AUCTIONEERS
William Cooper, a bookseller in a good way of business at the sign of the Pelican in Little Britain, was the first to introduce into England the practice of selling books by auction, when in 1676 he sold Dr. Seaman’s library, and for some years he was the chief auctioneer in London. His first catalogue—the first sale catalogue in England—is exhibited in the Kings’ Library at the British Museum.
In 1680 Edward Millington, a better known man and a bookseller of standing, took to auctioneering, and he and Cooper together divided the chief business in this department. Other booksellers, such as Moses Pitt, Zachary Bourne, Nathaniel Ranew, Richard Chiswell, and John Dunsmore, Robert Scott, &c., sold books by auction, and Oldys styles Marmaduke Foster, who made the catalogue of Thomason’s Civil War Tracts in twelve folio manuscript volumes, an auctioneer. It is, however, of the two foremost men, Cooper and Millington, that we want to know more, and fortunately a wit of Christ Church, Oxford, George Smalridge, afterwards Dean of Christ Church and Bishop of Bristol, was struck by the humours connected with the sale in 1686 of the stock of a bankrupt Oxford bookseller—Richard Davis, the publisher of several of the Hon. Robert Boyle’s works. Smalridge wrote a skit on the proceedings, under the title of “Auctio Davisiana Oxonii habita per Gulielmum Cooper, Edoar. Millingtonum, Bibliop. Lond. ... Londini: Prostant venales apud Jacobum Tonson, 1689.” This was reprinted in Musarum Anglicanarum Analecta, vol. i. 1691.[11]
The sale, according to Anthony à Wood, took place “in a large stone fabric opposite St. Michael’s Church, in Oxon., near the north gate of the city, called Bocardo” (a prison in the Middle Ages), and apparently it attracted a great deal of attention on account of the novelty of the mode of sale. Smalridge fastened on the salient points, and he has thus given us information respecting the conduct of a sale in the seventeenth century which we should not otherwise have possessed. The persons of the little drama are six Christ Church men—Arthur Kaye, Walter Bacon, Ed. Stradling, George Dixon, Christopher Codrington, and William Woodward—and in the pride of their learning they make sad fun of the pomposity and ignorance of the poor auctioneers. We must, however, remember that this is a satire and a caricature. Cooper is described as “a man of wonderful and notable gravity,” with a monstrous paunch; and Millington as having a Stentor’s lungs and consummate impudence, a very windbag, whose hollow bellows blow lies.
Woodward took the part of Cooper, and Codrington that of Millington, but when these characters were first pressed upon them, the latter urged that “if a book is bad, I cannot pile encomiums on it, and prefer Wither to Virgil, or Merlin to the Sibyls.” We are told that bids of one penny were taken, and that when the third blow of the hammer has been struck the sale was irrevocable. The auctioneers seem to have offended the ears of the Oxonians by saying “Nepŏtis” and “Stephāni.” At the end of the day Woodward is made to say, “I have spoken, I the great Cooper, whose house is in Little Britain.” Codrington recites a long rhodomontade ending thus: “I check myself and put a curb on the runaway muses. But this mallet, the badge of my profession, I affix as a dedicatory offering to this post—To Oxford and the Arts Millington consecrates these arms.” Dunton draws a favourable portrait of Millington in his “Life and Errors.” He says he “commenced and continued auctions upon the authority of Herodotus, who commends that way of sale for the disposal of the most exquisite and finest beauties to their amorosos; and further informs the world that the sum so raised was laid out for the portions of those to whom nature had been less kind: so that he’ll never be forgotten while his name is Ned, or he, a man of remarkable elocution, wit, sense, and modesty—characters so eminently his, that he would be known by them among a thousand. Millington (from the time he sold Dr. Annesly’s library) expressed a particular friendship to me. He was originally a bookseller, which he left off, being better cut out for an auctioneer. He had a quick wit, and a wonderful fluency of speech. There was usually as much comedy in his ‘once, twice, thrice,’ as can be met with in a modern play. ‘Where,’ said Millington, ‘is your generous flame for learning? Who but a sot or a blockhead would have money in his pocket and starve his brains?’ Though I suppose he had but a round of jests, Dr. Cave once bidding too leisurely for a book, says Millington, ‘Is this your “Primitive Christianity?”’ alluding to a book the honest doctor had published under that title. He died in Cambridge, and I hear they bestowed an elegy on his memory, and design to raise a monument to his ashes.” Thomas Hearne does not give him so good a character. He writes under date 13th September 1723: “Though the late Mr. Millington of London, bookseller, was certainly the best auctioneer in the world, being a man of great wit and fluency of speech, and a thorough master of his trade; though, at the same time, very impudent and saucy, yet he could not at the end of the auction, be brought to give an account to the persons who employed him, so that by that means, he allowed what he pleased and no more, and kept a great number of books that were not sold to himself. Whence arose that vast stock of books, though most of them but ordinary, that he had when he dyed, and which, after his death, were sold by auction.”[12]
“An Elegy upon the Lamented Death of Mr. Edward Millington, the famous Auctioneer,” alluded to by Dunton, is printed in the “Works of Mr. Thomas Brown,” ed. 1744, iv. p. 320, but the Rev. C. H. Hartshorne quotes it in his “Book Rarities of Cambridge,” 1829, p. 450, from Bagford’s Collection, British Museum, Harleian MSS., No. 5947. It reads as follows:—
“Mourn! mourn! you booksellers, for cruel death
Has robb’d the famous auctioneer of breath:
He’s gone,—he’s gone,—all the great loss deplore;
Great Millington—alas! he is no more:
No more will he now at your service stand
Behind the desk, with mallet in his hand:
No more the value of your books set forth,
And sell ’em by his art for twice the worth.
Methinks I see him still, with smiling look,
Amidst the crowd, and in his hand a book:
Then in a fine, facetious, pleasing way
The author’s genius and his wit display.
O all you scribbling tribe, come, mourn his death,
Whose wit hath given your dying fame new birth.
When your neglected works did mouldering lie
Upon the shelves, and none your books would buy,
How oft has he, with strainèd eloquence,
Affirm’d the leaves contained a world of sense,
When all’s insipid, dull impertinence?
‘Come, gentlemen,—come bid me what you please;
Upon my word it is a curious piece,
Done by a learned hand—and neatly bound:
One pound—once, twice, fifteen: who bids?—a crown!’
Then shakes his head, with an affected frown,
And says ‘For shame! consider, gentlemen,
The book is sold in shops for more than ten.
Good lack a day!—’tis strange!’ then strikes the blow,
And in a feignèd passion bids it go.
Then in his hand another piece he takes,
And in its praise a long harangue he makes;
And tells them that ’tis writ in lofty verse,
One that is out of print and very scarce:
Then with high language, and a stately look,
He sets a lofty price upon the book;
‘Five pound, four pound, three pound,’ he cries aloud,
And holds it up to expose it to the crowd,
With arm erect,—the bidders to provoke
To raise the price before the impending stroke;
This in the throng does emulation breed,
And makes ’em strive each other to outbid;
While he descants upon their learned heats,
And his facetious dialect repeats:
For none like him, for certain, knew so well
(By way of auction) any goods to sell.
’Tis endless to express the wayes he had
To sell their good, and to put off their bad.
But ah! in vain I strive his fame to spread;
The great, the wise, the knowing man is dead.
And you in painting skill’d, his loss bewail;
He’s dead!—that did expose your works to sale.
Can you forget how he for you did bawl,
‘Come, put it in?—a fine original,
Done by a curious hand:—What strokes are here,
Drawn to the life? How fine it does appear!
O lovely piece!—Ten pound,—five pound;—for shame,
You do not bid the value of the frame.’
How many pretty stories would he tell
To enhance the price, and make the picture sell!
But now he’s gone!—ah! the sad loss deplore;
Great Millington!—alas! he is no more.
And you, the Muses’ darlings, too, rehearse
Your sorrows for the loss of him in verse:
Mourn! mourn! together, for that tyrant death
Has robb’d the famous auctioneer of breath.”
The Epitaph.
Underneath this marble stone
Lies the famous Millington;
A man who through the world did steer
I’ th’ station of an auctioneer;
A man with wondrous sense and wisdom blest,
Whose qualities are not to be exprest.
We have given so much space to Millington, because it is interesting to see how similar were the practices of auctioneers at the first institution of the business to what they are at the present time, and also because Millington seems to have been considered the most famous of auctioneers, until James Christie arose to take his place as chief representative of the profession. It may be added to his honour that he was a friend of Milton, who lodged in his house.
Richard Chiswell (1639-1711) was more of a bookseller than an auctioneer, but his name must be mentioned here. He was one of the four who issued the fourth folio edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, and he was the official publisher of the Votes of the House. Dunton describes him as “the metropolitan bookseller of England, if not of all the world,” and says that he never printed a bad book, or one on bad paper.
Jonathan Greenwood, bookseller and auctioneer, is described by Dunton as a worthy but unfortunate man, “so that the chief thing he has left to boast of is a virtuous wife and several small children.” He adds, “But he still deserves the love and esteem of all good men, for the worst that can be said of him is, ‘There goes a poor honest man,’ which is much better than ‘There goes a rich knave.’”
How little is known of some of these early auctioneers may be seen from the fact that John Bullord, who sold books at the end of the seventeenth century, is said by the careful John Nichols to be a member of the well-known bookselling family of Ballard. I cannot find any information respecting Bullord, but it is very improbable that this name was merely a misspelling of Ballard.
The name of Samuel Paterson (1728-1802) will always be held in honour among English bibliographers, for he was one of the first to improve the art of cataloguing, and he gained great fame from his labours in this department. He had one great fault, however, for he was so insatiable a reader, that when in cataloguing he came upon a book he had not seen before, he must needs read the book then, and thus his work was much delayed, and often his catalogues could not be obtained until a few hours before the sale. He was the son of a woollen draper in St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, but lost his father when he was only twelve years old; his guardian neglected him, and having involved his property in his own bankruptcy, sent him to France. Here he acquired a considerable knowledge of French literature, which served him in good stead through life. When little more than twenty years of age he opened a shop in the Strand, opposite Durham Yard. This bookselling business was unsuccessful, and he then commenced as a general auctioneer at Essex House. It was during this period of his life that he saved the collection of valuable manuscripts formerly belonging to Sir Julius Cæsar from being sold as waste-paper to a cheesemonger. He classified the MSS., and made an excellent catalogue of them, and when they came to be sold by auction they realised £356. Although Paterson made an excellent auctioneer, he was no more successful financially than in his other ventures. He therefore accepted the post of librarian to the Earl of Shelburne (afterwards first Marquis of Lansdowne); but after a few years there was a quarrel, and he was obliged to return to the business of cataloguing and selling of libraries.
The Rev. C. H. Hartshorne, in his “Book Rarities,” mentions a print by Nicholls in the British Museum, called “The Complete Auctioneer,” representing a man with spectacles on, standing at a table covered with books, which are lettered at the tops. Underneath are these lines—
“Come, sirs, and view this famous Library;
’Tis pity learning should discouraged be:
Here’s bookes (that is, if they were but well sold)
I will maintain ’t are worth their weight in gold.
Then bid apace, and break me out of hand:
Ne’er cry you don’t the subject understand.
For this I’ll say—howe’er the case may hit,—
Whoever buys of me—I’ll teach ’em wit.”
Although the London booksellers went into the country to sell books, there were some local auctioneers, as, for instance, Michael Johnson (the father of Dr. Samuel Johnson), who kept a bookstall in Lichfield, and attended the neighbouring towns on market days. Johnson’s address to his customers is taken from “A Catalogue of Choice Books, ... to be sold by auction, or he who bids most, at the Talbot, in Sidbury, Worcester,” and is quoted from Clarke’s Repertorium Bibliographicum (1819)—
“To all Gentlemen, Ladies, and Others in or near Worcester,—I have had several auctions in your neighbourhood, as Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Evesham, &c., with success, and am now to address myself and try my fortune with you.—You must not wonder that I begin every Day’s Sale with small and common books; the reason is a room is some time a filling, and persons of address and business, seldom coming first, they are entertainment till we are full; they are never the last books of the best kind of that sort for ordinary families and young persons, &c. But in the body of the Catalogue you will find Law, Mathematicks, History: and for the learned in Divinity there are Drs. Souter, Taylor, Tillotson, Beveridge, and Flavel, &c., the best of that kind: and to please the Ladies I have added store of fine pictures and paper hangings, and, by the way, I would desire them to take notice that the pictures shall always be put up by the noon of that day they are to be sold, that they may be view’d by day light. I have no more but to wish you pleas’d and myself a good sale, who am
Your Humble Servant,
M. Johnson.”
The sale took place in the evening, commencing at six o’clock and continuing till all the lots were sold.
The existing firms of literary auctioneers, Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge; Puttick & Simpson; Christie, Manson & Woods; and Hodgsons, are all of considerable standing, but Sotheby’s is of the greatest antiquity. Samuel Baker, the founder of the house, commenced business in 1744 with sale of Dr. Thomas Pellet’s library (£859) in York Street, Covent Garden. He continued sole member of the firm till 1774, when he entered into partnership with George Leigh (who is styled by Beloe “the finical bookseller”). Baker died in 1778, in his sixty-sixth year, when he left his property to his nephew, John Sotheby, who in 1780 was in partnership with Leigh. In 1800 the style was Leigh, Sotheby & Son, John Sotheby’s son Samuel being taken into partnership. In 1803 the business was removed from York Street to 145 Strand, opposite Catharine Street, and in 1818 to the present house in Wellington Street. The third and last Sotheby, Mr. Samuel Leigh Sotheby, became a partner in 1837, and in 1843 Mr. John Wilkinson entered the firm as a partner. The style was Sotheby and Wilkinson till 1864, when Mr. Edward Grose Hodge became a partner, and from that date the name of the firm has been Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge.
The firm of Puttick & Simpson dates back to the establishment of the business by Mr. Stewart in 1794 at 191 Piccadilly. The business was bought by Wheatley & Adlard on the retirement of Mr. Stewart. For a short time it was carried on by Mr. Fletcher, who was succeeded in 1846 by Messrs. Puttick & Simpson. In 1858 the business was removed from Piccadilly to 47 Leicester Square. Mr. Puttick died in 1873.
The firm of Christie’s was established soon after that of Sotheby’s, and James Christie the elder’s (1730-1803) first sale was on the 5th December 1766, at rooms in Pall Mall, formerly occupied by the print warehouse of Richard Dalton. Christie afterwards removed next door to Gainsborough, at Schomberg House, and died there, 8th November 1803. His son, James Christie the younger (1773-1831), was born in Pall Mall, and was educated at Eton. In 1824 he removed to the present premises in King Street, formerly Wilson’s European Emporium. Mr. Christie died in King Street, 2nd February 1831, aged fifty-eight. Mr. George Christie succeeded his father. Mr. William Manson died in 1852, and was succeeded by his brother, Mr. Edward Manson. In 1859 Mr. James Christie, the great-grandson of the founder, and Mr. Thomas Woods, joined the firm.
CHAPTER III
PRICES OF MANUSCRIPT BOOKS
In a treatise devoted to an inquiry concerning the varying prices of books, it is necessary that at least one chapter should be devoted to manuscripts. There is no field of investigation which offers a more interesting subject for study, and few that are more difficult to master. Manuscripts are really more attractive than printed books, because they are so various, and have been produced over a much longer period of the world’s history. It is therefore strange that so few authors care to trouble themselves about them; that this is so may be seen from the large number of readers at the British Museum who are contented to quote over and over again from the much-used printed books, and the comparatively few who cultivate the virgin soil of the Manuscript Department, where there are endless stores of unused materials.
Manuscripts are usually somewhat miscellaneous in character, for they consist (1) of some of the finest examples of the pictorial art of many ages; (2) of the originals of the great works of antiquity; (3) of a large number of valuable works that have never been printed; (4) of charters, documents, letters, memoranda, &c., which are of great value, but which are not books, and therefore do not come within the scope of our present inquiry. In respect to the prices of the manuscripts, it is very difficult to say anything of much value, because (1) many of the most important manuscripts have been transferred from library to library in bulk, and it is comparatively seldom that they come up for public sale; (2) the buyers of manuscripts are fewer than those of printed books, and therefore it is more difficult to arrive at a real standard price for books which are practically unique, as there is no wide public opinion upon the subject. But for the present purpose, a still more important reason why this vast subject cannot be dealt with in a succinct manner is, that the materials for its history have not yet been thoroughly investigated by experts. The relative prices at different periods are hard to understand, even in England, where money has been better regulated than in most countries; but when we have to deal with foreign countries and foreign coins, we are necessarily at a loss how to convert into their present value coins which may have been depreciated at the time we are dealing with, and have certainly been still more depreciated since: for instance, what idea is communicated to the mind of the modern reader when he is told that “Borso d’Este paid forty ducats for a Josephus and a Quintus Curtius, while his large two-volume Bible cost him 1375 sequins”?[13]
In dealing with manuscripts, it is most important to distinguish between plain and illuminated manuscripts. The neglect of this caution has led to an exaggerated idea of the cost of books before the invention of printing. Instances have been given of purchases at sums equal to a king’s ransom. Hence it is supposed that books were so dear that they were quite out of the reach of any but the richest personages. But this view is erroneous, for we know that by means of the slave labour at Rome and the organised work in the monasteries, plainly written manuscripts could be obtained at a reasonable price. We know now that transcripts of MSS. can be had at a price which, if dear when compared with the price of a newly-published printed book, is by no means extravagant. What could be done at a centre of civilisation like Rome, where books were produced in large numbers and at low prices on account of the organisation of literary production, could be done at other places. There is evidence that at London, and at those seats of learning, Oxford and Cambridge, where caligraphy was a profession, books were not difficult to obtain. Every church and chapel must have had service-books. Probably during the Middle Ages, when travelling was arduous and expensive, persons living in out-of-the-way places had to pay special prices for their literary treasures.
The late Professor J. Henry Middleton referred to this matter of cost in his valuable work on “Illuminated Manuscripts” (1892). After quoting from Aulus Gellius, he wrote—
“But ordinary copies of newly-published works, even by popular authors, appear to have been but little more expensive than books of this class are at the present day. The publisher and bookseller Tryphon could sell Martial’s first book of Epigrams at a profit for two denarii—barely two shillings in modern value (see Mart. xiii. 3). It may seem strange that written manuscripts should not have been much more costly than printed books, but when one considers how they were produced, the reason is evident. Atticus, the Sosii, and other chief publishers of Rome, owned a large number of slaves, who were trained to be neat and rapid scribes. Fifty or a hundred of these slaves could write from the dictation of one reader, and thus a small edition of a new volume of Horace’s Odes or Martial’s Epigrams could be produced with great rapidity, and at very small cost” (p. 19).
In the fifteenth century, even, illustrated Books of Hours were produced in France, Flanders, and Holland at a cheap rate. Mr. Middleton wrote—
“Education had gradually been extended among various classes of laymen, and by the middle of the fifteenth century it appears to have been usual not only for all men above the rank of artizans to be able to read, but even women of the wealthy bourgeois class could make use of prayer-books. Hence arose a great demand for pictured Books of Hours, which appear to have been produced in enormous quantities by the trade scribes of towns, such as Bruges, Paris, and many others. These common manuscript Hours are monotonous in form and detail; they nearly always have the same set of miniatures, which are coarse in detail and harsh in colour” (p. 141).
Mr. Middleton gives some further information respecting the cost of production of certain service-books taken from some church records in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries—
“From these accounts (1379-1385) we learn that six manuscripts were written, illuminated, and bound, one of them with gold or silver clasps or bosses, at a total cost of £14, 9s. 3d., more than £150 in modern value” (p. 222). “Three Processionals only cost £1, 17s. 4d., being on forty-six quaternions of cheap parchment made of sheepskin, which cost only 2½d. the quaternion” (p. 223).
There was thus great variety of cost in the production of the various kinds of books, but when we consider the matter, we shall find it impossible to do other than believe that a demand for service-books, the price of which was not prohibitive, must have existed.
The Rev. T. Hartwell Horne gave in his “Introduction to Bibliography” some instances of the prices of manuscripts in the Middle Ages, but as some of these were evidently exceptional cases, although they have been used by historians to draw conclusions which we must consider as erroneous, they need not be repeated here.
Dr. S. R. Maitland in his admirable work on the “Dark Ages” comments with much acuteness on some of these cases as quoted by Dr. Robertson, and shows that the historian has drawn a general conclusion from special instances, which in certain cases have not been correctly reported. Maitland adds that some writer a few centuries hence might—
“Tell his gaping readers ... that in the year 1812 one of our nobility gave £2260 and another £1060 for a single volume, and that the next year a Johnson’s Dictionary was sold by public auction to a plebeian purchaser for £200. A few such facts would quite set up some future Robertson, whose readers would never dream that we could get better reading, and plenty of it, much cheaper at that very time. The simple fact is, that there has always been such a thing as bibliomania since there have been books in the world, and no member of the Roxburghe Club has yet equalled the Elector of Bavaria, who gave a town for a single manuscript” (pp. 66-7).
Interesting particulars respecting the composition, binding, and expenses of Petrarch’s library will be found in M. de Nolhac’s monograph on the subject. Petrarch kept copyists in his house, whose shortcomings occasioned him much vexation. He bequeathed his library to Venice, and the Venetians are accused of having suffered it to be dispersed, but it would seem that it never reached them.
We may judge from the immense number of manuscripts still existing, in spite of the wholesale destruction that occurred at various times, how large was the output in the Middle Ages. It is therefore preposterous to suppose that when books were being produced in large numbers in hundreds of monasteries in Europe they were only bought by kings or great nobles.
During the troubled times of the Barons’ Wars there must have been great destruction of literary treasures, and at the Reformation, when whole libraries were destroyed and made waste-paper of, the ignorant waste was appalling. “The splendid and magnificent abbey of Malmesbury, which possessed some of the finest manuscripts in the kingdom, was ransacked, and its treasures either sold, or burnt to serve the commonest purposes of life. An antiquary who travelled through that town many years after the dissolution, relates that he saw broken windows patched up with remnants of the most valuable MSS. on vellum, and that the bakers hadn’t even then consumed the stores they had accumulated in heating their ovens.”[14] That so much is left after the wholesale raid on the monasteries is largely due to the sound antiquarian taste of John Leland, to whom we of later ages are supremely indebted.
In all times of political convulsions the learning of the world stands a bad chance of escaping great loss, and we are told that twenty-five thousand manuscripts were burnt during the horrors of the French Revolution.
Carelessness and the contempt felt for old books are still the great destructive forces in the East, and the Hon. Robert Curzon, who travelled in search of manuscripts, gives in his “Visits to the Monasteries in the Levant” (1849) a lively account of the irreparable losses that are constantly occurring. (See also Archdeacon Tattam’s and M. Pacho’s narratives of their negotiations with the monks of the Nitrian Desert for Syrian MSS., and the subsequent experiences of Tischendorf and Mrs. Lewis.) One of the most recent literary events is the recovery of a number of Jewish manuscripts from a Genizah or storehouse of old papers and parchments at Cairo, where they were preserved indeed, but entirely neglected.
The late Mr. Thorold Rogers paid considerable attention to the prices of books, and recorded many valuable facts respecting them in his important work, “History of Agriculture and Prices in England.” After commenting on some prices in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, he adds, “such prices indicate that written literature was not wholly inaccessible to the general public” (vol. i. p. 646).
The particulars of the cost of church books give perhaps the best idea of prices, because these were needed by a large number of the population. Some of them were of small price, while others of a more elaborate character were of great price. In the year 1278 the bailiff of Farley spent six shillings and eightpence for books for the church, and in 1300 the monks of Ely paid six shillings for a Decretal, and two shillings for Speculum Gregorianum. In 1329 the precentor received six shillings and sevenpence, with an instruction to go to Balsham to purchase books.[15] In 1344 a Bible cost three pounds, and in 1357 a book was bought for Farley church for four shillings.
Mr. Blades printed in his Life of Caxton an inventory of the library of Jean, Duc de Berri, at the château of Mohun sur Yevre, 1416. At the death of the duke the library contained one hundred and sixty-two volumes, valued at 14,909 livres.
In 1443 twenty-seven volumes were purchased by the authorities of King’s Hall, Cambridge, from the executors of John Paston (who had been their steward), at a cost of £8, 17s. 4d. In 1447 the same college bought a Psalter for three shillings and eightpence, and a Donatus for one shilling.
In 1449 twenty new Processionals cost All Souls College one hundred and thirteen shillings and fourpence, and in 1453 a book of Wycliffe’s was bought for seven shillings and sixpence, and one written against him for three shillings and sixpence.[16] A manuscript of 157 leaves, containing some of the works of St. Gregory, was bought in 1455 for £3, 6s. 8d.
In 1459 Fastolfe’s books were highly priced; thus a fair Mass book was fixed at ten pounds, and a Holy Legend at the same sum, while two new great Antiphons were together £13, 6s. 8d.
One of St. Augustine’s Epistles, containing 179 leaves, sold sometime after 1468 for £1, 13s. 4d., and about the same time one of St. Bernard’s Treatises, written on 211 leaves, was bought by Richard Hopton from the executors of a former possessor for twenty shillings.
Perhaps a rather more accurate idea of the cost of manuscript books can be obtained from a consideration of the cost of materials and the pay of the scribes, and, fortunately, particulars have come down to us which allow of a comparison of the various expenses.
A pocket lectionary was made in 1265 for the use of Eleanor de Montfort, Countess of Leicester, and sister of Henry III. Twenty dozen of fine vellum were purchased for the work at the price of ten shillings, and the writing, which was executed at Oxford, cost fourteen shillings.
Richard du Marche, an illuminator, was paid forty shillings for illuminating a Psalter and a pair of tablets for Queen Eleanor, consort of Edward I.
In the same accounts of this queen an entry is made of £6, 13s. 4d. to Adam the royal goldsmith for work done upon certain books.[17]
Professor Middleton printed in his “Illuminated Manuscripts” (pp. 220-23) extracts from the Manuscript Records of the Collegiate Church of St. George at Windsor, from which it appears that John Prust (Canon of Windsor from 1379 to 1385) was paid £14, 9s. 3d. for six manuscripts written, illuminated, and bound, one of them with gold or silver clasps or bosses. The six books were an Evangeliarium, a Martyrologium, an Antiphonale, and three Processionals. The items of each are as follows:—
| Evangeliarium. | ||||
| £ | s. | d. | ||
| 19 quaternions (quires) of vellum at 8d. each | 0 | 12 | 8 | |
| Black ink | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| Bottle to hold the ink | 0 | 0 | 10 | |
| Vermilion | 0 | 0 | 9 | |
| The scribe’s “commons” (food) for eighteen weeks | 0 | 15 | 0 | |
| Payment to the scribe | 0 | 13 | 4 | |
| Corrections and adding coloured initials | 0 | 3 | 0 | |
| Illumination | 0 | 3 | 4 | |
| Binding | 0 | 3 | 4 | |
| Goldsmith’s work (on the binding) | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| £3 | 13 | 5 | ||
Two journeys to London and some smaller items made a total of £3, 15s. 8d.
| Martyrologium. | ||||
| £ | s. | d. | ||
| 7 quaternions of vellum at 8d. | 0 | 4 | 8 | |
| Payment to the scribe | 0 | 15 | 0 | |
| Illumination | 0 | 5 | 10 | |
| Binding | 0 | 2 | 2 | |
| Coloured initials | 0 | 0 | 8 | |
| £1 | 8 | 4 | ||
| Antiphonale. | ||||
| 34 quaternions of larger and more expensive sheets of vellum at 15d | 2 | 2 | 6 | |
| Payments to the scribe | 3 | 3 | 0 | |
| Adding to the musical notation | 1 | 0 | 6 | |
| Coloured initials | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
| Illumination | 0 | 15 | 11 | |
| Binding | 0 | 5 | 0 | |
| £7 | 7 | 11 | ||
(Twelve quires of vellum which were in stock were also used for this Antiphonale.)
The three Processionals only cost £1, 17s. 4d., being written on forty-six quaternions of cheap parchment made of sheepskin, which cost only 2½d. the quaternion.
Mr. Falconer Madan tells us that “in 1453 John Reynbold agreed at Oxford to write out the last three books of Duns Scotus’s Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, in quarto, for 2s. 2d. each book,” and that “a transcript in folio by this Reynbold of part of Duns Scotus on the Sentences is in both Merton and Balliol College Libraries at Oxford, one dated 1451.”[18]
Sir John Fenn quotes in illustration of one of the Paston Letters the account of Thomas, a limner or illuminator of manuscripts residing at Bury St. Edmunds, against Sir John Howard of Stoke by Neyland in Suffolk (afterwards Duke of Norfolk), dated July 1467.
| For viij hole vynets [miniatures], prise the vynett, xijd | viijs | ||
| Item, for xxj demi vynets, prise the demi vynett, iiijd | vijs | ||
| Item, for Psalmes lettres xvc and di’, the prise of C. iiijd | vs | ijd | |
| Item, for p’ms letters lxiijc, prise of a C. jd. | vs | iijd | |
| Item, for wrytynge of a quare and demi, prise the quayr, xxd | ijs | vjd | |
| Item, for wrytenge of a calendar | xijd | ||
| Item, for iij quayres of velym, prise the quayr, xxd | vs | ||
| Item, for notynge of v quayres and ij leves, prise of the quayr, viijd | iijs | vijd | |
| Item, for capital drawynge iijc and di’, the prise | iijd | ||
| Item, for floryshynge of capytallis, vc | vd | ||
| Item, for byndynge of the boke | xijs | ||
| cs | ijd | [19] | |
This list of charges is of great interest and of much value in illustrating the cost of illumination in the fifteenth century. The price of the binding seems to be very considerable as compared with the work of the illuminator, unless it included the cost of gold or other expensive decoration. Mr. Middleton gives also particulars of the cost of writing, illuminating, and binding a manuscript Lectionary, 1469-71, the total expense of which was £3, 4s. 1d. These are taken from the Parish Accounts of the Church of St. Ewen, in Bristol—
| 1468-69. | |||
| Item, for j dossen and v quayers of vellom to perform the legend [i.e. to write the lectionary on] | xs | vjd | |
| Item, for wrytyng of the same | xxvs | ||
| Item, for ix skynnys and j quayer of velom to the same legend | vs | vjd | |
| Item, for wrytyng of the forseyd legend | iiijs | ijd | |
| 1470-71. | |||
| Item, for a red Skynne to kever the legent | vd | ||
| Also for the binding and correcting of the seid Boke | vs | ||
| Also for the lumining of the seid legent | xiijs | vjd | [20] |
Among the Paston Letters is a letter from William Ebesham to his “moost worshupfull maister, Sir John Paston,” 1469 (?), asking for payment for his labours in writing, the charge for which was a penny per leaf for verse, and twopence a leaf for prose. Appended to this letter is the following interesting account:—
Folowyng apperith, parcelly, dyvers and soondry maner of writynge, which I, William Ebesham, have wreetyn for my gode and woorshupfull maistir, Sir John Paston, and what money I have resceyvid and what is unpaide.
| First, I did write to his maistership a littlebooke of Pheesyk, for which I hadpaide by Sir Thomas Leevys in Westminster | xxd | ||
| Item, I had for the wrytyng of half the Prevyseale of Pampyng | viijd | ||
| Item, for the wrytynge of the seid hole prevyseale of Sir Thomas | ijs | ||
| Item, I wrote viij of the Witnessis in parchement,but aftir xiiijd a peece, for whichI was paide of Sir Thomas | xs | ||
| Item, while my seide maister over the see inMidsomertime. Calle sett me a warketo wryte two tymes the prevy seale inpapir, and then after cleerely in parchement | iiijs | viijd | |
| And also wrote the same tyme oon mo ofthe largest witnessis, and other dyversand necessary wrytyngs, for which hepromisid me xs, whereof I had of Callebut iiijs viijd. car. vs iiij | vs | iiijd | |
| I resceyvid of Sir Thomas at Westminsterpenultimo die Oct. anno viiij | iijs | iiijd | |
| Item, I did write to quairs of papir of witnessis,every quair conteyning xiiij levesafter ijd a leff | iiijs | viijd | |
| Item, as to the Grete Booke—First, forwrytyng of the Coronacion, and othertretys of Knyghthode, in that quairewhich conteyneth a xiij levis and moreijd a lef | ijs | ijd | |
| Item, for the tretys of Werre in iiij books,which conteyneth lx levis aftir ijd aleaff | xs | ||
| Item, for Othea pistill, which conteynethxliij leves | vijs | iid | |
| Item, for the Chalengs and the acts ofArmes which is xxviijti less | iiijs | viijd | |
| Item, for De Regimine Principum, whichconteyneth xlvti leves, aftir a peny aleef, which is right wele worth | iijs | ixd | |
| Item, for Rubrissheyng of all the booke | iijs | iiijd | [21] |
The “Grete Booke,” described above, is now among the Lansdowne Manuscripts (No. 285) in the British Museum, and is fully described in the Catalogue of that Collection, 1812 (Part II., pp. 99-102).
In quoting the foregoing particulars of the early sale of MSS. and of the cost of production, no attempt has been made to calculate the present value of the amounts set down, because the data for such a calculation are not available. It will, however, be well if the reader remembers that the various amounts mentioned must have been equal at the very least to ten times these sums in the present day. Professor Middleton multiplies by ten, but when we find an expert scribe charging one penny and twopence for one leaf, and the “commons” of another is set down at tenpence per week, we may safely reckon the multiplier at considerably more than ten in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The scribes and illuminators already mentioned were the individual workers, who were employed by corporations and men of wealth to produce books for their libraries; but the wholesale producers of books, who employed armies of scribes, must not be overlooked in this place. Vespasiano di Bisticci of Florence (b. 1421) was the chief of these booksellers, and he assisted to form the three most famous libraries in Italy—the Laurentian in Florence, that of the Vatican, and the library of Federigo, Duke of Urbino, which was afterwards bought by Pope Alexander VII. and incorporated into the Vatican Library. Vespasiano was an author as well as a bookseller, and has recorded some of his doings in his Vite degli Uomini Illustri. He gives a detailed list of the works he obtained for the Duke of Urbino, which comprised all the known classics, the Fathers, books on astrology, science, medicine, art, music, and all the Italian authors and poets. Vespasiano claimed that in this magnificent library, which cost 30,000 ducats, every author was found complete, and not a page of his writings was missing. Every book was written on vellum, and there was not a single one of which he was ashamed. Vespasiano was ever ready to form a library, as the following anecdote will prove.
Niccolo Niccoli having spent a long life and all his patrimony in collecting, left his books to Cosimo to found a public library. Cosimo built the fine pillared hall in the Convent of San Marco, and then proposed to form a worthy public library, of which the legacy of Niccoli should be the nucleus. He sent for Vespasiano for his advice, who said, “You could not buy books enough.” “Then what would you do?” asked Cosimo. “Have them written,” replied the bookseller. On which Cosimo gave the commission, and Vespasiano set forty-five scribes and illuminators to work, and furnished two hundred volumes in twenty-two months. Cosimo was so pleased with the books, that he employed the successful purveyor to supply the illuminated Psalters and Missals for the Church of the new Convent of San Marco.[22] No wonder, perhaps, that Vespasiano expresses his great dislike for the new-fangled art of printing. Every century has its own social convulsion, and thinks it the most important of all time. We talk of the revolutionary change made by the introduction of machinery in the nineteenth century, but we seldom realise how great a change in the occupations of the people took place in the fifteenth century, at the period of the invention of printing. Large numbers of men entirely dependent on their labours as scribes were thrown out of work. Many of these men were members of influential bodies, who were not inclined to sit down idly under their misfortunes, so they petitioned against the use of printing; but fate was too powerful for them, and their endeavours to boycott the printing-press were not successful, even though Vespasiano di Bisticci said that Duke Federigo would have been ashamed to have a printed book in his library.
John of Trittenheim, Abbot of Spanheim, who is known in literature as Trithemius, said some hard things against printing in an essay, De Laude Scriptorum Manualium, thus—
“A work written on parchment could be preserved for a thousand years, while it is probable that no volume printed on paper will last for more than two centuries. Many important works have not been printed, and the copies required of these must be prepared by scribes. The scribe who ceases to perform his work because of the invention of printing can be no true lover of books, in that, regarding only the present, he gives no due thought to the intellectual cultivation of his successors. The printer has no care for the beauty and the artistic form of books, while with the scribe this is a labour of love.”
When, however, Trithemius found it necessary to exhort his own monks, he was not able to speak very favourably of their love of books—
“There is, in my opinion, no manual labour more becoming a monk than the writing of ecclesiastical books, and preparing what is needful for others who write them, for this holy labour will generally admit of being interrupted by prayer and of watching for the food of the soul no less than of the body. Need, also, urges us to labour diligently in writing books, if we desire to have at hand the means of usefully employing ourselves in spiritual studies. For you see that all the library of this monastery, which formerly was fine and large, has been so dissipated, sold, and made away with by the disorderly monks before us, that when I came I found but fourteen volumes.”[23]
Others were wiser than to oppose the new art, and many scribes, recognising the inevitable destruction of their trade, became printers. Caxton’s master, Colard Mansion, was an extensive writer of manuscripts before he took to the business of printing at Bruges. Much has been written upon famous collections of manuscripts, and upon the individual works which compose them, but it is not often that these come to public auction, so that the particulars of prices are comparatively meagre. The grand collections of the British Museum and the Bodleian[24] are preserved in safety for the use of the learned, and we only know that they are of the greatest value. What they would fetch if sold now can only be guessed, and it would be merely frivolous to inquire. Three of the grandest collections in the Museum—the old Royal Library, the Cotton, which was only saved from slow destruction by the establishment of the British Museum, to which it was transferred, and the Harley, which the nation obtained for £10,000—must now be of untold value.
The purchase by the British Museum of the library of Dr. Charles Burney greatly added to the completeness of the collections of Greek Classics. Among the manuscripts is the wonderful Iliad of Homer on vellum, formerly belonging to Mr. Towneley, which, although it cannot be dated further back than the beginning of the fourteenth century, is supposed to be of the earliest date of the MSS. of the Iliad known to scholars. A committee appointed to consider the purchase of the library stated in their report: “With respect to the value of the manuscripts, the Homer is rated by the different witnesses at from £600 to £800, and one of them supposed it might even reach so high a price as £1000;[25] the Greek rhetoricians are estimated at from £340 to £500; the larger copy of the Greek Gospels at £200; the geography of Ptolemy at £65; and the copy of Plautus at £50. One witness estimates the whole of the ancient manuscripts at upwards of £2500, and an eminent bookseller at £3000.” “The books with manuscript notes, together with Dr. Burney’s Variorum Compilation, including the Fragmenta Scenica Græca, are estimated by one at £1000, and by another as high as £1340.” It must be remembered that this was written in 1818, and these prices may be multiplied considerably at the present day.
Even those large private collections which have been in the market of late years have mostly been sold in bulk, so that little light has been thrown upon the current value of fine manuscripts.
One of the best sources of information respecting present prices is to be found in Mr. Quaritch’s admirable catalogues of his collections of literary treasures.
When the treasures of Hamilton Palace were dispersed by public auction, the priceless collection of manuscripts was sold by private contract to the German Government. The amount paid has never been officially announced, but it is believed to have reached the sum of £75,000. Some of these manuscripts were not required at Berlin, and they were sold in May 1889 by Messrs. Sotheby for £15,189.
The gem of the collection was the fifteenth-century manuscript of Dante’s Divina Commedia, illustrated with upwards of eighty drawings, attributed to Sandro Botticelli. Of it a writer in the Times said, “This priceless volume may, without exaggeration, be described as the most valuable manuscript in existence, from its artistic interest, for it stands alone as an example of a literary work of the first order illustrated by an artist of the highest rank.”
It is impossible here even to register some of the many beautiful works that made the manuscripts of the Duke of Hamilton so famous. Great dissatisfaction was felt by the British public when it was found that these treasures were to be transported to Berlin. Before the final decision was made, Mr. Ruskin, in a “General statement explaining the nature and purposes of St. George’s Guild,” wrote—
“I hear that the library of Hamilton Palace is to be sold some time this spring. That library contains a collection of manuscripts which the late Duke permitted me to examine at leisure, now some thirty years ago. It contains many manuscripts for which I have no hope of contending successfully, even if I wished to do so, against the British Museum or the libraries of Paris and Vienna. But it contains also a very large number of manuscripts, among which I could assuredly choose some for which the partly exhausted general demand might be not extravagantly outbid, and I think the English public ought to have confidence enough in my knowledge of art and history to trust me with a considerable sum for this purpose.”
Mr. Quaritch, who entered into Mr. Ruskin’s plans, circulated this pamphlet, and asked for contributions to be sent to him, which he would forward to Mr. Ruskin. Had the Government of this country been of the same mind with Mr. Ruskin, these manuscripts would not have been lost to the country.
The sale of the Hamilton manuscripts to a foreign Government naturally caused those who were interested in these matters to feel great anxiety lest the Earl of Ashburnham’s manuscripts, which it was known the owner wished to sell, should also be sent abroad. This collection consisted of upwards of three thousand manuscripts in about four thousand volumes, and were made up of purchases from the Duke of Buckingham (Stowe) and M. Libri; and of an Appendix consisting of separate manuscripts purchased from time to time by the late Lord Ashburnham.
(1) The Stowe collection grew out of the library of MSS. formed by Thomas Astle, the palæographer, and Keeper of the Records in the Tower. Astle directed by his will that his collection should be offered to the Marquis of Buckingham on certain specified terms, one of which was the payment of the sum of £500. This amount was not of course any measure of their value, and the bequest was made in gratitude to the Grenville family for favours which Astle had received from them. A room was built at Stowe by Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Soane to receive the collection, in which were charters, registers, wardrobe accounts, inventories, correspondence, and many items of the greatest historical value. O’Conor’s Irish MSS. and the State Papers of Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in the reign of Charles II., afterwards found a home at Stowe. In April 1849 the Marquis of Chandos wrote to Sir Robert Peel, stating that he had recently had offers from private parties for the Stowe manuscripts, and offering them to the British Museum. Sir Frederick Madden valued the collection at £8300, but he was only authorised to treat with Lord Chandos for the Irish manuscripts separately, and to seek for further information respecting other portions of the collection. In the meantime, however, the whole number were sold to Lord Ashburnham for £8000.
(2) Libri collection. In June 1846 the Trustees of the British Museum applied for Treasury sanction to the expenditure of £9000 in the purchase of the Libri manuscripts, but this was refused. In September following renewed application was made for £6600 for the collection, less the Napoleon papers valued at £1000. The Treasury allowed £6000 with commission to agents, but the negotiation failed, and Lord Ashburnham obtained the MSS. for £8000.
(3) Barrois collection, chiefly consisting of French romances and poems, was offered to the British Museum in 1848 for £6000. It was examined by the Keeper of the Manuscripts, who recommended the purchase, but apparently no application was made to the Treasury, and the collection was soon afterwards sold to Lord Ashburnham for the same amount.
(4) Appendix of MSS. collected separately by Bertram, fourth Earl of Ashburnham, among which were some splendid illuminated manuscripts.
With respect to some of these manuscripts a difficulty had arisen, owing to M. Léopold Delisle’s claim that a large number of the manuscripts in the Libri collection had been stolen from libraries in France by Libri while holding the office of Inspector-General of Libraries. M. Delisle also alleged that at least sixty of the Barrois manuscripts were stolen from the Paris National Library. In November 1879 Lord Ashburnham offered to treat for the sale of his library of printed books and manuscripts with the Museum alone, or jointly with the French Government, naming £160,000 as the price for the whole, and stated that he had received an offer to that amount “from another quarter.” The Trustees then asked whether Lord Ashburnham would treat for the manuscripts alone, and his answer in January 1880 was that he had ascertained that the offer he had received of £160,000 for the whole library from a private individual was intended for private speculation, and that the collection was worth a great deal more. This amount, which comes to about £500 for each manuscript, seems to be very large, but competent authorities have agreed to the valuation. At any rate, the Treasury was not prepared to buy the whole at such a price, and the Principal Librarian treated for the Stowe collection alone, the price of which Lord Ashburnham fixed at £30000.[26] In the end these were purchased for the nation.
For many years the late Sir Thomas Phillipps was an omnivorous collector of manuscripts, and his collections were vast. They are gradually being sold by auction. Several portions have passed under the hammer of Messrs. Sotheby, and others are still to follow.
A very fine collection of illuminated manuscripts was gathered in a very short period by William Morris. It is fortunate that a collection made by one who knew so well what to buy is not to be dispersed or taken out of the kingdom. As long as it remains intact it will be a worthy monument of an enthusiastic lover of art who, while teaching the present age, was not forgetful of the history of the earlier workers in the same spirit.
We cannot register prices of such priceless manuscripts as the Gospels of St. Cuthbert, for two centuries at Lindisfarne, and now among the Cottonian MSS. in the British Museum, or the Book of Kells at Trinity College, Dublin—both of the seventh century; but some few books of great interest which have been sold by auction may be mentioned here. The chief of these is the splendid manuscript of the Bible in the British Museum, said to have been presented by Alcuin to Charlemagne. The vicissitudes of this book are very remarkable. It was confiscated during the French Revolution, and eventually came into the possession of M. Speyr Passavant of Basle, who unavailingly offered it for a large sum to the chief libraries of Europe. It was offered to the Trustees of the British Museum, first for £12,000, then for £8000, and lastly for £6500. The unfounded claims of the proprietor, who appears to have been very much of a charlatan, appear to have damaged the repute of the MS., and it remained on his hands. On 27th April 1836 the volume was put up to auction at Evans’s rooms, and was described in six pages of a catalogue in which it was the chief lot. It was catalogued as the Emperor Charlemagne’s Bible—a manuscript on vellum by Alcuin, completed A.D. 800, presented to Charlemagne A.D. 801 at the ceremony of his coronation, and mentioned in his will. The date is not undisputed, and it is supposed by some to be of about forty years later. The statement that this Bible is mentioned in the Emperor’s will is absolutely denied. The price registered in Evans’s sale catalogue is £1500, and the purchaser is given as Scordet, but the book was really bought in, and it is said that few of the biddings for it were genuine. After this failure fresh overtures were made to the British Museum, and in the end it was bought for that library for £750, which must be considered a small price for so splendid and interesting a book. There was some correspondence on this Bible in the Gentleman’s Magazine, in which Sir Frederick Madden took part. These letters are reprinted in Gomme’s Gentleman’s Magazine Library (“Literary Curiosities,” 1888, pp. 234-64). Another historical manuscript of particular beauty which has been several times sold by auction, and now safely reposes at the British Museum, is the famous so-called Bedford Missal (really Book of Hours), written and illuminated for John, Duke of Bedford, Regent of France under Henry VI., to whom he presented the book in the year 1430. It passed into the hands of Henry II. of France, and long subsequently into those of Lady Worsley (widow of Sir Robert Worsley), from whom it was purchased by the Earl of Oxford, who bequeathed it to his daughter, the Duchess of Portland. At the latter’s sale in 1786 it was bought by James Edwards the bookseller for £213, 3s. At Edwards’s sale in 1815 it was bought for £687, 15s. by the Marquis of Blandford, who afterwards sold it to Mr. Broadley. At Broadley’s sale in 1833 Sir John Tobin bought it for £1100. Sir John’s son sold it to the bookseller from whom the British Museum purchased it in 1852.
Two instances of most interesting manuscripts sold at very inadequate prices may here be recorded. One of the most distinguished among the Ashburnham manuscripts was one known as the Albani Missal. It is a manuscript of offices, and was executed apparently for Alemanno Salviati, gonfalonier of Florence and brother-in-law of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and given by him to one of his relatives of the house of Baroncelli. This beautiful volume contains five full-page miniatures, each the work of a master. The first is by the hand of Amico Aspertini, of Bologna, the pupil of Francia; the next is attributed to Lorenzo di Credi; the third and fourth of high excellence, though unassigned; and the fifth by Perugino, signed “Petrus Perusinus pinxit.” For this artistic treasure Mr. James Dennistoun gave £20 in Rome in the year 1838. When he had purchased it he found that opposition to its leaving Italy would be made on the part of the Roman authorities, so he had it unbound and divided, and got it sent to England privately a few pages at a time. He afterwards sold it to Lord Ashburnham for £700. These facts were printed in the Times in 1883 by a cousin of Mr. Dennistoun.
Mr. Madan gives in his “Books in Manuscript,” 1893, a very interesting account of a bargain obtained by the Bodleian Library, which account is here reproduced in a somewhat condensed form. “Six years ago [1887] a little octavo volume, in worn brown binding, stood on the shelves of a small parish library in Suffolk, but was turned out and offered at the end of a sale at Sotheby’s, presumably as being unreadable to country folk.” It was described in the catalogue as “Latin Gospels of the Fourteenth Century, with English Illuminations.” For the sum of £6 it passed into the Bodleian Library, and came to be catalogued as an ordinary accession. It was noticed that the writing was of the eleventh century, and that the illuminations were valuable specimens of old English work of the same century, comprising figures of the four evangelists, of the Byzantine type, which was common in the west of Europe; the drapery, however, colouring, and accessories were purely English. The book itself was seen to be not the complete Gospels, but such portions as were used in the service of the Mass at different times of the year. On a fly-leaf was found a Latin poem, describing how the book had dropped in the water and was brought up by a soldier, who plunged in after it. Surprise was expressed that the book was uninjured, save a slight contraction of two of the leaves, and to this expression was added, “May the king and pious queen be saved for ever, whose book was but now saved from the waves!” Curiosity was felt as to the identity of this king and queen, when the difficulty was solved by a reference to Forbes-Leith’s “Life of St. Margaret of Scotland,” where this passage occurs: “She had a book of the Gospels beautifully adorned with gold and precious stones, and ornamented with the figures of the four evangelists painted and gilt.... She had always felt a particular attachment for this book, more so than for any of the others which she usually read.” Then follows a story almost identical with the one given above, which proves that the identical book is now preserved in the Bodleian Library.
It is not often that bargains such as these can be obtained, but in spite of a great rise in price large numbers of manuscripts are still purchaseable on reasonable terms. The late Mr. J. H. Middleton was particularly urgent in pointing this out, and his words may appropriately close this chapter—
“On the whole, a fine manuscript may be regarded as about the cheapest work of art of bygone days that can now be purchased by an appreciative collector. Many of the finest and most perfectly preserved manuscripts which now come into the market are actually sold for smaller sums than they would have cost when they were new, in spite of the great additional value and interest which they have gained from their antiquity and comparative rarity. For example, a beautiful and perfectly preserved historical Anglo-Norman Vulgate of the thirteenth century, with its full number of eighty-two pictured initials, written on between six and seven hundred leaves of finest uterine vellum, can now commonly be purchased for from £30 to £40. This hardly represents the original value of the vellum on which the manuscript is written.
“Manuscripts of a simpler character, however beautifully written, if they are merely decorated with blue and red initials, commonly sell for considerably less than the original cost of their vellum.
“A collector with some real knowledge and appreciation of what is artistically fine can perhaps lay out his money to greater advantage in the purchase of manuscripts than by buying works of art of any other class, either mediæval or modern.”[27]
CHAPTER IV
PUBLISHED PRICES
It was impossible for the scribe (however low his pay might be reduced) to compete with the printing-press, and we have good authority for saying that printed books could be obtained in the fifteenth century for one-fifth of what would have been the cost of the same books in manuscript. Mr. Putnam, in his interesting work on the history of bookselling, quotes from Bishop John of Aleria, who, writing to Pope Paul II. in 1467, said that it was possible to purchase in Rome for 20 gulden in gold works which a few years earlier would have cost not less than 100 gulden. Other books selling for 4 gulden would previously have cost 20. Mr. Putnam also quotes Madden, to the effect that in 1470 a copy of the forty-eight line Bible, printed on parchment, could be bought in Paris for 2000 francs, while the cost of the same text a few years earlier in manuscript would have been 10,000 francs.
It is rather curious to find that the present custom of fixing a published price is comparatively modern, and that the system for which some of our present retail booksellers yearn—that is, of buying from the publishers in bulk and retailing at their own price—was formerly in common use. In the old catalogues of English books no prices are affixed to the various entries, and the custom of printing the prices of books was not general until the end of the seventeenth century. But after all the booksellers’ latitude was not very great, for the law stepped in to limit the price of books.
We might naturally have supposed that the invention of printing would have made a complete break in the mode of selling books, but this was not so. Continuity was preserved, and the company to which the London trade belongs is not called after the printers, but after the older order of stationers. In a “Note of the State of the Company of Printers, Bookesellers, and Bookebynders comprehended under the name of Stacioners,” dated 1582, we are told that “in the tyme of King Henry the Eighte, there were but fewe Printers, and those of good credit and competent wealth, at whiche tyme and before there was an other sort of men that were writers, lymners of Bookes and diverse thinges for the Church and other uses, called Stacioners, which have, and partly to this daye do use to buy their bookes in grosse of the saide Printers, bynde them up, and sell them in their shops, whereby they well mayntayned their families.”[28]
It seems probable that the English booksellers before the introduction of printing experienced little interference in their business from foreign scribes, and therefore the bringing in of printed books from abroad was distasteful to them. What they particularly objected to was the importation of these books bound instead of in sheets.
By “an Act touching the Marchauntes of Italy” (1 Ric. III. cap. 9) aliens were prohibited from importing certain goods into this country, but this Act was not to “extend to Importers of Books, or to any writer, limner, binder, or printer.”
In Henry VIII.’s reign this importation was found intolerable, and “an Act for Printers and Binders of Bokes” was passed (25 Hen. VIII. cap. 15). It is stated in the preamble when the provision in the Act of Richard III. was made there were few books and few printers in England, but that at this time large numbers of printed books were brought into the country—
Whereas, a great number of the King’s subjects within this realm having “given themselves diligently to learn and exercise the said craft of Printing, that at this day there be within this realm a great number cunning and expert in the said science or craft of printing, as able to exercise the said craft in all points as any stranger, in any other realm or country, and furthermore where there be a great number of the King’s subjects within this realm which [live] by the craft and mystery of binding of books, ... well expert in the same,” yet “all this notwithstanding, there are divers persons that bring from [beyond] the sea great plenty of printed books—not only in the Latin tongue, but also in our maternal English tongue—some bound in boards, some in leather, and some in parchment, and them sell by retail, whereby many of the King’s subjects, being binders of books, and having none other faculty wherewith to get their living, be destitute of work, and like to be undone, except some reformation herein be had.”
Then follow some provisions respecting the sale of books at too high a price—
“And after the same enhancing and increasing of the said prices of the said books and binding shall be so found by the said twelve men or otherwise by the examination of the said lord chancellor, lord treasurer, and justices, or two of them; that then the same lord chancellor, lord treasurer, and justices, or two of them at the least from time to time shall have a power and authority to reform and redress such enhancing of the prices of printed books by their discretions, and to limit prices as well of the books as for the binding of them; and over that the offender or offenders thereof being convict by the examination of the same lord chancellor, lord treasurer, and justices, or two of them or otherwise, shall lose and forfeit for every book by them sold whereof the price shall be enhanced for the book or binding thereof, three shillings four pence.”
By the first Copyright Act (8 Anne, cap. 21) any person thinking the published price of a book unreasonable was to complain to the Archbishop of Canterbury or other great dignitaries.
It would have been enlightening if our lawmakers had told us what was in their opinion a reasonable price for a book, but they are silent on this point.
We have unfortunately no information as to the price for which Caxton sold his various books, but he bequeathed fifteen copies of his “Golden Legend” to the churchwardens of St. Margaret, Westminster, who succeeded in selling twelve of them between the years 1496 and 1500. For the first three copies they obtained six shillings and eightpence each, but then they had to reduce the price to five shillings and eightpence, at which price they sold the next seven copies. The last two copies only brought five shillings and sixpence and five shillings respectively, so that evidently there was a falling market.
Mr. Blades makes the following remarks on this point—
“The commercial results of Caxton’s trade as a printer are unknown; but as the fees paid at his burial were far above the average, and as he evidently held a respectable position in his parish, we must conclude that his business was profitable. The preservation of the Cost Book of the Ripoli Press has already been noticed, and some extracts of interest translated therefrom. We may presume that Caxton also kept exact accounts of his trade receipts and expenditure, and if such were extant, the many doubts which now surround the operations of his printing-office would be definitely solved. We should then know the price at which he sold his books—how many pence he asked for his small quarto ‘quayers’ of poetry, or his pocket editions of the ‘Horæ’ and ‘Psalter’—how many shillings were required to purchase the thick folio volumes, such as ‘Canterbury Tales,’ ‘King Arthur,’ &c. That the price was not much dearer than that paid for good editions now we may infer from the rate at which fifteen copies of the ‘Golden Legend’ sold between 1496 and 1500. These realised an average price of 6s. 8d. each, or about £2, 13s. 4d. of modern money, a sum by no means too great for a large illustrated work. This, however, would depend on the number of copies considered necessary for an edition, which probably varied according to the nature of the work.... Some foreign printers issued as many as 275 or 300 copies of editions of the Classics, but it is not probable that Caxton ventured upon so large an impression, as the demand for his publications must have been much more restricted.”[29]
It will be noticed that Mr. Blades is wrong in saying that the copies of the “Golden Legend” were sold at an average price of 6s. 8d., and it would probably be more correct to give the equivalent amount in modern money as £4, rather than £2, 13s. 4d., but this is perhaps more a matter of opinion.
Several old priced lists of books have come down to us, and the most interesting of these are the two printed and edited by Mr. F. Madan in the first series of the Collectanea of the Oxford Historical Society, and further annotated by the late Mr. Henry Bradshaw. The first of these is an inventory, with prices of books received in 1483 for sale by John Hunt, stationer of the University of Oxford, from Magister Peter Actor and Johannes de Aquisgrano, to whom he promises to restore the books or pay the price affixed in the list; and the second is the Day-Book of John Dorne, bookseller in Oxford A.D. 1520. Mr. Bradshaw’s valuable annotations (“A Half-Century of Notes”) were printed in fac-simile of his handwriting in 1886, and afterwards included in his “Collected Papers” (1889).
Dorne’s list is of great value, as showing what was the literature sold at a great university city at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and with the much-needed explanations of Messrs. Madan and Bradshaw, it forms an important addition to our knowledge, but there is not much in it that can be quoted here with advantage. Latin theology forms the bulk of the more important books sold, and next to that Latin classics. English books are few; among the cheapest items, service-books and ballads, Christmas carols, and almanacs are common. A large proportion of the entries are marked in pence from one penny upwards, but some are in shillings, and the largest amount for one sale of several books was forty-eight shillings.
Bibliographica (vol. i. p. 252) contains “Two References to the English Book-Trade circa 1525.” The first, which is from the “Interlude of the Four Elements,” suggests that a large amount of the output of the English presses at the beginning of the sixteenth century was made up of ephemeral publications—
“Now so it is in our Englyshe tonge,
Many one there is that can but rede and wryte,
For his pleasure wyll oft presume amonge
New bokys to compyle and balades to indyte,
Some of lore or other matter, not worth a myte.”
The next is from the prologue to Robert Copland’s “Seven Sorrows that Women have when theyr husbandes be deade,” which consists of a conversation between Copland and a customer, “Quidam”—
“Quidam. Hast thou a boke of the wydowe Edith,
That hath begyled so many with her wordes,
Or els suche a geest that is ful of bourdes?
Let me se, I wyll yet waste a peny
Upon suche thynges and if thou have eny.
Copland. How say ye by these, wyll ye bestowe a grote?
Quidam. Ye syr so muche? nay, that I shorowe my cote,
A peny I trow is ynough on bokes,
It is not so soone goten, as this worlde lokes.”
Much information respecting the prices of books is found in the churchwardens’ accounts of the various parishes of the kingdom, and extracts from some of these have been printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine and other places. Mr. Thorold Rogers also has given several instances in the various volumes of his great work on “Agriculture and Prices.”
Archbishop Cranmer, in his “Articles to be inquired of ... within the Diocese of Canterbury,” A.D. 1548, asks “whether in every case they have provided one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume in English, and the Paraphrases of Erasmus, also in English, upon the Gospels, and set up the same in some convenient place in the church.” In 1548 we find that the churchwardens of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, paid five shillings for the half part of the Paraphrases of Erasmus, and in 1549 the churchwardens of Wigtoft, Lincolnshire, paid seven shillings for the same book. Archbishop Parker required Jewel’s “Defence of the Apology” to be placed in parish churches, and in 1570 the churchwardens of Leverton, Lincolnshire, paid four shillings for “half Mr. Juylle’s booke, called the ‘Appologie of Ingland,’” and fourpence for the carriage of the same.
From the churchwardens’ accounts of the parish of Stratton, county Cornwall, we learn that in 1565 two shillings were “paid for newe songes for the church,” and twopence “for a nother lyttell boke.” In 1570 twelvepence was “paid to Nicholas Oliver of sent tives for a song of te deum,” fourpence was paid “for mendyng of John Judes bybell which he lonyd to the churche when the other was to bynd,” and six shillings “for a newe communion book and a psalter in the same.” On the other side twelvepence was received “for two peces of old bookes sold.”[30]
The churchwardens of Canterbury parish gave forty-one shillings for a church Bible in 1586, four shillings for a prayer-book in 1598, and three shillings and fourpence for a book of statutes in 1599.
Sir John Evans communicated to the Archæologia[31] some most interesting extracts from the Private Account Book of Sir William More of Loseley, in Surrey, in the time of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, which contains an inventory of a collection of about one hundred and twenty volumes. This inventory gives us a vivid idea of the contents of a country gentleman’s library in the sixteenth century. There are the best chronicles of the time, as Fabyan, Harding, &c., translations of the classics, and some in their original languages, statutes, new books of justices and other legal works, books of physic, dictionaries, &c., and each of the books is marked with a price. The most expensive books:—Cronica Cronicarum, xxs; Minister’s Cosmografye, xvjs; un byble, xs; a calapyne, xs [Calepino’s Vocabulary of the Latin Tongue]; Fabyan’s Cronicle, vs; Statuts of Henry theight, xijs; all the Statuts of Kyng Edward the VI., ijs; all the Statuts of the Quene, ijs; Chausore, vs. There were four New Testaments, “one in ffrench,” xxd, two “in Italion,” respectively xxjd and ijs vjd, and one “in lattyn,” xijd. The Legenda Aurea was priced iijs iiijd; Tullye’s Officys translated, viijd; ij bokes conteyning Tully’s Philosophy, ijs vjd; Cezar’s Commentary, xvjd; ij bokes of Machevale’s works in Italion, iijs iiijd; Hardyng’s Cronycle, ijs vjd; Utopea, viijd. Of low-priced books we find—A lyttle cronicle, id; Lydgates’ Proverbs, id; Alexander Barkley’s Eclogs, id; Skelton’s Work, iiijd; and Triumph of Petrark, vjd.
Sir Egerton Brydges also quoted from a Household Book an interesting list of about the same date as the above—
| Anno 1564. | ||
| Iteme, for booke of the dysease of horses | iiijd | |
| Iteme, for printing the xxv orders of honest men | xxd | |
| Iteme, pd for a Lytlton in English | xijd | |
| Iteme, for a diologge betwine the cap and the heade | ijd | |
| Iteme, pd for the booke of the ij Englishe lovers | vjd | |
| Iteme, for a French booke called the historye de noster ternes | xvjd | |
| Iteme, pd for iij French bookes, the on called Pawlus Jovius | xxs | [32] |
In the days before copyright acts authors and publishers often tried to safeguard their property by obtaining patents. These were sometimes for a particular book, as, for instance, Richard Field, printer, in February 1592 was granted the sole licence to print “Orlando Furioso translated into English verse by John Harrington.” More often, however, patents were granted to printers allowing them the sole privilege of printing certain classes of books. A licence “to imprint all manner of books concerning the common laws of this realm” was granted to Richard Tottell; one for primers and books of private prayers to William Seres; one to print all manner of songs of musick to Thomas Tallis and William Bird; one for dictionaries generally to H. Binneman; and one for almanacks and prognostications to James Roberts and Richard Watkins.[33] Gradually by purchase or inheritance nearly all the monopolies came into the possession of the Stationers’ Company. Certain printers, however, made a practice of pirating some of the most popular English privileged books. The Company resisted, and memorialised Lord Burghley in October 1582, with a complaint of the opposition met with in making their search in the printing-house of one “who printed all kinds of books at his pleasure.”[34]
The chief leader of these invaders of privilege was John Wolf, a freeman of the Fishmongers’ Company. In 1583 the Stationers’ Company drew up thirteen heads of the “insolent and contemptuous behaviour of John Wolf, printer, and his confederates,” which they presented to the Privy Council. From this indictment it appears that when Wolf was “frendly persuaded to live in order and not print men’s privileged copies,” he answered that “he would print all their bokes if he lacked work,” and added that “it was lawfull for all men to print all lawfull bookes, what commandement soever her Majestie gave to ye contrary.” Wolf was no respecter of persons, and his motto was, “I will live.” Being admonished that he “being but one so meane a man should not presume to contrarie her Highnesse Governmente,” “Tush,” said he, “Luther was but one man, and reformed all the world for religion, and I am that man that must and will reforme the government in this trade!” The Queen appointed a Commission to inquire into the matter, but the Commissioners could make nothing of Wolf and his party. In the end the opposition was bought off; and on 1st July 1583 Wolf was admitted a freeman of the Stationers’ Company by redemption, paying the usual fees of 3s. 4d.[35]
Andrew Maunsell, a bookseller living in Lothbury, was the first to publish (1595) a catalogue of English books, and this book is a very satisfactory bit of bibliographical work. The compiler only published two parts, the first on theological books, and the second on scientific books. Maunsell proposed the publication of others on more popular branches of literature, but unfortunately he left his work incomplete. In his dedication to Queen Elizabeth he says—
“What great account (most gracious Soueraigne) hath beene made of godly bookes, may euidently appeare by the value set uppon the bookes of curious actes brought to the Apostles feete to be burnt. For if those bookes were valued to two thousand markes, of what estimation shall wee account the bookes whose author is God himselfe ... all the goods upon the earth cannot value them.”
It is remarkable how difficult it must have been in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to obtain information respecting new books. There were no public libraries, and the booksellers, according to Maunsell, were not well acquainted with the titles of the books published, and he constantly refers to the scarceness of books issued only a few years before. He writes—
“And seeing also many singular Bookes, not only of Diuinitie, but of other excellent Arts, after the first impression, so spent and gone, that they lie euen as it were buried in some few Studies. That men desirous of such kind of Bookes, cannot aske for that they neuer heard of, and the Bookeseller cannot shew that he hath not: I have thought good in my poor estate to undertake this most tiresome business, hoping the Lord will send a blessing on my labours taken in my vocation. Thinking it as necessarie for the Bookeseller (considering the number and nature of them) to haue a Catalogue of our English Bookes as the Apothecaire his Dispensatorium or the Schoolmaster his Dictionarie. By means of which my poore trauailes I will draw to your memories Bookes that you could not remember and shew to the learind such Bookes as they would not thinke were in our owne tongues....”
Besides dedicating his book to Queen Elizabeth, he addresses “the Companie of Stationers, and all other printers and booksellers,” to whom he says—
“I have in my vocation laboured to do somwhat: my purpose is to shew (in such sort as I can) what we have in print, in our own tongue, a thinge not regarded but of a few. For some soare so hie that they looke not so low, as on their owne countrie writers, and some regard not old Bookes, but aske what newes? or new writers?”
To the reverend divines he says—
“The consideration whereof hath moved me (most unworthie and unable of many others) to undertake this trifeling yet most toylesome & troublesome busines, wherby the reader shall haue this help, and he may see at home in his Studie what Bookes are written and how many translated. And though it be imperfect as I know not what first Booke either of Dictionarie or Herball or such like was perfect at the first or second edition, yet he that helpeth me to put in one Booke that I have not seene, I hope I shall shew him ten that he never heard of either new or old.”
The second part of Maunsell’s catalogue was dedicated to Robert, Earl of Essex, and the scarceness of books not twenty or forty years old is again referred to in it—
“Seeing still many excellent Bookes written and printed in our owne tongue, and that many of them after twenty or fortie yeares Printing are so dispersed out of Bookesellers hands, that they are not onely scarce to be found but almost quite forgotten, I have thought it worth my poore labour, to take some paynes heerin (though that the more learnd sort would not willingly imploy their labour in the same) to gather a Cathalogue in suche sort as I can of the Bookes printed in our tongue which I doe hope will be delightsome to all English men that be learnt or desirous of learning.”
The next bibliography of new English books was William London’s “Catalogue of the most vendible Books,” 1658, to which two small supplements were published, bringing the list of publications down to 1660.
R. Clavel was the next to publish a catalogue of new books, and the period covered by him was from 1666 to 1695. To none of these books are prices attached, but some of the books in Clavel’s supplement are priced; and in the monthly catalogue commenced by Bernard Lintott in May 1714, all the books are priced.
Bent’s General Catalogue of Books, issued in 1786, contained the titles of books published since 1700, and this was succeeded by the London Catalogue, which appeared for several years. The British and English catalogues followed, and the latter is published annually.
In order to obtain some idea of the varying prices at which books have been published, it will be well to enumerate a few at different periods, arranged under the different sizes of books.