Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

By the year 1448, the number of certified librarii in Paris had increased to twenty-four.[366] Kirchhoff is of opinion that a certain portion at least of these librarii carried on also other trades, but it is evident that there had come to be in these years, immediately preceding the introduction of the printing-press, a very considerable development in the demand for literature and in the book-trade of the capital.

In 1489, the list of book-dealers and of those connected with the manufacture of books who were exempt from taxation included twenty-four librarii, four dealers in parchment, four dealers in paper, seven paper manufacturers (having mills outside of Paris), two illuminators, two binders, and two licensed scribes.

In the following year, the list of librarii free from taxation was reduced to seventeen. It is probable that those librarii whose names had been taken off the exemption list undertook a general book business carried on outside of the university regulations, and were probably able to secure returns more than sufficient to offset the loss caused by the curtailing of their freedom from taxation and of their university privileges.

This reduction in the number of manuscript-dealers who remained members of the corporation was, however, very promptly made up by including in the corporation the newly introduced printers. As early as 1476, one of the four officials of the guild was the printer Pasquier Bonhomme.

The cessation of the work of the scribes and the transfer of the book-trade from their hands to those of the printers took place gradually after the year 1470, the printers being, as said, promptly included in the organisation of the guild. There must, however, have been, during the earlier years at least, not a little rivalry and bitterness between the two groups of dealers.

An instance of this rivalry is given in 1474, in which year a librarius juratus, named Herman von Stathoen (by birth a German), died. According to the university regulation, his estate, valued at 800 crowns of gold, (there being no heirs in the country) should have fallen to the university treasury. In addition to this property in Paris, Stathoen was part owner of a book establishment in Mayence, carried on by Schöffer & Henckis, and was unpopular with the Paris dealers generally on the ground of his foreign trade connections.

Contention was made on behalf of the Crown that the property in Paris should be confiscated to the royal treasury, and as Schöffer & Henckis were subjects of the Duke of Burgundy, whose relations with Louis XI. might be called strained, the influence of the Court was decidedly in favour of the appropriation of any business interest that they might have in their partner’s property in Paris. In the contention between the university and the Crown, the latter proved the stronger, and the bookseller’s 800 crowns were confiscated for the royal treasury, and at least got so far towards the treasury as the hands of the chancellor.

As a further result of the issue which had been raised, it was ordered on the part of the Crown that thereafter no foreigner should have a post as an official of the university or should be in a position to lay claim to the exemption and the privileges attaching to such post.

While in Paris the manuscript-dealers had been promptly driven from the field through the competition of the printers, in Rouen they held their own for a considerable term of years. The space which had been assigned to the librarii for their shops at the chief doorway of the cathedral, continued to be reserved for them as late as 1483, and the booksellers keeping on sale the printed books, were forbidden to have any shops at this end of the cathedral, but were permitted to put up, at their own cost, stalls at the north doorway.

The oldest Paris bookseller whose name has been placed on record is described as Herneis le Romanceur. He had his shop at the entrance to Notre Dame. His inscription appeared in a beautiful manuscript presenting a French translation of the Code of Justinian, a manuscript dating from the early part of the thirteenth century. It is possible that Guillaume Herneis, whose name appeared in the tax list of 1292 with a rate of ten livres, was the scribe and the publisher of the above manuscript, but if this were the case he must have been at the time of this tax rating well advanced in years.[367] In 1274, the name of Hugichio le Lombard appears recorded on several manuscripts which have been preserved in existing collections. In the taxes of 1292, appears the name of Agnien, Libraire, in the Rue de la Boucherie, assessed for thirty-six sous. The tax is too large to make it probable that Agnien was a mere pedlar or did business from an open stall, and it is Géraud’s opinion that he was charged probably as a university bookseller to whom the tax collector had refused the exemption belonging to university members.[368]