Chapter III · (continued 3)

Historical works.

Ph. de Comines. 134. The historical literature of this century presents very little deserving of notice. The English writers of this class are absolutely contemptible; and if some annalists of good sense and tolerable skill in narration may be found on the Continent, they are not conspicuous enough to arrest our regard in a work which designedly passes over that department of literature, so far as it is merely conversant with particular events. But the memoirs of Philip de Comines, which, though not published till 1529, must have been written before the close of the fifteenth century, are not only of a higher value, but almost make an epoch in historical literature. If Froissart, by his picturesque descriptions, and fertility of historical invention, may be reckoned the Livy of France, she had her Tacitus in Philip de Comines. The intermediate writers, Monstrelet and his continuators, have the merits of neither, certainly not of Comines. He is the first modern writer, (or, if there had been any approach to an exception among the Italians, it has escaped my recollection,) who in any degree has displayed sagacity in reasoning on the characters of men, and the consequences of their actions, or who has been able to generalise his observation by comparison and reflection. Nothing of this could have been found in the cloister; nor were the philologers of Italy equal to a task which required capacities and pursuits very different from their own. An acute understanding and much experience of mankind gave Comines this superiority; his life had not been spent over books; and he is consequently free from that pedantic application of history, which became common with those who passed for political reasoners in the next two centuries. Yet he was not ignorant of former times; and we see the advantage of those translations from antiquity, made during the last hundred years in France, by the use to which he turned them.

Algebra. 135. The earliest printed treatise of algebra, for that of Leonard Fibonacci is still in manuscript, was published in 1494, by Luca Pacioli di Borgo, a Franciscan, who taught mathematics in the university of Milan. This book is written in Italian, with a mixture of the Venetian dialect, and with many Latin words. In the first part, he explains the rules of commercial arithmetic in detail, and is the earliest Italian writer who shows the principles of Italian book-keeping by double entry. Algebra he calls l’arte maggiore, detta dal volgo la regola de la cosa, over alghebra e almacabala, which last he explains by restauratio et opposito. The known number is called n^o or numero; co. or cosa stands for the unknown quantity; whence algebra was sometimes called the cossic art. In the early Latin treatises Res is used, or R., which is an approach to literal expression. The square is called censo or ce.; the cube, cubo or cu.; p. and m. stand for plus and minus. Thus, 3co. p. 4ce. m. 5cu. p. 2ce. ce. m. 6n^o would have been written for what would now be expressed 3x + 4x² - 5x³ + 2x⁴ - 6. Luca di Borgo’s algebra goes as far as quadratic equations; but though he had very good notions on the subject, it does not appear that he carried the science much beyond the point where Leonard Fibonacci had left it three centuries before. And its principles were already familiar to mathematicians; for Regiomontanus, having stated a trigonometrical solution in the form of a quadratic equation, adds, quod restat, præcepta artis edocebunt. Luca di Borgo perceived, in a certain sense, the application of algebra to geometry, observing, that the rules as to surd roots are referrible to incommensurable magnitudes.[496]

Mr. Colebrooke, in his Indian Algebra, has shown that the Hindoos carried that science considerably farther than either the Greeks or the Arabians (though he thinks they may probably have derived their notions of the science from the former), anticipating some of the discoveries of the sixteenth century.

Events from 1490 to 1500. 136. This period of ten years from 1490 to 1500, will ever be memorable in the history of mankind. It is here that we usually close the long interval between the Roman world and this our modern Europe, denominated the Middle Ages. The conquest of Granada, which rendered Spain a Christian kingdom; the annexation of the last great fief of the French crown, Britany, which made France an entire and absolute monarchy; the public peace of Germany; the invasion of Naples by Charles VIII., which revealed the weakness of Italy, while it communicated her arts and manners to the cisalpine nations, and opened the scene of warfare and alliances which may be deduced to the present day; the discovery of two worlds by Columbus and Vasco de Gama, all belong to this decade. But it is not, as we have seen, so marked an era in the progression of literature.

Close of fifteenth century. 137. In taking leave of the fifteenth century, to which we have been used to attach many associations of reverence, and during which the desire of knowledge was, in one part of Europe, more enthusiastic and universal than perhaps it has since ever been, it is natural to ask ourselves what harvest had already rewarded their zeal and labour, what monuments of genius and erudition still receive the homage of mankind?

Its literature nearly neglected. 138. No very triumphant answer can be given to this interrogation. Of the books then written how few are read! Of the men then famous how few are familiar in our recollection! Let us consider what Italy itself produced of any effective tendency to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge, or to delight the taste and fancy. The treatise of Valla on Latin grammar, the miscellaneous observations of Politian on ancient authors, the commentaries of Landino and some other editors, the Platonic theology of Ficinus, the Latin poetry of Politian and Pontanus, the light Italian poetry of the same Politian and Lorenzo de’ Medici, the epic romances of Pulci and Boiardo. Of these, Pulci alone, in an original shape, is still read in Italy, and by some lovers of that literature in other countries, and the Latin poets by a smaller number. If we look on the other side of the Alps, the catalogue is much shorter, or rather does not contain a single book, except Philip de Comines, that enters into the usual studies of a literary man. Froissart hardly belongs to the fifteenth century, his history terminating about 1400. The first undated edition, with a continuation by some one to 1498, was printed between that time and 1509, when the second appeared.

Summary of its acquisitions. 139. If we come to inquire, what acquisitions had been made between the years 1400 and 1500, we shall find that, in Italy, the Latin language was now written by some with elegance, and by most with tolerable exactness and fluency; while, out of Italy, there had been, perhaps, a corresponding improvement, relatively to the point from which they started; the flagrant barbarisms of the fourteenth century having yielded before the close of the next to a more respectable, though not an elegant or exact kind of style. Many Italians had now some acquaintance with Greek, which in 1400 had been hardly the case with any one; and the knowledge of it was of late beginning to make a little progress in cisalpine Europe. The French and English languages were become what we call more polished, though the difference in the former seems not to be very considerable. In mathematical science, and in natural history, the ancient writers had been more brought to light, and a certain progress had been made by diligent, if not very inventive philosophers. We cannot say that metaphysical or moral philosophy stood higher than it had done in the time of the schoolmen. The history of Greece and Rome, and the antiquities of the latter, were, of course, more distinctly known after so many years of attentive study bestowed on their principal authors; yet the acquaintance of the learned with those subjects was by no means exact or critical enough to save them from gross errors, or from becoming the dupes of any forgery. A proof of this was furnished by the impostures of Annius of Viterbo, who, having published large fragments of Megasthenes, Berosus, Manetho, and a great many more lost historians, as having been discovered by himself, obtained full credence at the time, which was not generally withheld for too long a period afterwards, though the forgeries were palpable to those who had made themselves masters of genuine history.[497]

Their imperfection. 140. We should, therefore, if we mean to judge accurately, not over-value the fifteenth century, as one in which the human mind advanced with giant strides in the kingdom of knowledge. General historians of literature are apt to speak rather hyperbolically in respect of men who rose above their contemporaries; language frequently just, in relation to the vigorous intellects and ardent industry of such men, but tending to produce an exaggerated estimate of their absolute qualities. But the question is at present not so much of men, as of the average or general proficiency of nations. The catalogues of printed books in the common bibliographical collections afford, not quite a gauge of the learning of any particular period, but a reasonable presumption, which it requires contrary evidence to rebut. If these present us very few and imperfect editions of books necessary to the progress of knowledge, if the works most in request appear to have been trifling and ignorant productions, it seems as reasonable to draw an inference one way from these scanty and discreditable lists, as on the other hand we hail the progressive state of any branch of knowledge from the redoubled labours of the press, and the multiplication of useful editions. It is true that the deficiency of one country might be supplied by importation from another; and some cities, especially Paris, had acquired a typographical reputation somewhat disproportioned to the local demand for books; a considerable increase of readers would but naturally have created a press, or multiplied its operations, in any country of Europe.

Number of books printed. 141. The bibliographies, indeed, even the best and latest, are always imperfect; but the omissions, after the immense pains bestowed on the subject, can hardly be such as to affect our general conclusions. We will therefore illustrate the literary history of the fifteenth century by a few numbers taken from the typographical annals of Panzer, which might be corrected in two ways; first, by adding editions since brought to light, or secondly, by striking out some inserted on defective authority; a kind of mistake which tends to compensate the former. The books printed at Florence down to 1500 are 300; at Milan, 629; at Bologna, 298; at Rome, 925; at Venice, 2835; fifty other Italian cities had printing presses in the fifteenth century.[498] At Paris, the number of books is 751; at Cologne, 530; at Nuremberg, 382; at Leipsic, 351; at Basle, 320; at Strasburg, 526; at Augsburg, 256; at Louvain, 116; at Mentz, 134; at Deventer, 169. The whole number printed in England appears to be 141; whereof 130 at London and Westminster; seven at Oxford; four at St. Albans. Cicero’s works were first printed entire by Minutianus, at Milan, in 1498; but no less than 291 editions of different portions appeared in the century. Thirty-seven of these bear date on this side of the Alps; and forty-five have no place named. Of ninety-five editions of Virgil, seventy are complete; twenty-seven are cisalpine, and four bear no date. On the other hand, only eleven out of fifty-seven editions of Horace contain all his works. It has been already shown, that most editions of classics printed in France and Germany are in the last decennium of the century.

142. The editions of the vulgate registered in Panzer are ninety-one, exclusive of some spurious or suspected. Next to theology, no science furnished so much occupation to the press as the civil and canon laws. The editions of the digest and decretals, or other parts of those systems of jurisprudence, must amount to some hundreds.

Advantages already reaped from printing. 143. But while we avoid, for the sake of truth, any undue exaggeration of the literary state of Europe at the close of the fifteenth century, we must even more earnestly deprecate the hasty prejudice, that no good had been already done by the culture of classical learning, and by the invention of printing. Both were of inestimable value, even where their immediate fruits were not clustering in ripe abundance. It is certain that much more than ten thousand editions of books or pamphlets (a late writer says fifteen thousand)[499] were printed from 1470 to 1500. More than half the number appeared in Italy. All the Latin authors, hitherto painfully copied by the scholar, or purchased by him at inconvenient cost, or borrowed for a time from friends, became readily accessible, and were printed, for the most part, if not correctly, according to our improved criticism, yet without the gross blunders of the ordinary manuscripts. The saving of time which the art of printing has occasioned, can hardly be too highly appreciated. Nor was the cisalpine press unserviceable in this century, though it did not pour forth so much from the stores of ancient learning. It gave useful food, and such as the reader could better relish and digest. The historical records of his own nation, the precepts of moral wisdom, the regular metre, that pleased the ear and supplied the memory, the fictions that warmed the imagination, and sometimes ennobled or purified the heart, the repertories of natural phenomena, mingled as truth was on these subjects, and on all the rest, with error, the rules of civil and canon law, that guided the determinations of private right, the subtle philosophy of the scholastics, were laid open to his choice; while his religious feelings might find their gratification in many a treatise of learned doctrine, according to the received creed of the church, in many a legend on which a pious credulity delighted to rely, in the devout aspirations of holy ascetic men; but, above all, in the Scriptures themselves, either in the Vulgate Latin, which had by use acquired the authority of an original text, or in most of the living languages of Europe.

Trade of bookselling. 144. We shall conclude this portion of literary history with a few illustrations of what a German writer calls the exterior being of books,[500] for which I do not find an equivalent in English idiom. The trade of bookselling seems to have been established at Paris and at Bologna in the twelfth century; the lawyers and universities called it into life.[501] It is very improbable that it existed in what we properly call the dark ages. Peter of Blois mentions a book which he had bought of a public dealer (a quodam publico mangone librorum). But we do not find, I believe, many distinct accounts of them till the next age. These dealers were denominated Stationarii, perhaps from the open stalls at which they carried on their business, though statio is a general word for a shop, in low Latin.[502] They appear, by the old statutes of the university of Paris, and by those of Bologna, to have sold books upon commission; and are sometimes, though not uniformly, distinguished from the Librarii; a word which, having originally been confined to the copyists of books, was afterwards applied to those who traded in them.[503] They sold parchment and other materials of writing, which, with us, though, as far I know, nowhere else, have retained the name of stationery, and naturally exercised the kindred occupations of binding and decorating. They probably employed transcribers: we find at least that there was a profession of copyists in the universities and in large cities; and by means of these, before the invention of printing, the necessary books of grammar, law, and theology were multiplied to a great extent for the use of students; but with much incorrectness, and far more expense than afterwards. That invention put a sudden stop to their honest occupation. But whatever hatred they might feel towards the new art, it was in vain to oppose its reception: no party could be raised in the public against so manifest and unalloyed a benefit; and the copyists, grown by habit fond of books, frequently employed themselves in the somewhat kindred labour of pressmen.[504]

The parliament of Paris, on the petition of the copyists, ordered some of the first printed books to be seized. Lambinet calls this superstition; it was more probably false compassion, and regard for existing interests, combined with dislike of all innovation. Louis XI., however, who had the merit of esteeming literature, evoked the process to the counsel of state, who restored the books. Lambinet, Hist. de l’Imprimerie, p. 172.

Books sold by printers. 145. The first printers were always booksellers, and sold their own impressions. These occupations were not divided till the early part of the sixteenth century.[505] But the risks of sale, at a time when learning was by no means general, combined with the great cost of production, paper and other materials being very dear, rendered this a hazardous trade. We have a curious petition of Sweynheim and Pannartz to Sixtus IV., in 1472, wherein they complain of their poverty, brought on by printing so many works, which they had not been able to sell. They state the number of impressions of each edition. Of the classical authors they had generally printed 275; of Virgil and the philosophical works of Cicero, twice that number. In theological publications the usual number of copies had also been 550. The whole number of copies printed was 12,475.[506] It is possible that experience made other printers more discreet in their estimation of the public demand. Notwithstanding the casualties of three centuries, it seems from the great scarcity of these early editions, which has long existed, that the original circulation must have been much below the number of copies printed, as indeed the complaint of Sweynheim and Pannartz shows.[507]

Price of books. 146. The price of books was diminished by four-fifths after the invention of printing. Chevillier gives some instances of a fall in this proportion. But not content with such a reduction, the university of Paris proceeded to establish a tariff, according to which every edition was to be sold, and seems to have set the prices very low. This was by virtue of the prerogatives they exerted, as we shall soon find, over the book-trade of the capital. The priced catalogues of Colinæus and Robert Stephens are extant, relating, of course, to a later period than the present; but we shall not return to the subject. The Greek Testament of Colinæus was sold for twelve sous, the Latin for six. The folio Latin Bible, printed by Stephens in 1532, might be had for one hundred sous, a copy of the Pandacts for forty sous, a Virgil for two sous and six deniers; a Greek grammar of Clenardus for two sous, Demosthenes and Æschines, I know not what edition, for five sous. It would of course be necessary, before we can make any use of these prices, to compare them with that of corn.[508]

Lambinet mentions a few prices of early books, which are not trifling. The Mentz Bible of 1462 was purchased in 1470 by a bishop of Angers for forty gold crowns. An English gentleman paid eighteen gold florins, in 1481, for a missal: upon which Lambinet makes a remark:—Mais on a toujours fait payer plus cher aux Anglais qu’aux autres nations, p. 198. The florin was worth about four francs of present money, equivalent perhaps to twenty-four in command of commodities. The crown was worth rather more.

Instances of an almost incredible price of manuscripts are to be met with in Robertson and other common authors. It is to be remembered that a particular book might easily bear a monopoly price; and that this is no test of the cost of those which might be multiplied by copying.

Form of books. 147. The more usual form of books printed in the fifteenth century is in folio. But the Psalter of 1457, and the Donatus of the same year, are in quarto; and this size is not uncommon in the early Italian editions of classics. The disputed Oxford book of 1468, Sancti Jeronymi Expositio, is in octavo, and would, if genuine, be the earliest specimen of that size, which may perhaps furnish an additional presumption against the date. It is at least, however, of 1478, when the octavo form, as we shall immediately see, was of the rarest occurrence. Maittaire, in whom alone I have had the curiosity to make this search, which would be more troublesome in Panzer’s arrangement, mentions a book printed in octavo at Milan in 1470; but the existence of this, and of one or two more that follow, seems equivocal; and the first on which we can rely is the Sallust, printed at Valencia in 1475. Another book of that form, at Treviso, occurs in the same year, and an edition of Pliny’s epistles at Florence in 1478. They become from this time gradually more common; but even at the end of the century form rather a small proportion of editions. I have not observed that the duodecimo division of the sheet was adopted in any instance. But it is highly probable that the volumes of Panzer furnish means of correcting these little notices, which I offer as suggestions to persons more erudite in such matters. The price and convenience of books are evidently not unconnected with their size.

Exclusive privileges. 148. Nothing could be less unreasonable than that the printer should have a better chance of indemnifying himself and the author, if in those days the author, as probably he did, hoped for some lucrative return after his exhausting drudgery, by means of an exclusive privilege. The senate of Venice granted an exclusive privilege for five years to John of Spire in 1469, for the first book printed in the city, his edition of Cicero’s epistles.[509] But I am not aware that this extended to any other work. And this seems to have escaped the learned Beckmann, who says that the earliest instance of protected copyright on record appears to be in favour of a book insignificant enough, a missal for the church of Bamberg, printed in 1490. It is probable that other privileges of an older date have not been found. In 1491, one occurs at the end of a book printed at Venice, and five more at the same place within the century; the Aristotle of Aldus being one of the books: one also is found at Milan. These privileges are always recited at the end of the volume. They are, however, very rare in comparison with the number of books published, and seem not accorded by preference to the most important editions.[510]

Power of universities over bookselling. 149. In these exclusive privileges, the printer was forced to call in the magistrate for his own benefit. But there was often a different sort of interference by the civil power with the press. The destruction of books, and the prohibition of their sale, had not been unknown to antiquity; instances of it occur in the free republics of Athens and Rome; but it was naturally more frequent under suspicious despotisms, especially when to the jealousy of the state was superadded that of the church, and novelty, even in speculation, became a crime.[511] Ignorance came on with the fall of the empire, and it was unnecessary to guard against the abuse of an art which very few possessed at all. With the first revival of letters in the eleventh and twelfth centuries sprang up the reviving shoots of heretical freedom; but with Berenger and Abelard came also the jealousy of the church, and the usual exertion of the right of the strongest. Abelard was censured by the council of Soissons in 1121, for suffering copies of his book to be taken without the approbation of his superiors, and the delinquent volumes were given to the flames. It does not appear, however, that any regulation on this subject had been made.[512] But when the sale of books became the occupation of a class of traders, it was deemed necessary to place them under restraint. Those of Paris and Bologna, the cities, doubtless, where the greatest business of this kind was carried on, came altogether into the power of the universities. It is proved by various statutes of the university of Paris, originating, no doubt, in some authority conferred by the crown, and bearing date from the year 1275 to 1403, that booksellers were appointed by the university, and considered as its officers, probably matriculated by entry on her roll; that they took an oath, renewable at her pleasure, to observe her statutes and regulations; that they were admitted upon security, and testimonials to their moral conduct; that no one could sell books in Paris without this permission; and that they could expose no book to sale without communication with the university, and without its approbation; that the university fixed the prices, according to the tariff of four sworn booksellers, at which books should be sold, or lent to the scholars; that a fine might be imposed for incorrect copies; that the sellers were bound to fix up in their shops a priced catalogue of their books, besides other regulations of less importance. Books, deemed by the university unfit for perusal were sometimes burned by its order.[513] Chevillier gives several prices for lending books (pro exemplari concesso scholaribus) fixed about 1303. The books mentioned are all of divinity, philosophy, or canon law; on an average, the charge for about twenty pages was a sol. The university of Toulouse exercised the same authority; and Albert III., archduke of Austria, founding the university of Vienna about 1384, copied the statutes of Paris in this control over bookselling as well as in other respects.[514] The stationarii of Bologna were also bound by oath, and gave sureties, to fulfil their duties towards the university; one of these was, to keep by them copies of books to the number of one hundred and seventeen, for the hire of which a price was fixed.[515] By degrees, however, a class of booksellers grew up at Paris, who took no oath to the university, and were consequently not admitted to its privileges, being usually poor scholars, who were tolerated in selling books at a low price. These were of no importance, till the privileged, or sworn traders, having been reduced by a royal ordinance of 1488 to twenty-four, this lower class silently increased, at length the practice of taking an oath to the university fell into disuse.[516]

Restraints on sale of printed books. 150. The vast and sudden extension of the means of communicating and influencing opinion which the discovery of printing afforded, did not long remain unnoticed. Few have temper and comprehensive views enough not to desire the prevention by force of that which they reckon detrimental to truth and right. Hermolaus Barbarus, in a letter to Merula, recommends that, on account of the many trifling publications which took men off from reading the best authors, nothing should be printed without the approbation of competent judges.[517] The governments of Europe cared little for what seemed an evil to Hermolaus. But they perceived that, especially in Germany, a country where the principles that were to burst out in the Reformation were evidently germinating in this century, where a deep sense of the corruptions of the church pervaded every class, that incredible host of popular religious tracts, which the Rhine and Neckar poured forth like their waters, were of no slight danger to the two powers, or at least the union of the two, whom the people had so long obeyed. We find, therefore, an instance, in 1480, of a book called Nosce Teipsum, printed at Heidelberg with the approving testimonies of four persons, who may be presumed, though it is not stated, to have been appointed censors on that occasion.[518] Two others, one of which is a Bible, have been found printed at Cologne in 1479; in the subscription to which, the language of public approbation by the university is more express. The first known instance, however, of the regular appointment of a censor on books is in the mandate of Berthold, archbishop of Mentz, in 1486. Notwithstanding, he begins, the facility given to the acquisition of science by the divine art of printing, it has been found that some abuse this invention, and convert that which was designed for the instruction of mankind to their injury. For books on the duties and doctrines of religion are translated from Latin into German, and circulated among the people, to the disgrace of religion itself; and some have even had the rashness to make faulty versions of the canons of the church into the vulgar tongue, which belong to a science so difficult, that it is enough to occupy the life of the wisest man. Can such men assert, that our German language is capable of expressing what great authors have written in Greek and Latin on the high mysteries of the Christian faith, and on general science? Certainly it is not; and hence they either invent new words, or use old ones in erroneous senses; a thing especially dangerous in sacred Scripture. For who will admit that men without learning, or women, into whose hands these translations may fall, can find the true sense of the gospels, or of the epistles of St. Paul? much less can they enter on questions which, even among catholic writers, are open to subtle discussion. But since this art was first discovered in this city of Mentz, and we may truly say by divine aid, and is to be maintained by us in all its honour, we strictly forbid all persons to translate, or circulate when translated, any books upon any subject whatever from the Greek, Latin, or any other tongue, into German, until, before printing, and again before their sale, such translations shall be approved by four doctors herein named, under penalty of excommunication, and of forfeiture of the books, and of one hundred golden florins to the use of our exchequer.[519]

Effect of printing on the Reformation. 151. I have given the substance of this mandate rather at length, because it has a considerable bearing on the preliminary history of the Reformation, and yet has never, to my knowledge, been produced with that view. For it is obvious that it was on account of religious translations, and especially those of the Scripture, which had been very early printed in Germany, that this alarm was taken by the worthy archbishop. A bull of Alexander VI., in 1501, reciting that many pernicious books had been printed in various parts of the world, and especially in the provinces of Cologne, Mentz, Treves, and Magdeburg, forbids all printers in these provinces to publish any books without the licence of the archbishops or their officials.[520] We here perceive the distinction made between these parts of Germany and the rest of Europe, and can understand their ripeness for the ensuing revolution. We perceive, also, the vast influence of the art of printing upon the Reformation. Among those who have been sometimes enumerated as its precursors, a place should be left for Schœffer and Gutenberg; nor has this always been forgotten.[521]