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TYPOGRAPHIC TECHNICAL SERIES FOR APPRENTICES--PART VIII--NO. 49
BOOKS BEFORE
TYPOGRAPHY
A PRIMER _of_ INFORMATION ABOUT THE
INVENTION OF THE ALPHABET AND
THE HISTORY OF BOOK-MAKING
UP TO THE INVENTION OF
MOVABLE TYPES
BY
FREDERICK W. HAMILTON, LL.D.
EDUCATIONAL DIRECTOR
UNITED TYPOTHETAE OF AMERICA
PUBLISHED BY THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
UNITED TYPOTHETAE OF AMERICA
1918
COPYRIGHT, 1918
UNITED TYPOTHETAE OF AMERICA
CHICAGO, ILL.
PREFACE
An attempt has been made in this book to trace briefly the story of the
book from the earliest attempts made by mankind to convey a message by
marks on some substance down to the invention of movable types. The
development of writing is rapidly traced from the earliest known
pictures and sign marks to the present day. The discussion covers the
subjects of writing materials and how they were made; the evolution of
the book; the conditions of manufacture, distribution, and preservation
of books before printing, and the conditions out of which sprang the
invention of typographic printing.
It is believed that a comprehensive knowledge of the main facts in this
long story will be of great value to the young printer, and it is hoped
that he may be interested to continue the study in some of the many very
excellent books which are available. A short list of a few of the best
and most accessible authorities in English will be found on page 44. It
has not been thought worth while to refer to books in other languages.
The story of the efforts of men to convey their thoughts to the absent
is one of absorbing interest and leads into many pleasant byways of
knowledge. While we are studying the processes and materials of a trade
by which we hope to gain a livelihood it is well to know something about
the men of the past whose accomplishments we inherit. To know something
about the men of another time who made this time possible, what they
did, what manner of men they were, how they lived, and what they created
for us, is the task of this and the following volumes in Part VIII of
this series.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN OF THE ALPHABET 1
CHAPTER II WRITING MATERIALS 9
CHAPTER III THE EVOLUTION OF THE BOOK 15
CHAPTER IV MAKING THE MANUSCRIPTS 20
CHAPTER V ANCIENT AND MEDIAEVAL LIBRARIES 27
CHAPTER VI THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA 37
BOOKS BEFORE TYPOGRAPHY
CHAPTER I
_The Origin of the Alphabet_
The story of printing really begins with the earliest dawn of
civilization. As soon as men developed a language, even of the simplest
sort, they felt the necessity of a means of communication with those who
were not present. This would be needed for the identification of
property, the making of records, the sending of orders or information,
the making of appointments, and many other purposes which would be
developed by the needs of even the most rudimentary civilization. We
accordingly find evidences of devices to accomplish these ends
associated with the earliest human remains. While the cave man was
disputing food and shelter with the cave bear, the sabre-tooth tiger,
and the mammoth in those places which are now the seats of the most
advanced civilizations, he scratched or painted outline sketches of the
animals he fought, and perhaps worshipped, on the wall of a cave or on
the flat surface of a spreading antler or a piece of bone.
[Illustration: The oldest known attempt to carve a picture. It dates
from the cave period and was found at Dordogne, France.]
One of the greatest single steps in civilization was the advance from
the use of rough stone implements and weapons to the use of chipped and
finished stones for the same purpose, commonly referred to as the
transition from the paleolithic to the neolithic age. Just how long ago
that was no one knows and only geologists can guess. Among remains
dating from this period of transition found in the little village of Mas
d'Azil in France, there have been discovered a number of painted
pebbles. Whether these were game counters, ownership tags, records, or
what not, no one can guess. Whether the marks on them were purely
mnemonic signs, numerals, or verbal signs of some sort, no one knows.
That they were in some way, however, the ancestors of modern printed
matter is unquestionable.
[Illustration: Pebbles from Mas d'Azil.]
Among the earliest methods of communicating ideas to the absent,
pictures hold the largest place. Other methods were knots, ordinarily
known by the name _quipus_ which they bear among the ancient Peruvians.
The number and arrangements of the knots and the color of the cords made
possible a considerable range of expression. Closely associated with
these were tallies, or notched sticks, and wampum, or strings of colored
shells or beads arranged in various designs. Here perhaps may also be
classed the so-called Ogham inscriptions, made by arrangements of short
lines in groups about a long central line. The short lines may be either
perpendicular to the central line or at an angle to it. They may be
above it, below it, or across it, thus providing a wide range of
combinations with a corresponding variety of expression. These primitive
methods survive in the rosary, the sailor's log line with its knots or
the knotted handkerchief which serves as a simple memorandum. They may
run all the way from purely mnemonic signs to a fairly well developed
alphabet.
More important in its development, however, was the picture. Primitive
men all over the world very soon learned to make pictures, very crude
and simple to be sure, but indicating fairly well what they stand for.
These pictures may be so arranged and conventionalized as to convey a
good deal of information. The position of a human figure may indicate
hunger, sleep, hostility, friendship, or a considerable number of other
things. A representation of a boat with a number of circles representing
the sun or moon above it may indicate a certain number of days' travel
in a certain direction, and so on indefinitely. This method of writing
was highly developed among the North American Indians, who did not,
however, get beyond it.
[Illustration: Indian picture writing. The biography of a chief.]
The next step forward is the attempt to represent abstract ideas by
means of pictures. The picture then ceases to represent an object and
represents an idea. This is called an ideogram. While it has certain
very obvious limitations, it has one advantage over more developed
systems. The ideogram does not represent a word; it represents an idea.
Consequently it may be intelligible to people who, in spoken language,
represent the idea by very different words. For example, there are
several cases where a common set of ideograms appears to have been used
as a means of communication between people whose spoken language was
mutually unintelligible. The Chinese sign for "words" made
thus [Illustration: [Chinese character]] is a typical ideogram. It
represents a mouth with vapor rising from it.
The next step forward is the development of the ideogram into the
phonogram, or sound sign. When this step is taken, the ideogram, besides
representing an idea in a general way, represents a sound, usually the
name of the object represented by the ideogram or by one of its
components. A succession of these phonograms then represents a series of
sounds, or syllables, and we have a real, though somewhat primitive and
cumbrous, written language. Concurrently with this process the original
picture has become conventionalized and abbreviated. In this shape it is
hardly recognizable as a picture at all and appears to be a mere
arbitrary sign.
[Illustration: Comparative ideographs.]
After a time men discovered that all the sounds of the human voice were
really decomposable into a very few and that all human speech,
consisting as it does of combinations of these sounds, could be
represented by combinations of simple phonograms each of which should
represent neither an idea nor a syllable but one of the primary sounds.
The phonograms were then greatly reduced in number, simplified in form,
and became what we know to-day as letters.
This process appears to have gone on independently in many parts of the
world. In many places it never got to the point of an alphabet, and this
arrest of development is not inconsistent with a high degree of
civilization. The Chinese and Japanese script, for example, are to this
day combinations of ideograms and phonograms.
Three of the great peoples of antiquity carried this process nearly or
quite to a conclusion, although the method followed and the results
reached were quite different in the three cases. The three
civilizations, of the Egyptians in the Nile Valley, the
Assyrio-Babylonians in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers,
and the Cretans, centering in Crete but spreading extensively through
the Mediterranean Basin, developed three great varieties of script. All
started with pictures. The Egyptians continued to use the pictures in
their formal inscriptions down to the Persian conquest in the 6th
century B.C. This picture writing or hieroglyphic was well developed
and in the phonogram stage about 5000 B.C. The formal picture writing
of the hieroglyphic was admirably suited to formal inscriptions either
carved in stone or painted on a variety of substances. It was not
suited, however, to the more rapid work of the recorder, the
correspondent, or the literary man. The scribes, or writers, therefore
developed a highly abbreviated and conventionalized form of hieroglyphic
which could be easily written with a reed pen on papyrus, a writing
material to be described presently. The first specimens of papyrus,
containing the earliest known specimens of this kind of writing, called
hieratic, date from about 3550 B.C. Even the hieratic was too formal
and cumbersome for the common people and was further abbreviated and
conventionalized into an alphabet known as the demotic which was in
common use among the Egyptians from about 1900 B.C. to 400 A.D.
[Illustration: Names in hieroglyphic text of three of the most famous
Pharaohs, Cheops, Thothmes III and Rameses II.]
Among the Assyrio-Babylonians the use of an entirely different kind of
writing material caused the development of a very different type of
script. The lands inherited by these people were clay lands and they
made enormous use of clay and its products for building materials,
utensils, and also writing material. The early inhabitants of this
region very soon found that a permanent record could be made by marking
a lump of soft clay with a sharp stick and then drying it in the sun or
baking it in an oven. Naturally the picture very soon degenerated into a
series of marks made by holding the stick, or pointed implement, nearly
parallel to the clay and then thrusting it into the surface. The
resultant mark was like the following: [Illustration: cuneiform] This
script is called "cuneiform," from two Latin words meaning "wedge
shaped," from the obvious resemblance of the marks to wedges. The number
and arrangement of these marks developed successively into phonograms,
ideograms, and letters. The language, which was very complicated in its
written form, retained all three to the last.
[Illustration: First line of a cuneiform inscription commemorating
victory of Shalmaneser over Hazael, King of Syria.]
The Cretan civilization has been unknown to us save through a few
uncertain references in Greek literature until within about twenty
years. Within that time many excavations have been made, many objects
recovered, and much progress made in the reconstruction of this ancient
civilization. The written language has been at least partially
recovered, although we are not sure that we have all the signs and we do
not know how to read any of them. These signs were of two sorts,
described as hieroglyphic and linear. The hieroglyphic signs are either
ideograms or phonograms. Whether the linear signs are a true alphabet or
a syllabary (each sign representing a complete syllable) we do not know.
These linear signs have close relations on one hand to the signs used in
the island of Cyprus, which we know to have been a syllabary, and on the
other to the signs used by the Phoenicians, which we know to have been
an alphabet.
There seems to be no question that the final step of discarding all
signs excepting the few representing the primary sounds of human speech,
and thus developing an alphabet pure and simple without concurrent use
of phonograms and ideograms, was made by the Phoenicians. The
Phoenicians were a trading people of Semitic origin (akin to the Jews
and other allied races) whose principal seats were at the eastern end of
the Mediterranean. Various theories have been put forth as to the origin
of their alphabet. It is clear that they did not originate it absolutely
but developed it from previously existing material. Attempts have been
made to connect it with the Assyrian cuneiform, and for many years it
was commonly believed to have been derived from the hieratic form of the
Egyptian. The evidence of later discoveries, together with the
difficulty of reconciling either of these theories with all the known
facts, points strongly to the conclusion that the principal source of
the Phoenician alphabet was the Cretan script, probably modified by
other elements derived from commercial intercourse with the Egyptians
and the Assyrians. From the Phoenician came the Greek alphabet. From
the Greek came the Roman, and from the Roman, with very little change,
came our own familiar alphabet. But that is not all. The Phoenician,
through various lines of descent, is the common mother of all the
alphabets in use to-day including those as different from our own and
from each other as the Hebrew, the Arabic, and the scripts of India. It
will be noted that there are now four great families of alphabets. They
are the Aramean which have the Hebrew as their common ancestor; the
Ethiopic which now exists in but one individual; the Indian which now
exists in three groups related respectively to the Burmese, Thibetan,
and Tamil; and the Hellenic, deriving from the Greek. The relations of
these groups are well worth study as indicating ancient lines of
conquest, immigration, and literary influence. The lines of descent are
shown in the table on the following page.
[Illustration: Inscription in the Cretan linear character from a vase.]
GENEALOGY OF THE ALPHABET
{ { Hebrew.
{ { Syriac.
{ { Mongolian.
{ ARAMEAN. { Arabic.
{ { Pehlevi.
{ { Armenian.
{ { Georgian.
{
{ { ETHIOPIC. Amharic.
{ {
{ { { Burmese.
{ { { Siamese.
{ { { PALI. { Javanese.
{ { { { Singalese.
{ { { { Corean.
{ { {
{ { { { Tibetan.
{ { { { Kashmiri.
PHOENICIAN. { SABAEAN. { INDIAN. { NAGARI. { Gujarati.
{ { { { Marathi.
{ { { { Bengali.
{ { { { Malayan.
{ { {
{ { { { Tamil.
{ { { DRAVIDIAN. { Telugu.
{ { Canarese.
{
{ { Greek.
{ HELLENIC. { Latin.
{ { Russian.
{ { Coptic.
This table, based on the studies of Canon Isaac Taylor, is taken from
Clodd's "Story of the Alphabet."
CHAPTER II
_Writing Materials_
As already indicated, the writing materials in use in different places
and at different times have varied greatly. Obviously anything capable
of receiving an impression or bearing a mark of any kind may be used as
material for receiving records or bearing communications.
The surface of a stone, a bone, or a shell, a flat piece of wood, bark
or leaf of a tree, a plate of metal, the facet of a gem, any one of a
thousand things can be used and has been used for this purpose. The
Egyptians and Greeks were in the habit of using the fragments of broken
pottery for their less important records. The materials which have been
most used, however, have been the Assyrian clay tablet, which has been
already described, papyrus, vellum, and paper.
Papyrus was made from a reed which grew abundantly in the Nile Valley
and less abundantly in some other places. It is now nearly extinct but
it grows in small quantities in Sicily, where papyrus is still made for
sale to tourists but not in commercial quantities. The reed was called
by the Greeks "_bublos_," or "_biblos_," from which the Greeks got the
word _biblion_, a book, and we get the words bible, bibliography, etc.
Papyrus was made by cutting the stalk of the reed lengthwise into very
thin strips. These strips were laid side by side on a board until the
desired width was obtained. Another layer of shorter strips was then
laid across the long ones entirely covering them. This mat, or "net" as
it was technically called, was then soaked in the water of the Nile.
Whether there was any particular virtue in the Nile water, which is
always more or less charged with mud, or the desired result was obtained
simply by the action of water on the reed itself, is not clear. After
the soaking was completed, the "net" was dried in the sun, hammered to
expel air and water, polished by rubbing with some hard smooth
substance, and probably sized, although it is possible that all the
sizing necessary was provided by the sap of the reed itself. The sheets
were then trimmed even and joined by the edges into a long strip,
usually of about twenty sheets. This was rolled on a stick and was then
ready for sale as writing material. The quality of the papyrus varied
according to the part of the reed from which the strips were cut, and it
was the commercial custom to put sheets of varying quality into the same
strip or roll. The best sheets were put on the end which would come on
the outside of the roll, grading down to the worst at the other end.
This was done for two reasons: first, in order that the best material
should come where it would receive the most wear, and secondly in order
that in case the roll was not entirely used the waste part should be of
inferior quality. Papyrus continued to be used as the general writing
material of the civilized world until about the time of Christ, and held
its place for certain purposes until the 11th century, at which period
we find it still used for Papal Bulls and other important documents. It
was revived in Egypt by the Copts, as the people of Egypt were then
called, in the 7th century and was used by them extensively until the
middle of the 13th.
[Illustration: Parchment-roll, or volumen. (Our word volume comes from
volumen.)]
From very early ages, leather was more or less used as writing material,
but in the 2nd century B.C., owing, it is said, to the scarcity and high
price of papyrus, Eumenes II, King of Pergamus, a city of Asia Minor,
invented or caused to be invented, a writing material made of dressed
skins. These skins were not tanned but were dressed by another method
which left them flexible but gave them a smooth hard surface which could
be easily written on. This material was called, from the name of the
city, _pergamena_, from which we get our "parchment." This term is now
practically reserved for sheepskins which are harder than other skins
used for the purpose. Parchment was long used for legal documents and is
still used for college diplomas and other similar purposes. The general
term, however, for this type of writing material, which was made from a
variety of skins, is vellum. Vellum, of course, came in sheets, and
while a single sheet might be rolled as diplomas are to this day rolled
for delivery, it was ordinarily used in the sheet form and played an
important part in the development of the book.
In the manufacture of vellum the skins of a variety of the smaller
animals were used. For example, the famous Alexandrian codex, one of the
oldest known copies of the Bible, is written on antelope skin. The skin
was first carefully cleaned and the hair removed by soaking in a
solution of lye. It was then thoroughly scraped with a knife to remove
all fatty or soft parts. It was then rubbed down with pumice stone.
Finally it was polished with agate.
Paper is said to have been invented by the Chinese at an unknown but
very early date. It was introduced to Europe by the Arabs about the 10th
century A.D. It was made of linen or rags and did not vary greatly from
the rag paper of to-day. As the process of manufacture is fully
described in the book on paper (No. 13) of this series, description is
not necessary here. Paper was not much used in Europe until the
invention of printing. Being much less substantial than vellum it did
not commend itself for the making of manuscript books. Paper was,
however, immediately found to be much better suited to printing than any
other material, and with the advent of the printed book it very quickly
drove other writing materials out of common use. Owing to its having
some resemblance to papyrus it was given the old name, the word paper
being derived from papyrus.
Late in the 19th century a new writing material made of wood or other
flexible fibre treated with chemicals and loaded with clay was invented,
to which we also give the name paper. This new material has almost
entirely driven the old rag paper out of the field and is now the paper
of commerce. Much of this material is far inferior to rag paper. The
inferior qualities of it, at any rate, lack durability even when not
exposed to wear. It is good enough for the great number of uses where
permanence is not required. It should only be used for books of
permanent value, especially for records and historical material, when
there can be no doubt of the care used in the manufacture and the
quality of the fibre employed. A 15th-century book on rag paper is as
good to-day as the day it was printed. Most of the paper now in use
possesses no such lasting qualities.
In addition to these three leading materials, much use has been made of
tablets (Latin _tabella_). The commonest form of tablet was a thin board
with one or both sides slightly cut away in such a way as to leave a
narrow rim all around. The shallow depression inside this rim was then
filled with wax sufficiently stiff to hold its position in ordinary
temperatures but sufficiently soft to be easily marked with a sharp
instrument called a stylus. The writing could be easily erased by
rubbing with a hard smooth object, perhaps a ball at the reverse end of
the stylus, and the wax was then ready for another impression. Sometimes
these tablets were made of wood covered with paint or a composition from
which the writing could be easily washed off. This was the prototype of
the schoolboy's slate of to-day and was used for the same purpose. While
tablets were ordinarily used for writing of a purely temporary nature,
they were occasionally used for permanent records and especially for
correspondence. Two or more tablets could be put together with the
wooden sides out, bound, and sealed. In this way the writing was secure
from observation or interference and the tablets were less liable to
injury than papyrus or vellum. Tablets were used at a very early period
and continued to be used, especially for correspondence, all through the
middle ages and into the 16th century. Sometimes a considerable number
of them would be fastened with thongs by one edge so as to form a
continuous document which was one of the precursors of the modern book.
The British Museum has a document of this sort consisting of nine leaves
about 7 x 9 inches. The writing on it is in shorthand, which is by no
means a modern contrivance. This particular document is of Greek origin
and dates from about the 3d century A.D.
The ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and other peoples of remote antiquity
used inks made of charcoal or soot mixed with gum, glue, or varnish.
Similar compositions were used to a late date. The Romans made extensive
use of sepia, the coloring substance obtained from the cuttlefish.
Irongall inks, inks that consist of an iron salt and tannin, were
invented by an 11th century monk named Theophilus. Of course these inks
were mixed with coloring matter, and other paints and pigments were used
in the preparation of manuscripts. The earlier printing inks were made
of lampblack and linseed oil. The subject of printing inks is fully
discussed in No. 12 of this series of text-books. The ink was ordinarily
applied by means of reeds which were either beaten out at the end into
fine brushes so that the characters were painted rather than written,
or sharpened and split at the end like a modern pen. Later the quill of
the goose or some other large bird, cut to a point and split, largely
took the place of the reed and continued to be the writer's tool for
centuries. In later years they have been displaced by the modern pen of
steel or gold. It is interesting to note that bronze pens imitating
quills were used by the Romans and some specimens are still preserved.
[Illustration: Mediaeval scribe at work, showing bookcase and writing
materials.]
The mediaeval scribe, or copyist, had in addition to his quill, ink, and
vellum, a pair of compasses to prick off the spacing of his lines, a
ruler and a sharpened instrument or pencil with which to draw the lines
upon which he was to write, a penknife for mending his pens, an erasing
knife for corrections, and pumice and agate, or other smooth substance,
for smoothing the scratched surface. The accompanying illustration shows
the mediaeval scribe and his outfit in an extremely interesting manner.
In the background appears the bookcase with its doors open showing the
manner in which books were then kept, laid on their sides and not
standing on their ends. The writer is busily at work upon his manuscript
and scattered around him are the tools of his trade. The inkstand is on
the table before him, the knife on one of the library shelves, the
compasses, a ruler, a ruling pencil, a rubber for smoothing down the
vellum, an open pen case, and other implements are all clearly shown.
CHAPTER III
_The Evolution of the Book_
As already indicated, ancient books were written on rolls of papyrus.
The technical name of such a roll of papyrus was _volumen_ from which we
get our word volume. With the increasing use of vellum as writing
material came the book as we know it, originally called in Latin the
codex, from _caudex_, meaning a pile of boards such as may be seen in
any lumberyard. The other Latin word for book, _liber_, from which we
get our word library and other allied terms, originally meant "bark" and
is a curious preservation of the record of the use of bark as a writing
material, a use, by the way, of which we have very little other
knowledge.
The origin of the book is rather interesting. One of its ancestors, as
we have already seen, is the group of tablets bound together with
thongs. Another was probably the roll itself. When the manuscript roll
was read it was necessary in order to handle it properly and save it
from damage to reroll the part of the roll which had been read as the
student proceeded. The consequence was that when the reading was
finished, the volume was left rolled up in reverse order. Consequently,
before being replaced, the volume, if treated properly, had to be rolled
back into its original position, a necessity which careless or lazy
people found somewhat burdensome. It was discovered, however, that this
could be avoided by folding the roll back and forth, creasing it in the
spaces between the columns which were written at right angles to the
length of the roll, the result being something like a book printed only
on one side of the paper and with the edges uncut, like many Chinese and
Japanese books of to-day.
The real impulse, however, to the construction of books as distinguished
from rolls came with the use of sheets of vellum. These could not be
attached easily to make long rolls as could be done with the papyrus
sheets, while even the single sheets were large enough to be unwieldy
when spread out. Therefore, when long compositions were to be written,
the vellum sheets were folded once and laid inside each other just as
ordinary note paper is prepared for sale at the present time. In order
to provide against the scattering of these leaves they were sewed
together through the crease at the back. The result was called a quire.
[Illustration: A Roman student at his books, showing the bookcase with a
reading stand on top and the use of the roll.]
When the composition filled more than one quire, the quires were
originally fastened together in a manner derived, probably, from the
method of fastening tablets. That is to say, holes were stabbed through
the margin and thongs were passed through the holes and tied at the
back. This method of binding, however, had obvious disadvantages and it
shortly occurred to some one that thongs, or strips of vellum, could be
laid across the backs of the quires at right angles to their length and
the stitches by which the quires were held together could be passed over
these thongs. This method of binding the quires together is still used
in making the best bindings. At this stage of proceedings the loosely
fastened bundle of quires was not firmly held together and the
unprotected folds of the sheets were exposed to wear. This was remedied
by covering the backs with a strip of leather running lengthwise of the
sheets. Vellum, however, is particularly liable to warp and twist. This
was prevented by putting the sheets between boards. The next step was to
fasten the boards to the package of leaves by extending the edges of
the leather strip on the back and fastening them to the edges of the
boards, which were then fastened at the opposite edges by clasps. The
bound book was then complete so far as utility was concerned. It was
soon seen, however, that the extension of the leather back to cover the
boards entirely added to the beauty and durability of the book and
opened a wide field for the exercise of the decorator's art and taste.
It is needless to say that great use was made of this opportunity. The
beautiful products of the modern bookbinding art are familiar to us all.
Beautiful and costly as they are, they are commonplace as compared with
the decoration of the early bookbinders. It must be remembered that
these books were never intended to be crowded in serried ranks into
shelves from which they should present only their backs to the world.
They were precious treasures to be kept by themselves, handled
reverently, laid on tables or shelves, often enclosed in bags. The
covers, often blazing with jewels, were adorned by all the resources of
many kinds of art. Some were plates of ivory or rare wood covered with
wonderful carvings. Some were plates of chiseled gold or silver. Some
were brilliant with enamel. Medallions and pictures in the best style of
art ornamented them. Gems of every kind, cut and uncut, added color and
brilliancy to the effect. As late as 1583 when the great age of
book-cover ornamentation was already past, Henry III of France decreed
that ordinary citizens should not use more than four diamonds to the
decoration of one book, but nobles might use five.
The book as distinguished from the roll began to be popular in the first
Christian century. It had certain very great advantages. The rolls were
never very long and long compositions or collections of compositions
necessarily ran to many volumes. They were not easy to refer to as they
had to be unrolled and then rolled up again whenever any passage was to
be consulted. They were made of a material which was not durable in any
but the very driest of climates. The book on the other hand, while
heavy, could contain a very great amount of material in a single
volume, could be easily referred to, and was made of much more durable
material. For this reason the book form was used for legal documents
and other purposes where ease of reference was particularly desired. The
growth of the Christian church especially stimulated the substitution of
the book for the roll. Christianity, unlike any of the religions with
which it came into contact, except Judaism, was a book religion. The
Christian was constantly referring to his scriptures for argument with
his adversary as well as for his own edification and he wanted to be
able to find his favorite passages readily. The conservatism of the Jew
prevented his changing the roll form of his scriptures. The Pagan
adhered to the rolls with their associations of classic culture. The
final passing out of the roll and victory of the book are contemporary
with the victory of Christianity over Paganism and its adoption as the
religion of the empire.
[Illustration: Byzantine Binding of about 1000 A.D. (The plate is metal
and the decorations are enamel and jewels.)]
CHAPTER IV
_Making the Manuscripts_
As has already been said the papyrus manuscripts were ordinarily written
in columns at right angles to the length of the roll. These columns were
from two inches to three and a half inches in width. They were
ordinarily written on one side of the roll only. As the older writing
materials were always scarce and expensive, the backs of the rolls were
sometimes utilized, but very rarely for the continuation of the matter
written on the other side. If writing appears on the back of a roll,
except in the rare cases where the handwriting is identical with that on
the face, the subject matter is of an entirely different character from
the original and may safely be regarded as much younger. The title was
ordinarily placed at the end of the book although sometimes it appeared
at the beginning or in both places. The title was sometimes written on
the outside of the roll but more often was written on a tag which was
attached to the end of the roll or to the stick upon which the papyrus
was rolled. Very wide margins were left at each end of the roll. The
ends of the roll were trimmed, rubbed smooth and sometimes colored. The
rolls were sometimes wrapped in cloth and sometimes put in cylindrical
cases. Whether or not this was done, the rolls were usually kept in
cupboards piled on shelves; hence the usefulness of the tag bearing the
title.
When the vellum book took the place of the papyrus roll consideration
was at once given to the peculiarities of the material. The hair side
and the flesh side of the skin are different in color and texture. Care
was taken to arrange the sheets in quires in such way that the two pages
which were under the eye together should be made on the same side of the
skin. The outside page of a Latin codex was ordinarily the skin side. By
reversing the fold of the inner sheets of the quire, pages two and
three would be the flesh side, four and five the hair side and so on.
When paper began to come into use it was at first strengthened by having
a covering sheet of vellum for each quire, very much as we use a sheet
of cover paper on the outside of a pamphlet. A sheet of vellum was also
sometimes inserted in the middle of the quire so that the paper would be
stitched between the two vellum sheets.
Originally the narrow columns of the papyrus roll were transferred to
the vellum page but gradually the lines were lengthened until the page
had one column or at most two. For example, the Sinaitic codex of the
Bible which dates from the 4th century has four columns to the page. The
Vatican codex also dated from the 4th century has three. The Alexandrian
codex which dates from the very late 4th or the early 5th has two, while
the codex of Beza which dates from the 6th century has but one column to
the page.
In order to prevent mistakes in the putting together of the quires a
quire mark was put on each quire, sometimes on the first sheet and
sometimes on the last sheet. In the 11th century catch-words were used
to show the connection of the quires.
The scribes took great pains with their manuscripts and ruled them
carefully before writing. The lines were pricked off carefully by the
use of compasses and ruled with a stylus which made a mark or crease on
the vellum. This was ordinarily applied with force enough to make a
raised line on the back of the page and sometimes with force enough to
show through two or three pages. Later these rulings were colored with
inks of brilliant hues and formed part of the decoration of the
manuscript. It has been claimed that a certain manuscript, probably
dating from the 13th century, shows signs of having been ruled with a
lead pencil. This is very doubtful, however. The first distinct mention
of lead pencils which we have is about 1565. These pencils were made of
wood and strips of natural graphite.
The older literary manuscripts were written entirely in capital letters
without any spacing between the words. The cursive or running hand with
the letters smaller and more or less connected appears in manuscripts of
later date. In the older manuscripts marks were introduced to show the
ends of sentences and occasionally dots were inserted to mark the
separation of words where otherwise the meaning would be ambiguous.
These marks, however, are not related to our modern punctuation.
The tendency to separate words appears first in non-literary documents,
such as legal documents or matters of record. As the tendency to
separate words developed at first only the long words were separated and
for a long time short words were connected with those before them as is
still done in Italian. It was not until the 11th century that the custom
of spacing all words became general and then only in Latin manuscripts.
The correct separation of words in Greek manuscripts was never
established until the manuscripts themselves were superseded by printing
in the 15th century.
The paragraph appears as early as the 4th century B.C. It was generally
indicated, however, by a horizontal mark rather than by spacing. The
indenting of the paragraph came later and was followed by the use of the
larger letter, first employed to indicate the beginning of the
sentences. The development of the sentence itself as a device in
composition was somewhat similar to that of the paragraph.
It is difficult to tell where the use of punctuation begins. Some very
early manuscripts show the rudiments of it. The first punctuation mark
was the stop at the end of the period. This was originally two dots, or
our colon. When this became one dot it was at first the lower one that
was omitted so that the second form of the period is a dot level with
the top of the letter. The period, colon, and comma were each
represented by a single dot, the value depending upon whether it was on
a level with the top, the middle, or the bottom of the letter. During
the middle ages a system of punctuation was developed approximately as
we now have it.
Unfortunately words had the same tendency to refuse to fit the line that
bothers the modern compositor. The scribe, not being limited by the
resources of a font of type, did not hesitate to crowd his letters or
reduce them in size in order to get a word into a line. He also made use
of various devices of abbreviating words and combining letters to
produce the same result. These devices, however, were not very
satisfactory and division of words was always more or less practiced.
The Greeks usually divided after a vowel with no regard to syllables.
They even divided monosyllables in this way. The Romans, however, always
practiced syllabic division very much as we do to-day.
Another form of division of the text was what is called calometry, that
is to say, the breaking up of the text into short clauses or sense lines
to facilitate oral reading. This is done particularly in cases of
orations, the Bible, and similar compositions largely used for oral
reading. As in the papyrus, the title was ordinarily inserted at the end
and accompanied by some account of the work, place of copying, copyist,
date, or other information. This sort of appendix was called a colophon.
The practice of writing colophons was taken over by the early printers
and is the source of much of our most valuable information concerning
the early products of the press. Occasionally the title of the work was
given at the beginning although the custom of beginning the work with
the statement of its title, developing into the title page as we know
it, did not become general until some time after the invention of
printing. Occasionally a manuscript was even furnished with running
titles on the page heads. The pages were not numbered until after the
invention of printing.
After the earliest times quotations were indicated by ticks on the
margin or by indented paragraphs. Sometimes the substance of the
quotation was written in a smaller hand or otherwise distinguished from
the body of the text. Scribes were by no means infallible and
corrections are not uncommon. Erasures on papyrus were difficult, if not
impossible, and therefore other means of correction had to be used. This
is particularly the case because writing material was too expensive to
be wasted and a copyist's mistake could not be permitted to spoil a roll
of a papyrus or a sheet of vellum. In the case of vellum, however, if
the mistake were immediately discovered the ink could be washed off with
a sponge. If, however, the mistake were discovered only on revision
after the ink had bitten into the vellum, it was necessary to use the
knife and to restore the surface as well as possible by rubbing it with
some smooth hard substance like the rubber shown in the illustration on
page 13. Superfluous letters or words were sometimes removed by drawing
a pen through them and sometimes removal was indicated by dots, or small
marks, which might be over the letters, under them, or even in the open
spaces of the letters themselves. Attempts were occasionally made to
make one letter over into another to correct a mistake. Omitted passages
or notes are inserted in the margin with some indication of the place
where they should be read in the text. Abbreviations and contractions
were very extensively used, partly to avoid labor and partly to save
material. Phrases of frequent occurrence and perfectly well-known
meaning were indicated simply by initials like the familiar S. P. Q. R.,
Senatus Populusque Romanus, the Roman Senate and People, or the
s. s. a. b. s. m. used by Spaniards to close letters, meaning "your
faithful servant who kisses your hands."
Letters commonly occurring together were elided and abbreviated, as was
done to a limited extent as late as the 18th century, at which period we
see such abbreviations as yt=that. It may be interesting to note that y
in this combination and the similar combination "ye," used as the
article, is not the semi-vowel y but is the survival, or revival, of an
Anglo-Saxon letter of very similar form called "thorn" and equivalent in
value to th. In the "yt" then, we have the y or thorn substituted for th
and the vowel elided, but the sign should be pronounced "that." The sign
"ye" as in the familiar phrase of the posters "ye olde folkes'
concerte," should always be pronounced "the" and never like the pronoun
ye.
Another result of the expensiveness of writing material was the practice
of erasing whole works in order that the vellum might be used over
again. This erasing was done with a knife or pumice stone and when
resurfaced by rubbing the vellum could be readily used a second time. A
manuscript thus treated is called a palimpsest. The pious monks of the
middle ages, naturally believing that the lives of the saints and other
religious works were of more importance than the works of Pagan orators,
philosophers, and historians, or even than old copies of the Bible which
had been superseded by newer and better decorated ones, made extensive
use of old manuscripts in this way. Fortunately, however, it is possible
by careful treatment to restore the original writing at least
sufficiently to make it possible to decipher it. In this way a
considerable number of extremely valuable texts which would otherwise
have been entirely lost have been recovered from palimpsests.
The reference just made to decoration reminds us that the makers of
manuscripts, particularly during the middle ages, took enormous pride in
their work and were as anxious to produce sumptuous books as the most
ambitious publisher of to-day and were often far more successful. The
scribe who was to make a fine manuscript chose his vellum with great
care. He laid out his work with compass and ruler with the utmost
precision. He was careful that his ink and his pigments should be of the
most brilliant color and the finest quality. He looked well to the care
of his pen and inscribed each letter with the patient care of the most
skillful engrosser of to-day.
The development of the sentence and paragraph had brought the use of
letters of larger sizes to mark these divisions. These, especially the
paragraph initials, afforded an endless field for his ingenuity and the
exercise of his artistic ability. A great initial letter might be made
in any fanciful shape of which he could think. It might become a part of
a beautifully executed miniature. It might be surrounded by a mass of
gorgeous ornamentation extending to the bottom or the other margin of
the page and enriched by everything beautiful or grotesque of which the
writer could think. All this ornamentation was often executed in gold
and colors and was one of the chief methods of artistic expression of
the middle ages.
In addition to these decorations the ancient books dating from late
Roman times onward were often illustrated, sometimes profusely so. Full
page pictures were inserted illustrating the text or giving the
portraits of persons referred to in it. The oldest of these pictures are
in a bad state of preservation on account of the crude methods of the
artists. The background was first painted in a solid color. A figure,
for instance, would then be put on in another color, clothing would be
painted over that, armor over clothing and so on. The picture being thus
built up in layers of different paints it was very liable to flake off,
leaving only the background. Illustrations dating from the introduction
of a better technique are still very beautiful.
No language could adequately describe the beauty and the richness of
these decorations, or illuminations as they are termed. They look out to
us to-day from the yellowing vellum with all the brilliancy of color and
vigor of conception which they originally possessed. They are not only
beautiful in themselves but they are a valuable source of information
concerning the life of the middle ages. In those days the painters of
pictures made no attempt at archaeological accuracy. If they were
illuminating a Bible they represented Abraham and Moses, Pharaoh and
Solomon, Jesus and Paul and Goliath in the costume of the king, priest,
citizen, or soldier of the painter's own day. Their method of treatment
of their subjects, the subjects chosen, the use of materials in
ornamentation, every detail of these decorations is eloquent of the life
and thought of the ages in which they were produced.
CHAPTER V
_Ancient and Mediaeval Libraries_
Books involved libraries. The book is written to preserve a record and
this involves the preservation of the book itself. Consequently almost
all of the centers of the world's civilization were at the same time the
homes of great collections of books, or libraries. The ancient Egyptians
had many such although we have the record of but one. Rameses the Great,
who has been generally, though probably erroneously, identified as the
Pharaoh of the Exodus, but who probably lived within about a century of
that time, housed a great library in his palace at Thebes. Such a
library, of course, would have consisted of papyrus rolls and must have
been rich in that learning of the Egyptians which the old chronicle
tells us was familiar to Moses. What would we not give if we could only
find those precious rolls in some of the corners which the archaeologists
are so busily exploring and which are constantly yielding new stores of
information about that ancient civilization?
Some centuries later two of the Assyrian kings, Sennacherib and
Assurbanipal, collected a great library which has been in large part
recovered. Such a library, as we have seen, consisted of clay tablets
and these tablets were kept in large earthenware jars. The contents of
the library were partly contemporary but more of it consisted of copies
of ancient works. Many thousands of these texts have been recovered from
the ruins of Babylon and are now being translated. They cover the whole
field of literary activity, religion, law, history, grammar, science,
magic, and romance.
One of the old Israelitish cities, near Hebron, is called
Kirjath-sepher, or city of books. Both the city and the name, however,
antedate the Jewish occupation of Palestine and are probably memorials
of a time when this city was a center of that Assyrian culture which
covered the entire region later known as Palestine.
The classic civilization, with its great development of literary
activity, of course involved the formation of libraries in all the more
important cities, as such places were the natural centers of culture. We
know something of the libraries of Athens, Antioch, Ephesus, Pergamus,
Rome, Alexandria and Constantinople. The most famous of these was the
great collection, or rather collections, of books at Alexandria.
Collectively these rivalled in size some of the great modern libraries,
a very remarkable fact when we consider the conditions under which books
were made at that time. Undoubtedly practically the entire literary
output of the classic civilization was contained in these collections.
Unfortunately no traces of them remain. Accident and conquest caused
their entire destruction. The earlier historians told a pitiful tale of
the wanton destruction of the library by the Mohammedan conquerors who
in their fanaticism destroyed as useless or harmful all works not
devoted to the dissemination of their own doctrines. While it is
probably true that the Mohammedans were responsible for a wholesale
destruction, it is probable that the library had already suffered sadly
by the destruction by fire of one or more of its separate collections
and that what was destroyed in their time was only the remains of the
former splendid collection. The library of Constantinople, being later
than the others in its formation, probably had more direct effect on the
culture of mediaeval and modern times than any of the preceding ones.
In addition to these great public or semi-public libraries, there were
of course great numbers of private libraries. Wealthy and cultivated men
throughout the Roman empire and beyond had their private collections, as
wealthy and cultivated men do to-day. While the illiterate classes were
proportionally much more numerous than they are in modern communities,
and the use of books was limited to a comparatively small portion of the
population, the small educated class was highly cultivated and keenly
interested in the reading and ownership of books.
None of these early collections survives even in any existing fragments.
The devastating wars of the first Christian centuries destroyed all such
perishable things. The Assyrian records not being on perishable material
survived the destruction of the buildings in which they were contained
and remained buried until brought to light by recent excavations. The
Egyptian records have survived partly because they were so largely in
the nature of inscriptions on the walls of the great temples and the
carefully constructed tombs, and partly because so many of them were
sheltered in the resting places of the dead. Not only were the mummies
wrapped in cloth and papyrus inscribed with the Book of the Dead and
other Egyptian texts, but many documents and papers were buried with the
bodies. It was the custom of the Egyptians to bury with the dead all
their personal papers including unopened letters and papers belonging to
other persons which happened to be in the possession of the deceased at
the time of his death. Many a letter has thus been read for the first
time by some modern archaeologist 3000 years or more after the death of
both sender and receiver.
We undoubtedly owe to the Christian church, and especially to the
institution of Monasticism, the preservation of so much of the ancient
literature as we now possess, as well as the preservation of the spirit
of learning and that impulse to create literature out of which grew the
literatures of mediaeval and modern times. As has already been stated,
the monasteries became the centers of literary activity. The studying,
copying, and creation of books was a recognized part of the duty of the
monks. In society as constituted after the fall of the empire and far
into the mediaeval ages the monks were the only educated people in the
community. The nobles were rough unlettered soldiers. Even kings were
unable to read and write. The business of the state was largely in the
hands of churchmen who filled the offices of civil administration,
conducted the legal business of the community, served as its physicians
and, in short, discharged nearly all those functions which required
education and literary training. The mercantile class knew only enough
to keep track of their business by the help of mechanical contrivances
and the rudest methods of accounting. The great mass of mechanics and
agricultural laborers were entirely illiterate. King and peasant alike
depended upon the clergy for their knowledge of past transactions,
national records, and the teachings of religion.
Under these circumstances the monasteries naturally built up libraries.
Originally these libraries began with copies of the scriptures or of
books containing portions of them, such as the Gospels and the Psalms.
To these were added Mass books, collections of the writings of the
fathers of the church and the sermons of famous preachers, volumes of
commentaries on the scriptures and the works of the fathers, and lives
of the saints, and, in course of time, treatises on theological
subjects. Even the life of a monastic community, however, is not all
religious. Consequently we find the monks writing chronicles which were
the beginnings of history. These chronicles originally were merely dry
statements of the events which happened in the monastery, the community
in which it was located, or even the country. At first dry notebooks
without historical perspective and with very little detail, they
gradually developed into something like a historical narrative of
occurrences with estimates of character and statements as to the causes
and effects, as well as the mere occurrence, of events. Then came works
on natural history, medicine, music, grammar, in fact all the matters in
which men are interested. Poetry struggled for expression and the
romantic adventures of the real men and women of the time stimulated
imagination to the production of tales and romances. For historical
information and for literary models the writers looked to the great
authors of a previous age, and attention was given to the copying of
such remains of ancient literature as had survived the fall of the old
civilization. Practically every manuscript that we have of the ancient
authors is the salvage from some old library of a mediaeval monastery.
Every religious house came to have its library, or scriptorium, which
was at once the place for the making and the keeping of books. Some
brother especially suited for the task, sometimes even the abbot
himself, was in charge of the library and of the brothers who worked
there. Sometimes the entire work on a manuscript would be done by a
single man. At other times there was a division of labor. One brother,
for example, would pick out the vellum, see to the condition of the
skins, arrange the quires, and rule them with compass and stylus.
Another, or a group of others, would write the plain text. In the case
of a large book, a certain number of quires might be given to each one
of a group of copyists. A third would put in the illuminated capitals
and the pictures, or either of them, while still another would examine
the completed manuscript, comparing it with the original and correcting
any errors which might be discovered.
To the artist and illuminator this work was undoubtedly delightful but
to the man who had to do the drudgery of mere copying of long works, it
was undoubtedly a wearisome task. Every effort was made to incite these
men to care and patience by magnifying the importance of their work and
especially by representing it as a work of religion. It was held that
the making of books, especially books of religion, was in a very special
way agreeable to God and that salvation might be obtained in this manner
when other means failed. It was even taught that there was a special
relation between the amount of writing done and the number and magnitude
of the sins to be atoned for. A story was widely circulated which is
interesting for the light which it throws upon the childlike and literal
way in which the things of the spirit were regarded by the mediaeval
mind. It was said that a certain man entered a monastery with his soul
burdened by many and grievous sins. He was set to the copying of a Bible
and in due time completed the task alone. The task brought him salvation
because the number of letters in the Bible exceeded by one the number of
his sins.
In time some of these libraries came to be of very considerable size
even by modern standards. A few of them remain almost intact to our own
day. The mediaeval librarians, as was proper considering the value of
their charges, were very solicitous about the care of their books.
Readers were warned to handle the books with care, to be careful about
turning the leaves and especially to keep their fingers off the ink.
Evidently the ancient readers had the tendency common to unskillful
readers everywhere to trace the lines with their fingers as they read.
The books were classified by subject matter, numbered, and catalogued.
Some of these ancient catalogues showing the exact contents of the
monastic libraries and the contemporary ideas of classification, not
always the same as our own, are still preserved. An interesting list
remains of nine books brought over to England by St. Augustine the
missionary which formed the first library of Christ Church in
Canterbury. It consisted of a Bible in two volumes, a psalter, a book of
gospels, lives of the apostles, lives of the martyrs and an exposition
or commentary on the gospels and epistles.
Books were loaned quite extensively. This was especially true among the
monasteries of the same order. These orders naturally looked to certain
of their houses as the leading or mother establishments in various
localities. These leading establishments were often the actual mother
houses from which others had been created by colonization, besides being
the seats of the high officials of the order. Naturally the age and
wealth of these central houses enabled them to possess large and
valuable libraries. It was their duty to see that the smaller houses
were provided with correct copies of the rules and regulations of the
order, service books which it used, and other valuable material, as well
as to assist them to secure more strictly literary material. Therefore
some of these places became veritable circulating libraries for the
subordinate houses. In addition to this there was a certain amount of
loaning between the orders and persons outside the orders both clerical
and, at a later period, lay.
These loans were carefully registered and regulated and excepting when
occurring in the regular discharge of duty were guarded by the most
vigilant precautions. The books were, of course, carefully provided
with identification marks. Loan was made a matter of record and pledges
were exacted for the safe return of the volume. This pledge was
sometimes the deposit of a manuscript supposed to be of equal value,
sometimes a mortgage on property, and sometimes a deposit of money or
jewels. In spite of all these precautions, however, loans were not
infrequently abused. Borrowed volumes were sometimes never returned.
Sometimes the identification marks were removed, as existing manuscripts
show. Sometimes passages were erased from a borrowed book because the
borrower considered them heretical. Ancient borrowers were also addicted
to one of the most exasperating of modern literary crimes, the
scribbling of their own opinions on the margins of borrowed books.
Valuable books were kept chained to the desks which were provided for
those who had occasion to consult them. The old library of Durham
Cathedral contains many of the old volumes, still chained to their
original places. In the early days of Bible translation in England the
huge folio Bibles of the period were chained in the churches where all
could consult them.
All this precaution, of course, is testimony to the great value of books
at this period. It is true that the labor of the monks was not paid but
they had to be supported while at their work and owing to the time taken
to write, or rather paint, a manuscript, for it was really rather
painting than writing, this was no small item. The materials used were
also expensive. Parchment was costly and tended to become more so as the
increase of literary activity and the multiplication of books increased
the demand for it. Considerable expense was also involved in the colored
inks and especially in the gold which was used so lavishly in the
decorations. Monasteries and rich men regarded manuscripts as among
their chiefest treasures. Special provision was made for the purchase of
materials and the maintenance of the monastery libraries. The name of
the generous benefactor who gave a book or, more commonly, the material
for one, was inscribed in the book, often with a request for the prayers
of the reader, and was borne upon the honorable roll of the benefactors
of the house. Large sums of money and even estates were given for choice
manuscripts and manuscripts were considered worthy gifts for kings. We
have a record of the 12th century in England of fifty marks being paid
for a Bible. This sum of money, taking into account the very great
difference in purchasing power, would represent at least $3000 of the
money of to-day.
As time went on enlightened kings like Alfred of England and the Emperor
Charlemagne patronized and forwarded learning. Laymen, particularly
kings and great nobles, began to collect libraries of their own. The
National Library of France was begun by King John, who reigned from 1350
to 1364, who started it with twenty volumes. His son Charles V brought
the number up to 900. It contained books on devotion, astrology, law,
medicine, history, and a few classics.
The revival of learning in the 14th century, as might be expected, gave
a great stimulus to the production of manuscripts and at the time of the
invention of printing from movable types in the middle of the 15th
century the manufacture of manuscripts was going on rapidly and there
were many great libraries in existence. Matthias Corvinus, King of
Hungary in the 15th century, had a library of nearly 50,000 volumes.
Duke Frederick of Urbino in Italy had one nearly as large. Duke
Frederick had thirty-four copyists regularly employed in his library. It
is interesting to note that this library contained perfect copies of
practically every book known to be in existence at that time. This fact
throws an interesting light on the extent of the world's literature so
recently as 500 years ago. Among the earliest of the libraries formed
outside of monasteries were those collected by the Arabs of North Africa
and Spain. Although some of the early Mohammedan conquerors were
ignorant and bigoted fanatics like the destroyer of Alexandria, the
Arabs, or Saracens as they are sometimes called, as a whole were a
highly civilized people of great culture in art, science, and
literature. They were far in advance of their Christian neighbors and
continued to be so until their final overthrow in Spain by Ferdinand
and Isabella about the time of the discovery of America.
The growth of the universities from the 12th century onward played a
great part in the multiplication of books and the growth of libraries.
Then, as now, the library was the heart of the university. Even more
than now the students depended on its contents. Obviously only the
richest students could buy any great number of books, and, equally
obviously, every student needed to use them, bought what he could,
borrowed the rest, and became a book collector for the rest of his life.
The university libraries grew by purchase, by copies made on the spot,
and by bequests. Then, as now, there were in every university a good
number of men "working their way." The copying of manuscripts was their
great resource.
Naturally all this demand caused the production of many very badly
executed manuscripts. This and other abuses were, however, controlled to
a great extent by the university authorities who assumed control over
the publication and sale of books. Old books, of course, could be freely
sold, subject only to careful checking up of the correctness of the
copy. New books had to be read three days in succession before the heads
of the university or other public judges, always churchmen, and had to
receive their sanction before being copied and put on sale.
This was done by the stationer who derived his name from the Latin word
_statio_ meaning a shop. The stationers made, sold, and rented books and
sold writing materials and the like very much as at present. They were
stringently regulated by the universities. They must be men of learning
and character; must bind themselves to obey the laws of the university;
must offer no copy for sale unless it was approved; must sell at rates
fixed by the university; must purchase only books sanctioned by the
university; and must loan books to those too poor to buy them at rates
fixed by the university.
This careful regulation of the book trade of the university towns was
originally intended for the best of purposes and was productive of much
good. Unfortunately it also opened the door to much evil. It
established the principle of control of the press, a principle always
destructive of liberty and progress. By long use this control came to
appear quite the right and normal thing. Used at first to secure the
interests of learning and the protection of scholars, it became at
length the powerful weapon of party in Church and State. It was used
alternately to silence Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, and to muzzle
all discussion of social and political questions. Control of the
printing press became at last the greatest enemy of civilization,
freedom, and enlightenment alike in the old world and in the new and it
remained until largely swept away by the movement which culminated in
the French Revolution of 1793.
Some of the university libraries early grew to generous size. That of
the Sorbonne, for example, numbered 1720 volumes in 1338. This
particular library consisted very largely of religious literature, as
the main interest of the Sorbonne of that day was theological. Other
university libraries were of wider range. Many of the old university
libraries are yet in existence.
CHAPTER VI
_The Dawn of a New Era_
Methods of inscribing words or characters upon vellum or other writing
material other than by the toilsome process of handwriting had long been
in existence. Among the oldest of human remains are stamps and seals for
the impression of symbols, words, or signatures upon plastic substances,
as the impression of a signet or seal is now made on sealing wax
softened by heat. Originally these seals were incised so that the
impression was left in raised characters on the receiving substance, as
is now usually the case with seals and signets. Later the designs were
sometimes cut in relief so that the figure resulting from the impression
was not raised in the substance but pressed into it. From this it was
but a step to put some coloring substance on the raised part of the seal
or die and so print it on an unyielding surface such as vellum or
papyrus, as hand stamps are now used for a great variety of purposes.
Documents were signed in this way by persons who were either too
illiterate to write their names or too occupied with business to take
the time to sign the great numbers of documents which were brought
before them. The peculiar characteristics of the Chinese alphabet early
prompted this inventive people to the use of these types, for such these
devices were. The Chinese are said to have used movable types made of
porcelain at a very early period. The use of the seal or the stamp
bearing a single letter naturally led to its enlargement and to the
inclusion of more than one letter on the same stamp. As early as the 6th
century the Chinese were printing books from wooden plates on which were
cut in relief all the characters which were to appear upon a single
leaf. This was nothing more or less than our modern stereotype plate,
excepting that it was carved by hand on wood instead of being made of
metal by a mechanical process. There is, however, no evidence whatever
connecting these Chinese essays at printing, whether from blocks or
types, with European printing. This last appears to have had an entirely
independent origin and development.
In Europe, as has already been noted, stamps were used for signatures
and other purposes. It has been observed that certain manuscripts of the
12th century show initials so uniform as to appear to be stamp or die
impressions. It can hardly be regarded as clearly established, however,
that this is the case. As early as the first half of the 15th century
bookbinders used dies both in relief and in intaglio, that is having the
design cut into the surface of the die. None of these devices, however,
appears to have been used for the purpose of multiplying impressions as
is now done with the printing press.
At a comparatively early period, probably as early as the first part of
the 12th century, there came a call for the dissemination of knowledge
in somewhat rudimentary form among the common people. At an earlier
period still this desire had expressed itself in the elaborate sculpture
and stained glass with which the churches were decorated. The church
itself was the poor man's Bible and his library the lives of saints and
martyrs. The story was told to him by the priest. It was visualized by
the artist. Conventional types or attributes of biblical and other
personages were adopted so that the peasant or the artisan could
recognize anywhere the figure of Christ, of one of the evangelists, of
Moses, or of the patron saint of his church or city.
The clergy and the lettered classes had long been accustomed to the
pictures which not only decorated but interpreted the pages of their
books. It was only natural that there should be a desire to have at
least these pictures in the hands of the people so as to reinforce in
the home the teachings of the church. The multiplication of these
pictures, so costly and so tedious in their production, was clearly out
of the question, but why not make a stamp big enough to carry a picture
of a saint or a simple biblical scene, make an impression from it on
vellum and so produce a rude but cheap picture which could be
multiplied indefinitely and sold at a low rate?
No one knows who invented this idea or who first practised making these
picture sheets. We know, however, that such sheets were printed as early
as the 12th century. Originally printed upon cloth or vellum, by the
middle of the 14th century they came to be printed on paper, and by the
early part of the 15th they had become very common. Circulated at first
only in single leaves, at a later period the leaves were folded and
combined into quires as in other books and we have the fully developed
block book as it is called, each leaf being printed from a single plate.
Some of these books were printed in many editions and had enormous
circulation. At a later period a few lines of explanatory text were
added to the picture. In some cases these lines were part of the plate.
In other cases they were written and in some they were even printed, as
the use of the block book survived the invention of typographical
printing. These block books were exactly like the picture books which we
now place in the hands of little children. They were to be looked at
rather than read. The meager explanatory text, as in the case of the
child's book, served the double purpose of a simple reading lesson and
of an aid to the explanation of the book for the benefit of the owner by
some wiser person. One of the most popular of these books was the Biblia
Pauperum, or Poor Man's Bible. This contained a large number of pictures
covering the more striking incidents of the biblical story. These were
not arranged in any particular order, as the idea of historical study of
the scriptures had not yet made its appearance.
A sample page for instance, shows an architectural design. The larger
part of the page is occupied by three panels. Above and below the middle
panel are two smaller ones leaving four blank rectangles at the corners
of the page. The middle one of the larger panels shows Jesus rising from
the tomb while the other two show Samson carrying away the gates of Gaza
and Jonah being disgorged by the whale. Each of the two smaller panels
at top and bottom is occupied by two figures, the four being intended
to represent David, Jacob, Hosea, and Zephaniah. Fortunately the
"portraits" are labelled as these biblical worthies are represented in
the ordinary costume of well-to-do citizens of the early part of the
15th century.
[Illustration: Page from the second edition of the Poor Man's Bible,
about 1450.]
This and other block books continued to be reprinted in type after the
invention of typography. One block book and one only, so far as is
known, was without pictures. This was a Latin grammar commonly known as
Donatus, from its author the famous Roman grammarian Donatus of the 4th
century. This was the one Latin grammar in use in the middle ages, when
Latin was the foundation of all culture. It was, therefore, very
extensively used and it is supposed that more copies were printed of it
than of any other block book. It has the further distinction of being
the only block book printed on vellum. Ordinarily the desire for
cheapness and the much greater ease of handling the material caused the
block books to be printed on paper. The importance of the Donatus as a
book of reference and the hard usage it was likely to receive at the
hands of schoolboys caused the use of the more expensive but more
durable material.
Particular interest attaches to one block book called the Speculum
Humanae Salvationis or "Mirror of Salvation." In a way this book is the
connecting link between block books and type printed books. There is no
copy of this book in existence printed entirely from wooden blocks. Most
of the early editions are printed from movable types with a block
printed illustration at the head of each page. One of them, however, has
twenty pages of the text out of the sixty-two which constituted the
entire book printed from wood blocks. These twenty pages are inserted at
intervals among the others, and how and why they came there is a riddle
beyond guessing.
It has been conjectured by some that the long-held belief that Gutenberg
was a polisher of mirrors is erroneous and that the reference in certain
of the scanty documents concerning him to business about mirrors may
refer to attempts on his part to print an edition of this book, "The
Mirror of Salvation."
In making a block book the design was cut on the side of a flat piece of
wood, not on the end of the block as was the later practice in wood
engraving. Sometimes, as has been said, a design thus cut was only a
picture. Sometimes it was both picture and text. The design was cut in
relief, that is to say the wood was cut away leaving the design to be
impressed upon the paper raised. The block was then thoroughly wetted
with a thin, watery, pale brown material much resembling distemper. A
sheet of damp paper was laid on it and the back of the paper was
carefully rubbed with a dabber or burnisher. It is probable that other
inks were employed, especially for vellum, and it is also extremely
probable that a rude press, ancestor of the modern printing press, was
used to produce the impressions in many cases. The resulting book
consisted of sheets printed on one side only, although there are a few
very late examples in which printing appears on both sides. The pictures
were commonly roughly colored by hand.
Playing cards were at one time supposed to have been the first products
of this method of printing. It was naturally supposed that the small and
comparatively simple design on the face of the playing card might be
regarded as the original from which the more elaborate picture and book
might be developed. This opinion has now, however, been abandoned, as it
is known that the earliest playing cards were hand drawn and painted and
that the block printed playing cards which we have date from the 15th
century when block printing was very common.
It has already been said that these blocks contained not only pictures
but text, one very important block book consisting of text alone. What
determined the form of the letters composing this text?
There were four types of handwriting recognized in the manuscripts of
the period which we are considering. The first was the book hand. This
was the recognized type of script used in the production of books and it
existed in two forms, the set or upright in which the letters were
carefully formed, held upright, and without ligatures or connecting
strokes between letters, and the cursive in which the letters were
sloped and ligatured. The second type was the church hand, used for
ecclesiastical manuscripts and familiar to us as the Gothic or black
letter. This also appears in two forms. Manifestly the Gothic does not
lend itself to a cursive form so that the two types which appear are the
set or upright, similar in its characteristics to the corresponding book
hand, and the ornamental or calligraphic which, as its name implies, was
an ornamental type of the set hand. The third type was the letter hand,
used by persons who were not professional penmen in correspondence and
the ordinary uses to which handwriting is applied. The fourth was the
court or charter hand. This hand was used for court records, deeds,
charters, and all sorts of legal documents. The first two types were
highly conventionalized and left very little to the "hand" as we now say
of the individual writer. The third, as might be supposed, while
following certain general models offers all the peculiarities of
individual handwriting at any age. The fourth is intermediate in regard
to its conventionality between the first and second types and the third.
These recognized conventional types of handwriting were imitated in the
cutting of the blocks. They were also imitated when the letters, instead
of being cut in groups on a block to form an inscription, were cut on
the ends of single types to be used in printing. The first printing,
whether on blocks or from types, was an imitation of manuscript and this
determined the letter faces.
The early 15th century, then, sees everything prepared for the invention
and use of movable types for printing purposes. There is a greater
demand for books than the hard working copyists can supply. The idea of
making impressions from stamps has become very familiar through long
use. Ink and paper suitable for these impressions have been discovered
and are obtainable at a reasonable price. The rude presses used for so
many other purposes have been adapted to the taking of these
impressions. Everything is ready for the invention which is to
revolutionize the intellectual life of mankind.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
The Story of the Alphabet. Edward Clodd.
The Story of Books. G. B. Rawlings.
Books in Manuscript. Falconer Madan.
Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages. Vol. I. G. H. Putnam.
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Eleventh Edition.
Articles:
Alphabet (very scholarly and in large part suitable only for very
advanced students.)
Paleography.
Manuscript.
Book.
Libraries.
Bookbinding.
Bookselling.
Papyrus.
Paper.
Ink, and many others which will suggest themselves during the study
of the articles named.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Name some of the earliest devices for communicating ideas to the
absent.
2. What was the most important of these devices, and why?
3. What is an ideogram?
4. What is a phonogram?
5. Tell how phonograms became alphabets.
6. Who were the Egyptians and what kind of characters did they use?
7. Who were the Assyrio-Babylonians and what kind of characters did they
use?
8. Who were the Cretans and what kind of characters did they use?
9. Who invented the alphabet?
10. Where did they get the material for the alphabet?
11. What is papyrus, and how was it made?
12. What is vellum, and how was it made?
13. Who invented paper, and when?
14. Who introduced it into Europe, and when?
15. What made the use of paper common, and why?
16. What writing material was invented in the 19th century?
17. What are some of its advantages and disadvantages?
18. What are tablets and how were they made and used?
19. What kind of ink did the ancient people use?
20. When were irongall inks invented?
21. What kind of ink did the early printers use?
22. What did the ancient writers write with?
23. What was the form of the ancient papyrus book?
24. What effect did the use of vellum have on the form of the book?
25. Describe the evolution of the bound book.
26. When did books become popular as compared with rolls?
27. What were some of the advantages of the book as compared with the
roll?
28. What can you tell of the make-up and appearance of a manuscript
roll?
29. What can you tell of the make-up and appearance of a vellum book?
30. What can you say of the lettering, spacing, etc. of early
manuscripts?
31. Give some account of the introduction of (a) word separation, (b)
paragraphs, (c) sentences, (d) punctuation.
32. What did the writer do when the words did not fit the line?
33. What can you say about titles, running heads, and numbering of
pages?
34. How were quotations indicated?
35. How were mistakes treated?
36. What use was made of abbreviations and contractions?
37. How do you pronounce "ye" and "yt," abbreviations for "the" and
"that," and why?
38. What is a palimpsest?
39. What did the old writers do to make their books beautiful?
40. What is the present value of the book decorations of the middle
ages?
41. What are the oldest libraries we know anything about?
42. What is the oldest one of which any part has been preserved?
43. What was the most famous library of classical time, and what became
of it?
44. Have we any remnants of the libraries of the classical period? Why?
45. To what do we owe the preservation of classical literature?
46. How did the monasteries come to have libraries?
47. What was the scriptorium of a monastery?
48. How was the work done there?
49. How were books cared for in the middle ages?
50. How were they loaned and under what conditions?
51. What can you say of the value of books in the middle ages, both in
money and in sentiment?
52. Who besides the monasteries had libraries?
53. What had the universities to do with the growth of libraries?
54. What did the universities do to secure the multiplication of books
and the correctness of copies?
55. How old is the practice of marking letters or words by some sort of
stamp?
56. What early experiments did the Chinese make in printing?
57. Did these experiments have any effect in Europe?
58. What is a block book?
59. When were block books first made, and why?
60. Describe some famous block books.
61. Describe the process of making a block book.
62. What determined the form of the letters composing the text of block
books?
63. Describe the four types of handwriting and their principal
varieties.
64. Tell how and why the first half of the 15th century was ready for
the invention of typography.
TYPOGRAPHIC TECHNICAL SERIES FOR APPRENTICES
The following list of publications, comprising the TYPOGRAPHIC TECHNICAL
SERIES FOR APPRENTICES, has been prepared under the supervision of the
Committee on Education of the United Typothetae of America for use in
trade classes, in course of printing instruction, and by individuals.
Each publication has been compiled by a competent author or group of
authors, and carefully edited, the purpose being to provide the printers
of the United States--employers, journeymen, and apprentices--with a
comprehensive series of handy and inexpensive compendiums of reliable,
up-to-date information upon the various branches and specialties of the
printing craft, all arranged in orderly fashion for progressive study.
The publications of the series are of uniform size, 5 x 8 inches. Their
general make-up, in typography, illustrations, etc., has been, as far as
practicable, kept in harmony throughout. A brief synopsis of the
particular contents and other chief features of each volume will be
found under each title in the following list.
Each topic is treated in a concise manner, the aim being to embody in
each publication as completely as possible all the rudimentary
information and essential facts necessary to an understanding of the
subject. Care has been taken to make all statements accurate and clear,
with the purpose of bringing essential information within the
understanding of beginners in the different fields of study. Wherever
practicable, simple and well-defined drawings and illustrations have
been used to assist in giving additional clearness to the text.
In order that the pamphlets may be of the greatest possible help for use
in trade-school classes and for self-instruction, each title is
accompanied by a list of Review Questions covering essential items of
the subject matter. A short Glossary of technical terms belonging to the
subject or department treated is also added to many of the books.
These are the Official Text-books of the United Typothetae of America.
Address all orders and inquiries to COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, UNITED
TYPOTHETAE OF AMERICA, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, U. S. A.
PART I--_Types, Tools, Machines, and Materials_
1. +Type: a Primer of Information+ By A. A. Stewart
Relating to the mechanical features of printing types; their sizes,
font schemes, etc., with a brief description of their manufacture.
44 pp.; illustrated; 74 review questions; glossary.
2. +Compositors' Tools and Materials+ By A. A. Stewart
A primer of information about composing sticks, galleys, leads,
brass rules, cutting and mitering machines, etc. 47 pp.;
illustrated; 50 review questions; glossary.
3. +Type Cases, Composing Room Furniture+ By A. A. Stewart
A primer of information about type cases, work stands, cabinets,
case racks, galley racks, standing galleys, etc. 43 pp.;
illustrated; 33 review questions; glossary.
4. +Imposing Tables and Lock-up Appliances+ By A. A. Stewart
Describing the tools and materials used in locking up forms for the
press, including some modern utilities for special purposes. 59
pp.; illustrated; 70 review questions; glossary.
5. +Proof Presses+ By A. A. Stewart
A primer of information about the customary methods and machines
for taking printers' proofs. 40 pp.; illustrated; 41 review
questions; glossary.
6. +Platen Printing Presses+ By Daniel Baker
A primer of information regarding the history and mechanical
construction of platen printing presses, from the original hand
press to the modern job press, to which is added a chapter on
automatic presses of small size. 51 pp.; illustrated; 49 review
questions; glossary.
7. +Cylinder Printing Presses+ By Herbert L. Baker
Being a study of the mechanism and operation of the principal types
of cylinder printing machines. 64 pp.; illustrated; 47 review
questions; glossary.
8. +Mechanical Feeders and Folders+ By William E. Spurrier
The history and operation of modern feeding and folding machines;
with hints on their care and adjustments. Illustrated; review
questions; glossary.
9. +Power for Machinery in Printing Houses+ By Carl F. Scott
A treatise on the methods of applying power to printing presses and
allied machinery with particular reference to electric drive. 53
pp.; illustrated; 69 review questions; glossary.
10. +Paper Cutting Machines+ By Niel Gray, Jr.
A primer of information about paper and card trimmers, hand-lever
cutters, power cutters, and other automatic machines for cutting
paper. 70 pp.; illustrated; 115 review questions; glossary.
11. +Printers' Rollers+ By A. A. Stewart
A primer of information about the composition, manufacture, and
care of inking rollers. 46 pp.; illustrated; 61 review questions;
glossary.
12. +Printing Inks+ By Philip Ruxton
Their composition, properties and manufacture (reprinted by
permission from Circular No. 53, United States Bureau of
Standards); together with some helpful suggestions about the
everyday use of printing inks by Philip Ruxton. 80 pp.; 100 review
questions; glossary.
13. +How Paper is Made+ By William Bond Wheelwright
A primer of information about the materials and processes of
manufacturing paper for printing and writing. 68 pp.; illustrated;
62 review questions; glossary.
14. +Relief Engravings+ By Joseph P. Donovan
Brief history and non-technical description of modern methods of
engraving; woodcut, zinc plate, halftone; kind of copy for
reproduction; things to remember when ordering engravings.
Illustrated; review questions; glossary.
15. +Electrotyping and Stereotyping+ By Harris B. Hatch and A. A. Stewart
A primer of information about the processes of electrotyping and
stereotyping. 94 pp.; illustrated; 129 review questions;
glossaries.
PART II--_Hand and Machine Composition_
16. +Typesetting+ By A. A. Stewart
A handbook for beginners, giving information about justifying,
spacing, correcting, and other matters relating to typesetting.
Illustrated; review questions; glossary.
17. +Printers' Proofs+ By A. A. Stewart
The methods by which they are made, marked, and corrected, with
observations on proofreading. Illustrated; review questions;
glossary.
18. +First Steps in Job Composition+ By Camille DeVeze
Suggestions for the apprentice compositor in setting his first
jobs, especially about the important little things which go to make
good display in typography. 63 pp.; examples; 55 review questions;
glossary.
19. +General Job Composition+
How the job compositor handles business stationery, programs and
miscellaneous work. Illustrated; review questions; glossary.
20. +Book Composition+ By J. W. Bothwell
Chapters from DeVinne's "Modern Methods of Book Composition,"
revised and arranged for this series of text-books by J. W.
Bothwell of The DeVinne Press, New York. Part I: Composition of
pages. Part II: Imposition of pages. 229 pp.; illustrated; 525
review questions; glossary.
21. +Tabular Composition+ By Robert Seaver
A study of the elementary forms of table composition, with examples
of more difficult composition. 36 pp.; examples; 45 review
questions.
22. +Applied Arithmetic+ By E. E. Sheldon
Elementary arithmetic applied to problems of the printing trade,
calculation of materials, paper weights and sizes, with standard
tables and rules for computation, each subject amplified with
examples and exercises. 159 pp.
23. +Typecasting and Composing Machines+ A. W. Finlay, Editor
Section I--The Linotype By L. A. Hornstein
Section II--The Monotype By Joseph Hays
Section III--The Intertype By Henry W. Cozzens
Section IV--Other Typecasting and Typesetting
Machines By Frank H. Smith
A brief history of typesetting machines, with descriptions of their
mechanical principles and operations. Illustrated; review
questions; glossary.
PART III--_Imposition and Stonework_
24. +Locking Forms for the Job Press+ By Frank S. Henry
Things the apprentice should know about locking up small forms, and
about general work on the stone. Illustrated; review questions;
glossary.
25. +Preparing Forms for the Cylinder Press+ By Frank S. Henry
Pamphlet and catalog imposition; margins; fold marks, etc. Methods
of handling type forms and electrotype forms. Illustrated; review
questions; glossary.