The Care of Books Part 1

The Care of Books.

by John Willis Clark.

PREFACE.

When engaged in editing and completing _The Architectural History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge_, I devoted much time and attention to the essay called _The Library_. The subject was entirely new; and the more I looked into it, the more convinced did I become that it would well repay fuller investigation than was then possible. For instance, I felt certain that the Customs affecting monastic libraries would, if one could only discover them, throw considerable light on collegiate statutes relating to the same subject.

The _Architectural History_ having been published, I had leisure to study libraries from my new point of view; and, while thus engaged, I fortunately met with the admirable paper by Dom Gasquet which he modestly calls _Some Notes on Medieval Monastic Libraries_. This brief essay--it occupies only 20 pages--opened my eyes to the possibilities that lay before me, and I gladly place on record here the debt I owe to the historian to whom I have dedicated this book.

When I had the honour of delivering the Rede Lecture before the University of Cambridge in June 1894, I attempted a reconstruction of the monastic library, shewing its relationship, through its fittings, to the collegiate libraries of Oxford and Cambridge; and I was also able, following the example set by Dom Gasquet in the above-mentioned essay, to indicate the value of illuminated ma.n.u.scripts as ill.u.s.trating the life of a medieval student or scribe. In my lectures as Sandars Reader in Bibliography, delivered before the University of Cambridge in 1900, I developed the subject still further, extending the scope of my enquiries so as to include the libraries of Greece and Rome.

In writing my present book I have availed myself freely of the three works above mentioned. At the same time I have incorporated much fresh material; and I am glad to take this opportunity of stating, that, with the single exception of the Escrial, I have personally examined and measured every building which I have had occasion to describe; and many of the ill.u.s.trations are from my own sketches.

I call my book an _Essay_, because I wish to indicate that it is only an attempt to deal, in a summary fashion, with an extremely wide and interesting subject--a subject, too, which might easily be subdivided into separate heads each capable of more elaborate treatment. For instance, with regard to libraries in Religious Houses, I hope to see a book written, dealing not merely with the way in which the books were cared for, but with the subjects most generally studied, as indicated to us by the catalogues which have survived.

A research such as I have had to undertake has naturally involved the co-operation of numerous librarians and others both in England and on the Continent. From all these officials I have experienced unfailing courtesy and kindness, and I beg them to accept this collective expression of my grat.i.tude. To some, however, I am under such particular obligations, that I wish to mention them by name.

In the first place I have to thank my friends Dr Jackson of Trinity College, Dr Sandys of S. John's College, Dr James of King's College, and F. J. H. Jenkinson, M.A., University Librarian, for their kind help in reading proofs and making suggestions. Dr Sandys devoted much time to the revision of the first chapter. As my work deals largely with monastic inst.i.tutions it is almost needless to say that I have consulted and received efficient help from my old friend W. H. St John Hope, M.A., a.s.sistant Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries.

My researches in Rome were made easy to me by the unfailing kindness and ready help accorded on every occasion by Father C. J. Ehrle, S.J., Prefect of the Vatican Library. My best thanks are also due to Signor Rodolfo Lanciani, to Professor Petersen of the German Archeological Inst.i.tute, Rome, and to Signor Guido Biagi of the Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence.

At Milan Monsignor Ceriani of the Ambrosian Library was so kind as to have the library photographed for my use.

The courteous officials who administer the great libraries of Paris with so much ability, have a.s.sisted me in all my researches. I wish specially to thank in this place M. Leopold Delisle and M. Leon Dorez of the Bibliotheque Nationale; M. A. Franklin of the Bibliotheque Mazarine; M. H.

Martin of the Bibliotheque de l'a.r.s.enal; and M. A. Perate, Sous-Conservateur du Chateau de Versailles.

I have also to thank Senor Ricardo Velasquez for his beautiful elevation of the bookcases in the Escrial Library; Father J. van den Gheyn, S.J., of the Royal Library, Brussels, for his trouble in shewing me, and allowing me to have photographed, several MSS. from the library under his charge; my friends Mr T. G. Jackson, R.A., Architect, for lending me his section of Bishop Cobham's library at Oxford; E. W. B. Nicholson, M.A., Librarian, and Falconer Madan, M.A., Sub-Librarian, in the Bodleian Library, for information respecting the building and its contents; Mr F.

E. Bickley of the British Museum for much help in finding and examining MSS.; and Lionel Cust, M.A., Director of the National Portrait Gallery, for general direction and encouragement.

Messrs Macmillan have allowed me to use three ill.u.s.trations which appear in the first chapter; Mr Murray has given the same permission for the woodcut of the carrells at Gloucester; and Messrs Blades for the representation of James Leaver's book-press.

Lastly I wish to thank the staff of the University Press for using their best efforts to produce the work rapidly and well, and for many acts of personal kindness to myself.

JOHN WILLIS CLARK.

SCROOPE HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE, _September 23rd, 1901._

THE CARE OF BOOKS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION. a.s.sYRIAN RECORD-ROOMS. LIBRARIES IN GREECE, ALEXANDRIA, PERGAMON, ROME. THEIR SIZE, USE, CONTEXTS, AND FITTINGS. ARMARIA OR PRESSES. THE VATICAN LIBRARY OF SIXTUS V. A TYPE OF AN ANCIENT ROMAN LIBRARY.

I propose, in the following Essay, to trace the methods adopted by man in different ages and countries to preserve, to use, and to make accessible to others, those objects, of whatever material, on which he has recorded his thoughts. In this investigation I shall include the position, the size, and the arrangement, of the rooms in which these treasures were deposited, with the progressive development of fittings, catalogues, and other appliances, whether defensive, or to facilitate use. But, though I shall have to trace out these matters in some detail, I shall try to eschew mere antiquarianism, and to impart human interest, so far as possible, to a research which might otherwise exhaust the patience of my readers. Bibliography, it must be understood, will be wholly excluded.

From my special point of view books are simply things to be taken care of: even their external features concern me only so far as they modify the methods adopted for arrangement and preservation. I must dismiss the subject-matter of the volumes which filled the libraries of former days with a brevity of which I deeply regret the necessity. I shall point out the pains taken to sort the books under various comprehensive heads; but I shall not enumerate the authors which fall under this or that division.

The earliest repositories of books were connected with temples or palaces, either because priests under all civilisations have been _par excellence_ the learned cla.s.s, while despots have patronised art and literature; or because such a position was thought to offer greater security.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 1. Plan of the Record-Rooms in the Palace of a.s.sur-bani-pal, King of Nineveh.]

I will begin with a.s.syria, where the record-rooms, or we might almost say the library, in the palace of a.s.sur-bani-pal, King of Nineveh, were discovered by Mr Layard in 1850 at Kouyunjik, on the Tigris, opposite Mosul. The plan (fig. 1), taken from Mr Layard's work[1], will shew, better than a long description, the position of these rooms, and their relation to the rest of the building--which is believed to date from about 700 B.C. The long pa.s.sage (No. XLIX) is one of the entrances to the palace. Pa.s.sing thence along the narrower pa.s.sage (No. XLII) the explorers soon reached a doorway (E), which led them into a large hall (No. XXIX), whence a second doorway (F) brought them into a chamber (No. x.x.xVIII). On the north side of this room were two doorways (G. G), each "formed by two colossal bas-reliefs of Dagon, the fish-G.o.d." "The first doorway," says Mr Layard, "guarded by the fish-G.o.ds, led into two small chambers opening into each other, and once panelled with bas-reliefs, the greater part of which had been destroyed. I shall call these chambers 'the chambers of records,' for, like 'the house of the rolls' or records, which Darius ordered to be searched for the decree of Cyrus concerning the building of the Temple of Jerusalem[2], they appear to have contained the decrees of the a.s.syrian kings, as well as the archives of the empire."

Mr Layard was led to this conclusion by finding, in these rooms, enormous quant.i.ties of inscribed tablets and cylinders of baked clay. "To a height of a foot or more from the floor they were entirely filled with them; some entire, but the greater part broken into many fragments, probably by the falling in of the upper part of the building.... These doc.u.ments appear to be of various kinds. Many are historical records of wars, and distant expeditions undertaken by the a.s.syrians; some seem to be royal decrees, and are stamped with the name of a king, the son of Esarhaddon; others again ... contain lists of the G.o.ds, and probably a register of offerings made in their temples[3]."

So far Mr Layard. Subsequent researches have shewn that these two small rooms--they were 27 feet and 23 feet long respectively, with a uniform breadth of 20 feet--contained the literature as well as the official doc.u.ments of a.s.syria. The tablets have been sorted under the following heads: History; Law; Science; Magic; Dogma; Legends: and it has been shewn (1) that there was a special functionary to take charge of them; (2) that they were arranged in series, with special precautions for keeping the tablets forming a particular series in their proper sequence; (3) that there was a general catalogue, and probably a cla.s.s-catalogue as well[4].

Excavations in other parts of a.s.syria have added valuable information to Layard's first discovery. Dr Wallis Budge, of the British Museum, whom I have to thank for much kind a.s.sistance, tells me that "Kouyunjik is hardly a good example of a Mesopotamian library, for it is certain that the tablets were thrown about out of their proper places when the city was captured by the Medes about B.C. 609. The tablets were kept on shelves....

When I was digging at Derr some years ago we found the what I call 'Record Chamber,' and we saw the tablets lying _in situ_ on slate shelves. There were, however, not many literary tablets there, for the chamber was meant to hold the commercial doc.u.ments relating to the local temple...." Dr Budge concludes his letter with this very important sentence: "We have no definite proof of what I am going to say now, but I believe that the bilingual[5] lists, which a.s.sur-bani-pal had drawn up for his library at Nineveh, were intended 'for the use of students.'"

To this suggestion I would add the following. Does not the position of these two rooms, easily accessible from the entrance to the palace, shew that their contents might be consulted by persons who were denied admission to the more private apartments? And further, does not the presence of the G.o.d Dagon at the entrance indicate that the library was under the protection of the deity as well as of the sovereign?

As a pendant to these a.s.syrian discoveries I may mention the vague rumour echoed by Athenaeus of extensive libraries collected in the sixth century before our era by Polycrates[6], tyrant of Samos, and Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens, the latter collection, according to Aulus Gellius[7], having been accessible to all who cared to use it. It must be admitted that these stories are of doubtful authenticity; and further, that we have no details of the way in which books were cared for in Greece during the golden age of her literature. This dearth of information is the more tantalizing as it is obvious that private libraries must have existed in a city so cultivated as Athens; and we do, in fact, find a few notices which tell us that such was the case. Xenophon[8], for instance, speaks of the number of volumes in the possession of Euthydemus, a follower of Socrates; and Athenaeus records, in the pa.s.sage to which I have already alluded, the names of several book-collectors, among whom are Euripides and Aristotle.

An allusion to the poet's bibliographical tastes has been detected in the scene of _The Frogs_ of Aristophanes, where aeschylus and Euripides are weighing verses against each other in the presence of Dionysus. aeschylus exclaims:

[Greek: kai meket' emoige kat' epos, all' es ton stathmon autos ta paidi', he gyne, kephisophon, embas kathestho syllabon ta biblia, ego de dy' epe ton emon ero monon.]

Come, no more single lines--let him bring all, His wife, his children, his Cephisophon, His books and everything, himself to boot-- I'll counterpoise them with a couple of lines[9].

With regard to Aristotle Strabo has preserved a tradition that he "was the first who made a collection of books, and taught the kings of Egypt how to arrange a library[10]"--words which may be taken to mean that Aristotle was the first to work out the arrangement of books on a definite system which was afterwards adopted by the Ptolemies at Alexandria.

These notices are extremely disappointing. They merely serve to shew that collections of books did exist in Greece; but they give us no indication of either their extent or their arrangement. It was left to the Emperor Hadrian to build the first public library at Athens, to which, as it was naturally constructed on a Roman design, I shall return after I have described those from which it was in all probability imitated.

But, if what may be termed Greece in Europe declines to give us information, that other Greece which extended itself to Asia Minor and to Egypt--Greater Greece it would be called in modern times--supplies us with a type of library-organisation which has been of far-reaching influence.

After the death of Alexander the Great (B.C. 323) a Greek dynasty, that of the Ptolemies, established itself at Alexandria, and another Greek dynasty at Pergamon. Both were distinguished--like Italian despots of the Renaissance--for the splendour and the culture of their courts, and they rivalled one another in the extent and richness of their libraries; but, if we are to believe Strabo, the library at Pergamon was not begun until the reign of Eumenes II. (B.C. 197-159), or 126 years after that at Alexandria[11].

The libraries at Alexandria (for there were two)--though far more celebrated and more extensive than the library at Pergamon--need not, from my point of view, detain us for more than a moment, for we are told very little about their position, and nothing about their arrangement. The site of the earliest, the foundation of which is ascribed to Ptolemy the Second (B.C. 285-247), must undoubtedly be sought for within the circuit of the royal palace, which was in the fashionable quarter of the city called Brucheion. This palace was a vast enceinte, not a separate building, and, as Strabo, who visited Alexandria 24 B.C., says,

Within the precincts of the palace is the Museum. It has a colonnade, a lecture-room, and a vast establishment where the men of letters who share the use of the Museum take their meals together. This College has a common revenue; and is managed by a priest who is over the Museum, an officer formerly appointed by the kings of Egypt, but, at the present time, by the Emperor[12].

That the older of the two libraries must have been in some way connected with these buildings seems to me certain from two considerations. First, a ruler who took so keen an interest in books as Ptolemy, would a.s.suredly have kept his treasures under his own eye; and, secondly, he would hardly have placed them at a distance from the spot where the learned men of Alexandria held their meetings[13].

At some period subsequent to the foundation of Ptolemy's first library, a second, called the daughter of the first[14], was established in connexion with the Temple of Serapis, a magnificent structure in the quarter Rhacotis, adorned so lavishly with colonnades, statuary, and other architectural enrichments, that the historian Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus declares that nothing in the world could equal it, except the Roman Capitol[15].

This brief notice of the libraries of Alexandria shews that the earlier of the two, besides being in a building dedicated to the Muses, was also connected in all probability with a palace, and the second with a temple.

If we now turn to Pergamon, we shall find the library a.s.sociated with the temple and [Greek: temenos] of Athena.

The founder selected for the site of his city a lofty and precipitous hill, about a thousand feet above the sea-level. The rocky plateau which forms the summit is divided into three gigantic steps or terraces. On the highest, which occupies the northern end of the hill, the royal palace is believed to have been built. On the next terrace, to the south, was the temple of Athena; and on the third, the altar of Zeus. External to those three groups of buildings, partly on the edge of the hill, partly on its sides, were the rest of the public buildings. The lower slopes were probably occupied in ancient times, as at present, by the houses of the citizens.

These magnificent structures, which won for Pergamon the distinction of being "by far the n.o.blest city in Asia minor[16]," were in the main due to Eumenes the Second, who, during his reign of nearly forty years (B.C.