This is one of the earlier examples of the use of the term statio, from which is derived the term stationarii, indicating scribes whose work was done in a specific workshop or headquarters, as contrasted with writers who were called upon to do work at the homes of their clients. As is specified in the chapter on the universities, this term came to be used to designate booksellers (that is to say, producers of books) who had fixed work-shops. In the Acts of the Council of Constantinople, the scribe who wrote out the record of the fifth Synod is described as Theodorus librarius qui habuit stationem ad S. Johannem Phocam.[312]
In such work-shops, while the chief undertaking was the production of books, the scribes were ready to prepare announcements and to write letters, as is even to-day the practice of similar scribes in not a few Italian cities and villages.
From the beginning of the seventh century, Rome was for a considerable period practically the only book market in the world, that is to say, the only place in which books could be obtained on order and in which the machinery for their production continued to exist. In 658, S. Gertrude ordered for the newly founded monastery at Nivelle certain sacred volumes to be prepared in the city of Rome.[313] Beda reports that the Abbot Benedict of Wearmouth, in 671, secured from Rome a number of learned and sacred works, non paucos vel placito pretio emtos vel amicorum dono largitos retulit. (He brought back a number of books, some of which he had purchased at the prices demanded, while others he had received as gifts from his friends.) Later, the Abbot repeated his journeys, and in 678, and again in 685, brought back fresh collections. The collections secured on his last journey included even certain examples of the profane writers.[314]
A similar instance is noted in the chronicles of the monastery of St. Wandrille. The Abbot Wandregisil sent his nephew Godo to Rome in 657, and Godo brought back with him as a present from the Pope Vitalian, not only valuable relics, but many volumes of the sacred Scriptures containing both the New and the Old Testament.[315] During the time of the Abbot Austrulf (747-753) a chest was thrown up by the sea on the shore. It contained relics and also a codicem pulcherrimum, or beautiful manuscript, containing the four gospels, Romana Littera Optime Scriptum.
This term Romana Littera has been previously referred to as indicating a special script which had been adopted in Rome by the earlier instructors for sacred writings.
Alcuin relates of the Archbishop Ælbert of York (766-780):
Non semel externas peregrino tramite terras,
Jam peragravit ovans, Sophiæ deductus amore,
Si quid forte novi librorum seu studiorum,
Quod secum ferret, terris reperiret in illis.
Hic quoque Romuleam venit devotus ad urbem.[316]
(More than once he has travelled joyfully through remote regions and by strange roads, led on by his zeal for knowledge, and seeking to discover in foreign lands novelties in books or in studies which he could take back with him. And this zealous student journeyed to the city of Romulus.)
During the Italian expeditions of the German Emperors, books were from time to time brought back to Germany. Certain volumes referred to by Pez as having been in the Library at Passau, in 1395, contain the inscription isti sunt libri quos Roma detulimus.
Wattenbach finds record of an organised manuscript business in Verona as early as 1338,[317] and of a more important trade in manuscripts being carried on in Milan at the same time. In the fourteenth century, Richard de Bury speaks of buying books for his library from Rome. The references to this early manuscript business in Italy are, however, so fragmentary that it is difficult to determine how far the works secured were the remnants of old libraries or collections, or how far they were the productions of scribe work-shops engaged in manifolding copies for sale.