Prices of Books Part 6

It is not often that bargains such as these can be obtained, but in spite of a great rise in price large numbers of ma.n.u.scripts are still purchaseable on reasonable terms. The late Mr. J. H. Middleton was particularly urgent in pointing this out, and his words may appropriately close this chapter--

?On the whole, a fine ma.n.u.script may be regarded as about the cheapest work of art of bygone days that can now be purchased by an appreciative collector. Many of the finest and most perfectly preserved ma.n.u.scripts which now come into the market are actually sold for smaller sums than they would have cost when they were new, in spite of the great additional value and interest which they have gained from their antiquity and comparative rarity. For example, a beautiful and perfectly preserved historical Anglo-Norman Vulgate of the thirteenth century, with its full number of eighty-two pictured initials, written on between six and seven hundred leaves of finest uterine vellum, can now commonly be purchased for from ?30 to ?40.

This hardly represents the original value of the vellum on which the ma.n.u.script is written.

?Ma.n.u.scripts of a simpler character, however beautifully written, if they are merely decorated with blue and red initials, commonly sell for considerably less than the original cost of their vellum.

?A collector with some real knowledge and appreciation of what is artistically fine can perhaps lay out his money to greater advantage in the purchase of ma.n.u.scripts than by buying works of art of any other cla.s.s, either medi?val or modern.?[27]

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Leader Scott?s ?Renaissance of Art in Italy,? 1883, p. 193.

[14] ?Letters from the Bodleian,? vol. i. p. 279 (note).

[15] Putnam?s ?Books and their Makers,? 1897, vol. i. p. 159.

[16] Rogers?s ?Agriculture and Prices,? vol. iv. pp. 509-604.

[17] ?Manners and Household Expenses? (Roxburghe Club).

[18] ?Books in Ma.n.u.script,? 1893, p. 43.

[19] _Paston Letters_, ed. Gairdner, 1874, vol. ii. p. 336.

[20] ?Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucester Arch?ological Society,?

vol. xv., 1891, pp. 257 and 260, _quoted_ ?Illuminated Ma.n.u.scripts,? p.

223.

[21] _Paston Letters_, ed. Gairdner, 1874, vol. ii. pp. 334-35.

[22] Leader Scott?s ?Renaissance of Art in Italy,? 1883, p. 194.

[23] Maitland?s ?Dark Ages,? 1844, p. 272.

[24] Mr. Madan has given in Appendix A to his most useful and interesting work on ?Books in Ma.n.u.script,? 1893, a list of public libraries which contain more than 4000 MSS. The largest collections are as follows:--British Museum, 52,000, and 162,000 charters; Bodleian Library, 31,000; Royal Library, Vienna, 20,000; Brussels, 30,000; Biblioth?que Nationale, Paris, 80,000; Royal Library, Berlin, 16,000; Munich, 26,000; the Vatican, Rome, 23,600; Biblioteca n.a.z.ionale, Florence, 15,000; Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, 25,000.

[25] Dr. Burney gave ?620 for it at Towneley?s sale, 1815.

[26] These particulars are obtained from the official reports.

[27] J. H. Middleton, ?Illuminated MSS.,? 1892, pp. 263-64.

CHAPTER IV

PUBLISHED PRICES

It was impossible for the scribe (however low his pay might be reduced) to compete with the printing-press, and we have good authority for saying that printed books could be obtained in the fifteenth century for one-fifth of what would have been the cost of the same books in ma.n.u.script. Mr. Putnam, in his interesting work on the history of bookselling, quotes from Bishop John of Aleria, who, writing to Pope Paul II. in 1467, said that it was possible to purchase in Rome for 20 gulden in gold works which a few years earlier would have cost not less than 100 gulden. Other books selling for 4 gulden would previously have cost 20. Mr. Putnam also quotes Madden, to the effect that in 1470 a copy of the forty-eight line Bible, printed on parchment, could be bought in Paris for 2000 francs, while the cost of the same text a few years earlier in ma.n.u.script would have been 10,000 francs.

It is rather curious to find that the present custom of fixing a published price is comparatively modern, and that the system for which some of our present retail booksellers yearn--that is, of buying from the publishers in bulk and retailing at their own price--was formerly in common use. In the old catalogues of English books no prices are affixed to the various entries, and the custom of printing the prices of books was not general until the end of the seventeenth century. But after all the booksellers? lat.i.tude was not very great, for the law stepped in to limit the price of books.

We might naturally have supposed that the invention of printing would have made a complete break in the mode of selling books, but this was not so. Continuity was preserved, and the company to which the London trade belongs is not called after the printers, but after the older order of stationers. In a ?Note of the State of the Company of Printers, Bookesellers, and Bookebynders comprehended under the name of Stacioners,? dated 1582, we are told that ?in the tyme of King Henry the Eighte, there were but fewe Printers, and those of good credit and competent wealth, at whiche tyme and before there was an other sort of men that were writers, lymners of Bookes and diverse thinges for the Church and other uses, called Stacioners, which have, and partly to this daye do use to buy their bookes in grosse of the saide Printers, bynde them up, and sell them in their shops, whereby they well mayntayned their families.?[28]

It seems probable that the English booksellers before the introduction of printing experienced little interference in their business from foreign scribes, and therefore the bringing in of printed books from abroad was distasteful to them. What they particularly objected to was the importation of these books bound instead of in sheets.

By ?an Act touching the Marchauntes of Italy? (1 Ric. III. cap. 9) aliens were prohibited from importing certain goods into this country, but this Act was not to ?extend to Importers of Books, or to any writer, limner, binder, or printer.?

In Henry VIII.?s reign this importation was found intolerable, and ?an Act for Printers and Binders of Bokes? was pa.s.sed (25 Hen. VIII. cap.

15). It is stated in the preamble when the provision in the Act of Richard III. was made there were few books and few printers in England, but that at this time large numbers of printed books were brought into the country--

Whereas, a great number of the King?s subjects within this realm having ?given themselves diligently to learn and exercise the said craft of Printing, that at this day there be within this realm a great number cunning and expert in the said science or craft of printing, as able to exercise the said craft in all points as any stranger, in any other realm or country, and furthermore where there be a great number of the King?s subjects within this realm which [live] by the craft and mystery of binding of books, ... well expert in the same,? yet ?all this notwithstanding, there are divers persons that bring from [beyond] the sea great plenty of printed books--not only in the Latin tongue, but also in our maternal English tongue--some bound in boards, some in leather, and some in parchment, and them sell by retail, whereby many of the King?s subjects, being binders of books, and having none other faculty wherewith to get their living, be dest.i.tute of work, and like to be undone, except some reformation herein be had.?

Then follow some provisions respecting the sale of books at too high a price--

?And after the same enhancing and increasing of the said prices of the said books and binding shall be so found by the said twelve men or otherwise by the examination of the said lord chancellor, lord treasurer, and justices, or two of them; that then the same lord chancellor, lord treasurer, and justices, or two of them at the least from time to time shall have a power and authority to reform and redress such enhancing of the prices of printed books by their discretions, and to limit prices as well of the books as for the binding of them; and over that the offender or offenders thereof being convict by the examination of the same lord chancellor, lord treasurer, and justices, or two of them or otherwise, shall lose and forfeit for every book by them sold whereof the price shall be enhanced for the book or binding thereof, three shillings four pence.?

By the first Copyright Act (8 Anne, cap. 21) any person thinking the published price of a book unreasonable was to complain to the Archbishop of Canterbury or other great dignitaries.

It would have been enlightening if our lawmakers had told us what was in their opinion a reasonable price for a book, but they are silent on this point.

We have unfortunately no information as to the price for which Caxton sold his various books, but he bequeathed fifteen copies of his ?Golden Legend? to the churchwardens of St. Margaret, Westminster, who succeeded in selling twelve of them between the years 1496 and 1500. For the first three copies they obtained six shillings and eightpence each, but then they had to reduce the price to five shillings and eightpence, at which price they sold the next seven copies. The last two copies only brought five shillings and sixpence and five shillings respectively, so that evidently there was a falling market.

Mr. Blades makes the following remarks on this point--

?The commercial results of Caxton?s trade as a printer are unknown; but as the fees paid at his burial were far above the average, and as he evidently held a respectable position in his parish, we must conclude that his business was profitable. The preservation of the _Cost Book_ of the Ripoli Press has already been noticed, and some extracts of interest translated therefrom. We may presume that Caxton also kept exact accounts of his trade receipts and expenditure, and if such were extant, the many doubts which now surround the operations of his printing-office would be definitely solved. We should then know the price at which he sold his books--how many pence he asked for his small quarto ?quayers? of poetry, or his pocket editions of the ?Hor? and ?Psalter?--how many shillings were required to purchase the thick folio volumes, such as ?Canterbury Tales,? ?King Arthur,? &c. That the price was not much dearer than that paid for good editions now we may infer from the rate at which fifteen copies of the ?Golden Legend? sold between 1496 and 1500. These realised an average price of 6s. 8d. each, or about ?2, 13s. 4d. of modern money, a sum by no means too great for a large ill.u.s.trated work. This, however, would depend on the number of copies considered necessary for an edition, which probably varied according to the nature of the work.... Some foreign printers issued as many as 275 or 300 copies of editions of the Cla.s.sics, but it is not probable that Caxton ventured upon so large an impression, as the demand for his publications must have been much more restricted.?[29]

It will be noticed that Mr. Blades is wrong in saying that the copies of the ?Golden Legend? were sold at an _average_ price of 6s. 8d., and it would probably be more correct to give the equivalent amount in modern money as ?4, rather than ?2, 13s. 4d., but this is perhaps more a matter of opinion.

Several old priced lists of books have come down to us, and the most interesting of these are the two printed and edited by Mr. F. Madan in the first series of the _Collectanea_ of the Oxford Historical Society, and further annotated by the late Mr. Henry Bradshaw. The first of these is an inventory, with prices of books received in 1483 for sale by John Hunt, stationer of the University of Oxford, from Magister Peter Actor and Johannes de Aquisgrano, to whom he promises to restore the books or pay the price affixed in the list; and the second is the Day-Book of John Dorne, bookseller in Oxford A.D. 1520. Mr. Bradshaw?s valuable annotations (?A Half-Century of Notes?) were printed in fac-simile of his handwriting in 1886, and afterwards included in his ?Collected Papers? (1889).

Dorne?s list is of great value, as showing what was the literature sold at a great university city at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and with the much-needed explanations of Messrs. Madan and Bradshaw, it forms an important addition to our knowledge, but there is not much in it that can be quoted here with advantage. Latin theology forms the bulk of the more important books sold, and next to that Latin cla.s.sics.

English books are few; among the cheapest items, service-books and ballads, Christmas carols, and almanacs are common. A large proportion of the entries are marked in pence from one penny upwards, but some are in shillings, and the largest amount for one sale of several books was forty-eight shillings.

_Bibliographica_ (vol. i. p. 252) contains ?Two References to the English Book-Trade _circa_ 1525.? The first, which is from the ?Interlude of the Four Elements,? suggests that a large amount of the output of the English presses at the beginning of the sixteenth century was made up of ephemeral publications--

?Now so it is in our Englyshe tonge, Many one there is that can but rede and wryte, For his pleasure wyll oft presume amonge New bokys to compyle and balades to indyte, Some of lore or other matter, not worth a myte.?

The next is from the prologue to Robert Copland?s ?Seven Sorrows that Women have when theyr husbandes be deade,? which consists of a conversation between Copland and a customer, ?Quidam?--

?_Quidam._ Hast thou a boke of the wydowe Edith, That hath begyled so many with her wordes, Or els suche a geest that is ful of bourdes?

Let me se, I wyll yet waste a peny Upon suche thynges and if thou have eny.

_Copland._ How say ye by these, wyll ye bestowe a grote?