture of Greece, and they were obliged in many cases to
confide the selection and the editing of their texts to
editors to whom this literature was very largely still a
novelty. The printers hardly knew what books to select
and they had no adequate data upon which to base busi-
ness calculations as to the extent of the demand that
could be looked for for any particular book. The feeling
that they were working in the dark was, therefore, a very
natural one.
It was on this ground that, while printing-presses were,
during the century after 1450, multiplying rapidly through
Europe, the printing of Greek books continued to be for
a large portion of the period an exceptional class of
undertakings, and work was still found for scribes who
could be trusted to make accurate transcripts of Greek
codices.
Kirchhoff gives the names of the following Italian
manuscript-dealers and scribes whose scholarly activity
during the latter half of the fifteenth century was espe-
cially important : Antonius Dazilas, Caesar Strategus,
Constantius Librarius, Andreas Vergetius, and Antonius
Eparchus. The latter made various journeys to the East
in search of manuscripts. The fact that the dealers
in manuscripts very rarely placed their own names on the
copies of the texts sent out from their work-shops has, in
a large number of cases, prevented these names from
being preserved for future record. The names that have
come into record are in the main such as have been
referred to in the correspondence of their scholarly friends
and clients. I quote a few of these references from the
lists given by Kirchhoff :
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 245
In Bologna the oldest librarius whose work is referred
to is Viliaric, who was called an antiquarius, and whose
shop was open in the beginning of the thirteenth
century. In a manuscript, previously referred to, contain-
ing a treatise of Paul Orosius, originally written in the
seventh century, and from which this copy was tran-
scribed early in the thirteenth, there is at the"~end an
inscription, as follows :
Confectus codex in statione magistri Viliaric antiquarii^
Or a pro me scriptore, sic dominum Jiabeas protectorem?
[This codex was completed in the stall of Master
Valiaric, bookseller ; pray for (the soul of) me, the scribe,
and you shall have the Lord for your protector.]
This codex seems to have been prepared, according to
the usual university practice, for hire, as on the sixteenth
page there is noted the memorandum, " this quaternio
has five sheets."
In 1247, Nicolaus is recorded as being the stationarius
universitatis, and in the same year a certain Johannes
Cambii is recorded as a stationarius librorum ; and Min-
ghinus as a stationarius peciarum. Here we have in one
year record of three classes of scribes being at work.
They were all noted as being doctors of the law, and they
all appear on the list of persons exempt from military
service.
Later in the same century, a certain Cervotti, who had
inherited from a deceased brother a collection of books,
undertook to use these for profit by offering them for
hire. The list of the books, drawn up by the notary Nos-
cimpax, has been preserved, and includes twenty different
works. Certain of these are collections of the university
lectures in the Faculty of law, and the others have also, in
the main, to do with the subject of jurisprudence. The
first book on the list is Diversitates Dominorum, and the
1 Bandini, Codd. Lat., ii., 727.
246 Books in Manuscript
last Margarita Gallacerti, which latter does not appear
properly to belong to the subject of jurisprudence.
In the year 1400, there is reference to a scribe named
Moses and specified as a Jew, which, in view of the uni-
versity regulations previously referred to prohibiting the
sale of books by Jews or to Jews, is noteworthy.
The entry appears at the close of a manuscript of Bar-
tholomaeus Brixiensis :
Emi hunc librum anno domini MCCCC die XXL Mensis
novembris a Moysi Judeo pro viii. florenes.
Kirchhoff is of opinion that Moses must have been a
travelling pedlar, as it is difficult to believe that a Jew
could have at that time secured the post of a licensed
university scribe. 1
In Verona, there is reference to a certain Bonaventura,
who is recorded as a scriptor, and who seems to have
occasionally utilised for his manuscript work the hand of
a woman. An inscription on one of the manuscripts by
Bonaventura, quoted by Endlicher, reads as follows :
Dextra seriptoris car fat gravitate doloris.
Detur pro penna scriptori pulchra pudla. *
In Florence, the earliest librarius of note was probably
Johannes Aretinus, whose work continued during the
years between 1375-1417. Ambrosius Camaldulensis,
who had so much to do with books and with literature,
takes pains, in a letter written in 1391, to send a cordial
greeting to the librarius Aretinus.' Bandini prints a letter
of Petrarch's in which the latter refers to Aretinus as a
friend for whom he has a high regard and as a man of
exceptional knowledge and clearness of insight, and
specifies, as works that he valued highly, nine manu-
1 Pasini, Rivantella et Berta, pars ii., 77.
Endlicher, Catalogus Codd. MSS. Biblioth. Palat Vtndo JBontnsis, torn,
i., 89.
3 Martene et Durand, torn, iii., 536.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 247
scripts which had been written by the hand of Aretinus.
These included Aristotle's treatise on Ethics, several
Essays of Cicero, the Histories of Livy, Cicero's Orations,
Barbari on Marriage, etc.
Kirchhoff gives a list of fourteen other Florentine libra-
rii, whose work extended over the years between 1410
and 1480. The latter date is sixteen years later than the
introduction of the printing-press into Italy.
The most noteworthy by far of these manuscript-deal-
ers of Florence was Philippi Vespasiano, who has been
previously referred to, and who is to be ranked not only
as the most important publisher of the manuscript period,
but as one of the great scholars of his time, and as a man
whose friendship was cherished by not a few of the leaders
of thought during the earlier period of the Renaissance.
In one of the Florentine collections has been preserved a
number of letters written to Vespasiano by his scholarly
friends between the years 1446 and 1463, and these letters
show how honoured a position he held in the generation of
his time. He was, in fact, in character and in ambition,
as well as in the nature of his work, a worthy predecessor
of Aldus, and he lived long enough himself to have seen
some of the productions of the Aldine Press.
In his earlier years, Vespasiano was for a time secretary
to Cardinal Branda in Rome, and it is during this time
that he devoted himself earnestly to classic studies. It
was while he was in Rome that he began work upon a lit-
erary undertaking of his own, which comprised a series of
Memoirs of the noteworthy men of his time with whom
he had come into relations. The Medici, Duke Borso of
Ferrara, and other of the scholarly nobles made large use
of Vespasiano's collections of manuscripts and facilities
for producing authentic transcripts.
He was one of the Italian dealers whose agents were
actively at work in Greece and in Asia Minor in the col-
lecting of manuscripts, and the clients to whom he sup-
248 Books in Manuscript
plied such manuscripts included correspondents in Paris,
Basel, Vienna, and Oxford.
In the Bodleian Library in Oxford is a codex containing
certain works of Cyprian, on the first sheet of which is
inscribed :
Vespasianus librarius Florentinus hunc librum Florentine
transcribendum curavit. (Vespasian, a Florentine libra-
rius, had this book transcribed at Florence.)
Another manuscript in the same collection, containing
a commentary on some comedies of Terence, is inscribed
as follows :
Vespasianus librarius Florentinus fecit scribi Florentice.
(Vespasian, a Florentine librarius, had this book written in
Florence.)
Both codices are beautiful examples of the best manu-
script work of the period. 1
There are various references of the time showing that
manuscripts which bore the stamp of Vespasiano were
not only beautiful in their form, but possessed probably a
higher authority than the work of any other manuscript-
dealer of the age for completeness and for accuracy. He
took contracts for the production of great libraries, and it
is recorded that, in preparing for Cosimo de' Medici a col-
lection of two hundred works, he employed forty-five
scribes for a term of twenty-two months.* Vespasiano
died in 1496, one year later than the establishment in
Venice of the Aldine Press.
Agnolo da Sandro is described as a bidellus, a manu-
script-dealer, in Florence as late as 1498, at which time
the trade in manuscripts must already have begun very
seriously to diminish. Niccolo di Giunta, who was active
in the manuscript trade in Florence towards the end of
the fifteenth century, is famous as having been the founder
of the family of Giunta or Junta, which later took such an
1 Coxe, Coll. Lincoln, torn. i. t pp. 31 and 32.
'Kirchhoff, Weitcre Beitragc, vii., 8.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 249
important part in printing and publishing undertakings in
Italy.
In Perugia, the first record of a manuscript-publisher
bears date as late as 1430. The name is Bontempo, and
his inscription appears on a parchment copy of an Infor-
tiatum.
While there are various references to manuscript-dealers
in Milan of an early date, the first inscription bears date
as late as 1452. The name is Melchoir, who is described
as a " dealer of note." Filelfo speaks of Melchoir as
having copies of Cicero's Letters for sale at ten ducats
each. 1
Paolo Soardo, who was in business between 1470 and
1480, is described as an apothecary and also as a dealer in
delicatessen, but he seems to have added to his employ-
ment that of a manifolder and seller of manuscripts.
Jacobus Antiquarius speaks of having purchased from
Paolo in 1480 a Roman history for the sum of one aureus.
In Padua, Jacob, a Jew, succeeded, notwithstanding the
university regulations against dealing in manuscripts by
Jews, in carrying on between 1455 an d 1460 a business in
the sale of manuscripts. His inscription appears on a
number of classical codices of the time, and in a manu-
script of Horace, dating from the twelfth century, the
owner makes reference that he purchased the same in
1458 from Jacob, the Hebrew librarius*
The records of Ferrara give the names of Carnerio,
bibliopola, and of several others as doing business in
manuscripts between 1440 and 1490.
In Rome the records of 1454 speak of Giovanni and
Francisco as cartolaji and librarii, that is to say, dealers
in paper and also in manuscripts. In that year these
dealers had for sale among their things, Letters of Cicero
(without which work no well regulated manuscript-dealer's
collection appears to have been complete) and the works
1 Filelfo, Epistote, x., 25. * Bandini, Codd. Lot., torn, ii., 145.
250 Books in Manuscript
of Celsus. A copy of the latter was bought for Ves-
pasiano for the sum of twenty ducats. There is record
during the same year of a certain Spannocchia who
also had Cicero's Letters for sale.
In Genoa there were at this time one or two manuscript-
dealers, but, as before stated, the readers and scholars of
Genoa appear for the most part to have supplied them-
selves from Florence.
The most important trade in manuscripts during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as was the case during
the fifteenth century with the trade in printed books, was
carried on in Venice and Florence. As early as 1 390 the
inscription of Gabriel Ravenna, librarius, appears in a
copy of Seneca's Tragedies? Kirchhoff is of opinion that
Gabriel conducted, during the last fifteen years of the
fourteenth century, an important work-shop for the pro-
duction of manuscripts.
A year or two later, occurs the name of Michael, a
German librarius, but it is possible that Michael's work
was more nearly that of a secretary than of a manuscript-
dealer. As Kirchhoff points out, it is not always easy at
this stage of the trade in manuscripts, to distinguish
between the inscriptions of the manuscript-dealers certi-
fying to the correctness of the copy sent out from their
shops, and the inscriptions of the scribes or secretaries
who, having completed for this or that employer specific
copies of the works required, added their names as a
record on the final sheet.
Reference has already been made to Johannes Aurispa,
by far the most important of the manuscript-dealers of
his time and possibly of the entire Middle Ages. Aurispa
was born in 1369 in Sicily. The earlier years of his life
were passed in Constantinople, where he appears to have
held a position of some importance in connection with
the Court. While in Constantinople, he began to make
1 Bandini, Codd. Lat., torn, ii., 251.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 251
collections of manuscripts, and he organised there a staff of
skilled scribes. In 1423, at the invitation of his friends,
Ambrosius Camaldulensis and Niccolo de' Niccoli, he came
to Florence, bringing with him an invaluable collection of
238 manuscripts.
To this store he afterwards added, while in Florence, a
further lot of codices which he had had sent from Con-
stantinople to Messina. At this time, his interest in the
collection of manuscripts appears to have been a matter
of scholarship merely and of sympathy with the efforts of
certain Florentine scholars whom he came to know, to
secure the material for their classical studies.
Later, however, in connection, doubtless, with the many
applications that came to him for transcripts of his codices,
he decided to organise a business as a bookseller and
publisher. Before taking this course, he had, it appears,
sought a position as instructor, first in Florence and after-
wards in Bologna and in Ferrara, but had not succeeded
in finding the kind of a post that suited him.
Part of the evidence of his change of mind comes to us
through letters from Filelfo, whose keen scholarly interest
brought him into close relations with men having to do
with literary production. Filelfo writes to Aurispa, in
1440:
Totus es in librorum mercatura, sed in lectura mallem.
Quid enim prodest libros quotidie, nunc enter e^ nunc vender e y
legere vere nunquam ! (You are completely absorbed in
the occupation of trading books, but I should choose that
of reading them. For what does it profit you to buy and
sell books every day if you never have time for their
perusal.)
And again in 1441 :
Sed ex tua ista taberna libraria nullus unquam prodit
codex, nisi cum quastu? (No book ever leaves your book-
shop, except at a profit to you.)
1 Kirchhoff, p. 55.
252 Books in Manuscript
The publishing undertakings of Aurispa were devoted
almost entirely to works of classical literature. Among
the authors whose names appear either in the lists of
books offered by him or in the correspondence of his
friends and clients, are as follows :
Philo Judaeus, Strabo, Theophrastus, Demosthenes,
Xenophon, Proculus, Homer, Aristarchus, Athenaeus,
Sophocles, ^Eschylus, Pindar, Oppian, Proclus, Eusebius,
Gregory, Aristotle, Plutarch, Plotinus, Lucian, Dio Cassio,
Diodorus, and other Greek authors. The Latin writers
included Cicero (of necessity), Virgil, Pliny, Quintilian,
Macrobius, Apicius, and Antonius.
Aurispa seems to have enjoyed the confidence and
friendship of all the noted Italian scholars of his time,
and the letters of his correspondents speak with very
cordial appreciation as well of the importance of his ser-
vices to literature, as of the extent of the accuracy of his
own scholarship. The only correspondent with whom he
appears to have had any trouble was Filelfi, but if Filelfi
had not managed to have friction with Aurispa, the
bookseller would have been an exception among the
contemporaries of this irritable and self-sufficient scholar.
In 1450, being then well advanced in years, Aurispa
gave up his business undertakings, took priestly orders,
and lived thereafter as a scriba apostolicus, dividing his
time between Ferrara and Rome. He declined tempting
offers, made through his friend Panormita, to join the
literary circle of King Alphonso which had been brought
together about the Court in Naples.
After Aurispa's death, Filelfo gave to his son-in-law,
Sabbatinus, a very cordial word of appreciation of the
services and of the character of the publisher. A portion
of the manuscripts belonging to Aurispa's collection was
purchased in 1461 by Duke Borso of Ferrara for two
hundred ducats.
A large collection of manuscripts was, however, in
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 253
Aurispa's possession at the time of his death, and these
were taken charge of by Bartholomaeus Facius, and, after
various vicissitudes, many of them have since found place
in existing collections of Florence, Venice, Vienna, Paris,
and London. A selection of the letters between Aurispa
and his near friend Camaldulensis has also been preserved.
Books in Spain. At the time when the great manu-
script-dealers of Venice and Florence were carrying on
business with the literary centres of France, Germany, and
England, they had some dealings also with Spain ; but
their correspondence was practically limited to the Uni-
versity of Salamanca, which had been founded about
1 220. The literary activities of Spain during the fifteenth
century were certainly much less important than those
of either Italy or France. They were of necessity seri-
ously hampered by the long series of wars with the Moors,
while the final overthrow in 1492 of the Moorish kingdom
of Granada doubtless had, as one of many results, a
decidedly unfavourable influence upon the intellectual
development and the literary possibilities of the Penin-
sula. For two centuries or more the scholars of the
Moorish kingdom had busied themselves in making
collections of Arabic literature, while of not a few of the
more noteworthy works they caused to be prepared ver-
sions in Latin, by means of which the books were made
available for the use of instructors and students in
Salerno, Bologna, Padua, and Paris. It was the case also
that the first knowledge of certain Greek authors came to
the scholars of Europe through the Latin translations
which were produced in Cordova from the Arabic versions.
The Moorish scholars thus became a connecting link for
the transmission to the Western world of the philosophy
and learning of the East. Until its conquest and practical
destruction by the Spaniards in 1236, Cordova had been
not only the political capital but the centre of the intellec-
tual life of the Moorish kingdom, so that it was spoken of
254 Books in Manuscript
as the Athens of the West. At the close of the tenth cen-
tury it is said to have contained nearly one million in-
habitants. In connection with the work of its university
and of the great library, a large body of skilled scribes
were busied with the manifolding of manuscripts, and
there appears to have been a regular exchange of manu-
scripts between Cordova and Baghdad.
In the year 995, Thafar Al-baghdad, the chief of the
scribes of his time, came from Baghdad and settled in
Cordova. The Khalif Al-hakem took him into his service
and employed him in transcribing books. The Khalif
surpassed every one of his predecessors in the love of
literature and of the sciences, which he himself cultivated
with success and fostered in his dominions. Through his
influence, Andalusia became a great market to which the
literary productions of every clime were immediately
brought for sale. He employed merchants and agents to
collect books for him in distant countries, remitting for
the purpose large sums of money from the treasury, until,
says the chronicler, " the number of books in Andalusia
exceeded all calculation." The Khalif sent presents of
money to celebrated authors in the East with a view to
encourage the publication of works or to secure the first
copies of these. Hearing, for instance, that Abti-1-faraj of
Ispahan had written a book entitled Kitdbu-l-aghani ( The
Book of Songs), he sent him a thousand dinars of pure
gold, in consideration of which he received a copy of the
work before it had been published in Persia. He did the
same thing with Abu Bekr Al-abhari, who had published
a commentary on the Mokhtassar.
Al-hakem also collected and employed in his own
palace the most skilful men of his time in the arts of
transcribing, binding and illuminating books. The great
library that he brought together remained in the palace of
Cordova, until, during a siege of the city by the Berbers,
Hajib Wadheh, a freedman of Al-mansiir, ordered por-
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 255
tions of the books to be sold, the remainder being shortly
afterwards plundered and destroyed on the taking of the
city. The extent of the collection is indicated by the
description of the catalogue. In the Tekmflah, Ibun-1-
abbans is quoted by Al-Makkari as saying that the
catalogue comprised forty-four volumes, each volume
containing twenty sheets. Makkari estimates that the
library contained no less that four hundred thousand
volumes. It is possible that this number was over-esti-
mated, at least, if we are to believe the statement of
Ibun-1-abbar that the Khalif Al-hakem had himself read
every book in the collection, writing on the fly-leaf the
dates of his perusal and details concerning the author.
Makkari gives a long list of famous authors who
flourished in Andalusia during the reign of Al-hakem,
their productions including works in law, medicine, his-
tory, topography, language, and poetry. One of the
historians, Al-tciri-khi, was a paper merchant, and was
accordingly known by the name of Al-Warrak. I do not
find record of the names of any dealers in books or any
account of the means employed for their distribution. 1
The Manuscript Trade in France. While, in Italy,
the more important part of the trade in manuscripts was
carried on outside of the university circles, in France the
university retained in the hands of its own authorities the
control and supervision of the work of the manuscript-
dealers; and the book-trade of the country, not only
during the manuscript period, but for many years after
the introduction of printing, was very directly associated
with the university organisation. The record of the pro-
duction and of the trade in books carried on by the
stationarii, librarii, and the printer-publishers of the uni-
1 History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain. By Ahmed Ibu Mo-
hammed Al-Makkari, translated by Pascual de Gayangos. 2 vols., quarto.
London, 1843.
256 Books in Manuscript
versity is presented in the chapter on the Making of
Books in the Universities.
During its earlier years, the trade in manuscripts was
limited practically to the city of Paris. The work of the
official university scribes in Paris was very similar to that
which has already been referred to for Bologna. It ap-
pears, however, that, in accordance with the Parisian
methods, there was less insistence upon the practice of
hiring manuscripts, either complete or in divisions, and
there was an earlier development of the practice of
making an absolute sale of the texts required.
Kirchhoff traces the beginning of the manuscript-trade
back to the second half of the eleventh century. He says
that it is not clear whether the earlier dealers were able
to devote themselves exclusively to the business of selling
books, or whether, as he thinks it more probable, they
associated this business with some other occupation.
Jean de Garland, who compiled a kind of technological
directory or list of industries carried on in Paris in 1060,
says : Paravisus est locus ubi libri scholarium vendentur. 1
He is apparently referring to the Place near the Cathedral
Church, which later became the centre of the Parisian
book-trade. Peter of Blois, writing, in the middle of the
twelfth century, to an instructor in jurisprudence in Paris,
makes a more definite reference to the Parisian manu-
script-dealers. He speaks of the great collections of
valuable books which the Parisian dealers have for sale,
and laments the narrowness of his purse which prevents
him from purchasing many things which have tempted
him.'
Bulaeus, in his History of the University of Paris, pub-
lished in 1665, maintains that as early as 1174, the
manuscript-dealers of Paris formed a part of the organisa-
tion of the university, and that their work had been
1 Geraud, H., Paris sous Philippe le-Bel, Paris, 1837, iv., 608.
9 Petit-Radel, 106.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 257
brought fully under the regulation of the university
authorities. The university statistics, before the thir-
teenth century, do not, however, appear fully to bear out
this contention. The first statutes which give detailed
regulations concerning the book-trade bear date as late as
1275. These statutes specify what texts and what num-
ber of copies of each text the licensed booksellers should
keep in stock, and give a schedule, as was done in Bologna
and Padua, of the prices at which the loans and sales should
be made.
Kirchhoff is of opinion that, prior to the middle of the
thirteenth century, the book-trade connected with the
university, while it had already assumed considerable
proportions, had not been brought thoroughly under uni-
versity control. With this control came also as an effect,
the privileges which attached to the dealers as members
of the university body, and there is no evidence that
the booksellers enjoyed these privileges before 1250.
Depping takes the ground, that during the fifteenth
century the sale of books in Paris was not sufficient to
constitute a business in itself, and that all dealers in
books had some other occupation or means of support,
and interested themselves in the sale of manuscripts only
as an additional occupation. '
It appears hardly likely, however, that manuscript-
dealers should be able to secure immunity from the
general tax, which fell upon nearly all other classes of
dealers, on the ground of the importance of their trade
for education, unless they were able to show that they
were actively engaged in such trade. The regulation
quoted by Depping specifies among the free citizens of
the city of Paris who were not liable to the King's tax,
libraires parcheminiers, enlumineurs, escriipveins. It was
evidently the intention of the framers of the law to
include under the exemption all dealers upon whose
1 Kirchhoff , 62.
17
258 Books in Manuscript
trade the preparation and sale of manuscripts was directly
dependent. Under this heading were included, of neces-
sity, the scribes, the illuminators (who added to the text
of the scribes the artistic decorations and initial letters),
and (most important of the three) the dealers in parch-
ment.
The fact that the booksellers are named in this schedule
separately from the scribes is an indication of the exist-
ence of a bookselling trade of sufficient importance to
call for the work of capitalists employing in the prepara-
tion of their manuscripts the services of the scribes and
of the other workmen required. Work of this kind can
properly be classified as publishing.
The dealer was himself prohibited from making pur-
chase of a manuscript left in his hands until this had
been offered for sale during the term of not less than one
month. Record was to be kept of the name of the
purchaser and of the price received.
The requirement that the price obtained for a manuscript
should be recorded, has secured the preservation, on a
number of manuscripts of the time, of a convenient record
of their market value.
In a collection of sermons dating from the latter part
of the fifteenth century, for instance, is the record, "This
book was sold for 20 Parisian sols." In a text of Ovid
of about the same time is noted simply the price, 6
sols, Parisian. 1
Newly prepared transcripts could not be licensed for
renting until they had been examined and passed as cor-
rect by the officials, and until their renting prices had
been placed on record. No new work could be included
in the lists of the stationarii until license for the same
had been secured. At this date, the usual term of rental
of a manuscript was one week, and an additional charge
1 Catalogue Central des Manuscrits des Biblioihlques Publiquts, etc.,
Paris, 1849, torn, i., 172.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 259
could be made if the manuscript was held in excess of
that time. In case a member of the university had
transcribed an incorrect or incomplete manuscript, the
stationarius was liable to him for damages to cover his
wasted labour. According to the general practice, the
hirer of a manuscript was obliged to deposit a pledge for
the same, which pledge could be disposed of by the
stationarius after the term of one year.
In the schedule presented by Chevillier of manuscripts
licensed in the early part of the thirteenth century, the
prices specified cover only the rates for renting. Chevil-
lier poin. out that there is in this schedule no indication
of the division of the manuscripts into/m'dtf, the practice
which was, as we have seen, the usual routine in the
Italian universities. 1
An appraisal of the books contained in the library of
the Sorbonne in the year 1292 gives a value of 3812 livres,
10 sous, 8 deniers.*
The regulations concerning the sale of works on com-
mission were renewed in 1300, with provisions which must
have rendered this class of business not only unremunera-
tive but peculiarly troublesome. Such a sale could be
made only in the presence of two witnesses. No other
bookseller was at liberty to purchase the book, excepting
with the permission and in the presence of the original
owner. Before a sale was made to a bookseller, the manu-
script must be allowed to remain exposed for sale not
less than four days in the library of the Dominican
monastery.
Exceptions to the above regulations were permitted
under the express authority of the Rector of the university
in case the original possessor of the manuscript might be in
immediate need of money, a condition which probably
obtained in a large number of cases.
1 Chevillier, L* Origin* de V Imprimerie de Paris, 1694, iv., 346.
* Chevillier, 369.
260 Books in Manuscript
The general purpose of these regulations appears to
have been the prevention of any undue increase in the
market price or selling value of manuscripts, or the " cor-
nering of the market " on the part of the manuscript-deal-
ers in connection with texts which might be in demand.
Existing regulations of this kind tended, however, natu-
rally to fall into desuetude.
In 1411, an ordinance of Charles VI. made fresh refer-
ence to the necessity of such supervision, mainly on the
ground of the convenience of tracing stolen manuscripts
or unlicensed manuscripts.
In 1342, the librariivfere permitted to increase their
selling commission from four deniers to six deniers in the
case of manuscripts sold by them for clients who were not
themselves members of the university. Kirchhoff points
out, however, that this commission could by no means
have represented the actual charges made. The Univer-
sity of Paris claimed the authority to license its librarii^
and to carry on business not only in Paris but through-
out France. Librarii from without were, however, strictly
prohibited from carrying on business in Paris.
There were in Paris, in addition to the stationarii and
librarii, a certain number of unlicensed dealers who were
not members of the university, and who might be classed
as book pedlars. While -these book pedlars enjoyed no
university privileges, their business was subjected to the
supervision of the university authorities. It was the pur-
pose of the regulations to prevent dealers of this kind
from taking part in any higher grade book business.
They were, for instance, forbidden to sell any volume for
a higher price than ten sous, which, of necessity, limited
their trade practically to chap-books, broadsides, etc.
They were also forbidden to trade in any covered shops,
their business being carried on in open booths. In case
they were at any time found to be trenching upon the
business of the licensed or certified book-dealers (libraires
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 261
, they forfeited promptly their permits as book
pedlars.
In 1323, the Paris School was the most important in
Europe for theological studies, as that of Bologna was the
authority on jurisprudence, and that of Padua for medi-
cine ; and the trade of the Paris booksellers was, therefore,
largely devoted to theological writings. It is partly on
this ground that the records of the monasteries in which
there was scholarly and literary activity make more fre-
quent reference during this century to Paris as a book
centre than to any one of the Italian cities. When, for
instance, King Wenzel II. of Bohemia, at the time of the
founding of the Cistercian abbey of Konigsaal, presented
two hundred marks of silver for the organisation of its
library, the Abbot Conrad had, he reports, no other course
to take than to travel to Paris in order to purchase the
books. This was in the year 1327.' Johann Gerson, writ-
ing in 1395 to Petrus de Alliaco, speaks of the wealth of
the literary stores available at this time in Paris. The
list that he gives as an example of these treasures is de-
voted exclusively to theological works.
While it is difficult to understand from the evidence
available what machinery may have been in existence
during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries for the dis-
tribution of the books, there, are various references to
indicate that such distribution took place promptly over
a very considerable territory. The anonymous author of
a polemical tract, written in order to point out the errors
of some heretical production, says :
Isautem erroneus liber positus fuit publice ad exemplan-
dum Parisius anno domini 1254. Unde certum est, quod
jam publice predicaretur, nisi boni prelati et predicatores
impedirent?
(In Paris in the year of our Lord 1254, this heretical
1 Gesch. der Prtigcr Univers. Bibliothek.^ Prague, 1851, viii., 8 and Q.
* Denis, part ii., p. 1262.
262 Books in Manuscript
book was openly given to the scribes to be copied.
Whence it is evident what manner of doctrine would now
be set forth to the public had not good priests and preach-
ers interfered.)
Kirchhoff is of the opinion that there began to be at
this time in connection with the work of the contemporary
authors a kin'd of publishing arrangement under which the
author handed over to the stationarii or to the librarii his
literary production for multiplication and for publication,
either through renting, through sale, or in both methods.
He finds in the manuscript of a tract by Gerson, which
was given to the public in the year 1417, a notice to the
effect that this was published in Paris under the instruc-
tions of the author and under the license of Magister
Johannus, Cancellarius. 1
The work of the manuscript-dealers was carried on in
booths or shops in various open places, but as a rule in
the immediate neighbourhood of the churches. Certain
booths were to be found, however, on the bridges and by
the courts of justice ; and a neighbourhood particularly
resorted to by the booksellers was the Rue Neuve Notre
Dame, where, in the year 1292, out of eight licensed book-
sellers, no less than three had their work-shops. On the
bridge Neuf Notre Dame, there were at the time of its
falling, in 1499, a number of booksellers, three of whom
are recorded as having lost their stock through the acci-
dent. The places selected by the earlier dealers in manu-
scripts became later the centre of the Parisian trade in
printed books.
As a result of their membership in the university, the
dealers in manuscripts shared in the exemption from the
taxation enjoyed by the university body. The royal
tax collectors persisted, however, from time to time
in ignoring this right of exemption, and it was therefore
necessary at different periods to secure fresh enactments
1 Denis, part ii., p. 1285, quoted by Kirchhoff, p. 71.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 263
from the royal ordinances in order to confirm the privi-
lege. An example of such an ordinance is that issued by
Philip the Fair, in 1307. In the cases in which the uni-
versity placed an impost upon its members for any special
purpose, the manuscript dealers were, of course, obliged
to assume their share of such impost. At the time of
their acceptance as official or licensed dealers, they had to
pay a fee, in the first place of four sous, but after 1467 of
eight sous. For the privilege of keeping an open shop,
the fee was twenty-four sous. A further fee of eight sous
was payable for each apprentice, and a weekly payment
of twelve deniers payable for each workman. These fees
went into the treasury of the booksellers' corporation.
After 1456, under the enactment of the congregation of
the university, each manuscript dealer and paper dealer
was called upon to pay to the Rector of the university at
the time of his acceptance and license a scutum of gold.
The four taxatores, the officials charged with the super-
vision of the fees for the booksellers' guild (usually the
four senior or most important members of the guild),
were also charged with the selection or approval of new
members and with the supervision of the proper carrying
out of the various regulations controlling the organisations
of the guild. In the earlier period of the work, such cen-
sorship as was found necessary concerning the books to
be published was exercised through these four taxators.
They were also the official representative body of the
university guild.
In case any member of the guild suffered injury from
unauthorised competition, the guild had the power to
suspend the business operation with the person charged
with committing the injury, until the complaint could be
passed upon. In case the rules of the corporation had
been broken, the corporation appears to have had the
power, at least up to the beginning of the fifteenth cen-
tury, of withdrawing the trade privilege or license.
264 Books in Manuscript
The taxators or principales jurati, as they were some-
times called, had power to proceed not only to supervise
the business undertaking of the members of the guild,
but were also authorised to take measures against the out-
side or unlicensed booksellers and to proceed, if necessary,
even to the point of seizure and confiscation of their
goods. In carrying out such measures, they were em-
powered to call upon the university bedels for co-operation.
These unlicensed dealers or book pedlars, as they in-
creased in numbers, naturally attempted to withdraw
themselves from the jurisdiction and supervision of the
university authorities. An ordinance of Charles VI.,
dated June 20, 1411, confirms specifically the right of
control over the entire book-trade, and prohibits pedlars,
dealers, hucksters, etc., from taking part in the selling of
manuscripts, " of which business they could have no
understanding." The edict went on to specify that the
carrying on of the book business by ignorant and irre-
sponsible dealers not only caused injury to the licensed
book-dealers, but was a wrong upon the public, in that
it furthered the circulation of incorrect, incomplete, and
fraudulent manuscripts. This ordinance was doubtless
issued at the instance of the book-dealers' guild, but it is
evident that it was not strictly carried out, as from year
to year there are renewed complaints of the competition
of these ignorant and irresponsible book pedlars.
It was considered important, in order to insure the
proper control by the university over the book-trade and
the interests of the scholars who depended upon the book-
dealers for their text-books, that the trade in the materials
used in the manifolding of books should also be strictly
supervised. The special purpose of the university authori-
ties was to prevent any " cornering of the market " in
parchment, and to insure that the supply of this should
be regular and uniform in price.
Under the ordinance of 1291, the dealers in parchment
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 265
were forbidden to keep any secret stores of the same, but
were obliged to keep on file with the managers of the
book guild the record of the stock carried by them from
month to month. The parchment-dealers licensed to do
business in Paris were forbidden to sell parchment to
dealers from outside of Paris. On the first day of the
Trade Fair, when foreign dealers brought parchment to
Paris for sale, the Parisian dealers were forbidden them-
selves to make purchases, this day being reserved for such
purchases as the university officials might desire to make.
In case, after the first day of the Fair, a foreign dealer in
parchment had before him more applications for his stock
than could be supplied, and among the applicants there
should be one representing the university, the latter was
to be served first. Outside of the time of the official
Fair, the Paris dealers in parchment were allowed to make
purchases of their material only in the monastery of S.
Mathurin.
In case between the times of the Fair a foreign dealer
or manufacturer of parchment came to Paris, he was
obliged to place his stock in this same monastery and to
give information concerning this deposit to the Rector of
the university. The Rector sent a representative to ex-
amine and to schedule the parchment, and the stock was
priced by four of the licensed parchment-dealers associ-
ated with the university. The university authorities had
then for twenty-four hours the first privilege of purchase.
This regulation was applied also to the parchment-trade
carried on at the Fair of St. Germain.
It is evident from the many renewed edicts and ordi-
nances referring to this trade that it was not easy to carry
out such regulations effectively, and that much friction
and dissatisfaction was produced by them. It seems
probable also that, with the trade in parchment as in
other trades, the attempt to secure uniformity of price,
irrespective of the conditions of manufacture or of the
266 Books in Manuscript
market, had the effect not infrequently of lessening the
supply and of causing sales to be made surreptitiously at
increased prices.
After the use of parchment had in large part been re-
placed by paper made of linen, the supplies of Paris came
principally from Lombardy. Later, however, paper-mills
were erected in France, the first being at Troyes and
Esson. These earlier paper manufacturers were, like the
book-dealers in Paris, made free from tax. This exemp-
tion was contested from time to time by the farmers of
the taxes and had to be renewed by successive ordi-
nances. Later, the university associated with its body, in
the same manner as had been done with the parchment-
dealers, the manufacturers and dealers in paper, and con-
firmed them in the possession of the privileges previously
enjoyed by the librarii and stationarii. The privileges
of the paper manufacturers extended, however, outside
of Paris, which was, of course, not the case with the
librarii.
While, in connection with the requirements of- the uni-
versity and the special privileges secured through univer-
sity membership, the book-trade of Paris and the trades
associated with it secured a larger measure of importance
as compared with the trade of the provinces than was the
case in either Italy or Germany, there came into existence
as early as the middle of the fourteenth century a consid-
erable trade in manuscripts in various provincial centres.
In Montpellier, the university was, as in Paris, a centre
for publishing undertakings, but in Angers, Rouen, Or-
leans, and Toulouse, in which there are various references
to book-dealers as early as the beginning of the fourteenth
century, the trade must have been supported by a public
largely outside of the university organisation. The stat-
utes of Orleans and of Toulouse, dating from 1341, regulate
the supervision of the trade in manuscripts.
In Montpellier, there appears to have been, during the
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 267
beginning of the fourteenth century, a business in the
loaning of the manuscripts and of manuscript hefts pecias,
similar to that already described in Bologna. The uni-
versity authorities, usually the bedels, supervised the cor-
rectness of the pecias and prescribed the prices at which
they should be rented. The stationarii who carried on
this business and also the venditores librorum were mem-
bers of the university body. The sale of books on com-
mission was also supervised under regulations similar to
those obtaining in Bologna.
No stationarius was at liberty to dispose of a work placed
in his hands for sale (unless it belonged to a foreigner)
until it had been exposed in his shop for at least six
days, and had at least been three times offered for
sale publicly in the auditorium. This offering for sale
was cared for by the banquerii, who were the assistants or
tenants of the rectors. These banquerii were also author-
ised to carry on the business of the loaning of pecias under
the same conditions as those that controlled the statio-
narii. They were also at liberty, after the close of the
term lectures, to sell their own supplies of manuscripts
(usually of course the copies of the official texts) at pub-
lic auction in the auditorium.
It is difficult to understand how, with a trade, of neces-
sity, limited in extent, and the possible profits of which
were so closely restricted by regulations, there could have
been a living profit sufficient to tempt educated dealers to
take up the work of the stationarii or librarii.
It is probably the case, as Kirchhoff, Savigny, and others
point out, that the actual results of the trade cannot be
ascertained with certainty from the texts of the regula-
tions, and that there were various ways in which, in spite
of these regulations, larger returns could be secured for
the work of the scholarly and enterprising librarii.
An ordinance issued in 1411 makes reference tp book-
sellers buying and selling books both in French or in
268 Books in Manuscript
Latin and gives privilege to licensed booksellers to do
such buying and selling at their pleasure. This seems to
have been an attempt to widen the range of the book-
trade, while reference to books in the vernacular indicates
an increasing demand for literature outside of the circles
of instructors and students.
In the beginning of the fifteenth century, there was,
among a number of the nobles of families in France, a certain
increase in the interest of literature and in the taste for
collecting elaborate, ornamented, and costly manuscripts.
The princely Houses of Burgundy and of Orleans are
to be noted in this connection, and particularly in Bur-
gundy, the influence of the ducal family was of wide im-
portance in furthering the development of the trade in
manuscripts and the production of literature.
A large number of the manuscripts placed in these
ducal family libraries were evidently originally prepared
by scribes having knowledge only of plain script, and the
addition of the initial letters and of the illuminated head
and tail pieces was made later by illuminators and de-
signers attached to the ducal families. It was to these
latter that fell the responsibility of placing upon the
manuscripts the arms of the owners of the libraries. In
case manuscripts which had been inscribed with family
arms came to change hands, it became necessary to re-
place these arms with those of the later purchaser, and
many of the illuminated manuscripts of the period give
evidence of such changing of the decorations, decorations
which took the place of the book-plate of to-day.
The taste for these elaborate illuminated manuscripts,
each one of which, through the insertion of individual
designs and of the family arms, became identified with
the personality and taste of its owner, could not easily be
set aside, after the middle of the fifteenth century, by the
new art of printing. As a matter of fact, therefore, it not
infrequently happened, towards the latter part of the fif-
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 269
teenth century, that these noble collectors caused elaborate
transcripts to be made, by hand, of works which were
already in print, rather than to place in their own collec-
tion books in the form in which ordinary buyers could
secure them.
By the year 1448, the number of certified librarii in
Paris had increased to twenty-four. 1 Kirchhoff is of opinion
that a certain portion at least of these librarii carried
on also other trades, but it is evident that there had
come to be in these years, immediately preceding the in-
troduction of the printing-press, a very considerable
development in the demand for literature and in the book-
trade of the capital.
In 1489, the list of book-dealers and of those connected
with the manufacture of books who were exempt from
taxation included twenty-four librarii, four dealers in
parchment, four dealers in paper, seven paper manufac-
turers (having mills outside of Paris), two illuminators,
two binders, and two licensed scribes.
In the following year, the list of librarii free from taxa-
tion was reduced to seventeen. It is probable that those
librarii whose names had been taken off 'the exemp-
tion list undertook a general book business carried on
outside of the university regulations, and were probably
able to secure returns more than sufficient to offset the
loss caused by the curtailing of their freedom from taxa-
tion and of their university privileges.
This reduction in the number of manuscript-dealers
who remained members of the corporation was, however,
very promptly made up by including in the corporation
the newly introduced printers. As early as 1476, one of
the four officials of the guild was the printer Pasquier
Bonhomme.
The cessation of the work of the scribes and the transfer
of the book-trade from their hands to those of the printers
* Chevillier, 336.
270 Books in Manuscript
took place gradually after the year 1470, the printers being,
as said, promptly included in the organisation of the guild.
There must, however, have been, during the earlier years
at least, not a little rivalry and bitterness between the two
groups of dealers.
An instance of this rivalry is given in 1474, in which
year a libra rius juratus, named Herman von Stathoen
(by birth a German), died. According to the university
regulation, his estate, valued at 800 crowns of gold,
(there being no heirs in the country) should have fallen
to the university treasury. In addition to this property
in Paris, Stathoen was part owner of a book establish-
ment in Mayence, carried on by Schoffer & Henckis, and
was unpopular with the Paris dealers generally on the
ground of his foreign trade connections.
Contention was made on behalf of the Crown that the
property in Paris should be confiscated to the royal
treasury, and as Schoffer & Henckis were subjects of the
Duke of Burgundy, whose relations with Louis XI. might
be called strained, the influence of the Court was decidedly
in favour of the appropriation of any business interest that
they might have in their partner's property in Paris. In
the contention between the university and the Crown, the
latter proved the stronger, and the bookseller's 800 crowns
were confiscated for the royal treasury, and at least got
so far towards the treasury as the hands of the chancellor.
As a further result of the issue which had been raised,
it was ordered on the part of the Crown that thereafter
no foreigner should have a post as an official of the uni-
versity or should be in a position to lay claim to the
exemption and the privileges attaching to such post.
While in Paris the manuscript-dealers had been prompt-
ly driven from the field through the competition of the
printers, in Rouen they held their own for a considerable
term of years. The space which had been assigned to
the librarii for their shops at the chief doorway of the
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 271
cathedral, continued to be reserved for them as late as
1483, and the booksellers keeping on sale the printed
books, were forbidden to have any shops at this end of
the cathedral, but were permitted to put up, at their own
cost, stalls at the north doorway.
The oldest Paris bookseller whose name has been
placed on record is described as Herneis le Romanceur.
He had his shop at the entrance to Notre Dame. His
inscription appeared in a beautiful manuscript present-
ing a French translation of the Code of Justinian, a
manuscript dating from the early part of the thirteenth
century. It is possible that Guillaume Herneis, whose
name appeared in the tax list of 1292 with a rate of ten
livres, was the scribe and the publisher of the above
manuscript, but if this were the case he must have been
at the time of this tax rating well advanced in years. 1 In
1274, the name of Hugichio le Lombard appears recorded
on several manuscripts which have been preserved in
existing collections. In the taxes of 1292, appears the
name of Agnien, Libraire, in the Rue de la Boucherie,
assessed for thirty-six sous. The tax is too large to make
it probable that Agnien was a mere pedlar or did business
from an open stall, and it is Graud's opinion that he
was charged probably as a university bookseller to whom
the tax collector had refused the exemption belonging to
university members.*
In the year 1303, the stock of books of a certain Antoine
Zeno, libraire jurty was scheduled for taxation. Among
the titles included in this schedule are the commentaries
or lectures of Bruno on S. Matthew (57 pages, price one
sol), the same on Mark, Luke, and John, the commen-
taries of Alexander on Matthew, the Opera Fratris
Richardi y the Legenda Sanctorum, various texts of the
1 Adrian, J. V., Catalog** Codd. MSS. Biblioth. Acad. Gissensis, 1840,
iv., 276-278.
* Geraud, p. 175.
272 Books in Manuscript
Decretals, commentaries of S. Bernard on the Decretals,
a treatise of a certain Thomas on metaphysics, on phy-
sics, on the heavens and the earth, and on the soul, and a
series of lectures on ethics, and on politics. The sched-
uled price ranged from one sol to eight sols, the latter
being the price of a manuscript of 136 pages. The books
were probably confined exclusively to texts used in the
university work. 1
In 1313, appears in the tax list, assessed for twelve sous,
the name of Nicholas L'Anglois, bookseller and tavern-
keeper in Rue St. Jacques.
It is to be noted that the booksellers, and for that
matter the traders generally of the time, are frequently
distinguished by the names of their native countries. It
is probable that Nicholas failed to escape taxation as a
bookseller because he was also carrying on business (and
doubtless a more profitable business) in his tavern. The
list of 1313 includes in fact but three booksellers, and
each of these is described as having an additional trade.*
A document of the year 1332 describes a sale made by
a certain Geoffroy de Saint Lger, a clerc libraire, to
Gerard de Montagu, avocat du roy au parlement. Geof-
froy acknowledges to have sold, ceded, assigned, and
delivered to the said Gerard a book entitled Speculum His-
toriale in Consuetudines Parisienses, comprised in four
volumes, and bound in red leather. He guarantees the
validity of this sale with his own body, de son corps mesme.
Gerard pays for the book the sum of forty Parisian livres,
with which sum Geoffroy declares himself to be content,
and paid in full. * It appears that the sale of a book in
the fourteenth century was a solemn transaction, calling
for documentary evidence as specific as in the case of the
transfer of real estate.
1 Bulaeus, iv. t 62.
1 Chronique Me'trique de Code f roy de Paris, Buchon, Paris, 1827, viii., 167.
9 De La Cattle, Histoire de rimprimerie, Paris, 1689, iv., 5.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 273
In the year 1376, Jean de Beauvais, a librarius juratus,
is recorded as having sold various works, including the
Decretals of Gregory IX., illustrated with miniatures, a
copy of Summa Hostiensis, 423 parchment leaves, illus-
trated with miniatures, and a codex of Magister Thomas
de Maalaa. '
In the year 1337, Guidomarus de Senis, master of arts
and librarius juratus, renews his oath as a taxator. He
seems to have put into his business as bookseller a cer-
tain amount of literary gaiety, if one may judge from the
lines added at the end of a parchment codex sold by
him, which codex contains the poems of Guillaume de
Marchaut.
The lines are as follows :
Explicit au mois cCavril,
Qui est gai y cointe et gentil,
Ean mil trois cent soixante et onze.
D'Avril la semaine seconde,
Acheva a un vendredi,
Guiot de Sens c'est livre si,
Et le comansa de sa main,
Et ne fina ne soir ne matin,
Tant qu'il eut Veuvre accomplie,
Loue'e soit la vierge Marie. *
Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was one of the
more important book collectors of his time. In 1386, the
Duke paid to Martin L'Huillier, dealer in manuscripts
and bookbinder, sixteen francs for binding eight books,
six of which were bound in grain leather. ' The Duke of
Orleans also appears as a buyer of books, and in 1394, he
paid to Jehan de Marsan, master of arts and dealer in
manuscripts, twenty francs in gold for the Letters of S.
Pol t bound in figured silk, and illuminated with the arms
of the Duke.
1 Gamier, 275. * Bulaeus, iv., 449. 8 Lalanne, 307.
18
274 Books in Manuscript
Four years later, the Duke makes another purchase,
paying to Jehan one hundred livres tournois for a Con-
cordance to the Bible in Latin, an illuminated manuscript
bound in red leather, stamped.
The same Duke, in 1394, paid forty gold crowns to
Olivier, one of the four principal librarii, for a Latin text
of the Bible, bound in red leather, and in 1396, this per-
sistent ducal collector pays sixty livres to a certain Jacques
Jehan, who is recorded as a grocer, but who apparently in-
cluded books in his stock, for the Book of the Treasury, a
book of Julius Caesar, a book of the King, The Secret of
Secrets, and a book of Estrille Fauveau, bound in one
volume, illuminated, and bearing the arms of the Duke
of Lancaster. Another volume included in this purchase
was the Romance of the Rose, and the Livres des Eschez,
" moralised," and bound together in one volume, illumi-
nated in gold and azure. *
In 1399, appears on the records the name of Dyne, or
Digne Rapond, a Lombard. Kirchhoff speaks of Ra-
pond's book business as being with him a side issue. Like
Atticus, the publisher of Cicero, Rapond's principal busi-
ness interest was that of banking, in which the Lombards
were at that time pre-eminent throughout Europe. In
connection with his banking, however, he accepted orders
from noble clients and particularly from the Duke of
Burgundy, for all classes of articles of luxury, among
which were included books.
In 1399, Rapond delivered to Philip of Burgundy, for
the price of five hundred livres, a Livy illuminated with
' letters of gold and with images, and for six thousand
francs a work entitled La Proprtite' de Choses. A docu-
ment, bearing date 1397, states that Charles, King of
France, is bound to Dyne Rapond, merchant of Paris,
for the sum of 190 francs of gold, for certain pieces of
tapestry, for certain shirts, and for four great volumes
1 Bibli. de rcolt dc Charircs, v., 67.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 275
containing the chronicles of France. He is further bound
in the sum of ninety-two francs for some more shirts, for
a manuscript of Seneca, for the Chronicles of Charlemagne,
for the Chronicles of Pepin, for the Chronicles of Gode-
froy de Bouillon, the latter for his dear elder son Charles,
Dauphin. The King further purchases certain hats,
handkerchiefs, and some more books, for which he in-
structs his treasurer in Paris to pay over to said Rapond
the sum of ninety francs in full settlement of his account ;
the document is signed on behalf of the King by his
secretary at his chateau of Vincennes. 1
Jacques Rapond, merchant and citizen of Paris, proba-
bly a brother of Dyne, also seems to have done a profit-
able business with Philip of Burgundy, as he received
from Philip, for a Bible in French, 9000 francs, and in the
same year (1400), for a copy of The Golden Legend, 7500
francs.
Nicholas Flamel, scribe and librarius juratus, flourished
at the beginning of the thirteenth century. He was
shrewd enough, having made some little money at work
as a bookseller and as a school manager, to carry on some
successful speculations in house building, from which
speculations he made money so rapidly that he was ac-
cused of dealings with the Evil One. One of the houses
built by him in Rue Montmorency was still standing in
1853, an evidence of what a clever publisher might ac-
complish even in the infancy of the book business.
The list of booksellers between the years 1486-1490
includes the name of Jean Bonhomme, the name which
has for many years been accepted as typical of the
French bourgeois. This particular Bonhomme seems,
however, to have been rather a distinctive man of his
class. He calls himself " bookseller to the university,"
and was a dealer both in manuscripts and in printed
books. On a codex of a Frerch translation of The City
1 Kirchhoff, 100.
276 Books in Manuscript
of God, by S. Augustine, is inscribed the record of the
sale of the manuscript by Jean Bonhomme, bookseller to
the University of Paris, who acknowledges having sold
to the honoured and wise citizen, Jehan Cueillette, treas-
urer of M. de Beaujeu, this book containing The City
of God, in two volumes, and Bonhomme guarantees to
Cueillette the possession of said work against all. His
imprint as a bookseller appears upon various printed
books, including the Constitutiones Clementina, the Decreta
Basiliensia, and the Manuale Confessorum of Joh. Nider.
Among the cities of France outside of Paris in which
there is record of early manuscript-dealers, are Tours,
Angers, Lille, Troyes, Rouen, Toulouse, and Montpellier.
In Lille, in 1435, the principal bookseller was Jaquemart
Puls, who was also a goldsmith, the latter being probably
his principal business. In Toulouse, a bookseller of the
name of S. Julien was in business as early as 1340. In
Troyes, in the year 1500, Mac6 Panthoul was carrying on
business as a bookseller and as a manufacturer of paper.
In connection with his paper-trade, he came into rela-
tions with the book-dealers of Paris.
Manuscript Dealers in Germany. The information
concerning the early book-dealers in Germany is more
scanty, and on the whole less interesting, than that which
is available for the history of bookselling in Italy or in
France. There was less wealth among the German no-
bles during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and
fewer among the nobles who had means were interested
in literary luxuries than was the case in either France,
Burgundy, or Italy.
As has been noted in the preceding division of this
chapter, the references to the more noteworthy of the
manuscript-dealers in France occur almost entirely in
connection with sales made by them to the members of
the Royal Family, to the Dukes of Burgundy, or to other
of the great nobles. The beautifully illuminated manu-
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 277
script which carried the coat-of-arms or the crest of the
noble for whom it was made, included also, as a rule, the
inscription of the manuscript-dealer by whom the work
of its preparation had been carried on or supervised, and
through whom it had been sold to the noble purchaser.
Of the manuscripts of this class, the record in Germany
is very much smaller. Germany also did not share the
advantages possessed by Italy, of close relations with the
literature and the manuscript stores of the East, relations
which proved such an important and continued source of
inspiration for the intellectual life of the Italian scholars.
The influence of the revival of the knowledge of Greek
literature came to Germany slowly through its relations
with Italy, but in the knowledge of Greek learning and
literature the German scholars were many years behind
their Italian contemporaries, while the possession of
Greek manuscripts in Germany was, before the middle of
the fifteenth century, very exceptional indeed. The
scholarship of the earlier German universities appears
also to have been narrower in its range and more re-
stricted in its cultivation than that which had been devel-
oped in Paris, in Bologna, or in Padua. The membership
of the Universities of Prague and of Vienna, the two oldest
in the German list, was evidently restricted almost en-
tirely to Germans, Bohemians, Hungarians, etc., that is
to say, to the races immediately controlled by the Ger-
man Empire.
If a scholar of England were seeking, during the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries, special instruction or
special literary and scholarly advantages, his steps were
naturally directed towards Paris for theology, Bologna
for jurisprudence, and Padua for medicine, and but few
of these travelling English scholars appear to have taken
themselves to Prague, Vienna, or Heidelberg.
In like manner, if English book collectors were seeking
manuscripts, they betook themselves to the dealers in
278 Books in Manuscript
Paris, in Florence, or in Venice, and it was not until after
the manuscript-trade had been replaced by the trade in
the productions of the printing-press that the German
cities can be said to have become centres for the distri-
bution of literature.
Such literary interests as obtained in Germany during
the fourteenth century, outside of those of the monas-
teries already referred to, centred nevertheless about the
universities. The oldest of these universities was that of
Prague, which was founded in 1347, more than a century
later than the foundations of Paris and Bologna. The
regulations of the University recognised the existence of
scribes, illuminators, correctors, binders, dealers in parch-
ment, etc., all of which trades were placed under the
direct control of the university authorities.
Hauslik speaks of the book-trade in the fourteenth
century as being associated with the work of the library
of the university, and refers to licensed scribes and illu-
minators, who were authorised to make transcripts, for
the use of the members of the university, of the texts
contained in the library.'
If we may understand from this reference that the uni-
versity authorities had had prepared for the library authen-
ticated copies of the texts of the works required in the
university courses, and that the transcribing of these texts
was carried on under the direct supervision of the libra-
rians, Prague appears to have possessed a better system
for the preparation of its official texts than we have record
of in either Bologna or Paris. Hauslik goes on to say
that the entire book-trade of the city was placed under
the supervision of the library authorities, which authori-
ties undertook to guarantee the completeness and the
correctness of all transcripts made from the texts in the
library. Kirchhoff presents in support of this theory
examples of one or two manuscripts, which contain, in
1 Gesch. der Prager Univ. Biblioth., Prague, 1851, p. 24.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 279
addition to the inscription of the name of the scribe' or
dealer by whom it had been prepared, the record of the
corrector appointed by the library to certify to the cor-
rectness of the text. 1
The second German university in point of date was
that of Vienna, founded in 1365, and, in connection with
the work of this university the manuscript-trade in Ger-
many took its most important development. There is
record in Vienna of the existence of stationarii who
carried on, under the usual university supervision, the
trade of hiring out pecias, but this was evidently a much
less important function than in Bologna.
The buying and selling of books in Vienna was kept
under very close university supervision, and without the
authority of the rector or of the bedels appointed by him
for the purpose, no book could be purchased from either
a magister or a student, or could be accepted on pledge.
The books which had been left by deceased members
of the university were considered to be the property of
the university authorities, and could be sold only under
their express directions. The commission allowed by the
authorities for the sale of books was limited to 2j per
cent., and before any books could be transferred at private
sale, they must be offered at public sale in the auditorium.
The purpose of this regulation was apparently here as in
Paris not only to insure securing for the books sold the
highest market prices, but also to give some protection
against the possibility of books being sold by those to
whom they did not belong.
The regulation of the details of the book business ap-
pears to have fallen gradually into the hands of the bedels
of the Faculty, and the details of the supervision exer-
cised approach more nearly to the Italian than to the
Parisian model.
The third German university was that of Heidelberg,
1 Kirch,, p. 112.
280 Books in Manuscript
founded in 1386. Here the regulations concerning the
book-trade were substantially modelled upon those of
Paris. The scribes and the dealers in manuscripts be-
longed to the privileged members of the university.
The provisions in the foundation or charter of the uni-
versity, which provided for the manuscript-trade, make
express reference to the precedents of the University of
Paris.
By the middle of the fifteenth century, there appears to
have been a considerable trade in manuscripts in Heidel-
berg and in places dependent upon Heidelberg. In the
library of the University of Erlangen, there exists to-day
a considerable collection of manuscripts formerly belong-
ing to the monastery of Heilsbronn, which manuscripts
were prepared in Heidelberg between 1450 and 1460. The
series includes a long list of classics, indicating a larger
classical interest in Heidelberg than was to be noted at
the time in either Prague or Vienna. 1
The University of Cologne, founded a few years later,
became the centre of theological scholarship in Germany,
and the German manuscripts of the early part of the
fifteenth century which have remained in existence and
which have to do with theological subjects were very
largely produced in Cologne. A number of examples of
these have been preserved in the library of Erfurt.
One reason for the smaller importance in Germany of
the stationarius was the practice that obtained on the part
of the instructors of lecturing or of reading from texts for
dictation, the transcripts being made by the students them-
selves. The authority or permission to read for dictation
was made a matter of special university regulation. The
regulation provided what works could be so utilised, and
the guarantee as to the correctness of the texts to be
used could either be given by a member of the faculty of
the university itself or was accepted with the certified
1 Kirch., p. 114.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 281
signature of an instructor of a well known foreign univer-
sity, such as Paris, Bologna, or Oxford.
By means of this system of dictation, the production
of manuscripts was made much less costly than through
the work of the stationarii, and the dictation system was
probably an important reason why the manuscript-trade
in the German university cities never became so important
as in Paris or London.
It is contended by the German writers that, notwith-
standing the inconsiderable trade in manuscripts, there
was a general knowledge of the subject-matter of the litera-
ture pursued in the university, no less well founded or
extended among the German cities than among those
of France or Italy. This familiarity with the university
literature is explained by the fact that the students had,
through writing at dictation, so largely possessed them-
selves of the substance of the university lectures.
In the Faculty of Arts at Ingolstadt, it was ordered, in
1420, that there should be not less than one text-book
{that is to say, one copy of the text-book) for every three
scholars in baccalaureate. This regulation is an indica-
tion of the scarcity of text-books.
The fact that the industry in loaning manuscripts to
students was not well developed in the German universi-
ties delayed somewhat the organisation of the book-trade
in the university towns. Nevertheless, Richard de Bury
names Germany among the countries where books could
be purchased, and Gerhard Groote speaks of purchasing
books in Frankfort. This city became, in fact, important
in the trade of manuscripts for nearly a century before
the beginning of German printing. 1
^Eneas Silvius says in the preface of his Europa, writ-
ten in 1458, that a librarius teutonicus had written to him
shortly before, asking him to prepare a continuation of
1 Delprat, Verhandlung over dt Broederschop van G. Groote, Amsterdam,
1858.
282 Books in Manuscript
the book Augustalis? This publishing suggestion was
made eight years after the perfection of Gutenberg's
printing-press, but probably without any knowledge on
the part of the librarius of the new method for the pro-
duction of books.
In Germany there was, during the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries, outside of the ecclesiastics, very little
demand for reading matter. The women had their psal-
ters, which had, as a rule, been written out in the monas-
teries. As there came to be a wider demand for books of
worship, this was provided for, at least in the regions
of the lower Rhine, by the scribes among the Brothers
of Common Life. The Brothers took care also of the
production of a large proportion of the school-books
required.
During the fourteenth century and the first half of the
fifteenth, the Brothers took an active part in the produc-
tion and distribution of manuscripts. Their work was
distinct in various respects from that which was carried
on in monastery or in university towns, but particularly
in this that their books were, for the most part, produced
in the tongue of the common folk, and their service as
instructors and booksellers was probably one of the most
important influences in helping to educate the lower
classes of North Germany to read and to think for them-
selves. They thus prepared the way for the work of
Luther and Melanchthon.
As has been noted in another chapter, the activity of
the Brothers in the distribution of literature did not cease
whSn books in manuscripts were replaced by the produc-
tions of the printing-press. They made immediate use of
the invention of Gutenberg, and in many parts of Ger-
many, the first printed books that were brought before the
people came from the printing-presses of the Brothers.
Some general system of public schools seems to have
1 Wattenbach, 476.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 283
taken shape in the larger cities at least of North Ger-
many as early as the first half of the thirteenth century.
The teachers in these schools themselves added to their
work and to their earnings by transcribing text-books and
sometimes works of worship. Later, there came to be
some extended interest in certain classes of literature
among a few of the princes and noblemen, but this appears
to have been much less the case in Germany than in Italy
or even than in France. In the castles or palaces where
there was a chaplain, the chaplain took upon himself the
work of a scribe, caring not only for the correspondence of
his patron, but occasionally also preparing manuscripts for
the library, so called, of the castle. There is also record
of certain stadtschreiber, or public scribes, licensed as such
in the cities of North Germany, and in some cases the
post was held by the instructors of the schools.
Ulrich Friese, a citizen of Augsburg, writing in the
latter half of the fourteenth century, speaks of attending
the Nordlingen Fair with parchment and books. Nord-
lingen Church was, it appears, used for the purpose of
this fair, and in Liibeck, in the Church of S. Mary,
booths were opened in which, together with devotional
books, school-books and writing materials were offered
for sale.
In Hamburg also, the courts in the immediate neigh-
bourhood of the churches were the places selected by the
earlier booksellers and manuscript-dealers for their trade.
In Metz, a book-shop stood immediately in front of the
cathedral, and in Vienna, the first book-shop was placed
in the court adjoining the cathedral of S. Stephen. Nico-
laus, who was possibly the earliest bookseller in Erfurt,
had his shop, in 1460, in the court of the Church of the
Blessed Virgin.
From a school regulation of Bautzen, written in 1418,
it appears that the children were instructed to purchase
their school-books from the master at the prices fixed in<
284 Books in Manuscript
the official schedule. 1 A certain schoolmaster in Hage-
nau, whose work was carried on between 1443 and 1450,
has placed his signature upon a considerable series of
manuscripts, which he claims to have prepared with his
own hands, and which were described in Wilken's History
of the library in Heidelberg. His name was Diebold
Laber, or, as he sometimes wrote it, Lauber, and he de-
scribes himself as a writer, schreiber, in the town of Hage-
nau. This inscription appears in so many manuscripts
that have been preserved, that some doubt has been
raised as to whether they could be all the work of one
hand, or whether Lauber's name (imprint, so to speak)
may not have been utilised by other scribes possibly
working in association with him.'
Lauber speaks of having received from Duke Ruprecht
an order for seven books, and as having arranged to have
the manuscripts painted (decorated or illuminated) by
some other hand. Lauber is recorded as having been
first a school-teacher and an instructor in writing, later a
scribe, producing for sale copies of standard texts, and
finally a publisher, employing scribes, simply certifying
with his own signature to the correctness of the work of
his subordinates. There is every indication that he had
actually succeeded in organising in Hagenau, as early as
1443, an active business in the production and distribu-
tion of manuscripts. The books produced by him were
addressed more generally to the popular taste than was
"the case with the productions of the monastery scribes.
In part, possibly, as a result of this early activity in the
production of books, one of the first printing-presses in
Germany, outside of that of Gutenberg in Mayence, was
instituted in Hagenau, and its work appears to have been
in direct succession to that of the public writer Lauber.
The relations between Hagenau and Heidelberg were
1 Wattenbach, 478.
8 Haupt, in Der Zfitschrift /. Dcutsches Alterthum, iii., 191.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 285
intimate, and the scholarly service of the members of the
university was utilised by the Hagenau publishers. The
book-trade of Hagenau also appears to have been in-
creased in connection with the development of intellectual
activity given by the Councils of Constance and Basel. In
regard to the latter Council, Kirchhoff quotes Denis as
having said :
Quod concilium^ qui scholam librariorum dixerit haud
errabit. '
Either as a cause or as an effect of the activity of the
book production in Hagenau, the Hagenau schools for
scribes during the first half of the fifteenth century be-
came famous. * The work of producing manuscripts ap-
pears to have been divided, according to the manufacturing
system ; one scribe prepared the text, a second collated
the same with the original, a third painted in the rubri-
cated initials, and a fourth designed the painted head-
pieces to the pages, while a fifth prepared the ornamented
covers. It occasionally happened, however, that one
scribe was himself able to carry on each division of the
work of the production of an illuminated manuscript.
Hagen quotes some lines of a Hagenau manuscript, as
follows :
Dis buck vollcnbracht vas y
In der zit, also man schreip vnd las t
Tuscnt vnd vyer hundertjar.
Nach Christus gebort daz ist war,
Dar nachjn dem eyn vnd siebentzigsttnjar^
Vff sant Pauly bekarung, daz ist wart,
Von Hans Dirmsteyn, wist vor war >
Der hait es gcschreben vnd gemacht,
Gtmalt, gcbundcn, vnd gantz follcnbracht?
Hagenau was one of the few places of book production
1 Denis, ii., 2144. Cited by Kirchhoff, 131.
* Mone, Zeitschrift f. Gesch. d. Oberrheins, i.> 312.
* LitUrar. Grundiss. zur Gesch. d. Deutsch. Poesie, Berlin, 1812, 307.
286 Books in Manuscript
(excepting the workshops of the Brothers of Common
Life) in which, during the manuscript period, books
were prepared to meet the requirements of the common
folk. The literature proceeding from Hagenau included
not only " good Latin books," that is to say, copies of
the accepted classics as used in Heidelberg and elsewhere,
but also copies of the famous Epics of the Middle Ages,
the Sagas, Folk Songs, Chap-Books, copies of the Golden
Bull, Bible stories, books of worship, books of popular
music, books of prophecy, and books for the telling of
fortunes, etc. 1
Throughout both Germany and the Low Countries,
it was the case that, during the manuscript period, the
work of the school teachers was closely connected with
the work of the producers and sellers of manuscripts, and
the teachers not infrequently themselves built up a manu-
script business. The school ordinance of the town of
Bautzen, dating from the year 1418, prescribed, for ex-
ample, the prices which the scholars were to pay to the
locatus (who was the fifth teacher in rank in the institu-
tion) for the school-books, the responsibility for preparing
which rested upon him.
A history of the Printers' Society of Dresden, printed
in 1740, gives examples of some of these prices:
For one A. B. C. and a paternoster, each one groschen.
For a Corde Benedicite, one groschen.
For a good Donat, ten groschens.
For a Regulam Moralem et Catonem, eight groschens.
For a complete Doctrinal, a half mark.
For a Primam Partem y eight groschens.
In case no books are purchased from the locatus, there
shall be paid to him by each scholar, if the scholar be
rich, two groschens, if he be in moderate circumstances,
one groschen, and if the scholar be poor, he shall be ex-
empt from payment.'
1 Kirchhoff, 119. * Kirchhoff, 120.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 287
A certain Hugo from Trimberg, who died about 1309,
is referred to by Jaeck as having been a teacher for forty
years, at the end of which term he gave up the work of
teaching with the expectation of being able to make a
living out of his collection of books. The collection com-
prised two hundred volumes, of which twelve are speci-
fied as being original works, presumably the production
of Trimberg himself. Jaeck does not tell us whether or
not the good schoolmaster was able to earn enough from
the manifolding or from the sale of his books to secure
a living in his last years. 1
Kirchhoff refers to the importance of the fairs and
annual markets for the manuscript trade. It is evident
that, in the absence of any bookselling machinery, it was
of first importance for the producers of copies of such
texts as might be within their reach, to come into rela-
tions with each other in order to bring about the exchange
of their surplus copies.
There is record of the sale and exchange of manuscripts,
during the first half of the fifteenth century, at the Fairs
of Salzburg, Ulm, Nordlingen, and Frankfort. It was in
fact from its trade in manuscripts that Frankfort, by
natural development, became and for many years re-
mained the centre of the trade in printed books.* Ruland
speaks of one of the most important items of the manu-
script-trade at the Frankfort Fair between 1445 and
1450, being that of fortune-telling books and illustrated
chap-books.
It appears also from the Fair records that in Germany,
as in Italy, the dealers in parchment and paper were
among the first to associate with their goods the sale of
manuscripts. In 1470, occurs the earliest record of sales
being made at the fair in Nordlingen of printed books,*
1 Gesch. d. Offentl. Bibliothtk zu Bamberg, Nurnberg, 1832, p. xrii.
Kirch., 120.
3 Kirch., 121,
288 Books in Manuscript
The earliest date at which the sale of printed books at
the fair at Frankfort was chronicled was 1480. In 1485,
the printer Peter Schoffer was admitted as a citizen in
Frankfort.
While Kirchhoff maintains that the distribution of
books in manuscript was more extensive in Germany
than in either France or Italy, and emphasises par-
ticularly the fact that there was among circles through-
out Germany a keener interest in literature than obtained
with either the French or the Italians, he admits that the
record of noteworthy booksellers in Germany, during the
manuscript period, is, as compared with that of France
and Italy, inconsiderable. In Cologne, he finds, as early
as 1389, through an inscription in a manuscript that has
been preserved, the name of Horstan de Ledderdam, who
called himself not a librarius, but a libemarius. The
manuscript that bears this record is a treatise by Por-
phyry on Aristotle.
In Nordlingen, the tax list of 1407 gives the name of
Joh. Minner, recorded as a scriptor. There is an entry
of a sale made by Minner to the Burgermeister Protzen
of a German translation of the Decretals. The tax list of
1415 gives the name of Conrad Horn, described as a
stadtschr eiber. Horn seems to have carried on an exten-
sive business in the production and the exchange of manu-
scripts. Kirchhoff quotes a contract entered into by him
in 1427 with a certain Prochsil of Eystet for the purchase
of a buck, the title of which is not given, for the sum of
forty-three Rhenish gulden.
The name of Diebold Lauber has already been men-
tioned. His inscription appears on a number of manu-
scripts that have been preserved principally through the
Heidelberg University. On the first sheet of a Legend
of the Three Holy Kings from this library, is written the
following notice, which can be considered as a general
advertisement :
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 289
Item welche hande biicher man gerne hat, gross odcr clein,
geistlich oder weltlich, hubsch gemolt, die findet man alle by Die-
pold Lauber, schreiber in der burge zu hagenow.
Freely translated, this notice would read : " Any books
that are desired, whether great or small, religious or pro-
fane, beautifully painted (adorned), all of these will one
find by Diebold Lauber, scribe in the town of Hagenau."
Among the manuscripts of Lauber, which have been pre-
served, is a beautiful copy of Gesta Romanorum, mit den
viguren gemolt, a Bible in rhyme (fine gerymete bibel, ein
salter Latin und Tustch). Also a number of gemolte
losbiicher (illustrated fortune-telling books), etc.
In Heidelberg, the name of Wolff von Prunow, biblio-
pola, is recorded early in the fifteenth century, as associ-
ated with the university. In Bruges, in 1425, the list of
manuscript -dealers is a more important one. It begins
with Joorquin de Viic, who is described as a cleric. He
was bookseller to Duke Philip, and is spoken of by
Labord as having had an extensive manuscript factory. 1
Colart Mansion has already been referred to. He is re-
corded in 1450 as an escripvain, but a few years later
appears in the list of printers and is known as the friend
and associate of Caxton. The books of Duke Philip of
Burgundy include also the name of the bookseller Hoc-
berque, in 1427, and that of Neste in 1423. In 1456,
Morisses de Haat is recorded as an escripvain de livres, who
rented out books. In order to do this, he must, as Kirch-
hoff points out, have carried some general stock. A
certain Herr van Gruthuyse, a rich collector, of Bruges,
bought a number of finely illuminated manuscripts from
Jean Paradis, who was in 1470 made a member of the
librariers gild.
Kirchhoff quotes a document dated 1346, the word-
ing of which is in the form of a contract between Wou-
1 Eke, i., 242.
VOL. I IQ
290 Books in Manuscript
ters Vos and Jan Standard, described as manuscript-deal-
ers, "parties of the first part," and a group of citizens,
" parties of the second part." The contract has to do with
the transfer of certain books as security for a loan. The
list of the books includes copies of the Codex of Justinian,
some essays on taxes, polities, and rhetoric, a work by
Albertus, a treatise by ^Egidius, the Physics of Aristotle,
a commentary of Averrhoes, etc. These two dealers
of Bruges seem to have had an important collection of
literature for so early a period.
The manuscript-trade in the Netherlands was more im-
portant both in character and in extent than that carried
on in Germany, and it had also a larger influence upon
the general education of the people than the book-trade
of the time in either France or Italy. In France and in
Italy, the earlier book-trade was, as we have noted, con-
nected principally with the work of the universities. In
the Low Countries, on the other hand, particularly in such
centres as Ghent, Antwerp, and Bruges, there came into
existence, during the first half of the fifteenth century, an
active and intelligently conducted business in the pro-
duction of books both of a scholarly and of a popular
character, the sale of which was made very largely among
the citizens, outside of the university circles. One reason
why the trade in books found a larger development in
Belgium than in Germany, was the greater wealth of the
trading class in the Low Countries. With the wealth,
came cultivation and a taste for luxuries, and among
luxuries soon came to be included art and literature.
As early as 1424, there was instituted a guild of pub.
lishers, librariers gild, in Ghent, and a year or two later
one in Brussels. These guilds came into relations in
1450 with the St. Lucas Guild in Antwerp.
According to Kapp, the first evidences of an organised
German trade in manuscripts are to be found at the begin-
ning of the fifteenth century. He is, however, convinced
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 291
that a very considerable exchange of literary material in
manuscripts must have found place at a much earlier date.
There came to be in the German towns and among the
citzen class an earlier interest in literature than there is
evidence of at this time in the same class of any other
country of Europe. This demand for reading matter on
the part of the citizen class brought into existence in
Germany (at a time when in Italy, France, and England
there were practically no books in other than the Latin
language) a considerable mass of popular literature writ-
ten in the vernacular, and copied out on cheap material
in such way as to make possible a general circulation.
This popular circulation of books written for the com-
mon folk was very much facilitated by the introduction
into Germany, as early as the fourteenth century, of
paper, which for the cheaper manuscripts took the place
of the old-time parchment.
The Order of Brothers of Common Life carried on their
literary work, so to speak, between the monasteries and
the writers of the general lay community. They had for
their first purpose the dissemination of sound doctrine, but
as they were trying to give instruction direct to the com-
mon folk, they put their teachings into the dialect of the
place, and they wrote out in their own monasteries the
chap-books and instruction books which, at times dis-
tributed freely from the monastery centres, came to be
very largely sold.
Their work lay between that of the monastery monks
and that of the city scribes in another respect. As before
indicated, the work of the scribes in the scriptorium was
performed for no individual remuneration. If the manu-
scripts were sold or were exchanged for property of one
kind or another, the benefit of the sale or exchange accrued
to the monastery. On the other hand, the scribes of the
cities, as they came to organise themselves into an ac-
cepted trade, arrived at a system of fixed charges for
292 Books in Manuscript
their work. The Brothers of Common Life, while living
together in monkish centres, did not withdraw themselves
from the life of the world, but made it their first duty,
using their monastery homes simply as a starting-place or
place of consultation or as centres of education, to go out
into the highways and by-ways, teaching what they had
to teach direct to the people whom they met ; and as an
important means of this instruction they used their facili-
ties as scribes for manifolding the tracts and the scriptural
classics with which they provided themselves. It was
their recognition of the enormous service that could be
secured in influencing a community through the distribu-
tion of books, that made them so prompt in their appreci-
ation of the value of the printing-press and that caused
them to take place among the first printers of Germany.
The term commonly given to the earlier German scribes
was clericus, or pfaffe, and nearly every well-to-do noble-
man or citizen had a clericus, or pfaffe, to take charge of
his correspondence and his accounts.
While the general use of this term indicates the ecclesi-
astical origin of the scribes and confirms the previous
records to the effect that the first scribes undoubtedly
were monks trained in the monasteries, it is of course by
no means to be accepted as evidence that the art of
writing continued, at least after the fourteenth century,
to be limited to ecclesiastics. As has before been indi-
cated, the monastery schools accepted very many pupils
who had no intention of entering the Church, but who
secured from their monkish teachers a knowledge of read-
ing and writing.
As early as 1403, mention is made of a certain Heil-
mannus, formerly a cleric of the diocese of Trier, licensed
as a public scribe (eyn offenbar schreiber). At about the
same time, Dr. Conrad Humery, of Mayence, is referred
to in the chronicles as pfaffe, jurist, and chancellor of the
city. Ulrich Zell, who later became the first printer in
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 293
Cologne, was accustomed to add to the imprint of his
works the designation clericus from Hanau in the diocese
of Mayence. Notwithstanding the term clericus and the
reference to his diocese, Ulrich had never been an eccle-
siastic. 1 The ecclesiastical divisions, parishes or dioceses,
were utilised in those times, as political divisions are to-
day, as the territorial designations that would be most
readily understood.
The trade in books in manuscript was developed from
two great sources. For a certain special and restricted
class of work, the trade came into existence and continued,
as we have seen, for some centuries, in the Italian univer-
sities, in the University of Paris, and in two or three of
the older German universities. Some little time later, the
scribes found place among the hand-workers and dealers
of the larger cities. Their work was at first carried on
most actively in connection with cathedrals and churches,
and, later, associated itself with the annual markets and
fairs.
In the trade centres, where the goldsmiths, designers,
and illuminators found profitable occupation, the skilled
writers (that is to say, those who were competent to pre-
pare the elaborately ornamented manuscripts) soon found
occupation, while the writers of common text came to be
employed particularly, as mentioned, in the markets and
fairs in connection with the records and correspondence
required for business transactions.
Throughout the first half of the fifteenth century the
production of manuscripts, which, from the beauty of
their script and the artistic finish of their illustrations and
ornamentations, could be classed as works of art, became
an important industry, an industry of which the centres
in Germany and the Low Countries were Bruges, Ghent,
Antwerp, Aix-la-Chapelle, Cologne, Strasburg, Augsburg,
Ulm, and Vienna.
1 Kapp, 18.
294 Books in Manuscript
As before indicated, the manuscripts produced in the
Netherlands and in Burgundy far surpassed those of
Germany and, for that matter, those of the rest of the
world, in beauty and in the elaboration of their artistic
finish and ornamentation. The Dukes of Burgundy took
a large personal interest in this special industry of their
dominions, and their patronage did much to make the art
fashionable and to further its development.
When, after the introduction of printing, the printers
and book-makers instituted their trade-unions or guilds in
Ghent and in Bruges, they absorbed into their organisa-
tions the existing associations of fine writers, scribes,
illuminators, etc.
In the library of S. Mark's, in Venice, there is a beauti-
ful breviary known as that of Grimani, which was produced
in 1478 by certain artists of Bruges, among whom is men-
tioned John Memmling, and which was purchased in 1489,
for five hundred ducats, by the Cardinal Grimani. About
the same time, that is to say, between 1468 and 1469, was
produced the copy of Froissart's Chronicles which had
been prepared in Bruges for the son of Duke Philip of
Burgundy, and which is at present in the possession of
the library of the University of Breslau.
The labour of the scribes of the fifteenth century was,
however, by no means exclusively devoted to works of
magnificence (prachtwerke). From the shops of the
ordinary writers, were produced considerable masses of
text-books, books of worship, cookery books, astrological
treatises, almanacs, and even political tracts. Before the
middle of the century, there are records of licensed
scribes carrying on a general business for the public in
Cologne, Frankfort, Augsburg, Vienna, and even in smaller
towns, such as Nordlingen.
The scribes of the universities, who were included
among the university officials, and who, in securing cer-
tain university privileges, subjected themselves also to a
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 295
rather elaborate series of restrictions, were naturally not
in a position to leave their university towns to do work in
other centres. In fact, it was for a long time not per-
mitted for them to take up any work outside of pro-
viding the copies required of the authorised university
texts. The scribes who were not associated with any
official bodies were, however, free to carry their work
from place to place according as the varying demand of
the seasons of the year, a demand dependent upon the
markets, the fairs, and other special business conditions,
might give opportunity for a profitable use of their
labours. The shops of these town scribes were, as a
rule, in the open places, more particularly in the market,
in the neighbourhood of the town hall, or under the
shadow of the cathedral or principal church. Frequently,
where the business was not quite important enough to
warrant a shop, it was carried on under the steps or in the
porches of the church or the cathedral, and sometimes
even within the church building, in one of the chapels.
It seems probable that the old-time ecclesiastical associ-
ations of the art (which was still known as " clerical ") may
have caused the authorities having charge of the church
buildings to look with special favour upon these later
scribes, so that they were able to secure for their trade
facilities and accommodations which would not have been
afforded to workers or dealers in other occupations.
There is a reference, in 1408, in one of the Strasburg
chronicles to a scribe named Peter von Haselo, who sells
books on the steps of the cathedral of Our Lady. 1 In
Cologne the manuscript-dealers took possession of various
corners or angles of the cathedral for their shops or booths.
In Munster the space immediately in front of the cathedral
was allotted to them. In a number of the larger cities the
scribes dealt not only in the productions of their own pens,
but in such ancient manuscripts as they had been able to
1 Kapp, 20.
296 Books in Manuscript
collect, these coming for the most part from Italy. It
was from this branch of their business that the booksellers
came to be known quite frequently as antiquarii.
While there gradually grew up throughout Germany an
active trade in manuscripts, the record shows an earlier
development of this trade in Italy and France, and even
in England. Reference has already been made to the
activity as a book collector of Richard de Bury, who in
the first half of the fourteenth century secured through
travelling dealers manuscripts which had been brought
from France and from Italy. De Bury speaks of these
dealers as taking commissions for the delivery of the
manuscripts at such interval of months as would be re-
quired for the long journeys from Oxford to Paris and
back, or from Oxford to Florence or Venice.
It appears, however, that towards the middle of the
fifteenth century, when the work of town scribes in Ger-
many had once begun and the character of their produc-
tions came to be known to the common people, the
circulation of books among the people was more exten-
sive in amount and more wide-reaching in the territory
and the classes of buyers concerned than was the case in
any other state of Europe.
In 1439, some dealers from the Siebengebirge brought
from Basel to Hermannstadt certain political controversies
and tracts. Some of the latter treated of the work of the
Council of Basel, and came, therefore, under the censor-
ship of the Church, and their circulation in Hermannstadt
was forbidden. 1
Between 1440 and 1450, the records of the annual fairs
of Nordlingen include repeated references to dealings in
manuscripts.
After 1460, it is not always easy to determine whether
the specifications of the prices paid for books refer to
manuscripts or to printed copies. On the 2/th of March,
1 Kapp, 21.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 297
1485, Rudolph Agricola, the librarian of the Elector of
the Palatinate, writes to his friend Adolph Rusch, a book-
seller from Strasburg who was at that time in Frankfort,
ordering for his library copies of the following books:
Columella, De Re Rustica ; Celsus, De Medicina-, Macrobii
Saturnalia, Statii, Opera, and Silius Italicus. It is certain,
says Kirchhoff, that these books had not yet been printed
in Germany, and he is, therefore, of opinion that Agricola
was expecting to secure manuscripts. Kapp points out,
however, that certain of them had already been printed
in Italy ; Columella, for instance, had been published in a
volume with Cato and Varro, in Venice in 1472, and in
Reggio in 1482.
Celsus appeared in Florence in 1478, and in Milan in
1481 ; Macrobius, in Venice in 1472 and 1483 ; Statius in
Rome in 1476, in Milan in 1483 ; Silius in Rome, in 1471,
in Milan in 1480, and in Parma in 1481.
It seems probable that, in connection with the corre-
spondence between the scholars of Italy and the instruct-
tors in the University of Heidelberg, news might very
easily have come to the librarian of the Elector of these
important classical undertakings, and that he had natu-
rally desired to secure copies of the books for the Elector's
library. As far as I can understand from the reference
made by Kapp, there is no record of the result of
this order or inquiry, or of the prices at which Agricola
secured or hoped to secure the books in question. It was
undoubtedly the case that, as the work of the printers,
both German and Italian, came to be known to the book
collectors, there was a steady decrease in the prices paid
for manuscripts, until the business of the manuscript-
dealers came to be limited to the sale as curiosities of old
, codices, and the work of the scribes in the reproduction
of copies ceased altogether.
Reference has already been made to the prices paid
during the Middle Ages for more or less famous manu-
298 Books in Manuscript
scripts. The difficulty with the prices of which we have
record is that they vary so considerably for goods of
apparently about the same description, a variation doubt-
less depending upon the special conditions of the sale, the
wealth or eagerness of the purchaser, etc. In 1054, for
instance, a Book of the Mass was sold by the monk
named Ulrich (the sale being made with the consent of
the Abbot) in exchange for a great vineyard covering the
slope of a large hill, the exact dimensions of which are
not given. In 1057, a nun named Diemude, of the con-
vent of Wessobrunn, exchanged a Bible, which she had
written with her own hand, for a farm on Peissenburg.
Without, however, the exact description of any particular
manuscript, a description which should specify the nature
of the work put into it, the illuminations, the designs, the
covers, etc., it is, of course, very difficult to compare one
transaction with another.
Kapp speaks of a good copy of the Corpus Juris as
being valued in 1350 at 1000 gold gulden. 1 He quotes a
purchase made by a certain Prahel, in 1427, of a copy of
Livy for 120 gold gulden, and the sale of a Plutarch in
1470 (twenty years after Gutenberg's press began to work)
for no less than 800 gold gulden. Jan Van Enkhuisen, of
Zwolle, received in 1460 for an illuminated Bible 500 gold
gulden, and for a Bible with a plain text (einfach geschrie-
beri) loo crowns. In 1345, Etienne de Conty paid for a
handsomely adorned copy of the Commentaries of Henry
Bohic, 62 livres and 1 1 sous, a sum which Kapp calculates
to be the equivalent of 825 francs in the money of the
present day. For the production of this work, there
were paid to the scribes 31 livres and 5 sous, for the
parchment 18 livres and 18 sous, for six initials in gold,
i livre and 10 sous, for other illuminations 3 livres and 6
sous, for the hire of the manuscript (paid to the university
bidfllus), 4 livres, and for binding the volume, I livre 12
sous.
1 Kapp, 24.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 299
The Countess of Anjou paid, in 1460, for a copy of
the Homilies of Haimon, Bishop of Halberstadt, two hun-
dred sheep, five measures of wheat, and five measures of
barley.
In 1474, Louis XI. of France, pledged as security for
the safe return of a manuscript containing a treatise by
the Arabic physician Rhases, which he had borrowed from
the medical Faculty of the University of Paris, his silver
plate, while a nobleman also stood security for the
King in the transaction. In 1392, the Countess of Blois,
wife of the Baron of Castellane, left in her will, as a be-
quest to her daughter, a manuscript on parchment of the
Corpus Juris. It was made a condition of the bequest
that the daughter should marry a jurist, in order that this
valuable treasure could come into the right hands.
The National Library in Paris contains two manuscripts
of the Bible in Latin and French text, written on parch-
ment, which Firmin Didot appraised as having cost to
produce not less than the equivalent of 82,000 francs.
He excludes from this calculation of cost the price
of the parchment, the hire of the scribes, and the cost of
the binding. The principal item of the outlay for the
more valuable of these manuscripts was incurred in the
production of the 5,000 designs illuminated in gold and
colour, the cost of preparing which Didot estimated at
over 12,000 francs.
As before pointed out, the exceptional outlay incurred
in the production of these illuminated manuscripts cannot
be taken as in any way a guide for the average market
price of manuscripts prepared for general circulation and
sale. The text-books, chap-books, etc., which, during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were prepared for the
common folk, sold at prices that seem very low when one
bears in mind the large amount of manual labour required
for their production. The school ordinance of the town
of Bautzen (in Saxony) of 1418 fixed the price of an
300 Books in Manuscript
ABC book, containing also a Paternoster, at one
groschen ; of a Doctrinal, a half mark ; and of a Donatus,
ten groschens.
At this time, however, the market price in the same
region for a hen was one pfennig, for a pound of beef two
pfennigs, for a loaf of bread, containing rations for three
men for one day, three pfennigs, for a pound of cheese one
pfennig, for a measure of the best wine one kreutzer.
From this date on, however, there came to be, with the
increase in the production of manuscript books in the
common text, a very steady decrease in the selling price
of such books.
At the end of the fourteeth century the average price
in Italy for a well written copy of the Corpus Juris was
480 marks. In 1451, such a copy was sold in Florence for
I4 ducats, the equivalent of 90 marks.
In 1400, a manuscript containing writings of Justinian,
Sallust, and Suetonius, written on 1 1 5 folio sheets of parch-
ment, was sold in Florence for 16 ducats, the equivalent
of 100 marks. In 1467, a copy of the comedies of Ter-
ence, written on 198 folio sheets (paper, however, in-
stead of parchment), was bought in Heidelberg for three
gulden. By this date, sixteen years, namely, after the
printing of Gutenberg's first volume, the competition or
the expectation of the competition of the printing-press,
had already begun to affect the market prices of manu-
scripts. In 1499, there is record of the sale in Heidelberg
for the price of two gulden, of a manuscript comprising
134 quarto sheets, containing the Hecuba of Euripides, and
the Idyls of Theocritus.
In not a few of the monasteries, even of those which
had an old-time repute for literary activity, the literary
efforts came and went in waves, and sometimes for long
periods, extending over a generation or more, there was
an actual decrease in the extent of the attention given to
the production of manuscripts and to the securing of
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 301
additions to the library. In other instances the develop!
ment of the libraries went on but slowly.
C. Schmidt refers to the record of the library of the
Strasburg Cathedral, which in 1260 possessed a collection
of fifty codices that had been for the most part presented
by Bishop Wernher as far back as 1027. In the year 1372,
the catalogue of the library shows that the number had
increased to ninety-one, a gain of only forty-one manu-
scripts in a space of more than one century.
The renewed interest that came to the scholars of Italy
in the works of classic writers with the revival of classical
studies induced by the Renaissance caused manuscripts of
these works to be searched for, not only in Italy and in
the countries of the East that could most easily be
reached by Italy, but throughout the monasteries of
Europe. In 1517, there is record of instruction being
given by Pope Leo X. to a certain cleric named Heytmer
to visit the libraries of the Palatinate and of the adjoining
districts and to search for classical manuscripts for
purchase for the Papal collection. Heytmer was enjoined
to make special inquiry for the missing books of Livy.
Another agent of Leo was fortunate enough to discover
in the monastery of Corvey on the Weser the first five
books of Tacitus. Being unable to induce the monastery
to make sale of the manuscript, he succeeded in some way
in appropriating it, and in getting it safely over the Alps.
It was this manuscript that was used for the editio
princeps of Tacitus, printed in Rome in 1515. The Pope
sent to the library of the Corvey monastery a copy of
this printed edition of the Tacitus as a restitution for the
appropriated manuscript. The manuscript itself, in 1522,
was taken (one does not know how) from Rome to Flor-
ence, where it is to-day chained in the Laurentian
Library. I understand that this Corvey text constituted
the only copy of the first five books of Tacitus which had
been found when this author was first put into print.
302 Books in Manuscript
The Manuscript Period in England. During the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in England as in
ancient Greece, and as also in mediaeval Italy, Southern
France and Germany, the people who were prepared to
interest themselves in literary productions, received their
literature, or at least their poetical literature, very largely
by means of reciters or ministrels. In the prologue to his
Troilus and Cressida, Chaucer tells us it was intended to
be read or elles sung. George Ellis points out that this
must relate to the chanting recitation of the minstrels.
Ellis goes on to say: "A considerable part of our old
poetry is simply addressed to an audience, without any
mention of readers. That our English minstrels at any
time united all the talents of the profession, and were at
once poets and reciters and musicians, is extremely doubt-
ful ; but that they excited and directed the efforts of their
contemporary poets to a particular species of composition,
is as evident as that a body of actors must influence the
exertions of theatrical writers. They were, at a time
when reading and writing were rare accomplishments, the
principal medium of communication between authors and
the public ; and their memory in some measure supplied
the deficiency of manuscripts, and probably preserved
much of our early literature until the invention of
printing." '
Says Jusserand : " At a time when books were rare, and
when the theatre, properly so-called, did not exist, poetry
and music travelled with the minstrels and gleemen
(Jongleurs) along the highway, and such guests were
always welcome." *
The connection of minstrelsy with the circulation of
literature is referred to by Charles Knight as follows :
"A popular literature was kept alive and preserved,
however imperfectly, before the press came to make those
1 Early English Poetry, Introduction, xi.
8 English Wayfaring Life, 188.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 303
who had learnt to read self-dependent in their intellectual
gratifications ; and what has come down to us of the old
minstrelsy, with all its inaccuracy and occasional feeble-
ness, shows us that the people of England, four or five
centuries ago, had a common fund of high thought upon
which a great literature might in time be reared. The
very existence of a poet like Chaucer is the best proof of
the vigour, and to a certain extent of the cultivation, of
the national mind, even in an age when books were
rarities." *
As early as the twelfth century, during such reigns as
those of Henry I. (Beauclerc) and Henry II., there was in
England a very considerable production of literature,
under such various headings as chronicles, satires, ser-
mons, works of science and of medicine, treatises on style,
prose romances, and epics in verse. Jusserand points out
that a large proportion of these compositions were writ-
ten in Latin.' This would indicate a wider general under-
standing of Latin than prevailed three centuries later
when Caxton's printing-press began its work ; for, as will
be noted in the chapter on Caxton, the proportion of
Latin books issued by Caxton was very much smaller
than was the case with the contemporary publishers in
France and in Germany. Such an active and varied liter-
ary production as that described by Jusserand would also,
of course, imply the existence of a considerable body of
trained scribes in addition to those who were at work in
the monastic scriptoria on the chronicles and books of
devotion.
The very large measure of attention given to the pro-
duction of legends and romances, and the great popularity
of these among almost all classes of the people, was the
distinctive feature of the literature of England during the
three centuries preceding the introduction of printing.
The scenes of many of these romances are laid in classic
1 The Old Printer, p. 43. * Literary History, i., 176.
304 Books in Manuscript
times, and their characters bear classic names ; but the
stories are hardly constructed on classic lines, and very
little attempt is made to preserve what the dramatic critic
in Nicholas Nickleby calls " the oneness of the drama."
Antiquity is presented in the garb of the Middle Ages.
As Jusserand remarks : " Everything in these poems was
really translated ; not only the language of the ancients
but their raiment, their civilisation, their ideas. Venus
becomes a princess : the heroes are knights, and their cos-
tumes, pictured in the illuminations, are so much in
the fashion of the day that they serve us to date the
poems."
In addition to these classic romances, in which old-time
heroes masquerade in mediaeval garb and speak in me-
diaeval language, there is a long series of tales which
appear to have been of English origin. English readers
and English writers of the time seem to have possessed a
special penchant for story-telling. " Prose tales were
written in astonishing quantities in the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries by pious authors who under pretext of
edifying and amusing their readers at the same time, be-
gan by amusing and frequently forgot to edify." ' The
Welshman, Walter Map, became famous at the Court of
Henry II. for his satires and humorous stories. His work
was done in Latin. His De Nugis Curiatum secured the
most abiding repute. He might perhaps be considered as
a twelfth-century Martial. That famous body of stories,
the Gesta Romanorum, heretofore believed to be the result
of German reshaping of legends originating with the
monks of Italy, is now claimed to have been first com-
piled in England towards the end of the thirteenth cen-
tury. 1 The Gesta was one of the most widely circulated
books in Europe (outside of the accepted devotional
1 Literary History, i., 182.
Oesterly, Die Liter atur der Urkundensammlungen, 2 vols., Berlin,
1885-86.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 305
classics) both in the manuscript period, and during the
first century of printing.
The stories of the time are of very varied origin and in
many cases had evidently, in the rewriting, undergone
material modifications or transformations. Whether the
language used be Latin, French, or English, it is evident
from the character of the tales that the writers were
addressing themselves not to any limited group of schol-
ars and clerics, but to what would to-day be described
as a popular circle of readers and of hearers. Thomas
Wright points out that even those tales which are pre-
sented in Latin give evidence from local references and
from English quotations of having been written for
Englishmen." J
The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, chief among
the story-tellers of England, if not of Europe, were writ-
ten about 1 390. After the long series of translations and
adaptations, these tales of Chaucer mark a distinct epoch
in the production of native romance, in which characters,
incidents, and surroundings were alike English, although
there are many evidences of continental influences. The
circulation of the Tales in manuscript form was very
extended, and Caxton showed his usual excellent judg-
ment by including them in the first group of publications
issued from his Westminster Press. This earliest printed
edition was probably published in 1478. A second edi-
tion was issued by Caxton in 1484.
It seems probable, as well from the history of the Can-
terbury Tales as from that of the long series of romances
which had preceded them, a history giving evidence of a
wide-spread influence and repute, that there must have
been, during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth cen-
turies, a considerable book-production outside of the
monastery scriptoria, and that there must also have been
1 Selection of Latin Stories from the MSS. of the Thirteenth and Four-
iff nth Centuries, Percy Society, London, 1842.
306 Books in Manuscript
a fairly effective machinery for the sale and distribution
of the manuscript texts. The latter were doubtless sup-
plied in great part by the travelling pedlars, who sold
with their novelties in ribbons and trinkets the latest new
tale, or the latest version of some very old tale.
Books in manuscript were included in the goods sold at
certain of the great fairs, such as that of Stourbridge (near
Cambridge),St. Giles (near Oxford), and St. Bartholomew,
in London. 1 After the introduction of printing, such
fairs did considerable business in the sale not only of the
chap-books and almanacs, which were carried about in the
pedlars' packs, but also of substantial and costly works.
Professor Thorold Rogers explains that the rapid diffusion
of books and pamphlets at a time when newspapers and
advertisements were still unknown, can only be accounted
for by the understanding that the book-dealers made large
use of these fairs. He goes on to say that he finds entries
of purchases for the libraries of the Oxford colleges, with
the statement that the books were bought at St. Giles's
Fair.' It will be remembered how two centuries or more
after the period referred to by Thorold Rogers, Michael
Johnson, the father of Samuel, made a practice of going
on market days to Uttoxeter, taking there from his book-
shop in Litchfield books to be offered for sale on a stall
in the market-place. The market days had, in 1725, re-
placed in great measure the old-time fairs. In the chap-
ter on Germany, I have referred to the early use made of
the Fair at Nordlingen by the dealers in manuscripts, a
1 practice which was later continued by the printers.
It does not appear that the manuscript-dealers were
permitted to carry on their trade in the chapels or within
the enclosures of the cathedrals, as was so largely done by
their contemporaries in Germany and in France. The
1 Harrison's Description of England. Ed. Furnivall. Part i., book ii.,
chap, xviii.
* Roger's History of Agriculture and Prices in England, iv., 155.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 307
extensive multiplication of books by copyists is less easy
to account for. I have not been able thus far to find
record of any considerable production, in London or other
commercial centres, of books in manuscript, and I can
only infer such production from the wide-spread circula-
tion and influence of the books themselves.
The literary activities of England during these centuries
of the manuscript period were by no means limited to the
production of fiction. The long series of contributions to
local and national history made by the monkish chronic-
lers have been referred to in a previous chapter. In the
twelfth century, Orderic Vital or Vitalis writes his Angli-
gence Histories Ecclesiastics, Henry of Huntingdon, his
Historia Anglorum (from A.C. 55 to A.D. 1154), and Wil-
liam of Malmesbury, his Gesta Regum A nglorum. The His-
toria Anglorum was printed in 1586, at the expense of Sir
Henry Savile. William of Malmesbury was, like Richard
de Bury, noted as a collector of books. His history was
issued between 1112 and 1124. A few years later, in
1139, appears the great Historia Regum Britannia, of
Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey begins his British his-
tory with the earliest times, and, thanks, as he explains,
to certain special discoveries, or to a special revelation, he
is able to write with as much certainty about the reign of
King Arthur as concerning events of his own time. This
chronicle must have been largely multiplied and widely
distributed, as an exceptionally large number of copies
have been preserved to the present time, the British
Museum alone possessing no less than thirty-four.
In the thirteenth century the work of the historians is
carried on by such writers as Roger of Wendover, and
Matthew Paris, chief among English chroniclers. In the
fourteenth century, the most noteworthy among a long
series of historical writers is Ralph Higden, author of the
Polychronicon, or " Universal History," which remained
for centuries an accepted authority.
308 Books in Manuscript
In the thirteenth century, Bartholomew or Glanville
compiles one of the oldest of the general cyclopaedias.
Of this, many manuscripts have been preserved, eighteen
of which are in the National Library in Paris. 1 John of
Gaddesden, court physician under Edward II. (1310-1312),
writes a medical cyclopaedia, or compendium of prescrip-
tions, which not only secures a European reputation at
the time, but retains its prestige for nearly three centuries,
and is issued in print in Augsburg, in 1595, in two quarto
volumes. As early as the reign of Henry II. (i 154-1 189)
an important group of law books had appeared, and the
law treatises of Henry of Bracton, issued early in the
thirteenth century, retained their value sufficiently to
appear two centuries later in a printed edition, abridged
from the original text. These few typical writers are re-
ferred to simply as presenting some indication of the
variety and of the extent of the literary activities of Eng-
land during the centuries preceding the beginning of
printing. The popular interest in the works of such
writers, and the great influence exerted by them upon the
opinions of their own and of succeeding generations, is
evidence of a considerable multiplication of copies and of
an extended circulation, and this evidence is corroborated
by the fact that of many of the books of the period so
large a number of copies have been preserved to the
present time through the perils and vicissitudes of the
intervening centuries.
The most noteworthy example of the literary interests
of Britain during the manuscript period is afforded by
Richard Aungerville, better known as Richard de Bury,
Bishop Palatine of Durham, whose famous Philobiblon
was given to the world in 1345. In his various travels,
and through his correspondents in England, France, and
Italy, he was able to get together a great collection of
books, which were later bequeathed to the University of
1 Delisle, Hist. Lilt, de la France, xxx., 334.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 309
Oxford. His eloquent tribute to his beloved books must,
I judge, be taken rather as expressing the enthusiasm of
an exceptionally devoted scholar than as fairly represent-
ing the literary spirit of the time :
" Thanks to books, the dead appear to me as though
they still lived. . . . Everything decays and falls into
dust by the force of time : Saturn is never weary of de-
vouring his children, and the glory of the world would be
buried in oblivion, had not God as a remedy conferred on
mortal man the benefit of books. . . . Books are the
masters that instruct us without rods or ferules, without
reprimands or anger, without the solemnity of the gown
or the expense of lessons. Go to them, you will not find
them asleep : if you err, no scoldings on their part : if you
are ignorant, no mocking laughter." *
In 1344, (the year before his death) Richard writes as
follows :
" As it is necessary for a state to provide military arms,
and prepare plentiful stores of provisons for soldiers who
are about to fight, so it is evidently worth the labour of
the church militant to fortify itself against the attacks of
pagans and heretics with a multitude of sound books.
But because everything that is serviceable to mortals
suffers the waste of mortality through lapse of time, it is
necessary for volumes corroded by age to be restored by
renovated successors, that perpetuity, repugnant to the
nature of the individual, may be conceded to the species.
Hence it is that Ecclesiastes significantly says, in the
1 2th chapter. * There is no end of making many books/
For, as the bodies of books suffer continued detriment
from a combined mixture of contraries in their composi-
tion, so a remedy is found out by the prudence of clerks,
by which a holy book paying the debt of nature may ob-
tain an hereditary substitute, and a seed may be raised
up like to the most holy deceased, and that saying of
. * Philobiblon, Lond. 1888, chap, i., pp. 12. 13.
310 Books in Manuscript
Ecclesiasticus, be verified, * The father is dead and, as it
were, not dead, for he hath left behind him a son like unto
himself/ "
One of the earliest authorities concerning book pub-
lishing in England is Bishop Fell, who in his Memoir
on the State of Printing in the University of Oxford,
tells us that that university " possessed an exclusive
right of transcribing and multiplying books by means
of writing," a privilege which implies a species of copy-
right. The date referred to is about 1600.
In both Oxford and Cambridge, according to the stat-
utes in force before the introduction of printing, the sta-
tionarii belonged to the class of Servientes, who were
appointed by the chancellor or vice-chancellor of the
university. The records of Oxford show many instances
of the pawning of books by the undergraduates and
occasionally by the instructors to the stationarii. In one
codex, belonging to Mr. Thomas Paunter, there is an in-
scription showing that it was pawned to a stationarius
in 1480, for the sum of thirty-eight shillings. 1 Books which
had been so pledged, came frequently enough, after their
forfeiture, into sale. An entry in the accounts of the
library of S. John's College in Cambridge, dating from
1456, records a payment made, apparently from the trea-
sury of the college, for the redemption of an Avicenna
from the stationarius to whom a certain John Marshall
had pledged the manuscript. The cost of the redemption
was i. 6s. 40*.*
The Oxford stationarii finally secured privileges as
members of the university, but not before 1458, (as a
result apparently of an arrangement between the univer-
sity and the city authorities), did this agreement take the
stationarii out of the jurisdiction of the city, and put
1 Huber, The English Universities ; London, 1840, p. 273.
1 Hartshorne, C. A., The Book Rarities of the University of Cambridge ;
London, 1829, p. 338.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 311
them into the same class with the dealers in parchment,
the illuminators, and the scribes, who for many years had
been subordinated to the university. The taxes on the
stationarii were fixed by and collected by the chancellor,
and the proportion due to the city treasury was paid over
by him.
The term stationarius, which had, as we have seen, been
in use for these university dealers throughout all Europe,
secured in Great Britain a permanent association with the
book-trade by its use as an appelation for the publishers'
and booksellers' guild, which was chartered in 1403 as
" The Stationers' Company." Its headquarters in Lon-
don was entitled Stationers' Hall, and is still so known.
The term in Great Britain, however, was made from a very
early date to cover a larger variety of trade undertakings
than that to which it was limited in the university towns
in Italy, France, and Germany. The business of selling
manuscripts on commission, which was, as we have seen,
kept under very close supervision on the part of the uni-
versity authorities of Paris and Bologna, appears to have
been much less important in England, and the dealers
seem for the most part to have been left free to make
such terms either in buying or selling manuscripts as they
saw fit, and as the necessities of their customers rendered
practicable.
As early as the reign of Edward III. (1327-1377), there
is record of a number of stationarii as carry ing on business
in Oxford. In an Oxford manuscript dating from this
reign, there is an inscription of a certain Mr. William
Reed, of Merton College, who tells us that he purchased
this book from a stationarius*
In London, there is record of an active trade in manu-
scripts being in existence as early as the middle of the
fourteenth century. The trade in writing materials, such
as parchment, paper, and ink, appears not to have been
1 Coxe, College of Merton, p. 107.
312 Books in Manuscript
organised as in Paris, but to have been carried on in large
part by the grocers and mercers. In the housekeeping
accounts of King John of France, covering the period of
his imprisonment in England, in the years 1359 and 1360,
occur entries such as the following ;
" To Peter, a grocer of Lincoln, for four quaires of paper,
two shillings and four pence."
" To John Huistasse, grocer, for a main of paper and a skin
of parchment, 10 pence."
' To Bartholomew Mine, grocer, for three quaires of paper,
27 pennies." *
The manuscript-trade in London concentrated itself in
Paternoster Row, the street which became afterwards the
centre of the trade in printed books.
The earliest English manuscript-dealer whose name
is on record is Richard Lynn, who, in the year 1358,
was stationarius in Oxford. 8 The name of John Browne
occurs in several Oxford manuscripts on about the
date of 1400. Nicholas de Frisia, an Oxford librar-
ius of about 1425, was originally an undergraduate.
He did energetic work as a book scribe and, later,
appears to have carried on an important business in
manuscripts. His inscription is found first on a manu-
script entitled Petri Thoma Qucestiones, etc., which manu-
script has been preserved in the library of Merton.
There is record, as early as 1359, of a manuscript-dealer
in the town of Lincoln who called himself Johannes
Librarius, and who sold, in 1360, several books to the
French King John. It is a little difficult to understand
how in a quiet country town like Lincoln with no
university connections, there should have been enough
business in the fourteenth century to support a librarius.
The earliest name on record in London is that of
Thomas Vycey, who was a stationarius in 1433. A few
1 Dannie des Comptes des Roys de France \ au 14? Stick. Paris, 1852,
p. 227. s Coxe, History of New College, p. 37.
The Book-Trade in the Manuscript Period 313
years later we find on a parchment manuscript containing
the wise sayings of a certain Lombard us, the inscription
of Thomas Masoun, " librarius of gilde hall."
Between the years 1461 and 1475, a certain Piers
Bauduyn, dealer in manuscripts, and also a bookbinder,
purchased a number of books for Edward IV. In the
household accounts of Edward appears the following
entry : " Paid to Piers Bauduyn, bookseller, for binding,
gilding and dressing a copy of Titus Livius, 20 shillings ;
for binding, gilding and dressing a copy of the Holy
Trinity, 16 shillings; for binding, gilding and dressing a
work entitled ' The Bible ' 16 shillings."
William Pratt, who was a mercer of London, between
the years 1470 and 1480 busied himself also with the
trade in manuscripts, and purchased, for William Caxton,
various manuscripts from France and from Belgium.
Kirchhoff finds record of manuscript-dealers in Spain
as early as the first decade of the fifteenth century. He
prints the name, however, of but one, a certain Antonius
Raymundi, a librarius of Barcelona, whose inscription,
dated 1413, appears in a manuscript of Cassiodorus.
PART II.
THE EARLIER PRINTED BOOKS.
315
PART II.
THE EARLIER PRINTED BOOKS.
CHAPTER I.
THE RENAISSANCE AS THE FORERUNNER OF THE
PRINTING-PRESS.
THE fragments of classic literature which had survived
the destruction of the Western Empire, had, as we
have seen, owed their preservation chiefly to the
Benedictine monasteries. Upon the monasteries also
rested, for some centuries after the overthrow of the
Gothic Kingdom of Italy, the chief responsibility for
maintaining such slender thread of continuity of intellec-
tual activity, and of interest in literature as remained.
By the beginning of the twelfth century, this responsibil-
ity was shared with, if not entirely transferred to, the
older of the great universities of Europe, such as Bologna
and Paris, which from that time took upon themselves, as
has been indicated, the task of directing and of furthering,
in connection with their educational work, the increasing
literary activities of the scholarly world.
With the increase throughout Europe of schools and
universities, there had come a corresponding development
in literary interests and in literary productiveness or
317
3i8 The Earlier Printed Books
reproductiveness. The universities became publishing
centres, and through the multiplication and exchange of
manuscripts, the scholars of Europe began to come into
closer relations with each other, and to constitute a kind
of international scholarly community. The development
of such world-wide relations between scholars was, of
course, very much furthered by the fact that Latin was
universally accepted as the language not only of scholar-
ship but practically of all literature.
In Italy, by the beginning of the fourteenth century,
intellectual interests and literary activities had expanded
beyond the scholastic circles of the universities, and were
beginning to influence larger divisions of society. The
year 1300 witnessed the production in Florence of the
Divine Comedy of Dante, and marked an epoch in the his-
tory of Italy and in the literature of the world. During
the two centuries which followed, Florence remained the
centre of a keener, richer, and more varied intellectual
life than was known in any other city in Europe.
With the great intellectual movement known as the
Renaissance, I am concerned, for the purposes of this
study, only to indicate the influence it exerted in prepar-
ing Italy and Europe for the utilisation of the printing-
press. The work of the Renaissance included, partly as a
cause, and partly as an effect, the rediscovery for the
Europe of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries of the
literature of classic Greece, as well as the reinterpretation
of the literature of classic Rome.
The influence of the literary awakening and of the
newly discovered masterpieces would of necessity have
been restricted to a comparatively limited scholarly circle,
if it had not been for the invention of Gutenberg and for
the scholarly enterprise and devotion of such followers of
Gutenberg as Aldus, Estienne, and Froben. It is, of
course, equally true that if the intellectual world had not
been quickened and inspired by the teachers of the
The Renaissance 319
Renaissance, the presses of Aldus would have worked to
little purpose, and their productions would have found
few buyers. Aldus may, in fact, himself be considered as
one of the most characteristic and valuable of the pro-
ducts of the movement.
The Renaissance has been described by various histo-
rians, and analysed by many commentators. The work
which has, however, been accepted as the most compre-
hensive account of the movement and the best critical
analysis of its nature and influence, and which presents
also a vivid and artistic series of pictures of Italy and the
Italians during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth
centuries, is Symonds' Renaissance in Italy. These vol-
umes are so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the
period, and the author's characterisations are so full and
so sympathetic, that it is difficult not to think of Symonds
as having been himself a Florentine, rather than a native
of the " barbarian realm of Britain."
I take the liberty of quoting the description given by
Symonds of the peculiar conditions under which Italy of
the fifteenth century, in abandoning the hope of securing
a place among the nations of the world, absorbed itself in
philosophic, literary, and artistic ideals. Freshly imbued 1
with Greek thought and Greek inspiration, Italy took
upon itself the r61e played centuries earlier by classic
Greece, and, without political power or national influence,
it assumed the leadership of the intellect and of the im-
agination of Europe.
" In proportion as Italy lost year by year the hope of
becoming a united nation, in proportion as the military
instincts died in her, and the political instincts were ex-
tinguished by despotism, in precisely the same ratio did
she evermore acquire a deeper sense of her intellectual
vocation. What was world-embracing in the spirit of the
mediaeval Church passed by transmutation into the
humanism of the fifteenth century. As though aware of
32O The Earlier Printed Books
the hopelessness of being Italians in the same sense as
the natives of Spain were Spaniards, or the natives of
France were Frenchmen, the giants of the Renaissance
did their utmost to efface their nationality, in order that
they might the more effectually restore the cosmopolitan
ideal of the human family. To this end both artists and
scholars, the depositories of the real Italian greatness at
this epoch, laboured ; the artists by creating an ideal of
beauty with a message and a meaning for all Europe ; the
scholars by recovering for Europe the burghership of
Greek and Roman civilisation. In spite of the invasions
and convulsions that ruined Italy between the years 1494
and 1527, the painters and the humanists proceeded with
their task as though the fate of Italy concerned them not,
as though the destinies of the modern world depended on
their activity. After Venice had been desolated by the
armies of the League of Cambray, Aldus Manutius pre-
sented the peace-gift of Plato to the foes of his adopted
city, and when the Lutherans broke into Parmegiano's
workshop at Rome, even they were awed by the tranquil
majesty of the Virgin on his easel. Stories like these
remind us that Renaissance Italy met her doom of servi-
tude and degradation in the spirit of ancient Hellas,
repeating as they do the tales told of Archimedes in his
study, and of Paulus Emilius face to face with the Zeus
of Phidias. 1 . . .
" It is impossible to exaggerate the benefit conferred
upon Europe by the Italians at this epoch. The culture
of the classics had to be reappropriated before the move-
ment of the modern mind could begin, before the nations
could start upon a new career of progress ; the chasm be-
tween the old and the new world had to be bridged over.
This task of reappropriation the Italians undertook alone,
and achieved at the sacrifice of their literary independence
and their political freedom. The history of the Renais-
1 Renaissance in Italy The Revival of Learning, pp. 15, 16.
The Renaissance 321
sance literature in Italy is the history of self-development
into the channels of scholarship and antiquarian research.
The language created by Dante as a thing of power,
polished by Petrarch as a thing of beauty, trained by
Boccaccio as the instrument of melodious prose, was
abandoned even by the Tuscans in the fifteenth century
for revived Latin and newly discovered Greek. Patient
acquisition took the place of proud inventiveness ; labori-
ous imitation of classical authors suppressed originality of
style. The force of mind which in the fourteenth century
had produced a Divine Comedy and a Decameron, in the
fifteenth century was expended upon the interpretation
of codices, the settlement of texts, the translation of
Greek books into Latin, the study of antiquities, the com-
position of commentaries, encyclopaedias, dictionaries,
ephemerides. While we regret this change from creative
to acquisitive literature, we must bear in mind that these
scholars, who ought to have been poets, accomplished
nothing less than the civilisation, or, to use their own
phrase, the humanisation, of the modern world. At the
critical moment when the Eastern Empire was being shat-
tered by the Turks, and when the other European nations
were as yet unfit for culture, Italy saved the Arts and
Sciences of Greece and Rome, and interpreted the spirit
of the classics. Devoting herself to what appears the
slavish work of compilation and collection, she transmit-
ted an inestimable treasure to the human race ; and
though for a time the beautiful Italian tongue was super-
seded by a jargon of dead languages, yet the literature of
the Renaissance yielded in the end the poetry of Ariosto,
the political philosophy of Machiavelli, the histories of
Guicciardini and Varchi. Meanwhile the whole of Europe
had received the staple of its intellectual education." '
Symonds finds in the age of the Renaissance, or in
what he calls the Humanistic movement, four principal
1 Renaissance in Italy The Revival cf Learning, pp. 55-56.
322 The Earlier Printed Books
periods : first, the age of inspiration and discovery, which
is initiated by Petrarch ; second, the period of arrange-
ment and translation. During this period, the first great
libraries came into existence, the study of Greek began in
the principal universities, and the courts of Cosimo de'
Medici in Florence, Alfonso in Naples, and Nicholas in
Rome, became centres of literary activity ; third, the age
of academies. This period succeeded the introduction of
printing into Italy. Scholars and men of letters are now
crystallising or organising themselves into cliques or
schools, under the influence of which a more critical and
exact standard of scholarship is arrived at, while there is
a marked development in literary form and taste. Of the
academies which came into existence, the most important
were the Platonic in Florence, that of Pontanus in Naples,
that of Pomponius Laetus in Rome, and that of Aldus
Manutius in Venice. This period covered, it is to be
noted, the introduction of printing into Italy (1464) and
its rapid development. In the fourth period it may be
said that scholasticism to some extent took the place of
scholarship. It was the age of the purists, of whom
Bembo was both the type and the dictator. There is a
tendency to replace learning with an exaggerated atten-
tion to aesthetics and style. It was about the Court of
Leo X. (1513-1522) that these aesthetic literati were
chiefly gathered. " Erudition, properly so-called," says
Symonds, " was now upon the point of being transplanted
beyond the Alps."
The names of the scholars and writers who, following
Dante, gave fame to Florence and to Italy, are part of
the history of the world's literature. It is necessary to
refer here only to those whose influence was most im-
portant in widening the range of scholarly interests and
in preparing Italy and Europe for the diffusion of litera-
ture, a preparation which, while emphasising the require-
ment for some means of multiplying books cheaply,
The Renaissance 323
secured for the printing-press, as soon as its work began,
an assured and sufficient support. The fact that a period
of exceptional intellectual activity and literary productive-
ness immediately preceded the invention, or at least the
introduction of printing, must have had an enormous in-
fluence in furthering the speedy development and diffusion
of the new art. The press of Aldus Manutius seems, as
before said, like a natural and necessary outgrowth of the
Renaissance.
The typical feature of the revival of learning in Italy
was, of course, the rediscovery of the literature of Greece.
In the poetic simile of Symonds, " Florence borrowed her
light from Athens, as the moon shines with rays reflected
from the sun. The revival was the silver age of that old
golden age of Greece." ' The comparison of Florence
with Athens has repeatedly been made. The golden
ages of the two cities were separated by nearly two thou-
sand years ; but history and human nature repeat them-
selves, and historians have found in the Tuscan capital of
the fifteenth century a population which, with its keen
intellectual nature, subtle and delicate wit, and restless
political spirit, recalls closely the Athens of Pericles. The
leadership which belonged to Italy in literature, art,
scholarship, and philosophy, was, within Italy, conceded
to Florence.
The first name in the list of Florentine scholars whose
influence was important in this revival is that of Petrarch.
He never himself mastered the Greek language, but he
arrived at a realisation of the importance of Greek thought
for the world, and he preached to others the value of the
studies which were beyond his own grasp. It was at
Petrarch's instance that Boccaccio undertook the transla-
tion into Latin of the Iliad. Among Latin authors,
Petrarch's devotion was given particularly to Cicero and
Virgil. The fact that during the first century of printing
1 Revival of Learning, p. 43.
324 The Earlier Printed Books
more editions of Cicero were produced than of any other
classic author must have been largely due to the emphasis
given by the followers of Petrarch to the beauty of Cicero's
latinity and the permanent value of his writings.
Petrarch was a devoted collector of manuscripts, and
spared neither labour nor expense to secure for his library
codices of texts recommended as authoritative. Notwith-
standing his lack of knowledge of Greek, he purchased for
his collection all the Greek manuscripts which came within
his reach and within his means. Fortunately for these
expensive literary tastes, he appears to have possessed
what we should call a satisfactory independence. Some
of his manuscripts went to Boccaccio, while the rest were,
at his death, given to the city of Florence and found place
later in the Medicean Library.
Petrarch laid great stress on the importance, for the
higher education of the people, of efficient public libraries,
and his influence with wealthy nobles served largely to
increase the resources of several of the existing libraries.
In his scholarly appreciation of the value of such collec-
tions, he was helping to educate the community to support
the booksellers, while in the collecting of manuscripts he
was unwittingly doing valuable service for the coming
printer. He died in 1374, ninety years before the first
printing-press began its work in Italy. A century later
his beautiful script served as a model for the italic or
cursive type which was first made by Aldus.
Symonds thinks it very doubtful whether the Italians
would have undertaken the labour of recovering the Greek
classics if no Petrarch had preached the attractiveness of
liberal studies, and if no school of disciples had been
formed by him in Florence. Of these disciples, by far
the most distinguished was Boccaccio. His actual work in
furthering the study of Greek was more important than
that of the friend to whom (although there was a difference
of but nine years in their ages) he gave the title of " mas-
The Renaissance 325
ter." Boccaccio, taking up the study of Greek (at Petrarch's
instance) in middle life, secured a sufficient mastery of the
language to be able to render into Latin the Iliad and
the Odyssey. This work, completed in 1362, was the first
translation of Homer for modern readers. He had for
his instructor and assistant an Italian named Leontius
Pilatus, who had sojourned some years at Byzantium, but
whose knowledge of classic Greek was said to have been
very limited. Boccaccio secured for Pilatus an appointment
as Greek professor in the University of Florence, the first
professorship of Greek instituted in Europe.
The work by which Boccaccio is best known, the Decame-
ron or the Ten Nights Entertainment, was published in
1353, a few years before the completion by Chaucer of the
Canterbury Tales. It is described as one of the purest
specimens of Italian prose and as an inexhaustible reposi-
tory of wit, beauty, and eloquence ; and notwithstanding
the fact that the stories are representative of the low
standard of moral tone which characterised Italian society
of the fourteenth century, the book is one which the world
will not willingly let die. It is probably to-day in more
continued demand than any book of its century, with the
possible exception of the Divine Comedy. The earliest
printed edition was that of Valdarfer, issued in Florence
in 1471. This was three years before the beginning of
Caxton's work as a printer in Bruges. The Decameron
has since been published in innumerable editions and in
every language of Europe.
A far larger contribution to Hellenic studies was given
some years later by Manuel Chrysoloras, a Greek scholar
of Byzantium, who, after visiting Italy as an ambassador
from the Court of the Emperor Palaeologus, was, in 1396,
induced to accept the Chair of Greek in the University of
Florence. " This engagement," says Symonds, " secured
the future of Greek erudition in Europe." Symonds con-
tinues : " The scholars who assembled in the lecture-
326 The Earlier Printed Books
rooms of Chrysoloras felt that the Greek texts, whereof
he alone supplied the key, contained those elements of
spiritual freedom and intellectual culture without which
the civilisation of the modern world would be impossible.
Nor were they mistaken in what was then a guess rather
than a certainty. The study of Greek implied the birth
of criticism, comparison, research. Systems based on
ignorance and superstition were destined to give way
before it. The study of Greek opened philosophical hori-
zons far beyond the dream world of the churchmen and
monks ; it stimulated the germs of science, suggested new
astronomical hypotheses, and indirectly led to the dis-
covery of America. The study of Greek resuscitated a
sense of the beautiful in art and literature. It subjected
the creeds of Christianity, the language of the Gospels, the
doctrines of St. Paul, to analysis, and commenced a new
era of Biblical inquiry. If it be true, as a writer no less
sober in his philosophy than eloquent in his language has
lately asserted, that except the blind forces of nature,
nothing moves in this world which is not Greek in its
origin, we are justified in regarding the point of contact
between the Greek teacher Chrysoloras and his Florentine
pupils as one of the most momentous crises in the history
of civilisation. Indirectly the Italian intellect had hitherto
felt Hellenic influence through Latin literature. It was
now about to receive that influence immediately from
actual study of the masterpieces of the Attic writers. The
world was no longer to be kept in ignorance of those
* eternal consolations ' of the human race. No longer
could the scribe omit Greek quotations from his Latin
text with the dogged snarl of obtuse self-satisfaction,
Graca sunt, ergo non legenda. The motto had rather to be
changed into a cry of warning for ecclesiastical authority
upon the verge of dissolution, Grceca sunt, ergo per iculosa ;
since the reawakening faith in human reason, the re-
awakening belief in the dignity of man, the desire for
The Renaissance 327
beauty, the liberty, audacity, and passion of the Renais-
sance, received from Greek studies their strongest and
most vital impulse."
Symonds might have added that the literary revival,
which was so largely due to these Greek studies, made
possible, a century later, the utilisation of the printing-
press, the invention of which would otherwise have fallen
upon comparatively barren ground ; while the printing-
press alone made possible the diffusion of the new know-
ledge, outside of the small circles of aristocratic scholars,
to whole communities of impecunious students.
Florence had, as we have seen, done more than any
other city of Italy, more than any city of Europe, to pre-
pare Italy and Europe for the appreciation and utilisation
of the art of printing, but the direct part taken by Flo-
rence in the earlier printing undertakings was, curiously
enough, much less important than that of Venice, Rome,
or Milan. By the year 1500, that is, thirty-six years after
the beginning of printing in Italy, there had been printed
in Florence 300 works, in Bologna 298, in Milan 629, in
Rome 925, and in Venice 2835.
The list of the scholars and men of letters who, during
the century following the work of Petrarch and Boccaccio,
associated themselves with the brilliant society of Florence,
and retained for the city its distinctive pre-eminence in
the intellectual life of Europe, is a long one, and includes
such names as those of Tommaso da Sarzana, Palla degli
Strozzi, Giovanni da Ravenna, Niccolo de' Niccoli, Filelfo,
Marsuppini, Rossi, Bruni, Guicciardini, Poggio, Galileo, Cel-
lini, Plethon, and Machiavelli. It was to Strozzi that was
due the beginning of Greek teaching in Florence under
Manuel Chrysoloras, while he also devoted large sums of
money to the purchase in Greece and in Constantinople of
valuable manuscripts. He kept in his house skilled copy-
ists, and was employing these in the work of preparing
transcripts for a great public library, when, unfortunately
328 The Earlier Printed Books
for Florence, he incurred the enmity of Cosimo de' Medici,
who procured his banishment. Strozzi went to Padua,
where he continued his Greek studies.
Cosimo, having vanquished his rival in politics, himself
continued the work of collecting manuscripts and of fur-
thering the instruction given by the Greek scholars. The
chief service rendered by Cosimo to learning and litera-
ture was in the organisation of great public libraries.
During his exile (1433-1434), he built in Venice the Li-
brary of S. Giorgio Maggiore, and after his return to
Florence, he completed the hall for the Library of S.
Marco. He also formed several large collections of manu-
scripts. To the Library of S. Marco and to the Medicean
Library were bequeathed later by Niccolo de' Niccoli 800
manuscripts, valued at 600 gold florins. Cosimo also
provided a valuable collection of manuscripts for the
convent of Fiesole. The oldest portion of the present
Laurentian Library is composed of the collections from
these two convents, together with a portion of the manu-
scripts preserved from the Medicean Library.
In 1438, Cosimo instituted the famous Platonic Aca-
demy of Florence, the special purpose of which was the
interpretation of Greek philosophy. The gathering in
Florence, in 1438, of the Greeks who came to the great
Council, had a large influence in stimulating the interest
of Florentines in Greek culture. Symonds (possibly
somewhat biassed in favour of his beloved Florentines of
the Renaissance) contends that the Byzantine ecclesi-
astics who came to the Council, and the long series
of Greek travellers or refugees who found their way
from Constantinople to Italy during the years that fol-
lowed, included comparatively few real scholars whose
classical learning could be trusted. These men sup-
plied, says Symonds, "the beggarly elements of gram-
mar, caligraphy, and bibliographical knowledge," but it
was Ficino and Aldus, Strozzi and Cosimo de' Medici
The Renaissance 329
who opened the literature of Athens to the comprehen-
sion of the modern world.
The elevation to the papacy, in 1447, of Tommaso Paren-
tucelli, who took the name of Nicholas V., had the effect
of carrying to Rome some of the Florentine interest in
literature and learning. Tommaso, who was a native of
Pisa, had won repute in Bologna for his wide and thorough
scholarship. He became, later, a protg of Cosimo de'
Medici, who employed him as a librarian of the Mar-
tian Library. To Nicholas V. was due the foundation of
the Vatican Library, for which he secured a collection of
some five thousand works. Symonds says that during his
pontificate, " Rome became a vast workshop of erudition,
a factory of translations from Greek and Latin." The
compensation paid to these translators from the funds
provided by the Pope, was in many cases very liberal. In
fact, as compared with the returns secured at this period
for original work, the rewards paid to these translators of
the Vatican seem decidedly disproportionate, especially
when we remember that a large portion of their work was
of poor quality, deficient both in exact scholarship and in
literary form. To Lorenzo Valla was paid for his trans-
lation of Thucydides, 500 scudi, to Guarino for a version
of Strabo, 1500 scudi, to Perotti for Polybius, 500 ducats.
Manetti had a pension of 600 scudi a month to enable
him to pursue his sacred studies. Poggio's version of the
Cyropcedia of Xenophon and Filelfo's rendering of the
poems of Homer, were, from a literary point of view,
more important productions. Some of the work in his
series of translations was confided by the Pope to the
resident Greek scholars. Trapezuntios undertook the
Metaphysics of Aristotle and the Republic of Plato, and
Tifernas the Ethics of Aristotle. Translations were also
prepared of Theophrastus and of Ptolemy.
In addition to these paid translators, the Pope attracted
to his Court from all parts of Italy, and particularly from
330 The Earlier Printed Books
his old home, Florence, a number of scholars, of whom
Poggio Bracciolini (or Fiorentino) and Cardinal Bessarion
were the most important. Bessarion took an active part
in encouraging Greek scholars to make their homes and to
do their work in Italy. The great development of liter-
ary productiveness and literary interests in Rome during
the pontificate of Nicholas, is one of the noteworthy
examples of large results accruing to literature and to
literary workers through intelligently administered patron-
age. It seems safe to say that before the introduction of
printing, it was only through the liberality of patrons that
any satisfactory compensation could be secured for liter-
ary productions.
During the reign of Alfonso of Aragon, who in 1435
added Sicily to his dominions, and under the direct incen-
tive of the royal patronage, a good deal of literary activity
was developed in Naples. Alfonso was described by
Vespasiano as being, next to Nicholas V., the most mu-
nificent patron of learning in Italy, and he attracted to his
Court scholars like Manetti, Beccadelli, Valla, and others.
The King paid to Bartolommeo Fazio a stipend of 500
ducats a year while he was engaged in writing his Chroni-
cles, and when the work was completed, he added a
further payment of 1500 florins. In 1459, the year of his
death, Alfonso distributed 20,000 ducats among the men
of letters gathered in Naples. It is certain that in no
other city of Europe during that year were the earnings
or rewards of literature so great. It does not appear,
however, that this lavish expenditure had the effect of
securing the production by Neapolitans of any works of
continued importance, or even of bringing into existence
in the city any lasting literary interests. The tempera-
ment of the people and the general environment were
doubtless unfavourable as compared with the influences
affecting Florence or Rome. It is probable also that the
selection of the recipients of the royal bounty .was made
The Renaissance 331
without any trustworthy principle and very much at hap-
hazard.
A production of Beccadelli's, perhaps the most brilliant
of Alfonso's literary proteges, is to be noted as having
been proscribed by the Pope, being one of the earliest
Italian publications to be so distinguished. Eugenius IV.
forbade, under penalty of excommunication, the reading
of Beccadelli's Hermaphroditus, which was declared to be
contra bonos mores. The book was denounced from many
pulpits, and copies were burned, together with portraits of
the poet, on the public squares of Bologna, Milan, and
Ferrara. 1 This opposition of the Church was the more
noteworthy, as the book contained nothing heretical or
subversive of ecclesiastical authority, but was simply
ribald and obscene.
Lorenzo Valla, another of the writers who received
special favours and emoluments at the hands of Alfonso,
likewise came under the ecclesiastical ban. But his writ-
ings contained more serious offences than obscenity or
ribaldry. He boldly questioned the authenticity of Con-
stantine's Donation (a document which was later shown
to be a forgery), and of other documents and literature
held by the Church to be sacred, and the accuracy of his
scholarship and the brilliancy of his polemical style, gave
weight and force to his attacks. Denunciations came
upon Valla's head from many pulpits, and the matter
was taken up by the Inquisition. But Alfonso told the
monks that they must leave his secretary alone, and the
proceedings were abandoned.
When Nicholas V. came to the papacy, undeterred by
the charge of heresies, he appointed Valla to the post of
Apostolic writer, and gave him very liberal emoluments
for work on the series of Greek translations before re-
ferred to. Valla never retracted any of his utterances
against the Church, but he appears, after accepting the
1 Revival of Learning, p. 256.
332 The Earlier Printed Books
Pope's appointment, to have turned his polemical ardour
in other directions. He engaged in some bitter contro-
versies with Poggio, Fazio, and other contemporaries,
controversies which seem to have aroused and excited the
literary circles of the time, but which turned upon matters
of no lasting importance. It is a cause of surprise to
later literary historians that men like Valla, possessed of
real learning and of unquestioned literary skill, should
have been willing to devote their time and their capacity
to the futilities which formed the pretexts for the greater
part of the personal controversies of the time. Professor
Adams says of Valla: "He had all the pride and inso-
lence and hardly disguised pagan feeling and morals of
the typical humanist ; but in spirit and methods of work
he was a genuine scholar, and his editions lie at the
foundation of all later editorial work in the case of more
than one classic author, and of the critical study of the
New Testament as well." '
During the two centuries preceding the invention of
printing, it was the case that more books (in the form of
manuscripts) were available for the use of students and
readers in Italy than in any other country, but even in
Italy manuscripts were scarce and costly. Even the col-
lections in the so-called " libraries " of the cathedrals and
colleges were very meagre. These manuscripts were
nearly entirely the production of the cloisters, and as
parchment continued to be very dear, many of the works
sent out by the monks were in the form of palimpsests,
that is, were transcribed upon scrolls which contained
earlier writing. The fact that the original writing was in
many cases but imperfectly erased, has caused to be pre-
served fragments of a number of classics which might
otherwise have disappeared entirely. The service ren-
dered by the monks in this way may be considered as at
least a partial offset to the injury done by them to the
1 Civilisation During the Middle Ages, 378.
The Renaissance 333
cause of literature in the destruction of so many ancient
writings. This matter has been referred to more fully in
the chapter on Monasteries and Manuscripts.
One of the Italian scholars of the fifteenth century who
interested himself particularly in the collection of manu-
scripts of the classics was Poggio Bracciolini. In 1414,
while he was, in his official capacity as Apostolic Secre-
tary, in attendance at the Council of Constance, he ran-
sacked the libraries of St. Gall and of other monasteries
of Switzerland and Suabia, and secured a complete Quin-
tilian, copies of Lucretius, Frontinus, Probus, Vitruvius,
nine of Cicero's Orations, and manuscripts of a number
of other valuable texts. Many of the libraries had been
sadly neglected, and the greater part of the manuscripts
were in dirty and tattered condition, but literature owes
much to the monks through whom these literary treas-
ures had been kept in existence at all.
Poggio is to be noted as a free-thinker who managed
to keep in good relations with the Church. So long as
free-thinkers confined their audacity to such matters as
form the topic of Poggio's Facetice, Beccadelli's Herma-
phroditus, or La Casa's Capitolo del Forno, the Roman
Curia looked on and smiled approvingly. The most
obscene books to be found in any literature escaped the
Papal censure, and a man like Aretino, notorious for his
ribaldry, could aspire with fair prospects of success to the
scarlet of a Cardinal. 1
While there could be no popular distribution, in the
modern sense of the term, for necessarily costly books in
manuscript, in a community of which only a small propor-
tion had any knowledge of reading and writing, it is evi-
dent from the chronicles of the time that there was an
active and prompt exchange of literary novelties between
the court circles and the literary groups of the different
cities, and also between the Faculties of the universities.
1 Revival of Learning, 22.
334 The Earlier Printed Books
A controversy between two scholars or men of letters
(and there were, as said, many such controversies, some
of them exceedingly bitter) appears to have excited a
larger measure of interest and attention in cultivated
circles throughout the country than could probably be
secured to-day for any purely literary or scholastic issues.
There must, therefore, have been in existence and in
circulation a very considerable mass of literature in man-
uscript form, and we know from various sources that
Florence particularly was the centre of an important
trade in manuscripts. I have not thus far, however, been
able to find any instances of the writers of this period
receiving any compensation from the publishers, book-
sellers, or copyists, or any share in such profits as might
be derived from the sale of the manuscript copies of their
writings. It seems probable that the authors gave to the
copyists the privilege (which it was in any case really im-
practicable to withhold) of manifolding and distributing
such copies of the books as might be called for by the
general public, while the cost of the complimentary copies
(often a considerable number) given to the large circle of
friends, seems as a rule to have been borne by the author.
As the author had to take his compensation in the
shape of fame (except in the cases of receipts from pa-
trons), the wider the circulation secured for copies of his
productions (provided only they were not plagiarised),
the larger his fund of satisfaction. For substantial
compensation he could look only to the patron. For-
tunately for the impecunious writers of the day, it
became fashionable for not a few of the princes and
nobles of Italy to play the role of Maecenas, and by
many of these the support and encouragement given to
literature was magnificent, if not always judicious.
During the reigns of the last Visconti and of the first
Sforza, or from about 1440 to 1474, literature became
fashionable at the Court of Milan. Filippo Maria Vis-
The Renaissance 335
conti is described as a superstitious and repulsive tyrant,
and he could hardly by his own personality have attracted
to Lombardy men of intellectual tastes. Visconti appears,
however, to have considered that his Court would be in-
complete without scholars, and to have been willing to
pay liberally for their attendance. Piero Candido Decem-
brio was one of the most industrious of the writers who
were supported by Visconti. According to his epitaph,
he was responsible for no less than 127 books. Symonds
speaks of his memoir of Visconti as a vivid and vigorous
study of a tyrant. Gasparino da Barzizza was the Court
letter-writer and rhetorician, and, as the official orator,
filled an important place in what was considered the
intellectual life of the city.
By far the most noteworthy, however, of the scholars
who were attracted to Milan by the Ducal bounty was
Francesco Filelfo. He could hardly be said to belong to
Lombardy, as he was born in Ancona and educated at
Padua, and had passed a number of years in Venice,
Constantinople, Florence, Siena, and Bologna. The long-
est sojourn of his life, however, was made in Milan, where
he arrived in 1440, and where he enjoyed for some years
liberal emoluments from the Court.
Filelfo was evidently a man with great powers of acqui-
sition and with exceptional versatility. He brought back
with him from Constantinople (where he had remained
for some years) a Greek bride from a noble family, an
extensive collection of Greek manuscripts, and a working
knowledge of the Greek language ; and at a time when
Greek ideas and Greek literature were attracting the en-
thusiastic attention not merely of the scholars but of the
courtiers and men of fashion, these possessions of Filelfo
were exceptionally serviceable, and enabled him to push
his fortunes effectively. He seems to have possessed a
self-confidence at least equal to his learning. He speaks
of himself as having surpassed Virgil because he was an
336 The Earlier Printed Books
orator, and Cicero because he was a poet. Symonds says,
however, that, notwithstanding his arrogance, he is en-
titled to the rank of the most universal scholar of his age,
and his self-assertion doubtless aided not a little in
securing prompt recognition for his learning. Venice
paid him, in 1427, a stipend of 500 sequins for a series of
lectures on Eloquence. A year later he accepted the
post of lecturer in Bologna on Moral Philosophy and
Eloquence, with a stipend of 450 sequins. Shortly after-
wards, flattering offers tempted him to Florence, where
he lectured on the Greek and Latin classics and on Dante,
with a stipend first of 250 sequins, and later of 450 sequins.
He found time while there for the preparation of trans-
lations of the Rhetoric of Aristotle, and of a number of
other Greek works.
Filelfo's arrogance and bad temper, and his fondness
for* invective and satire, soon brought him into trouble
with the literary circle of Florence, and finally with the
Medici, and he was compelled to withdraw to Siena,
where he remained four years with a stipend of 350
florins. From there, after a brief visit to Bologna, he
removed to Milan, where his emoluments were much
larger than any heretofore received, and where, in the
absence of any other scholars of equal attainments or
assumptions, he had the satisfaction of being the accepted
literary leader of the capital. In addition to his profes-
sional salary, he received large sums and presents for
addresses, orations, and commemorative poems, which he
was always ready to prepare. Such a combination of
rhetoric and literature was peculiarly characteristic of the
Italy of the time, and may be said to constitute a distinct
phase in the history of compensation for intellectual pro-
ductions. Filelfo published, in two ponderous volumes,
his Satires, Odes, and other fugitive pieces, under the
title of Convivia Mediolanensia.
Notwithstanding the considerable sums which Filelfo
The Renaissance 337
earned through his lectures and through his various rhe-
torical productions, he seems always to have been in need
of money. His tastes were expensive, while his three
wives had borne him no less than twenty-four children.
In his later years he gained the reputation of being very
greedy of gold and of making impudent demands which
bore very much the character of blackmail. Gregorio
Lollio, writing (in 1452) to the Cardinal of Pavia, describes
Filelfo in the following words : " He is calumnious, en-
vious, vain, and so greedy of gold that he metes out
praise or blame according to the gifts he gets, both
despicable as proceeding from a tainted source." ]
From Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, he received a
liberal stipend. Pope Nicholas V., after reading some
of his Satires (which Symonds characterises as " in-
famous ") presented him with 500 ducats. Travelling
from Rome to Naples, Filelfo received more presents
from Alfonso, who dubbed him a knight. Continuing his
journey, he secured honours and rewards in Ferrara from
Duke Borso, in Mantua from Marchese Gonzaga, and in
Rimini from Gismondo Malatesta. After the death of
Sforza, he accepted, in 1475, from Pope Sixtus IV., a
professional Chair in Rome, with a salary of 600 florins.
He soon, however, quarrelled with the Pope, and with-
drew to Florence, where Lorenzo de' Medici provided a
post for him as Professor of Greek Literature.
Filelfo died in Florence in his eighty-third year. He
had probably received larger emoluments for his work as
an instructor, as a rhetorician, and as a man of letters,
than any man of his generation, but he died without any
means, and was buried by the charity of the Florentines.
His career, in its activities, vicissitudes, controversies,
successes, and bitternesses, was very typical of the lives
of the Italian scholars of the period.
At the time of Filelfo's death, while in many other
1 Revival of Learning, p. 284.
338 The Earlier Printed Books
cities the influence of the Renaissance was bringing to-
gether collections of books and circles of scholars, and
literary productiveness was increasing throughout Italy,
Florence still remained the capital of learning and of re-
fined culture. Lorenzo de' Medici had, in 1469, succeeded
to Pietro, and of all the Medici it was Lorenzo whose in-
fluence was the most important in furthering the intel-
lectual and artistic movements of the time. Symonds
speaks of him as " a man of marvellous variety and range
of mental power, in whom . . . the versatility of the
Renaissance found its fullest incarnation."
Lorenzo attracted to his villa the greatest scholars and
most brilliant men of the time, a circle which included
Poliziano, Landino, Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Alberti,
Pulci, and Michael Angelo. The interests of this circle,
as of all similar Italian circles of the time, were largely
absorbed in the philosophy and literature of Greece, and
special attention was devoted to the teachings of Plato.
Plato's writings were translated into Latin by Ficino, and
the translation was printed in 1482, at the cost of Filippo
Valvio. Ficino was too poor himself to undertake the
publication of his works, and this was the case with not a
few of the distinguished authors of the age. The pre-
sentation of books to the public required at this time
what might be called the endowment of literature, an
endowment which was supplied by the liberality of
wealthy patrons possessed of literary appreciation or
public-spirited ambition, or of both. As Symonds ex-
presses it, " Great literary undertakings involved in that
century the substantial assistance of wealthy men, whose
liberality was rewarded by a notice in the colophon or in
the title-page." The formal dedication was an invention
of a somewhat later date.
The Ficino edition of Plotinus, printed at the expense
of Lorenzo de' Medici, and published a few weeks after
his death, bears the inscription, Magnifici sumptu Lau-
The Renaissance 339
yentii patrice servatoris. The edition of Homer of
Lorenzo Alopa, issued in 1488, was printed at the ex-
pense of either Bernardo Nerli or Giovanni Acciajuoli.
These examples of printed publications belong, however, 1
to a later chapter. Ficino followed up his translation of
Plato's work with a Life of Plato, and an essay on the
Platonic Doctrine of Immortality.
In 1484, appeared in the Florentine circle the beautiful
and brilliant Pico della Mirandola, a man who through
his exceptional gifts, his varied learning, and the charm
of his personality, exercised a very wide influence over
his generation, and who may possibly be accepted as at
once the type and the flower of the Renaissance. Pico
studied at Bologna, and later at Paris. He printed, in
1489, in defence of his philosophical theories, certain
theses which were condemned as heretical by Innocent
VIII. In 1493, the ban of heterodoxy was renewed by a
brief of Alexander VI. Pico's enquiring mind and
scholarly ardour covered a wide range of research, in-
cluding the philosophy of the Platonists, the mysteries of
the Cabbala, and the system and theories of Aquinas,
Scotus, Albertus Magnus, and Averrhoes, and he pro-
posed to devote his learning and his life to the task of
reconciling classical traditions with the Christian creeds.
Didot quotes the following characteristic sentence from
a letter written by Pico, February n, 1491, to Aldus
Manutius : " Philosophia veritatem qucerit y theologia in-
venit, religio possidet" (Philosophy seeks truth, theology
discovers it, religion possesses it.)
Pico died at the age of thirty-one, before the book had
been written in which he proposed to demonstrate these
positions. He was able, however, to render a great
service to Italy and to Europe in securing for his friend
Aldus the aid required for the establishment of the Aldine
Press in Venice. The details of the relations of the two
men are given in the chapter on Aldus.
340 The Earlier Printed Books
Other noteworthy members of the literary circle which
surrounded Lorenzo de* Medici, were Christoforo Landino,
Leo Battista Alberti, and Angelo Poliziano. Landino
edited Horace and Virgil and translated Pliny's Natural
History, and in 1481 published an edition of Dante, and
Battista Alberti, (whose comedy of Philodoxius, which
passed for an antique, was published by the Aldi, in 1588,
as the work of Lepidus Comicus), wrote three treatises on
painting, and several volumes on architecture. Alberti
was more distinguished as an artist, architect, and musi-
cian, than as an author. It was characteristic, how-
ever, of the men of this group to be universal in their
genius.
Symonds speaks of Poliziano as emphatically the repre-
sentative of the highest achievements of the age in
scholarship, and as the first Italian to combine perfect
mastery over Latin and a correct sense of Greek, with
splendid genius for his native literature. His published
works included annotated editions of Ovid, Suetonius,
Statius, Pliny, and Quintilian, translations of Epictetus,
Galen, and Hippocrates, a series of Miscellanea, and most
important of all, the edition, printed from the famous
Amalfi manuscript, of the Pandects of Justinian.
Among the smaller cities in which the Humanistic
movement influenced literature and furthered the devel-
opment of learning, may be mentioned Carpi, afterwards
the home of Musurus and Aldus ; Mirandola, the birth-
place of the brilliant Pico ; Pesaro, where Alessandro and
Constanzo Sforza brought together a library rivalling
that of the Medici ; Rimini, where Sigismondo Malatesta
gathered about his fortress a circle of scholars ; and Ur-
bino, where the good Duke Frederick brought together
one of the finest collections of manuscripts which Europe
had known, a collection valued at over 30,000 ducats.
Vespasiano, who served for some time as librarian, says
that for fourteen years the Duke kept from thirty to forty
The Renaissance 341
copyists employed in transcribing Greek and Latin Manu-
scripts. The work of these copyists went on for some
years after the introduction of printing into Italy, for
Frederick, in common with not a few other of the
scholarly nobles who were collectors of manuscripts,
distrusted and looked down upon the new art, and had
no interest in books which were merely mechanical
reproductions.
Vespasiano da Bisticci, whose aid Frederick had se-
cured in the preparation of his library, was noted as an
author, as a scribe, and as a bookseller. Symonds speaks
of the " rare merit " of the biographical work in Ves-
pasiano's Lives of Illustrious Men, the memoirs of which
Symonds utilised largely in the preparation of his Renais-
sance. Vespasiano's literary work must have been done
" in the intervals of business," for his business undertak-
ings were important. He was the largest dealer in
manuscripts of his time. His purchasing agents and
correspondents were armed with instructions to secure
authenticated codices wherever these were obtainable,
and the monasteries not only of Italy but of Switzerland,
South Germany, Hungary, Transylvania, and the East
were carefully searched for possible literary treasures. He
employed a large force of skilled copyists in the produc-
tion of copies of famous works, which copies were dis-
tributed through correspondents and customers in the
different scholarly centres of Europe. Possessing himself
a wide and exact scholarship, he gave his personal atten-
tion to the selection of his texts, the training of his
copyists and the supervision of their work, so that a
manuscript coming from Vespasiano carried with it the
prestige of accuracy and completeness.
Vespasiano's scholarly knowledge and his special experi-
ence in palaeography were utilised by such clients as
Nicholas V., Cosimo de* Medici, Frederick of Urbino, and
other lovers of literature, in the formation of and develop-
342 The Earlier Printed Books
ment of their libraries. Vespasiano united, therefore,
the functions of a scholarly editor and commentator, a
collector, a book-manufacturer, a publisher and a book-
seller, a series of responsibilities which called for a wide
range of learning, accomplishments, and executive ability.
It is evident from his career and from the testimony of
his friends and clients (terms in this case practically
identical) that he was devoted to literature for its own
sake. He accepted the rewards secured by his skill
and enterprise, and promptly expended these in fresh
efforts for the development and extension of liberal
scholarship. Vespasiano may be called the last, as he
was probably the greatest of the book-dealers of the
manuscript period. Born in 1421 and living until 1498,
he witnessed the introduction of printing into Italy, and
may easily have had opportunities of handling the earlier
productions of the Venetian printing-press. Vespasiano
was a fitting successor of Atticus and a worthy precursor
of Aldus, whose work in the distribution of scholarly
literature was, in fact, a direct continuation of his own.
As before mentioned, the trade in the production of
manuscript copies went on for a number of years after the
introduction of printing. The noblemen and wealthy
scholars who had inherited, or who had themselves brought
together, collections of famous works in manuscript, were
for some time, not unnaturally, unwilling to believe that
ordinary people could, by means of the new invention,
with a comparatively trifling expenditure secure perfect
and beautiful copies of the same works. Before the
death of Vespasiano, in 1498, however, the work of the
printing-press had come to be understood and cordially
appreciated by book-buyers and students of all classes,
and the trade of the copyists and of the manuscript-deal-
ers had, excepting for newly discovered texts, practically
come to an end. The career of Vespasiano belongs
strictly to the chapter on the publishers of manuscripts,
The Renaissance 343
of whom he was the most important. The man himself,
however, through his character and services, belongs essen-
tially to the movement of the Renaissance, of which
movement he was at once a product and a leader.
During the reigns of Pope Innocent VIII., 1484-1492,
and of Alexander VI. (Borgia), 1492-1503, little or noth-
ing was done in Rome to further the development of
literature. To the latter was in fact due the initiating of
the system of the subjection of the press to ecclesiastical
censorship, a system which for centuries to come was to
exercise the most baneful influence over literature and in-
tellectual activities and to interfere enormously with the
establishment of any assured foundation for property in
literature. Some account of the long contests carried on
by the publishers of Venice against this claim for ecclesi-
astical control of the productions of their presses, is given
in a later chapter.
Venice stood almost alone among the cities of Italy in
resisting the censorship of the Church, and even in
Venice, the Church in the end succeeded in the more im-
portant of its contentions. In Spain, the ecclesiastical
control was hardly questioned. In France, it was, after
a century of contest, practically merged in the censorship
exercised by the Crown, a control which was in itself fully
as much as the publishing trade could bear and continue
to exist. In Austria and South Germany, after the crush-
ing out of the various reformation movements, the Church
and State worked in practical accord in keeping a close
supervision of the printing-presses. In North Germany,
on the other hand, ecclesiastical censorship never became
important. The evils produced by it were, however,
serious and long enduring throughout a large portion of
the territory of Europe, and the papal Borgia, though by
no means a considerable personage, is responsible for
bringing into existence an evil which assumed enormous
proportions in the intellectual history of Europe.
344 The Earlier Printed Books
Towards the close of the fifteenth century begins in
Italy the age of academies, associations of scholars and
litterateurs for the furthering of scholarly pursuits and of
literary undertakings. One of the earlier of these Acad-
emies was instituted in Rome, in 1468, by Julius Pom-
ponius Laetus (a pupil of Valla), for the special purpose
of promoting the study of Latin literature and Latin an-
tiquities. Comedies of Plautus and of other Latin drama-
tists were revived, and the attempt was made to make
Latin, at least for the scholarly circle, again a living lan-
guage. The Academy was suspected by Pope Paul II.
to have some political purpose, and it was for a time sup-
pressed, but resumed its activities some years later under
the papacy of Alexander VI.
The Academy of Naples was instituted in 1470, under
the leadership of Beccadelli and Juvianus Pontanus, and
with a membership comprising a number of the brilliant
scholars whom Alphonso the Magnanimous had attracted
to his Court. This society also devoted itself particularly
to the revival of an interest in Latin literature, and not a
few of the members became better known under the
Latinised names there adopted by them than by their
Italian cognomens. Pomponius had written little and
hoped to be remembered through his pupils. Pontanus
on the other hand, wrote on many subjects, using for the
purpose Latin, of which he was a master. Symonds says
that he chiefly deserves to be remembered for his ethical
treatises, but he seems himself to have attached special
importance to his amatory elegiacs and to a series of as-
tronomical hexameters entitled Urania.
In Florence, the Platonic Academy continued to flour-
ish under the auspices of the Rucellai family. It was
suppressed in 1522, at the time of the conspiracy against
Giulio de* Medici, but again revived in 1540. In 1572,
was organised in Florence the famous academy called
Delia Crusca, which secured for itself a European reputa-
The Renaissance 345
tion. In Bologna, in 1 504, the society of the Viridario was
instituted, with the purpose of studying printed texts and
of furthering the art of printing. Bologna had a consid-
erable number of other literary societies, for the study of
jurisprudence, chivalry, and other subjects. Throughout
Italy at this period academies multiplied, but the greater
number exercised no continued influence.
It is probable, however, that they all proved of service
in preparing the way for the printed literature which the
Italian presses were, after 1490, beginning to distribute,
and that in widening the range of popular interest in
scholarship and in books generally, they did not a little
to render possible the work of Aldus and other early
Italian publishers. The academy founded by Aldus in
Venice, for the prosecution of Greek studies, will be re-
ferred to in the chapter on Aldus.
" The fifteenth century rediscovered antiquity ; the six-
teenth was absorbed in slowly deciphering it. In the
fifteenth century * educated Europe * is but a synonym
for Italy. What literature there was north of the Alps
was in great part derived from, or was largely dependent
upon, the Italian movement. The fact that the move-
ment originated in the Latin peninsula, was decisive of
the character of the first age of classical learning (1400-
1550). It was a revival of Latin as opposed to Greek
literature. It is now well understood that the fall of
Constantinople, though an influential incident of the
movement, ranks for little among the causes of the Re-
naissance. What was revived in Italy in the fifteenth
century was the interest of the Schools of the early Em-
pire of the second and third century. . . . But in one
decisive feature, the literary sentiment of the fifteenth
century was a reproduction of that of the Empire. It
was rhetorical, not scientific. Latin literature as a whole
is rhetorical. . . . The divorce of the literature of know-
ledge and the literature of form which characterised the
346 The Earlier Printed Books
epoch of decay under the early empire, characterised
equally the epoch of revival in the Italy of the Popes. . . .
The knowledge and wisdom buried in the Greek writers
presented a striking contrast to the barren sophistic which
formed the curriculum of the Latin schools. It became
the task of the scholars of the second period of the classi-
cal revival to disinter this knowledge. . . . Philology had
meant composition and verbal emendation ; it now meant
the apprehension of the ideas and usages of the ancient
world. Scholars had exerted themselves to write, they
now bent all their effort to know. . . . There came now
into existence what has ever since been known as ' learn-
ing,' in the special sense of the term. The first period of
humanism in which the words of the ancient authors had
been studied, was thus the preparatory school for the
humanism of the second period, in which the matter
was the object of attention.
" As Italy had been the home of classical taste in the
first period, France became the home of classical learning
in the second. Single names can be mentioned, such as
Victorius or Sigonius in Italy, Mursius or Vulcanius in
the Low Countries, who were distinguished representa-
tives of ' learning,' but in Bulaeus, Turnebus, Lambrinus,
Scaliger, Casaubon, and Saumaise, France produced a
constellation of humanists whose fame justly eclipsed
that of all their contemporaries.
" If we ask why Italy did not continue to be the centre
of the humanist movement, which she had so brilliantly
inaugurated, the answer is that the intelligence was crushed
by the reviviscence of ecclesiastical ideas. Learning is
the result of research, and research must be free and
eannot coexist with the claim of the Catholic clergy to be
superior to enquiry. The French school, it will be ob-
served, is wholly in fact or in intention Protestant. As
*oon as it was decided (as it was before 1600) that France
was to be a Catholic country, and the University of Paris
The Renaissance
347
a Catholic university, learning was extinguished in France.
France saw without regret and without repentance the ex-
patriation of her unrivalled scholars. With Scaliger and
Saumaise, the seat of learning was transferred from France
to Holland. The third period of classical learning thus
coincides with the Dutch school. From 1 593, the date of
Scaliger's removal to Leyden, the supremacy in the re-
public of learning was possessed by the Dutch. In the
course of the eighteenth century, the Dutch school was
gradually supplanted by the North German, which from
that time forward has taken, and still possesses, the lead
in philological science. " J
1 Pattison's Casaubon, 453, 454.
CHAPTER II.
THE INVENTION OF PRINTING AND THE WORK OF THE
FIRST PRINTERS OF HOLLAND AND GERMANY.
1440-1528.
" |"""^OUR men, Gutenberg, Columbus, Luther, and
Copernicus, stand at the dividing line of the
Middle Ages, and serve as boundary stones mark-
ing the entrance of mankind into a higher and finer epoch
of its development." 1
It would be difficult to say which one of the four has
made the largest contribution to this development or has
done the most to lift up the spirit of mankind and to open
for men the doors to the new realms that were in readi-
ness. The Genoese seaman and discoverer opens new
realms to our knowledge and imagination, leads Europe
from the narrow restrictions of the Middle Ages out
into the vast space of Western oceans, and in adding
to the material realms controlled by civilisation, widens
still more largely the range of its thought and fancy.
The Reformer of Wittenberg, in breaking the bonds
which had chained the spirits of his fellow-men and in
securing for them again their rights as individual Chris-
tians, conquers for them a spiritual realm and brings them
into renewed relations with their Creator. The great
astronomer shatters, through his discoveries, the fixed and
petty conceptions of the universe which had ruled the
1 Kapp, Ceschichte, etc., I.
343
The Invention of Printing 349
minds of mankind, and in bringing to them fresh light on
the nature and extent of created things, widens at the
same time their whole understanding of themselves and
of duty. The citizen of Mayence may claim to have un-
chained intelligence and given to it wings. He utilised
lead no longer as a death-bringing ball, but in the form of
life-quickening letters which were to bring before thou-
sands of minds the teachings of the world's thinkers.
Each one of the four had his part in bringing to the
world light, knowledge, and development.
At the time when the art of printing finally took shape
in the mind of Gutenberg, the direction of literary and
intellectual interests of Germany rested, as we have seen,
largely with Italy. The fact, however, that the new art
had its birthplace, not in Florence, which was at that time
the centre of the literary activities of Europe, but in
Mayence, heretofore a town which had hardly been con-
nected at all with literature, and the further fact that the
printing-presses were carrying on their work in Germany
for nearly fifteen years before two printers, themselves
Germans, set up the first press in Italy, exercised, of
necessity, an important influence in inciting literary
activities throughout Germany and in the relations borne
by Germany to the scholarship of the world.
The details of the life and early work of Gutenberg are
at best but fragmentary, and have been a subject of much
discussion. It is not necessary, for the purpose of this
treatise, to give detailed consideration to the long series
of controversies as to the respective claims of Gutenberg
of Mayence, of Koster of Haarlem, or of other competitors,
as to the measure of credit to be assigned to each in the
original discovery or of the practical development of the
the printing-press. It seems in any case evident that
whatever minds elsewhere were at that time puzzling
over the same problem, it was the good fortune of Guten-
berg to make the first practical application of the printing-
350 The Earlier Printed Books
press to the production of impressions from movable type,
while it was certainly from Mayence that the art spread
throughout the cities, first of Germany, and later of Italy
and France.
It is to be borne in mind (and I speak here for the non-
technical reader) that, as indicated in the above reference,
the distinction and important part of the invention of
Gutenberg was, not the production of a press for the
multiplication of impressions, but the use of movable
type and the preparation of the form from which the
impressions were struck off. The art of printing from
blocks, since classified as xylographic printing, had been
practised in certain quarters of Europe for fifty years or
more before the time of Gutenberg, and if Europe had
had communication with China, xylography might have
been introduced four or five centuries earlier.
With the block-books, the essential thing was the illus-
trations, and what text or letterpress accompanied these
was usually limited to a few explanatory or descriptive
words engraved on the block, above, beneath or around
the picture. Occasionally, however, as in the Ars Mori-
endij there were entire pages of text engraved, like the
designs, on the solid block. The earlier engraving was
done on hard wood, but, later, copper was also employed.
It is probable that the block-books originated in the
Netherlands, and it is certain that in such towns as
Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam, the art was developed
more rapidly than elsewhere, so that during the first half
of the fifteenth century, the production of wood engrav-
ings and of books made up of engravings (printed only on
one side, and accompanied by a few words of text), began
to form an important article of trade. The subjects of
these designs were for the most part Biblical, or at least
religious. One of the earlier of the block-book publica-
tions and probably the most characteristic specimen of
the class, is the volume known as the Biblia Pauperum.
The Invention of Printing 351
This was a close imitation of a manuscript book that had
for five or six centuries been popular as a work of religious
instruction. It had been composed about 850, by S.
Ausgarius, a monk of Corbie, who afterwards became
Bishop of Hamburg. The scriptorium established by him
at Corbie was said to have been the means of preserving
from destruction a number of classics, including the An-
nals of Tacitus. 1 The use, five centuries later, as one of
the first productions of the printing-press, of the monk's
own composition, may be considered as a fitting acknow-
ledgement of the service thus rendered by him to the
world's literature. Examples of manuscript copies of the
Biblia Pauperum are in existence in the BibliotJieque Na-
tionale in Paris, in Munich, in the British Museum, and
elsewhere, and there is no difficulty in comparing these
with the printed copies produced in the Netherlands,
which are also represented in these collections.
It is probable that Laurence Koster of Haarlem, whose
name is, later, associated with printing from movable type,
was himself an engraver of block-books. Humphreys is,
in fact, inclined to believe that the first block-book edition
of the Biblia Pauperum was actually Koster's work, basing
this opinion on the similarity of the compositions and of
their arrangement to those of the Speculum Humance Sal-
vationis, which was the first work printed from movable
type, and the production of which is now generally
credited to Koster.* The Biblia Pauperum was printed
from blocks in Germany as late as 1475, but before that
date an edition had been printed from movable type by
Pfister in Bamberg.
As has been pointed out by many of the writers on the
subject, the so-called invention of printing was not so
much the result of an individual inspiration, as the almost
inevitable consequence of a long series of experiments
and of partial processes which had been conducted in
1 Humphreys, 38. * Humphreys, 39.
352 The Earlier Printed Books
various places where the community was interesting itself
in the multiplication of literature.
If, as is probably the case, the first book printed from
movable type is to be credited to Koster, it remains none
the less the case that Gutenberg's process must have been
worked out for itself, and that the German possessed,
what the Hollander appears to have lacked, not merely
the persistence and the practical understanding required
to produce a single book, but the power to overcome ob-
stacles and to instruct others, and was thus able to estab-
lish the new art on a lasting foundation.
The claims of the Hollanders under which Koster is to
be regarded as the first printer, or at least (bearing in
mind the Chinese precedents in the tenth century) the
first European printer, from movable type, claims which
Humphreys accepts as well founded, are in substance as
follows : Laurence Koster was born, somewhere in Hol-
land, about 13/0, and died in Haarlem about 1440. He
is believed to have made his first experiments with mova-
ble wooden types about 1426, and to have worked with
metal types about ten years later. The principal of the
earlier authorities concerning Koster's career is a certain
Hadrian Junius, who completed, in 1569, a history of Hol-
land, which was published in 1588. He speaks of Koster
as being a man of an honourable family, in which the
office of Sacristan (custos, Coster or Koster) was heredi-
tary, and he describes in detail the development of the
invention of type, from the cutting of pieces of beech-
bark into the form of letters, to the final production of
the metal fonts. Junius goes on to relate the method
under which Koster's first book (from type), Speculum
Humana Salvationis, was printed, in 1430. This book,
the origin of which is not known, had for many years
been popular among the Benedictines, and few of their
monasteries were without a copy. As a result of this
popularity, many examples of the manuscript copies have
The Invention of Printing 353
been preserved, some of which are in the Arundel collec-
tion in the British Museum. Zani says that the Specu-
lum was compiled for the assistance of poor preachers,
and in support of this view he quotes certain lines, which
may serve also as an example of Latinity and of the
general style :
Predictum prohemium hujus libri dc contentis compilavi
Et propter paupercs predicatorcs hoc opponcrc curavi. 1
j Koster appears to have produced, about 1428, an edition
of a portion of the Speculum in which the entire pages
(presenting on the upper half two designs, and on the
lower two columns of text) are printed from solid wooden
blocks. Humphreys gives examples of these pages. The
cutting of the text, all the letters of which had, of course,
to be cut in reverse, is a wonderful piece of work. About
1430, was completed the first issue printed from movable
types. The arrangement of the pages is the same, the
upper half is occupied with two designs (printed in
brown ink, from wooden blocks), and the lower half is
given to the text, printed in black ink, from the metal
type. The first typographic edition contains a number
of xylographic pages. In the type-pages, the block-
illustration was printed first, and the sheet was then
imposed again for the printing of the text. Both the
designs and the text were modelled to follow very
closely the character of the manuscripts of the period.
The volume is undoubtedly the earliest European example
of printing from type, and the evidence that it was the
work of Koster, and that it was produced not later than
1430, or about twenty years earlier than the Bible of
Gutenberg, was until recently accepted by many author-
ities as practically conclusive. Three editions of the
book were printed by Koster before his death in 1440,
the third being printed in Dutch (instead of Latin), and
1 Cited by Humphreys, 59.
23
354 The Earlier Printed Books
being entirely typographic. This is the edition seen and
described (128 years later) by Junius. After specifying
the method employed by Koster (according to his own
views concerning movable type), Junius goes on to say,
" It was by this method that he produced impressions of
engraved plates, to which he added ' separate ' letters. I
have seen a book of this kind, the first rude effort of his
invention, printed by him on one side only ; this book was
entitled the Mirror of Our Salvation." While this evi-
dence of Junius comes first into record one hundred and
twenty-eight years after the time assigned to the printing
of Koster's first book, it is the conclusion of Humphreys,
and of certain other historians that, in consideration of the
circumstances under which Junius wrote, and the nature
of the information which was evidently at that time avail-
able for him, his testimony may safely be accepted as
conclusive. Junius goes on to say that Koster, having
perfected his system, and finding a rapidly increasing de-
mand for his printed books, was unable to manage the
work with the aid of the members of his own family. He
took foreign workmen into his employ, which eventually
led to the abstraction of his secret and caused the credit
of his invention to be given to others. 1 Junius gives
further details concerning the channels through which
he secured the record of the work of Koster. He re-
fers to a certain Nicholas Galius who had been his first
preceptor, and who remembered having heard the facts
connected with Koster's discovery from a certain Corne-
lius when the latter was over eighty years of age. Cor-
nelius testified that he had himself been a binder in the
establishment of Koster, and the Dutch historian, Meer-
man, has discovered in the records of the church of
Haarlem a memorandum dated 1474, which is evidence
that there was at that date a binder in the town called
Cornelius.*
1 Humphreys, 57. * Meerman, cited by Humphreys, 58.
The Invention of Printing 355
In claiming for Holland the prestige of inventing the
several distinctive processes connected with the printing
of books, Humphreys sums up as follows : It is beyond
dispute that the Dutch were the first to produce block-
books, and thus were virtually the first printers of books.
It is also a matter of record that it was the printers of
Holland who first devised the art of stereotyping, a
process which was applied by John Miller of Amsterdam
towards the close of the seventeenth century. There is,
therefore, apart from the details above specified and from
the evidence of tradition, a strong natural presumption in
favour of the development in Holland of the intervening
step of substituting movable types for carved pages of
letters. Humphreys points out that there are other
references to the production in the Netherlands of books
from movable metal types, before the date at which
Gutenberg's first volume was completed in Mayence. In
a record of accounts of Jean Robert, Abb6 of Cambrai,
the manuscript of which has been preserved in the ar-
chives of the city of Lille, appears the entry : " Item, for
a printed (gette" en molle) Doctrinal that I sent for to
Bruges by Macquart, who is a writer at Valenciennes, in
the month of January, 1445, for Jacquet, twenty sous,
Tournois. Little Alexander had one the same, that the
church paid for." It is stated later in the record that
one of these books proved to be so " full of faults " that
it had to be replaced by a written copy. 1 The purport
of the term getti en molle (which might possibly have
been written jette" or guette") was first elucidated by M.
Besuard, who pointed out that it evidently stood for
"cast in a mould," the reference being to the metallic
types, which were so cast. In the letters of naturalisa-
tion accorded, in 1474, to the first printers with movable
types established in Paris, the term used is escritoire en
molle, or writing by means of moulds or moulded letters.
1 Humphreys, 66.
356 The Earlier Printed Books
These conclusions of Humphreys, based upon the views
of certain Dutch writers, have been discredited by the in-
vestigations of later historians such as Blades, Duff, and
Van der Linde. It is the present more generally accepted
opinion that the story of the printing operations of Kos-
ter should be relegated to the class of legend or myth,
and that there is no trustworthy evidence of the use of
movable type earlier than the work of Gutenberg. It is
certainly the case that after the death of Koster (which oc-
curred in 1439 or I 44)> nothing further is heard in Hol-
land of the production of books from type until 1473,
when printers from Cologne established the first Dutch
printing-office in Utrecht. For instruction in the new art,
Europe was, therefore, indebted not to Haarlem but ta
Mayence. We might indeed accept the theory which
gives to Koster the credit of producing the first book
printed (outside of China) from movable type, without
lessening the value of the service rendered by Guten-
berg. The shores of our Western Continent were un-
doubtedly visited by Eric and his Northmen, but it was
Columbus who gave to Europe the New World.
The production of printed books, which changed the
whole condition of literary production and of literary
ownership, is to be traced directly to the operations of
Gutenberg and Fust. Kapp mentions that if it were not
for the records of certain court processes of Strasburg
and of Mayence, we should have hardly any trustworthy
references whatsoever to the work or the relations of
Gutenberg prior to 1450.
By means of these court records, however, it has
proved possible to secure some data concerning various
undertakings in which Gutenberg was engaged before he
devoted himself to his printing-office. He belonged to a
noble family of Mayence, the family name of which was
originally Gensfleisch, a name Latinised by some writers
of the time as Ansicarus. For more than a century, the
Gensfleische stood at the head of the nobility of the city
The Invention of Printing 357
in the long series of contests carried on with the guilds
and citizens.
Until the sacking of the city, after the outbreak of
October, 1462, Mayence was the most important of the
free cities and of the commercial centres of the middle
Rhine district, and was an important competitor for the
general trade of central Europe with Strasburg on the
upper river and with Cologne in the region below. The
citizens felt themselves strong enough, with the beginning
of the fifteenth century, to make a sturdy fight against
the old-time control claimed by the nobility, and as early
as 1420, they had overcome the patricians in a contest
which turned upon the reception of the newly chosen
Elector, Conrad III. As one result of this struggle, a
number of the Gensfleische found themselves among the
exiles.
Gutenberg's father, whose name was Frilo, had held the
office of Tax Receiver or General Accountant in the city,
and was among those who were banished in 1420. Guten-
berg himself was born either in 1397 or 1398. He appears
to have passed a portion of his youth at the little village
of Eltville, and from there went to Strasburg. In the
year 1433, an entry in the tax record of Mayence speaks
of Henne Gensfleisch, called Gutenberg, who was an uncle
of the printer. About the year 1440, Gutenberg was en-
gaged in Strasburg in the manufacture of looking-glasses,
and is already referred to as a man of scientific attainments
and learned in inventions.
One of the court records above referred to gives the
details of a suit brought by the brothers Dritzehn against
Gutenberg, in connection with this first manufacturing
business. Another Dritzehn, a brother or a cousin of the
above, had as early as 1437 applied to Gutenberg to be in-
structed (in consideration of the payment of an honora-
rium) in a " certain art " (in etlicher kunsf). Shortly
thereafter Gutenberg entered into an arrangement with a
358 The Earlier Printed Books
certain Hans Riffe of Lichtenau, and instructed him in
the trade of manufacturing mirrors, Riffe making an in-
vestment in the business and sharing the profits.
Dritzehn made in all, three contracts with Gutenberg ;
under the first, he was instructed in the art of stone-
polishing, and took some interest in this branch of Guten-
berg's business ; under the second, he interested himself in
the manufacturing of mirrors ; while the third contract
refers to certain arts and undertakings (kunste undafentur)
in which Dritzehn also received instruction, and to the
carrying on of which he also contributed an investment.
It is the opinion of some of the students on the subject
that the researches of Gutenberg, which resulted in 1450
in the production of a working printing-press, had begun
at least ten years back, and that, in connection with these
researches, he had been obliged to borrow money or to
accept investments from Dritzehn and from other associ-
ates. The vague terms used in referring to the under-
takings which were associated with or which followed the
mirror manufacturing business (" a certain art ") indicate
that these associates had been cautioned to give no infor-
mation as to the precise nature of the work in which
Gutenberg was experimenting. Humphreys is of opinion
that the term " manufacture of looking-glasses " was used
partly as a blind and partly as a joke, and that Gutenberg
was actually engaged in the production (with the aid of
one of Roster's assistants) of copies of the Speculum
(Mirror). Against this view is the fact that Gutenberg
did not print the Speculum at all. If Gutenberg were
already working over the printing-press invention at the
time of his association with Dritzehn and with Riffe,
there may be some justice in the claim of Strasburg to be
the birthplace of the printing-press. The completed
press, however, was not produced until Gutenberg had
returned to the old home city of the family Mayence.
After the close of the suit brought by Dritzehn against
The Invention of Printing 359
Gutenberg, that is to say, after 1440, there are no further
references to Gutenberg's undertakings in Strasburg. It
is not even known whether or not he continued business
operations there, but it appears that he was dwelling
there as late as 1444. In 1448, he is recorded as again a
citizen of Mayence, and it was in Mayence that, in 1450,
the completed invention became known to the world.
Gutenberg's name stands on no title-page and is con-
nected with no colophon. The fact, however, that the
full responsibility for the invention belongs to him is
borne witness to by his contemporaries, Peter Schoffer,
Ulrich Zell, the Abbot Trithemius, Jacob Wimpheling,
and others. In a chronicle of the archbishop of Mayence,
continued to the year 1555 and compiled by Count Wil-
helm von Zimmern, it is recorded that the noble art of
book-printing was discovered in Mayence by a worthy
citizen named Gutenberg, who devoted to the invention
all his time and resources until he had brought it to a
successful completion.
In 1470, a letter was written by the scholar, Wilhelm
Fichet, of Paris, to the historian, Robert Gaguin, which
letter was later printed on the last sheet of a volume
published in Paris and in Basel, entitled : Gasparini
Pergamensis Orthographies Liber. This letter contains an
enthusiastic description of the new art of book-printing
discovered in Germany by Gutenberg. The writer says :
" There has been discovered in Germany a wonderful new
method for the production of books, and those who have
mastered this method are taking their invention from
Mayence out into the world somewhat as the old Grecian
warriors took their weapons from the belly of the Trojan
horse. The light of this wonderful discovery will spread
from Germany to all parts of the earth. I have been told
by three foreigners Krantz, Freiburger, and Gering that
Gutenberg has succeeded in producing books by means of
metal letters in place of using the handiwork of the scribes."
360 The Earlier Printed Books
Fichet goes on to speak of Gutenberg as "bringing
more blessings upon the world than were given by the
goddess Ceres, for Ceres could bestow only material food,
while through Gutenberg the productions of the thinkers
could be brought within the reach of all people." This letter
was written only two years after the death of Gutenberg,
and as it came from Basel, one of the first cities to which
the new art had been carried from Mayence, it constitutes
very good contemporary evidence as to the immediate
credit that was given to Gutenberg for the invention. 1
The historical date now given for the completion of the
invention is August 22, 1450. On this date Gutenberg
entered into a contract with Johann Fust, a wealthy citi-
zen and goldsmith of Mayence, under which contract
Fust loaned to Gutenberg, with interest at 6 per cent, (a
low rate for that period), the sum of 800 gulden in gold.
This sum Gutenberg agreed to utilise in developing his
invention, while the material of the workshop to be insti-
tuted was pledged to Fust as security for the repayment
of the loan. The sum proved insufficient for establishing
the necessary plant, and two years later Fust added a
further sum of 800 gulden.
Gutenberg pledged himself, as afterwards stated in the
lawsuit which arose between Fust and himself, to use this
money for the printing of books, "das werk der biicher"
At the time Gutenberg secured this loan, it seemed evi-
dent that, in experimenting with and in developing his
invention, he had exhausted his own entire resources.
Gutenberg could, of course, lay no claim to being in
any literal sense of the term the first printer. Printing
in one form or another had been carried on in Germany
and elsewhere for a number of years, and printing from
movable blocks had, in fact, been done in China 400 years
or more before the beginning of Gutenberg's work. As
early as the twelfth century, says Kapp, there are numer-
i Kapp, 42.
The Invention of Printing 36:
ous references to cloth printers, stampers of letters, and
printers of maps. The oldest wood-cut known to have
been produced in Europe, is a representation of S.
Christopher, and bears date 1423. At about this time,
and probably, in fact, some years earlier, was begun in
Holland, as previously stated, the work of printing from
wooden blocks, the designs being principally devoted to
holy subjects. In connection with such designs, there had
been printing also from letterings cut out of solid wooden
blocks, and these letterings had even in some cases been
cut upon blocks sufficient to occupy an entire page.
The practical contribution made by Gutenberg, which
developed from the easy processes of stamping designs
and brief lines of lettering, a method by means of which
whole books could be produced, was first, in the use of
movable metal type, produced by casting, and second, in
an improvement made in the mechanism of the hand
presses by which larger sheets could be worked.
The first work produced with this movable type was a
Latin version of the Bible, known as the 42-line Bible.
It was printed between 1454 and 1456. Its description
was first given in a chronicle of Cologne, bearing date
1499, the statements in which rest on the authority of
Ulrich Zell.
Concerning the further operations of Gutenberg, we are
mainly dependent upon the references in the records of
the suit brought by Fust, in 1455, for the repayment of his
loan, and upon a document of 1468 in which a certain Dr.
Humery entered into an undertaking with the Archbishop
of Mayence that the printing-office plant left by the de-
ceased Johann Gutenberg shall not be permitted to be
taken out of the city of Mayence. This later reference
had to do with a second printing-press established by
Gutenberg with the aid of the said Humery.
In the suit brought by Fust, Gutenberg contended that
the second payment of 800 gulden agreed upon had never
362 The Earlier Printed Books
been given to him in full. He stated further that Fust
had agreed to advance 300 gulden per year for use in
the purchase of materials, paper, parchment, type-metal,
and ink. The matter of the later accountings between
Fust and Gutenberg is evidently a complicated one and
need not be considered here in detail. Gutenberg's
inability to repay the first and more important loan for
the payment of which his first printing-press had been
mortgaged, caused the ownership of this office to come
into the control of Fust.
Fortunately, by the time his first venture had thus been
closed, as far at least as he was concerned, he had been
able to give sufficient evidence of the importance and of
the commercial value of the undertaking to be in a posi-
tion to interest others in his schemes.
His second printing-press was in like manner pledged to
the associate who provided the capital, Dr. Humery,
and the business of this office appears to have been con-
tinued without break until the time of Gutenberg's death
in 1468. With these new resources at hand, Gutenberg
was able to cast some new fonts of type, and to make
various improvements in his working methods.
The first issues of the new press, the organisation of
which appears to have been completed about 1457, were
volumes containing the writings of Matthaus de Cracovia
and Thomas Aquinas. The third book was the famous
first edition of the Catholicon, a grammatical compilation
of the Dominican monk Balbus from Genoa. The Catho-
licon was a folio containing no less than 373 rather closely
"printed sheets. In the meantime, Fust had associated
with him Schoffer or Schoiffher, who had been an assist-
ant of Gutenberg, and the two were continuing work in
the original printing-office.
The sacking of Mayence, in 1462, by Adolph of Nassau,
put an end, for the time, to all business in the city, in-
cluding the work of the new printing-presses. Gutenberg
The Invention of Printing 363
betook himself to the neighbouring town of Eltville, which,
as early as 1420, had given shelter to his parents, and
there he carried on his printing for a time under the pro-
tection of Archbishop Adolph.
Kapp points out that the printing art had its develop-
ment, not in a university centre, but in a commercial
town, and was from the outset carried on, not by scholars,
but by workers of the people, and that this fact doubtless
had an important influence in bringing the whole business
of the production of books and the distribution of litera-
ture into closer relations with the mass of the German
people than was the case in France.
In France, as will be noted later, the first printers were
directly associated with the university, succeeding imme-
diately to the official university scribes, and the produc-
tion of books through the presses continued to be under
direct control of the university, as had been the case from
the beginning with the production of books in manu-
script. The fact that the control of the first French
presses rested with the university Faculty, undoubtedly
exercised an important influence on the choice of the
books to be printed, and the first issues of the French
presses were, therefore, in the main restricted to editions
of the classics or to works of jurisprudence and medicine
belonging to the official lists of the university texts. The
earlier issues of the German press, on the other hand,
were books belonging in no way to the university cur-
riculum, but were addressed directly to the interests of
the people at large.
While the modifications introduced by Gutenberg into
the methods of printing, under which the old engraved
blocks were replaced by movable leaden type, seem slight
in themselves, they constituted nevertheless a new art.
The actual changes were but inconsiderable, but the
practical result was a revolution in the possibilities of the
press.
;64 The Earlier Printed Books
Gutenberg's work as a printer was, from a commercial
point of view, never successful. During the eighteen
years which elapsed between the time of his invention
and the date of his death, he seems to have been always
under the pressure of debt and money difficulties. He
had in fact no time to make money. He had given up,
in his devotion to his invention, previous business under-
takings which were remunerative, and he had absorbed in
the development of the printing-press all the resources
that he could control. His interest, however, was evi-
dently that of perfecting an art rather than of creating a
business ; and in spite of his various difficulties and his
several lawsuits with his associates, it is in evidence as
part of the testimony in these very suits, that he was
recognised by all as a man of knowledge and character,
and as a born leader, whose integrity of purpose and
whose nobility of aim were acknowledged by all with
whom he had to do. With all his misfortunes, he seems
never for a moment to have lost confidence in the value
to the world of his idea, and to this idea, with no thought
of personal gain or advantage, he was willing to devote
his means and his life.
The difference between the production each year of a
few hundred copies of religious or classical works by the
laborious toil of the monks or the university scribes,
works which could at best benefit only the limited circle
of readers who were within reach either of the monas-
teries or of the universities, and a world-wide distribution,
as well of the great books of the earlier times which be-
longed to the world's literature as of the current thoughts
of the contemporary generation, was a difference, not of
degree, but of kind. It was a revolution in the history of
human thought and in the influence of thought upon
humanity.
If the invention of printing had not taken shape in the
brain of Gutenberg, it would doubtless have come to the
The Invention of Printing 365
world through some other worker, and, in fact, with no
very great delay, for other men were already busying
themselves with the same great need and were on the
track of the same means of supplying the need. As the
history stands, however, the credit for the revolution
must be given to the mirror-maker of Mayence. Other
sailors would certainly have found their way to the
Western Continent if the opportunity or the attempt of
Columbus had failed, but it is to Columbus that history
gives the laurel crown.
Gutenberg, and the printers who followed him, naturally
selected as the first models for their newly founded type
the script letters with which they were familiar in the
best manuscripts. The first font of type manufactured
by Gutenberg, which was used in his earliest publication,
The Folio Bible, was known as the " missal type," having
been copied from the script adopted by the monks for the
books of worship. This style of type was followed for a
long time for Bibles and for religious works generally.
One of the earlier objections against printed books was
that they were so much less beautiful in their appearance
than the work of the best scribes, and it was the finest
script that remained as the ideal to be attained by the
type-founders and the clear black impression of the best
oak-gall writing ink that was to be imitated by the im-
pressions from the presses.
The scholarly lovers of fine books in Germany regarded
the new art at the outset with no little disapproval and
criticism. The collectors who had brought together, with
much labour and expenditure, stores of valuable manu-
scripts dreaded lest, through the multiplication of com-
paratively inexpensive copies of their texts, the value of
their collections should be taken away. When the mes-
sengers of Cardinal Bessarion were shown by the Greek
Laskaris (later the author of the first Greek grammar that
came into print), a specimen of one of the earlier printed
366 The Earlier Printed Books
books, they spoke sneeringly of this so-called discovery
which had been made by a barbarian from a German city. 1
The great manuscript-dealer, Vespasiano, writing in 1482
concerning the magnificent ducal library in Urbino, the
volumes in which had been largely either collected or
purchased by himself or under his own direction, says :
" In this library all the volumes are of perfect beauty, all
written, by skilled scribes, on parchment and many of
them adorned with exquisite miniatures. The collection
contains no single printed book. The Duke (Frederick)
would be ashamed to have a printed book in his library." '
By collectors like Frederick and manuscript-dealers like
Vespasiano, the new art was considered to be merely a
mechanical method of producing inartistic volumes, with
which none but uncultivated people could be satisfied.
For a number of years, therefore, after the work of the
first presses, there were still produced beautiful specimens
of manuscripts, more particularly of Italian and French
books of worship, and for this class of manuscripts the
work of the hand illuminators and miniature painters
continued to be utilised. In Germany there are various
examples of books which had been printed, being again
produced in written copy, as for instance, the Chronicon
Urspergense, of Hroswitha.* It was also the case that for
the production of large choir-books the work of the scribes
continued to be useful.
Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim, wrote to Gerlach,
Abbot of Deutz, a letter which was printed in 1494 in
Mayence, under the title, De Laude Scriptorum Manualium.
In this he says :
" A work written on parchment could be preserved for
a thousand years, while it is probable that no volume
printed on paper will last for more than two centuries.
Many important works have not been printed, and the
copies required of these must be prepared by scribes.
1 Kapp, 59. * Burckhardt, Die Kullur der Renaissance, i., 239. * Kapp,6o.
The Invention of Printing 367
The scribe who ceases his work because of the invention
of the printing-press can be no true lover of books, in that,
regarding only the present, he gives no due thought to
the intellectual cultivation of his successors. The printer
has no care for the beauty and the artistic form of books,
while with the scribe this is a labour of love."
Notwithstanding such criticism on the part of a few
scholarly churchmen, the influence of Rome and of the
Church generally, during the earlier work of the printers,
was very largely favourable and had not a little to do with
the support given to the work which might easily other-
wise have been given up for lack of adequate business
return. The Church of Rome felt itself at this time
sufficiently secure in its control of the minds of men to
be prepared to utilise to full advantage all methods for
distributing its doctrinal literature, and to have no dread
as to these same means being used for the scattering of
heretical teachings. The popes of the time, largely in-
fluenced by the spirit of the Renaissance, gave a cordial
welcome to the revival of scholarly interests and to the
printing-press as an important means for furthering the
general education and the intellectual development of the
community. Their interest was by no means limited to
the distribution of doctrinal works, but in these earlier
years of publishing they welcomed, and to a considerable
extent co-operated in, the production of editions, for
general circulation, of the works of the pagan classics.
Hegel says, in his Philosophy of History, that the re-
newed interest in the studying of the writings of the
ancients found an important support in the service of the
printing-press. He goes on to point out that the Church
felt no anxiety concerning this renewed interest in pagan
literature, and evidently did not imagine that this litera-
ture was introducing into the minds of men a new element
of suggestion and of inquiry.
1 Schneegans, p. 142.
368 The Earlier Printed Books
It may be considered as one of the fortunate circum-
stances attending the introduction of the art of printing
that the popes of the time were largely men of liberal
education and of intellectual tastes, while one or two,
such as Nicholas V., Julius II., and Leo X., had a very
keen personal interest in literature and were collectors of
books.
The fact that Leo X. was a luxury-loving, free-thinking
prince rather than a devoted Christian leader or teacher,
may very probably have been in the end a service for the
enlightenment and development of his own generation
and of the generations that were to come. An earnest
and narrow-minded head of the Church could, during the
first years of the sixteenth century, have retarded not a
little the development of the work of producing books for
the community at large.
It was a number of years before the dread of the use of
the printing-press for the spread of heretical doctrines and
of a consequent undermining of the authority of the Church
assumed such proportions in the minds of the popes in
Rome and with the bishops elsewhere, as to cause the in-
fluence of the Church to be placed against the interests of
the world of literature. As a result of this early accept-
ance by the Church of the printing-press as a useful ally
and servant, the first Italian presses were supported by
bishops and cardinals in the work of producing classics
for scholarly readers, while at the other extremity of the
Church organisation, and at a distance of a thousand miles
or more from Rome, the Brothers of Common Life were
using the presses in their Brotherhood homes for the dis-
tribution of cheap books among the people.
Berthold von Henneberg, Elector of Mayence, speaks
of " The Divine Art of Printing." ' The Carthusian monk,
Werner Rolewinck, writes, in his Outline History of the
World (Fasciculus Temporum): "The art of printing
1 Kapp, 62.
The Invention of Printing 369
which has been discovered in Mayence is the art of arts,
the science of sciences, by means of which it will be
possible to place in the hands of all men treasures of
literature and of knowledge which have heretofore been
out of their reach."
Joh. Rauchler, the first Rector of the Tubingen High
School (later the University of Tubingen), rejoices that
through the new art so many authors can now be brought
within the reach of students in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew,
authors who are witnesses for the Christian faith, and the
service of whose writings to the Church and to the world
is so great, that he can but consider " this art as a gift
directly from God himself." ' Felix Fabri, Prior of the
Dominican monastery in Ulm, says, in his Historia
Suevorum, issued in the year 1459, that " no art that the
world has known can be considered so worthy, so useful,
so much to be esteemed, indeed, so divine as that which
has now, through the Grace of God, been discovered in
Mayence."
The first printing work done by the Brothers of Com-
mon Life dates from 1468. They appear to have promptly
utilised their scribes as compositors and their illuminators
as designers for the new form in which their books were
produced. Many of the Benedictine monasteries which
had for so many centuries led the way in the preservation
and the multiplication of literature at once associated
presses with their monasteries and had their monks trained
in the art of setting type and of printing sheets.
Among the monastery printing-presses were those of
the Carthusian monastery in Strasburg, the monastery of
S. Ulrich and Afra, in Augsburg, and the Benedictine
monasteries in Nuremberg and Rostock. As a rule, in
places where the work of scribes had been active, the
printing-press found a ready acceptance. It was not long,
however, before so great a development in the methods of
1 Kapp, 62.
370 The Earlier Printed Books
the printing business was brought about that it became
difficult for the monasteries to carry on the work effec-
tively, and by the middle of the sixteenth century the
production of books in monasteries had practically ceased.
The favourable relations between the Church and the
printers were checked by the Humanistic movement,
which, a generation or more before the Reformation, began
to bring into question the authority of the Church and
the infallibility of papacy. The influence of the Humanis-
tic teachers was so largely furthered by the co-operation
of the printers that the jealousy and dread of the ecclesi-
astical authorities were promptly aroused, and they began
to utter fulminations against the wicked and ignorant men
who were using the art of printing for misleading the com-
munity and for the circulation of error. The ecclesiastics,
who had at first favoured the widest possible circulation of
the Scriptures, now contended that much of the heretical
teaching was due to the misunderstanding of the Scrip-
tures on the part of readers who were acting without the
guidance of their spiritual advisers.
The authorities of the Church now began to take the
ground that the reading of the Scriptures by individuals
was not to be permitted, and that the Bible was to be
given to the community only through the interpretation
of the Church. At the same time, the authority of the
Church was exerted to repress, or at least to restrict, the
operations of the printing-press, and to bring printers and
publishers under a close ecclesiastical supervision and cen-
sorship. It was now, however, too late to stand between
the printing-press and the people. Large portions of the
community had become accustomed to a wide circulation
of books and to the selection without restriction of such
reading-matter as might be placed within their reach, and
this privilege they were no longer willing to forego.
It was nevertheless true that in certain countries,
particularly in Italy and in France, the censorship "of tne
The Invention of Printing 371
Church was strong enough seriously to hamper and inter-
fere with publishing undertakings and to check the natu-
ral development of literary production. Even in Italy,
however, the critical spirit was found to be too strong to
be entirely crushed out, and from Venice, the most im-
portant of the Italian publishing centres, it proved possi-
ble to secure for the productions of the printing-press a
circulation that was practically independent of the censor-
ship of Rome.
The Humanistic movement was, on other grounds, of
immediate service for the printers and publishers, in that
it brought about an active demand for the works of classi-
cal writers, a demand which it required the fullest resources
of the earlier printers to supply.
If the invention of Gutenberg had taken shape during
the period when there happened to be no such active
intellectual literary interests, the first printers might easily
have found it difficult to secure business for their presses
and the development of the business of book production
would have been seriously hampered. The long series
of controversies which were brought into being by the
Reformation, and the large mass of controversial literature
which was the result of the Reformation, constituted, a
generation later, another favourable influence in securing
an assured foundation for the business of the printers. If
it be the case that the work of the leaders of the Reforma-
tion could hardly have been carried on without the aid of
the printing-press, it is also true that at a time when the
business of the early printers was in a very critical and
unremunerative condition, the impetus given to the pro-
duction of literature, and the increased eagerness on the
part of the common people for literature, formed an essen-
tial factor in making an assured foundation for the busi-
ness of the printers and the publishers.
In 1462, on the 28th of October, Archbishop Adolph of
Nassau captured the city of Mayence and gave it over to
372 The Earlier Printed Books
his soldiers for plunder. The typesetters and printers,
with all other artisans whose work depended upon the
commerce of the city, were driven to flight, and it ap-
peared for the moment as if the newly instituted printing
business had been crushed out. The result of the scatter,
ing of the printers, however, was the introduction of the
new art into a number of other centres where the in-
fluences were favourable for its development.
The typesetters of Mayence, driven from their printing-
offices by the heavy hand of the Church, journeyed
throughout the world, carrying their new knowledge and
training and they were able to give to many communities
the means of education and enlightenment through which
the great revolt against the Church was finally instituted.
The work of the printers, checked for the time in May-
ence, took shape promptly in Strasburg, and from there
was taken down the Rhine to Cologne, and in a few years
was also in active operation in Basel, Augsburg, Ulm, and
Nuremberg. In 1464, as elsewhere described, German
printers carried their invention into Italy and erected
the first Italian printing-press in Subiaco. And in 1470,
also through Germans, the work of the printers began in
Paris.
The shrewd and enterprising merchant Fust, by means
of whose capital Gutenberg had been able to begin his
business operations, would hardly have pressed his suit
against his associate, if he had not had confidence in the
value of the invention. As soon as, through the decision
of 1455, he came into possession of the presses, he at once
put these again into operation. He found a practical
superintendent or co-worker in Peter Schoffer. Schoffer
was a German by birth, but had carried on work in Paris
as a scribe or writer of higher class manuscripts, as illumi-
nator, and as a manuscript-dealer. Returning to Mayence
in 1454, he had entered the employ of Gutenberg as type-
setter and proof-reader. Later, having married the
The Invention of Printing 373
daughter of Fust, he was taken into partnership by his
father-in-law, and was able to make a satisfactory or-
ganisation and a wide development for the business of
the printing-office. The first publication issued by Fust
& Schoffer was a psalter printed (in Latin) on parchment,
with the great missal type.
The second work, undertaken, not at the risk of the
printers, but at the cost of two of the Mayence monas-
teries, was an edition of a great choir-book. This psalter,
or rather psalterium, is the first printed work in which the
name of the printer is given and the date of the publica-
tion. It apparently proved possible to secure for this
book even with the very inadequate distributing ma-
chinery that was available, a remunerative sale, as it was
printed again in 1490, in 1502, in 1515, and in 1516.
Among the earlier publications of Fust & Schoffer are
the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of the Dominican
monk Durandus, which was issued in 1459, tne Codex
Const itutionum of Pope Clement, issued in 1460, and
the Bull of Emperor Frederic III. against Diether
von Isenburg, printed in 1461. The most beautiful and
most important production of their press was, however,
the great Latin Bible issued in 1462, in two folio volumes,
and which is known as the " 48 line Bible."
The work of the printing-office was, as previously stated,
stopped by the sacking of the city, and the two partners
appear to have migrated for the time to Frankfort. In
1464, they were again in Mayence, and in that year they
published the sixth book of the Decretals of Pope Boni-
face VIII., and the De Officiis of Cicero. The latter
was the first of the German editions of the classics, and
remained a favourite book with the German printers, being
repeatedly reprinted.
In 1466, Fust made a journey to Paris in order to find
sale there for his big Bible. This was four years before
the first Paris printing-press began its work, and it was in
374 The Earlier Printed Books
connection with this big Bible that the gossip arose of
Fust being able, through compact with the Devil, to pro-
duce an indefinite number of copies of a book. It could
not be understood how in any other way these copies
could be offered so cheaply. The University of Paris was
at that date the most important in Europe, and the influ-
ence of the University upon the cultivation of the city
and its close relations with the old book-trade in manu-
scripts, had made Paris the most important European
centre for literary production and the place where scholars
were in the habit of looking for their material. It was in
Paris, if anywhere, that it should prove possible to find
sale for the Latin Bible, and Fust's efforts appear to have
met with a prompt success. The first Bible bearing a date
was completed in 1462, and is known as the Mayence
Bible. At the time it was in readiness (in October) noth-
ing could be done in getting it into the market, as May-
ence was being besieged by Adolph of Nassau. In 1466,
Fust is again in Paris with copies of the second edition of
his De Officiis, and with other of his publications.
There is still preserved in the city library of Geneva a
copy of this edition of Cicero, which contains the record
that it was bought by Louis de la Vernada, in Paris, in
July, 1466, from Fust. 1
Fust & Schoffer may claim to have been the first prin-
ters who acted also as publishers and booksellers. Not-
withstanding the many difficulties with which they had
had to contend, they were able to offer their books at prices
which, to the old dealers in manuscripts, seemed astound-
ing and which gave some pretext for the charge of magic.
Madden says that a copy of the " 48 line Bible " printed
on parchment, could be bought in Paris, in 1470, for 2000
francs, and that the cost of the same text a few years
earlier in manuscript form would have been five times as
great. Bishop John of Aleria, writing in 1467 to Pope
1 Wetter, J., Gesch. der Erfindung dcr Buchdruckerkunst, 483.
The Invention of Printing 375
Paul II., says that it is now possible to purchase in Rome'
for 20 gulden, gold, works which a few years earlier would
have cost not less than 100 gulden, and that other books
now selling as low as 4 gulden would previously have cost
not less than 20 gulden. The first results of the printing-
press appear, therefore, to have been a reduction of about
four fifths in the price of work of a scholarly character.
Fust is entitled to the description, not only of the
second printer and of the first publisher, but of the first
pirate in printed books. In 1465, Mentel printed in
Strasburg under the title of De Arte Prcedicatoria y the
fourth book of S. Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana.
The editor states that he had, for the purpose of this
edition, collected manuscript texts in the libraries of
Heidelberg, Speyer, Worms, and Strasburg, and that he
had induced Joh. Mentel, a " master of the art of print-
ing," to put the volume into a form available for the
general use of clerics.
Fust reprinted this volume in 1466, following the text
with precision, and simply replacing Mentel's name with
his own. This is the first instance of literary appropria-
tion of which there is any record, after the beginning of
printing. 1
After the death of Fust, which occurred early in 1467,
Schoffer continued the business with Fust's sons, and
established branches in Paris and in Angers. His name
appears for the first time alone on the title-page of the
Thomas Aquinas, published in a folio of 516 pages in
March, 1467. He prints it in full as Petrus Schoiffher de
Gernsheim. In a receipt for 15 gold crowns, paid by the
College of Autun for a copy of this, Schoiffher styles
himself Impressor Librorum. He appears to have made
sale in Paris not only of his own publications, but of the
books issued by other German printers.
In a copy of the work of Johannus Scotus, printed by
1 Schmidt, C., Gesch. der altesten Bibliothek in Strasburg, 1881, p. 92.
376 The Earlier Printed Books
Koberger in 1474, now contained in the library of the
Paris Arsenal, appears the entry, " I, Peter Schoffer,
printer from Mayence, acknowledge that I have received
from the worthy Magistrate, Johannus Henrici, of Pisa,
three scuta as the price of this book." ] Schoffer seems to
have acted in some measure also as purchasing agent for
the University of Paris, through an associate, Guimier,
who was a licensed member of the Paris guild. The Paris
branch of the business was given up a few years later, and
Schoffer devoted his energies to extending his trade in
Germany. In 1479, his name appears in the list of the
citizens of Frankfort, and the removal to Frankfort of his
publishing headquarters constituted the first step towards
the selection of that city as the centre of the publishing
and bookselling trade of Germany, a position that it re-
tained for more than a century. Schoffer continued,
however, to do the work of his printing in Mayence.
Some light is thrown upon the extent of the publishing
undertakings carried on at the time by Schoffer with his
associate Hancquis, by the record of a suit brought by the
two partners in 1480 against a certain Bernhard Inkus, of
Frankfort. They charged Inkus with having begun the
publication of a considerable series of books, the property
right in which (Eigentumsrechf) vested in themselves and
in Conrad Henki (who was a son of Fust). It does not
appear from the record of this trial on what grounds
Schoffer and his associates claimed the right to control
these books, or whether the unauthorised issues of which
they complained had been printed by the defendant
Inkus or were simply being offered for sale by him on
behalf of other printers.
The case appears to have been referred or possibly ap-
pealed to a court in Basel, and by this court was issued
some preliminary injunction against the continued sale of
the books complained of. The record giving the final
1 Kapp, 71.
The Invention of Printing 377
decision of the case is, however, missing. The lack of
full details of the suit is the more to be regretted as it
appears to have been the first case after the invention of
printing involving, if not copyright ownership, at least a
certain control by contract.
In the same year we find the Magistracy of the City of
Frankfort applying to the Magistracy of the City of
Liibeck for the protection of Schoffer against some ille-
gitimate infringement of Schoffer's business rights on the
part of the Liibeck citizen Hans Bitz. Here also is there
no record as to the result of the application. The firm
also had dealings with Ulm, as appears from a claim
made, in 1481, for the collection of the moneys due from
certain citizens in Ulm Harscher, Ruwinger, and Ofener,
for books delivered. They sent to Ulm, with a protec-
tion certificate given by Elector Diether of Mayence, a
representative who was empowered to collect the money.
There was at the outset some delay in connection with
an alleged informality in his authorisation, but the Ma-
gistracy of Ulm sent back word that as soon as the
requisite authorisation was secured, the collection of the
money would be enforced in due course.
These cases are evidence of a certain organisation of
machinery for the distribution of books and for the man-
agement of a publishing business, within a comparatively
brief period after the beginning of the work of the print-
ing-presses, and they indicate also that the second firm
which entered into the business of printing had succeeded
in establishing such business on fairly assured foundations,
and in carrying on successfully large undertakings. It is
to be noted further that Fust & Schoffer, and other of
the earlier German printers, did their work without the
assistance of any patronage, and without even the advan-
tage of a university connection. The early printers of
Italy would have found it impracticable to carry on their
operations without the assistance of certain wealthy and
378 The Earlier Printed Books
enterprising noblemen who were prepared to interest
themselves in the new art either from curiosity or from
philanthropy, and as late even as 1495, that is to say
nearly half a century after the beginning of printing, the
organisation of the business of Aldus was dependent
upon the favour and services of certain of his noble friends.
In Paris the first printers were helped, and in part sup-
ported, by the money of patrons or of the Crown, and by
the co-operation and influence of the University. In
England also the influence of Oxford was of material im-
portance in securing for the first printers some assured
foundation and support, while the work of Caxton and his
immediate successors in London was also largely fur-
thered by, if not actually dependent upon, the work or
help of noble and wealthy friends.
In Germany, however, the printing work began, as we
have seen, through the enterprise and ingenuity of a citi-
zen manufacturer who was supported by the middle class
of the community, and who made his first connections
directly with the townspeople. The help of the universi-
ties appears to have been of comparatively smaller impor-
tance. It probably counted for more in Cologne than in
any other of the university cities in which the earlier
printers did their work.
In the course of the thirty-six years of his independent
business activity, that is from the death of Fust in 1466
to the time of his own death, Schoffer printed in all fifty-
nine works which bear date and which have been identi-
fied as his. His firm took rank for this period as by far
the most important printing and publishing concern in
existence.
With hardly an exception, the books issued from his
press were folios. They were printed with fifty to sixty
lines on the page, and contained an average of about
300 pages or 1 50 sheets.
Among the works included in the list are the Constitu-
The Invention of Printing 379
tiones of Clement V., the Institutions of Justinian, the
Expositio Sententiarum of Thomas Aquinas, the EpistoUg
of S. Jerome, the sixth book of the Decretals of Boniface
VIII., the Decretals of Gregory IX., the Codex of Justin-
ian, and the Expositio Psalterii of Joh. Torquemada. The
last named volume had already been printed in Subiaco
and again in Rome under the direct supervision of the
author, who was supplying the funds for carrying on the
first printing-office established in Italy.
After Schoff er's death in 1 502, his son printed an edition
of the Mercurius Trimegistus.
I do not find record of the arrangement entered into
by Schoffer for the editing of the texts of the works
printed by him. The collection of manuscripts for use as
" copy " for printers, and the collection of different manu-
scripts in order to secure the most complete and accurate
texts, must have called for a considerable measure of
scholarly and of general literary knowledge.
It does not appear that Schoffer had enjoyed opportuni-
ties for making himself a scholarly authority, or that he
ever made claim to any special scholarly attainments.
There is no record of editorial work done by himself in
the books issued from his press, as was the case to so
exceptional a degree a few years later with the books
printed by Aldus ; nor has Schoffer preserved in connec-
tion with his editions the names of the editors who super-
vised their publication, as came to be the practice later
with the issues of the Aldine press, of Froben in Basel,
and of Koberger in Nuremberg. As far as I can ascer-
tain, however, the Schoffer texts compared favourably for
accuracy and for authority with other of the earlier printed
books, and it is to be assumed, therefore, that he had been
able to organise an adequate critical staff or to secure
from time to time, as required, the services of competent
scholars.
The business founded by Gutenberg, taken possession
380 The Earlier Printed Books
of under mortgage by Fust, and carried on first by Fust
& Schoffer, and later by Schoffer and other associates,
lasted nearly one hundred years. The first publication
was, as noted, the big Psalterium, printed in 1457, and
the last, an edition of the German version of the books of
Livy, printed by Ivo Schoffer in 1557.
It seems evident that while the credit for the great
invention fairly belongs to Gutenberg, and the original
planning and initiative of the business were his, a large
measure of business capacity must have belonged to his
partner Fust, who had also, to be sure, the advantage of
being a capitalist to begin with, a factor as important in
the earliest time of publishing as in the present day.
One of the most definite pieces of testimony in regard
to the connection of Gutenberg with the invention of
printing, testimony which possesses special value as com-
ing from a person possessing first-hand knowledge of the
facts, is contained in an Epilogue written in verse by John
Schoffer (son of Peter), and printed at the end of the Livy
published by him in 1505. It is addressed to the Emperor
Maximilian, and reads as follows :
" May your Majesty deign to accept this book which
was printed at Mayence, the town in which the admirable
art of typography was invented, in the year 1450, by John
Gutenberg, and afterwards brought to perfection at the
expense, and by the labour, of John Fust and Peter
Schoffer."
It would not belong to the plan of this historical sketch
to give in detail a record of the successive concerns which
carried on throughout Germany, with increasing rapidity
and with undertakings of ever widening importance,
the business of printing and publishing. I propose merely
to present the records of a few of the earlier concerns, and
to make such reference to typical firms of later genera-
tions as may give an impression of the gradual develop-
ment of the book-trade, and as may serve also as
The Invention of Printing 381
examples from which to judge of the development of
the idea of the literary property in Germany, and the
varying positions taken under the enactments and other
governmental measures in regard to such property.
The books printed during the first half-century were, as
we shall note, almost exclusively reissues of ecclesiastical
or pagan classics, and apart from such original work as
may have been put into introductions or notes, did not
call for the labour of contemporary authors. Among the
earlier of original German publications is to be classed a
German grammar entitled Die Leyenschul, printed by Peter
Jordan in Mayence in 1531. This grammar, which re-
mained for a considerable time an authority on its sub-
ject, does not bear the name of the author or editor.
Another of the earlier original works for the sale of
which the author may have secured some compensation
was the Astronomic of Joh. Stoffler, which was printed in
Ottenheim in 1513.
One of the more important of the earlier publishing
concerns of Mayence was that of Franz Behem, who
printed in the ten years succeeding 1539 an important
series of theological works. With the close of Behem's
business in 1552, Mayence appears to have lost its relative
importance in connection with the work of printing and
publishing.
> In Strasburg, which had contested with Mayence the
prestige of being the actual birthplace of the printing-
press, important publishing undertakings were carried on
from a very early date, and for a number of years the
city of Basel alone could compete with Strasburg in the
number and importance of the books issued from its
presses. The two publishing concerns whose individual
enterprises and whose rivalry with each other did so much
to bring Strasburg into importance as a factor in the Ger-
man book-trade, were those of Johann Mentel and of
Heinrich Eggestein. Mentel's first publications were a
382 The Earlier Printed Books
Latin Bible in two folio volumes, which was the first
Bible printed in the smaller Gothic type ; an edition of
De Doctrina Christiana of S. Augustine ; an edition of
the Summa of Thomas Aquinas ; an edition of the
Bible in German, which appeared in 1466; the Specu-
lum Historiale of Vincentius Bellovacensis, etc. Madden
finds record of twenty-one publications which can cer-
tainly be identified as Mentel's, and which comprise in
all forty-one volumes, of which thirty-seven are in large
folio. During the time of his business activity, (1465-1478)
he appears to have published about two volumes a year. 1
Humphreys points out that Mentel was in advance of
the other German printers of the day in first using, in
place of the confused old Gothic black letter, the clear
Roman letter which was in use in Italy. Mentel's most
important publication, the collection of the Specula of S.
Vincent of Beauvais, issued in 1473, in eight volumes
folio, was printed in type of the Roman letter. 8 M.
Bernard, in his Origines de llmprimerie, is of opin-
ion that it was in printing these theological works which
were in accord with the taste of the reading public of his
da^r, that Mentel realised a fortune, while many of his
competitors ruined themselves in reproducing the Latin
classics, the taste for which before the close of the fifteenth
century was not sufficiently developed to ensure a remu-
nerative sale. He was also the first of the German printers
to print descriptive catalogues of his books. At the head
of the catalogue was a notice to the following effect:
" Those who wish to possess any of these books have
only to address themselves to the sign of ."
Here a blank was left, in order that each retail book-
seller to whom the catalogue was sent might fill in his
" own name and sign. Such a detail (which is, I may men-
tion, quite in accord with modern publishing methods)
indicates that there was as early as 1470, a well developed
bookselling machinery in western and central Germany.
1 Madden, iv., 40. 9 Humphreys, 99.
The Invention of Printing 383
Mantel's principal rival in Strasburg was Heinrich Eg-
gestein. Eggestein appears to have been a man of scholarly
training, and had received from some university the de-
gree " Magister." To him belongs the credit of the issue,
in 1466, of the first Bible printed in German. Important
as was this work, the printer was not interested in associ-
ating with it his imprint, and the volumes are identified
as the work of his press only by circumstantial evidence. 1
The first work which was edited and which bears his im-
print was an edition of the Decretum Gratiani, printed in
a gigantic folio in 1471. Before this date, he had issued
three Bibles in Latin text. The Decretum was again
printed by Eggestein in 1472, although the original issue
of 1471 had been promptly pirated by the enterprising
Schoffer. It is evident that it proved possible to secure
for the book an immediate and presumably remunerative
sale.
Another of Eggestein's publications in 1472 was an
edition of Clementines. In this he gives his imprint and
gives notice also that he has already issued a long series
of books treating of " divine and human law." The last
book bearing a date, issued by Eggestein is the Decretals
of Innocent IV., printed in 1478.
The third Strasburg printer was George Huszner, who
was originally a goldsmith. He married the daughter of
another goldsmith, Nikolaus of Hanau, who later worked
with his son-in-law as aurifaber et pressor librorum? The
Speculum Judiciale of Bishop Wilhelm Duranti, printed
by Huszner in 1473, is described by Kapp as a master-
piece of typography. This bears the name as editor of
Joh. Beckenhub, who calls himself a cleric. Martin Flach
of Strasburg, whose business activity covered the years
1475 to 1500 published something over seventy works,
which were, with hardly an exception, devoted to theol-
ogy and dogma.
In 1480, was printed a magnificent edition of the Latin
1 Linde, p. 65. * Schmidt, C., 160.
384 The Earlier Printed Books
Bible in four volumes, known as Biblia Latina cum glossa
ordinaria Walafridi Strabonis et interlineari Anselmi
Laudunensis. This was issued by Anthoni Koberger of
Nuremberg and it has only recently been discovered
that it was printed for him by Adolph Rusch of Stras-
burg. While it was by far the most noteworthy typo-
graphical undertaking that had been completed up to
that date, the printer had not thought it important to
associate his name with the volumes. Rusch was a
publisher as well as a printer, and was also a large
'dealer in paper, supplying this to printers in Stras-
burg, Nuremberg, Basel, and elsewhere. He further
carried on a miscellaneous business as a bookseller and in
purchasing from other publishers for his miscellaneous
trade supplies of other publications, and he was accus-
tomed to make payment for the same in paper. He seems
altogether to have been a man of very wide activities, whose
influence must have been of considerable importance in
connection with the early organisation of the German
book-trade. He had married a daughter of the Stras-
burg printer, Mentel, and through his wife, inherited an
interest in Mentel's business. Rusch purchased from
the printer Amerbach, in exchange for paper stock, a por-
tion of the edition of S. Augustine's De Civitate Dei,
which appears to have shared with certain essays of
Cicero the honour of being one of the most frequently
printed books in the early lists.
One of the earlier of the Strasburg printers who gave
particular attention to works in German was Johann
Reinhart, also known (from his birthplace) as Johann
Griininger, whose list comprised German editions of
works in theology and religion, and in poetic literature,
together with a series of folk-songs and stories for the
people. While his fellow publishers were at that time,
with hardly an exception, limiting their undertakings to
works planned for scholars, such as reprints of the classics
The Invention of Printing 385
and theological works printed in Latin, Reinhart addressed
himself at once to a popular audience, and while in so
doing he was undoubtedly of service in furthering the
education of his generation, he appears also to have
secured for himself satisfactory business results. He gave
particular attention to illustrated books, securing the ser-
vice of a number of noteworthy designers and engravers,
and ornamenting his books, not only with full-page illus-
trations, but with elaborate initial letters and head- and
tail-pieces. He is chronicled as being the only publisher
in Strasburg who, after the Reformation was in full de-
velopment, continued to print Catholic tracts and pam-
phlets. As an instance of the large distribution that it
was possible to secure at the beginning of the sixteenth
century for certain classes of books, is to be noted the sale
made by Reinhart in 1502 to Schonsperger, of 1000 copies
of a volume of The Lives of the Saints. Reinhart was one
of the printers whose presses were utilised by the great
publisher Koberger of Nuremberg. In 1525, he printed
for Koberger the translation by Pirckheimer of the great
Geography of Ptolemy. In this work the translator ap-
pears himself to have retained an interest.
There have been preserved a number of the letters
which passed between Pirckheimer, Koberger, and Rein-
hart, while this work was going through the press. It
appears that, notwithstanding Reinhart's personal super-
vision of the undertaking and his interest in securing for
the pages satisfactory ornamentations, Pirckheimer had
found frequent occasion for dissatisfaction and criticisms,
and in his letters there are many expressions which might
have been written by authors of to-day who were not
satisfied that the printers were following "copy" cor-
rectly. At one point, Pirckheimer says that if he could
have foreseen all the difficulties that he was to experience
in securing a correct printing for his volume, he would have
burned the manuscript rather than have put it to press.
-;86 The Earlier Printed Books
Reinhart points out, on his part, however, that, in the
first place, the manuscript had not been prepared in such
manner that the compositors could follow it correctly,
and that, secondly, he had given no little of his own per-
sonal attention to re-arranging and re-shaping the " copy "
in order that the text might be as correct as possible.
Pirckheimer was also unhappy in connection with cer-
tain of the designs with which the printer had orna-
mented his text, and expresses the wish that in place of
using Italian designers, the printer had given the work to
good Germans. 1
From the middle of the eleventh century, Cologne had
competed with Mayence for the distinction of being the
most important trade centre of Germany. Its favourable
position made it a natural point of exchange for business
operations between the dealers of the North Sea and
those of the Mediterranean. To Cologne came from the
south by way of the passes of the Alps, the wares, not
only of Italy, but those which had been brought from the
East by the vessels of Venice and of Genoa, while from
the great Russian mart of Novgorod and the enterpris-
ing Hanseatic city Liibeck, were brought the goods of
Russia and of the far North. In Cologne were also ware-
houses under the charge of trading guilds of their several
nations, whither were brought the goods of England,
France, and the Low Countries.
It was not only in mercantile undertakings, however,
that the city had secured for itself prestige. The Uni-
versity, founded in the early part of the fourteenth cen-
tury on the model of that of Paris, was considered to have
surpassed in the importance of its scholarly work the older
institutions of Heidelberg, Prague, and Vienna ; and it
remained for many years at the head of the scholarship
of Germany and a particular exponent of the doctrinal
theology of the Catholic Church. Cologne was, therefore,
1 Kapp, 91.
The Invention of Printing 387
recognised by the early printers as an exceptionally
favourable centre for the prosperous development of their
work, and the printing and publishing undertakings of the
city assumed at an early date very considerable importance.
The existing library of the city contains over 400 works,
principally theological, but including also volumes in juris-
prudence and in higher class instruction, which were pro-
duced by Cologne printers before the close of the fifteenth
century. At this time the University contained no less
than 4000 students, and the requirements of these students
for text-books and of their instructors for works of
reference, must have given a very decided impetus to the
work of the earlier publishers, while the trade connections
possessed by Cologne with the cities of the North and
East furnished channels through which the publishers
were able to extend the demand for their books. The
first introduction of the printing-press into Cologne was
due to the sacking of the City of Mayence in 1462, when
Ulrich Zell, of Hanau, who like Peter Schoffer, called
himself a clericus moguntinensis, and who had been an
apprentice of Gutenberg, having been driven from
Mayence, brought to Cologne the invention of his master.
While it is possible that his printing undertakings began
earlier, the first dated work issued from his press was
published in 1466, and was an edition of the Liber Johan-
nes Chrysostomi super Psalmo Quinquagesimo. This was
promptly followed by a volume containing the De Officiis
of Cicero. No publishing list of the period appears to have
progressed very far without including one or more of the
essays of Cicero. The latest book published by Zell was
a commentary by Girard Hardervicus on the new Logic
of Albertus Magnus. The list of books known to have
been produced by Zell includes no less than 120 titles,
but a large number of these were pamphlets of moderate
compass, and only eighteen were in the folio form which
was the standard of the time.
388 The Earlier Printed Books
A printer whose work was in part contemporary with
that of Zell, was Johann Koelhoff, who included in his
list eighty publications, of which seven were in the
German tongue. These last are spoken of by Kapp as
possessing distinctive interest for theologians, because
they included some of the earliest printed examples of
the Low-German dialect. Bartholomaus Unkel, whose
list included in all twenty works, printed, in 1480, in the
Low-German dialect an edition of the Sachsenspiegel, a
work which found place during the following century in
the lists of very many of the German publishers.
As before mentioned, the influence of the University
was given strongly to the support of Orthodox doctrines
of the Catholic Church, and doctrinal books which did not
conform to the university standard of orthodoxy were
not printed in Cologne. It is probable that in the begin-
ning of the publishing operations, no direct censorship
was attempted on the part of the theologians of the
University, but it seems evident that they were able not-
withstanding, to discourage publications the opinions of
which they might consider pernicious.
The name of Franz Birckmann, whose printing opera-
tions began in 1507, occupies an important place in the
list of the publishers of Cologne, and his business rela-
tions with Paris and his connections with the book-dealers
of London have brought his name into reference in much
of the correspondence of his time. Birckmann appears,
at the outset at least, not to have himself been a printer.
His first book, the Missale Coloniense, was printed for him
in Paris. Kirchhoff speaks of Birckmann as possessing a
fine business capacity and exceptional enterprise and
creative genius, and refers to him as carrying on his
undertakings now in London and Canterbury, then in
Bruges, Lige, or Frankfort ; again in Cologne, Antwerp,
Tubingen, and Basel. The list of the places visited by
this enterprising publisher of the time serves to give an
The Invention of Printing 389
indication as to the centres where literary activities were
the most important. 1 Erasmus, writing on the 2ist of
December, 1520, from Canterbury, to his friend Andreas
Ammonius in Rotterdam, speaks of Birckmann as being
ready himself to undertake the introduction into England
of any books that might be called for. Birckmann ap-
pears finally to have established in London a permanent
business office, for the volume, Graduate ad Usum Sarum,
which was printed for him in Paris in 1528, bears as an
imprint, Franz Birckmann of St. Paul's Church Yard. 1
This early connection of the publishers of Cologne with
London is of special interest in connection with the record
of William Caxton, the first English printer, who was said
to have learned his art in Cologne and to have brought it
thence (by way of Bruges) to London. In the same series
of letters to Ammonius, Erasmus speaks of giving to Birck-
mann the manuscript of his Proverbia, of his Plutarch, and
the Lucian, in order that he might arrange to have the
books printed in Paris, by Jodocus Badius. For some
reason, not stated, Birckmann decided not to place these
works in the hands of Badius, but took them to Fro-
ben, in Basel, which was the means of bringing Erasmus
into connection with that publisher, with whom he had
satisfactory intimate relations for so large a portion of
his life.
As has been stated in another chapter, the theologians
of the Faculty of the Sorbonne had taken a strong stand
against the writings of Erasmus, and it is very possible
that Badius was unable to secure a permit or a privilege
for these volumes.
Birckmann seems, at about this time, to have secured
some interest, if not in the general business of Froben, at
least in a certain number of his publishing undertakings.
In 1526, Birckmann came into trouble with the authorities
1 Kirchhoff, K.,Gesch. des Deutsch. Biichhandels ; Leipzig, 1851, i., 41.
Erasmi, Opera, London, 1703, in., 105.
390 The Earlier Printed Books
of Antwerp on account of his having sold there an edition
of the translation of S. Chrysostom, which had been made
by Okolampadius, and which had come under the ban of
the Antwerp censorship. The publisher succeeded in
freeing himself from the penalties imposed by the Ant-
werp magistracy only after a long contest and a consid-
erable expenditure of money. 1 It is a little difficult to
understand the precise grounds of the opposition raised
by the Antwerp censors, and I have not been able to get
at the details of the case. It is of interest as one of the
earliest examples of censorship upon the press which
occured in Northern Europe. Kapp is of opinion that
the censorship exercised by the Church authorities in
Cologne was more rigorous than that instituted by the
authorities in Bavaria. It seems certain that the Catholic
University of the Rhine was able to exercise no little in-
fluence in shaping the direction of the earlier literary
undertakings of North Germany.
Caxton's sojourn in Cologne must have been some time
between the years 1471 and 1474. Further details con-
cerning his work in Bruges and his later publishing under-
takings in London will be given in the chapter on printing
in England. During the latter part of the fifteenth century
and the earlier years of the sixteenth, Cologne printers
secured for themselves an unenviable reputation as unau-
thorised reprinters of works which were the result of the
scholarly labours and investment of publishers elsewhere.
They issued editions as nearly in fac-simile as might be
of a number of the classics published in Venice by Aldus,
and they followed these, later, with the imitations of the
scholarly texts published by Plantin in Antwerp and by
the Elzevirs in Leyden.
While it was the case that these texts, with rare excep-
tions, were the work of authors dead centuries before,
and that in the works themselves the original publishers
1 Kirch., i., 103.
The Invention of Printing 391
could rightfully claim no control, it is to be borne in mind
that the production of the earlier editions of such classics
had nevertheless called for a very considerable expenditure
of capital and of labour, as well in the securing of the
codices used as " copy " by the type-setters as in the
revision and editing of these codices by the scholarly
commentators employed, and also in the preparation of
notes, introductions, and elucidations for the volumes.
The risk and investment incurred by Aldus in the pro-
duction of his edition of Aristotle, and the exceptional
character of the original labour invested by the publisher
in such a work are grounds for considering that his con-
tention for the control of the text which came from his
printing-office, at least for a certain term of years, was as
well founded as might be a contention of to-day for a
book which was in its entirety the work of a contempo-
rary writer.
The city whose publishing operations are next to be
considered in the chronological record is Basel. For a
number of years after the invention of printing, Basel re-
mained one of the most important publishing centres, not
only of the German Empire (to which at this time the
city belonged), but of Europe. Its position on a direct
line of communication between Italy and Germany had
given it an importance in connection with the general
trade of Europe, and the facilities which furthered this
general trade became of value also in connection with the
production of books. The University of Basel, founded
in 1460, speedily brought to the city men devoted to
scholarly pursuits, many of whom took an early interest
in the work of the printing-press, and were ready to give
their co-operation to publishers like Froben, not only in
editing manuscripts for the press, but even in the routine
work of the printing-offices in the proof-reading and cor-
recting. In 1501, at the time Basel broke away from the
imperial control, the city had already secured for itself a
392 The Earlier Printed Books
cosmopolitan character, and had become a kind of meet-
ing place for the exchange of thought as well as for the
goods of representatives of all nations. At this time there
were in the city no less than twenty-six important publish-
ing and printing concerns. The earliest book bearing a
date and an imprint which was issued from a Basel print-
ing-press was an edition of the Gregorii Magni Moralia in
Jobunt, which appeared in 1468. But one or two copies
exist, of which the one that is in the best preservation is
contained in the National Library of Paris.
Printing was introduced into Basel by Berthold Ruppel,
who, in 1455, had been an apprentice with Fust. The first
work which is identified as Berthold's, but which does not
bear a date, is the Repertorium Vocabulorum Exquisito-
rum of Conrad de Mure. The difficulties which have
attended all organisations of labour appear to have begun
at an early date in Basel, as there is record of a strike of
the compositors occurring as early as 1471. This strike
lasted for a number of months and was finally adjusted
by the arbitration of the authorities of the town, cer-
tain concessions being made on the part of both the master
and the employees. The magistrate issued a decision or
mandate to the effect that on a certain date the workmen
must return to their shops and accept the authority of
their masters, and this order appears to have been ac-
cepted. It does not appear what course could have been
taken to force the men to their work in case they might
still have been recalcitrant. The fact that a difference be-
tween the printers and their men should have been a
matter of such general importance indicates that already
within twenty years of the beginning of printing in Ger-
many, the business in Basel had assumed large propor-
tions.
In 1474, there was printed in Basel an edition of the
Sachsenspiegel, a work of popular character, which can
share with the Bible and with different essays of Cicero,
The Invention of Printing 393
the honour of being the most frequently published book in
Germany during the first quarter century of printing.
Between 1478 and 1514, Johann Amerbach, one of the
most scholarly of the early editors, printers, and pub-
lishers of Germany, made Basel his headquarters. His
work was, however, by no means limited to Basel, as he
co-operated with Koberger in Nuremberg and with other
of his contemporaries in editorial and publishing respon-
sibilities in other cities.
His most important publication in Basel was a series of
the works of the Church Fathers. In carrying these books
through the press, he was able to secure the co-operation
of a number of the well known scholars of the time, in-
cluding Beatus Rhenanus, Dodo, Conon, Wyler, Pellikan,
and, above all, his old instructor, Heynlin.
Before beginning business in his own name in Basel,
Amerbach had co-operated with Koberger in the produc-
tion of the great Bible with the commentaries of Hugo,
and he was also in active relations with Rusch of Stras-
burg. The last book which was printed with his own
name is an edition of the Decretum Gratiani, which ap-
peared in 1512. His edition of the works of S. Jerome,
left unfinished at the time of his death, was completed
by his pupil and successor, Johann Froben.
Froben, who was like his master, not only a printer but
a scholar of wide attainments, did more, possibly, than any
printer of his time, except Aldus of Venice, to further
through his publishing undertakings the development of
scholarship and of literature. He appears to have had a
thorough knowledge, not only of Latin, which was com-
mon to all the scholars of his time, but of Greek and
Hebrew, which were rarities even in university centres.
It was the case with Froben, as with Aldus, that he him-
self assumed the task of preparing for the press the texts
of a number of works issued by him, a task which included
a comparison of manuscripts, in order to secure the most
394 The Earlier Printed Books
correct readings, and such thorough knowledge of the
text as would make possible the correction of errors, not
only of typography, but of statement. Froben's work
and character have been commemorated by the loving
words of Erasmus, who during the last twenty years of
Froben's life held with him the closest relations of friend-
ship as well as of business.
y It was through Froben that the larger publishing un-
dertakings of Erasmus were carried on, undertakings which
were later in part shared with Aldus of Venice. Froben's
work was done exclusively for scholarly readers. His im-
print appears upon no book printed in German, while the
list of books issued by him during the thirty-six years of
his business activity includes no less than 257 works,
nearly all of which were of large compass and distinctive
importance. Erasmus himself, ranking at that time pos-
sibly as the greatest scholar of Europe, was ready to give
to Froben his assistance in supervising texts for the
compositors and in the corrections of the proofs. The
details of the business arrangements entered into by pub-
lishers like Froben with their scholarly assistants have un-
fortunately not been preserved, but it would appear as if
in many cases these scholars had given their services as a
labour of love, and solely with a view to furthering the
development of scholarship and literature. Erasmus was
for a number of years an inmate of Froben's house, and it
is probable that he received a certain annual stipend for
his editorial services, in addition to the returns paid to
him from the sale of his books. The most important of
the issues from the Froben press in the matter of popular
sale and of business success were, as indicated, the writ-
ings of Erasmus. Erasmus, in fact, was possibly the first
author who was able, after the invention of printing to
secure from the sale of his books any substantial returns.
It is evident from the various references made by Erasmus
that those returns were sufficient to make him substan-
The Invention of Printing 395
tially independent, notwithstanding the fact that piracy
editions of his books were printed in Paris, in Cologne,
and elsewhere.
Further information concerning the publishing under-
takings of Erasmus will be found in the chapter devoted
to him.
Pamphilus Gengenbach, described as the first dramatist
of the sixteenth century, and who was also a poet, under-
took between the years 1509 and 1522, the business of
a printer. We do not learn with what success. A more
noteworthy printer of Basel of the same period, note-
worthy at least from the point of view of commercial suc-
cess, was Langendorf. He built up his business by the
publication of piracy editions of the writings of Luther,
out of which he is reported to have made large profits. 1
The first German printer who appears to have received
honours from royalty was a certain Heinrich Petri, who was
carrying on business between 1520 and 1579, an< ^ wn o in
1556, in recognition of his services to the community, was
knighted by Charles V.
As before indicated, the work of the printers and pub-
lishers of Basel was very much furthered by the presence
and by the intelligent co-operation of the members of its
University Faculty. The University was of service not
only in making a certain important market for editions of
scholarly books, but, as a more important consideration,
in giving to the publishers the aid of scholarly advisers,
editors, and proof-correctors. By the close of the fifteenth
century, Basel had secured so great a prestige for the pro-
duction of accurate editions of important texts, and for
the beauty and costliness of its typography, that commis-
sions came to its printers from all parts of Europe.
In 1510, Sir Thomas More, desiring, as he writes, to
secure a European circulation for his books, causes the
same to be printed in Basel, while during the years be-
1 Kapp, 121.
396 The Earlier Printed Books
tween 1490 and 1520, the popes send to Basel printing-
offices the orders for their commercial printing.
The next city in chronological order to be considered
as a publishing centre is Zurich, in which printing began
in 1504.
The first of the Zurich printers whose name has
been preserved is Christ. Froschauer, who is known prin-
cipally through his association with Zwingli. Froschauer,
who devoted himself earnestly to the cause of the Calvin-
ists, had a religious as well as a business interest in
securing a wide circulation for the works of Zwingli and
his associates, and together with these works, he printed
editions of the Bible, not only in German, but in French,
Italian, Flemish, and English. Froschauer's editions were
the first Bibles printed on the Continent in the English
language. For these Bibles, which were distributed at
what to-day would be called popular prices, very con-
siderable sales were secured, and the presses of Froschauer
were thus made an important adjunct to the work of the
Reformation.
In Augsburg, the printing business of which began to
assume importance in 1468, the interests of the publishers
were, on the other hand, largely associated with the cause
of the Roman Church. The first book with an Augsburg
imprint and date was issued by Zainer, and was an edition
of the Meditationes Vitae Domini Nostri Jesu Christi. In
1470, was published by Schussler a Latin edition of
Josephus, and in 1477, Sorg, who was one of the most
active of the Augsburg publishers, issued the book of the
Council of Constance, which contained no less than 1200
wood-cuts, presenting the 1156 coats-of-arms which were
represented at the Council.
The most famous of the printer-publishers of Augs-
burg was Ratdolt, who had learned his art in Venice.
His edition of Euclid, printed in Venice in 1482, consti-
tuted the first European edition of the famous Syracusan.
The Invention of Printing 397
He began work in Augsburg in 1486. The sales of the
orthodox theological books, which constituted a special
interest of the Augsburg publishers, were largely checked
by the Reformation. George Wilier, an enterprising
Augsburg bookseller, who sold not only his own publica-
tions but those of other German publishers, is to be
credited with the printing of the first classified catalogue
known to Germany.
Among the earlier publications of Ulm, the most im-
portant was the geography of Ptolemy, issued by Roll in
1484, with important maps.
The eminence of the city of Nuremberg in the work of
publishing is principally due to the scholarly enterprise of
one family, that of the Kobergers, whose work began
about 1470. Anthoni Koberger, the first of the line, is
grouped with Froben of Basel and with Aldus of Venice
for the commercial importance of his undertakings, and
above all for the scholarly ideal of his business operations.
His active business work covered the years 1470-1503.
Among his earlier important publications was an edition
of Thomas Aquinas, issued in 1474, and of the Consola-
tions of Philosophy of Boethius, printed in 1475. The
latter was the first printed edition of a book which had
been for nearly a thousand years famous among books
in manuscript, and which possibly shares with S. Augus-
tine's City of God the reputation of being the work most
frequently found in the old monastery libraries. By the
year 1 500, Koberger was utilising no less than twenty-four
presses, and undoubtedly was sending out annually more
books than any other publisher of his time. He had
branches or agencies in Frankfort, Paris, and Lyons, a
business correspondence in the Netherlands, Italy, Austria,
Hungary, Poland, and England, as well as, of course,
throughout -Germany. In respect to the bulk of the
business done by him and of the commercial success
secured, he was a greater publisher than either Aldus or
398 The Earlier Printed Books
Froben, his two most famous contemporaries. The work
of Aldus, which is considered in detail in another chapter,
was, however, distinctive on the ground of the special
difficulties to be overcome and of his enterprise and
scholarly ambition in the production of Greek literature.
The interest of the work of Froben centres partly in his
close friendship and long association with Erasmus, and
in the fact that, as the publisher for Erasmus, he secured
the first important copyright returns for a contemporary
author which had been known in the record of publishing.
Koberger gave special attention to the production of
Bibles and of works in orthodox theology. The latter
division of his list was largely interfered with by the in-
creasing influence of the Lutherans.
Koberger took the initiative in the production of books
containing expensive and elaborate illustrations, and his
illustrated editions will compare more favourably with
those of Plantin and with the other publishers of the
Low Countries, than is the case with the issues of any
other German publisher. Nuremberg had always been
the centre of art interests, and there appear to have been
in the town many designers whose services could be
secured for the production of wood-cuts.
The great German Bible, published by Koberger in
1483, filled with artistic illustrations engraved on wood,
compares not unfavourably with the illustrated Bible
issued by Plantin fifty years later.
The Schedelsche Chronik, published in 1493, contained
no less than 2000 wood-cuts prepared by the Nurem-
berg artists, Wohlgemut and Pleydenwurf. After the
work of the Reformers became active, the presses of
Nuremberg were occupied for some years in issuing con-
troversial tracts and pamphlets upholding the orthodox
views of the Church ; while, under an edict of the magis-
trates issued in 1520, the printers of Nuremberg were
forbidden to print and the dealers were forbidden to sell
The Invention of Printing 399
the writings of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and their asso-
ciates. Notwithstanding this prohibition, however, there
was enough sympathy with the Reformation among many
of the Nuremberg printers to keep them interested in the
surreptitious production (under risk of fine, confiscation,
and imprisonment) of very many of the Protestant tracts
of the times. While the Catholic tracts were, however,
catalogued in due course and openly sold, the Protestant
pamphlets had to be smuggled in and out of the city and
disposed of under various covers and precautions.
In giving chronological consideration to certain of the
distinctive publishing centres and printer-publishers of
Germany, it is necessary at this time to refer to the im-
portant undertakings of the Brothers of Common Life,
whose work in the manuscript period has already been
described.
As in the earlier manuscript publishing, the Brothers
had interested themselves particularly in reaching with
their books the common people, and had' v for this pur-
pose produced their versions in the folk dialects. When,
therefore, they had replaced the scriptoria of their Houses
with well organised printing-offices, they devoted their
presses mainly to the production of devotional books, and
of books of general instruction planned for the service
and information of the middle and lower classes, and
printed in the vernacular.
While I have not found record of the business results
secured through these printing-offices established by the
Brothers, it seems probable, in view of the excellent
distributing machinery they possessed for their output,
and from the fact that they were almost the first among
printers to prepare publications expressly for the use
of the lower and middle classes, that they secured from
the sales of their books satisfactory business returns,
so that the profits produced by their presses may easily
have formed an important part of the resources and
400 The Earlier Printed Books
the income of the Order. Their first printing-presses
were established in Marienthal in 1468, in Brussels and in
Rostock in 1476, and in Nuremberg in 1479. ^ n J 49O,
there were no less than sixty different printing establish-
ments carried on under the supervision of the Brothers.
I am not sufficiently familiar with the various phases of
the complex history of the Reformation to be able to
speak definitely concerning the influence exercised upon
the controversies and the contest of the time by the pub-
lications of the Brothers. It is my impression that these
publications remained on the whole orthodox, but that
they represented the more liberal wing of Catholic Or-
thodoxy.
The city of Leipzig, which a century after the invention
of printing became the centre of the book-trade of Ger-
many, and the most important book-producing city in the
world, began its printing somewhat later than the other
German cities whose work has already been referred to.
The earliest printing-press set up in Leipzig was that of
an anonymous printer who issued, in 1481, an edition of
the essay of the Dominican Annius von Viterbo, entitled
Glosa Super Apocalipsim. The second Leipzig publica-
tion, also issued without imprint, was an edition of the
fifteen astrological propositions of Martin Polich. The
first Leipzig publisher whose name is recorded is Markus
Brandis, who issued, in 1484, a volume entitled Regimen
Sanitatis, which was the work of Archbishop Albicius of
Prague, who had died in 1427. It is not easy to decide
on what basis these first three publications of the future
publishing mart were selected, and it is difficult to under-
stand how a remunerative sale could have been depended
upon for any one of the three.
By the year 1513, the production of Breviaries had be-
come an important interest with the Leipzig presses. A
printer named Lotter secured a reputation in the earlier
years of the sixteenth century for the excellence of his
The Invention of Printing 401
typography, and was employed by the Archbishop of
Heller in printing the Breviaries and the Missals of the
Dioceses of Brandenburg. In 1492, a certain Gregor
Werman printed Sacrarum Historiarum Opus. The
name of the author does not appear in connection with
the work. In 1497, Botticher issued an edition of Virgil's
Bucolics, the first classic which bears a Leipzig imprint.
By the year 1495, the book-trade of Leipzig had as-
sumed very considerable proportions, not only in connec-
tion with printing and publishing, but in the organisation
of machinery for collecting and distributing the publica-
tions of other cities. In this branch of the book business,
Leipzig was already beginning to rival Frankfort. The
booksellers' association, organised in 1525, is, at the present
time, 370 years later, the most effective and intelligently
managed trade organisation that the world has known.
Leipzig publishers gave from an early period special at-
tention to the printing of the controversial literature of
the Reformation, and, as was natural from their close
relations with Wittenberg, the sympathies of the larger
proportion of the printers were in accord with the
Lutherans.
Under the trade restrictions established by Duke
George of Saxony, who was a Catholic, and whose reign
covered the period between 1524 and 1533, the work of
the Protestant printers was very seriously hampered, and
the whole book-trade of Leipzig was affected. The writ-
ings of the Reformers were repressed as far as practicable
by rigorous censorship, while those of the Romanists
found few buyers. Letter, the son of the first printer of
that name, removed his printing-office to Wittenberg,
where he continued, though still under the difficulties of
a rigorous supervision, to distribute the writings of the
Reformers. The magistracy of Leipzig, appreciating the
importance of the book-trade, attempted in the first
place to secure for its operations the necessary protection.
26
4O2 The Earlier Printed Books
Later, however, it was compelled, under pressure from
the Duke, to put into effect the ducal regulations for
supervision and censorship, and two ecclesiastical censors,
appointed under the ducal authority, secured the aid of
the city officials in making examination of the books
printed, and in confiscating or cancelling all heretical
works found in the book-shops of either Leipzig or
Dresden.
Under the edict issued in 1528, all books printed by
Vogel, Goltz, and Schramm of Wittenberg, were for-
bidden to be offered for sale in Leipzig or Dresden, and
were forbidden transportation to the Frankfort Fair.
The immediate result of these anti-reform operations of
the Church and of the Duke was the practical destruction
for the time being of the book-trade of Leipzig.
In 1539, a printer of Leipzig, named Michel Wohlrabe,
secured for himself notoriety through the extent of his
piracy publications. He issued editions of the Lutheran
Bible and of other writings of the Reformers, in the
face, not only of the claims of these writers to control
their own publications, but of the prohibition of Duke
George against the production of any Lutheran literature
whatever. After the death of George, however, there
came a change in regard to the influence of the ducal
government, and at the request of the Elector John
Frederic, an edict was issued forbidding the further
printing in Leipzig of any anti-Lutheran literature. This
removed one difficulty in the way of Wohlrabe's opera-
tions, and Luther and his friends found that they were
helpless, in the conditions which then obtained in the law
and in the book-trade, to prevent the circulation of these
unauthorised editions.
Luther's complaints, referred to further on, were princi-
pally directed, as it must be remembered, not against the
loss of profits to himself, but to the injury to the com-
munity and the grievance to the writers in having books
circulated in an unrevised and incorrect text.
CHAPTER III.
THE PRINTER-PUBLISHERS OF ITALY, 1464-1600.
THE reproduction and distribution of the works of
classical writers to such an extent as not only to
influence the scholarly thought of the time, but to
widen enormously the circles of society reached and
affected by intellectual influences, became possible only
through the new art of printing which had been brought
across the Alps by German workmen ; while the prompt
utilisation of printing for the service of scholarship called
for the devoted labour of printers who were themselves
scholars and who were prepared to subordinate and even
to sacrifice, in the cause of a literary ideal, their immediate
business advantage. It was to the high scholarly ideals
and courageous and unselfish labours of Aldus Manutius
and his immediate successors no less than to the imagina-
tion, ingenuity, and persistency of Gutenberg and Fust,
that the Europe of 1495 was indebted for the great gift
of the poetry and the philosophy of Greece. Mayence
and Venice joined hands to place at the service of the
scholarly world the literary heritage of Athens.
The close of the fifteenth century witnessed a great
expansion in more than one direction of European
thought. In the West, Columbus had opened up a new
world, and his discovery, while giving manifold incentives
to the men of action, must also have served as a powerful
stimulus to the imagination of the thinkers of the time,
in its suggestions concerning the possibilities of the future.
403
404 The Earlier Printed Books
In the East, the printers of Venite were making use of
scholars from Constantinople to rediscover for Europe
the vast realm of Greek thought, and to bring Homer,
Plato, and Aristotle to the knowledge of the students of
Bologna, Paris, and Oxford. Perhaps in no other epoch
of the world's history has there been so great an expan-
sion of the possibilities of thought and of action, so sug-
gestive a widening of range of the imagination, as in the
decade succeeding 1492.
The introduction into Italy of the art of printing
was due to Juan Turrecremata, who was Abbot of the
monastery of Subiaco, and who later became Cardinal.
He was a native of Valladolid in Spain, and his family
name was Torquemada, of which name Turrecremata is
the Latinised form. The Cardinal has been confused by
Frommann 1 with the Torquemada who was Inquisitor-
General of the Inquisition during the period of its most
pitiless activity. The latter probably belonged to the
same family, but his Christian name was Tomas, and he
was not born till 1420, thirty years later than the Cardi-
nal. Juan Torquemada had, however, been one of the
confessors of Queen Isabella, and was said to have made
to her the first suggestion of the necessity of establishing
the Inquisition, in order to check the rising spirit of
heresy. He did not realise what a Trojan horse, full of
heretical possibilities, he was introducing into Italy in
bringing in the Germans and their printing-press.
The monastery of Subiaco was some sixty miles from
Rome. Among its monks were, in 1464, a number of Ger-
mans, some of whom had, before leaving Germany, seen
or heard enough of the work done by the printers in
Mayence or Frankfort to be able to give to the Abbot an
idea of its character. The Abbot was keenly interested
in the possibilities presented by the new art, and with the
aid of these German monks he arranged to bring to
l Aufsdtzf der Buchhandlung, p. 6.
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 405
Subiaco two printers, Conrad Schweinheim, of Mayence,
and Arnold Pannartz, of Prague, who were instructed to
organise a printing-office in the monastery. They began
their operations early in 1464, their first work being given
to the printing in sheet form of the manuals of worship
or liturgies used in the monastery.
In 1464, they published the first volume printed in Italy,
an edition of a Donatus pro Puerulis, a Latin syntax for
boys. This was followed in 1495 by the Institutiones
Divines of Lactantius, and the De Oratore of Cicero, and
the De Civitate of Augustine.
It was only the enthusiasm of the Abbot that rendered
it possible, even for a short period, to overcome the many
obstacles in the way of carrying on a printing-office in an
out of the way village like Subiaco. But the difficulties
soon became too great, and in 1467, the two German
printers found their way, under the invitation of the
brothers Massimi, to Rome, where they set up their
presses in the Massimi palace. There they carried on
operations for five years, during which time they pro-
duced a stately series of editions of the Latin classics,
including the works of Cicero, Apuleius, Gellius, Caesar,
Virgil, Livy, Strabo, Lucan, Pliny, Suetonius, Quintilian,
Ovid, together with editions of certain of the Church
Fathers, such as Augustine, Jerome, and Cyprian. They
also published a Latin Bible, and the Bible commentaries
of Nicholas de Lyra, in five volumes.
With the production of the last work, the resources
which had been placed at their disposal by their friends
the Massimis and by another patron, Bussi, Bishop of
Aleria, were exhausted. The Bishop addressed an appeal
to the Pope on their behalf, setting forth the importance
of their work for the " service of literature and of the
Church." Sixtus IV., who had just succeeded to the
papacy, while apparently not affected by the dread which
influenced future popes concerning the pernicious influ-
406 The Earlier Printed Books
ence of the printing-press, evidently did not share in
the enthusiasm of the Bishop as to its present value for
the Church. He was also somewhat avaricious and pre-
ferred to use his money to provide for a large circle of
relatives rather than to support a publishing business. The
printers were, therefore, unable to secure any aid from the
papal treasury, and, in 1472, they brought their business
to a close. Schweinheim transferred his activities to
the work of engraving on copper, while concerning the
further undertakings of Pannartz there is no record.
During the seven years of their operations in Subiaco
and in Rome, these two printers, who constituted the first
firm of publishers in Italy, had printed twenty-nine sepa-
rate works, comprised in thirty-six volumes. The editions
averaged 275 copies of each volume, the total output
aggregating about 12,500 volumes. There is no record
of any attempt being made to secure for this first list of
publications the protection of privileges, and there could
in fact have been at the time no competition to fear.
Shortly after the cessation of Schweinheim's business,
Turrecremata became a cardinal, and he immediately
invited another German printer, Ulrich Hahn, from Ingol-
stadt, to settle in Rome. Hahn's first publications were
the Meditationes of the Cardinal himself, and these were
followed by a number of editions of the Latin classics.
The learned Campanus, Bishop of Teramo, was one of
Hahn's patrons and gave also valuable service as a press-
corrector, working so diligently that at one time he
reserved for himself only three hours' sleep. The Bishop
writes with great enthusiasm to a friend concerning the art
of printing, " by means of which material which required
a year for its writing could be printed off ready for the
reader in one day."
Other German printers followed Hahn, and before the
close of the century more than twenty had carried on
work in Rome with varying success. The influence of
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 407
the Church was at this time decidedly favourable to the
new art, and nearly all the Roman printers of the earlier
group were working at the instance of ecclesiastics, and
often with the direct support of ecclesiastical funds. It
is to the Church of Rome, therefore, that belongs the
responsibility for the introduction into Italy of the print-
ing-press, the work of which was later to give to the
Church so much trouble. The little town of Subiaco
can, as the record shows, claim the credit of the first
printing, while it was in Rome that the first publications
of importance were produced.
* The leading place, however, in the production of books
was almost from the outset taken by the printers of
Venice, and as well for the excellence of their typography
as by reason of the scholarly importance of the publica-
tions themselves, the Venetian printers maintained for
many years a pre-eminence not only in Italy but in
Europe. The distinctive prestige secured by Venice came
through the printing of Greek texts, the beginnings of
which, under the direction of Aldus Manutius, will be
referred to later.
Venice. The first book printed in Venice was, ac-
cording to the earlier opinion, the famous Decor Puella-
rum, a treatise of instruction for young girls. Its date
was claimed by the Venetians to be 1461, but it appears
from the judgment of many authorities that this date
may have been erroneous and that the volume really
appeared in 1471. The printer of the Decor Puellarum
was Jenson, a Frenchman, and the contest for priority in
Italian publishing has rested between him and the two
Germans of Subiaco.
If the correct date for the Decor be 1471, the first book
printed in Venice was the Epistola Familiares, issued in
1469, by John of Speyer. A fourth volume in this earlier
group of publications bore the title Miracoli delta Glo-
riosa Versine. This was the only one of the four which
408 The Earlier Printed Books
was printed by an Italian, Lavagna of Milan, while it was
also the only early printed book in the Italian language.
In the year 1493, the earliest official document relating
to the printing-press in Venice was published by the
Abbate Jacopo Morelli, prefect of the Marcian Library.
That document is an order of the Collegia or cabinet of
Venice, dated September 18, 1469. The order was pro-
posed by the Doge's councillors, and grants to John of
Speyer, for a period of five years, the monopoly of print-
ing in Venice and in the territory controlled by Venice.
John did not long enjoy the advantages of this monopoly,
having died in 1470, but the business was continued by
his brother Windelin, to whom, apparently, was conceded
the continuance of the monopoly.
John of Speyer was one of the few of the earlier
printers who left information concerning the size of their
editions. If he had also thought it important to specify
the price at which the books were sold, we should have
had data for calculations concerning the relative profit
from the different works.
Of the Epistola Familiares, the first edition comprised
but one hundred copies, but the demand must have been
greater than had been calculated for, as four months later
the printing of a second edition of six hundred copies
was begun, which was completed (in two impressions)
within the term of three months.
The printer, Nicolas Jenson, was born in the province of
Champagne about 1420, and was brought up in the Paris
Mint. He was sent to Mayence in 1458 by Charles VII. to
learn the secrets of the new art of printing. He returned
to France in 1461, shortly after the accession of Louis
XI. It is not clear whether the new king was less in-
terested than had been his predecessor in the development
of French printing, or whether Jenson was afforded any
opportunity for excercising his art in Paris. In 1465,
however, he is heard of in Venice, and he began there, in
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 409
1470, a printing and publishing business which soon
became the most important in Italy.
There were many reasons to influence Jenson in his
choice of Venice as the scene of his operations. In .
the first place, the tide of printers was flowing steadily
towards Italy. Apprentices who had acquired the new
art in Germany set out to seek their fortunes by the exer-
cise of their skill. It was natural that they should turn
to Italy, where the nobles were rich, where learning had /
its home, where there were already many manuscripts
available for the printers, and where there was a public,
both lay and ecclesiastic, ready to pay for the reproduc-
tions. The Venetian Republic offered special attractions
in the security afforded by its government, and in the
protection and liberty she promised to all who settled in
her dominions. Venice was, moreover, the best mart for
the distribution of goods, and the trade in paper was
facilitated by the ease and cheapness of sea-carriage.
The first rag paper was made about the year 1300, and
the trade of paper-making soon became an important one
in Italy. In 1373, the Venetian Senate forbade the ex-
portation of rags from the dominions of the Republic, an
act which recalls the edict of Ptolemy Philadelphus in
290 B.C., forbidding the exportation of papyrus from
Alexandria.
The position of Venice secured for it exceptional facili-
ties for becoming a literary and a publishing centre, facili-
ties in some respects similar to those which eighteen
hundred years earlier had given to Alexandria the control
of the book production of its time. The Venetian Conta-
rini, writing in 1591, speaks of "the wonderful situation
of the city, which possesses so many advantages that one
might think the site had been selected not by men but
by the gods themselves. The city lies in a quiet inlet of
the Adriatic Sea. On the side towards the sea, the waters
of the lagoons are spread out like a series of lakes, while
The Earlier Printed Books
far in the distance the bow-shaped peninsula of the Lido
serves as a protection against the storms from the south.
On the side towards the main land, the city is, in like
manner, surrounded and protected by the waters of its
lagoons. Various canals serve as roadways between the
different islands, and in the midst of the lakes and of these
watery ways arise in stately groups the palaces and the
towers of the city."
It was by the thoroughness of the protection secured
for Venice through its watery defences, no less than by
its isolated position outside of, although in immediate
connection with, the Italian territory, that the Republic
was enabled to keep free from a large proportion of the
contests petty and great that troubled or devastated
Italian territory during the sixteenth century.
When it was drawn into a conflict, its fighting was done
very largely by means of its fleets, operating at a distance,
or with the aid of foreign troops hired for the purpose, and
but rarely were the actual operations of war brought within
touch of Venetian territory. Its control of the approaches
by sea prevented also the connections with the outer world
from being interfered with. The city could neither be
blockaded nor surrounded, and in whatever warlike opera-
tions it might be engaged, its commercial undertakings
went on practically undisturbed. It was under very simi-
lar conditions that Alexandria secured, in literary produc-
tion and in publishing operations during the fourth and
the third centuries B. C., pre-eminence over Pergarnus and
the other Greek cities of Asia Minor. The fact that
manuscripts and printing-presses could be fairly protected
against the risks of war, and that the road to the markets
of the world for the productions of the presses could not
easily be blocked, had an important influence during the
century succeeding 1490, in attracting printers to Venice
rather than to Bologna, Milan, or Florence. The Venetian
government was also prompt to recognise the value of the
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 41 1
new industry and the service and the prestige that were
being conferred upon the city by the work of the printer-
publishers and their scholarly editors. The Republic
gave, from the outset, more care to the furthering of this
work by privileges and concessions and by honourable
recognition of the guild of the printers than was given in
any other Italian state. To these advantages should be
added the valuable relations possessed by Venice with
the scholars of the Greek world, through its old-time
connections with Constantinople and Asia Minor. It was
through these connections that the printers of Venice
secured what might be called the first pick of the manu-
scripts of a large number of the Greek texts that became
known to Europe during the half-century succeeding
1490.
These texts were brought in part from the monasteries,
which had been spared by the Turkish conquerors in the
Byzantine territory and in Asia Minor, while in other
cases, they came to light in various corners of Italy, where
the scholars, flying from Constantinople after the great
disaster of 1453, had found refuge. As it became known '
that in Venice there was demand for Greek manuscripts,
and that Venetian printers were offering compensation to
scholars for editing Greek texts for the press, scholars
speedily found their way to the City of the Lagoons. To
many of these scholars, who had been driven impoverished
from their homes in the East, the opportunity of securing
a livelihood through the sale and through the editing of
their manuscripts must have opened up new and important
possibilities.
In 1479, Jenson sold to Andrea Torresano of Asola,
later the father-in-law of Aldus Manutius, a set of the
matrices punched by his punches. These matrices were
probably the beginning of the plant of the later business
of Aldus. In 14/9, PP e Sixtus IV. conferred upon
Jenson the honourary title of Count Palatine. He was
412 The Earlier Printed Books
the first nobleman in the guild of publishers, and he has
had but few successors. He died in 1480.
John of Windelin, John of Speyer, and Nicolas Jenson,
the three earliest Venetian printers, employed three kinds
of characters in their type Roman, Gothic, and Greek.
The Gothic character secured, as compared with the
others, a considerable economy of space, and its use be-
came, therefore, more general in connection with the
increased demand from the reading public for less ex-
pensive editions. Before the Greek fonts had been made,
it was customary to leave blanks in the text where the
Greek passages occurred and to fill these in by hand.
It was the practice of the later printer-publishers to
place in their books the date, place of publication, and
their own names, and considering how much the editing,
printing, and publication of a book involved, it was
natural that those who were responsible for it should be
interested in securing the full credit for its production
It is nevertheless the case that quite a number of books,
of no little importance, were issued by the earlier printers
without any imprint or mark of origin, an omission which,
as Brown remarks, is certainly surprising in view of the
- high esteem in which printers were held and of the large
claims made by them upon the gratitude of their own age
and of future generations.
The larger proportion of the outlay required for these
early books was not the expense of the manufacturing,
heavy as this was, but the payments required for the
purchase of manuscripts, and for their revision, collation,
correction, and preparation for the type-setters.
The printer-publisher needed to possess a fair measure
of scholarly knowledge in order to be able to judge rightly
v of the nature of the editorial work that was required be-
fore the work of the type-setters could begin. If, as in the
case of Aldus, this scholarly knowledge was sufficient to
enable the printer himself to act as editor, to revise the
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 413
manuscripts for the press, and to write the introduction
and the critical annotations, he had of course a very great
advantage in the conduct of his business.
As an example of the cost of printing in Venice at this
period, Brown cites an agreement entered into in 1478
between a certain Leonardus, printer, and Nicolaus, who
took the risk of the undertaking, acting, therefore, as a
publisher. An edition of 930 copies of the complete Bible
was to be printed by Leonardus for the price of 430
ducats, the paper being furnished by Nicolaus. Twenty
of the copies were to be retained by Leonardus, and the
cost to Nicolaus of the 910 copies received by him would
have been, exclusive of the paper, about $2150, or per
copy about $2.50. The cost of the paper would have
brought the amount up to about $3. The selling price of
Bibles in 1492 appears to have varied from 6 ducats to 12
ducats, or from $30 to $60, but it is probable that these
prices covered various styles of bindings.
The years between 1470 and 1515 witnessed a greater
increase in the number of printers at work in Venice, a
considerable proportion of the newcomers being Germans.
With the rapid growth in the production of books, there
came a material deterioration in the quality of the typo-
graphy. The original models for the type-founders had
been the letters of the manuscripts, and it was the boast
of the earlier founders that their type was so perfect that
it could not be distinguished from script. The copyists
realised that their art was in danger, and, in 1474, they
went so far in their opposition in Genoa as to petition the
Senate for the expulsion of the printers. The application
was, however, disregarded ; the new art met at once with
a cordial reception, and from the beginning secured the
active support of the government.
The trade of the printers could, however, not rest upon
a secure foundation until the taste for reading had become
popularised. The wealthy classes were not sufficiently
414 The Earlier Printed Books
numerous to keep the printing-presses busy, while it was
also the case that for a number of years after the inven-
tion of printing, a considerable proportion of the wealthier
collectors of literature continued to give their preference
to manuscripts as being more aristocratic and exclusive.
The earlier books issued from the presses were planned to
meet the requirements of these higher class collectors,
whose taste had been formed from beautiful manuscripts.
With the second generation of printers, however, a new
market arose calling for a different class of supplies. The
revival of learning brought into existence a reading public
which was eager for knowledge and which was no longer fas-
tidious as to the beauty of the form in which its literature
was presented. By 1490, a demand had arisen for cheap
books for popular reading, and in changing their methods
to meet this demand, the printers permitted the standard
of excellence of their work to suffer a material decline.
Brown gives an abstract from the day-book of a
Venetian bookseller of 1484-1485, the original of which
is contained in the Marcian Library. Even at that early
date, we find represented in the stock of the bookseller,
classics, Bibles, missals, breviaries, works on canon law,
school-books, romances, and poetry.
The record shows that the purchases of the bookseller
from the publisher were usually made for cash, and that
for the most part he received cash from his customers. In
some cases, however, these latter made their payment in
kind. Thus a chronicle was exchanged for oil ; Cicero's
Orations for wine ; and a general assortment of books for
flour ; while different binders' bills were settled, the one
with the Life and Miracles of the Madonna, and the other
with the series of the Hundred Novels. The proof-reader
was paid for certain services with copies of a Mamotrictus,
a legendary, and a Bible, and an account from an illumi-
nator was adjusted with an Abacus, (a multiplication table,
or a condensed arithmetic).
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 415
The prices of books ruled lower than might have been
expected, the cheapest being volumes of poetry and ro-
mance. For instance, Poggio's Facetics sells for nine soldi,
and \htInamoramentocTOrlando for one lira, while Dante's
Inferno with a commentary, brings one ducat, and Plutarch's
Lives, two ducats. A small volume of Martial brought fif-
teen soldi. The editions of certain printers realised higher
prices than those of the same books by other printers
whose imprint did not carry with it so much prestige.
It was during the last ten years of the fifteenth century
that the business of printing and publishing in Venice
reached its highest importance as compared with that
done elsewhere. It was this decade that witnessed the
founding of the Greek press by Aldus, Vlastos, and Cali-
ergi, the first printing in Arabic and in the other Eastern
languages, and the beginning of the publication of ro-
mances and novelieri.
The part taken in these new undertakings by Aldus
Manutius was of distinctive importance, not only for
Venice and Italy, but for the civilised world. He was a
skilled printer, and an enterprising, public-spirited pub-
lisher, and he was, further, a judicious and painstaking
critic and editor, and a scholar of exceptional attainments.
To him more than to any other one man is due the intro-
duction into Europe of the literature of Greece, which
was in a measure rediscovered at the time, when, by the
use of the printing-press, it could be placed within the
reach of wide circles of impecunious students to whom
the purchase of costly manuscripts would have been
impossible.
In his interest in Greek literature, as well as in his
scholarship and public-spirited liberality, Aldus was a
worthy successor to the Roman publisher of the first
century who had earned the appellation of Atticus on
account of the attention given by him to the reproduction
for the reading public of Italy of the great classics of
416 The Earlier Printed Books
Greece. Atticus was, however, a man of large means,
gained chiefly through his business as a banker and a
farmer of taxes, and it appears to have been to him a
matter of indifference whether or not his publishing un-
dertakings returned any profits on the moneys invested
in them. Aldus began business without capital and died
a poor man. Not many of his books secured for the pub-
lisher profits as well as prestige. He lived modestly and
laboured continuously, but he expended in fresh scholarly
publishing undertakings all the receipts that came to him
from such of his ventures as proved remunerative.
As before pointed out, the payments made by Aldus
for the work of editing his series of classical publications,
payments which were probably the first ever made in
Italy for literary work in connection with printing, were
not only of material service to many of the impecunious
Greek scholars, but must have served as precedents for
fixing, for Italy at least, a market value for literary ser-
vice. The payments to the Greek refugees included in a
number of cases compensation for the use of the man-
uscripts they had brought with them, manuscripts which
not infrequently constituted practically everything in the
shape of property that they had been able to save from
the grasp of the Turks. For a number of the more
scholarly of these refugees, places were made in the uni-
versities, or as we should now say, Chairs were endowed,
for instruction in the language and literature of Greece.
Aldus himself took the initiative in inducing the Venetian
Senate to institute such a professorship in Padua for his
friend Musurus.
For a number of years, a larger proportion of the
scholars and the manuscripts was absorbed by Venice
than by any other of the Italian cities. The production
t of books progressed more rapidly in Venice than else-
where, and the art of bookmaking reached a higher per-
Jfection there during the first decade of the sixteenth
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 417
century than in any city in Europe. As before noted,
however, Subiaco had preceded Venice in the printing of
books, while the use of Greek type, in which Venice
so rapidly attained pre-eminence, occurred first in Milan.
The introduction of illustrations into book-printing proba-
bly originated in Rome.
Aldus Manutius. It seems to me in order, for the
purpose of my narrative, to present in some detail the
record of the life and work of Aldus. The history of any
representative printer-publisher whose career belonged to
the earlier stages of the business of making and selling
books, would have value in throwing light on the extent
of the difficulties and obstacles to be overcome and on
the nature of the methods adopted ; the career of Aldus
possesses, however, not merely such typical value but a
distinctive and individual interest, as well because of the
personality of the man as on the ground of the excep-
tional importance, for his own community and for future
generations, of the service rendered by him.
Aldus Manutius was born at Bassiano in the Romagna,
in 1450, the year in which Gutenberg completed his
printing-press. He studied in Rome and in Ferrara, and
after having mastered Latin, he devoted himself, under
the tutorship of Guarini of Verona, to the study of Greek.
Later, he delivered lectures on the Latin and Greek
classics. One of his fellow students in Ferrara was the
precocious young scholar Pico della Mirandola, whose
friendship was afterwards of material service. In 1482,
when Ferrara was being besieged by the Venetians and
scholarly pursuits were interrupted, Aldus was the guest
of Pico at Mirandola, where he met Emanuel Adramyt-
tenos, one of the many Greek scholars who, when driven
out of Constantinople, had found refuge in the Courts of
Italian princes. Aldus spent two years at Mirandola, and
under the influence and guidance of Adramyttenos, he
largely increased his knowledge of the language and
27
4i 8 The Earlier Printed Books
literature of Greece. His friend had brought from the
East a number of manuscripts, many of which found
their way into the library of Pico.
In 1482, Aldus took charge of the education of the
sons of the Princess of Carpi, a sister of Pico, and the
zeal and scholarly capacity which he devoted to his task
won for him the life-long friendship of both mother and
sons. It was in Carpi that Aldus developed the scheme
of utilising his scholarly knowledge and connections for
the printing of Latin and Greek classics. The plan was a
bold one for a young scholar without capital. Printing
and publishing constituted a practically untried field of
business, not merely for Aldus but for Italy. Everything
had to be created or developed ; knowledge of the art of
printing and of all the technicalities of book-manufactur-
ing ; fonts of type, Roman and Greek ; a force of type-
setters and pressmen and a staff of skilled revisers and
proof-readers; a collection of trustworthy texts to serve
as " copy " for the compositors ; and last, but by no means
least, a book-buying public and a book-selling machinery
by which such public could be reached.
It was the aim of Aldus, as he himself expressed it, to
. i rescue from oblivion the words of the classic writers, the
monuments of human intellect. He writes in 1490: "I
have resolved to devote my life to the cause of scholar-
ship. I have chosen in place of a life of ease and freedom,
an anxious and toilsome career. A man has higher re-
sponsibilities than the seeking of his own enjoyment ; he
should devote himself to honourable labour. Living that
is a mere existence can be left to men who are content to
be animals. Cato compared human existence to iron.
When nothing is done with it, it rusts ; it is only through
constant activity that polish or brilliancy is secured."
The world has probably never produced a publisher who
united with these high ideals and exceptional scholarly
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 419
attainments, so much practical business ability and per-
sistent pluck.
The funds required for the undertaking were furnished
by the Princess of Carpi and her sons, probably with some
co-operation from Pico, and in 1494, Aldus organised his.
printing-office in Venice. His first publication, issued in
1495, was the Greek and Latin Grammar of Laskaris, a
suitable forerunner for his great classical series. The
second issue from his Press was an edition of the Works
of Aristotle, the first volume of which was also completed
in 1495. This was followed in 1496 by the Greek Gram-
mar of Gaza, and in 1497 by a Greek-Latin Dictionary
compiled by Aldus himself.
The business cares of these first years of his printing
business were not allowed to prevent him from going on
with his personal studies. In 1502, he published, in a hand-
some quarto volume, a comprehensive grammar under
the title of Rudimenta Grammatices Linguae Latince, etc.
cum Introductione ad Hebraicam Linguam, to the prepara-
tion of which he had devoted years of arduous labour.
Piratical editions were promptly issued in Florence, Ly-
ons, and Paris. He also wrote the Grammatics Institu-
tiones Grceca (a labour of some years), which was not
published until 1515, after the death of the author.
It will be noted that nearly all the undertakings to
which he gave, both as editor and as publisher, his earliest
attention, were the necessary first steps in the great
scheme of the reproduction of the complete series of the
Greek classics. Before editors or proof-readers could go
on with the work of preparing the Greek texts for the
press, dictionaries and grammars had to be created. Las-
karis, whose Grammar initiated the series, was a refugee
from the East, and at the time of the publication of his
work, was an instructor in Messina. No record has been
preserved of the arrangement made with him by his
420 The Earlier Printed Books
Venetian publisher, a deficiency that is the more to be
regretted as his Grammar was probably the very first
work by a living author, printed in Italy. Gaza was a
native of Greece, and was for a time associated with the
Aldine Press as a Greek editor.
In 1500, Aldus married the daughter of the printer
Andrea Torresano of Asola, previously referred to as the
successor of the Frenchman Jenson and the purchaser of
Jenson's matrices. In 1507, the two printing concerns
were united, and the savings of Torresano were utilised
to strengthen the resources of Aldus, which had become
impaired, probably through his too great optimism and
publishing enterprise.
During the disastrous years of 1509-1511, in which
Venice was harassed by the wars resulting from the
League of Cambray, the business came to a stand-still,
partly because the channels of distribution for the books
were practically blocked, but partly also on account of
the exhaustion of the available funds. Friends again
brought to the publisher the aid to which, on the ground
of his public-spirited undertakings, he was so well en-
titled, and he was enabled, after the peace of 1511, to
proceed with the completion of his Greek classics. Be-
fore his death in 1515, Aldus had issued in this series
the works of Aristotle, Plato, Homer, Pindar, Euripides,
Sophocles, Aristophanes, Demosthenes, Lysias, ./Eschines,
Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, and others,
in addition to a companion series of the works of the
chief Latin writers. The list of publications included in
all some 100 different works, comprised (in their several
editions) in about 250 volumes. Considering the special
difficulties of the times and the exceptional character of
the original and creative labour that was required to secure
the texts, to prepare them for the press, to print them
correctly, and to bring them to the attention of possible
buyers, this list of undertakings is, in my judgment, by
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 421
far the greatest and the most honourable in the whole
history of publishing.
It was a disadvantage for carrying on scholarly pub-
lishing undertakings in Venice, that the city possessed no
university, a disadvantage that was only partly offset by
the proximity of Padua, which early in the fifteenth cen-
tury had come under Venetian rule. A university would
of course have been of service to a publisher like Aldus,
not only in supplying a home market for his books, but
in placing at his disposal scholarly assistants whose ser-
vices could be utilised in editing the texts and in super-
vising their type-setting. The correspondence of members
of a university with the scholars of other centres of learn-
ing, could be made valuable also in securing information
as to available manuscripts and concerning scholarly un-
dertakings generally. In the absence of a university cir-
cle, Aldus was obliged to depend upon his personal efforts
to bring him into relations, through correspondence, with
men of learning throughout Europe, and to gather about
the Aldine Press a group of scholarly associates and
collaborators.
The chief corrector or proof-reader for Greek work of
the Press was John Gregoropoulos, of Candia. Some edi-
torial service was rendered by Theodore Gaza, of Athens,
who took part, for instance, in the work on the set of
Aristotle. The most important, however, of the Greek
associates of Aldus was Marcus Musurus, of Crete, whose
name appears as the editor of the Aristophanes, Athenaus,
Plato, and a number of other of the Greek authors in the
Aldine series, and also of the important collection of
Epistola Gr&carum.
Musurus was an early friend of Pico, and later of his
nephew, Alberto Pio, and it was at Carpi that he had first
met Aldus, with whom he ever afterwards maintained a
close intimacy. In 1502, probably at the instance of
Aldus, Musurus was called by the Venetian Senate to
422 The Earlier Printed Books
occupy the Chair of belles-lettres at Padua, and he appears
to have given his lectures not only in the University, but
also in Venice. Aldus writes : " Scholars hasten to Venice,
the Athens of our day, to listen to the teachings of Musu-
rus, the greatest scholar of the age."
In 1503, the Senate charged Musurus with the task of
exercising a censorship over all Greek books printed in
Venice, with reference particularly to the suppression of
anything inimical to the Roman Church. This seems
to have been the earliest attempt in Italy to supervise
the work of the printing-press. It is natural enough that
the ecclesiastics should have dreaded the influence of the
introduction of the doctrines of the Greek Church, while
it is certainly probable that many of the refugees from
Constantinople brought with them no very cordial feeling
towards Rome. The belief was very general that if the
Papacy had not felt a greater enmity against the Greek
Church than against the Turk, the Catholic states of
Europe would have saved Constantinople. The sacking
of Constantinople by the Christian armies of the Fourth
Crusade was still remembered by the Christians of the
East as a crime of the Western Church. There were,
therefore, reasons enough why the authorities of Rome
should think it necessary to keep a close watch over the
new literature coming in from the East, and should do
what was practicable to exclude all doctrinal writings,
and the censorship instituted in 1502 was the beginning
of a long series of rigorous enactments which proved,
however, much less practicable to carry out in Venice
than elsewhere in Italy.
Other literary advisers and associates of Aldus were
Hieronymus Aleander (later Cardinal), Pietro Bembo,
Scipio Carteromachus, Demetrius Doucas, Johann Reuch-
lin, and, above all, Erasmus of Rotterdam, whose learning
rivalled that of Musurus, and who, outside of Italy, was
far more widely known than the Greek scholar.
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 423
It was in the year 1 500 that the scheme took shape in
the mind of Aldus of an academy which should take the
place in Venice that in Florence was occupied by the
academy instituted by the Medici. The special aim of
the Aldine Academy, to which Aldus gave the name
Ne-accademia Nostra, was the furthering of the interest
in, and knowledge of, the literature of classic Greece.
Aldus himself was the first president of the Academy,
and while the majority of the members were residents
either of Venice or of Padua, the original list included
scholars of Rome, of Bologna, and of Lucca, Greeks of
Candia, Erasmus of Rotterdam, and others from distant
places.
Aldus applied to the Emperor Maximilian for a diploma
giving imperial sanction to the organisation of his Acad-
emy, but the Emperor, although, as is shown in other
correspondence, friendly in his disposition to the printer,
was from some cause unwilling to give an official recog-
nition to the Academy. The constitution of the Academy
was printed in Greek, and certain days were fixed on
which the members gave their personal consideration to
the examination of Greek texts, the publication of which
was judged likely to be of service to scholarship.
With the editorial aid of certain members of the Acad-
emy, Aldus arranged to print each month, in an edition
of one thousand copies, some work selected by the Coun-
cil. This Council, therefore, took upon itself in the
matter of the selection of Greek classics for presentation,
a function similar to that exercised 300 B.C. by the schol-
ars appointed for the purpose in the Academy of Ptolemy
Philadelphus, while some of its functions might be paral-
leled by those exercised to-day by the Delegates of the
Clarendon Press of Oxford. It was the hope of Aldus
that this Venetian Academy would take upon itself larger
responsibilities in connection not only with Greek litera-
ture but with arts and sciences generally. When, how-
424 The Earlier Printed Books
ever, with the death of its president, the Academy lost
the service of his energetic initiative, its work soon came
to a close.
For the sale of his publications, Aldus was in the main
dependent upon direct correspondence with scholars. In
Italy prior to 1550, bookselling hardly existed as an
organised trade, and while in Germany there was a larger
number of dealers in books, and the book-trade had by
1510 already organised its Fair at Frankfort, the com-
munications between Italy and Germany were still too
difficult to enable a publisher in Venice to keep in regu-
lar relations with the dealers north of the Alps. Paris
was probably easier to reach than Frankfort, but the sales
in Paris were not a little interfered with by the Lyons
piracy editions before referred to, and even by piracies of
the Paris publishers themselves. Aldus succeeded, how-
ever, before his death in securing agents who were pre-
pared to take orders for the Aldine classics, not only in
Paris, but in Vienna, Basel, Augsburg, and Nuremberg.
With Frankfort he appears to have had no direct deal-
ings, as his name does not appear in the list of contribu-
tors to the recently instituted Book-Fair.
As an example of a business letter of the time, the
following lines from a bookseller in Treviso, who wanted
to buy books on credit, are worth quoting :
Aide, libros quos venales bene credere possis
Hie pallet multa bibliopola fide.
F or tunis pollet quantum ilia negotia possunt ;
Hoc me, Manuti, credere teste potesl
Ignoras qui sim, nee adhuc sine pignore credis j
Te mcus erga ingens sit tibi pignus amor.
(You have books for sale, Aldus, which you are able to
entrust to me, if as a dealer, you have sufficient faith. This
confidence would secure for you as much business advantage
as is possible in such transactions. You can accept in this
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 425
matter my personal word. You do not know who I am, and
do not make a practice of giving credit. My great regard for
you should, however, serve as a sufficient pledge.) 1
The business of the time was done very largely by per-
sonal correspondence, and as the knowledge of his edi-
tions of the Greek classics came to be spread abroad,
Aldus found himself overburdened with enquiries calling
for personal replies. In order to save time in replying to
such enquiries, Aldus printed on a folio sheet the de-
scriptive titles of his publications with the prices at which
they were offered. This sheet, printed in 1498, was the
first priced catalogue ever issued by a publisher.
The orders that came to Aldus for his books differed
in one important respect from those received by a pub-
lisher or bookseller to-day. The buyers did not write as
a matter of ordinary business routine, or as if they were
conferring any favour upon the publisher in taking his
goods, but with a very cordial sense of the personal obli-
gation that the publisher was, through his undertakings,
conferring upon them and upon all scholarly persons. As
an example of many such letters, I will quote from one
written in 1505, from a Cistercian monastery in the Thur-
ingian Forest, by a scholarly monk named Urbanus :
" May the blessing of the Lord rest upon thee, thou
illustrious man. The high reward in which you are held
by our Brotherhood will be realised by you when you
learn that we have ordered (through the house of Fugger
in Augsburg) a group of your valuable publications, and
that it is our chief desire to be able to purchase all the
others. We pray to God each day that He will in His
mercy, long preserve you for the cause of good learning.
Our neighbour, Mutianus Rufus, the learned Canonicus
of Gotha, calls you * the light of our age,' and is never
weary of relating your great services to scholarship. He
1 Frommann, p. 30.
426 The Earlier Printed Books
sends you a cordial greeting, as does also Magister Spala-
tinus, a man of great learning. We are sending you with
this four gold ducats, and will ask you to send us (through
Fiigger) an Etymologicum Magnum and a Julius Pollux,
and also (if there be money sufficient) the writings of
Bessarion, of Xenophon, and of Hierocles, and the Letters
of Merula." '
Troublesome as Aldus found his correspondence, letters
of this kind must have been peculiarly gratifying as evi-
dence that his labours were not in vain.
He had similar correspondence with the well-known
scholar, Reuchlin, an appreciative friend and a grateful
customer, who in I5oi,^at the time of the first letters,
was resident in Heidelberg, and also with Longinus
and the poet Conrad Celtes in Vienna. The latter was
later of service to Aldus in securing for his Press valu-
able manuscripts from Bohemia, and from certain mon-
asteries in Transylvania. The name of Celtes is further
of note in the literary history of Germany because to him
was issued the earliest German privilege of which there
is record. It bears date 1501, and protected the publi-
cation of an edition by Celtes of the writings of the
Benedictine nun Hroswitha (Helena von Rosso w), who
had been dead for 600 years.
The most famous of the transalpine scholars with
whom Aldus came into relations was, however, Deside-
rius Erasmus, of Rotterdam, or to speak with more pre-
cision, of Europe. Erasmus has many titles to fame, but
for the purposes of this treatise his career is noteworthy
more particularly because he was one of the first authors
who was able to secure his living, or the more important
portion of this, from the proceeds of his writings. The
career of Erasmus belongs properly to the chapter on
Germany, as it was in Basel, at that time a city of the
Empire, that he made his longest sojourn, in close asso-
1 Sagittarii Historia Gothana, Jena, 1701, quoted by Frommann, 43.
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 427
ciation with his life-long friend Froben, the scholarly
publisher whom Erasmus called the " Aldus of Germany."
In 1506, Erasmus, who had been in England for a
second visit, came to Italy, where he lectured in the
Universities of Bologna and Padua, and from Padua he
was induced by Aldus to transfer himself to Venice.
There he remained during the year 1508, making his
home with the publisher, and rendering important service
as a literary adviser and in editorial work. There is no
record of any formal or continued business arrangement
between the scholar and the publisher, and it is very
possible that no such arrangement took shape.
Erasmus took charge of the preparation for the press,
among other works, of the Aldine editions of Terence,
Seneca, Plutarch's Morals, and Plautus. For his work on
the Plautus he tells us that he received twenty pieces
of gold (i. e., ducats). Later, however, he denied with
some indignation, in writing to Scaliger, that he had
worked as a " corrector " or proof-reader for Aldus. It
should be borne in mind that in connection with the
many difficulties in securing from more or less doubtful
manuscripts trustworthy texts, and in educating composi-
tors to put such texts correctly into type, the work of
reviser, press-corrector, or proof-reader, in the earlier days
of printing, demanded a very high standard of scholar-
ship and a wide range of knowledge. There was, there-
fore, no reason why Erasmus should have been ashamed
to admit that he had done work of this kind. Some
years later he gave to his friend Froben, the great pub-
lisher of Basel, similar service and co-operation. The
intimate relations of Erasmus with Aldus and Froben,
by far the greatest publishers of the time, had no little
influence in furthering the world-wide circulation secured
for his works.
While in Venice, Erasmus also supervised the printing
of a revised edition of his Adagia (Proverbs) which ap-
428 The Earlier Printed Books
peared in 1 508. For this work, Aldus obtained a privilege
both in Venice and in Rome, and there were printed in
Venice alone eight editions. When, however, in 1520,
Paul Manutius undertook again to reprint the Adagia,
he found that he had to contend with an increasing
hostility on the part of the Church against anything
bearing the name of Erasmus. The book was finally
issued anonymously, and it was described in the catalogue
as the work of " Batavus quidam homo " (a certain Hol-
lander).
In 1512, Aldus printed, under the instructions of Eras-
mus, (who was, however, at that time no longer in Italy)
the Colloquies and the Praise of Folly. There is unfor-
tunately no record of the publishing arrangement arrived
at for these, but as Erasmus complained bitterly of the
loss and injury caused to the author through the wide
sale of the piracy issues, it is fair to assume that he had
reserved an interest in the authorised editions. In the
introduction to his Adagia, Erasmus writes as follows:
" Formerly there was devoted to the correctness of a
literary manuscript as much care and attention as to the
writing of a notarial instrument. Such care and precision
were held to be a sacred duty. Later, the copying of
manuscripts was entrusted to ignorant monks and even
to women. But how much more serious is the evil that
can be brought about by a careless printer, and yet to this
matter the law gives no heed. A dealer who sells English
stuffs under the guise of Venetian is punished, but the
printer who in place of correct texts, misleads and abuses
the reader with pages the contents of which are an actual
trial and torment, escapes unharmed. It is for this reason
that Germany is plagued with so many books that are
deformed (*. ^., untrustworthy). The authorities will
supervise with arbitrary regulations the proper methods for
the baking of bread, but concern themselves not at all as
to the correctness of the work of the printers, although
The Printer- Publishers of Italy 429
the influence of bad typography is far more injurious than
that of bad bread."
The relations of Aldus with Johann Reuchlin were
longer and more intimate than with Erasmus. It was
natural enough that the scholar who may properly be
called the founder of Greek studies in Germany, should
have come into close relations with the publisher who had
undertaken to produce Greek texts for Europe and who
had founded a Greek academy in Venice. In 1498, Aldus
printed the Latin oration which Reuchlin had addressed
to Pope Alexander VI., in behalf of the Prince Palatine
Philip, and from that date the two men remained in
regular correspondence with each other. In 1502, Aldus,
writing to Reuchlin (who was at that time in Pforzheim),
gives, as to a trusted friend upon whose sympathy and
intelligent interest he could depend, the details of his
publishing undertakings and of his plans and hopes for
the future, and asks for counsel on various points. A few
months later, in another letter, Aldus writes :
" I am hardly able to express my gratification at your
friendly words concerning the importance and the value
of my publishing undertakings. It is no light thing to
secure the commendation of one of the greatest scholars
of his time. If my life is spared to me, I hope more
fully to deserve the praise that you give to me for service
rendered to the scholarship and enlightenment of the
age."
Reuchlin was not only a friendly counsellor of the
Venetian publisher, but a valuable customer also for his
books. In addition to purchasing for his own library a
full series of the Aldine editions, Reuchlin appears to
have interested himself keenly in commending these to
his scholarly acquaintances, not only, as he states, in
order to encourage a great undertaking, but for the pur-
pose of doing service to German students. In 1509,
Reuchlin was appointed by the Duke of Bavaria, Professor
430 The Earlier Printed Books
of Greek and Hebrew in the University of Ingolstadt,
the first professorship of Greek instituted in Germany.
Reuchlin said more than once that the work of his Chair
had been made possible only through the service rendered
by Aldus in providing the Greek texts.
The influence of Aldus not only on the publishing
standards but on the scholarly and literary conditions of
Germany, was in fact widespread and important. Kapp,
the historian of the German book-trade, speaks of it as
more important than that of all the German publishers of
his generation. This influence was due not only to the
publishing undertakings of the Aldine Press, but to the
intimate relations maintained by its founder with many
of the German scholars, relations which helped to estab-
lish a community of interests between the literary centres
of Italy and Germany and to direct German scholarship
into new paths. The separation of political boundaries
had no significance for a man with the humanitarian ideals
of Aldus, while the fact that Latin was the universal lan-
guage of scholarship and of literature, helped not a little
to bring about that community of feeling among scholars
which was the special aim of the Venetian publisher. In
1502, Aldus writes to John Taberio, in Brescia:
" I am delighted to learn that so many men of distinc-
tion in the great city of Brescia are, under your guidance,
devoting themselves with ardour to Greek studies. The
expectations with which I undertook the publication of
Greek texts are being more than realised. I am, in fact,
not a little astonished to find that even in these sad times
of war in which my undertakings have been begun, so
many are found ready to give the same ardour to schol-
arly pursuits that they are giving to fighting against the
infidel and to civil strife. Thus it happens that even
from the midst of war arises literature, which has for so
many years lain buried. And it is not only in Italy, but
also in Germany, in France, in Pannonia, in Spain, and in
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 431
England, and wherever the Latin language is known,
that young and old are devoting themselves to the study
of Greek. The joy that this brings to me causes me to
forget my fatigues, and redoubles my zeal to do what is
in my power for the service of scholarship, and particu-
larly for the students who are growing up in this time of
the renaissance of letters."
During the first years of the sixteenth century, the dif-
ficulties in the transmission either of merchandise or of
money were many. The packages of books which Aldus
had occasion to send to Reuchlin in Stuttgart, for in-
stance, came forward sometimes by way of Milan, Vienna,
or Basel, and later through Augsburg. The Augsburg
banking-house of Fugger, founded about 1450, possessed
in 1500 (and for half a century thereafter) connections
which enabled them to take charge not only of what we
should call mercantile bills and banking credits, but also
of the forwarding and delivery of the goods against which
the bills were drawn. They carried on what to-day would
be called an express business, and in a majority of in-
stances the instructions were evidently to make collec-
tions on delivery. During the first half of the sixteenth
century, the Fuggers, with their branch houses in Flor-
ence, Venice, and Genoa, supplied the most valuable
machinery for the transaction of business between Italy
and Germany. These communications, however, were of
necessity very frequently interrupted by the troubles of
the times.
In 1510, Mutianus Rufus writes to Urban that "in con-
nection with the conflicts between the French and the
Venetian soldiers, the passes of the Alps have been
blocked, so that literature from Venice can no longer find
its way into Germany. I had hoped with the next Frank-
fort Fair, to be able to place in the hands of my students
the beautiful Aldine editions. But my hopes were in
vain. When the Fair was opened, there was not a single
432 The Earlier Printed Books
volume from Italy. We shall be able this spring to do
nothing in our classical schools. Oh, the stupidities of
war!"
In 1514, the Elector Frederic the Wise of Saxony
applied to the several powers interested for a safe con-
duct for his librarian, Spalatin, whom he desired to send
to Venice to purchase directly from Aldus the Aldine
classics for the library of Wittenberg. Some difficulties
intervened, however, as Spalatin appears never to have
reached Venice. It was doubtless due to the long-con-
tinued wars between the Emperor and the States of
Italy, that Aldus was unable, during his own lifetime, to
establish direct agencies in Germany for his publications.
We find record of such agencies in Frankfort, Basel,
Augsburg, and Nuremberg, first in the time of his son,
agencies which were extended by the grandson.
The active work of Aldus extended over a period of
twenty years, from 1495 to 1515. This time included the
wars of 1500, 1506, 1510, and 1511, in which Venice was
directly engaged, wars which had of necessity much to do
with the interference with his business, and with the dif-
ficulties, of which he makes continual complaint, in secur-
ing returns for his sales. " For seven years," writes Aldus
in 1510, " books have had to contend against arms."
There appears to have been no single year of the twenty
in which he was free from pressing financial cares, while
from time to time the work of the presses and in the
composing room came to an actual standstill for want of
funds. During these twenty years he printed not less
than 126 works which previously existed only in manu-
script form, and the manuscript copies of which had to
be secured and carefully edited.
It is probable that Aldus, in his own enthusiasm con-
cerning the value and importance of the re-discovered
classics, had overestimated the extent of the interest that
could be depended upon for these classics throughout
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 433
the world. It is evident, however, that there were
enough scholars in Italy, Germany, France, and the Low
Countries, to assure a widespread demand for the Aldine
editions, and that the larger part of the publisher's diffi-
culties consisted in the lack of convenient machinery for
making known to these scholars the fact that such
books had been prepared, for the delivery of such copies
as might be ordered, and for the collection of the pay-
ments due.
Another serious difficulty with which Aldus had to
contend was the competition of the piratical copies of
his editions which promptly appeared in Cologne, Tub-
ingen, Lyons, and even so close at home as Florence.
The most serious interference with his undertakings ap-
pears to have come from the printers of Lyons, who in
their enterprising appropriations from Paris on the one
hand and from Nuremberg, Basel, and Venice on the
other, speedily won for their city notoriety as the centre
of piratical publishing. The Lyons printers printed edi-
tions of the Aldine Latin classics, making a very close
imitation of the cursive or italic type, and issued the
volumes without imprint, date, or place of publication.
The privileges secured from the government of Venice
had effect, of course, only in Venetian territory. Privi-
leges were given by the Pope for a number of the Aldine
publications, and these covered, in form, at least, not only
the States of the Church but the territory of all States
recognising the papal authority, while the penalties for
infringing such papal privileges were not infrequently
made to include excommunication. There was, how-
ever, no machinery by means of which the papal author-
ity could be brought to bear upon Catholics infringing or
disregarding the privileges, and as a fact the papal privi-
leges proved of very little service in protecting the literary
property either of Aldus or of later literary workers. A
further word concerning the privileges issued in Venice
ti
434
The Earlier Printed Books
and in the other States of Italy will be given in a later
division of this narrative.
Apart from this important work in the scholarly and
editorial divisions of publishing, Aldus made several dis-
tinctive contributions to the art of book-making. He
was, as before stated, the first printer who founded com-
plete and perfect fonts of Greek type, fonts which for
many years served as models for the printers of Europe.
He invented the type which was first called cursive, and
which is known to-day as italic, a type having the advan-
tage of presenting the text in a very compact form. (The
cursive font was said to have been modelled on the script
of Petrarch.) And finally, he was the first publisher who
ventured upon the experiment of replacing the costly and
cumbersome folios and quartos, in which form alone all
important works had heretofore been issued, with con-
venient crown octavo volumes, the moderate price of
which brought them within the reach of scholars of all
classes and helped to popularise the knowledge and the
influence of classic literature. This constituted a prac-
tical revolution in publishing methods.
Aldus had possibly read the remark of Callimachus, the
librarian of the Alexandrian library in 290 B.C., that
" A big book is a big nuisance." These Aldine classics,
while printed in octavo (*". e. t upon a sheet folded in
eights), were of a size corresponding more nearly to what
would to-day be known as a sixteenmo, the size of the
sheet of paper being smaller than that used to-day. Aldus
had no presses which would print sheets large enough to
fold in sixteen or even in twelve. The price of these
small octavos averaged three marcelli or two francs, say
forty cents. Making allowance for the difference in the
purchasing power of money between the year 1500 and
the year 1895, I judge that this may represent about
$2.00 of our currency.
For centuries the Aldine editions served as the authori-
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 435
tative texts for the authors presented, and even to-day
they stand as a wonderful monument of the imagination,
the learning, the courage, and the persistency of their
publisher. Good Italian though he were, Aldus was by
some of his countrymen charged with want of patriotism
on the ground that if he helped to make the study of
the classics easy for the Barbarians of the outer world,
they would no longer need to come for their learning to
Italy, heretofore the centre and source of all scholarly
enlightenment. To this effect writes Beatus Rhenanus
in his introduction to the Works of Erasmus :
Quidam Venetiis olim Aldo Manutio comment arios Greg-
cos in Euripidem et Sophoclem edere paranti dixit : Cave,
cave hoc facias, ne barbari istis adjuti domi maneant et
pauciores in Italiam ventilent.
Kapp is of opinion that the dread was well founded and
that the distribution throughout Germany and France
of popular editions of the classics, did have the result of
keeping at home many students who would otherwise
have crossed the Alps. That they were now able to secure,
at moderate cost and in their own homes, learning for
which heretofore they had been obliged to make long
and costly journeys, was due to the unselfish and public-
spirited labours of Aldus. It was, therefore, with good
reason that he was held in high regard by the Humanists
of Germany. They sought his friendship and nearly
overwhelmed him with correspondence. In 1498, Conrad
Celtes and Vincenzo Longinus commemorated his service
in verse. Aldus thanked them for their courtesy, and in
sending them as an acknowledgment copies of his Horace
and Virgil, he asked them to bring him into communica-
tion with any scholarly Germans who were interested in
the classics. Aldus did not, however, consider it wise to
print the ode of eulogy that Celtes had written upon
the Emperor Maximilian, because he was afraid of caus-
ing offence to the Bohemians and Hungarians through
436 The Earlier Printed Books
whose scholars he had secured not a few rare manu-
scripts.
Throughout Germany the productions of the Aldine
presses were received with enthusiasm. Mutianus Rufus
speaks of himself as weeping with joy when there came
to him from a friend the precious gift of the editions of
Cicero, Lucretius, and other classics. He and his friends
Urban and Spalatin deprived themselves almost of the
necessaries of life, in order to save moneys with which to
bring across the Alps the other volumes of the series.
Pirckheimer and Reuchlin were among the first of the
German buyers of the Aldine classics. Hummelsburger
writes in 1512 to Anselm in Tubingen, "I shall buy my
Hebrew books in Italy, where Aldus has printed them in
beautiful texts. . . . Germany no less than Latium owes
a great debt to Aldus."
The political status of Italy and its division into a
number of states or principalities which carried on inde-
pendent policies and which were frequently in active war-
fare with each other, entailed serious difficulties upon the
new business of publishing, difficulties which, while
troublesome enough for Aldus in Venice, were still more
serious for his competitors in Florence and Milan. A
privilege secured for Venice was not binding even in times
of peace outside of Venetian territory, while in the fre-
quently recurring times of war, any privileges which a
Venetian or a Milanese publisher had been fortunate
enough to secure in the Italian States were abrogated
* in fact if not in form. In this respect, the early pub-
lishers of Paris, whose privileges covered (nominally at
least) the territory of the kingdom, had a decided ad-
vantage over their rivals in the much divided territory
of Italy or of Germany.
Aldus had the feeling, for which in his case there
appears to have been sufficient ground, that his business
undertakings, with which were connected far-reaching
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 437
plans for furthering scholarly knowledge, were absolutely
dependent upon his own continued and persistent per-
sonal attention. While he had succeeded in securing the
services of scholarly associates to share with himself the
editorial responsibilities of his work, he does not appear
to have been able, with the material at his command,
to train up any assistants competent to take any import-
ant share in the business management. One of his many
complaints concerning the repeated interruptions which
interfere with his important daily labours, might have
been uttered by many a publisher of later times. He
writes in 1514 (the year before his deatM to his friend
Navagerus :
" I am hampered in my work by a thousand interrup-
tions. . . . Nearly every hour comes a letter from some
scholar, and if I undertook to reply to them all, I should
be obliged to devote day and night to scribbling. Then,
through the day come calls from all kinds of visitors.
Some desire merely to give a word of greeting, others
want to know what there is new, while the greater num-
ber come to my office because they happen to have noth-
ing else to do. ' Let us look in upon Aldus,' they say
to each other. Then they loaf in and sit and chatter to
no purpose. Even these people with no business are
not so bad as those who have a poem to offer or some-
thing in prose (usually very prosy indeed) which they
wish to see printed with the name of Aldus. These
interruptions are now becoming too serious for me, and
I must take steps to lessen them. Many letters I simply
leave unanswered, while to others I send very brief re-
plies ; and as I do this not from pride or from discour-
tesy, but simply in order to be able to go on with my
task of printing good books, it must not be taken hardly.
. . . As a warning to the heedless visitors who use up
my office hours to no purpose, I have now put up a big
notice on the door of my office to the following effect :
438 The Earlier Printed Books
4 Whoever thou art, thou art earnestly requested by Aldus,
to state thy business briefly and to take thy departure
promptly. In this way thou mayst be of service even as
was Hercules to the weary Atlas. For this is a place of
work for all who may enter/ '
Aldus Manutiusdied January 25, 1515, (Venetian style,
corresponding to February 6, 1515, modern style) aged
sixty-five years. Until 1529, the business was carried on
for the heirs by his father-in-law, Torresano, and in that
year was taken over by Paul Manutius, the son of Aldus.
In 1540, Paul took into partnership his son, Aldus the
younger, and the firm took the title of Aldi Filii. With
the death of Aldus the grandson, in 1 597, the family, in
its main line, became extinct, and the work of the Aldine
Press, which had continued for a little more than a cen-
tury, came to a close. To his children, Aldus was able to
bequeath little besides his fame and the value of his
name. The moneys that had been earned during his
work of twenty-five years from the successful undertak-
ings had been for the most part absorbed in other ven-
tures which were either unremunerative, or from which the
returns came but slowly. The carrying out of such great
publishing plans required, in fact, business connections
and methods which did not yet exist, and was dependent
also upon the continuance of peace in Europe for a quar-
ter of a century, an impossible condition for the begin-
ning of the sixteenth century.
In entering upon business ventures under such difficult
circumstances, Aldus was doubtless, from a business point
of view, unwisely optimistic ; but it is difficult not to ad-
mire the public spirit and the pluck with which, in the
face of all difficulties, he persisted till the day of his death
in the great schemes he had marked out for himself.
While his work had brought no wealth, his life had been
rich in the accomplishment of great things and in the ap-
preciation given to his labours. It was also his fortune to
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 439
gather about him and to come into relations with many
noteworthy men, who as friends and co-workers shared his
enthusiasm, and who gave with him unselfish labour for a
scholarly ideal. Partly because the editors and the pub-
lishers were working for results other than profits, partly
because the books published were (with a few noteworthy
exceptions, like the writings of Erasmus) not original works,
but editions of old classics, and partly because the whole
business of publishing was still in its infancy, the history
of the Aldine Press does not present any important pre-
cedents as to the compensation earned by authors for
their productions, or as to the protection of the author's
property rights in these productions. The relations of
Aldus with all the authors, editors, and scholars with
whom he had to do were however more than satisfactory ;
they were cordial, resting in a number of cases on a close
personal friendship. The scholars regarded the publisher
as one of themselves, and, in fact, accepted him as a leader.
It is evident that Erasmus, whose writings formed an
important property, was satisfied with the returns secured
for him by Aldus. He speaks with cordial appreciation
of the services rendered by his " authorised publishers,"
Aldus of Venice, and Froben of Basel, and speaks further
of the losses caused to himself by the competition of the
piracy reprints of Lyons and Paris. It appears, therefore,
that he retained a continued interest in the sale of his
authorised editions, but unfortunately no details of his
publishing arrangements have been preserved.
The history of the publishing work of Aldus, while not
presenting precedents for royalty or copyright arrange-
ments, constitutes nevertheless a very important chapter
in the history of property in literature. Aldus was able,
by combining skilled editorial labour with selected classics,
to create a great literary property, which needed only dis-
tributing machinery and a peaceable Europe to become
commercially valuable. He set the example also, for
440 The Earlier Printed Books
Italy at least, of securing privileges in each of the Italian
States possessing any literary centres, and although he
was not always able to prevent piratical reprinting on the
part of his competitors in Florence, or even always to
keep out of other cities in Italy the piracy editions from
Lyons, he accomplished something towards the ideal of a
copyright that should hold good for Italian territory. He
even had hopes of securing, through the authority of the
Pope, a system of copyright that should prove effective
in all Catholic States, and it was not until long after
Aldus's death that the attempts to establish a Catholic
copyright system were given up by publishers as practi-
cally futile.
His latest biographer, Didot, himself both a fine scholar
and a great publisher, contends that Aldus accomplished
more than the greatest scholars of his time for the spread
of learning and the development of literature ; and the
testimony of the three great scholars who were contem-
poraries and near personal friends of the Venetian pub-
1 lisher, Musurus, Reuchlin, and Erasmus, fully bears out
M. Didot's opinion. It was the exceptional combination
of a creative imagination and scholarly knowledge with
practical business ability and unfailing pluck and persis-
tency, that enabled the young tutor to create the Aldine
Press, the work of which will cause to be held in con-
tinued honour, in the history alike of scholarship and of
publishing, the memory of Aldus Manutius.
The Successors of Aldus. Paul Manutius, the son
of Aldus, continued for some years the business of the
Aldine Press, giving special attention to editions of the
writings of Cicero. In 1561, he accepted an invitation
from Pope Pius IV. to come to Rome and to take charge
there of the publication of the writings of the Fathers of
the Church, and of such other works as might be selected.
The amount required for the organisation of an adequate
printing-office was to be supplied from the papal treasury.
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 441
Paul was to receive an annual stipend of 500 ducats, to-
gether with one half of the net profits realised from the
sales of the works published, and the contract was to con-
tinue for twelve years.
An interesting series of letters has been preserved,
written by Paul to his brother Manutius in Asola, and to
his son, Aldus the younger, in Venice. These letters,
which are quoted by Renouard, Frommann, and Didot,
contain a number of details and references which throw
light not only upon the personal relations of the writers,
but upon the business conditions of the time. We learn
that Paul was a good deal of an invalid throughout his
working years, and we gather the impression that his
feeble health was an important ground for the apparent
lack of ambition which made him willing to give up his
work as an independent publisher in Venice and to accept
the position of Pope's printer in Rome.
We also learn that his son Aldus, while bright-wit ted,
was lacking in persistency and in industry. The young-
ster never, in fact, accomplished anything of importance.
Paul had himself inherited the scholarly .tastes of his
father, and had received a good classical education, but
he does not appear to have possessed very good business
faculty, and he made no distinctive mark as a publisher.
The Pope had, however, asked for his aid rather as a
scholarly editor than as an experienced man of business.
Pius appears to have been impressed with the belief
that the printing-press, under scholarly management,
could be made of service to the cause of the Church in
withstanding the pernicious influence of the increasing
mass of the publications of the German heretics. These
Protestant pamphlets and books were not merely under-
mining the authority of the Church in Germany, Switzer-
land, and France, but were even making their way into
Italy itself. The first issues of the Aldine Press in Rome
were the Decrees of the Council of Trent, in a variety of
44 2 The Earlier Printed Books
editions, the writings of Cyprian, and the letters of S.
Jerome.
Pius V., who in 1565 succeeded Pius IV., was equally
favourable to the undertakings of the printing-office, and
gave to Paul the necessary support. The work was car-
ried on in a building which was the property of the
municipality, and some issues arose with the magistrates
concerning its continued use as a printing-office. From
a letter dated September 27, 1567, it appears that the
magistrates had required that Paul should pay taxes or
license-fees on his printing business, which they classed
as a trade. He took the ground that printing was not a
trade but an art, and that it was so defined in the invita-
tion given to him to come to Rome, and in the agreement
executed with him by the Pope. He contended, further,
that, as the Pope's printer, whose work was devoted to
the Church, he was in any case entitled to exemption
from the municipal taxes imposed on traders. The Pope
does not appear to have fully backed up his printer in
this contention, and a compromise was finally arrived at
under which a portion of the proceeds of the business
was paid to the magistracy. The precise terms of the
arrangement are not clearly stated, but it seems probable
that the half share of the profits previously payable to
the papal treasury was divided into two portions, one of
which went to the municipality.
The profitable part of the business was in the printing
of the official editions of the Catechisms and Breviaries.
Paul complains, in fact, that the presses are so occupied
,with the work of the Breviaries, that he is not able to
make progress with the printing of his own Commentaries
on the Letters of Cicero. In June, 1568, Paul writes to
his son Aldus, who was now of age, expressing his regret
that the young man was not interested in devoting him-
self to carrying on the printing-office in Venice. Aldus
had, it seems, expressed a preference for the study of law.
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 443
The business in Venice was finally turned over to Basa,
who paid, for a term of five years, twenty scudi gold a
month for the use of the existing material and for the
good-will.
In July, 1569, difficulties began to accumulate about
the printing-office in Rome. The Pope was less inter-
ested and the magistrates were troubling the office with
what Paul calls unintelligent interference. There were,
in fact, too many parties interested in the management
of the business to enable its control to be easily or con-
sistently exercised. Paul's health was also failing seri-
ously and he was longing for rest and for leisure to carry
on his scholarly undertakings. In 1570, the ownership
of the receipts of the printing-office was somewhat simpli-
fied, the change being probably due, in part at least, to
the representations of Paul that the many-headed control
was unworkable.
In May, 1570, Paul writes rather pathetically to Aldus :
" In my case, scholarship and industry have never brought
rest or fortune. ... I pray God that you may be
better favoured. ... I must beseech you, however, to
put away childish things. It is full time that you recalled
to yourself the honourable traditions of our family. . . .
My own active work must be nearly over."
In June, of the same year, he again counsels Aldus,
who had for some time been betrothed, to make a speedy
marriage, and then to concentrate himself upon the work
of the printing-office in Venice. He advises against a
a plan that the young man had in view, of opening a
retail book-shop. He emphasises, however, that there is
no chance of success for a printer-publisher without the
most persistent and arduous labour.
In 1571, Paul's failing strength compelled him to leave
Rome, resigning (as he hoped, for a time only) the in-
come of the papal printing-office. He devoted the winter
months to the completion of his Commentaries on the Ora-
444 The Earlier Printed Books
tions of Cicero. The work was published in 1578-9 (after
the author's death) by his son Aldus in Venice, and,
under arrangement, by Plantin in Antwerp. The nego-
tiations with Plantin had been completed by Paul. He
had specified the form and style of the Antwerp edition,
and had arranged to take his share of the profits in the
shape of a royalty on the sales.
In 1572, Paul being yet in Milan, one of his hopes was
fulfilled in the marriage of his son Aldus. " Now," he
wrote, " I can pass my days in peace. I feel hopeful for
your future and rejoice that our line is to be continued."
Later in the year, with no little difficulty (partly on the
ground of his feeble health, and partly because of the
floods and wretched roads) he made his way to Venice
for a brief visit. He wanted to see his son's wife, and he
desired also to give personal instructions for the printing
of his Commentaries. " I feel very hopeful," he writes,
" concerning the sale of my Cicero, and hopeful also that
it will not be reprinted (in piracy editions) during my
lifetime."
Paul was obliged to leave Venice before the printing of
his work was begun, and the letter written after the re-
ceipt of the first sheets expresses his bitter disappoint-
ment at the manner in which this all-important commis-
sion had been attended to. " If you had had in your
hands some utterly contemptible scribble," he writes,
" you could hardly have printed it in a more tasteless and
slovenly style . . . and you knew I had this under-
taking so much at heart ! . . . I have instructed Basa
to burn all the sheets that have been printed, and to print
these signatures again, with a proper selection of type
and on decent paper."
Aldus the younger seems never to have had his heart
fairly in his business, and under his management (or lack
of management), the prestige of the Aldine Press in
Venice fell off sadly. He appears to have been extrava-
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 445
gant, or at least uncalculating, in his expenditures, and
was also spending moneys which he could ill afford, not
like his grandfather for manuscripts and type, but for
clothes and artistic curiosities.
Paul had accepted the pressing invitation of the new
Pope, Gregory XII., to resume his place as manager of
the printing-office in Rome, but with less exacting duties,
and with a fixed salary. A plan was even talked over
between the Pope and Paul for the establishment of an-
other printing-office, which should be devoted entirely to
the publication of classical works and of " expurgated "
editions of works, portions of which had been condemned
in the Index. Paul was to act as editor and supervisor
of the series, because his name was already recognised as
that of a scholarly authority. The scheme never, how-
ever, took shape. Paul's strength failed rapidly, and he
died in the spring of 1574.
While he had devoted many years to his business as a
printer-publisher, and had maintained the reputation of
his name for a high standard as well of typography as of
scholarly writing, his own preference had been for a
scholarly rather than a business career. He went on with
the work of his Press very largely because he felt that it
was a duty he owed to his father's name and memory.
His own memory is, however, chiefly to be honoured for
his scholarly edition of Cicero, with its comprehensive
and analytical commentaries, an edition which long re-
mained the accepted authority for Europe.
A few years after the death of Paul, his son Aldus gave
up the attempt to carry on the Press in Venice, a work
for which he had never been really fitted, and accepted a
position in the University of Bologna, as professor of
archaeology. The printing business was sold, and the
Aldine Press, after a century of work, came to an end.
Milan. During the fifteenth century, Italy presents a
curiously complex and varied series of pictures and con-
446 The Earlier Printed Books
ditions. We find, together with constantly recurring
civil strife, successive wars of invasion from the North
and from the East, and in the train of the frequent armies,
those inevitable camp followers, pestilence, famine, and
misery. To the contests against the French and German
invaders and the strifes between states and cities, were
added schism and discord in the Church itself, and there
were long periods during which pope was contending
against anti-pope for the right to rule the world as the
infallible head of an infallible church. Yet these years,
when the land was troubled by schism and devastated by
strife and pestilence, were years during which the cities
of Italy were becoming rich with an active and prosper-
ous trade ; while it was also at this time that the art of
Italy brought forth its greatest production and that the
development of its literature made most important ad-
vances. The vitality of the people was so exuberant, its
productive force so enormous, that notwithstanding the
frightful waste caused by war and pestilence, its energies
were still sufficient for some of the greatest of artistic
creations, for active and scholarly work in the new learn-
ing and literature, and for a sharp competition for the
leadership of the world's commerce and industries. A
typical example of the life and strife of the time is af-
forded by Milan, the capital of Lombardy. Its position
as the northernmost of the great cities and in the centre
of the open territory of the plains, exposed it to the first
attacks of invaders from across the Alps, while the ambi-
tion of the rulers and of the people kept it in frequent
strife with its Italian rivals. Its trade seems to have con-
tinued active, however, (except when armies were actu-
ally at its gates) and while in art more important work
was done in Florence, the first steps in the new literature,
that is, in the literature connected with printing, were
taken in Lombardy.
The first printing in Milan was done in 1469 by Philip
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 447
of Lavagna, who was followed in 1470 by Antonio Zaro-
tus. In the printing of books Milan holds precedence,
therefore, over all the towns of Italy except Subiaco and
Rome, antedating Venice by about a year. The publish-
ing undertakings of the Lombardy capital never, how-
ever, rivalled in importance those of Venice. In 1476,
Paravisinus, printed an edition of the Greek Grammar of
Laskaris, the first volume printed in Europe in Greek
characters. In the previous volumes containing Greek
text, this had been printed in Latin characters. The edi-
tor of the Grammar was Demetrius, a refugee from Crete.
He was also the editor of the first edition in Greek of
Homer. The first Missal was printed by Zarotus in 1475.
While in Rome the work of printing was begun by a
German and in Venice by a Frenchman, the first printers
in Milan were native Italians. Among the earlier of the
Lombard printer-publishers, we find the name of Alexan-
der Minutianus, a learned professor, who devoted him-
self to the editing of a valuable series of Latin classics,
and whose publishing activities extended over a term of
twenty years. Minutianus published in 1498-99, in four
folio volumes, the first complete edition of Cicero. The
relations of Milan with the cities north of the Alps were
more intimate at this time than those of any other Italian
city, and it was natural, therefore, that as the printing
business in Lombardy increased in importance, Ger-
man printers should begin to seek employment there.
The first whose name is recorded was Waldorfer (or Val-
darfer) from Regensburg, whose work began in 1474, and
who brought with him fonts of Gothic type. Waldorfer
printed an edition of Pliny s Letters and a selection of the
Orations of Cicero. These were followed by the Commen-
tary of Servius on Virgil, and by the first issue in print of
the famous Decameron of Boccaccio. The Decameron had
been written in 1353, anc * had, therefore, waited 120
years for a publisher. In 1493, Henricus Germanus and
448 The Earlier Printed Books
Sebastian Pontremulo printed the first Greek edition of
Isocrates. In Milan, however, work in law, science, and
medicine constituted a more important proportion of the
earlier publications than in Venice or in Rome. The De
Honate Brothers were printing as early as 1472, works in
jurisprudence, and Frommann is of opinion that before
1480 several firms were devoting their presses exclusively
to the departments of law and science. In 1472, a
company was formed for the printing and publishing of
books, probably the first publishing association in existence.
There were at first five members or associates, as follows :
Antonio Zarotus, a printer from Parma; Gabriel degli
Orsoni, a priest; Colla Montana, an instructor in the
High School (he was concerned some years later in
the murder of the Duke Galeazzo Maria); Pavero de'
Fontana, a professor of Latin, afterwards editor of Hor-
ace ; and Pedro Antonio de' Burgo, of Castiglione, a
lawyer. Subsequently a sixth associate was added,
Nicolao, a physician and a brother of the last named.
The Association was organised for a term of three
years and its purpose was stated to be the instituting of
a print ing-office, with not less than four presses, and the
carrying on of a book-manufacturing and publishing
business. The capital was to be contributed in equal
shares by four of the associates, the printer, Zarotus,
investing no money, but contributing his knowledge of
the business and undertaking its general management.
The printer was to receive one third of the net proceeds,
and the remaining two thirds were to be divided equally
among his four associates. From the printer's share were
to be repaid the first expenditures contributed by the
other four. The subsequent expenditures were to be
met by the sales of the books. The person acting as
corrector for the press, usually one of the scholarly asso-
ciates, secured as his compensation one or two copies of
the work corrected.
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 449
The selection of the books to be printed was to be
made by the unanimous decision of the whole board, and
the selling price was also to be fixed by the board. The
organisation was to remain secret, and all employees
were to take an oath of secrecy and obedience. Each
member bound himself to give no council or aid to any
other publishing concern and to print no work with
another printer except under the permission of his asso-
ciates. At the termination of the agreement, the printer
was to have a right to purchase at a valuation the presses
and the manuscripts.
The capitalist of the concern was the lawyer Antonio
de' Burgo, and he found the funds (100 ducats) with
which the first operations were initiated. Under a sup-
plementary agreement, the lawyer Burgo and his brother
the physician assumed for their individual account one
half of the rent of the premises and purchased three
additional presses. These presses were kept at work
exclusively in the production of a series of works in the
departments of law and medicine. The printer Zarotus
took charge of the manufacture of these books for the
brothers Burgo, in addition to those printed for the
Association. The editorial work in selecting the mate-
rial and in preparing them for the press was cared for by
the Burgos, who also appear to have attended to the
publishing details.
The brothers paid over to the treasury of the Associa-
tion twenty-five ducats for the use of the plant (type,
etc.) outside of the presses, and were to pay also one
fourth of the proceeds of the sales of their series. Each
associate was also to receive a copy of each book printed.
The brothers agreed to print no books excepting in the
departments of canon and civil law and of medicine, and
the Association was to include in its list no works in these
departments. The penalty for infringing this provision
was fixed at 200 ducats.
450 The Earlier Printed Books
The brothers were not at liberty to dispose of their
portion of the printing-office to any other parties. At
the end of three years, the presses and publications
belonging to the two Burgos were transferred, on an
appraisal, to Zarotus.
No records have been preserved of the results of their
undertakings, or of those of the Association as a whole.
The fact, however, that as early as 1472, only eight years
after the introduction of printing into Italy, there should
have been sufficient business, or even expectation of busi-
ness, to warrant the organisation of such a publishing
company, is certainly noteworthy, if only as evidence of
the intellectual activity and business enterprise of the
Italy of the fifteenth century. It is curious also that
special provision should have been made for legal and
medical publications, as the literary interests of the period
of the Renaissance, which had so much influence in fur-
thering the activities of the earlier Italian printers, were
so largely classical.
It was necessary for the first publishers to be both
printers and scholars, and this necessary condition of
early publishing undertakings, the association of adequate
scholarship with technical knowledge required for the
making of books, was fully provided for in the Milan
company, which included, as we have seen, two classical
professors, one theologian, one jurist, and one physician.
More than a century later, in 1589, was organised the
Guild of the Printers, Publishers, and Booksellers of Milan.
During the hundred years that had passed since the print-
ing-press began its work in Lombardy, the city had known
various rulers, and had, for a brief term, enjoyed inde-
pendence. By far the larger portion of the century had
been for Lombardy periods of turmoil, and the years of
uninterrupted peace had been few. It was, therefore, not
surprising that the business of the production of books
had developed more rapidly and more prosperously in
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 451
Venice, Rome, and Bologna, which were from their posi-
tion better protected against the mischances of war.
In 1589, Lombardy was a portion of the great Spanish
Empire, and (as it contained few heretics) it was enjoying
under the rule of Philip II., a period of peace and of
comparative prosperity. The charter of the Guild or
Corporation of the Printers and Publishers was confirmed
by King Philip himself. The Stationers' Company of
England had received its charter from Queen Mary in
1556, or thirty-three years earlier. The Guild of the Ve-
netian Printers dated from 1548, and was the earliest
association of the kind in Europe. The affairs of the
Guild of Milan were managed by a board of directors,
comprising a Prior, a Bursar, and two Councillors. The
Board had charge of the property of the corporation, and
was responsible also for the protection of its privileges
under the charter, and for the defence of any of its mem-
bers whose rights might be assailed. It rested also with
the Board to see that the regulations of the Corporation
were properly carried out, and in the event of any assess-
ment being laid upon the organised Printers and Pub-
lishers, it was the duty of the Bursar to apportion the
payments equitably among the members of the Guild.
To the Board was also given authority to adjudicate
disputes not only between members of the Guild, but
between the members and outsiders, and its jurisdiction
extended over the entire duchy. From the decisions of
the Board there was, as a rule, no appeal. In case, how-
ever, the issue involved any complicated questions of law,
so that it became necessary for the Board to call in the
counsel of a jurist, an appeal could be made from the
decision arrived at to a special court of arbitration, which
was also, however, to be made up of members of the
Guild. The roster of the Guild was in the special con-
trol of the Prior, and this record was of special import-
ance, because no one whose name was not on this roster
45 2 The Earlier Printed Books
as a member in good standing was permitted to print or
to sell books in Milan, under a penalty for each offence of
fifty gold scudL
No one was eligible for membership who had not served
an apprenticeship of eight years to a printer or book-
dealer in Milan. The fee for admission was, for one born
in Milan, thirty lire, for others one hundred lire.
One purpose of the organisation of the Guild was to
prevent the competition of foreign printers and booksellers
from breaking down the trade of the Milanese. A more
legitimate object was to keep the business of printing,
publishing, and selling books in the hands of trained men
of high character, good education, and technical training,
who should conduct their work in a manner worthy of the
repute of Milan. It had been the complaint that many
unworthy and unskilled men had crowded into the busi-
ness of making and selling books, lowering the standard
of the trade and diminishing the profits. It was com-
plained also that the paper-manufacturers or paper-dealers
had undertaken to sell books, notwithstanding a specific
statute prohibiting them from so doing. The royal com-
missioner, whose sanction was required to validate on
behalf of the King the regulations of the new Guild,
stipulated, however, in confirming the renewal of this
prohibition, that the paper-makers should still be per-
mitted to sell certain special books which had for some
years been in their hands, but that no other publications
must be sold by any paper-dealer who had not secured
membership in the Guild as a properly qualified book-
seller.
It is not easy, after an interval of three centuries, to
decide whether this undertaking for the closer organisa-
tion of the book-trade was really prompted, as was con-
tended, by the desire to keep on the highest possible
plane the business of making and selling books, or
whether it was the result of a selfish desire on the part
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 453
of the older Milanese dealers to increase their profits and
to keep out competitors. It is probable there was a mix-
ture of motives, but it is certain that in Milan, as in other
book centres, the formation of the Guild gave an import-
ant incentive to printing and publishing, improved the
quality of the work done, and tended to keep the business
in the hands of a good class of men, and it is evident also
that such results must have brought advantages also to
the general public.
The more important of the regulations of the Guild can
be summarised as follows :
1. No member of the Guild shall reprint or shall sell any
book issued by another member, provided such book has not
before been printed in Milan, and provided also that the edi-
tion claiming protection shall itself have been printed in Milan.
A book printed outside of the duchy cannot secure the pro-
tection of a Milanese privilege. The penalty for infringement
is the forfeiture of the copies printed and the payment of ten
gold scudi.
2. Each publication shall bear the imprint of its printer or
publisher (usually, of course, the same person).
3. Apprentices and assistants must be registered on the
records of the Guild.
4. The sale of books in any places other than the registered
shops or places of, business is forbidden ; and the purchase of
books from apprentices or from any not known to be duly
authorised dealers is also made a misdemeanour.
5. The sale of books on Sundays or holidays, either in the
shops or in the dwellings, is forbidden.
6. No printer or dealer must use for his sign a token identi-
cal with or closely similar to that already in use with an
authorised printer or dealer.
These regulations appear to have had the desired effect
of repressing if not of entirely exterminating the busi-
ness of the unauthorised printers and traders. In 1614,
however probably for the purpose of impressing a fresh
454 The Earlier Printed Books
generation of unauthorised traders, the Guild secured a
fresh royal edict, which again confirmed the authority of
the Guild and enjoined, under heavy penalties, the strictest
obedience to its regulations.
Frommann points out that in the application for this
new decree, the Guild no longer lays stress upon the
necessity of upholding the dignity and honourable stan-
dard of the book-trade, but emphasises the risk to the
Church and to the community of believers if uneducated
and irresponsible persons, not familiar with the lists of
forbidden works, should be permitted to print or to sell
books. Experience had evidently made clear to the pub-
lishers that with a government like that of Spain (which
might be described as despotism tempered by the Inqui-
sition) this class of considerations would be much more
influential than any thought of upholding the dignity of
the business of making and selling books.
The petitioners make reference to the decree accom-
panying the latest Index Expurgatorius, which forbids
any one from carrying on business as a printer, publisher,
or bookseller, who has not taken oath before the ecclesi-
astical superiors or the Inquisitor of his district to con-
duct his business in full loyalty to the holy Catholic
Church, and to give explicit obedience to all the decrees
and enactments of the Church and of the Inquisitor for
the regulation and supervision of the press.
The petitioners go on to state that this edict of the
Church has largely fallen into disregard because ordinary
traders, merzeranii, uneducated and irresponsible men,
not trained to the book-business and having no know-
ledge of or no respect for the Index Expurgatorius, have
been allowed to print and to sell books, to the detriment
not only of the legitimate book-trade, but of the Church
and of the community. The King (Philip III.) appears
to have agreed with the Guild that this interference with
an organised book-trade (which from the very fact of its
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 455
organisation could be and was effectively supervised by
the Church) constituted a very dangerous abuse.
The new edict, with its severe penalties, and with the
effective co-operation of the local inquisitors and other
ecclesiastics, appears to have had the effect desired. We
hear no more from the publishers of Milan about irre-
sponsible competition, and the business prospered as far
as was practicable within the rather narrow limits fixed
by the censorship of the Church. .The most noteworthy
productions of the Milanese presses between the years
1500 and 1700, were, as stated, in the departments of
jurisprudence and medicine. The greater activity of pub-
lishing in these two departments may very possibly have
been in part due to the fact that they were less affected
by the ecclesiastical censorship.
Lucca and Foligno. The little city of Lucca is
entitled to mention in connection with the introduction
of printing into Italy, if only because it was the only
city in Italy (and possibly the only one in Europe), in
which the new art secured the direct support and co-op-
eration of the government in the form, first of a munici-
pal decree in favour of the printing-press, and secondly of
a direct subvention from the municipal treasury in encour-
agement of the first printer. The printer was Clemente,
a native of Padua, who was engaged in business in Lucca
as a scribe and illuminator. It was made a condition of
the appropriation (the amount of which is not stated)
that the printer, who was to be classed as a public func-
tionary, was to hold himself in readiness to teach the art
to all who might desire to learn. Clemente established
his press in Lucca in 1477, and printed there in that year,
an edition of the Triumphs of Petrarch. He had previ-
ously printed in Venice a work by John Mesne, of
Damascus, on universal medicine, a large folio of 400
pages.
A still smaller city than Lucca, Foligno in Umbria,
456 The Earlier Printed Books
enjoys the distinction of having received as its first
printer, Johann Numeister, who had been a pupil and
assistant of Gutenberg himself. After the death of his
master, Numeister came to Italy with the intention of
setting up a press in Rome. He was induced to settle at
Foligno at the instance of Orfinis, a wealthy citizen, who
supplied the funds necessary for the undertaking. The
first publication of the Foligno Press was Leonardi Aretim
Bruni de Bello Italico adversus Gotkos, which bears date
1470.
The imprint states that the book was "printed by
Numeister in the house of Emilianus de Orfinis." The
second work selected was an edition of the Divina Corn-
media of Dante, the manuscript copy of which had been
collated and corrected for the press by Orfinis. Orfinis
died in 1472, just before the printing of the Cotnmedia
was completed. Numeister paid a tribute to his patron
in the last line of the rhyming imprint :
Nel milla quatro cente septe e due
Nel quarto mese ; a di cinque et set,
Questa opera gentile impresso fue y
lo maestro J^ohanni Numeister opera dei
Alia dicta impressione, et meco fue^
El Elfuginato, Evangelista met.
Humphreys interprets the words " Evangelist mine " as
standing for " the one who made me known to the
world. " ' M. Bernard writes, " better Evangelist than I
am." The last volume bearing the name of Numeister
was an edition of Torquemada's Contemplations. With
his death in 1479, the brief record of the press of Foligno
comes to a close.
Florence. Florence, which for a century or more had
been the centre of the intellectual life of Italy, and which
presented in its great collection of manuscripts, its central
1 Humphreys, 117.
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 457
position, and its important trade connections, distinctive
advantages for the work of book-publishing, was compar-
atively late in giving attention to the new art, and the
issues from the Florentine presses before the close of the
fifteenth century, were much less important than those of
Venice and of Milan.
The first book printed in Florence, a commentary on
Virgil, by Servius, bears date 1471. It was issued by
Bernardo Cennino, and appears to have been his sole
publication.
Cennino was by trade a goldsmith, and had been asso-
ciated with Ghiberti in the work on the famous gates of
the Baptistery. 1 An enthusiast about the artistic pre-emi-
nence of Florence and of Italy, he was said to have
been jealous of the glory that had come to Germany
through the invention of printing, and he determined to
master the art without German aid. 8 In the colophon to
his work, he describes the labour of the creation of his
press, a labour which included the engraving of the steel
punches and the casting of the type. His publishing
venture was costly and probably unprofitable, and he
appears to have printed no second book. He continued,
1 however, in connection with his trade as a goldsmith, the
work of engraving punches for type.
The German printers speedily found their way to Flor-
ence as they had already done to Rome, Venice, and
Milan. In 1472, a certain Peter, describing himself as
" de Moguntia," (of Mayence) printed an edition of the
Philocolo of Boccaccio, and in the same year, he issued the
Triumphs of Petrarch.
The subscription reads : " Master Peter, son of John of
Mayence, wrote (scripsit) this work in Florence, the I2th
day of November, 1472."
1 Humphreys, 121.
f Lorck, C. B., Handbuch der Gesch. der Buclidritiker-Kunst, 13, Leip-
zig, 1882.
458 The Earlier Printed Books
Humphreys points out that this imprint is an example
of the habit of the early printers of considering their art
as a kind of magical writing rather than as a mechanical
contrivance.
The most important of the early printer-publishers of
Florence was Nicholas of Breslau. In 1477, he published
Bettini's Monte Sancto di Dio, which, according to
Humphreys, presents the first example of illustrations by
means of engraved plates. In 1478, Nicholas published
an edition of Dante, the most elaborate that had yet
appeared. Dante had evidently already taken possession
of the intellectual interest of Italy, and as early as 1472,
no less than three editions had appeared. The fact that
the poetry of Dante was given to the public in Italian,
secured for it a much wider range of popular appreciation
than was within reach of works written in Latin. The
same was true of the works of Boccaccio and of Petrarch,
which, with the aid of the printing-press, promptly came
into the hands of large circles of readers. Petrarch was
first printed in 1470, and Boccaccio in 1471, and thereafter
editions of both authors followed rapidly.
In 1474, a press was set up in the monastery of San
Jacopo di Ripili, near Florence, by two monks of the
Brotherhood of S. Dominic. The greater part of the
books printed by them were distributed among the mon-
asteries as gifts or in exchange, but as the reputation of
their publications increased, they found it necessary to
accept orders from booksellers and from the outside
public. Later, they added a type-foundry to their plant.
A family whose work proved of long-continued import-
ance for the literary interests of Florence and of Italy
was that of the Giuntas. The name (which also appears
in the chronicles as Giunti, Junta, and Zonta) remained
associated with the business of publishing for one hun-
dred and sixty years, or for half a century longer than
the term of activity of the descendants of Aldus Manutius.
The Printer-Publishers of Italy 459
The family has frequently been credited to Lyons, but,
according to the later authorities, it had originated in
Florence, or had at least been resident in Florence for a
number of generations previous to the establishment of
its printing-press. Members of the family instituted
printing concerns in Florence and Venice, later in Lyons,
and finally in Burgos, Salamanca, and Madrid. The
founder of the Florence concern was Filippo, who was
born in 1450 (the year of the completion of Gutenberg's
printing-press) and died in 1517. His publications se-
cured for themselves a high repute for typographical
excellence. They were modelled very closely on those
of the Aldine Press, the productions and the ideas of
which were freely " appropriated." The Giuntas were in
fact for some years the most skilful, and possibly the
most unscrupulous competitors of Aldus. The first dated
publications of Filippo Giunta was the Epitome Proverbi-
orum of Zenobius, which was issued in 1497. This was
followed by a series of Greek, Latin, and Italian classics.
For a number of the Greek and Latin volumes Giunta
utilized the Aldine texts, securing without labour or ex-
pense the value of the literary judgment and of the edit-
orial work contributed from the office of Aldus. He
also followed pretty closely the typographical models of
the Aldine classics. The Giunta House in Lyons made
an important place for itself among the earlier printer-
publishers of France, and took its full share in the special
class of undertakings to which (as elsewhere specified) the
publishing trade of Lyons particularly devoted itself,
namely the " appropriation " and reproduction of the
books of the Paris publishers on the one hand, and of
those of Italy on the other.
The design or printer's mark of the Giuntas consisted
of an heraldic lily borne by two wingless angels.
Genoa. The first printing-office in Genoa was estab-
lished in 1471 by a German from Olmutz, named Moravus,
460 The Earlier Printed Books
who associated with himself, in 1474, an Italian named
Michael da Monaco. The scribes, or manuscriptists, as
they called themselves, made a vigorous protest against
the new art. They addressed, in 1471, a petition to the
magistracy in which they prayed to be protected from
the competition of these newly arrived printers, at least
as far as the production of Breviaries, Donati, and Psalters
was concerned, as upon the multiplication of these they
depended for their livelihood. Humphreys states that the
original of this petition is still in existence. 1 The record
of the reply given by the magistrates has not been pre-
served.
The printers were evidently not forbidden to print these
books of service, as editions were speedily produced. The
influence of the scribes appears, however, in the end, to
have been sufficient to establish a kind of cabal against
the printers, and in the course of a year or two the Ger-
man gave up the attempt and removed his press to
Naples. There was doubtless in all the Italian cities a
large measure of jealousy and opposition on the part of
the old librariii stationarii, and scriptores, but Genoa ap-
pears to have been the only city where they were strong
enough actually to drive out the printers, at least for a
time.
The first Hebrew Bible printed in Europe was issued in
Soncino in 1488, from the press of Abraham Colonto. It
is described as a very fine piece of typography and as
noteworthy for the artistic chapter-headings and for the
elaborate decorations of the marginal borders of the
pages.
1 Humphreys, 124.
END OF VOLUME I.
The Question of Copyright
Comprising the text of the Copyright Law of the United
States, and a summary of the Copyright laws at present
in force in the chief countries of the world ; together
with a report of the legislation now pending in Great
Britain, a sketch of the contest in the United States,
1837-1891, in behalf of International Copyright, and
certain papers on the development of the conception of
literary property aud on the results of the American law
of 1891.
COMPILED BY
GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM, A.M.,
Secretary of the American Publishers' Copyright League.
Second Edition, revised, with additions, and with the record of
legislation brought down to March, 1896, octavo, gilt top, $1.75
CONTENTS. The law of Copyright in the U. S. in force July i, 1895. Direc-
tions for securing Copyright. Countries with which the U. S. is now in Copyright
relations. Amendments to the Copyright Act since July i, 1891. Summary of
Copyright legislation in the U. S., by K. R. Bowker. History of the contest for
the provisions of the Actof 1891. Extracts from the speeches in the debates of 1891.
Results of the law of 1891 (considered in January 1894). Summary of the inter-
national Copyright cases and decisions since the Act of 1891. Abstract of the
Copyright laws of Great Britain, with a digest of the same by Sir James Stephen.
Report of the British Copyright Commission of 1878. The Monkswell Copy,
right bill of 1890. with an analysis by Sir Frederick Pollock. The Berne Conven-
tion of 1887. The Montevideo Convention of 1889.. The Nature and Origin of
Copyright, by R. R. Bowker. The Evolution of Copyright, by Brander Mat-
thews. Literary Property : an historical sketch. Statutory Copyright in England,
by R. R. Bowker. Cheap Books and Good Books by Brander Matthews. Copy-
right and the Prices ot Books. Copyright "Monopolies" and Protection.
States which have become parties to the Convention of Berne. Summary of the
existing Copyright laws of the world (March, 1896). The status of Canada in
regard to Copyright, January, 1896. General Index.
NOTICES.
A perfect arsenal of facts and arguments, carefully elaborated and very effec-
tively presented. . . . Altogether it constitutes an extremely valuable history
of the development of a very intricate right of property, and it is as interesting as
it is valuable. AT. y. Nation.
A work of exceptional value for authors and booksellers, and for all interested
in the history and status of literary property. Christian Register.
Until the new Copyright law has been in operation for some time, constant re-
source must be had to this workmanlike volume. The Critic.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
New York : 27 West 23d St. London : 24 Bedford St., Strand
Authors and Their Public
In Ancient Times
A Sketch of Literary Conditions and of the Relations with
the Public of Literary Producers, from the Earliest Times
to the Fall of the Roman Empire.
By GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM, A.M.
Author of " The Question of Copyright," " Books and their Makers
During the Middle Ages," etc.
Third Edition, Revised, 12, gilt top .... $1.50
NOTICES.
The Knickerbocker Press appears almost at its best in the delicately simple
and yet attractive form which it has given to this work, wherein the chief of a
celebrated publishing house sketches the gradual evolution of the idea of literary
property. . . . The book abounds in information, is written in a delightfully
succinct and agreeable manner, with apt comparisons that are often humorous,
and with scrupulous exactness to statement, and without a sign of partiality
either from an author's or a publisher's point of view. Neva York Times.
A most instructive book for the thoughtful and curious reader. . . . The
author's account of the literary development of Greece is evidence of careful
investigation and of scholarly judgment. Mr. Putnam writes in a way to instruct
a scholar and to interest the general reader. He has been exceptionally successful
in describing the progress of letters, the peculiar environment of those who are
interested in the career of the dramatist and the philosopher, and that habit of
mind characteristic of Hellenic life. Philadelphia Press.
A most valuable review of the important subject of the beginnings of literary
prosperity. The book presenU also a powerful plea for the rights of authors.
The beginnings of literary matters in Chaldea, Egypt, India, Persia, China, and
Japan are exhibited with discrimination and fairness and in a very entertaining
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authors and their public. New York Observer.
The work shows broad cultivation, careful scholarly research, and original
thought. The style is simple and straightforward, and the volume is both attrac-
tive and valuable. Richmond Times.
The volume is beautifully printed on good paper. . . . Every author
ought to be compelled to buy and read this bright volume, and no publisher
worthy of the name should be without it. Publishers' Circular \ London.
The book is one that will commend itself to every author, while at the same
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