There is evidence of Greek studies at other monasteries,—at Westminster after 1465, when Millyng, an “able graecian,” became prior at Reading in 1499 and 1500, and at Glastonbury during the time of Abbot Bere.[487]
But Canterbury’s share was greatest. Selling seems to have taught Greek at Christ Church. In the monastic school there Thomas Linacre was instructed, and probably got the rudiments of Greek from Selling himself. Thence Linacre went to Oxford, where he pursued Greek under Cornelius Vitelli, an Italian visitor acting as prælector in New College.[488] In 1485-6 Linacre went with his old master to Italy—his Sancta Mater Studiorum—where Selling seems to have introduced him to Poliziano. Linacre perfected his Greek pursuits under Chalcondylas, and became acquainted with Aldo Manuzio the famous printer, and Hermolaus Barbarus. A little story is told of his meeting with Hermolaus. He was reading a copy of Plato’s Phaedo in the Vatican Library when the great humanist came up to him and said “the youth had no claim, as he had himself, to the title Barbarus, if it were lawful to judge from his choice of a book”—an incident which led to a great friendship between the two. Grocyn and Latimer were with Linacre in Rome. The former was the first to carry on effectively the teaching of Greek begun at Oxford possibly by Vitelli; but he was nevertheless a conservative scholar, well read in the medieval schoolmen, as his library clearly proves. This library is of interest because one hundred and five of the one hundred and twenty-one books in it were printed. The manuscript age is well past, and the costliness of books, the chief obstacle to the dissemination of thought, was soon to give no cause for remark.
CHAPTER X
THE BOOK TRADE
SECULAR makers of books have plied their trade in Europe since classic times, but during the early age of monachism their numbers were very small and they must have come nigh extinction altogether. In and after the eleventh century they increased in numbers and importance; their ranks being recruited not only by seculars trained in the monastic schools, but by monks who for various reasons had been ejected from their order. These traders were divided into several classes: parchment-makers, scribes, rubrishers or illuminators, bookbinders, and stationers or booksellers. The stationer usually controlled the operations of the other craftsmen; he was the middleman. Scribes were either ordinary scriveners called librarii, or writers who drew up legal documents, known as notarii. But the librarius and notarius often trenched upon each other’s work, and consequently a good deal of ill-feeling usually existed between them.
Bookbinders, and booksellers or stationarii, probably first plied their trade most prosperously in England at Oxford and Cambridge. By about 1180 quite a number of such tradesmen were living in Oxford; a single document transferring property in Cat Street bears the names of three illuminators, a bookbinder, a scribe, and two parchmenters.[489] Half a century later a bookbinder is mentioned in a deed as a former owner of property in the parish of St. Peter’s in the East; another bookbinder is witness to the deed (c. 1232-40).[490] After this bookbinders and others of the craft are frequently mentioned. Towards the end of the thirteenth century Schydyerd Street and Cat Street, the centre of University life, were the homes of many people engaged in bookmaking and selling; the former street especially was frequented by parchment makers and sellers. In this street, too, “a tenement called Bokbynder’s is mentioned in a charter of 1363-4; and although bookbinding may not have been carried on there at that date, the fact of the name having been attached to the place seems sufficient to justify the assumption that a binder or guild of binders had formerly been established there. In Cat Street a Tenementum Bokbyndere, owned by Osney Abbey, was rented in 1402 by Henry the lymner, at a somewhat later date by Richard the parchment-seller, and in 1453 by All Souls’ College.”[491]
Stationers had transcripts made, bought, sold and hired out books and received them in pawn. They acted as agents when books and other goods were sold; in 1389, for example, a stationer received twenty pence for his services in buying two books, one costing £4 and the other five marks.[492] They attended the fair at St. Giles near Oxford to sell books. This was not their only interest, for they dealt in goods of many kinds. They were in fact general tradesmen: sellers, valuers, and agents; liable to be called upon to have a book copied, to buy or sell a book, to set a value upon a pledge, to make an inventory and valuation of a scholar’s goods and chattels after his death. Their office was such an important one for the well-being of the scholars that it was found convenient to extend to them the privileges and protection of the University, and in return to exact an oath of fairdealing from them.[493]
Before the end of the thirteenth century the University’s privileges had been extended to servientes known as parchment-makers, scribes, and illuminators; in 1290 the privileges were confirmed.[494] Certain stationers were then undoubtedly within the University as servientes, but in 1356 they are recorded positively as being so with parchmenters, illuminators, and writers: and again in 1459 “alle stacioners” and “alle bokebynders” enjoyed the privileges of the University, with “lympners, wryters, and pergemeners.”[495] These privileges took them out of the jurisdiction of the city, although they still had to pay taxes, which were collected by the University and paid over to the city treasurer.
Stationers regarded as the University’s servants were sworn, as we have already indicated. The document giving the form of their oath is undated, but most likely the rules laid down were observed from the time the stationers were first attached to the University. The oath was strict. A part of their duties was the valuation of books and other articles which were pledged by scholars in return for money from the University chests. These chests or hutches were expressly founded by wealthy men for the assistance of poor scholars. By the end of the fifteenth century there were at Oxford twenty-four such chests, valued at two thousand marks; a large pawnbroking fund, but probably by no means too large.[496] Mr. Anstey, the editor of Munimenta Academica, has drawn a vivid picture of the inspection of one of these chests and of the business conducted round them, and we cannot do better than reproduce it. Master T. Parys, principal of St. Mary Hall, and Master Lowson are visiting the chest of W. de Seltone. We enter St. Mary’s Church with them, “and there we see ranged on either side several ponderous iron chests, eight or ten feet in length and about half that width, for they have to contain perhaps as many as a hundred or more large volumes, besides other valuables deposited as pledges by those who have borrowed from the chest. Each draws from beneath his cape a huge key, which one after the other are applied to the two locks; a system of bolts, which radiate from the centre of the lid and shoot into the iron sides in a dozen different places, slide back, and the lid is opened. At the top lies the register of the contents, containing the particulars;—dates, names, and amounts—of the loans granted. This they remove and begin to compare its statements with the contents of the chest. There are a large number of manuscript volumes, many of great value, beautifully illuminated and carefully kept, for each is almost the sole valuable possession perhaps of its owner! Then the money remaining in one corner of the chest is carefully counted and compared with the account in the register. If we look in we can see also here and there among the books other valuables of less peaceful character. There lie two or three daggers of more than ordinary workmanship, and by them a silver cup or two, and again more than one hood lined with minever. By this time a number of persons has collected around the chest, and the business begins. That man in an ordinary civilian’s dress who stands beside Master Parys is John More, the University stationer, and it is his office to fix the value of the pledges offered, and to take care that none are sold at less than their real value. It is a motley group that stands around; there are several