Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

The very large measure of attention given to the production of legends and romances, and the great popularity of these among almost all classes of the people, was the distinctive feature of the literature of England during the three centuries preceding the introduction of printing. The scenes of many of these romances are laid in classic times, and their characters bear classic names; but the stories are hardly constructed on classic lines, and very little attempt is made to preserve what the dramatic critic in Nicholas Nickleby calls “the oneness of the drama.” Antiquity is presented in the garb of the Middle Ages. As Jusserand remarks: “Everything in these poems was really translated; not only the language of the ancients but their raiment, their civilisation, their ideas. Venus becomes a princess: the heroes are knights, and their costumes, pictured in the illuminations, are so much in the fashion of the day that they serve us to date the poems.”

In addition to these classic romances, in which old-time heroes masquerade in mediæval garb and speak in mediæval language, there is a long series of tales which appear to have been of English origin. English readers and English writers of the time seem to have possessed a special penchant for story-telling. “Prose tales were written in astonishing quantities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by pious authors who under pretext of edifying and amusing their readers at the same time, began by amusing and frequently forgot to edify.”[401] The Welshman, Walter Map, became famous at the Court of Henry II. for his satires and humorous stories. His work was done in Latin. His De Nugis Curiatum secured the most abiding repute. He might perhaps be considered as a twelfth-century Martial. That famous body of stories, the Gesta Romanorum, heretofore believed to be the result of German reshaping of legends originating with the monks of Italy, is now claimed to have been first compiled in England towards the end of the thirteenth century.[402] The Gesta was one of the most widely circulated books in Europe (outside of the accepted devotional classics) both in the manuscript period, and during the first century of printing.

The stories of the time are of very varied origin and in many cases had evidently, in the rewriting, undergone material modifications or transformations. Whether the language used be Latin, French, or English, it is evident from the character of the tales that the writers were addressing themselves not to any limited group of scholars and clerics, but to what would to-day be described as a popular circle of readers and of hearers. Thomas Wright points out that even those tales which are presented in Latin give evidence from local references and from English quotations of having been written for Englishmen.[403]

The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, chief among the story-tellers of England, if not of Europe, were written about 1390. After the long series of translations and adaptations, these tales of Chaucer mark a distinct epoch in the production of native romance, in which characters, incidents, and surroundings were alike English, although there are many evidences of continental influences. The circulation of the Tales in manuscript form was very extended, and Caxton showed his usual excellent judgment by including them in the first group of publications issued from his Westminster Press. This earliest printed edition was probably published in 1478. A second edition was issued by Caxton in 1484.

It seems probable, as well from the history of the Canterbury Tales as from that of the long series of romances which had preceded them, a history giving evidence of a wide-spread influence and repute, that there must have been, during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, a considerable book-production outside of the monastery scriptoria, and that there must also have been a fairly effective machinery for the sale and distribution of the manuscript texts. The latter were doubtless supplied in great part by the travelling pedlars, who sold with their novelties in ribbons and trinkets the latest new tale, or the latest version of some very old tale.

Books in manuscript were included in the goods sold at certain of the great fairs, such as that of Stourbridge (near Cambridge), St. Giles (near Oxford), and St. Bartholomew, in London.[404] After the introduction of printing, such fairs did considerable business in the sale not only of the chap-books and almanacs, which were carried about in the pedlars’ packs, but also of substantial and costly works. Professor Thorold Rogers explains that the rapid diffusion of books and pamphlets at a time when newspapers and advertisements were still unknown, can only be accounted for by the understanding that the book-dealers made large use of these fairs. He goes on to say that he finds entries of purchases for the libraries of the Oxford colleges, with the statement that the books were bought at St. Giles’s Fair.[405] It will be remembered how two centuries or more after the period referred to by Thorold Rogers, Michael Johnson, the father of Samuel, made a practice of going on market days to Uttoxeter, taking there from his book-shop in Litchfield books to be offered for sale on a stall in the market-place. The market days had, in 1725, replaced in great measure the old-time fairs. In the chapter on Germany, I have referred to the early use made of the Fair at Nordlingen by the dealers in manuscripts, a practice which was later continued by the printers.

It does not appear that the manuscript-dealers were permitted to carry on their trade in the chapels or within the enclosures of the cathedrals, as was so largely done by their contemporaries in Germany and in France. The extensive multiplication of books by copyists is less easy to account for. I have not been able thus far to find record of any considerable production, in London or other commercial centres, of books in manuscript, and I can only infer such production from the wide-spread circulation and influence of the books themselves.

The literary activities of England during these centuries of the manuscript period were by no means limited to the production of fiction. The long series of contributions to local and national history made by the monkish chroniclers have been referred to in a previous chapter. In the twelfth century, Orderic Vital or Vitalis writes his Angligenæ Historiæ Ecclesiasticæ, Henry of Huntingdon, his Historia Anglorum (from A.C. 55 to A.D. 1154), and William of Malmesbury, his Gesta Regum Anglorum. The Historia Anglorum was printed in 1586, at the expense of Sir Henry Savile. William of Malmesbury was, like Richard de Bury, noted as a collector of books. His history was issued between 1112 and 1124. A few years later, in 1139, appears the great Historia Regum Britanniæ, of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey begins his British history with the earliest times, and, thanks, as he explains, to certain special discoveries, or to a special revelation, he is able to write with as much certainty about the reign of King Arthur as concerning events of his own time. This chronicle must have been largely multiplied and widely distributed, as an exceptionally large number of copies have been preserved to the present time, the British Museum alone possessing no less than thirty-four.

In the thirteenth century the work of the historians is carried on by such writers as Roger of Wendover, and Matthew Paris, chief among English chroniclers. In the fourteenth century, the most noteworthy among a long series of historical writers is Ralph Higden, author of the Polychronicon, or “Universal History,” which remained for centuries an accepted authority.

In the thirteenth century, Bartholomew or Glanville compiles one of the oldest of the general cyclopædias. Of this, many manuscripts have been preserved, eighteen of which are in the National Library in Paris.[406] John of Gaddesden, court physician under Edward II. (1310-1312), writes a medical cyclopædia, or compendium of prescriptions, which not only secures a European reputation at the time, but retains its prestige for nearly three centuries, and is issued in print in Augsburg, in 1595, in two quarto volumes. As early as the reign of Henry II. (1154-1189) an important group of law books had appeared, and the law treatises of Henry of Bracton, issued early in the thirteenth century, retained their value sufficiently to appear two centuries later in a printed edition, abridged from the original text. These few typical writers are referred to simply as presenting some indication of the variety and of the extent of the literary activities of England during the centuries preceding the beginning of printing. The popular interest in the works of such writers, and the great influence exerted by them upon the opinions of their own and of succeeding generations, is evidence of a considerable multiplication of copies and of an extended circulation, and this evidence is corroborated by the fact that of many of the books of the period so large a number of copies have been preserved to the present time through the perils and vicissitudes of the intervening centuries.