CHAPTER I._Books and their makers during the Middle Ages（#71536）

Transcriber’s note

Variable spelling and hyphenation have been retained. Minor punctuation

inconsistencies have been silently repaired. The index appears in the

second volume. A list of the changes made can be found at the end of

the book. Formatting and special characters are indicated as follows:

_italics_

=bold=

BOOKS AND THEIR MAKERS DURING THE MIDDLE AGES

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.

THE FIRST PRINTER-PUBLISHERS OF FRANCE.--THE LATER ESTIENNES AND

CASAUBON.--CAXTON AND THE INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING INTO ENGLAND.--THE

KOBERGERS OF NUREMBERG.--FROBEN OF BASEL.--ERASMUS AND HIS

BOOKS.--LUTHER AS AN AUTHOR.--PLANTIN OF ANTWERP.--THE ELZEVIRS OF

LEYDEN AND AMSTERDAM.--ITALY: PRIVILEGES AND CENSORSHIP.--GERMANY:

PRIVILEGES, AND BOOK-TRADE REGULATIONS.--FRANCE: PRIVILEGES,

CENSORSHIP, AND LEGISLATION.--ENGLAND: PRIVILEGES, MONOPOLIES,

CENSORSHIP, AND LEGISLATION.--CONCLUSION. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE

CONCEPTION OF LITERARY PROPERTY.--INDEX TO THE WORK.

BOOKS AND THEIR MAKERS

DURING THE MIDDLE AGES

A STUDY OF THE CONDITIONS OF THE PRODUCTION AND

DISTRIBUTION OF LITERATURE FROM THE FALL OF

THE ROMAN EMPIRE TO THE CLOSE OF

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

GEO. HAVEN PUTNAM, A.M.

AUTHOR OF “AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLIC IN ANCIENT TIMES”

“THE QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT,” ETC.

VOLUME I.

476-1600

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

NEW YORK LONDON

27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND

The Knickerbocker Press

1896

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

_Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London_

The Knickerbocker Press, New Rochelle, N. Y.

TO THE MEMORY OF MY WIFE WHO SERVED ME FOR YEARS BOTH AS EYESIGHT AND

AS WRITING-ARM AND BY WHOSE HAND THE FOLLOWING PAGES WERE IN LARGE PART

TRANSCRIBED THIS WORK IS DEDICATED

[Illustration]

PREFACE.

IN a previous volume I undertook to describe, or rather to indicate,

the methods of the production and distribution of the earlier

literature of the world and to sketch out the relations which existed

between the author and his public during the ages known, rather

vaguely, as classic, that is, in the periods of literary activity in

Greece and ancient Rome. The materials for such a record were at best

but fragmentary, and it was doubtless the case that, in a first attempt

of the kind, I failed to get before me not a few of the references

which are scattered through the works of classic writers, and which

in any fairly complete presentation of the subject ought to have been

utilised.

Imperfect as my study was, I felt, however, that I was justified in

basing upon it certain general conclusions. It seems evident that in

Greece, even during the period of the highest literary development,

there did not exist anything that could be described as a system for

the production and distribution of books. The number of copies of any

work of Greek literature available for the use of the general public

must at any time have been exceedingly limited, and it would probably

be safe to say that, before the development of Alexandria as a centre

of book-production, no such thing as a reading public existed. The few

manuscripts that had been produced, and that possessed any measure

of authenticity, were contained in royal archives or in such a State

collection as that of Athens, or in the studies of the small group of

scholarly teachers whose fame was sometimes in part due to the fact

that they were owners of books.

The contemporary writers, including the authors of works treasured

as masterpieces through all later ages, were not only content to do

their work without any thought of material compensation, but appear

to have been strangely oblivious of what would seem to us to be the

ordinary practical measures for the preservation and circulation of

their productions. The only reward for which they could look was fame

with their own generation, and even for this it would seem that some

effective distribution of their compositions was essential. The thought

of preserving their work for the appreciation of future generations

seems to have weighed with them but little. The ambition or ideal of

the author appears to have been satisfied when his composition received

in his own immediate community the honour of dramatic presentation

or of public recitation. If his fellow citizens had accorded the

approbation of the laurel crown, the approval of the outer world or of

future generations was a matter of trifling importance. The fact that,

notwithstanding this lack of ambition or incentive on the part of the

authors, the non-existence of a reading public, and the consequent

absence of any adequate machinery for the production and distribution

of books, the knowledge of the “laurel-crowned” works, both of the

earlier poets and of contemporary writers, should have been so widely

diffused throughout the Greek community, is evidence that the public

interest in dramatic performances and in the recitations of public

reciters (“rhapsodists”) made, for an active-minded people like the

Greeks, a very effective substitute for the literary enlightenment

given to later generations by means of the written or the printed word.

A systematised method of book-production we find first in Alexandria,

where it had been developed, if not originally instituted, by the

intelligent and all-powerful interest of the Ptolemaic kings, but

there appears to be no evidence that, even in Alexandria, which for

the greater part of two centuries was the great book-producing mart of

the world, was there any practice of compensation for authors. It is

to be borne in mind, however, in this connection, that, with hardly

an exception, the manuscripts produced in Alexandria were copies of

books accepted as classics, the works of writers long since dead. For

the editors of what might be called the Alexandrian editions of Greek

classics, compensation was provided in the form of _honoraria_ from the

treasury of the Museum library or of salaried positions in the Museum

Academy.

In Rome, during the Augustan period, we find record of a well organised

body of publishers utilising connections with Athens, with Asia Minor,

and with Alexandria, for the purpose of importing Greek manuscripts and

of collecting trained Greek scribes, and carrying on an active trade

in the distribution of books not only with the neighbouring cities of

Italy, of Spain, and of Gaul, but with such far off corners of the

empire as the Roman towns in Britain. There are not a few references in

the literature of this period, and particularly in the productions of

society writers like Martial and Horace, to the relations of authors

with their publishers and to the business interests retained by authors

in the sale of their books. This Augustan age presents, in fact, the

first example in the history of publishing, of a body of literature,

produced by contemporary writers, being manifolded and distributed

under an effective publishing and bookselling machinery, so as to

reach an extensive and widely separated reading public. When the Roman

gentleman in his villa near Massilia (in Gaul), Colonia (on the Rhine),

or Eboracum (in far off Britain), is able to order through the imperial

post copies of the latest ode of Horace or satire of Martial, we have

the beginnings of an effective publishing organisation. It is at

this time also that we first find record of the names of noteworthy

publishers, the bookmakers in Athens and in Alexandria having left

their names unrecorded. It is the period of Atticus, of Tryphon, and of

the Sosii. Concerning the matter of the arrangements with the authors,

or the extent of any compensation secured by them, the information is

at best but scanty and often confusing. It seems evident, however,

that, apart from the aid afforded by imperial favour, by the interest

of some provincial ruler of literary tendencies, or by the bounty of a

wealthy private patron like Mæcenas, the rewards of literary producers

were both scanty and precarious.

With the downfall of the Roman Empire, the organised book-trade of

Rome and of the great cities of the Roman provinces came to an end.

This trade had of necessity been dependent upon an effective system of

communication and of transportation, a system which required for its

maintenance the well built and thoroughly guarded roads of the empire;

while it also called for the existence of a wealthy and cultivated

leisure class, a class which during the periods of civil war and of

barbaric invasions rapidly disappeared. Long before the reign of the

last of the Roman emperors, original literary production had in great

part ceased and the trade in the books of an earlier period had been

materially curtailed; and by 476, when Augustulus was driven out by the

triumphant Odovacar, the literary activities of the capital were very

nearly at a close.

In the following study I have taken up the account of the production

of books in Europe from the time of the downfall of the Empire of the

West. I have endeavoured to show by what means, after the disappearance

of the civilisation of the Roman State, were preserved the fragments of

classic literature that have remained for the use of modern readers,

and to what agencies were due the maintenance, throughout the

confusion and social disorganisation of the early Middle Ages, of any

intellectual interest or literary activities.

I find such agencies supplied in the first place by the scribes

of the Roman Church, the organisation of which had replaced as a

central civilising influence the power of the lost Roman Empire. The

_scriptoria_ of the monasteries rendered the service formerly given by

the copyists of the book-shops or of the country houses, while their

_armaria_, or book-chests, had to fill the place of the destroyed or

scattered libraries of the Roman cities or the Roman villas. The work

of the scribes was now directed not by an Augustus, a Mæcenas, or

an Atticus, but by a Cassiodorus, a Benedict, or a Gregory, and the

incentive to literary labour was no longer the laurel crown of the

circus, the favours of a patron, or the _honoraria_ of the publishers,

but the glory of God and the service of the Church. Upon these agencies

depended the existence of literature during the seven long centuries

between the fall of the Western Empire and the beginning of the work of

the universities, and, in fact, for many years after the foundation of

the universities of Bologna and of Paris, the book-production of the

monasteries continued to be of material importance in connection with

the preservation of literature.

In a study of the organisation of the earliest book-trade of Bologna

and Paris and of the method under which the text-books for the

universities were produced and supplied, I have attempted to indicate

the part played by the universities in the history of literary

production. In a later chapter I have presented sketches of one or two

of the more noteworthy of the manuscript dealers, who carried on, for

a couple of centuries prior to the invention of printing, the business

of supplying books to the increasing circles of readers outside of the

universities.

In 1450 comes the invention of printing, which in revolutionising the

methods of distributing intellectual productions, exercised such a

complex and far-reaching influence on the thought and on the history

of mankind. I have described with some detail the careers of certain

of the earlier printer-publishers of Europe, and have been interested

in noting how important and distinctive were the services rendered by

these publishers to scholarship and to literature.

The concluding chapter sketches the growth of the conception of the

idea of property in literature, and the gradual development and

extension throughout the States of Europe of the system of privileges

which formed the precedent and the foundations for the modern system of

the law of literature and of interstate copyright legislation. I have

taken pleasure in pointing out that the responsibility for securing

this preliminary recognition of property in literary productions

and of the property rights of literary producers rested with the

printer-publishers, and that the shaping of the beginnings of a

who bore the chief burden of the contest, which extended over several

centuries, for the freedom of the press from the burdensome censorship

of Church and State, a censorship which in certain communities appeared

likely for a time to throttle literary production altogether. I can

but think that the historians of literature and the students of the

social and political conditions on which literary production is so

largely dependent, have failed to do full justice to men like Aldus,

the Estiennes, Froben, Koberger, and Plantin, who fought so sturdily

against the pretensions of pope, bishop, or monarch to stand between

the printing-press and the people and to decide what should and what

should not be printed.

I have thought it worth while, in giving the business history of these

old-time publishers, to present the lists of their more characteristic

publications,--lists which seem to me to possess pertinence and value

as giving an impression of the nature and the range of the literary

interests of the time and of the particular community in which the

publisher was working, while they are also, of course, indicative

of the personal characteristics of the publisher himself. When we

find Aldus in Venice devoting his presses almost exclusively to

classical literature, and in the classics, so largely to Greek; while

in Basel and Nuremberg the early printers are producing the works

of the Church Fathers, in Paris the first Estienne (in the face of

the fierce opposition of the theologians) is multiplying editions of

the Scriptures, and in London, Caxton and his immediate successors,

disregarding both the literature of the old world and the writings

of the Church, are presenting to the English public a long series of

romances and _fabliaux_,--we may understand that we have to do not with

a series of accidental publishing selections, but with the results of

a definite purpose and policy on the part of capable and observing

men, a policy which gives an indication of the nature and interests

of their several communities, while it characterises also the aims

and the individual ideals of the publishers themselves. Some of these

earlier publishers were willing simply to produce the books for which

the people about them were asking, while others, with a higher ambition

and a larger feeling of responsibility, proposed themselves to educate

a book-reading and a book-buying public, and thus to create the demand

for the higher literature which their presses were prepared to supply.

These earlier printer-publishers took upon themselves, in fact, the

responsibility which had previously rested with the universities,

and, back of the universities, with the monasteries, of selecting the

literature that was to be utilised by the community and through which

the intellectual life of the generation was to be in large part shaped

and directed. They thus took their place in the series of literary

agencies by means of which the world’s literature had been selected,

preserved, and rendered available for mankind, a chain which included

such diverse and widely separated links as the Ptolemies of Alexandria,

the princely patrons of Rome, Cassiodorus, S. Benedict and his

monasteries, the schools of Charlemagne and Alcuin, the universities of

Bologna and Paris, and, finally, the printer-publishers who utilised

the great discovery of Gutenberg.

The fact that, during both the manuscript period and the first two

centuries of printing, the writings of Cicero were reproduced far more

largely than those of any other of the Roman writers, is interesting

as indicating a distinct literary preference on the part of successive

generations both of producers and of readers. The pre-eminence of

Aristotle in the lists of the mediæval issues of the Greek classics

has, I judge, a different significance. Aristotle stood for a school

of philosophy, the teachings of which had in the main been accepted by

the Church, and copies of his writings were required for the use of

students. The continued demand for the works of Cicero depended upon no

such adventitious aid, and can, therefore, fairly be credited to their

perennial value as literature.

My readers will bear in mind that I have not undertaken any such

impossible task as a history of literary production, or even a record

of all the factors which controlled literary production. I have

attempted simply to present a study of certain conditions in the

history of the manifolding and distribution of books by which the

production and effectiveness of literature was very largely influenced

and determined, and under which the conception of such a thing as

literary property gradually developed. The recognition of a just

requirement or of an existing injustice must, of course, always precede

the framing of legislation to meet the requirement or to remedy the

injustice, and the conception of literary property and a recognition

of the inherent rights (and of the existing wrongs) of literary

producers had to be arrived at before copyright legislation could be

secured.

I have specified as the limit of the present treatise the close of the

seventeenth century, although I have found it convenient in certain

chapters to make reference to events of a somewhat later date. It has

been my purpose, however, to present a study of the conditions of

literary production in Europe prior to copyright law, and the copyright

legislation of Europe may be said to begin with the English statute of

1710, known as the Act of Queen Anne.

I trust that in the near future some competent authority may find

himself interested in preparing a history of copyright law, and I shall

be well pleased if the present volumes may be accepted by the historian

of copyright and by the students of the subject as forming a suitable

general introduction to such a history.

[Illustration]

CONTENTS.

PAGE

PREFACE v

BIBLIOGRAPHY xvii

PART I.--BOOKS IN MANUSCRIPT.

INTRODUCTORY 3

I.--THE MAKING OF BOOKS IN THE MONASTERIES 16

Cassiodorus and S. Benedict 17

The Earlier Monkish Scribes 30

The Ecclesiastical Schools and the Clerics as Scribes 36

Terms Used for Scribe-Work 42

S. Columba, the Apostle to Caledonia 45

Nuns as Scribes 51

Monkish Chroniclers 55

The Work of the Scriptorium 61

The Influence of the Scriptorium 81

The Literary Monks of England 90

The Earlier Monastery Schools 106

The Benedictines of the Continent 122

The Libraries of the Monasteries and Their Arrangements for the

Exchange of Books 133

II.--SOME LIBRARIES OF THE MANUSCRIPT PERIOD 146

Public Libraries 161

Collections by Individuals 170

III.--THE MAKING OF BOOKS IN THE EARLY UNIVERSITIES 178

IV.--THE BOOK-TRADE IN THE MANUSCRIPT PERIOD 225

Italy 225

Books in Spain 253

The Manuscript Trade in France 255

Manuscript Dealers in Germany 276

The Manuscript Period in England 302

PART II.--THE EARLIER PRINTED BOOKS.

I.--THE RENAISSANCE AS THE FORERUNNER OF THE PRINTING-PRESS 317

II.--THE INVENTION OF PRINTING AND THE WORK OF THE FIRST

PRINTERS OF HOLLAND AND GERMANY 348

III.--THE PRINTER-PUBLISHERS OF ITALY, 1464-1600 403

Aldus Manutius 417

The Successors of Aldus 440

Milan 445

Lucca and Foligno 455

Florence 456

Genoa 458

[Illustration]

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PART I.

BOOKS IN MANUSCRIPT.

[Illustration]

PART I.

BOOKS IN MANUSCRIPT.

INTRODUCTORY.

IN the year 410, Rome was captured and sacked by Alaric the Visigoth.

At this time, S. Jerome, in his cell at Bethlehem, was labouring

at his _Commentaries on Ezekiel_, while it was the downfall of the

imperial city which incited S. Augustine to begin the composition

of his greatest work, _The City of God_: “the greatest city of the

world has fallen in ruin, but the City of God abideth forever.” The

treatise required for its completion twenty-two books. “The influence

of France and of the printing-press,” remarks Hodgkin, “have combined

to make impossible the production of another _De Civitate Dei_. The

multiplicity of authors compels the controversialist who would now

obtain a hearing, to speak promptly and concisely. The examples of

Pascal and of Voltaire teach him that he must speak with point and

vivacity.”[1] S. Augustine was probably the most voluminous writer of

the earlier Christian centuries. He was the author of no less than

232 books, in addition to many tractates or homilies and innumerable

epistles.[2] His literary work was continued even during the siege

of Hippo by the Vandals, and he died in Hippo (in 431), in his

seventy-sixth year, while the siege was still in progress.

In regard to the lack of historical records of the time, I will again

quote Hodgkin, who, in his monumental work on _Italy and Her Invaders_,

has himself done so much to make good the deficiency: “It is perhaps

not surprising that in Italy itself there should have been during the

fifth century an utter absence of the instinct which leads men to

record for the benefit of posterity events which are going on around

them. When history was making itself at such breathless speed and in

such terrible fashion, the leisure, the inclination, the presence of

mind necessary for writing history might well be wanting. He who would

under happier auspices have filled up the interval between the bath and

the tennis court by reclining on the couch in the winter portico of

his villa and there languidly dictating to his slave the true story of

the abdication of Avitus, or the death of Anthemius, was himself now a

slave keeping sheep in the wilderness under a Numidian sun or shrinking

under the blows of one of the rough soldiers of Gaiseric.”

Hodgkin finds it more difficult to understand “why the learned and

leisurely provincial of Greece, whose country for nearly a century and

a half (395-539) escaped the horrors of hostile invasion, and who had

to inspire them the grandest literary traditions in the world, should

have left unwritten the story of the downfall of Rome.”

“The fact seems to be,” he goes on to say, “that at this time all that

was left of literary instinct and historiographic power in the world

had concentrated itself on theological (we cannot call it religious)

controversy, and what tons of worthless material the ecclesiastical

historians and controversialists of the time have left us!... Blind,

most of them, to the meaning of the mighty drama which was being

enacted on the stage of the world ... they have left us scarcely a

hint as to the inner history of the vast revolution which settled

the Teuton in the lands of the Latin.... One man alone gives us that

detailed information concerning the thoughts, characters, persons of

the actors in the great drama which can make the dry bones of the

chronologer live. This is Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius, man of

letters, imperial functionary, country gentleman, and bishop, who,

notwithstanding much manifest weakness of character and a sort of

epigrammatic dulness of style, is still the most interesting literary

figure of the fifth century.”[3]

Sidonius was born at Lyons, A.D. 430. His father, grandfather, and

great-grandfather had all served as Prætorian Prefects in Gaul, in

which province his own long life was passed. In 472, Sidonius became

Bishop of Arverni, and from that time, as he rather naïvely tells us,

he gave up (as unbecoming ecclesiastical responsibilities) the writing

of compositions “based on pagan models.” In 475, the year before the

last of the western emperors, Augustulus, was driven from Rome by

Odovacar,[4] the Herulian, the Visigoth king, Euric, became master

of Auvergne. Sidonius was at first banished, but in 479 was restored

to his diocese, and continued his work there as bishop and as writer

until his death, ten years later. At the time of the death of Sidonius,

Cassiodorus, who was, during the succeeding eighty years, to have part

in so much of the eventful history of Italy, was ten years old. There

are some points of similarity in the careers of the two men. Both were

of noble family and both began their active work as officials, one of

the Empire, the other of the Gothic kingdom of Italy, while both also

became ecclesiastics. Each saw his country taken possession of by a

foreign invader, and for the purpose of serving his countrymen, (with

which purpose may very possibly have been combined some motives of

personal ambition,) each was able and willing to make himself useful

to the new ruler and thus to retain official position and influence;

and finally, both had literary facility and ambition, and, holding in

regard the works of the great classic writers, endeavoured to model

upon these works the style of their own voluminous compositions.

The political work of Cassiodorus was of course, however, much the

more noteworthy and important, as Sidonius could hardly claim to be

considered a statesman.

In their work as authors, the compositions of Sidonius are, as I judge

from the description, to be ranked higher in literary quality than

those of the later writer, and to have been more successful also in

following the style of classic models. The style of Cassiodorus is

described as both verbose and grandiloquent. In his ecclesiastical,

or rather his monastic work, taken up after half a century of active

political life, it was the fortune of Cassiodorus, as will be described

later, to exercise an influence which continued for centuries, and

which was possibly more far-reaching than was exerted by the career of

any abbot or bishop in the later history of the Church.

The careers of both Sidonius and Cassiodorus have a special interest

because the two men held rather an exceptional position between the

life of the old empire which they survived and that of the new Europe

of the Middle Ages, the beginning of which they lived to see.

Of the writings of Sidonius, Hodgkin speaks as follows: “A careful

perusal of the three volumes of the Letters and Poems of Sidonius

(written between the years 455 and 490) reveals to us the fact that

in Gaul the air still teems with intellectual life, that authors were

still writing, amanuenses transcribing, friends complimenting or

criticising, and all the cares and pleasures of literature filling the

minds of large classes of men just as when no empires were sinking

and no strange nationalities suddenly arising around them.... A

long list of forgotten philosophers did exist in that age, and their

works, produced in lavish abundance, seem to have had no lack of eager

students.”

As an example of the literary interests of a country gentleman in Gaul,

Hodgkin quotes a letter of Sidonius, written about 469: “Here too [_i.

e._ in a country house in Gaul] were books in plenty; you might fancy

you were looking at the breast-high book-shelves (_plantei_) of the

grammarians, or the wedge-shaped cases (_cunei_) of the Athenæum, or

the well-filled cupboards (_armaria_) of the booksellers. I observed,

however, that if one found a manuscript beside the chair of one of the

ladies of the house, it was sure to be on a religious subject, while

those which lay by the seats of the fathers of the family were full of

the loftiest strains of Latin eloquence. In making this distinction, I

do not forget that there are some writings of equal literary excellence

in both branches, that Augustine may be paired off against Varro, and

Prudentius against Horace. Among these books, the works of Origen, the

Adamantine, were frequently perused by readers holding our faith. I

cannot understand why some of our arch-divines should stigmatise him as

a dangerous and heterodox author.”[5]

In summing up the work of Sidonius, Hodgkin points out the noteworthy

opportunities for making a literary reputation which were missed by

him. “He might have been the Herodotus of mediæval Europe. He could

have given authentic pictures of the laws and customs of the Goths,

Franks, and Burgundians ... a full portraiture of the great apostle

of the Germanic races, Ulfilas, and the secret causes of his and

their devotion to the Arian form of Christianity; and he could have

recorded the Gothic equivalents of the mythological tales in the

Scandinavian Edda and the story of the old Runes and their relation to

the Mœso-Gothic alphabet. All these details and a hundred more, full

of interest to science, to art, to literature, Sidonius might have

preserved for us had his mind been as open as was that of Herodotus to

the manifold impressions made by picturesque and strange nationalities.”

It was doubtless fortunate for the literary reputation of Sidonius

that his father-in-law, Avitus, came to be emperor. The reign of

Avitus was short, but he had time to give to his brilliant son-in-law

a position as Court poet or poet-laureate, while it was probably due

to the imperial influence that the Senate decreed the erection (during

the lifetime of the poet) of the brass statue of Sidonius, which was

placed between the two libraries of Trajan. These libraries, containing

the one Greek and the other Latin authors, stood between the column of

Trajan and the Basilica Ulpia. Sidonius describes his statue as follows:

_Cum meis poni statuam perennem_

_Nerva Trajanus titulis videret,_

_Inter auctores utriusque fixam Bibliothecæ._

(Sidonius, _Ex._, ix., 16.)

_Nil vatum prodest adjectum laudibus illud_

_Ulpia quod rutilat porticus ære meo._

(Sidonius, _Carm._, viii., 7, 8.)[6]

(Since Nerva Trajanus decreed the erection of a permanent statue, which

is inscribed with the records of my honours, and is placed between the

authors of the two libraries.

The fact that the entrance to the Ulpian Library is aglow with the

bronze of my statue, can add nothing to the laurels of other poets.)

In the opinion of Hodgkin, the books in these two collections in the

Bibliotheca Ulpia may very well have been of more importance to later

generations than those of the library of Alexandria. The books from

Trajan’s libraries were, according to Vopiscus, transported in all or

in part to the Baths of Diocletian. Hodgkin understands that, between

300 and 450, they were restored to their original home.[7]

In the year 537 A.D., the rule of the Goths in Italy, which had been

established by Theodoric in 493, was practically brought to a close by

the victories of Belisarius, the general of the Eastern Empire, and,

thirty years later, the destruction of the Gothic State was completed

by the invasion of the Lombards. With the Lombards in possession of

Northern Italy, and the Vandals, in a series of campaigns against

the armies from Constantinople, overrunning the southern portions

of the peninsula, the social organisation of the country must have

been almost destroyed, and the civilisation which had survived from

the old Empire, while never entirely disappearing, was doubtless in

large part submerged. A certain continuity of Roman rule and of Roman

intellectual influence was, however, preserved through the growing

power of the Church, which was already claiming the inheritance of the

Empire, and which, as early as 590, under the lead of Pope Gregory the

Great, succeeded in making good its claims to ecclesiastical supremacy

throughout the larger part of Europe. In its control of the consciences

of rulers, the Church frequently, in fact, secured a domination that

was by no means limited to things spiritual.

The history of books in manuscript and of the production and

distribution of literature in Europe from the beginning of the work

of S. Benedict to the time when the printing-press of Gutenberg

revolutionised the methods of book-making, a period covering about nine

centuries, may be divided into three stages. During the first, the

responsibility for the preservation of the old-time literature and for

keeping alive some continuity of intellectual life, rested solely with

the monasteries, and the work of multiplying and of distributing such

books as had survived was carried on by the monks, and by them only.

During the second stage, the older universities, the organisation of

which had gradually been developed from schools (themselves chiefly of

monastic origin), became centres of intellectual activity and shared

with the monasteries the work of producing books. The books emanating

from the university scribes were, however, for the most part restricted

to a few special classes, classes which had, as a rule, not been

produced in the monasteries, and, as will be noted in a later chapter,

the university booksellers (_stationarii_ or _librarii_) were in the

earlier periods not permitted to engage in any general distribution of

books. With the third stage of manuscript literature, book-producing

and bookselling machinery came into existence in the towns, and the

knowledge of reading being no longer confined to the _cleric_ or the

_magister_, books were prepared for the use of the larger circles of

the community, and to meet the requirements of such circles were, to an

extent increasing with each generation, written in the tongue of the

people.

The first period begins with the foundation by S. Benedict, in 529, of

the monastery of Monte Cassino, and by Cassiodorus, in 531, of that of

Vivaria or Viviers, and continues until the last decade of the twelfth

century, when we find the earliest record of an organised book-business

in the universities of Bologna and Paris. The beginning of literary

work in the universities, to which I refer as indicating a second

stage, did not, however, bring to an end, and, in fact, for a time

hardly lessened, the production of books in the monasteries.

The third stage of book-production in Europe may be said to begin

with the first years of the fifteenth century, when the manuscript

trade of Venice and Florence became important, when the book-men

or publishers of Paris, outside of the university, had developed a

business in the collecting, manifolding, and selling of manuscripts,

and when manuscripts first find place in the schedules of the goods

sold at the fairs of Frankfort and Nordlingen. The costliness of the

skilled labour required for the production of manuscripts, and the many

obstacles and difficulties in the way of their distribution, caused the

development of the book-trade to proceed but slowly. It was the case,

nevertheless, and particularly in Germany, that a very considerable

demand for literature of certain classes had been developed among the

people before the close of the manuscript period, a demand which was

being met with texts produced in constantly increasing quantities and

at steadily lessening cost. When the printing-press arrived it found,

therefore, already in existence a wide-spread literary interest and a

popular demand for books, a demand which, with the immediate cheapening

of books, was, of course, enormously increased. The production of

books in manuscript came to a close, not with the invention of the

printing-press in 1450, but with the time when printing had become

generally introduced, about twenty-five years later.

It was in the monasteries that were preserved such fragments of the

classic literature as had escaped the general devastation of Italy; and

it was to the labours of the monks of the West, and particularly to

the labours of the monks of S. Benedict, that was due the preservation

for the Middle Ages and for succeeding generations of the remembrance

and the influence of the literature of classic times. For a period of

more than six centuries, the safety of the literary heritage of Europe,

one may say of the world, depended upon the scribes of a few dozen

scattered monasteries.

The Order of S. Benedict was instituted in 529, and the monastery of

Monte Cassino, near Naples, founded by him in the same year, exercised

for centuries an influence of distinctive importance upon the literary

interests of the Church, of Italy, and of the world. This monastery

(which still exists) is not far from Subiaco, the spot chosen by S.

Benedict for his first retreat. It was in the monastery of Subiaco

(founded many years afterwards) that was done, nearly a thousand

years later, the first printing in Italy. The Rule of S. Benedict,

comprising the regulations for the government of his Order, contained

a specific instruction that a certain number of hours in each day were

to be devoted to labour in the _scriptorium_. The monks who were not

yet competent to work as scribes were to be instructed by the others.

Scribe work was to be accepted in place of an equal number of hours

given to manual labour out-of-doors, while the skilled scribes, whose

work was of special importance as instructors or in the _scriptorium_,

were to be freed from a certain portion of their devotional exercises

or observances. The monasteries of the Benedictines were for centuries

more numerous, more wealthy, and more influential than those of any

other Order, and this provision of a Rule which directed the actions,

controlled the daily lives, and inspired the purposes of thousands

of earnest workers among the monks of successive generations, must

have exercised a most noteworthy influence on the history of literary

production in Europe. It is not too much to say that it was S. Benedict

who provided the “copy” which a thousand years later was to supply the

presses of Gutenberg, Aldus, Froben, and Stephanus.

I have not been able to find in the narratives of the life of S.

Benedict any record showing the origin of his interest in literature,

an interest which was certainly exceptional for an ecclesiastic of

the sixth century. It seems very probable, however, that Benedict’s

association with Cassiodorus had not a little to do with the

literary impetus given to the work of the Benedictines. Cassiodorus,

who, as Chancellor of King Theodoric, had taken an active part in

the government of the Gothic kingdom, passed the last thirty years

of his life first as a monk and later as abbot in the monastery of

Vivaria, or Viviers, in Calabria, which he had himself founded in

531. Cassiodorus is generally classed by the Church chronicles as a

Benedictine, and his monastery is referred to by Montalembert as the

second of the Benedictine foundations. Hodgkin points out, however,

that the Rule adopted by the monks of Viviers, or prescribed for them

by its founder, was not that of S. Benedict, but was drawn from the

writings of Cassian, the founder of western monachism, who had died a

century before.[8] The two Rules were, however, fully in accord with

each other in spirit, while for the idea of using the convent as a

place of literary toil and theological training, Benedict was indebted

to Cassiodorus. “At a very early date in the history of their Order,”

says Hodgkin, “the Benedictines, influenced probably by the example of

the monastery of Vivaria, commenced that long series of services to the

cause of literature which they have never wholly intermitted. Instead

of accepting the ... formula from which some scholars have contended

that Cassiodorus was a Benedictine, we should perhaps be rather

justified in maintaining that Benedict, or at least his immediate

followers, were Cassiodorians.”[9]

It was the fortune of Cassiodorus to serve as a connecting link between

the world of classic Rome and that of the Middle Ages. He saw the

direction and control of the community pass from the monarchs and

the leaders of armies to the Church and to the monasteries, and he

was himself an active agent in helping to bring about such transfer.

Born in 479, only three years after the overthrow of the last of

the Emperors of the West, he grew up under the rule of Odovacar,

the Herulian. While still a youth, he had seen the Herulian kingdom

destroyed by Theodoric, and he had lived to mourn over the ruins of

the realm founded by the Goth, which he had himself helped to govern.

He saw his beloved Italy taken possession of by the armies of Narses

and Belisarius from the east, and a little later overrun by the

undisciplined hordes of the Lombards from the north. The first great

schism between the Eastern and the Western Churches began during his

boyhood and terminated before, as Abbot of Vivaria, it became necessary

for him to take a decided part on the one side or the other. A Greek by

ancestry, a Roman by training, the experience of Cassiodorus included

work and achievements as statesman, orator, scholar, author, and

ecclesiastic. He had witnessed the extinction of the Roman Senate,

of which both his father and himself had been members; the practical

abolition of the Consulate, an honour to which he had also attained;

and the close of the schools of philosophy in Athens, with the

doctrines of which he, almost alone in his generation of Italians, was

familiar. He had done much to maintain in the Court and throughout

the kingdom of Theodoric, such standard of scholarly interests and

of literary appreciation as was practicable with the resources

available; and, in like manner, he brought with him to his monastery

a scholarly enthusiasm for classic literature, of which literature he

may not unnaturally have felt himself to be almost the sole surviving

representative. It is difficult to over-estimate the extent of the

service rendered by Cassiodorus to literature and to later generations

in initiating the training of monks as scribes, and in putting into

their hands for their first work in the _scriptorium_ the masterpieces

of classic literature. He belonged both to the world of ancient Rome,

which he had outlived, and to that of the Middle Ages, the thought and

work of which he helped to shape. With the close of the official career

of Cassiodorus as Secretary of State for the Gothic kingdom of Italy,

the history of ancient Europe may, for the purpose of my narrative,

be considered to end. With the consecration of Cassiodorus, as Abbot

of the monastery of Vivaria, (which took place about 550, when he was

seventy years of age), and the instituting by him of the first European

_scriptorium_, I may begin the record of the production of books during

the Middle Ages.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I.

THE MAKING OF BOOKS IN THE MONASTERIES.

I HAVE used for the heading of the chapter the term “the making of

books” rather than “literary work,” because the service rendered by

the earlier monastic scribes (a service of essential importance for

the intellectual life of the world) consisted chiefly, as has been

indicated, not in the production of original literature, but in the

reproduction and preservation of the literature that had been inherited

from earlier writers,--writers whose works had been accepted as

classics. While it was the case that in this literary labour it was the

Benedictines who for centuries rendered the most important service, the

first of the European monasteries in which such labour was carried on

as a part of the prescribed routine or rule of the monastic life was

that of Vivaria or Viviers, founded by Cassiodorus, which was never

formally associated with the Benedictine Order, and which had, in

fact, adopted, in place of the Benedictine Rule, a rule founded on the

teachings of Cassian, who had died early in the fifth century. The work

done, under the instructions of Cassiodorus, by the scribes of Viviers,

served as an incentive and an example for Monte Cassino, the monastery

founded by S. Benedict, while the _scriptorium_ instituted in Monte

Cassino was accepted as a model by the long series of later Benedictine

monasteries which during the succeeding seven centuries became centres

of literary activity.

After the destruction of the Gothic kingdom of Italy, it was with

these monasteries that rested the intellectual future of Europe.

Mankind was, for the time at least, to be directed and influenced,

not so much by royal chancellors or prætorian guards, as by the monks

preaching from their cells and by the monastic scribes distributing the

world’s literature from the _scriptorium_.

=Cassiodorus and S. Benedict.=--In the literary history of Europe, the

part played by Cassiodorus was so important and the service rendered

by him was so distinctive, that it seems pertinent for the purposes

of this story to present in some detail the record of his life and

work. As is indicated by the name by which he is known in history,

Cassiodorus was of Greek lineage, his family belonging to the Greek

city of Scyllacium in Southern Italy. His full name was Magnus Aurelius

Cassiodorus Senator. His ancestors had, for several generations,

held under the successive rulers of Italy positions of trust and

honour, and the family ranked with the patricians. The father of the

author and abbot, usually referred to as Cassiodorus the third, was

finance minister under Odovacar, and when the Herulian King had been

overcome and slain by Theodoric, the minister was skilful enough to

make himself necessary to the Gothic conqueror, from whom he received

various important posts, and by whom he was finally appointed Prætorian

Prefect. The Cassiodorus with whom this study is concerned, known as

Cassiodorus the fourth, was born about 479, or three years after the

Gothic conquest.[10] He began his official career as early as twenty,

and it was while holding, at this age, the position of Consilarius,

that he brought himself to the favourable attention of Theodoric by

means of an eloquent panegyric spoken in praise of that monarch.

Theodoric appointed him Quæstor, an office which made him the

mouth-piece of the sovereign. To the Quæstor belonged the duty of

conducting the official correspondence of the Court, of receiving

ambassadors, and of replying in fitting harangues to their addresses,

so that he was at once foreign secretary and Court orator. He also had

the responsibility of giving a final revision to all the laws which

received the signature of the King, and of seeing that these were

properly worded and did not conflict with previous enactments.[11]

Theodoric, who had received what little education he possessed from

Greek instructors in Constantinople, was said never to have mastered

Latin, and he doubtless found the services of his eloquent and

scholarly minister very convenient.

It was the contention of Theodoric that his kingdom represented the

natural continuation of the Roman Empire, and that he was himself

the legitimate successor of the emperors. He took as his official

designation not _Rex Italiæ_, but _Gothorum et Romanorum Rex_. This

contention was fully upheld by the Quæstor, who felt himself to be the

representative at once of the official authority of the new kingdom and

of the literary prestige of the old Empire, and who did what was in

his power to preserve in Ravenna the classical traditions of old Rome

and to make the Court the centre of literary influence and activity.

Theodoric and his Goths had accepted the creed of the Arians, but the

influence of his minister, who was a Christian of the Athanasian or

Trinitarian faith, was sufficient to preserve a spirit of toleration

throughout the kingdom. It is to Cassiodorus that is due what was

probably the first official utterance of toleration that Europe had

known, an utterance that in later European history was to be so largely

set at nought: _Religionem imperare non possumus, quia nemo cogitur

ut credat invitus_.[12] [We must not enforce (acceptance of) a creed,

since no one can think or can believe against his will.] It is not

one of the least of the services of Cassiodorus that he should at

this early date, when the bitterness of controversy was active in

the Church, have been able to set a standard of wise and Christian

toleration. His action had a good effect later in his own monastery

and in the monasteries whose work was modelled on that of Viviers. It

was only in monastic centres like Viviers and Monte Cassino, where

Christian influence and educational work were held to be of more

importance than theological issues, that literary activity became

possible, and it was only in such monasteries that labour was expended

in preserving the writings of “pagan” (that is, of classic) authors.

In 514, Cassiodorus became Consul, a title which, while no longer

standing for any authority, was still held to be one of the highest

honours, and in 515 he received the title of patrician. In 519, he

published, under the title of _Chronicon_, an abstract of history from

the deluge to the year 519. Hodgkin points out that in his record

of events of the fifth century, a very large measure of favourable,

or rather of partial attention is given to the annals of the Goths.

Shortly after the publication of the _Chronicon_, Cassiodorus began

work on his _History of the Goths_, which was finally completed in

twelve books, and the chief purpose of which was to vindicate the

claims of the Goths to rank among the historic nations of antiquity,

by bringing them into connection with Greece and Rome, and by making

the origin of Gothic history Roman. This history of Cassiodorus

is known only by tradition, not a single copy of it having been

preserved. The system of scribe-work in the monasteries, to which we

owe nearly all of the old-world literature that has come down to us,

did not prove adequate to preserve the greatest work of its founder. A

treatise on the origin of the Goths by a later writer named Jordæus,

concerning whom little is known, is avowedly based upon the history of

Cassiodorus, and is the principal source of information concerning the

character of this history.

At the time of the death of Theodoric, Cassiodorus was holding the

important place of Master of the Offices, a post which combined many

of the duties that would to-day be discharged by a Home Secretary,

a Secretary of War, and a Postmaster-General. Under the regency of

Queen Amalasuentha, Cassiodorus received his final official honour in

his appointment as Prætorian Prefect. In the collection of letters

published under the title of _Variæ_, Cassiodorus gives accounts of

the work done by him in these various official stations, and these

letters present vivid and interesting pictures of the methods of the

administration of the kingdom, and also throw light upon many of its

relations with foreign powers.

Cassiodorus continued to do service as minister for the successors

of Amalasuentha, Athalaric, Theodadad, and Witigis, and retired from

official responsibility only a few months before the capture of Ravenna

by Belisarius, in 540, brought the Ostrogothic monarchy to an end. At

the time of the entry of the Greek army, Cassiodorus, now a veteran of

sixty years, was in retirement in his monastery in Bruttii (the modern

Calabria). It was doubtless because of the absence of Cassiodorus

from the capital, that no mention is made of him in the narrative of

the campaign written by Procopius the historian, who, as secretary

to Belisarius, entered Rome with the latter after the victories over

Witigis.

Cassiodorus must have possessed very exceptional adaptability of

character, not to say elasticity of conscience, to be able, during

a period extending over nearly half a century, to retain the favour

of so many of the successive rulers of Italy and apparently to make

his services necessary to each one of them. It is certain, however,

that Italy benefited largely by the fact that through the various

contests and changes of monarchs, it had been possible to preserve a

certain continuity of executive policy and of administrative methods.

The further fact that the “perpetual” or at least the continuing

minister was at once a Greek and a Roman, and not only a statesman but

a scholar, and that he had succeeded in preserving through all the

devastations of civil wars and of foreign invasions a great collection

of classic books and a persistent (even though restricted) interest in

classic literature, exercised an enormous influence upon the culture

of Europe for centuries to come. The career of Cassiodorus had, as we

have seen, been varied and honourable. It was, however, his exceptional

fortune to be able to render the most important and the most

distinctive service of his life after his life’s work had apparently

been completed.

Shortly after his withdrawal to Bruttii, and when, as said, he was

already more than sixty years old, he retired to his monastery,

Vivaria, and during the thirty-six years of activity that remained for

him, he not only completed a number of important literary productions

of his own, but he organised the literary work of the monastery

_scriptorium_, which served as a model for that of Monte Cassino, and,

through Monte Cassino, for the long series of Benedictine monasteries

that came into existence throughout Europe. It was the hand of

Cassiodorus which gave the literary impetus to the Benedictine Order,

and it was from his magnificent collection of manuscripts, rescued from

the ruins of the libraries of Italy, that was supplied material for the

pens of thousands of monastic scribes.

After his retirement to Bruttii, Cassiodorus founded a second

monastery, known as Mons Castellius, the work of which was planned

for a more austere class of hermits than those who had associated

themselves together at Vivaria. Of both monasteries he retained the

practical control, and, according to Trithemius (whose opinion is

accepted by Montalembert) of Vivaria he became abbot.[13] Hodgkin,

while himself citing the extract from Trithemius, thinks it possible

that Cassiodorus never formally became abbot, but says that the

direction and supervision of the work of the two monasteries rested in

any case in his hands.[14]

His treatise on the Nature of the Soul (_De Anima_) was probably

completed just before he began his monastic life, and was itself an

evidence of the change in the direction of his thoughts and of his

ideals. Cassiodorus had now done with politics. As Hodgkin points out,

the dream of his life had been to build up an independent Italian

State, strong with the strength of the Goths, and wise with the wisdom

of the Romans. It is evident that he also felt himself charged with

a special responsibility in preserving for later generations the

literature and the learning of the classic world. With the destruction

of the Gothic kingdom, that dream had been scattered to the winds. The

only institutions which retained a continuity of organisation were

those belonging to the Church, and it was through the Church that must

be preserved for later generations the thought and the scholarship

of antiquity. It was with a full understanding of this change in the

nature of his responsibilities, that Cassiodorus decided to consecrate

his old age to religious labours and to a work even more important than

any of his political achievements: the preservation, by the pens of

monastic copyists, of the Christian Scriptures, of the writings of the

early Fathers, and of the great works of classical antiquity.

Some years before his retirement from Ravenna, Cassiodorus had

endeavoured to induce Pope Agapetus (535-536) to found a school of

theology and Christian literature at Rome, modelled on the plan of the

schools of Alexandria and Nisibis. The confusion consequent on the

invasion of Italy by Belisarius had prevented the fulfilment of this

scheme. The aged statesman was now, however, planning to accomplish, by

means of his two monasteries, a similar educational work.

Hodgkin summarises the aims of earlier monasticism, (aims which were

most fully carried out in the monasteries of the East and of Africa,)

as follows: In the earlier days of monasticism, men like the hermits

of the Thebaïd had thought of little else but mortifying the flesh

by vigils and fastings, and withdrew from all human voices in order

to enjoy an ecstatic communion with their Maker. The life in common

of monks like those of Nitria and Lerinum had chastened some of the

extravagances of these lonely enthusiasts, while still keeping in

view their main purpose. S. Jerome, in his cell at Bethlehem, had

shown what great results might be obtained for the Church of all ages

from the patient literary toil of one religious recluse. And finally,

S. Benedict, in that Rule of his, which was for centuries to be the

code of monastic Christendom, had sanctified work as one of the most

effectual preservatives of the bodily and spiritual health of the

ascetic.

“It was the glory of Cassiodorus,” says Hodgkin,[15] “that he first

and pre-eminently insisted on the expediency of including intellectual

labour in the sphere of monastic duties.... This thought [may we not

say this divinely suggested thought?] in the mind of Cassiodorus was

one of infinite importance to the human race. Here, on the one hand,

were the vast armies of monks, whom both the unsettled state of the

times and the religious ideas of the age were driving irresistibly

into the cloister; and who, when immured there with only theology

to occupy their minds, became, as the great cities of the East knew

only too well, preachers of discord and mad fanaticism. Here, on

the other hand, were the accumulated stores of two thousand years

of literature, sacred and profane, the writings of Hebrew prophets,

Greek philosophers, Latin rhetoricians, perishing for want of men

with leisure to transcribe them. The luxurious Roman noble with his

slave amanuenses multiplying copies of his favourite authors for his

own and his friends’ libraries, was an almost extinct existence. With

every movement of barbarian troops over Italy, whether those barbarians

called themselves the men of Witigis or of Justinian, some towns were

being sacked, some precious manuscripts were perishing from the world.

Cassiodorus perceived that the boundless, the often wearisome leisure

of the convent might be profitably spent in arresting this work of

denudation, in preserving for future ages the intellectual treasure

which must otherwise inevitably have perished. That this was one of the

great services rendered by the monasteries to the human race, the most

superficial student has learned, but not all who have learned it know

that the monks’ first decided impulse in this direction was derived

from Cassiodorus.”

The German biographer of Cassiodorus, Franz, uses similar language:

_Das Verdienst, zuerst die Pflege der Wissenschaften in den Bereich der

Aufgaben des Klosterlichen Lebens aufgenommen zu haben, kann man mit

vollem Rechte für Cassiodorus in Anspruch nehmen._[16]

In the account given by Cassiodorus of the _scriptorium_ of his

monastery, he describes, with an enthusiasm which ought to have been

contagious, the noble work done there by the _antiquarius_[17]: “He

may fill his mind with the Scriptures while copying the sayings of

the Lord; with his fingers he gives life to men and arms against the

wiles of the devil. As the _antiquarius_ copies the words of Christ,

so many wounds does he inflict upon Satan. What he writes in his cell

will be scattered far and wide over distant provinces. Man multiplies

the words of Heaven, and, if I may dare so to speak, the three fingers

of his right hand are made to express the utterances of the Holy

Trinity. The fast travelling reed writes down the holy words and thus

avenges the malice of the Wicked One, who caused a reed to be used to

smite the head of the Saviour.” The passage here quoted refers only to

the work of the copyists of the Christian Scriptures. There are other

references, however, in the same work to indicate that the activity of

the _scriptorium_ was not confined to these, but was also employed on

secular literature.[18]

The devotion and application of the monks produced in the course

of years a class of scribes whose work in the transcribing and

illuminating of manuscripts far surpassed in perfection and beauty the

productions of the copyists of classic Rome. In the monasteries north

of the Alps the work of the scribes was, for the earlier centuries,

devoted principally to the production of copies of missals and other

books of devotion and of portions of the Scriptures. In Italy, however,

where classical culture never entirely disappeared, attention continued

to be given to the transcription of the Latin texts of which any

manuscripts had been preserved, and it was these transcripts of the

monks of Cassiodorus and S. Benedict that gave the “copy” for the first

editions of Cicero, Virgil, and the other classic writers, produced by

the earliest printers of Germany and Italy.

Cassiodorus took pains to emphasise the importance of binding the

sacred codices in covers worthy of the beauty of their contents,

following the example of the householder in the parable, who provided

wedding garments for all who came to the supper of his son. One

pattern volume had been prepared containing samples of various sorts

of covers, from which the scribe might choose that which pleased

him best. The abbot had also provided, to help the nightly toil of

the _scriptorium_, mechanical lamps of some ingenious construction

which appears to have made them self-trimming and to have insured a

continuously sufficient supply of oil. The labour of the scribes was

regulated on bright days by sun-dials, and on cloudy days and during

the hours of the night by water-clocks.

In order to set an example of literary diligence to his monks, and to

be able to sympathise with the difficulties of scribe work, Cassiodorus

himself transcribed (probably from the translation of Jerome) the

Psalter, the Prophets, and the Epistles. In addition to his labours as

a transcriber, Cassiodorus did a large amount of work as an original

author and as a compiler. According to the judgment of Migne, Franz,

and Hodgkin, the importance of his original writings varied very

considerably, and is by no means to be estimated in proportion to their

bulk. One of the most considerable of these was his great commentary on

the Psalms, in the text of which he was able to discover refutations

of all the heresies that had thus far racked the Church, together with

the rudiments of all the sciences which had become known to the world.

This was followed by a commentary on the Epistles and by a history of

the Church, the latter having been undertaken in co-operation with his

friend Epiphanius. This history, known as the _Historia Tripartita_, is

said to have had a larger circulation than any other of the author’s

works. A fourth work, which gives more of the personality of the

writer, was an educational treatise entitled, _Institutiones Divinarum

et Humanarum Lectionum_. In the first part of this treatise, which

bore the title of _De Institutione Divinarum Litterarum_, the author

gives an account of the organisation of his _scriptorium_. In the

second division of the treatise, entitled _De Artibus ac Disciplinis

Liberalium Litterarum_, the author states his view of the relative

importance of the four liberal arts, Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic,

and Mathematics, the last named of which he divides into the four

“disciplines” of Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. Geometry

and Astronomy occupy together one page, Arithmetic and Music each

two pages, Grammar two pages, Rhetoric six pages, while to Logic are

devoted eighteen pages. The final production of his industrious life

was a treatise called _De Orthographia_, which was completed when its

author was ninety-three years old, and which was planned expressly to

further the work of the monastic scribes in collecting and correcting

the codices of ancient books.

The death of Cassiodorus occurred in 575, in the ninety-sixth year of

his age. An inheritor of the traditions of imperial Rome, Cassiodorus

had been able, in a career extending over nearly a century, to be

of signal service to his country under a series of foreign rulers.

He had succeeded, through his personal influence with these rulers,

in maintaining for Italy an organisation based on Roman precedents,

and in preserving for the society of the capital an interest in the

preservation and cultivation of classic literature. When the political

institutions of Italy had been shattered and the very existence of

civilisation was imperilled, he had transferred his services to the

Church, recognising, with the adaptability which was the special

characteristic of the man, that with the Church now rested the hopes

of any continuity of organised society, of intellectual interest,

of civilisation itself. He brought to the Church the advantage of

exceptional executive ability and of long official experience, and he

also brought a large measure of scholarship and an earnest zeal for

literary and educational interests. It is not too much to say that the

continuity of the thought and civilisation of the ancient world with

that of the Middle Ages was due, more than to any other one man, to the

life and labours of Cassiodorus.

=S. Benedict.=--The _Life of S. Benedict_, written by Pope Gregory I.

(who was born in 543, the year of the death of the saint), was for

centuries one of the most popular books circulated in Europe. The

full title is: _Vita et Miracula Venerabilis Benedicti conditoris,

vel Abbatis Monasterii; quod appellatur arcis Provinciæ Campaniæ_.

“The Life and Miracles of the Venerable Benedict, Founder and Abbot

of the Monastery which is called (of) the Citadel of the Province of

Campania.” This biography was, later, translated by Pope Zacharias from

the original Latin into Greek.

The great achievement of Benedict was the one literary product of his

life, the _Regula_. It comprises seventy-three short chapters, probably

not designed by the author for use beyond the bounds of the communities

under his own immediate supervision. It proved to be the thing for

which the world of religious and thoughtful men was then longing, a

complete code of monastic duty. By a strange parallelism, almost in

the very year in which the great Emperor Justinian was codifying the

results of seven centuries of Roman secular legislation for the benefit

of the judges and the statesmen of the new Europe, Benedict, on his

lonely mountain top, was composing his code for the regulation of the

daily life of the great civilisers of Europe for seven centuries to

come.

_The Rule of S. Benedict, Chap. 48. Concerning Daily Manual

Labour._--“Idleness is the enemy of the soul: hence brethren ought at

certain seasons to occupy themselves with manual labour, and again

at certain hours with holy reading. Between Easter and the calends

of October let them apply themselves to reading from the fourth hour

until the sixth hour.... From the calends of October to the beginning

of Lent, let them apply themselves to reading until the second hour.

During Lent, let them apply themselves to reading from morning until

the end of the third hour, and in these days of Lent, let them receive

a book apiece from the library and read it straight through. These

books are to be given out at the beginning of Lent.”[19]

This simple regulation, uttered by one the power and extent of whose

far-reaching influence have rarely been equalled among men, gave an

impulse to study that grew with the growth of the Order, and that

secured a continuity of intellectual light and life through the dark

ages, the results of which have endured to modern times. “Wherever a

Benedictine house arose, or a monastery of any one of the Orders, which

were but offshoots from the Benedictine tree, books were multiplied and

a library came into existence, small indeed at first, but increasing

year by year, till the wealthier houses had gathered together

collections of books that would do credit to a modern university.”[20]

It was, of course, the case that the injunction to read, an injunction

given at a time when books were very few and monks were becoming many,

carried with it an instruction for writing until copies of the books

prescribed should have been produced in sufficient numbers to meet

the requirements of the readers. The _armaria_ could be filled only

through steady and persistent work in the _scriptoria_, and, as we

shall see later, such scribe-work was accepted not only as a part of

the “manual labour” prescribed in the Rule, but not infrequently (in

the case of the skilled scribes) in lieu of some portion of the routine

of religious observance. Benedict would not have his monks limit

themselves to spiritual labour, to the action of the soul upon itself.

He made external labour, manual or literary, a strict obligation

of his Rule. The routine of the monastic day was to include seven

hours for manual labour, two hours for reading.[21] In later years,

the Benedictine monasteries became centres of instruction, supplying

the place, as far as was practicable, of the educational system of

the departed empire. As Order after Order was founded, there came to

be a steady development of interest in books and an ever increasing

care for their safe-keeping. S. Benedict had contented himself with

general directions for study; the Cluniacs prescribed the selection of

a special officer to take charge of the books, with an annual audit of

them and the assignment to each brother of a single volume.

“The followers of the Saint continued in their patient labour, praying,

digging, and transcribing. The _scriptoria_ of the Benedictine

monastery will multiply copies not only of missals and theological

treatises, but of the poems and histories of antiquity. Whatever may

have been the religious value or the religious dangers of the monastic

life, the historian at least is bound to express his gratitude to these

men, without whose life-long toil the great deeds and thoughts of

Greece and Rome might have been as completely lost to us as the wars

of the buried Lake-dwellers or the thoughts of the Palæolithic man. To

take an illustration from S. Benedict’s own beloved Subiaco, the work

of his disciples has been like one of the great aqueducts of the valley

of the Arno--sometimes carried underground for centuries through the

obscurity of unremembered existence, sometimes emerging to the daylight

and borne high upon the arcade of noble lives, but equally through all

its course, bearing the precious stream of ancient thought from the

far off hills of time into the humming and crowded cities of modern

civilisation.”[22]

=The Earlier Monkish Scribes.=--The literary work begun under the

direction of Cassiodorus in the _scriptorium_ of Viviers, and enjoined

by S. Benedict upon his monks at Monte Cassino, was, as said, carried

on by successive generations of monastic scribes during a number of

centuries. In fact, until the organisation of the older universities,

in the latter part of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth

century, the production and the reproduction of literature was

practically confined to the monasteries. “The monasteries,” says

Maitland, in his erudite and vivacious work, _The Dark Ages_, “were,

in those days of misrule and turbulence, beyond all price not only as

places where (it may be imperfectly, but better than elsewhere) God

was worshipped, ... but as central points whence agriculture was to

spread over bleak hills and barren downs and marshy plains, and deal

its bread to millions perishing with hunger and its pestilential train;

as repositories of the learning which then was, and as well-springs

for the learning which was to be; as nurseries of art and science,

giving to invention the stimulus, the means, and the reward; and

attracting to themselves every head that could devise and every hand

that could execute; as the nucleus of the city which in after days of

pride should crown its palaces and bulwarks with the towering cross

of its cathedral.”[23] It was fortunate for the literary future of

Europe that the Benedictine Order, which had charged itself with

literary responsibilities, should have secured almost from the outset

so considerable a development and should for centuries have remained

the greatest and most influential of all the monastic orders. At the

beginning of the ninth century, Charlemagne ordered an inquiry to

be made (as into a matter requiring careful research) as to whether

there were any monks who professed any other rule than the Rule of S.

Benedict; from which it would appear that such monks were considered as

rare and noteworthy exceptions.

While the two monasteries of Cassiodorus in Calabria and the

Benedictine foundation of Monte Cassino near Naples, were entitled to

first reference on the ground of the exceptional influence exercised by

them upon the literary development of the monks, they were by no means

the earliest of the western monastic foundations. This honour belongs,

according to Denk,[24] to the monastery of Ligugé, near Poitiers

(Monasterium Locociagense), founded in 360 A.D. by Bishop Martin of

Tours. The second in point of date, that of Marmoutier, near Tours, was

instituted by the same bishop a year or two later. Gaul proved to be

favourable ground for the spread of monastic tenets and influence, and

by the year 400 its foundations included over two thousand monks.

In 405, S. Honoratus, later Bishop of Arles, founded a monastery on

the island of Lerin, on the south coast of France, which became a most

important centre of learning and the mother of many monasteries.[25] In

the educational work carried on at Lerin, full consideration was given

to classic authors, such as Cicero, Virgil, and Xenophon, as well as to

the writings of the Fathers, and the scribes were kept busied in the

production of copies.

There must have been a certain amount of literary activity also in

the monasteries of the East and of Africa some time before any of the

monastic foundations in Europe had come into existence. The numerous

writings of the Fathers secured a wide circulation among the faithful,

a circulation which could have been possible only through the existence

of efficient staffs of skilled scribes and in connection with some

system of distribution between widely separated churches. Teachers like

Origen in Cæsarea, in the third century, and S. Jerome in Bethlehem and

S. Augustine in Hippo, in the fifth century, put forth long series of

writings, religious, philosophical, and polemical, with apparently an

assured confidence that these would reach wide circles of contemporary

readers, and that they would be preserved also for generations to

come. The sacking of Rome by Alaric (in 410) is used by S. Augustine

as a text or occasion for the publication of his beautiful conception

of “The City of God” in much the same manner as a preacher of later

times might have based a homily on the burning of Moscow or the fall

of Paris. The preacher of Hippo speaks as if he were addressing, not

the small circle of his African diocese, but mankind at large. And he

was, of course, justified in his faith, for the _De Civitate Dei_ was

the book which, next to the Scriptures, was most surely to be found in

every monastery in Europe, while when the work of the _scriptorium_ was

replaced by the printing-press, it became one of the most frequently

printed books in Europe. It appears from a reference by S. Augustine,

that nuns as well as monks were included among the African scribes.

In speaking of a nun named Melania, who, early in the fifth century,

founded a convent at Tagaste, near Carthage, he says that she had

“gained her living by transcribing manuscripts,” and mentions that she

wrote swiftly, beautifully, and correctly,--_scribebat et celeriter et

pulchre, citra errorem_.[26]

The scribe-work in the monasteries of Africa and of the East was,

therefore, sufficiently effective to preserve large portions of the

writings of the Fathers and of other early Christian teachers, and it

is, in fact, to the libraries of these Eastern monasteries that is

chiefly due the preservation of the long series of Greek texts which

found their way into Europe after the Renaissance. I have, however,

been able to find no record of the system pursued in the _scriptoria_

and _armaria_ of the Greek monasteries, and the narrative in the

present chapter is, therefore, confined to a sketch of the literary

undertakings of the monks of the West.

The earliest known example of the work of a European monk dates from

the year 517. The manuscript is in the Capitular library in Verona, and

has been reproduced in fac-simile by Ottley. The script is that known

as half uncial.[27] At the time this manuscript was being written,

Theodoric the Goth was ruling in Italy, with Cassiodorus as his

minister, and the monastery at Viviers was still to be founded.

S. Gregory the Great, who became Pope in 590, exercised an important

influence over the intellectual interests of his age. Gregory had been

charged with having destroyed the ancient monuments of Rome, with

having burned the Palatine library, including the writings of Cicero

and Livy, with having expelled the mathematicians from Rome, and with

having reprimanded Bishop Didier of Vienna (in Gaul) for teaching

grammar to children. Montalembert contends that these charges are all

slanders and that the Pope was not only an unequalled scholar, but that

he fully appreciated the importance for the intellectual development

of the Church, of a knowledge of the classics. Gregory is quoted

as saying, in substance: “The devils know well that the knowledge

of profane literature helps us to understand sacred literature. In

dissuading us from this study, they act as the Philistines did when

they interdicted the Israelites from making swords and lances, and

obliged that nation to come to them for the sharpening of their

axes and plough-shares.”[28] Gregory was himself the author of a

considerable series of writings, and, while his Latin was not that

of Cicero, he contributed (according to Ozanam) as much as did S.

Augustine to form the new Latin, what might be called the Christian

Latin, which was destined to become the language of the pulpit and the

school, and which forms the more immediate foundation of an important

group of the languages of modern Europe.

His works include the _Sacramentary_, which determined the language and

the form of the Liturgy, a series of _Dialogues_, and a _Pastoral_, in

which were collected a series of discourses planned to regulate the

vocation, life, and doctrines of the pastors. Of this book, Ozanam says

that it gave form and life to the entire hierarchical body. Then came

a series of commentaries on the Scriptures, followed by no less than

thirty-five books called _Moralia_, which were commentaries on the

Book of Job. His last important production was a series of _Epistles_,

comprised in thirteen volumes. He may possibly have been the most

voluminous author since classic times, and his books had the special

advantage of reaching circles of readers who were waiting for them,

and of being distributed through the already extended machinery of the

Church.

Another important ecclesiastical author of the same generation was

Isidore, Bishop of Seville. The Spanish Liturgy compiled by him and

known as the Mozarabic, survived the ruin of the Visigothic Church and

was thought by the great Cardinal Ximenes worthy of resuscitation.

Isidore also wrote a history of the Goths and a translation of the

philosophy of Aristotle. He may be considered as the first scholar

to introduce to Europe of the Middle Ages the teachings of Greek

philosophy. His greatest undertaking was, however, in the form of an

encyclopædia, treating, under the heading of the Seven Liberal Arts,

of all the learning that was within his reach. It was entitled _Twenty

Books of Etymologies_, or _The Origin of Things_, and included in its

volumes a number of classical fragments which, without the care of its

editor, would probably have perished forever.

Isidore is the first Christian who arranged and edited for Christians

the literature of antiquity. He died in 636, but the incentive that

he had given to learning and to literature survived him in a numerous

group of disciples.[29] Among Isidore’s pupils was King Sisebut, whose

interest in scholarship caused him to endow liberally a number of the

Spanish monasteries.

=The Ecclesiastical Schools and the Clerics as Scribes.=--The so-called

secular clergy were, during the earlier Middle Ages, employed very

largely in connection with the business of the government, being in

fact in many regions the only class of the population possessing

the education necessary for the preparation of documents and the

preservation of records. In Italy, towards the close of the thirteenth

century, there came into existence the class of _notaries_ who took

charge of a good many business details which in Germany and France

were cared for by the clergy. Under the Merovingian kings, there were

government officials and judiciary officials who were laymen. During

the rule of the Carlovingians, however, the writing work of the chapel

and of the government offices was consolidated, falling into the

hands of the clerics, or secular clergy. For a number of centuries,

outside of Italy, it was very exceptional for any documents or for any

correspondence to be written by other than the clergy. Every citizen

of importance was obliged to have his special _clericus_, _clerc_,

or _pfaff_, who took care of his correspondence and accounts. A post

of this kind was in fact the surest means for an ambitious priest

to secure in the first place, a footing in the world, and later,

ecclesiastical positions and income. The secretary or chancellor of

the king, was almost always, as a matter of routine, sooner or later

rewarded with a bishopric.

Charlemagne took from among the poor boys in the court school, one, who

was described as _optimus dictator et scriptor_, and having trained him

as chaplain and secretary, provided for him later a bishopric.[30]

The use of the word _dictator_ is to be noted as indicating the

mediæval employment of the term in connection with writing. _Dictare_

seems, from an early date, to have been used in the first place to

indicate instruction in the art of writing, while later it is employed

constantly to specify the direct work of the writer or composer, in

the sense in which one would say to-day that he had indited a letter.

With the same general sense, the term _dictamen_ is used for the thing

indited or for a composition. Hroswitha, the nun of Gandersheim (whose

poems later had the honour of forming the material for one of the first

books printed in South Germany), used the term _dictare_ continually

for activity in authorship. Wattenbach quotes from the _Legenda Aurea_

of S. Ambrose the words _libros quos dictabat propria manu scribebat_

(he wrote out with his own hand the books that he composed).

As long as any portions of the Roman Empire held together and the

classic culture still preserved its influence, a considerable class

of men secured their support through work as scribes. In Italy this

class seems never entirely to have disappeared. Some small circles of

the people retained, even after the land had been many times overrun

by invaders, some interest in the classics, and were prepared to pay

for more or less trustworthy manuscript copies of these. In Italy also

there appears to have been a much larger use of writing in connection

with trade and commerce than obtained throughout the rest of Europe

until a much later time. While in Germany and France such scholarship

as remained was restricted almost entirely to the ecclesiastics and

to the monastery centres, in Italy the Church, during the earlier

period, took a smaller interest in scholarship. There came into

existence, however, a group of literary laymen, who were in a measure a

continuation of or a succession to the old Latin grammarians, and who

maintained some of their interest in classic culture and preserved,

however imperfectly, some remnants of classic knowledge.

Wattenbach quotes the words of Gerbert,[31] _Nosti Quot Scriptores

in Urbibus aut in Agris Italiæ Passim Habeantur_ (you know how many

writers there are here and there throughout the cities and fields of

Italy).

The schools established under the rule of the Lombards helped to

preserve the art of writing and to widen the range of its experts.

By the time, therefore, of the establishment of the earlier Italian

universities, an organised class of scribes was already in existence

whose skill could be utilised for university work, and, as will be

shown more specifically in a later chapter, the universities took these

scribes under their jurisdiction and extended over them the protection

of university privilege.[32]

In France, after the time of Charlemagne, it was the case, as we have

seen, that those who had any educational or literary ambitions were

almost necessarily obliged to become ecclesiastics, as it was only in

monasteries and in the training schools attached to the monasteries,

that the necessary education could be secured. As one result of this,

the number of ecclesiastics increased much more rapidly than the number

of places in which they could be occupied or of foundations upon which

they could be supported. Priests for whom no priestly work was found

became, therefore, what might be called lay-clerics, and were employed

in connection with the work of the courts, or of magistrates, or as

scribes and secretaries.

In this manner there came into the hands of these lay-clerics, not only

the management of correspondence, personal, official, and diplomatic,

but a very large proportion of the direction of the affairs with which

such correspondence had to do. As far, therefore, as the clerical

personality represented ecclesiastical purposes and aims, the influence

of ecclesiasticism must have been very much greater during the age

in which the art of writing was confined to the Church than at any

earlier or any later period of the world’s history. Such influence was,

however, probably less in fact than in appearance, as it seems to have

been the case that a very large proportion of such clerics were priests

in name only, and that their interests, purposes, and ambitions were

outside of the Church, and were not necessarily even in sympathy with

the development of the control of the Church over the affairs of the

world.

Wattenbach is of opinion that the scribes of this period secured a

larger return for their work than came to any other class of labourers

or officials. Among many other examples, he gives a quotation from

Dümmler concerning a Lombard cleric of Rotland, named Anselm, who, in

1050, prided himself upon the number of books he had written, and said:

_Multos oportet libros scriberes, ut inde precium sumeres, quo a tuis

lenonibus te redimeres_.[33] (You ought to write many books in order to

obtain money with which to buy yourself off from those having claims

upon you.)

Notker wrote in 1020 to the Bishop of Sitten, who wanted to obtain some

books: _Si vultis ea, sumtibus enim indigent, mittite plures pergamenas

et scribentibus præmia et suscipietis eorum exempla_.[34] (If you want

these books, you must send more parchment and also moneys for the

scribes. You will then receive your copies.)

In the twelfth century, the monks of Tegernsee, under the Abbot Rupert,

were working on the production of the books for the library of some

noble lady.[35] The Brother Liaupold, in Mallerstorf, spoke of having

“earned much money through his pen.” This happened in the last quarter

of the twelfth century. The lines quoted by Wattenbach were found upon

a manuscript bearing Liaupold’s name.[36]

For the libraries of their own monasteries, the monks worked without

direct pay, and it was only later, as the ambition of the librarians

increased or as the business of distributing copies of manuscripts

became more important, that the monasteries found it worth while to

employ, either in place of or in addition to their own monks, scribes

from outside. In Salzburg, Pastor Peter Grillinger paid, in 1435, to

the scribes of the neighbouring monasteries three hundred gulden for

the production of a Bible (probably an illuminated copy), and presented

this to the library of the Cathedral.[37]

In the accounts of the monastery at Aldersbach, Rockinger finds

entries, in 1304, of payments for _scriptores librorum_.

The well-known manuscript of Henri Bohic was written in 1374 by a monk

of Corbie, who, according to the cash record of his monastery, received

for his work, in addition to the parchment and other materials, the sum

of thirty-six solidos. For the monastery at St. Gall, Mathias Burer,

of Lindau, who was chaplain in Meminger, and who died in 1485, wrote

twenty-four volumes.

In 1470, the same Burer gave to the monastery, in exchange for a

benefice, his entire library. The record does not specify how many

volumes the library comprised. In 1350, a certain Constantine was

arrested in Erfurt as a heretic. Special efforts were made to save him

from death or banishment on the ground that he was a skilled scribe.

The record does not appear to show whether or not this plea was

successful.

Conrad de Mure speaks of women working as scribes during the

latter part of the thirteenth century. It is probable that these

women were nuns, but it is not so specified. In the _Histoire de

l’Imprimerie_[38] reference is made to a woman who appears to have

acted as an independent scribe--that is to say, not to have been

attached to the university or to the guild of booksellers.

On the tax list of Paris, in 1292, are recorded twenty-four

_escrivains_.[39] It is probable that the actual number was much

greater, as the scribes who were ecclesiastics were exempt from

taxation, and their names, therefore, would not have appeared upon the

list.

In 1460, a certain Ducret, _clerc à Dijon_, received from the Duke for

his work as scribe, a groschen for each sheet, which is referred to as

the _prix accoustumé_.[40]

In 1401, Peter of Bacharach, described as a citizen of Mainz, wrote out

for the Court at Eltville (Elfeld) a _Schwabenspiegel_. This is to be

noted because it is an example of scribe work being done by one who was

not a cleric. Burkard Zink tells us that in 1420, being in Augsburg, he

took unto himself a wife. She had nothing and he had nothing, but she

earned money with her spinning-wheel and he with his pen. In the first

week he wrote _vier sextern des grossen papiers, karta regal_, and the

ecclesiastics for whom the work was being done were so well pleased

with it that they gave him for two sexterns four groschen. His week’s

work brought him sixteen groschen, or forty cents.[41] Clara Hatzlern,

a citizen of Augsburg, is recorded as having written for money between

the years 1452 and 1476. A copy of a _Schwabenspiegel_ transcribed by

her was contained in the collection at Lambach.[42]

The examples named indicate what was, in any case, probably the only

class of scribe work done outside of the monasteries and outside of

the universities or before the university period, by the few laymen

who were able to write. Their labour was devoted exclusively to the

production of books in the tongue of the people; if work in Latin were

required, it was still necessary (at least until the institution in the

thirteenth century of university scribes) to apply to the monasteries.

With the development of literature in Italy, during the following

century, there came many complaints concerning the lack of educated

scribes competent to manifold the works. These complaints, as well as

to the lack of writers as concerning the ignorance and carelessness

shown in their work, continued as late as the time of the Humanists,

and are repeated by Petrarch and Boccaccio.

=Terms Used for Scribe-Work.=--With the Greeks, the term γραμματεύς

denoted frequently a “magistrate.” The term ταχυγράφοι corresponded as

nearly as might be with our “stenographer.” For this the Romans used

the form _notarius_. The scribes whose work was devoted to books were

called, under the later empire, _bibliographoi_ or καλλιγράφοι. The

name καλλιγράφος was applied to the Emperor, Theodosius II. Montfaucon

gives a list of the names of the Greek scribes who were known to

him.[43] The oldest dates from 759, and the next in order from 890 A.D.

The oldest Plato manuscript in the Bodleian library was written in 896

for the Diaconus Arethas of Patras. Arethas was, later, Archbishop of

Cæsarea, and had also had written for him a Euclid, and in 914 a group

of theological works. His scribes were the _calligraph_ John, a cleric

named Stephen, and a _notarius_ whose name is not given.[44]

The terms _librarius_, _scriptor_, and _antiquarius_ were also used for

scribes making copies of books, while _notarius_ was more likely to

denote a clerk whose work was limited to the preparation of documents.

Alcuin speaks of employing _notarii_.

In the inscription in a manuscript by Engelberg of the twelfth

century, we find the lines: _Hic Augustini liber est atque Frowini;

alter dictavit, alter scribendo notavit_.[45] This indicates that

Augustine was the author, while Frowin served as scribe. A manuscript

of the sixth century, contained in the Chapter-House library in Verona,

bears the signature _Antiquarius Eulalius_. A manuscript of Orosius,

written in the seventh century, is inscribed: _Confectus codex in

statione Viliaric Antiquarii_. (A codex completed in the writing-stall

of Viliaric the scribe.) This scribe was probably a Goth, as among the

signatures in a Ravenna document, containing the list of the clerics

of the Gothic Church, occurs the name _Viljaric bokareis_.[46] Otto

von Freising says of his _notarius_, Ragewin: _Qui hanc historiam

ex ore nostro subnotavit_ (who wrote down this story from my lips);

and Gunther, in 1212, complains of a headache which he had brought

upon himself _ut verba inventa notario vix possim exprimere_, that

is in the attempt to shape the words that he was dictating to his

clerks. It was in Italy that the _notarii_ first became of sufficient

importance to organise themselves into a profession and to undertake

the training, for other work, of young scribes, and it was from Italy

that the scribes were gradually distributed throughout Europe. Their

most important employment for some time in Italy was in connection

with the work of the Church, and particularly in the preparation and

manifolding of the documents sent out from Rome. The special script

that was adopted for the work of the Papal office was known as _scripta

notaria_.[47]

According to Wattenbach, the use of papyrus for the documents of the

Church, and even for the Papal Bulls, extended as late as the tenth

century. Sickel speaks of a Bull of Benedict VIII., of 1022, as the

latest known to him which is written on papyrus.

The term _chartularii_, or _cartularii_, was applied to clerics

originally trained for the work of the Church, but who occasionally

devoted themselves also to the manifolding of books. In the memoir of

Arnest, who was the first Archbishop of Prague, it was related that he

always kept three _cartularii_ at work in the transcribing of books.

In the twelfth century, Ordericus speaks of the monks who write books

both as _antiquarii_ and as _librarii_.[48] Richard de Bury uses the

term in describing the renewal of old manuscripts, and restricts it to

scribes who possessed scholarly and critical knowledge. Petrarch makes

a similar application.[49] The term _dictare_ was, during the Middle

Ages, usually employed to describe the author’s work in composing, or

in composing and writing with his own hand, and bears but seldom the

meaning of “dictate.” The proper rendering would be more nearly our

word “indite.”

The term used during the earlier Middle Ages to denote the Scriptures

was not _Biblia_, but _Bibliotheca_. According to Maitland, the latter

term has its origin with S. Jerome, who, in offering to lend books to

his correspondent Florentius, writes: _... et quoniam largiente Domino,

multis sacræ bibliothecæ codicibus abundamus_, etc.[50] (And since

by the grace of God, we possess a great many codices of the sacred

writings.)

In nearly every instance in which reference is made to the complete

collection of the Scriptures, the term used is _Bibliotheca integra_,

or _Bibliotheca tota_. It was evidently the case that for centuries

after the acceptance of the Canon, the several divisions or books of

which the Bible consists were still frequently considered in the light

of separate and independent works, and were transcribed and circulated

separately.

=S. Columba, the Apostle to Caledonia.=--One of the earliest of the

monks of the North of Europe whose life was associated with scholarship

and intellectual influence, was S. Columba, the Apostle to Caledonia,

whose life covered the term between the years 521 and 597. Columba

belongs to the list of Irish saints, although the larger portion of

his life’s work was done in Scotland. Before he had reached the age

of twenty-five, he had presided over the foundation of no less than

twenty-seven monasteries in Ireland, the oldest of which were Darrow

and Derry; the latter, having long been the seat of a great Catholic

bishopric, became, under its modern name of Londonderry, the bulwark of

the Protestant contest against the efforts of the last of the Stuart

kings.

The texts have been preserved of a number of songs ascribed to Columba,

and, whether or not these verses were really the work of the monk,

the tradition that he was the first of the Irish poets doubtless has

foundation. In the time of Columba, the Irish monasteries already

possessed texts in greater quantity than could be found in the

monasteries of Scotland or England, but even in Ireland manuscripts

were rare and costly, and were preserved with jealous care in the

monastic libraries. Not only was very great value put upon these

volumes, but they were even supposed to possess the emotions and

the passions of living beings. Columba was himself a collector of

manuscripts, and his biography by O’Donnell attributes to him the

laborious feat of having transcribed with his own hand three hundred

copies of the Psalter. According to one of the stories, Columba

journeyed to Ossory in the south-west to visit a holy and very learned

recluse, a doctor of laws and philosophy, named Longarad. Columba asked

leave to examine the doctor’s books, and when the old man refused, the

monk burst out in an imprecation: “May thy books no longer do thee any

good, neither to them who come after thee, since thou takest occasion

by them to show thine inhospitality.” The curse was heard, and after

Longarad died, his books became unintelligible. An author of the ninth

century says that the books still existed, but that no man could read

them.[51]

Another story speaks of Columba’s undertaking, while visiting his

ancient master Finnian, to make a clandestine and hurried copy of the

abbot’s Psalter. He shut himself up at night in the church where the

Psalter was deposited, and the light needed for his nocturnal work

radiated from his left hand while he wrote with the right. A curious

wanderer, passing the church, was attracted by the singular light, and

looked in through the keyhole, and while his face was pressed against

the door his eye was suddenly torn out by a crane which was roosting in

the church. The wanderer went with his story to the abbot, and Finnian,

indignant at what he considered to be a theft, claimed from Columba

the copy which the monk had prepared, contending that a copy made

without permission ought to belong to the owner of the original, on

the ground that the transcript is the offspring of the original work.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, this is the first instance

which occurs in the history of European literature of a contention for

was referred to King Diarmid, or Dermott, in the palace at Tara. The

King’s judgment was given in a rustic phrase which has passed into a

proverb in Ireland: “To every cow her calf [_le gach boin a boinin_],

and consequently to every book its copy.”[52]

Columba protested loudly, and threatened the King with vengeance.

He retired to his own province chanting the song of trust, the text

of which has been preserved and which is sacred as one of the most

authentic relics of the ancient Irish tongue. He succeeded in arousing

against the King the great and powerful clans of his relatives and

friends, and after a fierce struggle the King was overcome and was

obliged to take refuge at Tara.

The manuscript which had been the object of this strange conflict of

venerated as a kind of national military and religious palladium. Under

the name of _Cathac_, or “the fighter,” the Latin Psalter said to have

been transcribed by Columba was enshrined in the base of a portable

altar as the national relic of the O’Donnell clan. It was preserved for

1300 years in the O’Donnell family, and as late as 1867, belonged to a

baronet of that name, who placed it on exhibition in the Museum of the

Royal Irish Academy. O’Curry prints a fac-simile of a fragment of the

manuscript, which he believes to be in the hand-writing of S. Columba,

and O’Curry and Reeves are in accord in the opinion that the famous

copy of the Gospels known as the “Book of Kells” is also the work of

the poet monk.[53]

After the successful issue of his contest with Finnian, S. Columba

journeyed through the land, making a kind of expiatory pilgrimage for

the purpose of atoning for the bloodshed of which he had been the

cause. He went for counsel to his soul-friend or confessor, S. Laisren.

The saint bade him as a penance leave Ireland and go and win souls

for Christ, as many as the lives that had been lost in the battle of

Culdreimhne, and never again look upon his native land. He finally took

up his abode in the desolate little island of Iona, on the coast of

Scotland. Other refugees were attracted to the island by the fame of

the saint, and there finally came into existence on the barren rocks a

great monastery which for centuries exercised throughout Britain and

North Europe a wide-spread influence in behalf of higher Christianity

and of intellectual life.

From Iona and its associated monasteries of Ireland and Scotland came

scholarly teachers to France and Germany whose influence was important

in giving a new direction to the work of later generations of monks.

Among the Continental monasteries in which was developed through such

influence a higher range of scholarly activity, were Luxeuil (in the

Vosges Mountains), Corbie (on the Somme), Bobbio (in Lombardy), and

St. Gall (in Switzerland). Wattenbach says that, notwithstanding their

scholarly knowledge, these Scotch monks were wild and careless in their

orthography. As an example of the barbarity of style and of form, he

quotes a manuscript of the date of 750 (written during the rule of

Pepin).

A number of years later, when, through the monks of Iona and under

the general direction of S. Columba, a number of monasteries had been

founded throughout Scotland, Columba had occasion to plead before the

Parliament of Drumceitt in behalf of the Bards, who might be called the

authors of their time, and with whom the poet monk had a keen personal

sympathy. The Bards of Ireland and Britain were at once the poets, the

genealogists, the historians, and the musicians of their countries, and

their position and their influence constituted a very characteristic

feature of Celtic life in the centuries between 500 and 800.

The Irish nation, always enamoured of its traditions, its fabulous

antiquity, and its local glories, regarded with ardent sympathy the men

who could clothe in a poetic dress all the law and the superstitions of

the past, and who could give literary form and force to the passions

and the interests of the present. The Bards were divided into three

orders: The _Fileas_, who sang of religion and war; the _Brehons_,

whose name is associated with the ancient laws of the country which

they versified and recited; and the _Seanachies_, who enshrined

in verse the national history and antiquities, and, above all, the

genealogies and the prerogatives of the ancient families who were

regarded as especially representative of the national and warlike

passions of the Irish people.[54]

The great influence and power enjoyed by the Bards had naturally

produced not a few abuses, and at the time of the Parliament of

Drumceitt their popularity had suffered and a violent opposition had

been raised against them. They were charged with insolence and with

greed, and they were particularly censured for having made a traffic

and a trade of their poetry, a charge which recalls some of the

criticisms of classic times.

The enmities raised against them had gathered so much force that King

Aedh found himself compelled to propose to the Assembly of Drumceitt

the abolition of the Order and the abandonment, or, as one authority

suggests, the massacre of the Bards. It would appear as if Ireland

had been suffering from an excess of poetic utterances and felt that

some revolutionary methods were required in order to restore to the

land quiet and peace. Montalembert is of opinion that the clergy did

not take any part in the prosecution of a class which they might, not

unnaturally, have regarded as their rivals. The Bards had, however, for

the most part kept in friendly relations with the bishops, monks, and

saints, and each monastery, like each prince and lord, possessed a Bard

(who in later years became an annalist) whose chief office it was to

sing the glory and record the history of the community.

Nevertheless, the Bards were certainly, as a body, a residuum of the

paganism that had been so recently supplanted, and it is probable

that the Church, if not joining in the onslaught upon their body, was

not prepared to take any active part in their defence. It seems as

if the decision of the Assembly, under the influence of King Aedh,

would certainly have been adverse to the poets. It was Columba, the

poet monk, who saved them. He, who was born a poet and who, to the

last day of his life, remained a poet, interceded for the Bards with

such eloquence and earnestness that his plea had to be listened to.

He claimed that the general exile of the poets would be the death of

a venerated antiquity and of a literature which was a part of the

country’s life. “The bright corn must not be burned,” he said, “because

of the weeds that mingled with it.”[55] Influenced by his impassioned

plea, the Assembly yielded at length, under the condition that the

number of Bards should be henceforth limited and that the Order should

be placed under certain rules to be framed by Columba himself. Thus

poetry was to continue to exist, but it was not to be allowed to

oppress the community with its redundance.

It is doubtless the case that one reason for the exceptional fame

of Columba and the large amount of legendary detail that has been

preserved of his achievements, was this great service that he had

rendered to the poets of his time. They showed their gratitude by

exalting his glory in numberless songs and recitals, and it is chiefly

from these that has been made up the narrative of the saint’s life.

Another result of this intervention on the part of the monk for the

protection of the poets was a still closer association between the

Church and the literary spirit of the age. All antagonism between the

religious ideal and the influence of the poetry of the Bards seems from

this time to have disappeared. The songs of the Bards were no longer

in any measure devoted to the cause of paganism, but music and poetry

became closely identified with the ideals of the Church and with the

work of the monasteries. The Church had preserved the poets, and poetry

became the faithful handmaid of the Church.

=Nuns as Scribes.=--One of the oldest rules relating to convents, that

of S. Cæsarius of Arles, instituted in the fifth century and brought a

hundred years later to Poitiers by S. Radegonde, required that all the

sisters should be able to read and that they should devote two hours a

day to study--_Omnes bonæ litteras discant_, etc.[56]

While the educational work in the convent schools was for the most part

not carried on beyond what might be called elementary classes, there

were not a few examples of abbesses whose scholastic attainments would

rival those of the abbots. Montalembert speaks of convents founded,

under the auspices of S. Jerome, by S. Paula and her daughter, and

is not prepared to admit that in any essential detail the history of

S. Paula is legendary. He reminds us that Hebrew and Greek were the

daily study of these two admirable women, who advised S. Jerome in

all his difficulties and cheered him under all discouragements.[57]

Montalembert is probably on firmer ground when he speaks of the

scholarly attainments of S. Aura, the friend of S. Eloi, and of the

nun Bertile, whose learned lectures on Holy Scripture drew to Chelles

in the sixth century a large concourse of auditors of both sexes. S.

Radegonde, known by her profound studies of the three Fathers, S.

Gregory, S. Basle, and S. Athanasius, is commemorated by Fortunatus, as

is also Gertrude, Abbess of Nivelle, who sent messengers to Rome and to

Ireland to buy books.[58] I do not find a record of the date of these

book-buying expeditions of the abbess.

In Germany, the list of the learned nuns includes S. Lioba, who was

said to be so eager for knowledge that she never left her books except

for divine service. She was a pupil of S. Boniface, and to her was

due the framing of the system of instruction instituted after the

mission of S. Boniface in North Germany. Hroswitha, the illustrious

nun of Gandersheim (who died in 997), has been referred to more than

once. Hroswitha’s dramatic poetry has been preserved for nearly eight

centuries, and has had the honour of being reprinted as late as 1857.

Her writings included a history in verse of Otho the Great, and the

lives of several saints. Her most important works, however, were sacred

dramas composed by her to be acted by the nuns of the convent. M. Magin

points out that these dramas show an intimate acquaintance with the

authors of classic antiquity.[59] Curiously enough, there was, nearly a

century earlier, another Hroswitha in Gandersheim, who was the daughter

of the Duke of Saxony, and who became the fourth abbess of the convent.

She composed a much esteemed treatise on logic.[60]

Cecilia, daughter of William the Conqueror, who was Abbess of Kucaen,

won fame for her school in grammar, philosophy, and in poetry.

Herrad of Landsberg, who governed forty-six noble nuns at Mont St.

Odile in Alsace, composed, under the name of _Hortus Delictarum_,

a sort of cosmology, which is recorded as the first attempt at a

scientific encyclopædia, and which is noted for the breadth of its

ideas on painting, philosophy, mythology, and history. This was

issued shortly after the death of William the Conqueror.[61] To the

Abbess of Eichstadt, who died about 1120, Germany is indebted for the

preservation of the _Heldenbuch_, a treasury of heroic stories.[62]

The principal and most constant occupation of the learned Benedictine

nuns was the transcription of manuscripts. It is difficult to estimate

too highly the extent of the services rendered by these feminine hands

to learning and to history throughout the Middle Ages. They brought to

the work a dexterity, an elegance of attainment, and an assiduity which

the monks themselves could not attain, and some of the most beautiful

specimens of caligraphy which have been preserved from the Middle

Ages are the work of the nuns. The devotion of nuns as scribes began

indeed with the early ages of Christian times. Eusebius speaks of young

maidens whom the learned men of his time employed as copyists.[63] In

the fifth century, S. Melania the younger distinguished herself by the

beauty and exactness of her transcripts.[64] In the sixth century, the

nuns of the convent at Arles, incited by the example of the Abbess of

St. Césaire, acquired a no less brilliant reputation. In the seventh

century, S. Gertrude, who was learned in the Holy Scriptures, sent

to Rome to ask not only for works of the highest Christian poetry,

but also for teachers capable of instructing her nuns to comprehend

certain allegories.[65] In the eighth century, S. Boniface begged the

abbess to write out for him in golden letters the Epistle of S. Peter.

Cæsarius of Arles gave instructions that in the convents which had been

founded by him and the supervision of which rested with his sister,

the “Virgins of Christ” should give their time between their prayers

and psalms to the reading and to the writing of holy works.[66] In

the eighth century the nuns of Maseyk, in Holland, busied themselves

in a similar fashion, not only in writing, but particularly in

illuminating (_etiam scribendo atque pingendo_), in which they became

proficients.[67]

In the ninth century, the Benedictine nuns of Eck on the Meuse,

and especially the two abbesses Harlinde and Renilde, attained

great celebrity by their caligraphic work and by the beauty of the

illuminated designs used in their manuscripts.[68] In the time of S.

Gregory VII., a nun at Wessobrunn, in Bavaria, named Diemude, undertook

to transcribe a series of important works, the mere enumeration of

which would startle modern readers. These works formed, as we read in

the saint’s epitaph, a whole library, which she offered as a tribute to

S. Peter. The production of this library still left time for Diemude

to carry on with Herluca, a nun of the neighbouring convent of Eppach,

a correspondence remarkable as well for its grace of expression as for

its spiritual insight.[69] A list of her transcripts is given in the

section on the _scriptorium_.

Among other convent scribes is recorded the name of the nun Gita, in

Schwarzenthau, who made transcripts, about 1175, of the writings of

her abbot, Irimbert. In Mallesdorf, at about the same time, a nun of

Scottish parents, named Leukardis, who understood Greek, Latin, and

German, was active in the _scriptorium_, and her work excited so much

admiration that the monk Laiupold, himself a famous scribe, instituted

in her memory an _anniversarium_.[70]

Brother Idung sent his dialogues concerning the monks of Clugni

and the Cistercians to the nuns of Niedermünster, near Regensburg,

_ut legibiliter scribatur et diligenter emendetur ab aliquibus

sororibus_.[71] In the same century (the twelfth) the names of

Gertrude, Sibilia, and other nuns appear on the transcript of the

codex written for the _Domini Monasterienses_, which codex came into

the library of Arnstein in exchange for a copy of the _Pastorals_

of Gregory. Johann Gerson, writing in 1423, refers with cordial

approbation to some beautiful copies prepared by the nuns, of the works

of Origen.[72] In St. Gall, where the literary activity of the monks

has already been referred to, the nuns in the convent of S. Catharine

were, in the thirteenth and in the first half of the fourteenth

centuries, also engaged in preparing transcripts of holy books.

=Monkish Chroniclers.=--In addition to the services rendered by the

monks in the preservation of classic literature, and in addition also

to the great amount of work required of them in the routine of their

monastery for the preparation of books of devotion and instruction, a

most valuable task was performed by many of the monastic scribes in

the production of the records or annals of their times. The work of

the literary monks included the functions not only of scribes, but of

librarians, collectors, teachers, and historians. The records that

have come down to us of several centuries of mediæval European history

are due almost exclusively to the labours of the monastic chroniclers.

Even those who did not compose books which can properly be described as

historical, have left in their _cartularies_ documents by the help of

which the archæologists can to-day solve the most important problems

relating to the social, civil, domestic, and agricultural life of their

ancestors. The _cartularies_, says M. C. Giraud, were the most curious

monuments of the history of the time.[73]

Without the monks, says Marsham (a Protestant writer), we should have

been as ignorant of our history as children.[74] England, converted by

her monks, has special reason to be proud of the historians furnished

by her abbeys.[75] One chronicler, Gildas, has painted with fiery

touches the miseries of Great Britain after the departure of the

Romans. To another, the Venerable Bede, author of the ecclesiastical

history of Britain, we owe the detailed account of the Catholic

Renaissance under the Saxons. Bede’s chronicle extends to the year

731. Its author died four years later. Among later monkish chroniclers

may be mentioned Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, whose history extends

to 1091; Vitalis, a monk of Shrewsbury, whose chronicle reached to

1141, and many others. The chronicle of Vitalis gives an animated

picture of the struggle between the Saxons and the Normans, and of

the vicissitudes during this period of the Church of England. Later

monastic historians were: William of Malmesbury (_circa_ 1095-1143),

Geoffrey of Monmouth (_circa_ 1090-1154), Henry of Huntingdon (_circa_

1120-1180), Roger of Wendover (_circa_ 1169-1237), Matthew Paris

(_circa_ 1185-1259), and Ralph Higden (_circa_ 1280-1370). Further

reference to the work of these English chroniclers is made in the

chapter on Books in England during the Manuscript Period. This series

of monkish chronicles presents, says Montalembert, an inexhaustible

amount of information as to the manners, laws, and ideas of the times,

and unites with the important information of history the personal

attractiveness of biography.[76]

Among the chroniclers of France are to be noted S. Gregory of Tours;

S. Abbon, of St. Germain des Prés, who wrote the history of the wars

of King Eudes and an account of the sieges of Paris by the Normans;

Frodoard, who died in 968, and who wrote the annals of the tenth

century; Richer, whose history covers the period between 880 and 995;

Helgaud, who wrote the life of King Robert; Aimoin, a monk of Fleury,

who died in 1008, and who wrote a very curious life of S. Abbon and a

record of the miracles at Fleury of S. Bénoît; Chabanais, a monk of

St. Cybar in Angoulême, who died in 1028, and whose record reaches to

1025. It has been republished by Pertz in the fourth volume of the

_Scriptores_. Raoul Glaber, a monk of St. Germain d’Auxerre, wrote a

history of his own time in five books, which covers the period from the

accession of Hugh Capet to 1046. Hugh, Abbot of Flavigny, wrote with

considerable detail the history of the eleventh century. These various

monkish chronicles have served as a basis for the first national and

popular monuments of French history. The famous chronicles of S. Denys,

which were written very early in Latin, were translated into French in

the beginning of the thirteenth century. They contain the essence of

the historic and poetic traditions of old France.

The mediæval history of Italy is in like manner dependent almost

entirely upon the records of the literary monks. The great collection

of Muratori is based upon the monkish chronicles, especially of those

of Volturna, Novalese, Farfa, Casa Aurio, and of Monte Cassino. From

the latter abbey, there sprang a series of distinguished historians:

Johannes Diaconus, the biographer of S. Gregory the Great, who wrote

during the reign of Charlemagne; Paulus Diaconus, the friend of

Charlemagne; Leo, Bishop of Ostia, first author of the famous chronicle

of Monte Cassino, and Peter Diaconus, who continued its chronicle.

Another monk of Monte Cassino recounts the wonderful story of the

conquest gained by the Norman chivalry in the two Sicilies, a story

reproduced and completed by the Sicilian monk Malaterra.

The list of the learned historians in the German monasteries is also

an important one. The German collections of _scriptories_, such as

those of Eckard, Pez, Leibnitz, and others, present an enormous mass

of monastic chronicles. Among the earlier chroniclers were to be noted

Eginard, Theganus, and Rodolphus of Fulda, who preserved the records

of the dynasty of the Carlovingians. One of the earlier historians

of Charlemagne was a monk of St. Gall, while the chronicles of that

abbey, carried on by a long series of its writers, have left a most

valuable and picturesque representation of successive epochs of its

history. Regino, Abbot of Prüm, wrote a history of the ninth century.

Wittikind, a monk of Corvey, wrote the chronicles of the reign of Henry

I., and of Otho the Great. Ditmar, who was at first a monk of Magdeburg

and later Bishop of Mersebourg, has left a detailed chronicle,

extending from 920 to 1018, of the emperors of the House of Saxony.

Among the eleventh-century writers, is Hermannus Contractus, son of the

Count of Woegen, who was brought up at St. Gall but was later attached

to Reichenau. The history of the great struggle between the Church and

the Empire was written by Lambert, a monk of Hersfeld, and continued

by Berthold of Reichenau, Bernold of St. Blaise, and by Ekkhard, Abbot

of Aurach.[77] The first historian of Poland was a French monk named

Martin, while another monk of Polish origin, named Nestor, who died

in 1116, composed the earliest annals of Russia (then newly converted

to Christianity) which were known to Europe. Among the monkish

historians of the eleventh century, the most noteworthy were William of

Malmesbury, Gilbert of Nogent, Abbot Suger, and Odo of Deuil.