Read Ebook: Bibliomania in the Middle Ages by Merryweather F Somner Frederick Somner

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ubts, and who, heedless of patristical lore and saintly wisdom, devoured the spiritual food in its pure and uncontaminating simplicity--such students, humble, patient, devoted, will be found crowding the monastic annals, and yielding good evidence of the same by the holy tenor of their sinless lives, their Christian charity and love.

But how different is the picture now--how opposite all this appears to the aspect of bible propagation in our own time. Thanks to the printing-press, to bible societies, and to the benevolence of God, we cannot enter the humblest cottage of the poorest peasant without observing the Scriptures on his little shelf--not always read, it is true--nor always held in veneration as in the old days before us--its very plentitude and cheapness takes off its attraction to irreligious and indifferent readers, but to poor and needy Christians what words can express the fulness of the blessing. Yet while we thank God for this great boon, let us refrain from casting uncharitable reflections upon the monks for its comparative paucity among them. If its possession was not so easily acquired, they were nevertheless true lovers of the Bible, and preserved and multiplied it in dark and troublous times.

Our remarks have hitherto applied to the monastic scribes alone; but it is necessary here to speak of the secular copyists, who were an important class during the middle ages, and supplied the functions of the bibliopole of the ancients. But the transcribing trade numbered three or four distinct branches. There were the Librarii Antiquarii, Notarii, and the Illuminators--occasionally these professions were all united in one--where perseverance or talent had acquired a knowledge of these various arts. There appears to have been considerable competition between these contending bodies. The notarii were jealous of the librarii, and the librarii in their turn were envious of the antiquarii, who devoted their ingenuity to the transcription and repairing of old books especially, rewriting such parts as were defective or erased, and restoring the dilapidations of the binding. Being learned in old writings they corrected and revised the copies of ancient codices; of this class we find mention as far back as the time of Cassiodorus and Isidore. "They deprived," says Astle, "the poor librarii, or common scriptores, of great part of their business, so that they found it difficult to gain a subsistence for themselves and their families. This put them about finding out more expeditious methods of transcribing books. They formed the letters smaller, and made use of more conjugations and abbreviations than had been usual. They proceeded in this manner till the letters became exceedingly small and extremely difficult to be read." The fact of there existing a class of men, whose fixed employment or profession was solely confined to the transcription of ancient writings and to the repairing of tattered copies, in contradistinction to the common scribes, and depending entirely upon the exercise of their art as a means of obtaining a subsistence, leads us to the conclusion that ancient manuscripts were by no means so very scarce in those days; for how absurd and useless it would have been for men to qualify themselves for transcribing these antiquated and venerable codices, if there had been no probability of obtaining them to transcribe. The fact too of its becoming the subject of so much competition proves how great was the demand for their labor.

These public scribes derived their principal employment from the monks and the lawyers; from the former in transcribing their manuscripts, and by the latter in drawing up their legal instruments. They carried on their avocation at their own homes like other artisans; but sometimes when employed by the monks executed their transcripts within the cloister, where they were boarded, lodged, and received their wages till their work was done. This was especially the case when some great book was to be copied, of rarity and price; thus we read of Paulinus, of St. Albans, sending into distant parts to obtain proficient workmen, who were paid so much per diem for their labor; their wages were generously supplied by the Lord of Redburn.

In the college of Navarre a great quantity of ancient documents are preserved, many of which relate to this curious subject. They were deposited there by M. Jean Aubert in 1623, accompanied by an inventory of them, divided into four parts by the first four letters of the alphabet. In the fourth, under D. 18, there is a chapter entitled "Des Libraires Appretiateurs, Jurez et Enlumineurs," which contains much interesting matter relating to the early history of bookselling. These ancient statutes, collected and printed by the University in the year 1652, made at various times, and ranging between the years 1275 and 1403, give us a clear insight into the matter.

In these times of free trade and unrestrained commercial policy, we shall regard less favorably a regulation which they enforced at Paris, depriving the bookseller of the power of fixing a price upon his own goods. Four booksellers were appointed and sworn in to superintend this department, and when a new transcript was finished, it was brought by the bookseller, and they discussed its merits and fixed its value, which formed the amount the bookseller was compelled to ask for it; if he demanded of his customer a larger sum, it was deemed a fraudulent imposition, and punishable as such. Moreover, as an advantage to the students, the bookseller was expected to make a considerable reduction in his profits in supplying them with books; by one of the laws of the university, his profit on each volume was confined to four deniers to student, and six deniers to a common purchaser. The librarii were still further restricted in the economy of their trade, by a rule which forbade any one of them to dispose of his entire stock of books without the consent of the university; but this, I suspect, implied the disposal of the stock and trade together, and was intended to intimate that the introduction of the purchaser would not be allowed, without the cognizance and sanction of the university. Nor was the bookseller able to purchase books without her consent, lest they should be of an immoral or heretical tendency; and they were absolutely forbidden to buy any of the students, without the permission of the rector.

But restricted as they thus were, the book merchants nevertheless grew opulent, and transacted an important and extensive trade; sometimes they purchased parts and sometimes they had whole libraries to sell. Their dealings were conducted with unusual care, and when a volume of peculiar rarity or interest was to be sold, a deed of conveyance was drawn up with legal precision, in the presence of authorized witnesses.

In those days of high prices and book scarcity, the poor student was sorely impeded in his progress; to provide against these disadvantages, they framed a law in 1342, at Paris, compelling all public booksellers to keep books to lend out on hire. The reader will be surprised at the idea of a circulating library in the middle ages! but there can be no doubt of the fact, they were established at Paris, Toulouse, Vienna, and Bologne. These public librarians, too, were obliged to write out regular catalogues of their books and hang them up in their shops, with the prices affixed, so that the student might know beforehand what he had to pay for reading them. I am tempted to give a few extracts from these lists:

St. Gregory's Commentaries upon Job, for reading 100 pages, 8 sous. St. Gregory's Book of Homilies, 28 pages for 12 deniers. Isidore's De Summa bona, 24 pages, 12 deniers. Anselm's De Veritate de Libertate Arbitrii, 40 pages, 2 sous. Peter Lombard's Book of Sentences, 3 sous. Scholastic History, 3 sous. Augustine's Confessions, 21 pages, 4 deniers. Gloss on Matthew, by brother Thomas Aquinas, 57 pages, 3 sous. Bible Concordance, 9 sous. Bible, 10 sous.

This rate of charge was also fixed by the university, and the students borrowing these books were privileged to transcribe them if they chose; if any of them proved imperfect or faulty, they were denounced by the university, and a fine imposed upon the bookseller who had lent out the volume.

This potent influence exercised by the universities over booksellers became, in time, much abused, and in addition to these commercial restraints, they assumed a still less warrantable power over the original productions of authors; and became virtually the public censors of books, and had the power of burning or prohibiting any work of questionable orthodoxy. In the time of Henry the Second, a book was published by being read over for two or three successive days, before one of the universities, and if they approved of its doctrines and bestowed upon it their approbation, it was allowed to be copied extensively for sale.

Stringent as the university rules were, as regards the bookselling trade, they were, nevertheless, sometimes disregarded or infringed; some ventured to take more for a book than the sum allowed, and, by prevarication and secret contracts, eluded the vigilance of the laws. Some were still bolder, and openly practised the art of a scribe and the profession of a bookseller, without knowledge or sanction of the university. This gave rise to much jealousy, and in the University of Oxford, in the year 1373, they made a decree forbidding any person exposing books for sale without her licence.

The first specimens we have of an attempt to embellish manuscripts are Egyptian. It was a common practice among them at first to color the initial letter of each chapter or division of their work, and afterwards to introduce objects of various kinds into the body of the manuscript.

The splendor of the ancient calligraphical productions of Greece, and the still later ones of Rome, bear repeated testimony that the practice of this art had spread during the sixth century, if not earlier, to these powerful empires. England was not tardy in embracing this elegant art. We have many relics of remote antiquity and exquisite workmanship existing now, which prove the talent and assiduity of our early Saxon forefathers.

In Ireland the illuminating art was profusely practised at a period as early as the commencement of the seventh century, and in the eighth we find it holding forth eminent claims to our respect by the beauty of their workmanship, and the chastity of their designs. Those well versed in the study of these ancient manuscripts have been enabled, by extensive but minute observation, to point out their different characteristics in various ages, and even to decide upon the school in which a particular manuscript was produced.

FOOTNOTES:

Martene Thesaurus novus Anecdot. tom. iv. col. 1462.

See Du Cange in Voc., vol. vi. p. 264.

Anglia Sacra, ii. 635. Fosbrooke Brit. Monach., p. 15.

Hildesh. episc apud Leibuit., tom. i. Script. Brunsvic, p. 444. I am indebted to Du Cange for this reference.

King's Munimenta Antiqua. Stevenson's Suppl. to Bentham, p. 64.

Matt Paris, p. 51.

Warton's Hist. Eng. Poetry, p. cxiv. Regest. Nig. St. Edmund. Abbat.

Stevenson's Sup. to Bentham's Church of Norwich, 4to. 1817, p. 51.

Martene de Ant. Eccl. Ritib., cap. xxi. tom. iii. p. 263.

Alcuini Opera, tom. ii. vol. i. p. 211. Carmin xvii.

Preface to AElfric's Homilies MS. Lansdowne, No. 373, vol. iv. in the British Museum.

Const. Can. Reg. ap. Martene, tom. iii. p. 263.

MS. Harl. 6395, anecdote 348.--I am indebted to D'Israeli for the reference, but not for the extract.

Muratori Dissert. Quadragesima tertia, vol. iii. column 849.

Astle's Origin of Writing, p. 193.--See also Montfaucon Palaeographia Graeca, lib. iv. p. 263 et 319.

In the year 1300 the pay of a common scribe was about one half-penny a day, see Stevenson's Supple. to Bentham's Hist. of the Church of Ely. p. 51.

Nosti quot Scriptores in Urbibus aut in Agris Italiae passim habeantur.--Ep. cxxx. See also Ep. xliv. where he speaks of having purchased books in Italy, Germany and Belgium, at considerable cost. It is the most interesting Bibliomanical letter in the whole collection.

Epist. lxxi. p. 124, Edit. 4to. His words are--"Cum Dominus Rex Anglorum me nuper ad Dominum Regum Francorum nuntium distinasset, libri Legum venales Parisius oblati sunt mihi ab illo B. publico mangone librorum: qui cum ad opus cujusdam mei nepotis idoner viderentur conveni cum eo de pretio et eos apud venditorem dismittens, ei pretium numeravi; superveniente vero C. Sexburgensi Praeposito sicut audini, plus oblulit et licitatione vincens libros de domo venditories per violentiam absportauit."

Chevillier, Origines de l'Imprimerie de Paris, 4to. 1694, p. 301.

Chevillier, p. 301, to whom I am deeply indebted in this branch of my inquiry.

Hist. Lit. de la France, tom. ix. p. 84. Chevillier, p. 302.

The form of oath is given in full in the statute of 1323, and in that of 1342, Chevillier.

Du Breuil, Le Th??tre des Antiq. de Paris, 4to. 1612, p. 608.

Chevillier, p. 303.

Martene Anecd. tom. i. p. 502. Hist. Lit. de la France, ix. p. 142.

Chevillier, 319, who gives a long list, printed from an old register of the University.

Chevillier, 303.

Vet. Stat. Universit. Oxoniae, D. fol. 75. Archiv. Bodl.

The Church of Norwich paid ?22, 9s. for illuminating a Graduale and Consuetudinary in 1374.

See a Fragment in the Brit. Mus. engraved in Shaw's Illuminated Ornaments, plate 1.

Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 437. Mr. Maitland, in his "Dark Ages," enters into a consideration of this matter with much critical learning and ingenuity.

D'Israeli Amenities of Lit., vol. i. p. 358.

Leonardi Aretini Epist. 1. iv. ep. v.

Mehi Praefatio ad vit Ambrosii Traversarii, p. xxxix.

Mehi Praef., pp. xlviii.--xlix.

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