Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

An inventory of Margaret, Duchess of Brittany, contains the descriptive titles of eleven books of devotion and four romances, “all bound in satin.”[254]

The name of Anne of Brittany, the wife of King Charles VIII., and later of Louis XII., has long been famous in connection with her fondness for books of devotion and with the great collection which she succeeded in making of these. An inventory of 1498 gives the titles of 1140 books as belonging to Anne’s collection.[255]

In Italy, it was not until the time of Petrarch that there came to be any general interest in the collection of books. This interest was naturally associated with the great Humanistic movement of which it may be considered as partly the cause and partly the effect. The development of literary interests in Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries will be considered in the chapter on the Renaissance.

In Germany, the collections outside of the monasteries appear to have been less important than in Burgundy and in France, the difference being probably in part due to the narrower cultivation of the German noblemen, and probably also in part to their smaller resources. In fact, the more important collections do not appear to have been in the possession of the nobility at all, but to have come into existence through the public spirit of citizens of lower degree. The library of two hundred volumes brought together as early as 1260 by Hugo Trimberg, a schoolmaster of St. Gangolf, has already been referred to.

Duke Ludwig of Brieg is described as having had as early as 1360 a considerable collection of books, and as having had written, in 1353, by some scribe whose name has not been preserved, the Hedwig legends.

The Electors of the Palatinate interested themselves in the formation of libraries, having possibly been influenced to some extent by their relations with their neighbours on the other side of the Rhine. Authors such as Matthias of Kemnat and Michel Behaim worked at the instance of the Electors and under pay from them. The books of Kemnat and Behaim were either originally written in German, or were promptly translated into German for the use of the Electors and of their wives. A number of books in this series are also ornamented with pictures, but, according to the descriptions, the art work in these illustrations was much inferior to that done at the same time in Burgundy.

The most important group of the Heidelberg manuscripts was collected by Ludwig III., who died in 1437.[256] His daughter Mechthild, whose first husband was the Count Ludwig of Wurtemberg, and whose second, the Archduke Albrich, retained in her widowhood in her castle at Rotenburg a collection of ninety-four volumes of the mediæval poets, whose works were written in the vernacular.[257] Ulbrich of Rappoldstein kept two scribes engaged for five years in transcribing the Parsival, and the cost of the work amounted to £200.

It is apparent from the preceding sketch that the development of literature and the circulation of books during the Middle Ages were considerable, notwithstanding the serious difficulties there were to contend with during the ten centuries between the fall of the Roman Empire of the West and the time of the invention of printing.

Under the “Peace of the World” secured by the imperial rule, there had come to be an active literary production and a development of literary interests throughout the community which called for a wide distribution and a general use of books. There was available for the use of publishers a great list of accepted classics, Greek and Latin, and there were also various epochs during which there came into existence works by contemporary writers of distinctive importance, many of which have been preserved as classics for future generations.

The publishers of this period had a convenient and inexpensive material to use for the making of books, and they had available for book production the labour of skilled and inexpensive scribes,—chiefly slaves. The well established means of communication throughout the Empire enabled the publishers of Rome and Massilia and other literary centres to keep open connections with cities in the farthest districts of the realm, and there is adequate evidence of a well organised trade in the distribution of books over almost the entire civilised world, a trade which continued active until the latter part of the fourth century.