In 1470, the same Burer gave to the monastery, in exchange for a benefice, his entire library. The record does not specify how many volumes the library comprised. In 1350, a certain Constantine was arrested in Erfurt as a heretic. Special efforts were made to save him from death or banishment on the ground that he was a skilled scribe. The record does not appear to show whether or not this plea was successful.
Conrad de Mure speaks of women working as scribes during the latter part of the thirteenth century. It is probable that these women were nuns, but it is not so specified. In the Histoire de l’Imprimerie[38] reference is made to a woman who appears to have acted as an independent scribe—that is to say, not to have been attached to the university or to the guild of booksellers.
On the tax list of Paris, in 1292, are recorded twenty-four escrivains.[39] It is probable that the actual number was much greater, as the scribes who were ecclesiastics were exempt from taxation, and their names, therefore, would not have appeared upon the list.
In 1460, a certain Ducret, clerc à Dijon, received from the Duke for his work as scribe, a groschen for each sheet, which is referred to as the prix accoustumé.[40]
In 1401, Peter of Bacharach, described as a citizen of Mainz, wrote out for the Court at Eltville (Elfeld) a Schwabenspiegel. This is to be noted because it is an example of scribe work being done by one who was not a cleric. Burkard Zink tells us that in 1420, being in Augsburg, he took unto himself a wife. She had nothing and he had nothing, but she earned money with her spinning-wheel and he with his pen. In the first week he wrote vier sextern des grossen papiers, karta regal, and the ecclesiastics for whom the work was being done were so well pleased with it that they gave him for two sexterns four groschen. His week’s work brought him sixteen groschen, or forty cents.[41] Clara Hatzlern, a citizen of Augsburg, is recorded as having written for money between the years 1452 and 1476. A copy of a Schwabenspiegel transcribed by her was contained in the collection at Lambach.[42]
The examples named indicate what was, in any case, probably the only class of scribe work done outside of the monasteries and outside of the universities or before the university period, by the few laymen who were able to write. Their labour was devoted exclusively to the production of books in the tongue of the people; if work in Latin were required, it was still necessary (at least until the institution in the thirteenth century of university scribes) to apply to the monasteries. With the development of literature in Italy, during the following century, there came many complaints concerning the lack of educated scribes competent to manifold the works. These complaints, as well as to the lack of writers as concerning the ignorance and carelessness shown in their work, continued as late as the time of the Humanists, and are repeated by Petrarch and Boccaccio.
Terms Used for Scribe-Work.
—With the Greeks, the term γραμματεύς denoted frequently a “magistrate.” The term ταχυγράφοι corresponded as nearly as might be with our “stenographer.” For this the Romans used the form notarius. The scribes whose work was devoted to books were called, under the later empire, bibliographoi or καλλιγράφοι. The name καλλιγράφος was applied to the Emperor, Theodosius II. Montfaucon gives a list of the names of the Greek scribes who were known to him.[43] The oldest dates from 759, and the next in order from 890 A.D. The oldest Plato manuscript in the Bodleian library was written in 896 for the Diaconus Arethas of Patras. Arethas was, later, Archbishop of Cæsarea, and had also had written for him a Euclid, and in 914 a group of theological works. His scribes were the calligraph John, a cleric named Stephen, and a notarius whose name is not given.[44]
The terms librarius, scriptor, and antiquarius were also used for scribes making copies of books, while notarius was more likely to denote a clerk whose work was limited to the preparation of documents. Alcuin speaks of employing notarii.
In the inscription in a manuscript by Engelberg of the twelfth century, we find the lines: Hic Augustini liber est atque Frowini; alter dictavit, alter scribendo notavit.[45] This indicates that Augustine was the author, while Frowin served as scribe. A manuscript of the sixth century, contained in the Chapter-House library in Verona, bears the signature Antiquarius Eulalius. A manuscript of Orosius, written in the seventh century, is inscribed: Confectus codex in statione Viliaric Antiquarii. (A codex completed in the writing-stall of Viliaric the scribe.) This scribe was probably a Goth, as among the signatures in a Ravenna document, containing the list of the clerics of the Gothic Church, occurs the name Viljaric bokareis.[46] Otto von Freising says of his notarius, Ragewin: Qui hanc historiam ex ore nostro subnotavit (who wrote down this story from my lips); and Gunther, in 1212, complains of a headache which he had brought upon himself ut verba inventa notario vix possim exprimere, that is in the attempt to shape the words that he was dictating to his clerks. It was in Italy that the notarii first became of sufficient importance to organise themselves into a profession and to undertake the training, for other work, of young scribes, and it was from Italy that the scribes were gradually distributed throughout Europe. Their most important employment for some time in Italy was in connection with the work of the Church, and particularly in the preparation and manifolding of the documents sent out from Rome. The special script that was adopted for the work of the Papal office was known as scripta notaria.[47]