Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

For the older institutions, it is not practicable to fix with any precision the date of their beginning, and no year can be named in which they first exercised the functions of a university. The first university that was formally founded was that of Prague, which dates from April, 1348. Bologna, Paris, Padua, Oxford, and Cambridge were not founded but grew, that is, were developed under special influences out of pre-existing schools. The first European school which, while never developing into a university, did do specialised university work, was that of Salerno, which may be said to have initiated for Europe systematised and scientific instruction in medicine. Fons Medicinæ was the name given to it by Petrarch. The school of Salerno has one special claim to commemoration in any general sketch of the intellectual life of Europe. Its foundation and early development were due to the famous Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, the monastery which had been established by S. Benedict (in 529), and the scriptorium in which was the creation of Cassiodorus. Salerno, which was later affiliated with the University of Naples, fills, therefore, the place of a connecting link between the educational work of the old-time Benedictine scriptorium and the scientific activities and intellectual life of the new university system of Europe. Indeed, through that wonderful old man, Cassiodorus, at once Greek, Roman, and Goth, statesman, author, and monk, the chain of continuity is borne directly back to the classic world of imperial Rome.

The study of letters in Monte Cassino had come to include medicine, and the writings of Galen and Hippocrates were transcribed in the scriptorium, and were later made the first text-books in the medical school established by the monks at Salerno. Charlemagne is said to have interested himself in the school and in 802 to have ordered certain Greek medical treatises to be translated for its use from the Arabic into Latin.[261] The man who finally developed the monks’ medical school (then known as the civitas Hippocratica) into a great and specialised studium publicum was, however, Constantine, a Carthaginian Christian. His work was done between the years of 1065 and 1087, under the special favour and patronage of Robert Guiscard, who was at that time ruler of Apulia. In the time of Robert the school contained some women students, probably the earliest in Europe. There are references also at this period to several female writers on medical subjects. Salerno dates as a privileged school from 1100. The University of Naples, with which the medical college of Salerno was later affiliated, was instituted by Frederick II. (the “Wonder of the World”) in 1224. Notwithstanding the brilliancy of the Court of Frederick and the feverish energy of the monarch himself, the literary work done in his university was not of abiding importance, and it is Bologna which serves as the type of the earlier universities of Europe, and which divides with the University of Paris the honour of having served as a general model for later foundations.

The University of Bologna lays claim to be the oldest in Europe. According to one tradition it was founded by Charlemagne about 800, but the celebration in 1890 of its thousandth anniversary indicates that its modern historians have contented themselves with a somewhat later date. The jurist Irnerius, who gave instruction in civil law in Bologna between 1100 and 1135, was able to do for the school of law a very similar work to that done by Constantine a century earlier for the school of medicine at Salerno, and under his direction the school became a studium publicum or generale. Bologna dates as a privileged studium from 1158, when the Universitas secured a formal recognition from Frederick I. Tiraboschi speaks of the university as having been in a flourishing condition as early as the twelfth century, and in 1224, when the Emperor Frederick II., in his zeal on behalf of his newly founded university at Naples, undertook to suppress that of Bologna, the latter is reported to have had no less than 10,000 students. Its great jurist of that time was Azo or Azolinus. The edict was revoked in 1227, and the schools of the university were, in fact, never closed. The University of Padua dates from about 1215, and that of Vercelli (in Piedmont) from 1228. In 1248, Innocent IV. established the University of Piacenza, with privileges similar to those enjoyed by Paris and Bologna. Pisa dates from about 1340, Florence from 1321, and Pavia from 1362. Galeazzo Visconti secured for Pavia from Charles IV. a charter with the privileges of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford. Notwithstanding the competition of so many rival institutions, and the special favour shown from time to time to certain of these by one prince or another (as in the case of the Emperor Frederick to Naples), Bologna not only retained its pre-eminence among the universities of Italy, but secured for itself a great reputation throughout Europe, attracting students of every nationality. In Bologna, Padua, and Pavia special attention was given to jurisprudence, while the school of Florence was noted for the liberal remuneration granted to its instructors in rhetoric and in belles-lettres. In this respect, however, Florence stood almost alone. The instructors in literature, classed as Humanists, were obliged for the most part to seek appreciation and remuneration not in the universities, but at the Courts of the cultivated princes and in the palaces of the more intellectual of the noblemen, and, fortunately for the literary life of Italy, literature had, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a popularity and acceptance among princes and nobles to an extent not known elsewhere in Europe.

While the university life of Italy dates from the close of the twelfth century, it is not until the beginning of the thirteenth century that we find any trace of regulations concerning the production and distribution of manuscripts. It appears that for a term of perhaps a quarter of a century there had been in Bologna and in the other older university towns a certain amount of interest in the production, hiring, and selling of manuscripts, a trade which had been carried on without any supervision or restriction on the part of the university authorities, and the same was the case with the work of the earlier manuscript dealers in Paris.

The term stationarii, which first appears in Bologna in 1259 and in Paris some years later, indicates at once a change in the method of work of these university scribes as compared with previous writers who had been ready to do work in one place or another as opportunity offered. For a number of years there was, in connection with this university work, practically no selling of books. The special responsibility of the stationarii was to keep in stock a sufficient number of authorised and verified transcripts or copies of the books ordered or recommended in the educational courses of the university, and to rent these to the students or to the instructors at rates which were prescribed by university regulations. The stationarii also took over the books of the students who died while in the university, or of departing students, as in most of the universities it was a misdemeanour to carry any books at all out of the university town.

In Bologna, Padua, and probably other Italian universities, the Jews were forbidden to carry on any trade in books. If, therefore, Jews coming into a town had manuscripts which they wished to dispose of, it was necessary for them to place these manuscripts in the hands of the stationarii, and they would make sale of them on commission. As before specified, however, the buyers of books in a university town could purchase only the use of the books during their sojourn in such town. On leaving the town, it was necessary that the books should be placed again with the stationarii for sale to others connected with the university. It is probable, however, that this regulation applied only to the special list of text-books or reference books authorised and prescribed by the university. A certain Heinrichs of Kirchberg relates that on leaving Padua in 1256, he had managed to bring away with him a considerable package of books. He had accomplished this by hiding the books in a load of hay which he took with him through the town gates without being discovered.[262] In 1334, the university regulation was modified so that after having secured the special permission of the authorities, a student could take with him from the university books which he had purchased.

Until the time when the manuscript traders were replaced by the dealers in printed books, the most important function of the university dealers was not in the sale, but in the hiring out of manuscripts, and the term stationarius came from a very early date to be limited to the functionary who, under the regulations of the university, provided, for hire, the students, and in some cases the instructors, with the material required for their work.

In order to facilitate the manifolding and prompt distribution of the texts needed, and in order also to lessen for the students the cost of securing these texts, the practice obtained from the beginning of dividing the manuscripts into portions, to which portions were given the name peciæ or petiæ—or in the Italian form, pezze. At first, the extent of these divisions must have been more or less arbitrary, but later, the number of pages or sheets to be contained in them was made a matter of specific university regulation. According to the regulation, the pecia was to contain sixteen columns, each with sixty-two lines, and each line with thirty-two letters, and the material was to be written on sheets comprising together a form, quaterne.

The pecia served as the unit of the calculation for the charge for the rental. The older manuscripts had been written in a much larger format than that found convenient for university work, and the above specified form was now arrived at as, on the whole, best meeting the requirements of the students and the convenience of the scribes.

For some years after the formal recognition by the university statutes of the stationarii, the number of these was naturally limited, a limitation which had a service for the university authorities in facilitating the supervision considered important, and which was, of course, of business value for the stationarii themselves. A certain amount not only of scholarly knowledge but also of capital must have been requisite on the part of the stationarii in order to bring together for manifolding authentic codices or texts, and also to keep themselves supplied with writing materials, which during the thirteenth century continued to be costly. There is evidence that in certain cases, particularly in Padua, a salary was paid from the university chest to the stationarii, which was an admission on the part of the university authorities that the prices prescribed for the rent of the peciæ were not in themselves adequate to secure a living income for the scribes.