Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

CHAPTER I.

THE MAKING OF BOOKS IN THE MONASTERIES.

I HAVE used for the heading of the chapter the term “the making of books” rather than “literary work,” because the service rendered by the earlier monastic scribes (a service of essential importance for the intellectual life of the world) consisted chiefly, as has been indicated, not in the production of original literature, but in the reproduction and preservation of the literature that had been inherited from earlier writers,—writers whose works had been accepted as classics. While it was the case that in this literary labour it was the Benedictines who for centuries rendered the most important service, the first of the European monasteries in which such labour was carried on as a part of the prescribed routine or rule of the monastic life was that of Vivaria or Viviers, founded by Cassiodorus, which was never formally associated with the Benedictine Order, and which had, in fact, adopted, in place of the Benedictine Rule, a rule founded on the teachings of Cassian, who had died early in the fifth century. The work done, under the instructions of Cassiodorus, by the scribes of Viviers, served as an incentive and an example for Monte Cassino, the monastery founded by S. Benedict, while the scriptorium instituted in Monte Cassino was accepted as a model by the long series of later Benedictine monasteries which during the succeeding seven centuries became centres of literary activity.

After the destruction of the Gothic kingdom of Italy, it was with these monasteries that rested the intellectual future of Europe. Mankind was, for the time at least, to be directed and influenced, not so much by royal chancellors or prætorian guards, as by the monks preaching from their cells and by the monastic scribes distributing the world’s literature from the scriptorium.

Cassiodorus and S. Benedict.

—In the literary history of Europe, the part played by Cassiodorus was so important and the service rendered by him was so distinctive, that it seems pertinent for the purposes of this story to present in some detail the record of his life and work. As is indicated by the name by which he is known in history, Cassiodorus was of Greek lineage, his family belonging to the Greek city of Scyllacium in Southern Italy. His full name was Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator. His ancestors had, for several generations, held under the successive rulers of Italy positions of trust and honour, and the family ranked with the patricians. The father of the author and abbot, usually referred to as Cassiodorus the third, was finance minister under Odovacar, and when the Herulian King had been overcome and slain by Theodoric, the minister was skilful enough to make himself necessary to the Gothic conqueror, from whom he received various important posts, and by whom he was finally appointed Prætorian Prefect. The Cassiodorus with whom this study is concerned, known as Cassiodorus the fourth, was born about 479, or three years after the Gothic conquest.[10] He began his official career as early as twenty, and it was while holding, at this age, the position of Consilarius, that he brought himself to the favourable attention of Theodoric by means of an eloquent panegyric spoken in praise of that monarch.

Theodoric appointed him Quæstor, an office which made him the mouth-piece of the sovereign. To the Quæstor belonged the duty of conducting the official correspondence of the Court, of receiving ambassadors, and of replying in fitting harangues to their addresses, so that he was at once foreign secretary and Court orator. He also had the responsibility of giving a final revision to all the laws which received the signature of the King, and of seeing that these were properly worded and did not conflict with previous enactments.[11] Theodoric, who had received what little education he possessed from Greek instructors in Constantinople, was said never to have mastered Latin, and he doubtless found the services of his eloquent and scholarly minister very convenient.

It was the contention of Theodoric that his kingdom represented the natural continuation of the Roman Empire, and that he was himself the legitimate successor of the emperors. He took as his official designation not Rex Italiæ, but Gothorum et Romanorum Rex. This contention was fully upheld by the Quæstor, who felt himself to be the representative at once of the official authority of the new kingdom and of the literary prestige of the old Empire, and who did what was in his power to preserve in Ravenna the classical traditions of old Rome and to make the Court the centre of literary influence and activity. Theodoric and his Goths had accepted the creed of the Arians, but the influence of his minister, who was a Christian of the Athanasian or Trinitarian faith, was sufficient to preserve a spirit of toleration throughout the kingdom. It is to Cassiodorus that is due what was probably the first official utterance of toleration that Europe had known, an utterance that in later European history was to be so largely set at nought: Religionem imperare non possumus, quia nemo cogitur ut credat invitus.[12] [We must not enforce (acceptance of) a creed, since no one can think or can believe against his will.] It is not one of the least of the services of Cassiodorus that he should at this early date, when the bitterness of controversy was active in the Church, have been able to set a standard of wise and Christian toleration. His action had a good effect later in his own monastery and in the monasteries whose work was modelled on that of Viviers. It was only in monastic centres like Viviers and Monte Cassino, where Christian influence and educational work were held to be of more importance than theological issues, that literary activity became possible, and it was only in such monasteries that labour was expended in preserving the writings of “pagan” (that is, of classic) authors.