Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

CHAPTER III.

THE MAKING OF BOOKS IN THE EARLY UNIVERSITIES.

THE first revival of the long slumbering trade in manuscripts took place in Italy, the cradle of the universities. Although after the breaking down of the old civilisation of the Western Empire, Italy had suffered more through invasions and devastations than any other country of Europe, it had nevertheless succeeded in preserving a certain continuity of cultivation and some remnants of learning or germs of intellectual life, from which germs there came again into growth an intellectual development for Europe. For the purposes of this study, I am concerned with the history of the early universities of Europe only in connection with their relations to the production of books. I propose, therefore, to give a brief description of the organisation and the character of the book-trade that came into existence in one or two of the representative university towns, with some reference to the general influence of the first universities upon the development and the distribution of literature.

As has been indicated in the introductory chapter, it is my understanding that, with the beginning of the thirteenth century, the responsibility for the preservation and the development of the intellectual life of Europe, for the mental training of the increasing proportion of the community which was conscious of intellectual existence, and for the transmission to the existing generations of what had been preserved of the thought and learning of the past, was transferred from the monasteries and the ecclesiastical schools to the newly organised universities.

This change meant among other things that the control and direction of education no longer rested with the ecclesiastics, that the class of scholars was no longer limited to the clerics, and that there were other directions in which scholarly achievement was to be sought than those heretofore marked out by the Church. I do not mean to say that after the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the schools of Bologna and Paris had developed into universities, the Church consciously abandoned the control of education, a control which had rested in its hands for eight centuries. The representatives of the Church authority themselves took an important part in bringing into existence not a few of the universities, and in connection with the organisation of the theological Faculties and in other ways, the popes and the bishops retained for a long series of years an important and abiding influence over much of the university work. Heretical doctrines, or what Rome believed to be heretical doctrines, were taught not infrequently in university lecture-rooms, but the authority on the part of the Church to interfere with such teaching, and to secure the withdrawal of the license from the lecturer, was continually claimed and was frequently enforced. The fact remained, however, that the general direction and control of the work of higher education rested no longer with ecclesiastics but with laymen. Of the four great divisions of university instruction, Theology, Philosophy (or Art), Law, and Medicine, the first remained of necessity under the direction of the Church, while in the supervision of the second the Church undertook to exercise an influence which of necessity varied greatly from time to time according to the institution and according also to the character of the particular popes and bishops. The third and fourth Faculties were, however, entirely independent of ecclesiastical influence, and the mere fact of the existence outside of the Church of an important division of learning and of a great body of scholars must have had a powerful effect on the imagination of communities which had for so many generations been accustomed to look to the Church as the source or as the interpreter of all knowledge.

The principal authorities on the rise and the general history of the earlier universities are Denifle, Laurie, Mullinger, and Compayré. The titles of their several works, on which have in the main been based such statements or conclusions as are expressed in the following pages, are given in full in the bibliography. The details concerning the work of the university scribes and the manuscript dealers are chiefly derived from the works of Wattenbach and Kirchhoff.[258]

It is to be noted that several centuries before the institution in Christian Europe of the first of the universities, and at a time when, outside of a few monastic scriptoria, the interest in literature in Christian states was almost non-existent, in the countries which had accepted the faith of Mahomet a system of higher education had been effectively organised, and in connection with the intellectual activity of the universities and libraries of Bagdad, Alexandria, Cairo, and Cordova, there had been a very considerable production of literature in the departments of jurisprudence, philosophy, and science. In fact, the first knowledge that came to the Europe of the Middle Ages concerning Greek thought and Greek literature was brought to it through Arabian scholars, and it was by means of the lecturers of Cordova that the doctrines of Aristotle were made known to the philosophers of Paris. The list of the scholarly writers who were associated during the eleventh and twelfth centuries with the great Arabian schools is a long one, and the books produced by them included not a few works which had an abiding influence on the thought of Europe. I have, however, no information concerning the methods employed for the manifolding and distribution of the books, and a consideration of them does not properly find place in this study. The names of Avicenna (d. 1027) and Averrhoes (d. 1198) will be recognised as representative of the class of authors referred to, the men who, by their translations of Hippocrates, Galen, Aristotle, and other Greek classics, recalled what Laurie calls the university life of the Greeks.[259]

In explaining how the universities are to be distinguished from the cathedral schools or the Benedictine schools out of which they were developed, Laurie gives the following definition of the first universities: “They were specialised schools, as opposed to the schools of Arts, and they were open to all, without restriction, as studia publica or generalia, as opposed to the more restricted ecclesiastical schools, which were under a Rule.”[260]

For the older institutions, it is not practicable to fix with any precision the date of their beginning, and no year can be named in which they first exercised the functions of a university. The first university that was formally founded was that of Prague, which dates from April, 1348. Bologna, Paris, Padua, Oxford, and Cambridge were not founded but grew, that is, were developed under special influences out of pre-existing schools. The first European school which, while never developing into a university, did do specialised university work, was that of Salerno, which may be said to have initiated for Europe systematised and scientific instruction in medicine. Fons Medicinæ was the name given to it by Petrarch. The school of Salerno has one special claim to commemoration in any general sketch of the intellectual life of Europe. Its foundation and early development were due to the famous Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, the monastery which had been established by S. Benedict (in 529), and the scriptorium in which was the creation of Cassiodorus. Salerno, which was later affiliated with the University of Naples, fills, therefore, the place of a connecting link between the educational work of the old-time Benedictine scriptorium and the scientific activities and intellectual life of the new university system of Europe. Indeed, through that wonderful old man, Cassiodorus, at once Greek, Roman, and Goth, statesman, author, and monk, the chain of continuity is borne directly back to the classic world of imperial Rome.

The study of letters in Monte Cassino had come to include medicine, and the writings of Galen and Hippocrates were transcribed in the scriptorium, and were later made the first text-books in the medical school established by the monks at Salerno. Charlemagne is said to have interested himself in the school and in 802 to have ordered certain Greek medical treatises to be translated for its use from the Arabic into Latin.[261] The man who finally developed the monks’ medical school (then known as the civitas Hippocratica) into a great and specialised studium publicum was, however, Constantine, a Carthaginian Christian. His work was done between the years of 1065 and 1087, under the special favour and patronage of Robert Guiscard, who was at that time ruler of Apulia. In the time of Robert the school contained some women students, probably the earliest in Europe. There are references also at this period to several female writers on medical subjects. Salerno dates as a privileged school from 1100. The University of Naples, with which the medical college of Salerno was later affiliated, was instituted by Frederick II. (the “Wonder of the World”) in 1224. Notwithstanding the brilliancy of the Court of Frederick and the feverish energy of the monarch himself, the literary work done in his university was not of abiding importance, and it is Bologna which serves as the type of the earlier universities of Europe, and which divides with the University of Paris the honour of having served as a general model for later foundations.

The University of Bologna lays claim to be the oldest in Europe. According to one tradition it was founded by Charlemagne about 800, but the celebration in 1890 of its thousandth anniversary indicates that its modern historians have contented themselves with a somewhat later date. The jurist Irnerius, who gave instruction in civil law in Bologna between 1100 and 1135, was able to do for the school of law a very similar work to that done by Constantine a century earlier for the school of medicine at Salerno, and under his direction the school became a studium publicum or generale. Bologna dates as a privileged studium from 1158, when the Universitas secured a formal recognition from Frederick I. Tiraboschi speaks of the university as having been in a flourishing condition as early as the twelfth century, and in 1224, when the Emperor Frederick II., in his zeal on behalf of his newly founded university at Naples, undertook to suppress that of Bologna, the latter is reported to have had no less than 10,000 students. Its great jurist of that time was Azo or Azolinus. The edict was revoked in 1227, and the schools of the university were, in fact, never closed. The University of Padua dates from about 1215, and that of Vercelli (in Piedmont) from 1228. In 1248, Innocent IV. established the University of Piacenza, with privileges similar to those enjoyed by Paris and Bologna. Pisa dates from about 1340, Florence from 1321, and Pavia from 1362. Galeazzo Visconti secured for Pavia from Charles IV. a charter with the privileges of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford. Notwithstanding the competition of so many rival institutions, and the special favour shown from time to time to certain of these by one prince or another (as in the case of the Emperor Frederick to Naples), Bologna not only retained its pre-eminence among the universities of Italy, but secured for itself a great reputation throughout Europe, attracting students of every nationality. In Bologna, Padua, and Pavia special attention was given to jurisprudence, while the school of Florence was noted for the liberal remuneration granted to its instructors in rhetoric and in belles-lettres. In this respect, however, Florence stood almost alone. The instructors in literature, classed as Humanists, were obliged for the most part to seek appreciation and remuneration not in the universities, but at the Courts of the cultivated princes and in the palaces of the more intellectual of the noblemen, and, fortunately for the literary life of Italy, literature had, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a popularity and acceptance among princes and nobles to an extent not known elsewhere in Europe.

While the university life of Italy dates from the close of the twelfth century, it is not until the beginning of the thirteenth century that we find any trace of regulations concerning the production and distribution of manuscripts. It appears that for a term of perhaps a quarter of a century there had been in Bologna and in the other older university towns a certain amount of interest in the production, hiring, and selling of manuscripts, a trade which had been carried on without any supervision or restriction on the part of the university authorities, and the same was the case with the work of the earlier manuscript dealers in Paris.

The term stationarii, which first appears in Bologna in 1259 and in Paris some years later, indicates at once a change in the method of work of these university scribes as compared with previous writers who had been ready to do work in one place or another as opportunity offered. For a number of years there was, in connection with this university work, practically no selling of books. The special responsibility of the stationarii was to keep in stock a sufficient number of authorised and verified transcripts or copies of the books ordered or recommended in the educational courses of the university, and to rent these to the students or to the instructors at rates which were prescribed by university regulations. The stationarii also took over the books of the students who died while in the university, or of departing students, as in most of the universities it was a misdemeanour to carry any books at all out of the university town.

In Bologna, Padua, and probably other Italian universities, the Jews were forbidden to carry on any trade in books. If, therefore, Jews coming into a town had manuscripts which they wished to dispose of, it was necessary for them to place these manuscripts in the hands of the stationarii, and they would make sale of them on commission. As before specified, however, the buyers of books in a university town could purchase only the use of the books during their sojourn in such town. On leaving the town, it was necessary that the books should be placed again with the stationarii for sale to others connected with the university. It is probable, however, that this regulation applied only to the special list of text-books or reference books authorised and prescribed by the university. A certain Heinrichs of Kirchberg relates that on leaving Padua in 1256, he had managed to bring away with him a considerable package of books. He had accomplished this by hiding the books in a load of hay which he took with him through the town gates without being discovered.[262] In 1334, the university regulation was modified so that after having secured the special permission of the authorities, a student could take with him from the university books which he had purchased.

Until the time when the manuscript traders were replaced by the dealers in printed books, the most important function of the university dealers was not in the sale, but in the hiring out of manuscripts, and the term stationarius came from a very early date to be limited to the functionary who, under the regulations of the university, provided, for hire, the students, and in some cases the instructors, with the material required for their work.

In order to facilitate the manifolding and prompt distribution of the texts needed, and in order also to lessen for the students the cost of securing these texts, the practice obtained from the beginning of dividing the manuscripts into portions, to which portions were given the name peciæ or petiæ—or in the Italian form, pezze. At first, the extent of these divisions must have been more or less arbitrary, but later, the number of pages or sheets to be contained in them was made a matter of specific university regulation. According to the regulation, the pecia was to contain sixteen columns, each with sixty-two lines, and each line with thirty-two letters, and the material was to be written on sheets comprising together a form, quaterne.

The pecia served as the unit of the calculation for the charge for the rental. The older manuscripts had been written in a much larger format than that found convenient for university work, and the above specified form was now arrived at as, on the whole, best meeting the requirements of the students and the convenience of the scribes.

For some years after the formal recognition by the university statutes of the stationarii, the number of these was naturally limited, a limitation which had a service for the university authorities in facilitating the supervision considered important, and which was, of course, of business value for the stationarii themselves. A certain amount not only of scholarly knowledge but also of capital must have been requisite on the part of the stationarii in order to bring together for manifolding authentic codices or texts, and also to keep themselves supplied with writing materials, which during the thirteenth century continued to be costly. There is evidence that in certain cases, particularly in Padua, a salary was paid from the university chest to the stationarii, which was an admission on the part of the university authorities that the prices prescribed for the rent of the peciæ were not in themselves adequate to secure a living income for the scribes.

The stationarii were occasionally known in the Italian universities by the name of bedelli, or bidelli. The bedelli were originally university officials, whose functions probably covered some such disciplinary work as that which is to-day in the hands of the Oxford proctors. The name suggests also the English term beadle, applied to the English parish official who was charged with the duty of keeping the peace, and I find that the lexicographers derive the word beadle directly from the earlier term bedel, the name given to the English university functionary who had to do with matters of discipline and particularly with the direction of public functions, processions, etc. The name is derived from pedum, a stick, the allusion being probably to the baton or staff of office. The use in Italy of the term bidellus for the scribes hiring out manuscripts, was evidently due to the fact that the privileges of this business were in certain cases given to the university officials, in addition, probably, to their other duties.

The name of peciarii was sometimes applied to the officials whose duty it was to supervise the work of the stationarii. In 1300, there is reference to six peciarii in Bologna.

The earliest Italian reference to university scribes dates from 1228, and concerns not the University of Bologna, but the smaller institution of Vercelli in Piedmont. The Vercelli regulations order the employment of two exemplatores, who were to be charged with the duty of providing the texts required for the use of the instructors and students in the Faculties of jurisprudence and theology. The prices to be paid for these manuscripts were to be fixed by the rector of the university. As this is the earliest regulation of which there is record concerning bookselling in the universities, I think it worth while to cite the text itself:

Item habebit Commune Vercellarum duos exemplatores, quibus taliter providebit, quod eos scholares habere possint, qui habeant exemplantia in utroque jure et in Theologia competentia et correcta tam in textu quam in glossa; ita quod solutio fiat a scholaribus pro exemplis secundum quod convenit, ad taxationem Rectoris.[263]

[The University of Vercelli shall also employ two exemplatores, for whom suitable provision shall be made, so that they may be at the service of the scholars who require manuscripts authoritative and correct both as to the text and in the commentaries, either in the department of law or in that of theology, and in return for the copies (or for the use of the copies) received from the exemplatores, the students shall pay a fitting price (or rental) to be fixed by the Rector of the university.]

In similar fashion, the statutes of the University of Padua of the year 1283 provide that two stationarii or bidelli should be employed, one of whom should be at the service of the Faculty of jurisprudence, and the other should serve those of arts and of medicine. The theological Faculty was not instituted in Padua until much later. The two bidelli drew salaries, the first of eight ducats per year, and the second of two ducats, forty sols. They were charged with the duty of keeping a supply of peciæ of the texts prescribed in the lists and of placing these supplies at the disposal of the students and scholars calling for the same. In the year 1420, the statutes of the High School of Modena prescribed that the stationarius (there appears to have been question of but one official for the entire institution) must keep a supply of the texts of the Roman and Canonical law, the summa notaria, the speculum, the Lectures of Cinus and of Innocentius.

The stationarius was to charge for the rent of a pecia of the prescribed texts four denarii, of the glossarii five denarii, and of other texts six denarii. I do not find in the regulations any specification of the term covered by this rental. The city was to assure the stationarius of freedom from military service, and was to give him “the yearly compensation of ten lire.”[264]

A reference by the Italian scholar Filelfo indicates that from this university arrangement the term bidellus came to be applied to scribes outside of university towns. Filelfo speaks of a librarius publicus, “who, in the ordinary speech, is called bidellus.”

With the increase in the larger universities, such as Bologna and Padua, of the number of students and instructors requiring literary material, the practice gradually took shape of purchasing instead of hiring the texts required, and the stationarii developed into librarii. In its original signification, the term librarius stood for librarian; and as late as the fourteenth century the French word librairie was used for a library or a collection of books. It seems to have been only after the introduction of printing that the use of the term librairie finally came to be restricted in France to a collection of books held for sale, that is to say, to a book-shop.

The book-dealers, who in the earlier years of the manuscript period devoted themselves to keeping collections of manuscripts, filled, in fact, rather the rôle of librarians than of booksellers. They were ready to rent out their manuscripts for a consideration, or to permit customers to consult the texts without taking them from the shop. The practice of making from their original stock of texts authenticated copies for general sale, was a matter of comparatively slow development.

Bologna had become the most important school in Europe for the study of Roman and Canonical law, and it was in Bologna that the undertakings of the university bookseller first became important. The booksellers were not only subject to the supervision of the university, but were also brought under the regulations of the town, and the town authorities undertook to prescribe prices as well for the renting as for the selling of the manuscripts, and also to prescribe penalties for the renting or selling of incorrect or incomplete texts.

The university regulations specified that there must be on the part of the booksellers no modification of the text under which new readings or glosses should be inserted to replace those accepted as authoritative, and a penalty was attached to the selling or renting of the texts in any other form than that in which they were prescribed by the instructors of the Faculty to which the study belonged. In 1289, the penalty for the contravention of this regulation, previously fixed at ten lire, was raised to one hundred lire.[265]

A few years later, a university regulation specified that the stationarii peciarum who undertook to rent out the authoritative texts, must keep in stock sufficient supplies of 117 specified works. In the year 1300, there were in the university six official stationarii, of whom three were Italians and three, foreigners. They had to be appointed each year, but it seems probable that when their work proved satisfactory they were re-appointed from year to year.

The responsibility for the general supervision of the texts and for their correctness and completeness rested with the bidellus generalis. Any reader who should discover blemishes or omissions in the peciæ was under obligation to report the same to the bidellus generalis, and the stationarius who was responsible for the preparation of the defective text was fined five solidos, one half of the fine going to the university chest, one quarter to the bidellus, and one quarter to the informant.

The stationarii were ordered to post up in a conspicuous place in their shops all the regulations having to do with their trade, in order that all buyers could know what they were entitled to receive. They were not at liberty to decline to rent to university members any peciæ on the official list. On the other hand, if they rented out peciæ to students who had been expelled or who were under suspension, they were themselves liable to fine. The usual rental at this time, that is to say, the beginning of the thirteenth century, was four denarii for a quaterne (four sheets) and two denarii for a pecia. The denarius was the equivalent of about ten cents.

The rental for works not on the official list was somewhat higher, as these would not be called for so continuously and as the preparation of supplies of the same must, therefore, be more of a speculation. In renting manuscripts outside of Bologna (which could be done only under special permission of the university authorities and which occurred as a rule only with members of other universities) an additional two denarii for a quaterne could be demanded. Students renting the peciæ were obliged to deposit a pledge of sufficient value to secure the stationarii against loss. Between the regulations applying to the stationarii peciarum, and those controlling the general stationarii, who had authority to sell as well as to rent and whose business lay outside of the university, there were various differences. The general stationarius appeared to have undertaken from time to time the sale of books on commission, which to the university stationarius was forbidden.

One of the earlier university regulations prohibited students from purchasing manuscripts with a view of selling them again for a profit, but this, according to Savigny, fell into disuse in the course of the fourteenth century. As late as 1334, the regulations of Bologna strictly prohibited students from taking with them, on leaving the universities, any books whatsoever, without a special authorisation on the part of the heads of their respective Faculties. Regulations of this kind naturally interfered with the normal development of the book trade in a city so largely dependent upon its university as was Bologna, and formed one cause for the greater activity of the general book trade in cities like Venice, where the regulations of the commune were not supplemented by those of university authorities.

The city statutes of Bologna of 1259, prohibited the stationarii librarii from taking a higher commission on the sale of manuscripts than two and a half per cent. It was also specified that no sale of a work left on commission should be made without the direct knowledge of the owner. The stationarius peciarum belonged at the outset to the membership of the university, and, in accepting the authority of its supervision and its regulations, enjoyed also the university privileges, which included freedom from certain municipal obligations. Many of the university stationarii belonged, as mentioned, to the class of bidelli.

It was forbidden for any member of the university to promise or to engage, either directly or indirectly, to pay to the stationarius a higher commission or compensation than that prescribed in the regulations. The penalty for an infraction of this rule, a penalty imposed upon both the parties concerned, was a fine of five livres. The student was also under obligations to denounce to the rector any attempt on the part of the dealer to secure an additional compensation.[266] The very severity of these prohibitions gives indication of difficulty in securing enforcement of the system.

The statutes of Padua and of the other Italian universities of the manuscript trade, were similar to, and were probably in the main based upon, those of Bologna. In Padua, the earliest regulations which have been preserved bear date as late as 1465, which is one year later than the introduction into Italy of the printing-press. The regulations of 1465 prescribed the size of the peciæ and confirmed the rental prices to the schedule of those of Bologna. The renting of manuscripts could, however, have continued but for a short period after the issue of these regulations. In Padua, as in Bologna, the stationarii peciarum had to make a deposit, in entering upon their business, of four hundred lire. They had also to go through with an examination at the hands of the university authorities, and they then had to take an oath of loyalty to the university. This entitled them to their formal appointment, which needed, however, as stated, to be confirmed from year to year.

In Padua, as in Bologna, there were fixed commissions for the sale of manuscripts, and these commissions, in themselves quite moderate, were to be paid half by the buyer and half by the seller. It appears, however, that the prices were probably not fully controlled by these regulations, as there are examples of so-called “presents” being given by buyers to the sellers after the sale of manuscripts on the commission basis specified in the regulations had been duly recorded.

In Padua, as in Bologna, it was strictly forbidden for Jews to take any part in the buying and selling of manuscripts. The only way in which a Jew could secure a manuscript desired by him was through the intervention of the university authorities, who might make purchase of the same on his behalf. The bidellus was the official usually employed for the purpose. It may be assumed that some additional commission was here required, and that the Jews had to pay more dearly for their university texts than the Christians.

There does not appear to be record of the loaning of manuscripts to students for their own transcribing, although in Paris this evidently formed an important portion of the manuscript business. In Bologna, as in Padua, the trade in bookbinding was directly associated with that of manuscript selling, and the ligatori librorum carried on their work in the shops of the librarii. In Bologna, the manuscripts were in the main devoted to the subjects of the law and scholastic theology, while in Padua the more important division was medicine.

The literary requirements, however, for doctors of law as for doctors of medicine, must have been at best but moderate. Savigny states that in the thirteenth century the collection of books belonging to a doctor of the law in Bologna rarely comprised more than from four to six volumes, and the medical collections were hardly as large. It is with the beginning of the fifteenth century that there comes to be a larger understanding of the relations of literature to education and a material increase in the demand in the university towns for supplies of books outside of the texts actually in use in the lecture room.

Compayré gives the following list of the books required in the ordinary and in the extraordinary courses of law in Bologna, a list which was, he says, practically the same at Montpellier: The several works of the Corpus Juris of Justinian, comprising the Codex (which dates from 529), the Digestum Vetus, the Infortiatum, the Digestum Novum. These were identical with the three parts which the pupils of Irnerius distinguished as the Pandects or Digest, the Institutes, the Authenticum. To these sources of the Roman law were later added the Constitutiones of Frederick I. and Frederick II., and in Montpellier the Usus Feudorum, a collection of feudal laws.

The statutes of the universities fixed the time within which the reading of the prescribed books must be completed. Professors were obliged, in entering upon their duties, to take the following oath: “I swear to read and to finish reading within the time fixed by the statutes, the books or parts of books which have been assigned for my lectures.” Severe penalties were inflicted on those whose courses had not been completed within the required time.[267] There ought, as a rule, to have been no difficulty in completing the task assigned, for each Faculty had, as a rule, only a single work or at most a single author assigned for its consideration. The Faculty of Arts had Aristotle, that of Civil Law the Corpus Juris of Justinian, that of Common Law the Decretals of Gratian. Compayré suggests that, according to the maxim of Seneca, timeo hominem unius libri, the Faculties of the Middle Ages might well have been awe-inspiring.

The list of the texts of the medical Faculties was, however, somewhat more considerable. The course in Montpellier, where medicine became still more important than law, followed in the main that of Salerno. The first place was given to Hippocrates and Galen. It is somewhat surprising that as late as 1250 the teachings of these old-time practitioners (whose work was done respectively in the fourth century B.C. and the second century A.D.) should still have remained the chief authorities in medical science. Compayré refers to them as the Aristotles of Medicine. In the program of the Faculty of Paris of 1270, however, the names of Hippocrates and Galen do not appear.

With the two Greeks were associated the original works of Constantine and his translations from Rhazes Hali-Abbas, Ysaac, Avicenna, Johannicus, and other Arabic and Persian writers, and finally the treatise of John of St. Amand, and of Nicholas of Salerno. The Antidotarium, or Book of Antidotes, known also as the Book of Medicaments, was for some centuries a work of standard reference and of popular sale. The influence of the Arabs in the instructional literature of medicine seems to have been almost as controlling as that of the Greeks in philosophy and of the Romans in law.

Rabelais, who studied medicine in Montpellier between 1520 and 1530, is said to have been the first among the students who was able to read his Greek authors in the original instead of in Latin translations.[268] Rabelais found time while in college not only for Greek and medicine, but for literature. The first part of the Pantagruel was written before he had secured his final diploma.

By the middle of the thirteenth century, the number of the books required for use in the university courses had increased to such an extent that four catalogues were issued, one for each of the four Faculties—Law, Medicine, Theology, and Arts. The lectures and the instruction were given entirely in Latin, which was the only language that could have been understood by all of the various nationalities represented, or even by the representatives of the different Italian dialects.

In Spain, the earliest university was that of Palencia, which was founded in 1212. Salamanca, founded a few years later, soon exceeded Palencia in importance, and, particularly in connection with the work of its medical Faculty, secured for itself, before the close of the thirteenth century, a repute throughout Europe. Compayré is of opinion that the instruction given in Salamanca, not only in medicine but in science generally and in philosophy, was very largely influenced by the presence in the peninsula of Moorish scholars. “The philosophy of Averrhoes and the medicine of Avicenna exerted a manifest influence on the development of studies at Salamanca.”[269] It seems probable, if this belief is well founded, that the Arabian literature, produced and manifolded in Cordova, found its way to Salamanca, and through Salamanca to Salerno, Bologna, and Paris.

The formal constitution of the University of Paris dates from 1202. Certain of its historians, however, claim for its first work as an educational institution a much earlier date. Crévier, for instance, says: “The University of Paris as a school goes back to Alcuin ... Charlemagne was its founder.”[270] Charlemagne’s practical interest in education has caused his name to be associated with the schools of Tours, Aachen, Milan, Salerno, Bologna, and Paris. The most recent writer on the subject, Compayré, is of opinion that this is an exaggerated statement. He finds evidence of an unbroken succession of Benedictine schools, such as those of Rheims, Tours, Angers, Laon, Bec, and others, which had preserved a continuity of educational work from the time of Charlemagne to that of Louis VIII., and which, under such leaders as Lanfranc (1005-1089), and S. Anselm (1033-1109), had developed and maintained a high degree of intellectual activity. He considers these to have constituted the direct succession to the schools of the palace of Charlemagne, but he fails to find in them the prototype of the university system. For Compayré, the actual founder of the University of Paris was Abelard, who died sixty years before the university secured its organisation. It is his contention that it was Abelard who, by his learning, his independence of thought, his eloquence, and his mastery over the minds of men, is to be credited with the initiation of the great movement from which was to proceed not only the University of Paris, but the long series of universities for which Paris served as an incentive and the type. It was Abelard, says Compayré, who, if not first, at least with the most direct and far-reaching influence, introduced dialectics into theology and reason into authority, breaking away from the mere passive transmission of the beliefs and timid dialectics accepted by the schools of theology, and thus making possible the development of a true university spirit. “The method of Abelard is the soul of scholastic philosophy,”[271] the philosophy which, until the Renaissance, reigned supreme in the University of Paris. Abelard’s method, says Père Denifle, is presented in the book which during several centuries served as the text for theological instruction, the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and its influence is also to be noted in that other noteworthy work which became the authority for the schools of common law, the Decretals of Gratian.

Abelard may be called the first professor of superior instruction. His work was certainly begun with éclat, for his classes are said to have numbered at times no less than five thousand pupils. “First of the French philosophers ... he may justly be considered as the precursor of Ramus and Descartes, in other words, of the Renaissance and of the modern spirit.”[272] Apart from this more far-reaching influence, he was able to do for the school of Paris what the jurist Irnerius was, during nearly the same years, accomplishing for the school of Bologna, making possible, namely, its development into the university. It was through the work done by Abelard that “the theological school of Paris became the seminary of Christian Europe.”[273] This influence continued through the succeeding centuries in which Paris still remained the centre of theological instruction, a result which necessarily had later an important effect in shaping the character of the earlier issues of the Paris Press.

The term University is not a synonym of the university of science, but simply of the university of teachers and students who composed a group and who instituted association of studies. “In the language of the Civil Law,” says Malden, “all corporations were called Universitates, as forming one whole out of many individuals.”[274]

The organisation of the University of Paris, while differing in certain important details from that of Bologna, was substantially identical with the Italian institutions in respect to the privileges conceded to instructors and students. In successive enactments or crown edicts, the members of the universities of Paris, Montpellier, and Poitiers were exempted, not only from the regular national taxes and from the town dues (octroi), but also from special war taxes. In 1295, Philip the Fair decreed that under no pretext could the goods of the members of the universities be taken or their revenues attached.[275] The following statute of the University of Padua represented fairly enough the status of students in all the universities of France and of Italy: “Students must be considered as citizens in what concerns the advantages, but not in that which constitutes the burdens of citizens.” Under this same principle, members of the universities were also exempt from military service.

The authorities of the University of Paris exercised a very direct control from the outset over all the details of the business of making, renting, and selling books. This authority became in Paris a matter of much more immediate importance and abiding influence than in Bologna. In the latter, as we have seen, the business of the book-dealers was very closely limited to the production of the texts immediately required for the work of the class-room. In Paris, however, in the manuscript period, two and a half centuries before the introduction of the printing-press, the book-trade of the university had become in great measure the book-trade of the city. During a large part of this time, moreover, Paris shared with Florence the position of the centre of the intellectual activities of Europe. The scribes and their masters who were manifolding manuscripts in the Latin quarter, were not only supplying text-books to the students of the university, but were preparing literature for the scholarly readers of Paris, of France, and of Europe. The book-dealers of Paris constituted, however, for several centuries, with a few exceptions, a guild organised within the university. The members of this guild, the libraires jurés, were members of the university, and the operations of the guild were under the direct control of the university authorities. This arrangement gave to the book-dealers material advantages in the possession of university privileges and in the control of a practical monopoly of the business of producing books. It involved, however, certain corresponding disadvantages. University control meant supervision, censorship, restriction, regulation of prices, interference with trade facilities, and various hampering conditions which delayed very seriously, both before and after the introduction of printing, the development of the business of making and of circulating books, and, as a result of this, placed not a few obstacles in the way of the literary and the intellectual development of the community. Chevillier says: “The book-trade of Paris owes its origin to the university, by which, under the approval of the king, it was organised into an association of masters. This association was, from the outset, controlled directly by the university, from the authorities of which it received its statutes and regulations, and by which the master libraires were licensed, jurés.”[276]

“The reproduction of a work of scholarship (to which class belonged of necessity the text-books prescribed for the work of the university,)” remarks Delalain, “called for on the part of the scribe a considerable measure of scholarly knowledge and also for a detailed and careful supervision. It was held, therefore, by the university authorities that the responsibility properly belonged to them to supervise the series of operations by means of which these university texts were prepared and were circulated. It was essential that the completeness and the correctness of each copy should be verified, and that these copies should be confided to trustworthy persons for their sale or their hire, in order that there should be no risk of inaccuracies in the texts themselves or of any unnecessary enhancement of the cost to instructors or to students of their purchase or their hire. On this ground, the university of Paris asserted from the beginning of its history the right to control the book-trade of the city, a contention which was confirmed and maintained by all the kings of France after Philip Augustus.”[277]

The “book-trade” was held to include all the dealers and artisans who were concerned with the production and distribution of manuscripts; that is, the copyists and their employers, the binders, the illuminators, the sellers of parchment, and, later, the manufacturers of paper. While the control of the university was exercised over the entire book-trade, the interest of the authorities was naturally much keener in regard to the divisions having to do with the production of books than in the work of the booksellers. The matter of chief importance, in fact, according to the accepted theory, the sole purpose for the existence of the book-trade, was to secure for the members of the university a sufficient supply, at a fixed and moderate charge, of correct and complete texts of the prescribed works; while it was also essential to protect those members from the contamination of heretical writings or of heretical comments on books of accepted orthodoxy.

A regulation of December, 1316, prescribes that no stationarius shall employ a copyist until such employee shall have been duly sworn before the university, or before the Rector and four procureurs, to execute his functions faithfully, and, having been accepted as a trustworthy scribe, shall have had his name inscribed on the official register.

As a partial offset to the series of restrictions and limitations under which was carried on the work of these early publishers, it is in order to specify certain privileges and exemptions enjoyed by them as members of the university. These included exemption from taxes; exemption from service on the watch or on the city guard; and the privilege of jurisdiction, commonly known as committimus. Under this last, they were empowered in suits or cases, civil or personal, and whether engaged as plaintiffs or defendants, to bring witnesses or other principals before the Juges Conservateurs, functionaries charged with the maintenance or protection of privileges.[278]

Issues concerning personal rights arising between the members of the university were decided before the tribunal or court of the Rector. Cases affecting realty, and all cases between the members and outsiders, were tried before the Conservateurs des Priviléges, an authority of necessity favourably disposed to the members of the university. The ground assigned for this privilege was that instructors and pupils, and those engaged in aiding their work (i. e. the makers of books), should not be exposed to loss of valuable time by being called away from their work to distant parts.[279] An edict of Philip Augustus, in 1200, confirmed by S. Louis in 1229, and by Philip the Fair in 1302, directed that the cases of university members be brought before the Bishop of Paris. The university found disadvantages in being under the jurisdiction of the Bishop (whose censorship later proved particularly troublesome for the publishers), and applications were made to replace the authority of the ecclesiastical courts with that of the royal courts. In 1334, letters-patent of Philip of Valois directed the provost of Paris, who was at that time conservateur of the royal privileges, to take the university under his special protection, and in 1341 the members of the university were forbidden to enter proceedings before any other authority. In 1361, under an edict of King John, the members of the university were again declared exempt from taxes and assessments of all kinds (portes, gabelles, impositions, aides, et subsides). The repetition from reign to reign of certain edicts and regulations such as the above does not imply that the earlier ones had been recalled, but that they had to some extent fallen into desuetude, or that attempts had been made to override them.

By letters-patent issued in 1369, Charles V. declared that all dealers in books and makers of books required for the use of “our scholars” should be exempt from all taxes, etc. The exemption included binders, illuminators, parchment-makers, etc. It appears that some abuses had crept in under this exemption, as in 1384 it was ordered that no book-dealers should be freed from taxes if they carried on for gain any other occupation.[280]

The policy of favouring the production and sale of books by freeing the publishers and dealers from taxes and other burdens was continued and even developed after the introduction of printing. The kings, impressed with the possibilities of this great discovery, recognised that it was for the interest of the realm to free books, printed or written, not only from octroi or city duties, but from customs or importation charges. Letters-patent of Henry II., dated 1553, read as follows: Avons ordonné et ordonnons lesdits livres, escrits ou imprimez, reliez ou non reliez, estre et demeurer exempts desdits droits de traicte foraine, Domaine forain et haut passage.[281] This was a more liberal policy than at that time prevailed in Italy or in England, or, in fact, than has as yet been accepted in the nineteenth century by the United States. In order to obtain the advantage of such exemption, the publishers had to secure from the Rector of the university a passport or certificate for their packages.

One of the earlier regulations of the university affecting the book-trade was that under which the supervision of the sale of parchment was left in the hands of the Rector. This sale was usually authorised only at the annual Lendit fair. The dealers, bringing their parchment, exposed this for inspection. Before any other purchases were permitted, the Rector selected the quantity needed for the university, for which payment was made at a price fixed in advance. He then received from the parchment-dealers, for the treasury of the university, or for the special fund of the book guild, a gratuity which amounted to from two thousand to three thousand francs.

In Paris, as in Bologna, during the whole of the thirteenth century and the first portion of the fourteenth, the principal work of the university book-dealers was not the selling but the renting of books. The regulations concerning the division of manuscripts into chapters or peciæ were, however, not carried out with the same precision in Paris as in the Italian universities, nor was it practicable to exercise in the larger city, or even within the confines of the Latin Quarter, as close a supervision as in Bologna or Padua over the rates for renting and over the stock of copies kept by the stationarii. The general purpose of the regulations was, however, the same, and the routine of renting prices and the general rate of commission on the books sold were, as said, matters of university regulation. With a community of students ranging in number from ten thousand to (in the most prosperous days of the university) as high as thirty thousand, the monopoly of supplying text-books, whether through sale or through renting, must have constituted an important business. It was not until some time after the introduction of printing that the importance and prospect of profit of publishing done outside of the university limits, and freed from a portion of the university restrictions, came to be sufficient to make it worth while for certain of the more enterprising of the printers to give up the trade in text-books and their privileges as libraires jurés and to establish themselves as independent dealers.

In the University of Paris we find in use in the twelfth century, in addition to the terms librarii, stationarii, and petiarii, the term mangones. The word mango originally designated a merchant or dealer, but appears to have carried an implication of untrustworthiness or slipperiness. It is satisfactory, therefore, to understand that mangones very speedily went out of use as a name for dealers in books.[282] The petiarii are not mentioned in the statutes of the university, where they appear to be replaced by the parcheminii.[283]

Guérard interprets the term stationarius as standing first for a scribe with a fixed location (un écrivain sédentaire), as opposed to a copyist who was prepared to accept work in any place where it could be secured. Later, the term was understood to designate a master scribe who directed the work of a bureau of copyists; and still later, the stationarius, sometimes then called stationarius librorum, possessed a complete book-making establishment, where were employed, in addition to the copyists, the illuminators, binders, and other artisans. At this stage of his development, the stationarius has become the equivalent of the printer-publisher of a later generation. Guérard is inclined to limit the earlier use in Paris of the term librarius to the keeper of a shop in which books were kept for sale, but in which no book-production was carried on.[284] It is evident, however, that in France, as in Italy, there was no very definite or consistent use of the several terms, and that before the introduction of printing, librarius and stationarius were applied almost indifferently to dealers having to do either with the production or with the sale of books. Chassant is authority for the statement that at the time of the introduction of printing into France there were in the two cities of Paris and Orleans more than ten thousand individual scribes or copyists who gained their living with their pens.[285] It is not surprising that the first printers, whose diabolical invention took the bread away from these workers, had their lives threatened and their work interrupted.

The letters-patent of Charles V., dated November 5, 1368, specify fourteen libraires and eleven écrivains (employing stationarii) as at that time registered in Paris. No one was admitted to the profession of librarius or stationarius who was not a man of approved standing and character, and who had not also given evidence of an adequate and scholarly knowledge of manuscript interpretation and of the subject to which he proposed to give attention. The examination was made before the four chief publishers (les quatre grands libraires). Having secured the approval of the board of publishers, the applicant was obliged to secure also acceptance from the representatives of the Rector, and to submit certain guarantees for the satisfactory performance of his responsibilities. He was called upon to submit, for himself and heirs, all his property as well as his person to the control of the court of Paris as a pledge for the execution of his trust. As late as 1618, in the reign of Charles IX., the master printers (i. e., printer-publishers) were obliged to hold certificates from the Rector and the university, to the effect that they were skilled in the art of printing, and that they possessed full knowledge of Latin and of Greek.

The libraires jurés comprised two classes, the libraires grands (officium magni librariatus), and the libraires petits (officium parvi librariatus).[286] The immediate responsibility for the government of the body rested with the four chief libraires (les quatre grands libraires). It was they who fixed the prices for the sale or hire of manuscripts, and who supervised the examination of manuscripts with reference, first, as to their admission into the official list of the university texts, and, secondly, as to the completeness and accuracy of the particular parchment submitted. They also inspected the book-shops and the workrooms of the copyists, and verified from time to time the accuracy and the quality of the copies prepared from these accepted texts; they passed upon the qualifications of applicants for the position of libraire juré; and, finally, they exercised a general supervision over the enforcement of all the university regulations affecting the book-trade, and gave special attention to those prohibiting any interference with this trade by an outside dealer, one who was not a libraire juré. These four chief libraires were each under a bond or “caution” for the amount of 200 livres. In addition to the exemption from general taxes and guard duty conceded to all the libraires jurés, these four enjoyed from time to time certain special privileges. In October, 1418, by a regulation of Charles VI., the four chief libraires are exempted by name from certain special duties on wine, etc., which had been imposed for the purpose of securing funds pour la recouvrance de nos Villes et Chastel de Monstreau ou Faut-Yonne.[287] It was also necessary for him to find two responsible bondsmen for an amount of not less than 100 livres each.[288][289] In Bologna in 1400 the bond was also fixed at 200 livres, the equivalent of 5065 francs.[290]

The special obligations imposed upon and accepted by the librarii and stationarii, as specified in documents between the years 1250 and 1350, can be summarised as follows:

I. To accept faithfully and loyally all the regulations of the university concerning the production and the sale of books.

II. Not to make within the term of one month any agreement, real or nominal, transferring to themselves the ownership of books which had been placed in their hands for sale.

III. Not to permit the loss or disappearance of any book so consigned for the purpose later of acquiring ownership of the same.

IV. To declare conscientiously and exactly the just and proper price of each book offered for sale, and to specify such price, together with the name of the owner, in some conspicuous place in the work itself.

V. To make no disposition of a consigned book without having in the first place informed the owner or his representative of the price to be secured for the same, and to make immediate report and accounting of such price when received.

VI. To charge as commission for the service of selling such book not more than four deniers to a member of the university and not more than six deniers to an outsider. This commission was to be paid by the purchaser, who seems to have been considered the obliged party in the transaction.[291]

VII. To place conspicuously in the windows of their shops a price list of all works kept on sale.

The stationarii on their part were also held:

I. To employ no scribes for the production of manuscripts other than those who had been accepted and certified before the Rector.

II. To offer for sale or for hire no manuscripts that had not been passed upon and “taxed” by the appointed authority.

III. To refuse to no applicant who was a member of the university the loan for hire of a manuscript, even though the applicant should require the same for the purpose of producing copies.

It is evident that a regulation of this character would, in the case of an original work by a contemporary author, have operated as a denial of any author’s rights. Such original work constituted, however, at this time the very rare exception, and their authors were evidently obliged to content themselves with the prestige of securing circulation. The case of a manuscript representing outlay and skilled labour on the part of the dealer, who might have had to make a toilsome journey to secure it, and who had later paid for the service of one or more editors for its collation and revision, was, of course, of much more frequent occurrence. It is difficult to understand why this class of effort and enterprise should not have been encouraged by the university authorities instead of being so largely nullified by regulations which made of such a manuscript common property. This regulation is, however, identical with that of Bologna. The penalty there for refusing to place a manuscript at the service of a member of the university was five livres.[292]

IV. To offer for rent no texts that were not complete and correct.

V. In the event of a work being brought to Paris by a stranger, to give immediate information to the authorities in order that before such work could be copied for hire or for sale it should be passed upon by the authorities as orthodox and as suitable for the use of the members of the university, and as being complete and correct in its own text.

Any libraire who, having been duly sworn, should be convicted of violation of these regulations, forfeited his office, and all the rights and privileges thereto appertaining; and all members of the university, instructors or students, were strictly prohibited (under penalty of forfeiture of their own membership) from having further dealings with such a delinquent.[293]

These various regulations, while possibly required in connection with the general interests of the university, were certainly exacting and must have interfered not a little with any natural development of the book-trade. It is nevertheless the case that the makers of books and the book-dealers in Paris occupied a more independent and a more dignified position than had been accorded to their brethren in Bologna. The latter appear to have risen hardly above the grade of clerks or lower-class functionaries, while these earlier Parisian publishers secured from the outset recognition as belonging to the higher educational work of the university, work in the shaping of which they themselves took an important part.

In 1316 (the year of the accession of Philip V.) the association of libraires jurés (authorised or certified book-dealers) comprised but thirteen members.[294] A year earlier there had been twenty-two, and I can only assume that the war troubles had had their natural influence in depressing and breaking up the book business. In 1323, the list comprises twenty-nine names, including the widow of De Peronne. In 1368, the number had again fallen to twenty-five. In 1488, the university list gives the names of twenty-four libraires, in addition to whom were registered two illuminators, two binders, and two écrivains.[295] The écrivains specified were undoubtedly master scribes, the register here quoted apparently not including the names of the copyists employed. At this date, however, the work of the printers had been going on in Paris for fourteen years, and the business of those concerned with the production of books in manuscript form must have been very largely reduced. The work of the master scribes continued, however, in the sixteenth century, but by the close of the fifteenth had become limited to the production, for collectors, of manuscripts as works of art.

While the majority of libraires jurés were naturally Frenchmen, there was no regulation to prevent the holding of such a post by a foreigner, and the list always, as a matter of fact, included several foreign names. The presence in the university of large groups of foreign students made it quite in order, and probably necessary, that they should find among the book-dealers some who could speak their home language and who could make clear to them the requirements concerning the university texts. The presence of these foreign book-dealers also facilitated the arrangements for the exchange of manuscripts between Paris and foreign universities. These foreign book-dealers, while obliged in ordinary routine to take an oath of fealty to the university, were not called upon to become citizens of France.

The list includes from time to time the names of women libraires, these women being usually widows of libraires who had duly qualified themselves. The women must themselves, however, in order to secure such appointments, have been able to pass the examination in Latin, in palæography, and in the technicalities of manuscript book-making. In respect as well to the admission of foreigners as to that of women, the Paris guild of the university book-dealers practised a more liberal policy than that followed by the university authorities of Bologna or the Stationers’ Hall of London. Later, this liberal policy was restricted, and in 1686 it was ordered that no foreigners should be admitted to the lists of the master libraires of the university.

The purchase of a manuscript during the fourteenth century was attended with almost as many formalities and precautions as are to-day considered necessary for the transfer of a piece of real estate. The dealer making the sale was obliged to give to the purchaser guarantees to the effect, first, that he was himself the owner or the duly authorised representative of the owner of the work; and, secondly, that the text of this was complete and correct, and as security for these guarantees he pledged his goods, and sometimes even his person. As a single example of a transaction illustrating this practice, I quote a contract cited by Du Breuil. This bears date November, 1332, and sets forth that a certain Geoffrey de Saint Léger, a duly qualified clerc libraire, acknowledges and confesses that he has sold, ceded, and transferred to the noble gentleman Messire Gérard de Montagu, Avocat du Roi au Parlement (counsellor at the royal court), all right, title, and interest in a work entitled Speculum Historiale in consuetudines Parisienses, contained in four volumes bound in red leather. The consideration named is forty livres Parisian, the equivalent, according to the tables of de Wailly, of 1013 francs. The vendor pledges as security for the obligation under the contract all his worldly goods, together with his own person (tous et chacun de ses biens, et guarantie de son corps même), and the contract is attested before two notaries.[296]

While the university assumed the strictest kind of control and supervision over the work of the book-dealers, it conceded, as an offset, to the association of these dealers a very substantial monopoly of the trade of making and selling books. It was prohibited, under severe penalties, for a person not a libraire juré to do business in a book-shop or at any fixed stand; that is to say, he could not sell as a stationnaire, but had to carry on his trade as a pedlar or chap-man, from a pack or a cart. The value of the manuscript that such pedlar was permitted to offer for sale was restricted to ten sous, the equivalent of half a franc. At the price at which manuscripts were held during the fourteenth century, this limitation restricted the trade of the peripatetic vendors to single sheets, or broadsides, containing usually a Pater, an Ave, or a Credo, or a brief calendar or astrological table. Successive edicts were issued from reign to reign, renewing the prohibition upon the selling of books, whether in French or Latin (excepting only of such maximum value), by any drapers, grocers, pedlars, or dealers of any kind.[297]

In all the official references of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to the book-dealers, the ground is taken that they formed a class apart from mechanics or from traders in ordinary merchandise. They were considered to be engaged in an intellectual pursuit, and were treated as members of a profession upon whose service the work of the university and that of the Church were largely dependent. Thus in 1649 the Recueil makes use of these words:

Les Marchands-Libraires, Imprimeurs et Relieurs seront toujours censés du corps de nostre bien aymée fille aisnée l’Université; du tout séparés des arts méchaniques, et autres Corps de Mestiers ou marchandises; et come tels, conservés en la jouissance de tous les droicts; priviléges, franchises, libertez, préséances et prérogatives attribuées à ladite université et à eux par les Royes nos prédécesseux et par nous.[298]

It was, therefore, not permitted to the libraire to bring discredit upon his profession by also engaging in any “sordid pursuits” (viles occupations), and in so doing he rendered himself liable to being deposed from his high post (declaré déchu de son noble office). He could, however, unite with his work as libraire that of a notary, or that of a royal counsellor or practitioner in the higher court (avocat du roi au Parlement).

Notwithstanding the personal prestige and the substantial advantages which were thus enjoyed by the book-dealers of the university, there were from time to time instances of protest, amounting occasionally to insubordination, on the part of the libraires, who, as their business aims and possibilities developed, became restive under the long series of trammels and restrictions, and particularly in connection with those imposed by the ecclesiastical division of the university authorities. The dread, however, of losing any portion of their privileges, and particularly the risk of any impairment of their monopoly of the book-trade of the university and of Paris, operated always as a sufficient consideration to prevent the insubordination from going to extremes. Throughout the entire period of the Middle Ages the control of the university continued, therefore, practically absolute over the book-trade of Paris, the influence of the Church and the (more or less spasmodic) authority of the Crown being exercised by means of the university machinery.

This state of affairs continued for some period of years after the introduction of printing. The university still insisted upon its responsibility for the correctness and the completeness of the texts issued from the Paris press, although it gave up of necessity the routine of examining individual copies of the printed editions. On the other hand, the censorship control on the part of the theological Faculty over the moral character and orthodoxy of the works printed was insisted upon more strenuously than ever as the Church began to recognise the enormous importance of the influence upon public opinion of the widely distributed printed volumes. The effect of this ecclesiastical control upon the business of printing books is set forth with some detail in the chapter on the early printers of Paris. It is sufficient to say here that the contention on the part of the university to control, as a portion of the work of higher education, the business of the makers and sellers of books, while sharply attacked and materially undermined after the middle of the seventeenth century, was not formally abandoned until the beginning of the eighteenth. At this time the Crown took over to itself all authority to regulate the press, an authority which disappeared only with the revolution of 1789.

For six centuries the book-trade of Paris and of France, whether it consisted in the production of manuscripts for the exclusive use of members of the university, or of printed books for the enlightenment of the general public, had been obliged to do its work under the hampering and burdensome regulations and restrictions of a varying series of authorities. The rectors of the university, the theologians of the Sorbonne, the lawyers of the Parliament of Paris, the chancellors of the Crown, the kings themselves, had all taken a hand, sometimes in turn, not infrequently in conflict with each other, in the task of “regulating” the trade in books. The burden of the restrictions was, in pretence at least, offset by various privileges and exemptions, but they remained burdens notwithstanding. It may well be a cause of surprise that in the face of such a long series of hampering difficulties, difficulties more serious than those with which any publishers in the world, outside of Rome, had to contend, the manuscript publishers and the later printer-publishers of Paris should have been able to do so much to make Paris a literary and a publishing centre. As has been already indicated, it was certainly the case that during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Paris shared with Florence the position of being the centre of the manuscript trade of Europe. It was also the case, as will be set forth in a later chapter, that the first printer-publishers of Paris did most noteworthy work in furthering the development of scholarly publishing and the production of scholarly books. It required, however, the revolution of 1789 to establish the principle that the business of producing and distributing books could secure its legitimate development only when freed from censorship restrictions and regulations, and that it was a business the control of which belonged properly not to the university, the Courts of Parliament, or the Crown, but to the people themselves.

Considering the scarcity and the costliness of books in the Middle Ages, it is somewhat surprising that the work of instruction rested so directly upon books, that is, depended upon the mastery of a text. Thurot says: “It is the distinctive character of instruction in the Middle Ages that the science was not taught directly and in itself, but by the explanation of books which derived their authority solely from their writers.”[299] Roger Bacon formulates it: “When one knows the text, one knows all that concerns the science which is the object of the text.”[300] Instead of taking a course of logic or of ethics, says Compayré, the phrase was reading a book on logic or ethics, legere or audire librum. This close adherence to the text secured, of course, an assured demand in the university towns first for the hired pecias and later for the purchased manuscripts.

The foundation of the College of the Sorbonne dates from 1257. It was organised by Robert de Sorbon, chaplain to Louis IX. The college was at once affiliated with the University of Paris, of which it became the theological Faculty, and in the general direction of which it exercised at times a controlling influence. The college is connected with my subject on the ground of its assumption of the theological censorship of the Paris book-trade and of its frequent attempts to exercise a general censorship over all the productions of the Paris printing-press.

As we shall note later in the history of the Paris book-trade, various complications arose between the publishers and booksellers possessing a university license (the libraires jurés) and certain unlicensed dealers who undertook to come into competition with them. The locality occupied by these unlicensed booksellers was on the Island of the Cité, immediately by the precincts of Notre Dame. In fact it was the case with the book-trade generally north of the Alps that its business was very largely carried on in the portals of a church if not under the immediate shadow of the cathedral.

While in Italy the Church furthered but slightly the early production of books and, later, did not a little to hamper the undertakings of the publishers, it was the case in France and quite largely also in South Germany, that the publishers found themselves very largely dependent upon the scholarly interests and the scholarly co-operation of the clerics, and the association of the Church with the book-trade was, for a large proportion at least of the fifteenth century, an important one.

In Paris, the booksellers licensed by the university were all in the Latin Quarter, and in the same region were to be found the sellers of parchment, the illuminators, the scribes, binders, etc., who also carried university licenses and were under university supervision. It is probable that the specification in the Tax Roll of 1292 of eight librarii in Paris refers only to the booksellers licensed by the university and carrying on their business in the Latin Quarter.

In Bayeux, in 1250, certain clerics were exempted from taxation if they dealt in parchment or if they were engaged in the copying of manuscripts, and the book-shops along the walls of the cathedral were also exempt from taxation. It is not clear to me in looking up this record, whether the tax mentioned was a town tax or a general tax, or whether it was one of the ecclesiastical levies.[301]

Roger Bacon’s reference to the scribes of Paris has already been mentioned. He could not secure from the Brothers of his Order a transcript of his work which he desired to present to Pope Clement, because they were too ignorant to write the same out intelligently, while he was afraid to confide the work to the public scribes of France lest they might make improper use of the material.[302] It is Wattenbach’s opinion that the wrongful use of his production dreaded by Bacon was the sale of unauthorised copies of it by the scribes to whom the preparation of the authorised copies should be confided.

In 1292, Wenzel, King of Bohemia, presented to the monastery of Königsaal, 200 marks in silver for the purchase of books, and the purchases were made from the book-sellers in Paris. Richard de Bury extols Paris as the great centre of the book-trade. Of the value of the book collections in Rome and the possibility there of securing literary treasures, he had already spoken, but the treasures of Paris appear to have impressed him still more keenly. There he found occasion to open his purse freely and took in exchange for base gold, books of inestimable value. Joh. Gerson, in his treatise De Laude Scriptorum expresses the dread lest the persistent carrying away from Florence of his books by wealthy visitors may not too seriously diminish its literary treasures.

The Paris publishers appear to have sent out travelling salesmen or representatives to take orders for their wares. As early as 1480, a publisher named Guillaume Tousé, of Paris, made complaint to the chancellor of Brittany to the effect that he had entrusted a commission to a certain Guillaume de l’Espine to carry books into Lower Brittany and to make sale of the same during a period of six months. He had taken with him books to the value of five hundred livres and was to have a salary of ten crowns for the six months’ work. He had, however, failed to return or to make report of his commission. Tousé secured a judgment against his delinquent traveller, but the record does not show whether he ever succeeded in getting hold of him again.[303]

In the universities of Oxford and of Cambridge, the stationarii began their work some years later than in Paris or Bologna. They had the advantage, however, of freedom from the greater portion of the restrictions and special supervision which hampered the work of the scribes in the Italian and French universities, and as a result their business developed more promptly and more actively, and in the course of a few years, they became the booksellers of the university towns. It was, of course, from this university term stationarii that the name of stationers came at the outset to be applied to the organised book-dealers of Great Britain. The Guild of the British book-dealers completed its organisation in 1403, nearly sixty years before the introduction into England of the printing-press.[304]

The art work put into the manuscripts produced in the Low Countries, particularly in Belgium, was more highly developed and was a more important part of the industry than was the case in any other portion of the world.

In the earlier German universities, the stationarii also found place and found work, but this work seems to have been of less importance and the scribes appear to have secured for themselves a less definite university recognition than in Italy or in France. The explanation given by Wattenbach is that the German students, being better informed and more industrious, did for themselves a larger portion of the transcribing required and were, therefore, freed from the necessity of hiring their hefts.

The statutes of the universities of Prague and of Vienna permitted the masters and the baccalaureates to secure from the university archives, under certain pledges, the loan of the books authorised as text-books or of works of reference, for the purpose of making trustworthy copies of the same. The copyists were enjoined as follows:

Fideliter et correcte, tractim et distincte, assignando paragraphos, capitales literas, virgulas et puncta, prout sententia requirit.[305] The practice also obtained in these universities of having texts dictated to the students by the magisters or the Bachelors of Arts. This was described as librum pronuntiare, and also as ad pennam dare.

In this phrase, Karoch sent word to Erfurt that ad pennam dabit his treatise Arenga.[306]

The text-books utilised in the German universities in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were as limited in range and in number as those of Bologna and of Padua. The instruction in the medical departments of Prague and Vienna was based in the main on the works of Hippocrates and Galen, with some of the later commentaries, principally from Arabian writers. In philosophy the chief authority was Aristotle, in mathematics Euclid, and in astronomy Ptolemy. A few works of later date were utilised, such as the Summula of Petrus Hispanus and the De Sphæra Mundi of Johannes de Sacro Bosco. Bosco is otherwise known as John Holywood or Halifax. He held the chair of mathematics in the University of Paris about the middle of the thirteenth century. The use of his treatise for classes in Prague is evidence of a certain interchange between the universities of books in manuscript.

An important reason for the very large membership of the universities of the Middle Ages as compared with their successors of to-day, is to be found in the fact that they undertook to supply not only the higher education which belongs to the present university curriculum, but also the training now furnished by the gymnasia or High Schools, which were at that time not in existence. We find, therefore, in their membership, thousands of students who were little more than boys either in their years or in their mental development.

The universities also, on the other hand, attracted to their membership very many students of mature age, who came sometimes for special purposes, but more frequently because it was only in the university towns that circles of scholars could be found, that books were available, and that any large measure of intellectual activity was to be experienced. As Savigny puts it: “The universities were, during the Middle Ages, practically the only places where men could study or could exercise their minds with any degree of freedom.” It was inevitable therefore, that, with the generations succeeding the discovery of printing, there should be a decrease in the influence and in the relative importance for the community of the universities. With the establishment of secondary schools, the training of the boys was cared for to better purpose elsewhere; and with the increasing circulation of printed books, it became possible for men to come into relations with literature in other places than in the lecture room. The universities were no longer the sole depositories of learning or the sole sources of intellectual activity. This lessening of the influence of the universities represented, or was at least coincident with, a wider development of intellectual activity and of interest in literature on the part of the masses of the people. The universities alone would never have been in a position so to direct the thought of the community as to render the masses of citizens competent to arrive at conclusions for themselves and sufficiently assured in such conclusions to be prepared to make them the basis of action. This was, of course, partly because, notwithstanding the large membership and the fact that this membership represented nearly all the classes in the community, the universities could at best come into direct relations but with a small proportion of the people. A more important cause for such lack of intellectual leadership is to be found in the fact that the standard of thought and of instruction in the universities concerned itself very little with the intellectual life or issues of the immediate time. As Biot puts it (speaking, to be sure, of a later century): “The universities were several centuries in arrears with all that concerned the sciences and the arts. Peripatetics, when all the world had renounced with Descartes the philosophy of Aristotle, they became Cartesians when the rest were Newtonians. That is the way with learned bodies which do not make discoveries.”

It was the dissemination of literature through the new art of printing rather than the diffusion of education through the university lecture rooms, which brought to the masses of the people the consciousness of mental existence and of individual responsibility for arriving at sound conclusions. Prior to the printing-press, this responsibility had been left by the people with their “spiritual advisers,” who were charged with the duty of doing the thinking for their flocks. It was this change in the mental status of the people which was the precursor (although at a considerable space of years) of the Reformation.

With the beginning in Germany of the movement known as Humanism, the representatives of the new thought of the time were not to be found in the university circles, and had not received their inspiration from the lecture rooms. Says Paulsen: “The entire traditional conduct of the universities, and in particular of the instruction in arts and theology, was rejected with the utmost scorn by the new culture through its representatives, the poets and orators, to whom form and substance alike of this teaching seemed the most outrageous barbarism, which they never wearied of denouncing.” In the Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum, which were issued about 1516 from the band of youthful poets gathered about Mutianus at Erfurt, the hatred and detestation felt by the Humanists for the ancient university system raised to itself a lasting monument.

Within a few years from the publication of the Epistolæ, the influence of the Humanists had so far extended itself as to have effected a large modification in the systems of study in all the larger universities. “The old ecclesiastical Latin was replaced by classical Latin; Roman authors, particularly the poets, were made the subject of lectures, and the old translations of Aristotelian texts were driven out by new translations on principles advocated by the Humanists. Greek was taken up in the Faculty of arts and courses in the language and literature were established in all universities.”[307]

An immediate result of these changes and extensions was an active demand for printed texts. The Humanistic movement, itself in a measure the result of the printing-press, was a most important fact in providing business for the German printers during the earlier years of the sixteenth century. The strifes and contentions of the Reformation checked the development in the universities of the studies connected with the intellectual movement of the Renaissance and lessened the demand for the literature of these studies. The active-minded were absorbed in theological controversies, and those who could not understand the questions at issue could still shout the shibboleths of the leaders. As Erasmus put it, rather bitterly, ubi regnat Lutheranismus, ibi interitus litterarum. The literature of the Reformation, however, itself did much to make good for the printing-presses the lessened demand for the classics, while a few years later, the organisation of the Protestant schools and universities aroused intellectual activities in new regions, and created fresh requirements for printed books. Within half a century, in fact, of the Diet of Worms, the centre of the book-absorbing population of Germany had been transferred from the Catholic states of the south to the Protestant territories of the north, and the literary preponderance of the latter has continued to increase during the succeeding generations.