Naturally all this demand caused the production of many very badly executed manuscripts. This and other abuses were, however, controlled to a great extent by the university authorities who assumed control over the publication and sale of books. Old books, of course, could be freely sold, subject only to careful checking up of the correctness of the copy. New books had to be read three days in succession before the heads of the university or other public judges, always churchmen, and had to receive their sanction before being copied and put on sale.
This was done by the stationer who derived his name from the Latin word statio meaning a shop. The stationers made, sold, and rented books and sold writing materials and the like very much as at present. They were stringently regulated by the universities. They must be men of learning and character; must bind themselves to obey the laws of the university; must offer no copy for sale unless it was approved; must sell at rates fixed by the university; must purchase only books sanctioned by the university; and must loan books to those too poor to buy them at rates fixed by the university.
This careful regulation of the book trade of the university towns was originally intended for the best of purposes and was productive of much good. Unfortunately it also opened the door to much evil. It established the principle of control of the press, a principle always destructive of liberty and progress. By long use this control came to appear quite the right and normal thing. Used at first to secure the interests of learning and the protection of scholars, it became at length the powerful weapon of party in Church and State. It was used alternately to silence Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, and to muzzle all discussion of social and political questions. Control of the printing press became at last the greatest enemy of civilization, freedom, and enlightenment alike in the old world and in the new and it remained until largely swept away by the movement which culminated in the French Revolution of 1793.
Some of the university libraries early grew to generous size. That of the Sorbonne, for example, numbered 1720 volumes in 1338. This particular library consisted very largely of religious literature, as the main interest of the Sorbonne of that day was theological. Other university libraries were of wider range. Many of the old university libraries are yet in existence.
CHAPTER VI
The Dawn of a New Era
Methods of inscribing words or characters upon vellum or other writing material other than by the toilsome process of handwriting had long been in existence. Among the oldest of human remains are stamps and seals for the impression of symbols, words, or signatures upon plastic substances, as the impression of a signet or seal is now made on sealing wax softened by heat. Originally these seals were incised so that the impression was left in raised characters on the receiving substance, as is now usually the case with seals and signets. Later the designs were sometimes cut in relief so that the figure resulting from the impression was not raised in the substance but pressed into it. From this it was but a step to put some coloring substance on the raised part of the seal or die and so print it on an unyielding surface such as vellum or papyrus, as hand stamps are now used for a great variety of purposes. Documents were signed in this way by persons who were either too illiterate to write their names or too occupied with business to take the time to sign the great numbers of documents which were brought before them. The peculiar characteristics of the Chinese alphabet early prompted this inventive people to the use of these types, for such these devices were. The Chinese are said to have used movable types made of porcelain at a very early period. The use of the seal or the stamp bearing a single letter naturally led to its enlargement and to the inclusion of more than one letter on the same stamp. As early as the 6th century the Chinese were printing books from wooden plates on which were cut in relief all the characters which were to appear upon a single leaf. This was nothing more or less than our modern stereotype plate, excepting that it was carved by hand on wood instead of being made of metal by a mechanical process. There is, however, no evidence whatever connecting these Chinese essays at printing, whether from blocks or types, with European printing. This last appears to have had an entirely independent origin and development.
In Europe, as has already been noted, stamps were used for signatures and other purposes. It has been observed that certain manuscripts of the 12th century show initials so uniform as to appear to be stamp or die impressions. It can hardly be regarded as clearly established, however, that this is the case. As early as the first half of the 15th century bookbinders used dies both in relief and in intaglio, that is having the design cut into the surface of the die. None of these devices, however, appears to have been used for the purpose of multiplying impressions as is now done with the printing press.