Hagenau was one of the few places of book production (excepting the workshops of the Brothers of Common Life) in which, during the manuscript period, books were prepared to meet the requirements of the common folk. The literature proceeding from Hagenau included not only “good Latin books,” that is to say, copies of the accepted classics as used in Heidelberg and elsewhere, but also copies of the famous Epics of the Middle Ages, the Sagas, Folk Songs, Chap-Books, copies of the Golden Bull, Bible stories, books of worship, books of popular music, books of prophecy, and books for the telling of fortunes, etc.[387]
Throughout both Germany and the Low Countries, it was the case that, during the manuscript period, the work of the school teachers was closely connected with the work of the producers and sellers of manuscripts, and the teachers not infrequently themselves built up a manuscript business. The school ordinance of the town of Bautzen, dating from the year 1418, prescribed, for example, the prices which the scholars were to pay to the locatus (who was the fifth teacher in rank in the institution) for the school-books, the responsibility for preparing which rested upon him.
A history of the Printers’ Society of Dresden, printed in 1740, gives examples of some of these prices:
- For one A. B. C. and a paternoster, each one groschen.
- For a Corde Benedicite, one groschen.
- For a good Donat, ten groschens.
- For a Regulam Moralem et Catonem, eight groschens.
- For a complete Doctrinal, a half mark.
- For a Primam Partem, eight groschens.
In case no books are purchased from the locatus, there shall be paid to him by each scholar, if the scholar be rich, two groschens, if he be in moderate circumstances, one groschen, and if the scholar be poor, he shall be exempt from payment.[388]
A certain Hugo from Trimberg, who died about 1309, is referred to by Jaeck as having been a teacher for forty years, at the end of which term he gave up the work of teaching with the expectation of being able to make a living out of his collection of books. The collection comprised two hundred volumes, of which twelve are specified as being original works, presumably the production of Trimberg himself. Jaeck does not tell us whether or not the good schoolmaster was able to earn enough from the manifolding or from the sale of his books to secure a living in his last years.[389]
Kirchhoff refers to the importance of the fairs and annual markets for the manuscript trade. It is evident that, in the absence of any bookselling machinery, it was of first importance for the producers of copies of such texts as might be within their reach, to come into relations with each other in order to bring about the exchange of their surplus copies.
There is record of the sale and exchange of manuscripts, during the first half of the fifteenth century, at the Fairs of Salzburg, Ulm, Nordlingen, and Frankfort. It was in fact from its trade in manuscripts that Frankfort, by natural development, became and for many years remained the centre of the trade in printed books.[390] Ruland speaks of one of the most important items of the manuscript-trade at the Frankfort Fair between 1445 and 1450, being that of fortune-telling books and illustrated chap-books.
It appears also from the Fair records that in Germany, as in Italy, the dealers in parchment and paper were among the first to associate with their goods the sale of manuscripts. In 1470, occurs the earliest record of sales being made at the fair in Nordlingen of printed books.[391] The earliest date at which the sale of printed books at the fair at Frankfort was chronicled was 1480. In 1485, the printer Peter Schöffer was admitted as a citizen in Frankfort.
While Kirchhoff maintains that the distribution of books in manuscript was more extensive in Germany than in either France or Italy, and emphasises particularly the fact that there was among circles throughout Germany a keener interest in literature than obtained with either the French or the Italians, he admits that the record of noteworthy booksellers in Germany, during the manuscript period, is, as compared with that of France and Italy, inconsiderable. In Cologne, he finds, as early as 1389, through an inscription in a manuscript that has been preserved, the name of Horstan de Ledderdam, who called himself not a librarius, but a libemarius. The manuscript that bears this record is a treatise by Porphyry on Aristotle.