Bibliomania in the Middle Ages Part 3

The splendor of the ancient calligraphical productions of Greece,[79] and the still later ones of Rome, bear repeated testimony that the practice of this art had spread during the sixth century, if not earlier, to these powerful empires. England was not tardy in embracing this elegant art. We have many relics of remote antiquity and exquisite workmanship existing now, which prove the talent and a.s.siduity of our early Saxon forefathers.

In Ireland the illuminating art was profusely practised at a period as early as the commencement of the seventh century, and in the eighth we find it holding forth eminent claims to our respect by the beauty of their workmanship, and the chast.i.ty of their designs. Those well versed in the study of these ancient ma.n.u.scripts have been enabled, by extensive but minute observation, to point out their different characteristics in various ages, and even to decide upon the school in which a particular ma.n.u.script was produced.

These illuminations, which render the early ma.n.u.scripts of the monkish ages so attractive, generally exemplify the rude ideas and tastes of the time. In perspective they are wofully deficient, and manifest but little idea of the picturesque or sublime; but here and there we find quite a gem of art, and, it must be owned, we are seldom tired by monotony of coloring, or paucity of invention. A study of these parchment ill.u.s.trations afford considerable instruction. Not only do they indicate the state of the pictorial art in the middle ages, but also give us a comprehensive insight into the scriptural ideas entertained in those times; and the bible student may learn much from pondering on these glittering pages; to the historical student, and to the lover of antiquities, they offer a verdant field of research, and he may obtain in this way many a glimpse of the manners and customs of those old times which the pages of the monkish chroniclers have failed to record.

But all this prodigal decoration greatly enhanced the price of books, and enabled them to produce a sum, which now to us sounds enormously extravagant. Moreover, it is supposed that the scarcity of parchment limited the number of books materially, and prevented their increase to any extent; but I am p.r.o.ne to doubt this a.s.sertion, for my own observations do not help to prove it. Mr. Hallam says, that in consequence of this, "an unfortunate practice gained ground of erasing a ma.n.u.script in order to subst.i.tute another on the same skin. This occasioned, probably, the loss of many ancient authors who have made way for the legends of saints, or other ecclesiastical rubbish."[80] But we may reasonably question this opinion, when we consider the value of books in the middle ages, and with what esteem the monks regarded, in spite of all their paganism, those "heathen dogs" of the ancient world. A doubt has often forced itself upon my mind when turning over the "crackling leaves" of many ancient MSS., whether the peculiarity mentioned by Montfaucon, and described as parchment from which former writing had been erased, may not be owing, in many cases, to its mode of preparation. It is true, a great proportion of the membrane on which the writings of the middle ages are inscribed, appear rough and uneven, but I could not detect, through many ma.n.u.scripts of a hundred folios--all of which evinced this roughness--the un.o.bliterated remains of a single letter. And when I have met with instances, they appear to have been short writings--perhaps epistles; for the monks were great correspondents, and, I suspect, kept economy in view, and often carried on an epistolary intercourse, for a considerable time, with a very limited amount of parchment, by erasing the letter to make room for the answer. This, probably, was usual where the matter of their correspondence was of no especial importance; so that, what our modern critics, being emboldened by these faint traces of former writing, have declared to possess the cla.s.sic appearance of h.o.a.ry antiquity, may be nothing more than a complimentary note, or the worthless accounts of some monastic expenditure. But, careful as they were, what would these monks have thought of "paper-sparing Pope," who wrote his Iliad on small pieces of refuse paper? One of the finest pa.s.sages in that translation, which describes the parting of Hector and Andromache, is written on part of a letter which Addison had franked, and is now preserved in the British Museum. Surely he could afford, these old monks would have said, to expend some few shillings for paper, on which to inscribe that for which he was to receive his thousand pounds.

But far from the monastic ma.n.u.scripts displaying a scantiness of parchment, we almost invariably find an abundant margin, and a s.p.a.ce between each line almost amounting to prodigality; and to say that the "vellum was considered more precious than the genius of the author,"[81]

is absurd, when we know that, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a dozen skins of parchment could be bought for sixpence; whilst that quant.i.ty written upon, if the subject possessed any interest at all, would fetch considerably more, there always being a demand and ready sale for books.[82] The supposition, therefore, that the monastic scribes erased _cla.s.sical_ ma.n.u.scripts for the sake of the material, seems altogether improbable, and certainly dest.i.tute of proof. It is true, many of the cla.s.sics, as we have them now, are but mere fragments of the original work. For this, however, we have not to blame the monks, but barbarous invaders, ravaging flames, and the petty animosities of civil and religious warfare for the loss of many valuable works of the cla.s.sics. By these means, one hundred and five books of Livy have been lost to us, probably forever. For the thirty which have been preserved, our thanks are certainly due to the monks. It was from their unpretending and long-forgotten libraries that many such treasures were brought forth at the revival of learning, in the fifteenth century, to receive the admiration of the curious, and the study of the erudite scholar. In this way Poggio Bracciolini discovered many inestimable ma.n.u.scripts. Leonardo Aretino writes in rapturous terms on Poggio's discovery of a perfect copy of Quintillian. "What a precious acquisition!" he exclaims, "what unthought of pleasure to behold Quintillian perfect and entire!"[83] In the same letter we learn that Poggio had discovered Asconius and Flaccus in the monastery of St. Gall, whose inhabitants regarded them without much esteem. In the monastery of Langres, his researches were rewarded by a copy of Cicero's Oration for Caecina. With the a.s.sistance of Bartolomeo di Montepulciano, he discovered Silius Italicus, Lactantius, Vegetius, Nonius Marcellus, Ammia.n.u.s Marcellus, Lucretius, and Columella, and he found in a monastery at Rome a complete copy of Turtullian.[84] In the fine old monastery of Casino, so renowned for its cla.s.sical library in former days, he met with Julius Frontinus and Firmicus, and transcribed them with his own hand. At Cologne he obtained a copy of Petronius Arbiter. But to these we may add Calpurnius's Bucolic,[85] Manilius, Lucius Septimus, Coper, Eutychius, and Probus. He had anxious hopes of adding a perfect Livy to the list, which he had been told then existed in a Cistercian Monastery in Hungary, but, unfortunately, he did not prosecute his researches in this instance with his usual energy. The scholar has equally to regret the loss of a perfect Tacitus, which Poggio had expectations of from the hands of a German monk. We may still more deplore this, as there is every probability that the monks actually possessed the precious volume.[86] Nicolas of Treves, a contemporary and friend of Poggio's, and who was infected, though in a slight degree, with the same pa.s.sionate ardor for collecting ancient ma.n.u.scripts, discovered, whilst exploring the German monasteries, twelve comedies of Plautus, and a fragment of Aulus Gellius.[87] Had it not been for the timely aid of these great men, many would have been irretrievably lost in the many revolutions and contentions that followed; and, had such been the case, the monks, of course, would have received the odium, and on their heads the spleen of the disappointed student would have been prodigally showered.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] Martene Thesaurus novus Anecdot. tom. iv. col. 1462.

[41] See Du Cange in Voc., vol. vi. p. 264.

[42] Anglia Sacra, ii. 635. Fosbrooke Brit. Monach., p. 15.

[43] Martene Thes. Nov. Anec. tom. iv. col. 1462. Stat. Ord.

Cistere, anni 1278, they were allowed for "_Studendum vel recreandum_."

[44] Hildesh. episc apud Leibuit., tom. i. Script. Brunsvic, p. 444.

I am indebted to Du Cange for this reference.

[45] King's Munimenta Antiqua. Stevenson's Suppl. to Bentham, p. 64.

[46] Matt Paris, p. 51.

[47] Warton's Hist. Eng. Poetry, p. cxiv. Regest. Nig. St. Edmund.

Abbat.

[48] Stevenson's Sup. to Bentham's Church of Norwich, 4to. 1817, p.

51.

[49] Martene de Ant. Eccl. Ritib., cap. xxi. tom. iii. p. 263.

[50] _Ibid._

[51] Alcuini Opera, tom. ii. vol. i. p. 211. Carmin xvii.

[52] Preface to aelfric's Homilies MS. Lansdowne, No. 373, vol. iv.

in the British Museum.

[53] Const. Can. Reg. ap. Martene, tom. iii. p. 263.

[54] MS. Harl. 6395, anecdote 348.--I am indebted to D'Israeli for the reference, but not for the extract.

[55] The monks were strictly enjoined by the monastic rules to study the Bible unceasingly. The Statutes of the Dominican order are particularly impressive on this point, and enforce a constant reading and critical study of the sacred volume, so as to fortify themselves for disputation; they were to peruse it continually, and apply to it before all other reading _semper ante aliam lectionem_.

_Martene Thesan. Nov. Anecdot._, tom. iv. col. 1932. See also cols.

1789, 1836, 1912, 1917, 1934.

[56] About the year 1225 Roger de Insula, Dean of York, gave several copies of the bible to the University of Oxford, and ordered that those who borrowed them for perusal should deposit property of equal value as a security for their safe return.--_Wood's Hist. Antiq.

Oxon._ ii. 48.

[57] Muratori Dissert. Quadragesima tertia, vol. iii. column 849.

[58] Astle's Origin of Writing, p. 193.--See also Montfaucon Palaeographia Graeca, lib. iv. p. 263 et 319.

[59] In the year 1300 the pay of a common scribe was about one half-penny a day, see Stevenson's Supple. to Bentham's Hist. of the Church of Ely. p. 51.

[60] In some orders the monks were not allowed to sell their books without the express permission of their superiors. According to a statute of the year 1264 the Dominicans were strictly prohibited from selling their books or the rules of their order.--_Martene Thesaur. Nov. Anecdot._ tom. iv. col. 1741, et col. 1918.

[61] Vita Abbat. Wear. Ed. Ware, p. 26. His fine copy of the Cosmographers he bought at Rome.--_Roma Benedictus emerat._

[62] Nosti quot Scriptores in Urbibus aut in Agris Italiae pa.s.sim habeantur.--Ep. cx.x.x. See also Ep. xliv. where he speaks of having purchased books in Italy, Germany and Belgium, at considerable cost.

It is the most interesting Bibliomanical letter in the whole collection.

[63] Cottonian MS. in the Brit. Mus.--_Claudius_, E. iv. fo. 105, b.

[64] Epist. lxxi. p. 124, Edit. 4to. His words are--"c.u.m Dominus Rex Anglorum me nuper ad Dominum Regum Francorum nuntium distina.s.set, libri Legum venales Parisius oblati sunt mihi ab illo B. publico mangone librorum: qui c.u.m ad opus cujusdam mei nepotis idoner viderentur conveni c.u.m eo de pretio et eos apud venditorem dismittens, ei pretium numeravi; superveniente vero C. s.e.xburgensi Praeposito sicut audini, plus oblulit et licitatione vincens libros de domo venditories per violentiam absportauit."

[65] Chevillier, Origines de l'Imprimerie de Paris, 4to. 1694, p.

301.

[66] "Actes concernant le pouvoir et la direction de l'Universite de Paris sur les Ecrivains de Livres et les Imprimeurs qui leur ont succede comme aussi sur les Libraires Relieurs et Enlumineurs," 4to.

1652, p. 44. It is very rare, a copy was in Biblioth. Teller, No.

132, p. 428. A statute of 1275 is given by Lambecii Comment. de Augus. Biblioth. Caesarea Vendobon, vol. ii. pp. 252-267. The booksellers are called "Stationarii or Librarii;" _de Stationariis, sive Librariis ut Stationarus, qui vulgo appellantur_, etc. See also _Du Cange_, vol. vi. col. 716.

[67] Chevillier, p. 301, to whom I am deeply indebted in this branch of my inquiry.

[68] Hist. Lit. de la France, tom. ix. p. 84. Chevillier, p. 302.

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

[70] Du Breuil, Le Theatre des Antiq. de Paris, 4to. 1612, p. 608.

[71] _Ibid._, Hist. Lit. de la France, tom. ix. p. 84.

[72] Chevillier, p. 303.

[73] Martene Anecd. tom. i. p. 502. Hist. Lit. de la France, ix. p.

142.

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

[75] Chevillier, 303.

[76] Vet. Stat. Universit. Oxoniae, D. fol. 75. Archiv. Bodl.