Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

Kirchhoff speaks of usurers, dealers in old clothes, and pedlars, carrying on the trade in the buying and selling of books during the first half of the fifteenth century. In Milan, a dealer in perfumery, Paolino Suordo, included in his stock (in 1470) manuscripts for sale, and later announced himself as a dealer in printed books. Both in England and France at this time manuscripts were dealt in by grocers and by the mercers. The monastery of Neuzelle, in 1409, pawned several hundred manuscripts for 130 gulden, and the monastery at Dobrilugk, in 1420, sold to the Prebendary of Brandenburg 1441 volumes.

In 1455, the Faculty of Arts of the University of Heidelberg bought valuable books from the estate of the Prior of Worms. In 1402, the cathedral at Breslau rented a number of books from Burgermeister Johann Kyner, for which the Chapter was to pay during the lifetime of said Kyner a yearly rental of eight marks, ten groschens.[327]

The Bishop of Speier rented to the precentor of the cathedral in 1447 some separately written divisions of the Bible, which were to be held by the precentor during his lifetime only, and were then to be returned to the Bishop’s heirs. The rental is not mentioned. The Chapter of the Cathedral of Basel arranged to take over certain books from the owner or donor, whose name is not given, and to pay as consideration for the use of the same, each year on the anniversary of the gift, 16 sols.[328]

Richard de Bury makes a reference to the book-trade of Europe, as it existed in the fourteenth century, as follows:

Stationariorum ac librariorum notitiam non solum intra natalis soli provinciam, sed per regnum Franciæ, Teutoniæ et Italiæ comparavimus dispersorum faciliter pecunia prævolante, nec eos ullatenus impedivit distantia neque furor maris absterruit, nec eis æs pro expensa defecit, quin ad nos optatos libros transmitterent vel afferrent.[329]

(By means of advance payments, we have easily come into relations with the stationarii and librarii who are scattered through our native province, and also with those who are to be found in the kingdoms of France, Germany, and Italy; and neither the great distances, nor the fury of the sea, nor lack of money for their expenses has been permitted to prevent them from bringing or sending to us the books that we desired.)

In the same work, De Bury uses the term bibliator, which he afterwards explained as being identical with bibliopole,—a seller of books.

The record of the production of books that was carried on in the earlier universities, such as Bologna and Padua, is presented in the chapter on the universities.

In connection with the very special requirements of the earlier Italian universities, and with the close control exercised by them over the scribes, it is evident that a book-trade in the larger sense of the term could not easily come into existence. The first records of producers and dealers of books of a general character were to be found, not in the university towns, but in Milan, Florence, and particularly in Venice. In 1444, a copy of Macrobius was stolen from the scholar Filelfi, or Philelphus, which copy he recovered, as he tells us, in the shop of a public scribe in Vincenza.

Blume mentions that in Venice the Camaldulensers of S. Michael in Murano carried on during the earlier part of the fifteenth century an important trade in manuscripts, including with the older texts verified copies which had been prepared under their own direction.[330] The headquarters, not only for Italy but for Europe, of the trade of Greek manuscripts, was for a number of years in Venice, the close relations of Venice with Constantinople and with the East having given it an early interest in this particular class of Eastern productions.