Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

The Manuscript Period in England.

—During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in England as in ancient Greece, and as also in mediæval Italy, Southern France and Germany, the people who were prepared to interest themselves in literary productions, received their literature, or at least their poetical literature, very largely by means of reciters or minstrels. In the prologue to his Troilus and Cressida, Chaucer tells us it was intended to be read or elles sung. George Ellis points out that this must relate to the chanting recitation of the minstrels. Ellis goes on to say: “A considerable part of our old poetry is simply addressed to an audience, without any mention of readers. That our English minstrels at any time united all the talents of the profession, and were at once poets and reciters and musicians, is extremely doubtful; but that they excited and directed the efforts of their contemporary poets to a particular species of composition, is as evident as that a body of actors must influence the exertions of theatrical writers. They were, at a time when reading and writing were rare accomplishments, the principal medium of communication between authors and the public; and their memory in some measure supplied the deficiency of manuscripts, and probably preserved much of our early literature until the invention of printing.”[397]

Says Jusserand: “At a time when books were rare, and when the theatre, properly so-called, did not exist, poetry and music travelled with the minstrels and gleemen (jongleurs) along the highway, and such guests were always welcome.”[398]

The connection of minstrelsy with the circulation of literature is referred to by Charles Knight as follows: “A popular literature was kept alive and preserved, however imperfectly, before the press came to make those who had learnt to read self-dependent in their intellectual gratifications; and what has come down to us of the old minstrelsy, with all its inaccuracy and occasional feebleness, shows us that the people of England, four or five centuries ago, had a common fund of high thought upon which a great literature might in time be reared. The very existence of a poet like Chaucer is the best proof of the vigour, and to a certain extent of the cultivation, of the national mind, even in an age when books were rarities.”[399]

As early as the twelfth century, during such reigns as those of Henry I. (Beauclerc) and Henry II., there was in England a very considerable production of literature, under such various headings as chronicles, satires, sermons, works of science and of medicine, treatises on style, prose romances, and epics in verse. Jusserand points out that a large proportion of these compositions were written in Latin.[400] This would indicate a wider general understanding of Latin than prevailed three centuries later when Caxton’s printing-press began its work; for, as will be noted in the chapter on Caxton, the proportion of Latin books issued by Caxton was very much smaller than was the case with the contemporary publishers in France and in Germany. Such an active and varied literary production as that described by Jusserand would also, of course, imply the existence of a considerable body of trained scribes in addition to those who were at work in the monastic scriptoria on the chronicles and books of devotion.

The very large measure of attention given to the production of legends and romances, and the great popularity of these among almost all classes of the people, was the distinctive feature of the literature of England during the three centuries preceding the introduction of printing. The scenes of many of these romances are laid in classic times, and their characters bear classic names; but the stories are hardly constructed on classic lines, and very little attempt is made to preserve what the dramatic critic in Nicholas Nickleby calls “the oneness of the drama.” Antiquity is presented in the garb of the Middle Ages. As Jusserand remarks: “Everything in these poems was really translated; not only the language of the ancients but their raiment, their civilisation, their ideas. Venus becomes a princess: the heroes are knights, and their costumes, pictured in the illuminations, are so much in the fashion of the day that they serve us to date the poems.”

In addition to these classic romances, in which old-time heroes masquerade in mediæval garb and speak in mediæval language, there is a long series of tales which appear to have been of English origin. English readers and English writers of the time seem to have possessed a special penchant for story-telling. “Prose tales were written in astonishing quantities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by pious authors who under pretext of edifying and amusing their readers at the same time, began by amusing and frequently forgot to edify.”[401] The Welshman, Walter Map, became famous at the Court of Henry II. for his satires and humorous stories. His work was done in Latin. His De Nugis Curiatum secured the most abiding repute. He might perhaps be considered as a twelfth-century Martial. That famous body of stories, the Gesta Romanorum, heretofore believed to be the result of German reshaping of legends originating with the monks of Italy, is now claimed to have been first compiled in England towards the end of the thirteenth century.[402] The Gesta was one of the most widely circulated books in Europe (outside of the accepted devotional classics) both in the manuscript period, and during the first century of printing.

The stories of the time are of very varied origin and in many cases had evidently, in the rewriting, undergone material modifications or transformations. Whether the language used be Latin, French, or English, it is evident from the character of the tales that the writers were addressing themselves not to any limited group of scholars and clerics, but to what would to-day be described as a popular circle of readers and of hearers. Thomas Wright points out that even those tales which are presented in Latin give evidence from local references and from English quotations of having been written for Englishmen.[403]

The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, chief among the story-tellers of England, if not of Europe, were written about 1390. After the long series of translations and adaptations, these tales of Chaucer mark a distinct epoch in the production of native romance, in which characters, incidents, and surroundings were alike English, although there are many evidences of continental influences. The circulation of the Tales in manuscript form was very extended, and Caxton showed his usual excellent judgment by including them in the first group of publications issued from his Westminster Press. This earliest printed edition was probably published in 1478. A second edition was issued by Caxton in 1484.

It seems probable, as well from the history of the Canterbury Tales as from that of the long series of romances which had preceded them, a history giving evidence of a wide-spread influence and repute, that there must have been, during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, a considerable book-production outside of the monastery scriptoria, and that there must also have been a fairly effective machinery for the sale and distribution of the manuscript texts. The latter were doubtless supplied in great part by the travelling pedlars, who sold with their novelties in ribbons and trinkets the latest new tale, or the latest version of some very old tale.

Books in manuscript were included in the goods sold at certain of the great fairs, such as that of Stourbridge (near Cambridge), St. Giles (near Oxford), and St. Bartholomew, in London.[404] After the introduction of printing, such fairs did considerable business in the sale not only of the chap-books and almanacs, which were carried about in the pedlars’ packs, but also of substantial and costly works. Professor Thorold Rogers explains that the rapid diffusion of books and pamphlets at a time when newspapers and advertisements were still unknown, can only be accounted for by the understanding that the book-dealers made large use of these fairs. He goes on to say that he finds entries of purchases for the libraries of the Oxford colleges, with the statement that the books were bought at St. Giles’s Fair.[405] It will be remembered how two centuries or more after the period referred to by Thorold Rogers, Michael Johnson, the father of Samuel, made a practice of going on market days to Uttoxeter, taking there from his book-shop in Litchfield books to be offered for sale on a stall in the market-place. The market days had, in 1725, replaced in great measure the old-time fairs. In the chapter on Germany, I have referred to the early use made of the Fair at Nordlingen by the dealers in manuscripts, a practice which was later continued by the printers.

It does not appear that the manuscript-dealers were permitted to carry on their trade in the chapels or within the enclosures of the cathedrals, as was so largely done by their contemporaries in Germany and in France. The extensive multiplication of books by copyists is less easy to account for. I have not been able thus far to find record of any considerable production, in London or other commercial centres, of books in manuscript, and I can only infer such production from the wide-spread circulation and influence of the books themselves.

The literary activities of England during these centuries of the manuscript period were by no means limited to the production of fiction. The long series of contributions to local and national history made by the monkish chroniclers have been referred to in a previous chapter. In the twelfth century, Orderic Vital or Vitalis writes his Angligenæ Historiæ Ecclesiasticæ, Henry of Huntingdon, his Historia Anglorum (from A.C. 55 to A.D. 1154), and William of Malmesbury, his Gesta Regum Anglorum. The Historia Anglorum was printed in 1586, at the expense of Sir Henry Savile. William of Malmesbury was, like Richard de Bury, noted as a collector of books. His history was issued between 1112 and 1124. A few years later, in 1139, appears the great Historia Regum Britanniæ, of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey begins his British history with the earliest times, and, thanks, as he explains, to certain special discoveries, or to a special revelation, he is able to write with as much certainty about the reign of King Arthur as concerning events of his own time. This chronicle must have been largely multiplied and widely distributed, as an exceptionally large number of copies have been preserved to the present time, the British Museum alone possessing no less than thirty-four.

In the thirteenth century the work of the historians is carried on by such writers as Roger of Wendover, and Matthew Paris, chief among English chroniclers. In the fourteenth century, the most noteworthy among a long series of historical writers is Ralph Higden, author of the Polychronicon, or “Universal History,” which remained for centuries an accepted authority.

In the thirteenth century, Bartholomew or Glanville compiles one of the oldest of the general cyclopædias. Of this, many manuscripts have been preserved, eighteen of which are in the National Library in Paris.[406] John of Gaddesden, court physician under Edward II. (1310-1312), writes a medical cyclopædia, or compendium of prescriptions, which not only secures a European reputation at the time, but retains its prestige for nearly three centuries, and is issued in print in Augsburg, in 1595, in two quarto volumes. As early as the reign of Henry II. (1154-1189) an important group of law books had appeared, and the law treatises of Henry of Bracton, issued early in the thirteenth century, retained their value sufficiently to appear two centuries later in a printed edition, abridged from the original text. These few typical writers are referred to simply as presenting some indication of the variety and of the extent of the literary activities of England during the centuries preceding the beginning of printing. The popular interest in the works of such writers, and the great influence exerted by them upon the opinions of their own and of succeeding generations, is evidence of a considerable multiplication of copies and of an extended circulation, and this evidence is corroborated by the fact that of many of the books of the period so large a number of copies have been preserved to the present time through the perils and vicissitudes of the intervening centuries.

The most noteworthy example of the literary interests of Britain during the manuscript period is afforded by Richard Aungerville, better known as Richard de Bury, Bishop Palatine of Durham, whose famous Philobiblon was given to the world in 1345. In his various travels, and through his correspondents in England, France, and Italy, he was able to get together a great collection of books, which were later bequeathed to the University of Oxford. His eloquent tribute to his beloved books must, I judge, be taken rather as expressing the enthusiasm of an exceptionally devoted scholar than as fairly representing the literary spirit of the time:

“Thanks to books, the dead appear to me as though they still lived.... Everything decays and falls into dust by the force of time: Saturn is never weary of devouring his children, and the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, had not God as a remedy conferred on mortal man the benefit of books.... Books are the masters that instruct us without rods or ferules, without reprimands or anger, without the solemnity of the gown or the expense of lessons. Go to them, you will not find them asleep: if you err, no scoldings on their part: if you are ignorant, no mocking laughter.”[407]

In 1344, (the year before his death) Richard writes as follows:

“As it is necessary for a state to provide military arms, and prepare plentiful stores of provisions for soldiers who are about to fight, so it is evidently worth the labour of the church militant to fortify itself against the attacks of pagans and heretics with a multitude of sound books. But because everything that is serviceable to mortals suffers the waste of mortality through lapse of time, it is necessary for volumes corroded by age to be restored by renovated successors, that perpetuity, repugnant to the nature of the individual, may be conceded to the species. Hence it is that Ecclesiastes significantly says, in the 12th chapter. ‘There is no end of making many books.’ For, as the bodies of books suffer continued detriment from a combined mixture of contraries in their composition, so a remedy is found out by the prudence of clerks, by which a holy book paying the debt of nature may obtain an hereditary substitute, and a seed may be raised up like to the most holy deceased, and that saying of Ecclesiasticus, be verified, ‘The father is dead and, as it were, not dead, for he hath left behind him a son like unto himself.’”

One of the earliest authorities concerning book publishing in England is Bishop Fell, who in his Memoir on the State of Printing in the University of Oxford, tells us that that university “possessed an exclusive right of transcribing and multiplying books by means of writing,” a privilege which implies a species of copyright. The date referred to is about 1600.

In both Oxford and Cambridge, according to the statutes in force before the introduction of printing, the stationarii belonged to the class of Servientes, who were appointed by the chancellor or vice-chancellor of the university. The records of Oxford show many instances of the pawning of books by the undergraduates and occasionally by the instructors to the stationarii. In one codex, belonging to Mr. Thomas Paunter, there is an inscription showing that it was pawned to a stationarius in 1480, for the sum of thirty-eight shillings.[408] Books which had been so pledged, came frequently enough, after their forfeiture, into sale. An entry in the accounts of the library of S. John’s College in Cambridge, dating from 1456, records a payment made, apparently from the treasury of the college, for the redemption of an Avicenna from the stationarius to whom a certain John Marshall had pledged the manuscript. The cost of the redemption was £1. 6s. 4d.[409]

The Oxford stationarii finally secured privileges as members of the university, but not before 1458, (as a result apparently of an arrangement between the university and the city authorities), did this agreement take the stationarii out of the jurisdiction of the city, and put them into the same class with the dealers in parchment, the illuminators, and the scribes, who for many years had been subordinated to the university. The taxes on the stationarii were fixed by and collected by the chancellor, and the proportion due to the city treasury was paid over by him.

The term stationarius, which had, as we have seen, been in use for these university dealers throughout all Europe, secured in Great Britain a permanent association with the book-trade by its use as an appellation for the publishers’ and booksellers’ guild, which was chartered in 1403 as “The Stationers’ Company.” Its headquarters in London was entitled Stationers’ Hall, and is still so known. The term in Great Britain, however, was made from a very early date to cover a larger variety of trade undertakings than that to which it was limited in the university towns in Italy, France, and Germany. The business of selling manuscripts on commission, which was, as we have seen, kept under very close supervision on the part of the university authorities of Paris and Bologna, appears to have been much less important in England, and the dealers seem for the most part to have been left free to make such terms either in buying or selling manuscripts as they saw fit, and as the necessities of their customers rendered practicable.

As early as the reign of Edward III. (1327-1377), there is record of a number of stationarii as carrying on business in Oxford. In an Oxford manuscript dating from this reign, there is an inscription of a certain Mr. William Reed, of Merton College, who tells us that he purchased this book from a stationarius.[410]

In London, there is record of an active trade in manuscripts being in existence as early as the middle of the fourteenth century. The trade in writing materials, such as parchment, paper, and ink, appears not to have been organised as in Paris, but to have been carried on in large part by the grocers and mercers. In the housekeeping accounts of King John of France, covering the period of his imprisonment in England, in the years 1359 and 1360, occur entries such as the following:

“To Peter, a grocer of Lincoln, for four quaires of paper, two shillings and four pence.”

“To John Huistasse, grocer, for a main of paper and a skin of parchment, 10 pence.”

“To Bartholomew Mine, grocer, for three quaires of paper, 27 pennies.”[411]

The manuscript-trade in London concentrated itself in Paternoster Row, the street which became afterwards the centre of the trade in printed books.

The earliest English manuscript-dealer whose name is on record is Richard Lynn, who, in the year 1358, was stationarius in Oxford.[412] The name of John Browne occurs in several Oxford manuscripts on about the date of 1400. Nicholas de Frisia, an Oxford librarius of about 1425, was originally an undergraduate. He did energetic work as a book scribe and, later, appears to have carried on an important business in manuscripts. His inscription is found first on a manuscript entitled Petri Thomæ Quæstiones, etc., which manuscript has been preserved in the library of Merton.

There is record, as early as 1359, of a manuscript-dealer in the town of Lincoln who called himself Johannes Librarius, and who sold, in 1360, several books to the French King John. It is a little difficult to understand how in a quiet country town like Lincoln with no university connections, there should have been enough business in the fourteenth century to support a librarius.

The earliest name on record in London is that of Thomas Vycey, who was a stationarius in 1433. A few years later we find on a parchment manuscript containing the wise sayings of a certain Lombardus, the inscription of Thomas Masoun, “librarius of gilde hall.”

Between the years 1461 and 1475, a certain Piers Bauduyn, dealer in manuscripts, and also a bookbinder, purchased a number of books for Edward IV. In the household accounts of Edward appears the following entry: “Paid to Piers Bauduyn, bookseller, for binding, gilding and dressing a copy of Titus Livius, 20 shillings; for binding, gilding and dressing a copy of the Holy Trinity, 16 shillings; for binding, gilding and dressing a work entitled ‘The Bible’ 16 shillings.”

William Praat, who was a mercer of London, between the years 1470 and 1480 busied himself also with the trade in manuscripts, and purchased, for William Caxton, various manuscripts from France and from Belgium.

Kirchhoff finds record of manuscript-dealers in Spain as early as the first decade of the fifteenth century. He prints the name, however, of but one, a certain Antonius Raymundi, a librarius of Barcelona, whose inscription, dated 1413, appears in a manuscript of Cassiodorus.

PART II.

THE EARLIER PRINTED BOOKS.

PART II.

THE EARLIER PRINTED BOOKS.