Volume 1 — 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 existed during the sixth century. F. J. Mone finds references to such trade in the chronicles of Cæsarius of Arles.[308] 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.[309]

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-dealers in Italy as late as the sixth century.[310] 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 have a bearing upon this belief in the continuation of some literary interests in Italy:

Hoc servant Itali post prima crepundia cuncti,

Et sudare scholis mandatur tota juventus.

Solis Teutonicis vacuum vel turpe videtur,

Ut doceant aliquem, nisi clericus accipiatur. [311]

(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 Italos, 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 statio, from which is derived the term stationarii, indicating scribes whose work was done in a specific workshop 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.[312]

In such work-shops, while the chief undertaking was the production of books, the scribes were ready to prepare 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 could be obtained on order and in which the machinery for their production continued to exist. In 658, S. Gertrude ordered for the newly founded monastery at Nivelle certain sacred volumes to be prepared in the city of Rome.[313] Beda reports that the Abbot Benedict of Wearmouth, 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 number 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 journeys, and in 678, and again in 685, brought back fresh collections. The collections secured on his last journey included even certain examples of the profane writers.[314]

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 Testament.[315] 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 beautiful 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 Ælbert of York (766-780):

Non semel externas peregrino tramite terras,

Jam peragravit ovans, Sophiæ deductus amore,

Si quid forte novi librorum seu studiorum,

Quod secum ferret, terris reperiret in illis.

Hic quoque Romuleam venit devotus ad urbem.[316]

(More than once he has travelled joyfully through remote regions and by strange roads, led on by his zeal for knowledge, and seeking to discover in foreign lands novelties 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 Emperors, books were from time to time brought back to Germany. Certain volumes referred to by Pez 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,[317] and of a more important 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 determine how far the works secured were the remnants of old libraries or collections, or how far they were the productions 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 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.[318] S. Jerome, a century later, when he was sojourning in Bethlehem, found similar difficulty. He had among his monks some zealous scribes, but he complained that their work was untrustworthy.[319]

Abbot Lupus of Ferrières 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 libraries, 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.[320] 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 evidently took the ground that where books were concerned, a term of one thousand years was not sufficient to constitute a “statute of limitations.”

Louis IX. of France is quoted as having taken the ground that books should be transcribed rather than borrowed, 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.[321]

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 manuscript. 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 fifteenth 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 manuscript had been prepared for general use instead of under special order.[322]

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 retained for the use of his descendants, as he gave instructions in his will that after his death the books should be sold.

One of the oldest illuminated Irish manuscripts is that of S. Ceaddæ. 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 Madrid and thence to Stockholm; according to the record, it had, before the purchase above mentioned, been saved out of the hands of Norman pirates.[323] 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 interest 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 purchases 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 Gregory V.). Abbot Albert of Gembloux, who died in 1048, states that he brought together, at great cost, as many as one hundred and fifty manuscripts.[324]

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.[325]

Notwithstanding the very strict regulations to the contrary, 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 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, Conrad Winkler, in 1344, succeeded in getting back a portion of the books, by the payment of 27 pounds heller, and 15 pfennigs.[326] 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 announced 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 Heidelberg 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.[327]

The Bishop of Speier rented to the precentor of the 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 Chapter 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.[328]

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 provinciam, sed per regnum Franciæ, Teutoniæ et Italiæ comparavimus dispersorum faciliter pecunia prævolante, nec eos ullatenus impedivit distantia neque furor maris absterruit, nec eis æs pro expensa defecit, quin ad nos optatos libros transmitterent vel afferrent.[329]

(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, 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 exercised by them over the scribes, it is evident that a book-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 Filelfi, 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 manuscripts, including with the older texts verified copies which had been prepared under their own direction.[330] 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 Constantinople and with the East having given it an early interest in this particular class of Eastern productions.

Joh. Arretinus 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 quem postulas omnes tabernas librarias perscrutatus reperire nondum potui.[331] (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 translation of the Bible that he had been trying to get hold of:

Jam Bibliothecas omnes et bibliopolas requisivi ut si qua veniant ad manus eligam quæque optima mihi significent. (I have already searched all the libraries and book-shops in order to select from the material at hand the manuscripts which are for me the most important.)

Ambrogio Traversari wrote in 1418 in Florence:

Oro ut convenias bibliopolas civitatis et inquiri facias diligenter, an inveniamus decretales in parvo volumine.[332] (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 bibliopola 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 century 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 Constantinople. When the Turkish armies crossed the Bosphorus, a number of the Greeks seem to have lost hope 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 scholarly 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 preserved in the Byzantine cities, not a few of the more enterprising dealers in manuscripts, and many also of the wealthier and more enterprising of the scholarly noblemen and merchants, themselves sent emissaries to search the 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.[333] The philosophy and the poetry which formed the texts of the lectures 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 association 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 manufacturing books. Among such paper-making publishers is to be noted Francesco Cartolajo, who was in business in Florence in 1507, and whose surname was, of course, derived 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 association with the Brothers Brushi, united his printing-office with their paper factory.

Fillippo Giunta, one of the earlier publishers in Florence, calls himself librarius et cartolajus. 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 pecias, 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 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 diffused, 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, nowhere 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 correctness, 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 books should be placed freely at the disposal of visitors desiring to make transcripts of the same. Such a condition appears in the will of Bonaccorsi,[334] while a similar condition was quoted by Poggio[335] in his funeral oration upon Niccolo d’ Niccoli, as having been the intention of Niccolo for the books bequeathed by him to his Florentine fellow-citizens.

Foreign collectors who did not find it convenient themselves 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 forwarded to Buda.[336] 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.[337]

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.[338] 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 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 dollars.[339]

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 manifolding of manuscripts. Bartholomæus 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.[340] 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.[341]

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 important, however, than that of either Florence or Milan, was the manuscript trade of Venice, the position of which city gave it exceptional advantages as well for the collection 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 manuscript dating from 1450 and containing the speeches of Demosthenes.[342]

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 Plantinerus, who was sent to the Peloponnesus in 1415, and who succeeded in securing there some valuable codices.[343] 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 facilities 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. Rood 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 fifteenth century with the literary marts of Southern Europe.

Celatos, Veneti, nobis transmittere libros

Cedite, nos aliis vendimus, O Veneti—[344]

(If you Venetians will send over to us the books which have been hidden (i. e. difficult or rare books, or possibly books unearthed from far off Eastern regions) we will find sale for the same.)

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 manuscript 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,[345] instances of scribes preparing their manuscripts from printed “copy,” and there are examples of these manuscript copies of printed books being made with such literalness 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 influence upon the distribution of Greek literature, was insufficient to supply the eager demand of the scholars, while not many other printers were, in the early years of the 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 literature 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 business 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 especially important: Antonius Dazilas, Cæsar 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:

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, containing a treatise of Paul Orosius, originally written in the seventh century, and from which this copy was transcribed early in the thirteenth, there is at the end an inscription, as follows:

Confectus codex in statione magistri Viliaric antiquarii,

Ora pro me scriptore, sic dominum habeas protectorem.[346]

(This codex was completed in the stall of Master Viliaric, 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 Minghinus 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 Noscimpax, 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 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 university 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 Bartholomæus Brixiensis:

Emi hunc librum anno domini MCCCC die XXI. 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.[347]

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 scriptoris careat gravitate doloris.

Detur pro penna scriptori pulchra puella.[348]

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.[349] 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 manuscripts 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 librarii, 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-dealers 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 literary 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 collecting of manuscripts, and the clients to whom he supplied 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 Florentiæ transcribendum curavit. (Vespasian, a Florentine librarius, 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 Florentiæ. (Vespasian, a Florentine librarius, had this book written in Florence.)

Both codices are beautiful examples of the best manuscript work of the period.[350]

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 collection of two hundred works, he employed forty-five scribes for a term of twenty-two months.[351] 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 manuscript-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 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 Infortiatum.

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.[352]

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 employment 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 and 1460 a business in the sale of manuscripts. His inscription appears on a number of classical codices of the time, and in a manuscript of Horace, dating from the twelfth century, the owner makes reference that he purchased the same in 1458 from Jacob, the Hebrew librarius.[353]

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 of Celsus. A copy of the latter was bought for Vespasiano 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 themselves 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 1390 the inscription of Gabriel Ravenna, librarius, appears in a copy of Seneca’s Tragedies.[354] Kirchhoff is of opinion that Gabriel conducted, during the last fifteen years of the fourteenth century, an important work-shop for the production 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 certifying 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 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 Constantinople 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 afterwards 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 emere, nunc vendere, 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 quæstu.[355] (No book ever leaves your book-shop, except at a profit to you.)

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 Judæus, Strabo, Theophrastus, Demosthenes, Xenophon, Proculus, Homer, Aristarchus, Athenæus, Sophocles, Æschylus, 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 services 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 Aurispa’s possession at the time of his death, and these were taken charge of by Bartholomæus 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 manuscript-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 University of Salamanca, which had been founded about 1220. 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 seriously 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 Peninsula. 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 versions 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 intellectual life of the Moorish kingdom, so that it was spoken of as the Athens of the West. At the close of the tenth century it is said to have contained nearly one million inhabitants. 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 manuscripts between Cordova and Baghdad.

In the year 995, Thafar Al-baghdádé, 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 Abú-l-faraj of Ispahán had written a book entitled Kitábu-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 Abú 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, Hájib Wadheh, a freedman of Al-mansúr, ordered portions 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 Tekmílah, Ibun-l-abbáns 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-estimated, at least, if we are to believe the statement of Ibun-l-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, history, topography, language, and poetry. One of the historians, Al-tári-khí, 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.[356]

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 production and of the trade in books carried on by the stationarii, librarii, and the printer-publishers of the university 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 appears, 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.[357] 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 manuscript-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.[358]

Bulæus, in his History of the University of Paris, published in 1665, maintains that as early as 1174, the manuscript-dealers of Paris formed a part of the organisation of the university, and that their work had been brought fully under the regulation of the university authorities. The university statistics, before the thirteenth 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 number 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 university 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.[359]

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 trade the preparation and sale of manuscripts was directly dependent. Under this heading were included, of necessity, 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 parchment.

The fact that the booksellers are named in this schedule separately from the scribes is an indication of the existence of a bookselling trade of sufficient importance to call for the work of capitalists employing in the preparation 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 purchase 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.[360]

Newly prepared transcripts could not be licensed for renting until they had been examined and passed as correct 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 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. Chevillier points out that there is in this schedule no indication of the division of the manuscripts into pecias, the practice which was, as we have seen, the usual routine in the Italian universities.[361]

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.[362]

The regulations concerning the sale of works on commission were renewed in 1300, with provisions which must have rendered this class of business not only unremunerative 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 manuscript 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.

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 “cornering of the market” on the part of the manuscript-dealers in connection with texts which might be in demand. Existing regulations of this kind tended, however, naturally to fall into desuetude.

In 1411, an ordinance of Charles VI. made fresh reference to the necessity of such supervision, mainly on the ground of the convenience of tracing stolen manuscripts or unlicensed manuscripts.

In 1342, the librarii were 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 University of Paris claimed the authority to license its librarii, and to carry on business not only in Paris but throughout 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 purpose 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 jurés), 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 medicine; 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 frequent reference during this century to Paris as a book centre than to any one of the Italian cities. When, for instance, King Wenzell II. of Bohemia, at the time of the founding of the Cistercian abbey of Königsaal, 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.[363] Johann Gerson, writing 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 devoted 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 distribution 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:

Is autem erroneus liber positus fuit publice ad exemplandum Parisius anno domini 1254. Unde certum est, quod jam publice predicaretur, nisi boni prelati et predicatores impedirent.[364]

(In Paris in the year of our Lord 1254, this heretical 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 preachers interfered.)

Kirchhoff is of the opinion that there began to be at this time in connection with the work of the contemporary authors a kind 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 instructions of the author and under the license of Magister Johannus, Cancellarius.[365]

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 accident. The places selected by the earlier dealers in manuscripts 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 from the royal ordinances in order to confirm the privilege. An example of such an ordinance is that issued by Philip the Fair, in 1307. In the cases in which the university 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 supervision 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 censorship 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 century, of withdrawing the trade privilege or license.

The taxators or principales jurati, as they were sometimes 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 outside 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 empowered to call upon the university bedels for co-operation.

These unlicensed dealers or book pedlars, as they increased 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 irresponsible 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 authorities 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 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 themselves 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 examine and to schedule the parchment, and the stock was priced by four of the licensed parchment-dealers associated 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 ordinances 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 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 replaced 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 exemption was contested from time to time by the farmers of the taxes and had to be renewed by successive ordinances. 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 confirmed 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 university and the special privileges secured through university 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 considerable trade in manuscripts in various provincial centres.

In Montpellier, the university was, as in Paris, a centre for publishing undertakings, but in Angers, Rouen, Orleans, 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 statutes 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 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 university authorities, usually the bedels, supervised the correctness 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 members of the university body. The sale of books on commission 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 authorised to carry on the business of the loaning of pecias under the same conditions as those that controlled the stationarii. 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 public auction in the auditorium.

It is difficult to understand how, with a trade, of necessity, 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 regulations, 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 to booksellers buying and selling books both in French or in 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 Burgundy, the influence of the ducal family was of wide importance 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 designers 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 replace 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 fifteenth 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 collection 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.[366] 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 introduction 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 manufacturers (having mills outside of Paris), two illuminators, two binders, and two licensed scribes.

In the following year, the list of librarii free from taxation was reduced to seventeen. It is probable that those librarii whose names had been taken off the exemption 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 taxation 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 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 librarius 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 establishment in Mayence, carried on by Schöffer & 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 Schöffer & 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 university 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 promptly 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 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 presenting 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.[367] 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 Géraud’s opinion that he was charged probably as a university bookseller to whom the tax collector had refused the exemption belonging to university members.[368]

In the year 1303, the stock of books of a certain Antoine Zeno, libraire juré, 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 commentaries of Alexander on Matthew, the Opera Fratris Richardi, the Legenda Sanctorum, various texts of the Decretals, commentaries of S. Bernard on the Decretals, a treatise of a certain Thomas on metaphysics, on physics, on the heavens and the earth, and on the soul, and a series of lectures on ethics, and on politics. The scheduled 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.[369]

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.[370]

A document of the year 1332 describes a sale made by a certain Geoffroy de Saint Léger, a clerc libraire, to Gérard de Montagu, avocat du roy au parlement. Geoffroy acknowledges to have sold, ceded, assigned, and delivered to the said Gérard a book entitled Speculum Historiale 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. Gérard pays for the book the sum of forty Parisian livres, with which sum Geoffroy declares himself to be content, and paid in full.[371] 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.

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, illustrated with miniatures, and a codex of Magister Thomas de Maalaa.[372]

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 certain 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:

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.[374] 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, bound in figured silk, and illuminated with the arms of the Duke.

Four years later, the Duke makes another purchase, paying to Jehan one hundred livres tournois for a Concordance 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 persistent ducal collector pays sixty livres to a certain Jacques Jehan, who is recorded as a grocer, but who apparently included books in his stock, for the Book of the Treasury, a book of Julius Cæsar, 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, illuminated in gold and azure.[375]

In 1399, appears on the records the name of Dyne, or Digne Rapond, a Lombard. Kirchhoff speaks of Rapond’s book business as being with him a side issue. Like Atticus, the publisher of Cicero, Rapond’s principal business 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 Propriété de Choses. A document, 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 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 Godefroy 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 instructs 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 château of Vincennes.[376]

Jacques Rapond, merchant and citizen of Paris, probably a brother of Dyne, also seems to have done a profitable 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 accused 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 accomplish 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 French translation of The City 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, treasurer 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 Clementinæ, 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, Macé Panthoul was carrying on business as a bookseller and as a manufacturer of paper. In connection with his paper-trade, he came into relations 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 nobles 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 manuscript 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 restricted in its cultivation than that which had been developed 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 entirely to Germans, Bohemians, Hungarians, etc., that is to say, to the races immediately controlled by the German Empire.