The Arts in the Middle Ages and at the Period of the Renaissance

by P. L. Jacob

The greater number of rich manuscripts, even when they contained the text of some ancient secular author, were destined to be presented to the treasuries of churches and abbeys, and these offerings were not made without great display: the book, whatever its contents might be, was placed on the altar, and a solemn mass was celebrated on the occasion; moreover, an inscription at the end of the work mentioned the homage which had been paid for it to God and to the saints in paradise.

We must not forget that in this time of almost universal ignorance, the Church was the only depository of literature and science; she sought after those heathen authors who could instruct her in eloquence that might be employed in advancing the faith, almost as much as she sought for sacred books; it was not rare even to see Christian zeal exalting itself so far as to find prophets of the Messiah in writers very anterior to the doctrines of Christ. Thus the best Greek and Latin manuscripts of profane authors are the work of monks, as were the Bibles and the writings of the Fathers of the Church. The rules of the most ancient brotherhoods recommended the monks who could write and who wished to please God to re-copy the manuscripts, and those who were illiterate to learn to bind them. “The work of the copyist,” said the learned Alcuin to his contemporaries, “is a meritorious work, which is profitable to the soul, while the work of the ploughman is profitable only to the belly.”

At all periods of history we find mention made of certain celebrated manuscripts. We will not go so far back as the Greek traditions relating to the works of Homer, of which some copies were ornamented with a richness that has, probably, never been surpassed. In the fifth century St. Jerome possessed twenty-five parts of the works of Origen, which Pamphilus the Martyr had copied with his own hand. St. Ambrose, St. Fulgentius, Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, men as learned as they were pious, applied themselves to reproducing with their own hands the best ancient texts. A copyist by profession was called scriba, scriptor; the place in which they generally worked was called scriptorium. The capitularies against bad copyists were frequently renewed. “We ordain that no scribe write incorrectly,” we find in the collection of Baluze. We read in the same collection, in 789, “There shall be good Catholic texts in all monasteries, so that prayers shall not be made to God in faulty language.” In 805, “If the Gospels, the Psalter, or the Missal are to be copied, only careful middle-aged men are to be employed; verbal errors may otherwise be introduced into the faith.” There were, moreover, correctors who rectified the work of the copyists, and attested the work, on the volumes, by the words contuli, emendavi (“I have collated, I have revised”). A copy of Origen’s works has been mentioned, corrected by the hand of Charlemagne himself, to whom is also attributed the introduction of full stops and commas.

The same care presided over the preparation of royal charters and diplomas; the referendaries or chancellors drew them up and superintended their despatch; the principal officers of the crown intervened, as guarantors or witnesses to them, and these acts were read publicly before they were signed and sealed. Notaries and witnesses guaranteed the authenticity of private charters.

As long as printing did not exist in France, the corporation of scribes, copyists of charters, and copyists of manuscripts, which counted among them booksellers, was very numerous and very influential, since it was composed of graduates of the university that patronised them and placed them among the number of its indispensable agents. He who desired to become a bookseller had to give proof of his instruction and of his ability; he was obliged to take an oath “not to commit any deception, fraud, or evil thing which might damage or prejudice the university, its scholars and frequenters, nor to rob nor speak ill of them.” Besides which he was compelled to deposit a sum of fifty francs (livres parisis) as caution-money.

The rules imposed on scribes and on booksellers were always very strict, and this severity was only too justly occasioned by the abuses that existed, and by the scandalous disorder of the people who exercised these professions. In the year 1324 the university published this order:—“There will be admitted only people of good conduct and morals, sufficiently acquainted with the book trade, and previously approved by the university. The bookseller may not take a clerk into his service till that clerk has sworn, before the university, to exercise his profession according to the ordinances. The bookseller must give to the university a list of the works which he sells; he must not refuse to let a manuscript to whomsoever may wish to make a copy of it, on payment of the indemnity fixed by the university. He is forbidden to let out books that have not been corrected, and those students who find an incorrect copy are requested to denounce it publicly to the rector, so that the bookseller who has let it out may be punished, and that the copy may be corrected by scholares (learned men or scholars). There shall be every year four commissioners chosen to fix the price of books. One bookseller shall not sell a work to another bookseller before he has exposed the work for sale during four days. In any case the seller is obliged to register the name of the purchaser, to describe him, and to state the price for which the book was sold.”

From century to century this legislation underwent variations, according to the ideas of the times: and when the printing-press came, in the middle of the fifteenth century, to change the face of the world, the corporation of scribes rose at first against the new art which was to ruin them. “But at last,” says Champollion-Figeac, “they submitted, and temporary measures were recommended to the public authorities for the defence of an ancient order of things which could not long resist the new.”

Now let us go back to the first centuries of the Middle Ages, to resume the question from a palæographic point of view.

The languages and literature of modern Europe are all Greek or Latin, Sclavonic or Gothic; these four great families of peoples and of languages have existed in spite of the vicissitudes of politics. Such is the basis whereon must be found all the researches by which we are to establish the origin and nature of the writing peculiar to each literature.

The Greeks of Constantinople taught writing to the Sclavonic race, and with it the Christian faith. The most ancient Greek writing (we speak of the Christian era only) was the capital writing, regular and well-proportioned; as it became general it was simplified more and more. After this sort of writing, examples of which are found only on stone or bronze, we come to the writing called, although we do not know why, uncial,[53] which, was the first step towards the Greek cursive (flowing).