Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

The stationarii were occasionally known in the Italian universities by the name of bedelli, or bidelli. The bedelli were originally university officials, whose functions probably covered some such disciplinary work as that which is to-day in the hands of the Oxford proctors. The name suggests also the English term beadle, applied to the English parish official who was charged with the duty of keeping the peace, and I find that the lexicographers derive the word beadle directly from the earlier term bedel, the name given to the English university functionary who had to do with matters of discipline and particularly with the direction of public functions, processions, etc. The name is derived from pedum, a stick, the allusion being probably to the baton or staff of office. The use in Italy of the term bidellus for the scribes hiring out manuscripts, was evidently due to the fact that the privileges of this business were in certain cases given to the university officials, in addition, probably, to their other duties.

The name of peciarii was sometimes applied to the officials whose duty it was to supervise the work of the stationarii. In 1300, there is reference to six peciarii in Bologna.

The earliest Italian reference to university scribes dates from 1228, and concerns not the University of Bologna, but the smaller institution of Vercelli in Piedmont. The Vercelli regulations order the employment of two exemplatores, who were to be charged with the duty of providing the texts required for the use of the instructors and students in the Faculties of jurisprudence and theology. The prices to be paid for these manuscripts were to be fixed by the rector of the university. As this is the earliest regulation of which there is record concerning bookselling in the universities, I think it worth while to cite the text itself:

Item habebit Commune Vercellarum duos exemplatores, quibus taliter providebit, quod eos scholares habere possint, qui habeant exemplantia in utroque jure et in Theologia competentia et correcta tam in textu quam in glossa; ita quod solutio fiat a scholaribus pro exemplis secundum quod convenit, ad taxationem Rectoris.[263]

[The University of Vercelli shall also employ two exemplatores, for whom suitable provision shall be made, so that they may be at the service of the scholars who require manuscripts authoritative and correct both as to the text and in the commentaries, either in the department of law or in that of theology, and in return for the copies (or for the use of the copies) received from the exemplatores, the students shall pay a fitting price (or rental) to be fixed by the Rector of the university.]

In similar fashion, the statutes of the University of Padua of the year 1283 provide that two stationarii or bidelli should be employed, one of whom should be at the service of the Faculty of jurisprudence, and the other should serve those of arts and of medicine. The theological Faculty was not instituted in Padua until much later. The two bidelli drew salaries, the first of eight ducats per year, and the second of two ducats, forty sols. They were charged with the duty of keeping a supply of peciæ of the texts prescribed in the lists and of placing these supplies at the disposal of the students and scholars calling for the same. In the year 1420, the statutes of the High School of Modena prescribed that the stationarius (there appears to have been question of but one official for the entire institution) must keep a supply of the texts of the Roman and Canonical law, the summa notaria, the speculum, the Lectures of Cinus and of Innocentius.

The stationarius was to charge for the rent of a pecia of the prescribed texts four denarii, of the glossarii five denarii, and of other texts six denarii. I do not find in the regulations any specification of the term covered by this rental. The city was to assure the stationarius of freedom from military service, and was to give him “the yearly compensation of ten lire.”[264]

A reference by the Italian scholar Filelfo indicates that from this university arrangement the term bidellus came to be applied to scribes outside of university towns. Filelfo speaks of a librarius publicus, “who, in the ordinary speech, is called bidellus.”

With the increase in the larger universities, such as Bologna and Padua, of the number of students and instructors requiring literary material, the practice gradually took shape of purchasing instead of hiring the texts required, and the stationarii developed into librarii. In its original signification, the term librarius stood for librarian; and as late as the fourteenth century the French word librairie was used for a library or a collection of books. It seems to have been only after the introduction of printing that the use of the term librairie finally came to be restricted in France to a collection of books held for sale, that is to say, to a book-shop.

The book-dealers, who in the earlier years of the manuscript period devoted themselves to keeping collections of manuscripts, filled, in fact, rather the rôle of librarians than of booksellers. They were ready to rent out their manuscripts for a consideration, or to permit customers to consult the texts without taking them from the shop. The practice of making from their original stock of texts authenticated copies for general sale, was a matter of comparatively slow development.