*

1652, made at various times, and ranging between the years 1275 and 1403, give us a clear insight into the matter.

The nature of a bookseller's business in those days required no ordinary capacity, and no shallow store of critical acumen; the purchasing of manuscripts, the work of transcription, the careful revisal, the preparation of materials, the tasteful illuminations, and the process of binding, were each employments requiring some talent and discrimination, and we are not surprised, therefore, that the avocation of a dealer, and fabricator of these treasures, should be highly regarded, and dignified into a profession, whose followers were invested with all the privileges, freedoms and exemptions, which the masters and students of the university enjoyed. But it required these conciliations to render the restrictive and somewhat severe measures, which she imposed on the bookselling trade, to be received with any degree of favour or submission. For whilst the University of Paris, by whom these statutes were framed, encouraged and elevated the profession of the librarii, she required, on the other hand, a guarantee of their wealth and mental capacity, to maintain and to appreciate these important concessions; the bookseller was expected indeed to be well versed in all branches of science, and to be thoroughly imbued with a knowledge of those subjects and works of which he undertook to produce transcripts. She moreover required of him, testimonials to his good character, an efficient security, ratified by a solemn oath of allegiance,§ and a promise to observe and submit to all the present and future laws and regulations of the university. In some cases, it appears that she restricted the number of librarii, though this fell into disuse as the wants of

"Actes concernants le pouvoir et la direction de l'Université de Paris sur les Ecrivains de Livres et les Imprimeurs qui leurs ont succedé comme aussi sur les Libraires Relieurs et Enlumineurs," 4 to 1652, p. 44. It is very rare; a copy was in Biblioth. Teller, No. 132. p. 428. A statute of 1275 is given by Lambecii Comment. de August. Biblioth. Cæsarea Vendobon, vol. ii. pp. 252–267. The booksellers are called "Stationarii or Librarii ;" de Stationariis, sive Librariis ut Stationarus, qui vulgo appellantur, &c. See also Du Cunge, vol. vi.

col. 716.

† Chevillier, p. 301, to whom we are deeply indebted in this branch of our inquiry.

Hisi. Lit. de la France, tom. ix. p. 84, Chevillier, p. 302.

§ The form of oath is given in full in the statute of 1323, and in that of 1342, Chevillier.

the students increased. Twenty-four seems to have been the original number, which is sufficiently great to lead to the conclusion that bookselling was a flourishing trade in those old days. By the statutes of the university, the bookseller was not allowed to expose his transcripts for sale, without first submitting them to the inspection of certain officers appointed by the university, and if an error was discovered, the copies were ordered to be burnt or a fine levied on them, proportionate to their inaccuracy. Harsh and stringent as this may appear at first sight, we shall modify our opinion, on recollecting that the student was in a great degree dependent upon the care of the transcribers for the fidelity of his copies, which rendered a rule of this nature almost indispensable: nor should we forget the great service it bestowed in maintaining the primitive accuracy of ancient writers, and in transmitting them to us through those ages in their original purity.+

In these times of free trade and unrestrained commercial policy, we shall regard less favourably a regulation which they enforced at Paris, depriving the bookseller of the power of fixing a price upon his own goods. Four booksellers were appointed and sworn in to superintend this department, and when a new transcript was finished, it was brought by the bookseller, and they discussed its merits and fixed its value, which formed the amount the bookseller was compelled to ask for it; if he demanded of his customer a larger sum, it was deemed a fraudulent imposition, and punishable as such. Moreover, as an advantage to the students, the bookseller was expected to make a considerable reduction in his profits in supplying them with books; by one of the laws of the university, his profit on each volume was confined to four deniers to a student, and six deniers to a common purchaser. The librarii were still further restricted in the economy of their trade, by a rule which forbade any one of them to dispose of his entire stock of books without the consent of the university; but this we suspect, implied the disposal of the stock and trade together, and was intended to intimate that the introduction of the purchaser would not be allowed, without the cognizance and sanction of the university. Nor was the bookseller able to purchase

Du Breul Le Thetre des Antiq. de Paris, 4to. 1612, p. 608. + Idid. Hist. Lit. de la France, tom. ix. p. 84

Chevillier, p. 303.

books without her consent, lest they should be of an immoral or heretical tendency; and they were absolutely forbidden to buy any of the students, without the permission of the rector.

But restricted as they thus were, the book merchants nevertheless grew opulent, and transacted an important and extensive trade; sometimes they purchased parts and sometimes they had whole libraries, to sell. Their dealings were conducted with unusual care, and when a voluine of peculiar rarity or interest was to be sold, a deed of conveyance was drawn up with legal precision, in the presence of authorized witnesses.

In those days of high prices and book scarcity, the poor student was sorely impeded in his progress; to provide against these disadvantages, they framed a law in 1342, at Paris, compelling all public booksellers to keep books to lend out on hire. The reader will be surprised at the idea of a circulating library in the middle ages! but there can be no doubt of the fact; they were established at Paris, Toulouse, Vienna, and Bologne. These public librarians too, were obliged to write out regular catalogues of their books and hang them up in their shops, with the prices affixed, so that the student might know beforehand what he had to pay for reading them. We are tempted to give a few extracts from these lists.

"St. Gregory's Commentaries upon Job, for reading 100 pages,

8 sous.

"St. Gregory's Book of Homilies, 28 pages for 12 deniers. "Isidore's De Summa bona, 24 pages, 12 deniers.

"Anselm's De Veritate de Libertate Arbitrii, 40 pages, 2 sous. "Peter Lombard's Book of Sentences, 3 sous.

"Scholastic History, 3 sous.

"Augustine's Confessions, 21 pages, 4 deniers.

"Gloss on Matthew, by brother Thomas Aquinas, 57 pages, 3 sous. "Bible Concordance, 9 sous.

"A Bible, 10 soust.'

This rate of charge was also fixed by the university, and the students borrowing these books were privileged to transcribe them if they chose; if any of them proved imperfect or faulty, they were denounced by the university, and a fine imposed upon the bookseller who had lent out the volume.

This potent influence exercised by the universities over book

• Martene Anecd. tom. i. p. 502. Hist. Lit. de la France, ix. p.

142.

+ Chevillier 319, who gives a long list, printed from an old register of the University.

sellers, became, in time, much abused, and in addition to these commercial restraints, they assumed a still less warrantable power over the original productions of authors; and became virtually the public censors of books, and had the power of burning or prohibiting any work of questionable orthodoxy. In the time of Henry the Second, a book was published by being read over for two or three successive days, before one of the universities, and if they approved of its doctrines and bestowed upon it their approbation, it was allowed to be copied extensively for sale.

Stringent as the university rules were, as regards the bookselling trade, they were, nevertheless, sometimes disregarded or infringed; some ventured to take more for a book than the sum allowed, and, by prevarication and secret contracts, eluded the vigilance of the laws. Some were still bolder, and openly practised the art of a scribe and the profession of a bookseller, without knowledge or sanction of the university. This gave rise to much jealousy, and in the University of Oxford, in the year 1373, they made a decree, forbidding any person exposing books for sale without her licence.+

Now, considering all these usages of early bookselling, their numbers, their opulence, and above all, the circulating libraries which the librarii established, can we still retain the opinion that books were so inaccessible in those anteprinting days, when we know that for a few sous the book-lover could obtain good and authenticated copies to peruse, or transcribe ? It may be advanced that these facts solely relate to universities, and were intended merely to insure a supply of the necessary books in constant requisition by the students, but such was not the case; the librarii were essentially public Librorum Venditores, and were glad to dispose of their goods to any who could pay for them. Indeed, the early bibliomaniacs usually flocked to these book marts to rummage over the stalls, and to collect their choice volumes. Richard de Bury obtained many in this way, both at Paris and at Rome.

Of the exact pecuniary value of books during the middle ages, we have no means of judging. The few instances that have accidentally been recorded, aretotally inadequate to enable us to form an opinion. The extravagant estimate given by

Chevillier, 303.

Vet. Stat. Universit. Oxoniæ, D. fol. 75. Archiv. Bodl.

some, as to the value of books in those days, is merely conjectural, as it necessarily must be, when we remember that the price was guided by the accuracy of the transcription, the splendour of the binding, which was often gorgeous to excess, and by the beauty and richness of the illuminations. Many of the manuscripts of the middle ages are magnificent in the extreme. Sometimes they inscribed the gospels and the venerated writings of the fathers with liquid gold, on parchment of the richest purple,+ and adorned its brilliant pages with illuminations of exquisite workmanship.

*

The first specimens we have of an attempt to embellish manuscripts are Egyptian. It was a common practice among them at first to colour the initial letter of each chapter or division of their work, and afterwards to introduce objects of various kinds into the body of the manuscript. The splendour of the ancient calligraphical productions of Greece, and the still later ones of Rome, bear repeated testimony that the practice of this art had spread during the sixth century, if not earlier, to these powerful empires. England was not tardy in embracing this elegant art. We have many relics of remote antiquity and exquisite workmanship existing now, which prove the talent and assiduity of our early Saxon forefathers.

In Ireland the illuminating art was profusely practised at a period as early as the commencement of the seventh century, and in the eighth we find it holding forth eminent claims to our respect by the beauty of their workmanship, and the chastity of their designs. Those well versed in the study of these ancient manuscripts, have been enabled, by extensive but minute observation, to point out their different characteristics in

• The Church of Norwich paid £22 9s. for illuminating a Graduale and Consuetudinary in 1374. + Isidore Orig., cap. ii Jerome, in his preface to Job. writes, "Habeant qui volunt vetereslibros, vel in membranes purpurus auro argentique colore purpuros aurum liquiscit in literis."

Eddius

Stephanus in his Life of St. Wilfrid, cap. xvi., speaks of “ Quatour Evangeliæ de auro purissimo in membranis de purpuratis coloratis pro animæ suæ remedis scribere jusset." Du Cange, vol. iv. p. 654. See also Mabillon Act. Sanct., tom. v. p. 110, who is of opinion that these purple MSS. were only designed for princes; see Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique, and Montfaucon Palæog. Græc., pp. 45, 218, 226 for more on this subject.

See a Fragment in the Brit. Mus, engraved in Shaw's Illuminated Ornaments, plate 1.