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

by P. L. Jacob

University, the authorities of which placed them under the surveillance of four sworn bookbinders, who were considered the agents of the University. We must except, however, from this jurisdiction the acknowledged bookbinder to the “Chambre des Comptes,” who, before he could be appointed to this office, had to make an affirmation that he could neither read nor write.

In the musters, or processions, of the University of Paris, the bookbinders came after the booksellers. To explain the relatively small number of professed bookbinders, we must remember that at this period the majority of scholars bound their own books, as divers passages of ancient authors prove; while the monasteries, which were the principal centres of bookmakers, had one or many members of their community whose special function it was to bind the works written within their walls. Tritheimius, Abbot of Spanheim at the end of the fifteenth century, does not forget the bookbinders in the enumeration he makes of the different employments of his monks:—“Let that one,” says he, “fasten the leaves together, and bind the book with boards. You, prepare those boards; you, dress the leather; you, the metal plates, which are to adorn the binding.” These bindings are represented on the seal of the University of Oxford ([Fig. 381]), and on the banners of some French corporation of printers and booksellers ([Figs. 382] and [386]).

The metal plates, the corners, the nails, the clasps with which these volumes were then laden rendered them so heavy that, in order to enable the reader to turn over the leaves with facility, they were placed on one of those revolving desks having space for many open folios at the same time, and which were capable of accommodating many readers simultaneously. It is said that Petrarch had caused a volume containing the “Epistles of Cicero,” transcribed by himself, to be bound so massively, that as he was continually reading it, he often let it fall and injured his leg; so badly once that he was threatened with amputation. This manuscript in Petrarch’s handwriting is still to be seen in the Laurentian Library at Florence; it is bound in wood, with edges and clasps of copper.

The Crusades, which introduced into Europe many luxurious customs, must have had great influence on bookbinding, since the Arabs had for a long while known the art of preparing, dyeing, stamping, and gilding the skins they employed to make covers for books: these covers took the name of alæ (the wings), no doubt from the resemblance between them and the wings of a bird of rich plumage. The Crusaders having brought back from their expeditions specimens of Oriental binding, our European workmen did not fail to turn their brilliant models to account.

Fig. 381.—Seal of the University of Oxford, in which is a Book bound with Corners and Clasps.

An entire revolution, moreover, which had taken place in the formation of royal and princely libraries, was to produce a revolution in binding also. Bibles, missals, reproductions of ancient authors, treatises on theology, were no longer the only books in common use. The new language had given rise to histories, romances, and poems, which were the delight of a society becoming more and more polished every day. For the pleasure of readers, the gallant of one sex and the fair of the other, books were required more agreeable to the eye, and less rough to the touch, than those used for the edification of monks or the instruction of scholars. And first of all were substituted, for the purpose of manuscripts, sizes more portable than the grave folio. Then fine and smooth vellum was used for writing, and books were covered in velvet, silk, or woollen stuffs. Moreover, paper, a recent invention, opened up a new era for libraries; but two centuries were to elapse before pasteboard had entirely taken the place of wooden covers.

It is in the inventories, in the accounts, and in the archives of kings and princes, we must look for the history of bookbinding in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ([Fig. 383]). We shall limit ourselves to giving a description of some costly bindings, taken from the inventories of the magnificent libraries of the Dukes of Burgundy and of Orleans, now partly destroyed, and partly scattered about among the great public collections of France and other countries.

Fig. 382.—Banner of the Corporation of Printers-Booksellers of Angers.