readily understand that the terms book-hunting in England and
book-hunting in London are by no means synonymous. The passion for books
had manifested itself in various and remote parts of this country long
before London had developed into a place of importance; when, indeed, it
was battling from without and within with conflicts which seemed to
predict complete annihilation. But the growth of London is essentially
typical of the growth of the nation, and of the formation of the
national character. When it was laying the foundation of its future
greatness London had no thought of intellectual pursuits, even if
Londoners themselves had any conception of an intellectual life. For any
trace of such unthought-of, and perhaps, indeed, unheard-of, articles as
books, we must go to localities far remote from London--to spots where,
happily, the strife and din of savage warfare scarcely made themselves
heard. The monasteries were the sole repositories of literature; to the
monk alone had the written book any kind of intelligence, any species of
pleasure. To him it was as essential as the implements of destruction to
the warrior, or the plough to the husbandman. The one had no sympathy,
no connection, with the other, only in so far that the events which
transpired in the battlefield had to be recorded in the _scriptorium_.
Although London was a place of importance at a very early stage of the
Roman occupation, it was not in any sense an intellectual centre for
centuries after that period.
[Illustration: _In a Scriptorium._]
Indeed, it might be laid down as a general principle that the farther
the seeker went from London the more likelihood there was of meeting
with books. To Northumbria, from the end of the sixth to the end of the
seventh century, we shall have to look for the record of book-buying,
for during that period books were imported in very considerable
quantities; abbeys arose all along the coast, and scholars
proportionately increased. In a letter to Charlemagne, Alcuin speaks of
certain 'exquisite books' which he studied under Egbert at York. At
Wearmouth, Benedict Biscop (629-690) was amassing books with all the
fury of half a dozen ordinary bibliomaniacs. He collected everything,
and spared no cost. At York, Egbert had a fine library in the minster.
St. Boniface, the Saxon missionary, was a zealous collector. There were
also collections--and consequently collectors--of books at places less
remote from London--such as Canterbury, Salisbury, Glastonbury, and even
St. Albans; but of London itself there is no mention.
Scarcely any such thing as book-hunting or book-selling could possibly
have existed in London before the accession of Alfred, who, among the
several ways in which he encouraged literature, is said to have given an
estate to the author of a book on cosmography. Doubtless, it was after
the rebuilding of the city by Alfred that, in the famous letter to
Wulfseg, Bishop of London, he takes a retrospective view of the times in
which they lived, as affording 'churches and monasteries filled with
libraries of excellent books in several languages.' Bede describes
London, even at the beginning of the eighth century, as a great market
which traders frequented by land and sea; and from a passage in Gale we
learn that books were brought into England for sale as early as 705.
With the reconstruction of London, the wise government, and the
enthusiastic love for letters which animated the great Saxon King, the
commerce of the capital not only increased with great rapidity, but the
commerce in books between England and other countries, particularly from
such bibliopolic centres as Paris and Rome, began to assume very
considerable proportions. If, as is undoubtedly the case, books were
continually being imported, it follows that they found purchasers. By
the beginning of the eleventh century there were many private and
semi-private collections of books in or near London. The English
book-collectors of the seventh century include Theodore, Archbishop of
Canterbury, Benedict, Abbot of Wearmouth, and Bede; those of the eighth
century, Ina, King of the West Saxons, and Alcuin, Abbot of Tours;
whilst the tenth century included, in addition to Alfred, Scotus
Erigena, Athelstan, and St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury.
But it cannot be said, with due regard to truth, that London was in any
sense a seat of learning, or a popular resort for learned men, until
well on into the thirteenth century. Doubtless many consignments of
books passed through the city on the way to their respective
destinations.
Edward I. may be regarded as the first English monarch who took any
interest in collecting books; most of his, however, were service books.
They are mentioned in the Wardrobe Accounts (1299-1300) of this King,
and are only eleven in number. These he may have purchased in 1273 in
France, through which he passed on his way home from Palestine. But it
is much more probable that he had no thought of books when hurrying home
to claim the crown of his father. Contemporary with Edward was another
book-collector of a very different type, an abbot of Peterborough,
Richard of London, who had a 'private library' of ten books, including
the 'Consolation of Philosophy,' which he may have formed in London. But
quite the most interesting book-collector (so far as we are concerned
just now) of this period is Richard de Gravesend, Bishop of London. A
minute catalogue of this collection is among the treasures of St. Paul's
Cathedral, and has been privately printed. In this case, the price of
each book is affixed to its entry; the total number of volumes is one
hundred, their aggregate value being £116 14s. 6d., representing,
according to Milman's estimate, £1,760 of our present money. Twenty-one
Bibles and parts of Bibles were valued at £19 5s. Twenty-two volumes in
this collection deal with canon and civil law, four with ecclesiastical
history, and about an equal number with what may be designated science
and arts, the rest being of a theological character. The entries run
thus:
'Tractatus fr'is Dertti'i de proprietatibus rerum.
Libellus instructionum.
Liber Avicennæ.
Liber naturalis.'
The two last-named are respectively the highest and lowest priced items
in the list--for books of a single volume only--the 'Liber Avicennæ'
being valued at the very high figure of £5, and the 'Liber Naturalis' at
3s. A Bible in thirteen volumes is valued at £10; and a 'little Bible'
at £1. The total value of the property of this Bishop was scheduled at
about £3,000.
In spite of civil strife and foreign complications, the taste for
literature made great strides during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, with the very natural consequence of an increased demand
for, and supply of, books. And the curious thing is that book-collecting
was gradually passing away from the monks, and becoming exceedingly
popular with the laity. 'Flocks and fleeces, crops and herds, gardens
and orchards, the wine of the winecup, are the only books and studies of
the monks.' The Franciscans, who (like the Dominicans) came to England
in 1224, were expressly forbidden 'the possession of books or the
necessary materials for study.' When Roger Bacon joined this order, he
was deprived of his books. St. Francis himself, it seems, was once
'tempted to possess books'--by honest means, let us hope, although the
point is not quite clear--and he almost yielded to the temptation, but
finally decided that it would be sinful. The plague of books seems to
have troubled this poor saint's soul, for he hoped that the day would
come when men would throw their books out of the window as rubbish.
[Illustration: _Lambeth Palace Library._]
In proof of the theory that laymen at a very early period became
book-collectors, the most interesting example which we can quote is that
of Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who died in 1315, and who
bequeathed his library to Bordesley Abbey, Worcestershire, where it had
already been deposited during his lifetime. Beginning with this
preamble, 'A tus iceux qe ceste lettre verront ou orrount. Guy de
Beauchamp, Comte de Warr. Saluz en Deu. Nous avoir bayle e en lagarde le
Abbé e le covent de Bordesleye, lesse a demorer a touz jours les
Romaunces de souz nomes; ces est assaveyr,' the bequest recites, with
great minuteness, a remarkably interesting list of books. This list
('escrites ou Bordesleye le premer jour de may, le an du regñ le Roy
Edw{d} trentime quart') is in the Lambeth Library, but it is reprinted
by Todd in his 'Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer,' pp. 161, 162. This
list is of more than ordinary interest, chiefly because the collection
formed by a layman gives us a very good insight into the class of books
which the early nobility of England read, or, at all events, collected.
Religious books, of course, formed the background of the library, but
there were many romances, such, for instance, as those of King Arthur,
of 'Josep alb Arimathie e deu Seint Grael,' of 'Troies,' etc. There was
also a book 'De Phisik et de Surgie.'
This collection contained between forty and fifty volumes, in which was
included pretty nearly the entire range of human knowledge as it then
extended. It is well to remember in connection with this bequest that,
at the same time, or, more correctly, in 1300, the academical library of
Oxford consisted of a few tracts kept in chests under St. Mary's Church.
With the greatest book-collector of this period, Richard de Bury
(1287-1345), the author of the 'Philobiblon,' unfortunately, we have
little to do, as his book expeditions appear to have been confined
almost entirely to foreign countries. He collected books from every
source open to him, and wrote of his passion with a warmth of eloquence
of which even Cicero might have been proud. His most important book
transaction, which comes within the purview of the present volume,
relates to the gift by an Abbot of St. Albans of four volumes to De
Bury, then Clerk of the Privy Seal, viz., Terence, Virgil, Quintilian,
and Hieronymus against Rufinus. In addition to these, the Abbot sold him
thirty-two other books for fifty pounds of silver. When De Bury became
Bishop this 'gift' troubled his conscience, and he restored several of
the books which had come into his possession in a perfectly honest and
legitimate manner, whilst others were secured from the Bishop's
executors. One of the volumes acquired in the latter manner is now in
the British Museum. It is a large folio MS. on the works of John of
Salisbury, and bears upon it a note to the effect that it was written by
Simon (Abbot of St. Albans, 1167-1183), and another to the following
effect: 'Hunc librum venditum Domino Ricardo de Biry Episcopo Dunelmensi
emit Michael Abbas Sancti Albani ab executoribus predicti episcopi anno
Domini millesimo ccc{o} xlv{to} circa purificationem Beate Virginis.'
The catalogue of the library of the Benedictine monastery of Christ
Church, Canterbury, in the Cottonian Collection, British Museum, and
printed for the first time at length in Edward's 'Memoirs of Libraries'
(i. 122-235), is a remarkable list of the most extensive collection of
books at that time in this country. It was formed at the end of the
thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century. This library was
well furnished with works in science and history, and particularly so
with the classics--Aristotle, Cicero, Lucan, Plato, Suetonius, Seneca,
Terence, and Virgil. The extreme probability is that London was the
highway through which the greater part of this and other early libraries
passed. If, early in the fifteenth century, the book-hunter in London
possessed few opportunities of purchasing books, he would have found
several very good libraries which were open to his inspection. There
was, for example, a very considerable collection in the Franciscan
monastery, which once stood on the site now occupied by Christ's
Hospital, Newgate Street. The first stone of this monastery was laid in
October, 1421, amid much pomp, by the then Lord Mayor, Sir Richard
Whittington, who gave £400 in books. It was covered in before the winter
of 1422, and completed in three years, and furnished with books. From
Stow's 'Survey' we learn that one hundred marks were expended on the
transcription of the works of Nicholas de Lira, to be chained in the
library, and of which cost John Frensile remitted 20s. One of the
chained books, 'The Lectures of Hostiensis,' cost five marks. From
another source we learn that a Carmelite friar named John Wallden
bequeathed to this library as many MSS. as were worth 2,000 pieces of
gold.
Anthony à Wood refers to the oft-repeated charge of the
book-covetousness of the mendicant friars, which, in fact, was carried
to such an extreme 'that wise men looked upon it as an injury to laymen,
who therefore found a difficulty to get any books.' Of the same period,
there is a very curious anecdote in Rymer's 'Foedera' about taking off
the duty upon six barrels of books sent by a Roman cardinal to the Prior
of the conventual church of St. Trinity, Norwich. These barrels, which
lay at the Custom-house, were imported duty free.
Neither the book-hunger of the mendicant friars, nor the difficulties
which surrounded the importation of books, appears to have militated
greatly against the growing passion. We have the name, and only the
name, of a very famous book-hunter--John of Boston--of the first decade
of the fifteenth century, whose labours, however, have been completely
blotted out of existence by the dispersed monasteries. But there were
many other collectors whose memories have been handed down to us in a
more tangible form, even if their collections of books are almost as
abstract and indefinite as that of John of Boston. During the first
quarter of the fifteenth century, we have quite a considerable little
group of royal book-collectors--Henry IV., Henry V., and his brothers,
John, Duke of Bedford, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. The last-named
was undoubtedly the most enthusiastic bibliophile of the four, but
whilst his extensive gifts of books to the University of Oxford may be
said to have formed the foundation of the library there, they were in
the following century destroyed by the mob. A few examples of his gifts
are now preserved in the British Museum and at Oxford. His books were
estimated at a very high figure, the value placed on 120 of them (out of
the total of 600) being no less than £1,000. The memory of the Duke of
Bedford's library is best perpetuated by the famous Bedford Missal, or
Book of Hours, perhaps the most splendid example of fifteenth-century
illustration. It is now in the British Museum, where it has been since
1852. The history of this missal, perhaps the most interesting in
existence, is too well known to be dealt with here (see p. 109).
Henry V. was undoubtedly fond of books. Rymer refers to two petitions to
the Council after the King's death for the return of valuable books of
history, borrowed by him of the Countess of Westmoreland, and of the
priory of Christ Church, Canterbury, and not returned, though one of
them had been directed to be delivered to its owner by the King's last
will. The elegantly illuminated copy of Lydgate's 'Hystory, Sege, and
Destruccion of Troye,' 1513, in the Bodleian, is doubtless the copy
which Lydgate gave to Henry V. At Cambridge there is the MS. of a French
translation of Cardinal Bonaventure's 'Life of Christ,' with the note
'this wasse sumtyme Kinge Henri the fifeth his booke,' etc.
Henry VI. does not appear to have cared for books, and it is not
surprising, what with wars abroad and excessive taxation, plague and
famine at home, that literary tastes received a severe check. We get
several glimpses of the dearth of books. In the MS. history of Eton
College, in the British Museum, the Provost and Fellows of Eton and
Cambridge are stated, 25 Henry VI., to have petitioned the King that he
would be pleased to order one of his chaplains, Richard Chestre, 'to
take to him such men as shall be seen to him expedient in order to get
knowledge where such bookes [for Divine service] may be found, paying a
reasonable price for the same, and that the sayd men might have the
choice of such bookes, ornaments, and other necessaries as now late were
perteynyng to the Duke of Gloucester, and that the king would
particular[ly] cause to be employed herein John Pye--his stacioner of
London.'
Book-importation by the galleys that brought the produce of the East to
London and Southampton had assumed very considerable proportions during
the fifteenth century; but the uncertainties which attended it were not
at all favourable to its full development. Book-production was still
progressing in the immediate neighbourhood of London. At St. Albans, for
example, over eighty were transcribed under Whethamstede during this
reign, a number which is peculiarly interesting when the degeneracy of
the monasteries is remembered. Neither Edward IV. nor Richard III. seems
to have availed himself of the increasing plenty of books. The library
of the former was a very unimportant affair. From the Wardrobe Account
of this King (1480) we get a few highly interesting facts concerning
book-binding, gildings, and garnishing: 'For vj unces and iij quarters
of silk to the laces and tassels for garnysshing of diverse Bookes,
price the unce xiiij_d._--vij_s._ x_d._ ob.; for the making of xvj laces
and xvj tassels made of the said vj unces and iij of silke, price in
grete ij_s._ vii_d._' These moneys were paid to Alice Claver, a
'sylk-woman.' And again 'to Piers Bauduyn, stacioner, for bynding,
gilding and dressing of a booke called "Titus Livius," xx_s._; for
bynding, gilding and dressing of a booke of the Holy Trinitie, xvj_s._;
for bynding, gilding and dressing of a booke called "Frossard," xvj_s._;
for bynding, gilding and dressing of a booke called the Bible, xvj_s._;
for bynding, gilding and dressing of a booke called "Le Gouvernement of
Kinges and Princes," xvj_s._; for bynding and dressing of the three
smalle bookes of Franche, price in grete vj_s._ viiij_d._; for the
dressing of ij bookes whereof oon is called "La Forteresse de Foy" and
the other called the "Book of Josephus," iij_s._ iiij_d._; and for
bynding, gilding and dressing a booke called the "Bible Historial,"
xx_s._'
The only incident which calls for special mention in the two next short
reigns is a law, 1 Richard III., 1483, by which it was enacted that if
any of the printers or sellers of printed books--the 'great plenty' of
which came from 'beyond the sea'--'vend them at too high and
unreasonable prices,' then the Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, or any
of the chief justices of the one bench or the other, were to regulate
the prices.
[Illustration: _Roman Books and Writing Materials._]
[Illustration]
BOOK-HUNTING AFTER THE INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING.
I.
THE introduction of printing into this country by Caxton during the
latter half of the fifteenth century had very little immediate effect on
book-collecting. The operations of the press were slow, its patrons few,
and its work controlled by one man. The reproduction of MSS. was
essentially a slow process, but when these transcriptions were finished,
they rarely failed to find a purchaser. Caxton, like Sweynheim and
Pannartz at Subiaco, soon learned the seriousness of over-printing an
edition. Collectors were few, and the introduction of printing did not
very materially add to their number. London, however, soon became a
recognised centre of the trade in books, and Henry VII. patronized, in
his curious fashion, the collecting of them. He read, according to
Bacon, 'most books that were of any worth in the French tongue,' and one
of the most commendable actions of this King was the purchase of the
noble series of vellum copies of the works printed at Paris by Antoine
Vérard, now in the British Museum--an act by which he may be said to
have laid the foundation of our great national library. The value of
books at this period is not without interest; but we must confine
ourselves to one or two facts relating to Caxton's books. At his death
in 1492, a copy of the 'Golden Legend' was valued at 6s. 8d. in the
books of the Westminster churchwarden. From a note by Dibdin, it would
seem that the price of Caxtons towards the end of the reign of Henry
VII. was as follows:
'Godfray of Boulogne' (imperfect), ii_s._
Virgil's 'Æneid' (perfect), xij_d._
'Fait of Arms and Chivalry' (perfect), ij_s._ viij_d._
'Chastising of God's Children,' viij_d._
Henry VIII. was undoubtedly a book-lover as well as a book-collector. He
established a library at St. James's. But perhaps it is rather as a
book-disperser that Henry is entitled to notice in this place. The
dissolution of the monasteries is the genesis of book-collecting in
London. The first move in this respect is entitled 'An Act that all
religious houses under the yearly revenue of £200 shall be dissolved and
given to the King and his heirs,' and is dated 1535 (27 Henry VIII.,
cap. 28, ii. 134). The second is dated 1539. Whatever advantages in a
general way the dissolution of the monasteries may have had, its
consequences, so far as regards the libraries, which the monks
considered as among their most cherished possessions, were disastrous
beyond measure. Indeed, we have no conception of our losses. Addressing
himself to Edward VI. in 1549, John Bale, afterwards Bishop of Ossory,
who had but little love for Popery of any description, writes in this
strain: 'Avarice was the other dispatcher which hath made an end both of
our libraries and books . . . to the no small decay of the commonwealth.
A great number of them who purchased those superstitious mansions
[monasteries], reserved of these Library-books, some . . . to scour
their candlesticks, and some to rub their boots; some they sold to the
grocers and soap-sellers, and some they sent over sea to the
bookbinders, not in small numbers, but at times whole shipsfull, to the
wondering of the foreign nations. Yea, the universities of this realm
are not all clear in this detestable fact. But cursed is that belly
which seeketh to be fed with so ungodly gains, and so deeply shameth his
natural country. I know a merchantman, which shall at this time be
nameless, that bought the contents of two noble Libraries for forty
shillings price: a shame it is to be spoken. This stuff hath he occupied
in the stead of gray paper by the space of more than these ten years;
and yet he hath store enough for as many years to come. . . . Our
posterity may well curse this wicked fact of our age, this unreasonable
spoil of England's most noble antiquities, unless they be stayed in
time.' Fuller, in his 'Church History of Britain,' quotes Bale's
lamentation, and adds his own testimony on the same subject: 'As brokers
in Long Lane, when they buy an old suit buy the linings together with
the outside, so it was considered meet that such as purchased the
buildings of monasteries should in the same grant have the Libraries
(the stuffing thereof) conveyed unto them. And now these ignorant
owners, so long as they might keep a ledger-book or terrier by direction
thereof to find such straggling acres as belonged unto them, they cared
not to preserve any other monuments. The covers of books, with curious
brass bosses and clasps, intended to protect, proved to betray them,
being the baits of covetousness. And so many excellent authors, stripped
out of their cases, were left naked, to be buried or thrown away. . . .
What soul can be so frozen as not to melt into anger thereat? What
heart, having the least spark of ingenuity, is not hot at this indignity
offered to literature? I deny not but that in this heap of books there
was much rubbish; legions of lying legends, good for nothing but fuel
. . . volumes full fraught with superstition, which, notwithstanding,
might be useful to learned men; except any will deny apothecaries the
privilege of keeping poison in their shops, when they can make antidotes
of them. But, beside these, what beautiful Bibles, rare Fathers, subtile
Schoolmen, useful Historians--ancient, middle, modern; what painful
Comments were here amongst them! What monuments of mathematics all
massacred together; seeing every book with a cross was condemned for
Popish; with circles for conjuring.'