Early Book-making.
And now what do we mean by books and by popularity at the end of the thirteenth century? The reader must keep in mind that our notion of popularity measured by thousands of copies would then have been regarded as strange as the most monstrous of Sir John Mandeville’s stories. There was no printing; there was no paper, either—as we understand. The art, indeed, of making paper out of pulp did exist at this date with the Oriental nations—perhaps with the Moors in Spain, but not in England. Parchment made from skins was the main material, and books were engrossed laboredly with a pen or stylus. It was most likely a very popular book which came to an edition of fifty or sixty copies within five years of its first appearance: and a good manuscript was so expensive an affair that its purchase was often made a matter to be testified to by subscribing witnesses, as we witness the transfer of a house. A little budget of these manuscripts made a valuable library. When St. Augustine planted his Church in Kent—he brought nine volumes with him as his literary treasure.
Lanfranc, who was one of the Norman abbots brought over by the Conqueror to build up the priesthood in learning, made order in 1072 that at Lent the librarian should deliver to the worthiest of the brotherhood each a book; and these were to have a year to read them. At the commencement of the fourteenth century there were only four classics in the royal library of Paris; and at the same date the library of Oxford University consisted of a few tracts kept in chests under St. Mary’s Church.—Green, in his “Making of England,”[31] cites from Alcuin a bit of that old Churchman’s Latin poem—“De Pontificibus”—which he says is worthy of special note, as the first catalogue which we have of any English Library.
“Quidquid Gregorius summus docet, et Leo Papa;
Basilius quidquid, Fulgentius atque, coruscant,
Cassiodorus item, Chrysostomus atque Johannes
Quidquid et Athelmus docuit, quid Beda magister.”
Beda and Aldhelm are the only English writers represented; and the catalogue—if we call it such—could be written on a half-page of note paper—Metaphors and Geography and Theology and decorative epithets included.
Thus in these times a book was a book: some of them cost large sums; the mere transcription into plain black-letter or Old English was toilsome and involved weeks and months of labor; and when it came to illuminated borders, or initials and title-pages with decorative paintings, the labor involved was enormous. There were collectors in those days as now—who took royal freaks for gorgeous missals; and monkish lives were spent in gratifying the whims of such collectors. In the year 1237 (Henry III.) there is entry in the Revenue Roll of the costs of silver clasps and studs for the King’s great book of Romances. Upon the continent, in Italy, where an art atmosphere prevailed that was more enkindling than under the fogs of this savage England, such work became thoroughly artistic; and even now beautiful motifs for decoration on the walls of New York houses are sought from old French or Latin manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
And where was this work of making books done? There were no book-shops or publishers’ houses, but in place of them abbeys or monasteries—each having its scriptorium or writing-room, where, under the vaulted Norman arches and by the dim light of their loop-holes of windows, the work of transcription went on month after mouth and year after year. Thus it is recorded that in that old monastery of St. Albans (of which we just now spoke) eighty distinct works were transcribed during the reign of Henry VI.; it is mentioned as swift work; and as Henry reigned thirty-nine years, it counts up about two complete MSS. a year. And the atmosphere of St. Albans was a learned one; this locality not being overmuch given to the roisterings that belonged to Bolton Priory—of which you will remember the hint in a pleasant picture of Landseer’s.