Chapter III (2)

The letters-patent of Charles V., dated November 5, 1368, specify fourteen _libraires_ and eleven _écrivains_ (employing _stationarii_) as at that time registered in Paris. No one was admitted to the profession of _librarius_ or _stationarius_ who was not a man of approved standing and character, and who had not also given evidence of an adequate and scholarly knowledge of manuscript interpretation and of the subject to which he proposed to give attention. The examination was made before the four chief publishers (_les quatre grands libraires_). Having secured the approval of the board of publishers, the applicant was obliged to secure also acceptance from the representatives of the Rector, and to submit certain guarantees for the satisfactory performance of his responsibilities. He was called upon to submit, for himself and heirs, all his property as well as his person to the control of the court of Paris as a pledge for the execution of his trust. As late as 1618, in the reign of Charles IX., the master printers (_i. e._, printer-publishers) were obliged to hold certificates from the Rector and the university, to the effect that they were skilled in the art of printing, and that they possessed full knowledge of Latin and of Greek.

The _libraires jurés_ comprised two classes, the _libraires grands_ (_officium magni librariatus_), and the _libraires petits_ (_officium parvi librariatus_).[286] The immediate responsibility for the government of the body rested with the four chief _libraires_ (_les quatre grands libraires_). It was they who fixed the prices for the sale or hire of manuscripts, and who supervised the examination of manuscripts with reference, first, as to their admission into the official list of the university texts, and, secondly, as to the completeness and accuracy of the particular parchment submitted. They also inspected the book-shops and the workrooms of the copyists, and verified from time to time the accuracy and the quality of the copies prepared from these accepted texts; they passed upon the qualifications of applicants for the position of _libraire juré_; and, finally, they exercised a general supervision over the enforcement of all the university regulations affecting the book-trade, and gave special attention to those prohibiting any interference with this trade by an outside dealer, one who was not a _libraire juré_. These four chief _libraires_ were each under a bond or “caution” for the amount of 200 livres. In addition to the exemption from general taxes and guard duty conceded to all the _libraires jurés_, these four enjoyed from time to time certain special privileges. In October, 1418, by a regulation of Charles VI., the four chief _libraires_ are exempted by name from certain special duties on wine, etc., which had been imposed for the purpose of securing funds _pour la recouvrance de nos Villes et Chastel de Monstreau ou Faut-Yonne_.[287] It was also necessary for him to find two responsible bondsmen for an amount of not less than 100 livres each.[288][289] In Bologna in 1400 the bond was also fixed at 200 livres, the equivalent of 5065 francs.[290]

The special obligations imposed upon and accepted by the _librarii_ and _stationarii_, as specified in documents between the years 1250 and 1350, can be summarised as follows:

I. To accept faithfully and loyally all the regulations of the university concerning the production and the sale of books.

II. Not to make within the term of one month any agreement, real or nominal, transferring to themselves the ownership of books which had been placed in their hands for sale.

III. Not to permit the loss or disappearance of any book so consigned for the purpose later of acquiring ownership of the same.

IV. To declare conscientiously and exactly the just and proper price of each book offered for sale, and to specify such price, together with the name of the owner, in some conspicuous place in the work itself.

V. To make no disposition of a consigned book without having in the first place informed the owner or his representative of the price to be secured for the same, and to make immediate report and accounting of such price when received.

VI. To charge as commission for the service of selling such book not more than four deniers to a member of the university and not more than six deniers to an outsider. This commission was to be paid by the purchaser, who seems to have been considered the obliged party in the transaction.[291]

VII. To place conspicuously in the windows of their shops a price list of all works kept on sale.

The _stationarii_ on their part were also held:

I. To employ no scribes for the production of manuscripts other than those who had been accepted and certified before the Rector.

II. To offer for sale or for hire no manuscripts that had not been passed upon and “taxed” by the appointed authority.

III. To refuse to no applicant who was a member of the university the loan for hire of a manuscript, even though the applicant should require the same for the purpose of producing copies.

It is evident that a regulation of this character would, in the case of an original work by a contemporary author, have operated as a denial of any author’s rights. Such original work constituted, however, at this time the very rare exception, and their authors were evidently obliged to content themselves with the prestige of securing circulation. The case of a manuscript representing outlay and skilled labour on the part of the dealer, who might have had to make a toilsome journey to secure it, and who had later paid for the service of one or more editors for its collation and revision, was, of course, of much more frequent occurrence. It is difficult to understand why this class of effort and enterprise should not have been encouraged by the university authorities instead of being so largely nullified by regulations which made of such a manuscript common property. This regulation is, however, identical with that of Bologna. The penalty there for refusing to place a manuscript at the service of a member of the university was five livres.[292]

IV. To offer for rent no texts that were not complete and correct.

V. In the event of a work being brought to Paris by a stranger, to give immediate information to the authorities in order that before such work could be copied for hire or for sale it should be passed upon by the authorities as orthodox and as suitable for the use of the members of the university, and as being complete and correct in its own text.

Any _libraire_ who, having been duly sworn, should be convicted of violation of these regulations, forfeited his office, and all the rights and privileges thereto appertaining; and all members of the university, instructors or students, were strictly prohibited (under penalty of forfeiture of their own membership) from having further dealings with such a delinquent.[293]

These various regulations, while possibly required in connection with the general interests of the university, were certainly exacting and must have interfered not a little with any natural development of the book-trade. It is nevertheless the case that the makers of books and the book-dealers in Paris occupied a more independent and a more dignified position than had been accorded to their brethren in Bologna. The latter appear to have risen hardly above the grade of clerks or lower-class functionaries, while these earlier Parisian publishers secured from the outset recognition as belonging to the higher educational work of the university, work in the shaping of which they themselves took an important part.

In 1316 (the year of the accession of Philip V.) the association of _libraires jurés_ (authorised or certified book-dealers) comprised but thirteen members.[294] A year earlier there had been twenty-two, and I can only assume that the war troubles had had their natural influence in depressing and breaking up the book business. In 1323, the list comprises twenty-nine names, including the widow of De Peronne. In 1368, the number had again fallen to twenty-five. In 1488, the university list gives the names of twenty-four _libraires_, in addition to whom were registered two illuminators, two binders, and two _écrivains_.[295] The _écrivains_ specified were undoubtedly master scribes, the register here quoted apparently not including the names of the copyists employed. At this date, however, the work of the printers had been going on in Paris for fourteen years, and the business of those concerned with the production of books in manuscript form must have been very largely reduced. The work of the master scribes continued, however, in the sixteenth century, but by the close of the fifteenth had become limited to the production, for collectors, of manuscripts as works of art.

While the majority of _libraires jurés_ were naturally Frenchmen, there was no regulation to prevent the holding of such a post by a foreigner, and the list always, as a matter of fact, included several foreign names. The presence in the university of large groups of foreign students made it quite in order, and probably necessary, that they should find among the book-dealers some who could speak their home language and who could make clear to them the requirements concerning the university texts. The presence of these foreign book-dealers also facilitated the arrangements for the exchange of manuscripts between Paris and foreign universities. These foreign book-dealers, while obliged in ordinary routine to take an oath of fealty to the university, were not called upon to become citizens of France.

The list includes from time to time the names of women _libraires_, these women being usually widows of _libraires_ who had duly qualified themselves. The women must themselves, however, in order to secure such appointments, have been able to pass the examination in Latin, in palæography, and in the technicalities of manuscript book-making. In respect as well to the admission of foreigners as to that of women, the Paris guild of the university book-dealers practised a more liberal policy than that followed by the university authorities of Bologna or the Stationers’ Hall of London. Later, this liberal policy was restricted, and in 1686 it was ordered that no foreigners should be admitted to the lists of the master _libraires_ of the university.

The purchase of a manuscript during the fourteenth century was attended with almost as many formalities and precautions as are to-day considered necessary for the transfer of a piece of real estate. The dealer making the sale was obliged to give to the purchaser guarantees to the effect, first, that he was himself the owner or the duly authorised representative of the owner of the work; and, secondly, that the text of this was complete and correct, and as security for these guarantees he pledged his goods, and sometimes even his person. As a single example of a transaction illustrating this practice, I quote a contract cited by Du Breuil. This bears date November, 1332, and sets forth that a certain Geoffrey de Saint Léger, a duly qualified _clerc libraire_, acknowledges and confesses that he has sold, ceded, and transferred to the noble gentleman Messire Gérard de Montagu, _Avocat du Roi au Parlement_ (counsellor at the royal court), all right, title, and interest in a work entitled _Speculum Historiale in consuetudines Parisienses_, contained in four volumes bound in red leather. The consideration named is forty livres Parisian, the equivalent, according to the tables of de Wailly, of 1013 francs. The vendor pledges as security for the obligation under the contract all his worldly goods, together with his own person (_tous et chacun de ses biens, et guarantie de son corps même_), and the contract is attested before two notaries.[296]

While the university assumed the strictest kind of control and supervision over the work of the book-dealers, it conceded, as an offset, to the association of these dealers a very substantial monopoly of the trade of making and selling books. It was prohibited, under severe penalties, for a person not a _libraire juré_ to do business in a book-shop or at any fixed stand; that is to say, he could not sell as a _stationnaire_, but had to carry on his trade as a pedlar or chap-man, from a pack or a cart. The value of the manuscript that such pedlar was permitted to offer for sale was restricted to ten _sous_, the equivalent of half a franc. At the price at which manuscripts were held during the fourteenth century, this limitation restricted the trade of the peripatetic vendors to single sheets, or broadsides, containing usually a _Pater_, an _Ave_, or a _Credo_, or a brief calendar or astrological table. Successive edicts were issued from reign to reign, renewing the prohibition upon the selling of books, whether in French or Latin (excepting only of such maximum value), by any drapers, grocers, pedlars, or dealers of any kind.[297]

In all the official references of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to the book-dealers, the ground is taken that they formed a class apart from mechanics or from traders in ordinary merchandise. They were considered to be engaged in an intellectual pursuit, and were treated as members of a profession upon whose service the work of the university and that of the Church were largely dependent. Thus in 1649 the _Recueil_ makes use of these words:

_Les Marchands-Libraires, Imprimeurs et Relieurs seront toujours censés du corps de nostre bien aymée fille aisnée l’Université; du tout séparés des arts méchaniques, et autres Corps de Mestiers ou marchandises; et come tels, conservés en la jouissance de tous les droicts; priviléges, franchises, libertez, préséances et prérogatives attribuées à ladite université et à eux par les Royes nos prédécesseux et par nous._[298]

It was, therefore, not permitted to the _libraire_ to bring discredit upon his profession by also engaging in any “sordid pursuits” (_viles occupations_), and in so doing he rendered himself liable to being deposed from his high post (_declaré déchu de son noble office_). He could, however, unite with his work as _libraire_ that of a notary, or that of a royal counsellor or practitioner in the higher court (_avocat du roi au Parlement_).

Notwithstanding the personal prestige and the substantial advantages which were thus enjoyed by the book-dealers of the university, there were from time to time instances of protest, amounting occasionally to insubordination, on the part of the _libraires_, who, as their business aims and possibilities developed, became restive under the long series of trammels and restrictions, and particularly in connection with those imposed by the ecclesiastical division of the university authorities. The dread, however, of losing any portion of their privileges, and particularly the risk of any impairment of their monopoly of the book-trade of the university and of Paris, operated always as a sufficient consideration to prevent the insubordination from going to extremes. Throughout the entire period of the Middle Ages the control of the university continued, therefore, practically absolute over the book-trade of Paris, the influence of the Church and the (more or less spasmodic) authority of the Crown being exercised by means of the university machinery.

This state of affairs continued for some period of years after the introduction of printing. The university still insisted upon its responsibility for the correctness and the completeness of the texts issued from the Paris press, although it gave up of necessity the routine of examining individual copies of the printed editions. On the other hand, the censorship control on the part of the theological Faculty over the moral character and orthodoxy of the works printed was insisted upon more strenuously than ever as the Church began to recognise the enormous importance of the influence upon public opinion of the widely distributed printed volumes. The effect of this ecclesiastical control upon the business of printing books is set forth with some detail in the chapter on the early printers of Paris. It is sufficient to say here that the contention on the part of the university to control, as a portion of the work of higher education, the business of the makers and sellers of books, while sharply attacked and materially undermined after the middle of the seventeenth century, was not formally abandoned until the beginning of the eighteenth. At this time the Crown took over to itself all authority to regulate the press, an authority which disappeared only with the revolution of 1789.

For six centuries the book-trade of Paris and of France, whether it consisted in the production of manuscripts for the exclusive use of members of the university, or of printed books for the enlightenment of the general public, had been obliged to do its work under the hampering and burdensome regulations and restrictions of a varying series of authorities. The rectors of the university, the theologians of the Sorbonne, the lawyers of the Parliament of Paris, the chancellors of the Crown, the kings themselves, had all taken a hand, sometimes in turn, not infrequently in conflict with each other, in the task of “regulating” the trade in books. The burden of the restrictions was, in pretence at least, offset by various privileges and exemptions, but they remained burdens notwithstanding. It may well be a cause of surprise that in the face of such a long series of hampering difficulties, difficulties more serious than those with which any publishers in the world, outside of Rome, had to contend, the manuscript publishers and the later printer-publishers of Paris should have been able to do so much to make Paris a literary and a publishing centre. As has been already indicated, it was certainly the case that during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Paris shared with Florence the position of being the centre of the manuscript trade of Europe. It was also the case, as will be set forth in a later chapter, that the first printer-publishers of Paris did most noteworthy work in furthering the development of scholarly publishing and the production of scholarly books. It required, however, the revolution of 1789 to establish the principle that the business of producing and distributing books could secure its legitimate development only when freed from censorship restrictions and regulations, and that it was a business the control of which belonged properly not to the university, the Courts of Parliament, or the Crown, but to the people themselves.

Considering the scarcity and the costliness of books in the Middle Ages, it is somewhat surprising that the work of instruction rested so directly upon books, that is, depended upon the mastery of a text. Thurot says: “It is the distinctive character of instruction in the Middle Ages that the science was not taught directly and in itself, but by the explanation of books which derived their authority solely from their writers.”[299] Roger Bacon formulates it: “When one knows the text, one knows all that concerns the science which is the object of the text.”[300] Instead of taking a course of logic or of ethics, says Compayré, the phrase was reading a book on logic or ethics, _legere_ or _audire librum_. This close adherence to the text secured, of course, an assured demand in the university towns first for the hired _pecias_ and later for the purchased manuscripts.

The foundation of the College of the Sorbonne dates from 1257. It was organised by Robert de Sorbon, chaplain to Louis IX. The college was at once affiliated with the University of Paris, of which it became the theological Faculty, and in the general direction of which it exercised at times a controlling influence. The college is connected with my subject on the ground of its assumption of the theological censorship of the Paris book-trade and of its frequent attempts to exercise a general censorship over all the productions of the Paris printing-press.

As we shall note later in the history of the Paris book-trade, various complications arose between the publishers and booksellers possessing a university license (the _libraires jurés_) and certain unlicensed dealers who undertook to come into competition with them. The locality occupied by these unlicensed booksellers was on the Island of the Cité, immediately by the precincts of Notre Dame. In fact it was the case with the book-trade generally north of the Alps that its business was very largely carried on in the portals of a church if not under the immediate shadow of the cathedral.

While in Italy the Church furthered but slightly the early production of books and, later, did not a little to hamper the undertakings of the publishers, it was the case in France and quite largely also in South Germany, that the publishers found themselves very largely dependent upon the scholarly interests and the scholarly co-operation of the clerics, and the association of the Church with the book-trade was, for a large proportion at least of the fifteenth century, an important one.

In Paris, the booksellers licensed by the university were all in the Latin Quarter, and in the same region were to be found the sellers of parchment, the illuminators, the scribes, binders, etc., who also carried university licenses and were under university supervision. It is probable that the specification in the Tax Roll of 1292 of eight _librarii_ in Paris refers only to the booksellers licensed by the university and carrying on their business in the Latin Quarter.

In Bayeux, in 1250, certain clerics were exempted from taxation if they dealt in parchment or if they were engaged in the copying of manuscripts, and the book-shops along the walls of the cathedral were also exempt from taxation. It is not clear to me in looking up this record, whether the tax mentioned was a town tax or a general tax, or whether it was one of the ecclesiastical levies.[301]

Roger Bacon’s reference to the scribes of Paris has already been mentioned. He could not secure from the Brothers of his Order a transcript of his work which he desired to present to Pope Clement, because they were too ignorant to write the same out intelligently, while he was afraid to confide the work to the public scribes of France lest they might make improper use of the material.[302] It is Wattenbach’s opinion that the wrongful use of his production dreaded by Bacon was the sale of unauthorised copies of it by the scribes to whom the preparation of the authorised copies should be confided.

In 1292, Wenzel, King of Bohemia, presented to the monastery of Königsaal, 200 marks in silver for the purchase of books, and the purchases were made from the book-sellers in Paris. Richard de Bury extols Paris as the great centre of the book-trade. Of the value of the book collections in Rome and the possibility there of securing literary treasures, he had already spoken, but the treasures of Paris appear to have impressed him still more keenly. There he found occasion to open his purse freely and took in exchange for base gold, books of inestimable value. Joh. Gerson, in his treatise _De Laude Scriptorum_ expresses the dread lest the persistent carrying away from Florence of his books by wealthy visitors may not too seriously diminish its literary treasures.

The Paris publishers appear to have sent out travelling salesmen or representatives to take orders for their wares. As early as 1480, a publisher named Guillaume Tousé, of Paris, made complaint to the chancellor of Brittany to the effect that he had entrusted a commission to a certain Guillaume de l’Espine to carry books into Lower Brittany and to make sale of the same during a period of six months. He had taken with him books to the value of five hundred livres and was to have a salary of ten crowns for the six months’ work. He had, however, failed to return or to make report of his commission. Tousé secured a judgment against his delinquent traveller, but the record does not show whether he ever succeeded in getting hold of him again.[303]

In the universities of Oxford and of Cambridge, the _stationarii_ began their work some years later than in Paris or Bologna. They had the advantage, however, of freedom from the greater portion of the restrictions and special supervision which hampered the work of the scribes in the Italian and French universities, and as a result their business developed more promptly and more actively, and in the course of a few years, they became the booksellers of the university towns. It was, of course, from this university term _stationarii_ that the name of stationers came at the outset to be applied to the organised book-dealers of Great Britain. The Guild of the British book-dealers completed its organisation in 1403, nearly sixty years before the introduction into England of the printing-press.[304]

The art work put into the manuscripts produced in the Low Countries, particularly in Belgium, was more highly developed and was a more important part of the industry than was the case in any other portion of the world.

In the earlier German universities, the _stationarii_ also found place and found work, but this work seems to have been of less importance and the scribes appear to have secured for themselves a less definite university recognition than in Italy or in France. The explanation given by Wattenbach is that the German students, being better informed and more industrious, did for themselves a larger portion of the transcribing required and were, therefore, freed from the necessity of hiring their hefts.

The statutes of the universities of Prague and of Vienna permitted the masters and the baccalaureates to secure from the university archives, under certain pledges, the loan of the books authorised as text-books or of works of reference, for the purpose of making trustworthy copies of the same. The copyists were enjoined as follows:

_Fideliter et correcte, tractim et distincte, assignando paragraphos, capitales literas, virgulas et puncta, prout sententia requirit._[305] The practice also obtained in these universities of having texts dictated to the students by the _magisters_ or the Bachelors of Arts. This was described as _librum pronuntiare_, and also as _ad pennam dare_.

In this phrase, Karoch sent word to Erfurt that _ad pennam dabit_ his treatise _Arenga_.[306]

The text-books utilised in the German universities in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were as limited in range and in number as those of Bologna and of Padua. The instruction in the medical departments of Prague and Vienna was based in the main on the works of Hippocrates and Galen, with some of the later commentaries, principally from Arabian writers. In philosophy the chief authority was Aristotle, in mathematics Euclid, and in astronomy Ptolemy. A few works of later date were utilised, such as the _Summula_ of Petrus Hispanus and the _De Sphæra Mundi_ of Johannes de Sacro Bosco. Bosco is otherwise known as John Holywood or Halifax. He held the chair of mathematics in the University of Paris about the middle of the thirteenth century. The use of his treatise for classes in Prague is evidence of a certain interchange between the universities of books in manuscript.

An important reason for the very large membership of the universities of the Middle Ages as compared with their successors of to-day, is to be found in the fact that they undertook to supply not only the higher education which belongs to the present university curriculum, but also the training now furnished by the _gymnasia_ or High Schools, which were at that time not in existence. We find, therefore, in their membership, thousands of students who were little more than boys either in their years or in their mental development.

The universities also, on the other hand, attracted to their membership very many students of mature age, who came sometimes for special purposes, but more frequently because it was only in the university towns that circles of scholars could be found, that books were available, and that any large measure of intellectual activity was to be experienced. As Savigny puts it: “The universities were, during the Middle Ages, practically the only places where men could study or could exercise their minds with any degree of freedom.” It was inevitable therefore, that, with the generations succeeding the discovery of printing, there should be a decrease in the influence and in the relative importance for the community of the universities. With the establishment of secondary schools, the training of the boys was cared for to better purpose elsewhere; and with the increasing circulation of printed books, it became possible for men to come into relations with literature in other places than in the lecture room. The universities were no longer the sole depositories of learning or the sole sources of intellectual activity. This lessening of the influence of the universities represented, or was at least coincident with, a wider development of intellectual activity and of interest in literature on the part of the masses of the people. The universities alone would never have been in a position so to direct the thought of the community as to render the masses of citizens competent to arrive at conclusions for themselves and sufficiently assured in such conclusions to be prepared to make them the basis of action. This was, of course, partly because, notwithstanding the large membership and the fact that this membership represented nearly all the classes in the community, the universities could at best come into direct relations but with a small proportion of the people. A more important cause for such lack of intellectual leadership is to be found in the fact that the standard of thought and of instruction in the universities concerned itself very little with the intellectual life or issues of the immediate time. As Biot puts it (speaking, to be sure, of a later century): “The universities were several centuries in arrears with all that concerned the sciences and the arts. Peripatetics, when all the world had renounced with Descartes the philosophy of Aristotle, they became Cartesians when the rest were Newtonians. That is the way with learned bodies which do not make discoveries.”

It was the dissemination of literature through the new art of printing rather than the diffusion of education through the university lecture rooms, which brought to the masses of the people the consciousness of mental existence and of individual responsibility for arriving at sound conclusions. Prior to the printing-press, this responsibility had been left by the people with their “spiritual advisers,” who were charged with the duty of doing the thinking for their flocks. It was this change in the mental status of the people which was the precursor (although at a considerable space of years) of the Reformation.

With the beginning in Germany of the movement known as Humanism, the representatives of the new thought of the time were not to be found in the university circles, and had not received their inspiration from the lecture rooms. Says Paulsen: “The entire traditional conduct of the universities, and in particular of the instruction in arts and theology, was rejected with the utmost scorn by the new culture through its representatives, the poets and orators, to whom form and substance alike of this teaching seemed the most outrageous barbarism, which they never wearied of denouncing.” In the _Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum_, which were issued about 1516 from the band of youthful poets gathered about Mutianus at Erfurt, the hatred and detestation felt by the Humanists for the ancient university system raised to itself a lasting monument.

Within a few years from the publication of the _Epistolæ_, the influence of the Humanists had so far extended itself as to have effected a large modification in the systems of study in all the larger universities. “The old ecclesiastical Latin was replaced by classical Latin; Roman authors, particularly the poets, were made the subject of lectures, and the old translations of Aristotelian texts were driven out by new translations on principles advocated by the Humanists. Greek was taken up in the Faculty of arts and courses in the language and literature were established in all universities.”[307]

An immediate result of these changes and extensions was an active demand for printed texts. The Humanistic movement, itself in a measure the result of the printing-press, was a most important fact in providing business for the German printers during the earlier years of the sixteenth century. The strifes and contentions of the Reformation checked the development in the universities of the studies connected with the intellectual movement of the Renaissance and lessened the demand for the literature of these studies. The active-minded were absorbed in theological controversies, and those who could not understand the questions at issue could still shout the shibboleths of the leaders. As Erasmus put it, rather bitterly, _ubi regnat Lutheranismus, ibi interitus litterarum_. The literature of the Reformation, however, itself did much to make good for the printing-presses the lessened demand for the classics, while a few years later, the organisation of the Protestant schools and universities aroused intellectual activities in new regions, and created fresh requirements for printed books. Within half a century, in fact, of the Diet of Worms, the centre of the book-absorbing population of Germany had been transferred from the Catholic states of the south to the Protestant territories of the north, and the literary preponderance of the latter has continued to increase during the succeeding generations.