Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

Mabillon is in accord with later authorities such as Compayré and West, as to the deplorable condition of learning at this time throughout the Empire ruled by Charles. Says West: “The plight of learning in Frankland at this time was deplorable. Whatever traditions had found their way from the early Gallic schools into the education of the Franks had long since been scattered and obliterated in the wild disorders which characterised the times of the Merovingian kings.... The copying of books had almost ceased, and all that can be found that pretends to the name of literature in this time is the dull chronicle or ignorantly conceived legend.”[151]

A description such as this emphasises the importance of the work initiated by Alcuin, work the value of which the ruler of Europe was fortunately able to appreciate and ready to support. In his relation to scholarly interests in Europe and to the preservation of the literature of the past, Alcuin may fairly be considered as the successor of Cassiodorus. He was able in the eighth century to render a service hardly less distinctive than that credited to Cassiodorus three hundred years earlier. There is the further parallel that, like Cassiodorus, he possessed a very keen and intelligent interest in the form given to literary expression, and in all the details of the work given to the copyists. The instructions given in Alcuin’s treatise on orthography for the work of the scribes, follow very closely in principle, and differ, in fact, but slightly in detail from, the instructions given by Cassiodorus in his own treatise on the same subject. A couplet which stands at the head of the first page reads as follows: “Let him who would publish the sayings of the ancients read me, for he who follows me not will speak without regard to law.”[152] Alcuin’s care in regard to the consistency of punctuation and orthography and his intelligent selection of a clearer and neater form of script than had heretofore been employed, have impressed a special character on the series of manuscripts dating from the early portion of the ninth century and written in what is termed the Caroline minuscule. In a letter written to Charles from Tours in 799, Alcuin mentions that he has copied out on some blank parchment which the King had sent him a short treatise on correct diction, with illustrations from Bede. He goes on to speak of the special value to literature of the distinctions and subdistinctions of punctuation, the knowledge of which has, he complains, almost disappeared: “But even as the glory of all learning and the ornaments of wholesome erudition begin to be seen again by reason of your noble exertions, so also it seems most fitting that the use of punctuation should also be resumed by scribes.... Let your authority so instruct the youths at the palace that they may be able to utter with perfect elegance whatsoever the clear eloquence of your thought may dictate, so that whatsoever may go to the parchment bearing the royal name it may display the excellence of the royal learning.”[153] A very delicate hint, remarks West, for Charles to mind his commas and his colons.

Up to the time of Charlemagne there appears to have been so little facility in writing and so few scribes were available, that government records were not kept even at the Courts. The schools established by Alcuin at Tours, under the direction of Charlemagne, were in fact the first schools for writers which had existed in Western Europe for centuries. One of the earlier applications made of the knowledge gained in the imperial schools was for the critical analysis of certain historical documents which had heretofore been accepted as final authorities. In the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages, anything that was in writing appears to have been accepted as necessarily trustworthy and valuable, very much as in the earlier times of printing the fact that a statement was in print caused it to be accepted as something not to be contradicted. The critical faculty, combined with the scholarly knowledge necessary and properly applied, was, however, of slow growth, and centuries must still have passed before, in this work of differentiating the value of documents, the authority of scholars secured its full recognition.

After this work of Alcuin began, that is to say, after the beginning of the ninth century, it became the rule of each properly organised monastery to include, in addition to the scriptorium, an armarium, or writing-chamber, which was utilised as a class-room for instruction in writing and in Latin. In a letter of Canonicus Geoffrey, of St.-Barbe-en-Auge, dated 1170, occurs the expression, Claustrum sine armario est quasi castrum sine armamentario,[154] (a monastery without a writing-chamber is like a camp without a storehouse of munitions or an armory.)

The Capitular of Charlemagne, issued in the year 789, addressed itself to the correction of the ignorance and carelessness of the monks, and to the necessity of preserving a standard of correctness for the work of transcribing holy writings. It contains the phrase:

Et pueros vestros non sinite eos vel legendo vel scribendo corrumpere. Et si opus est evangelium, psalterium et missale scribere, perfectæ ætatis homines scribant cum omni diligentia.

(Do not permit your pupils, either in reading or writing, to garble the text;—and when you are preparing copies of the gospel, the psalter, or the missal, see that the work is confided to men of mature age, who will write with due care.)

The following lines were written by Alcuin as an injunction to pious scribes:

AD MUSÆUM LIBROS SCRIBENTIUM.

Hic sedeant sacræ scribentes famina legis,