Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

As has been noted in another chapter, the activity of the Brothers in the distribution of literature did not cease when books in manuscripts were replaced by the productions of the printing-press. They made immediate use of the invention of Gutenberg, and in many parts of Germany, the first printed books that were brought before the people came from the printing-presses of the Brothers.

Some general system of public schools seems to have taken shape in the larger cities at least of North Germany as early as the first half of the thirteenth century. The teachers in these schools themselves added to their work and to their earnings by transcribing text-books and sometimes works of worship. Later, there came to be some extended interest in certain classes of literature among a few of the princes and noblemen, but this appears to have been much less the case in Germany than in Italy or even than in France. In the castles or palaces where there was a chaplain, the chaplain took upon himself the work of a scribe, caring not only for the correspondence of his patron, but occasionally also preparing manuscripts for the library, so called, of the castle. There is also record of certain stadtschreiber, or public scribes, licensed as such in the cities of North Germany, and in some cases the post was held by the instructors of the schools.

Ulrich Friese, a citizen of Augsburg, writing in the latter half of the fourteenth century, speaks of attending the Nordlingen Fair with parchment and books. Nordlingen Church was, it appears, used for the purpose of this fair, and in Lübeck, in the Church of S. Mary, booths were opened in which, together with devotional books, school-books and writing materials were offered for sale.

In Hamburg also, the courts in the immediate neighbourhood of the churches were the places selected by the earlier booksellers and manuscript-dealers for their trade. In Metz, a book-shop stood immediately in front of the cathedral, and in Vienna, the first book-shop was placed in the court adjoining the cathedral of S. Stephen. Nicolaus, who was possibly the earliest bookseller in Erfurt, had his shop, in 1460, in the court of the Church of the Blessed Virgin.

From a school regulation of Bautzen, written in 1418, it appears that the children were instructed to purchase their school-books from the master at the prices fixed in the official schedule.[382] A certain schoolmaster in Hagenau, whose work was carried on between 1443 and 1450, has placed his signature upon a considerable series of manuscripts, which he claims to have prepared with his own hands, and which were described in Wilken’s History of the library in Heidelberg. His name was Diebold Läber, or, as he sometimes wrote it, Lauber, and he describes himself as a writer, schreiber, in the town of Hagenau. This inscription appears in so many manuscripts that have been preserved, that some doubt has been raised as to whether they could be all the work of one hand, or whether Lauber’s name (imprint, so to speak) may not have been utilised by other scribes possibly working in association with him.[383]

Lauber speaks of having received from Duke Ruprecht an order for seven books, and as having arranged to have the manuscripts painted (decorated or illuminated) by some other hand. Lauber is recorded as having been first a school-teacher and an instructor in writing, later a scribe, producing for sale copies of standard texts, and finally a publisher, employing scribes, simply certifying with his own signature to the correctness of the work of his subordinates. There is every indication that he had actually succeeded in organising in Hagenau, as early as 1443, an active business in the production and distribution of manuscripts. The books produced by him were addressed more generally to the popular taste than was the case with the productions of the monastery scribes.

In part, possibly, as a result of this early activity in the production of books, one of the first printing-presses in Germany, outside of that of Gutenberg in Mayence, was instituted in Hagenau, and its work appears to have been in direct succession to that of the public writer Lauber.

The relations between Hagenau and Heidelberg were intimate, and the scholarly service of the members of the university was utilised by the Hagenau publishers. The book-trade of Hagenau also appears to have been increased in connection with the development of intellectual activity given by the Councils of Constance and Basel. In regard to the latter Council, Kirchhoff quotes Denis as having said:

Quod concilium, qui scholam librariorum dixerit haud errabit.[384]

Either as a cause or as an effect of the activity of the book production in Hagenau, the Hagenau schools for scribes during the first half of the fifteenth century became famous.[385] The work of producing manuscripts appears to have been divided, according to the manufacturing system; one scribe prepared the text, a second collated the same with the original, a third painted in the rubricated initials, and a fourth designed the painted head-pieces to the pages, while a fifth prepared the ornamented covers. It occasionally happened, however, that one scribe was himself able to carry on each division of the work of the production of an illuminated manuscript.