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lumina" discovered at Herculaneum fully | number of copies destroyed was more justify the conclusion. Hence it will at than two thousand. Indeed, it is hard once be understood that whereas a sin- to suppose that the general supply of gle modern volume might easily contain books was otherwise than abundant, conten, or even more, ancient "volumina," sidering the comparatively low price at the very largest assemblage of "volu- which copies of the works of even popumina" assigned as the total of the great-lar authors were sold. The first book of est of the ancient collections would fall Martial's "Epigrams," which contains a far short, in its real literary contents, of hundred and nineteen epigrams, was the second-rate, or even third-rate, col-sold in handsome binding for five denarii, lections of the present day. within a fraction of three shillings; and in a cheaper binding for between six and ten sestertii, from a shilling to one and eight-pence. For the thirteenth book, which is about one-third shorter, the publisher charged four sestertii; but Martial, who had probably sold his copy-right, complains that this price is too high, and that a fair profit might be had by selling it for half the sum:

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Quatuor est nimium; poterit constare duobus,
Et faciet lucrum bibliopola Tryphon.

copies in the market; and besides the copyists employed by the trade, each large household had among its slaves one or more (called "librarius "), whose office was to copy books, and that even the ladies of the household had their "librariæ " for the same purpose.

The question, therefore, turns entirely into an inquiry as to the extent of the circulation of books among the ancient book-reading public, and the actual degree of the multiplication of copies under the comparatively slow and expensive conditions of book-production before the use of printing. And upon this subject the opinions of the learned have been of late considerably modified. In Rome especially, the character of the book-trade appears on examination very different from what is popularly assumed; and, From these prices it may be fairly indissimilar as were the conditions of book-ferred that there was no scant supply of production from those of modern times, there are many points of analogy between what may be called the publishing trade of ancient Rome and that of our own day. Then, as now, there were wealthy and enterprising firms or individuals, who stood between the author and the public, and who employed the cheap although tedious resource of slave-labour for the transcription of books, in what it is impossible not to believe must have been, at least occasionally, large editions. Cicero's friend, Atticus, employed his slaves to transcribe books for sale; and Martial's "bibliopola Tryphon" would appear not only to have had a profitable trade in selling the copies of Martial's Epigrams," but also to have possessed On the transfer of his capital to his something analogous to the modern copy-new seat upon the Bosphorus, Constanright in the works of the poet. So at tine was not slow to establish a library least we understand Martial's reply to the suitable to the character of his new city. request of his friend Quintus for a pres- The library of Constantinople is specially entation copy: interesting as being probably the first in which the Christian literature obtained a footing. It may well be doubted, indeed, whether Constantine's new library was not mainly designed for Christian books. These he caused to be sought out diligently in all quarters after their dispersion and destruction under Diocletian. Now the number of books in the collection at the death of Constantine is reputed at only 6,900; and when we recollect the grandeur and munificence of the views of this emperor in the construction

66

Exigis ut donem nostros tibi, Quinti, libellos.
Non habeo, sed habet bibliopola Tryphon.
It would seem, too, that this work of
transcription was carried on upon a very
large scale. Pliny, in one of his letters,*
speaks of his friend Regulus getting a
thousand copies written of a book which
he composed on occasion of the death of
his son; and when Augustus confiscated
and ordered to be destroyed all the
copies of the false Sibylline Books, the

Ep. iv. 7, p. 93 (Buxhorn ed.)

Antecedently, therefore, there need not be held to be any improbability even in the largest estimate of the number of books which are alleged to have been contained in the ancient libraries, and which in actual quantity of matter would perhaps equal à modern collection of 60,000 or 70,000 volumes; but unhappily these estimates themselves are entirely hypothetical.

*Suetonius, Octavius, 34.

rian invasion, which, by successive revolutions, at last in part modified, in part obliterated, most of the distinctive characteristics of the old civilization, and substituted in their stead the rude germs of what was ultimately to grow into a harder, but higher and holier civilization of its own.

and decoration of his new city, it is hard-| Roman libraries, such as they were at ly credible that, if the library had been this date, would continue to add to their intended as a general, and not merely or Greek collection, or the Greek libraries principally as a Christian collection, it to their Latin; hardly even that each would not have immeasurably exceeded should not treat the rival literature with this humble limit. But, whatever its neglect and disregard; and the downoriginal character, it grew beyond the ward course which had thus spontaneouslimit of a class collection under the suc-ly begun, was precipitated by the barbacessors of Constantine. Constantius, Julian the Apostate, and Theodosius the Younger are specially enumerated as having added largely to its store of books, which advanced according to one account to 100,000 and according to another to 600,000 volumes. The library was, at least in part, destroyed by fire in the time of Leo the Isaurian; During the slow, and often all but stagbut notwithstanding this and sev-nating progress of this remarkable revoeral subsequent conflagrations, it was lution, ancient literature fell into disrestill maintained, though shorn of much gard. The new phase of the human of its earlier grandeur, down through the whole line of the Byzantine Cæsars; and the host of now unknown writers reviewed by Photius in his well-known Bibliotheca, would go far to prove that down to the ninth century, the library of Constantinople contained numberless treasures of ancient learning which have disappeared in the general wreck of the Christian empire of Constantinople. This is perhaps even more plain from the Excerpta, or digested collections from various authors, made under Constantine Porphyrogenitus; at least if we may judge of that work from the specimens of it which are preserved, as the Excerpta de Legationibus and the so-called "Historical Palimpsest," published by Cardinal Mai.* And, in addition to this merit, the libraries of Constantinople, mutilated as they were, must be regarded as the main source to which we are in-ject with much judgment and moderation. debted for the preservation of one large and important branch of ancient Greek literature that of the Greek fathers and historians of the Church.

mind had not yet taken its form; and for a considerable interval, the history of letters, and of their external representative, libraries, is almost a blank. The controversies about the history of learning and the diffusion of books in the medieval period, have naturally influenced the views of those who have written upon the medieval libraries, and especially upon the monastic libraries of the middle ages. Upon the one side, the enemies of the monks and clergy represent them as reckless destroyers, from mere contempt and hatred of knowledge, of the choicest treasures of the anciont learning. On the other, their apologists portray the monasteries, at one time as busy schools of enlightenment, at another as peaceful sanctuaries in which the lamp of classic learning never ceased to burn. Mr. Edwards has treated this portion of his sub

That, as a consequence of the barbarian irruptions of the fifth and following centuries, ignorance and its kindred disregard of letters overspread for a time the rugged kingdoms which replaced the It is clear from numberless evidences Greek and Roman civilization, not even that, even before the final disruption of the sturdiest partisans of monasticism the Roman Empire under the barbarian will deny; and it is equally plain that the immigration, the cultivation of letters first tendency of the young intellectual and the care and collection of books had activity which succeeded this period of notably declined, both in the West and stagnation, was in the direction of the in the East; and especially that each di- new Christian philosophy and of the thevision of the empire had ceased to culti-ological speculations which arose therevate the literature of the other. Greek ceased to be spoken in Rome, and Latin came under ban in Constantinople. It could no longer be expected that the

In the "Scriptorum Veterum nova Collectio," vol ii. 4to. Rome, 1837.

from, rather than of the Greek and Roman literature. But if it be false to represent the medieval monks as patrons and cultivators of classical literature for its own sake, Mr. Edwards shows that it is equally unjust to deny to them, or at least to many among them, the credit of

having been the main and almost the sole instruments of its preservation.*

It is plain that the prices relied on by Robertson and others are exceptional; This at least is certain: that whatever that the books sold at this costly rate of merit is to be recognized in transmit- were such as, either from rarity or beauty ting those remains of classic literature of execution, possessed a value entirely which have reached our age, by far the independent of the commercial estimate; larger share of that merit is due to the and that those prices are no more to be monasteries and monastic libraries. For taken as ruling the market of their day a long period the monastic bodies stand than could the Valdarfer Boccaccio, or a all but alone as book-collectors and unique Caxton, or the Gutenberg Bibles book-preservers; and if it be true in some of the Perkins sale, be accepted as saminstances that their function was mainly ples of the price of books in our own. that of passive instruments in handing on The truth is that, then as now, there were to posterity the collections of ancient éditions de luxe: the medieval bookauthors which already existed, in others trade, like our own, had its articles of their active services are beyond all ques- vertu; nor were there wanting Spencers tion; as those of the monks of St. Gall, and Blandfords ready to pay the price detailed by Mr. Botfield in the admirable necessary to secure the glory of becoming Introduction to his "Prefaces of the First possessed of them. But it is equally cerEditions of Greek and Roman Classics."† tain that there existed a tolerably fixed Without accepting unreservedly all Dr. and settled rule of demand and supply. Maitland's conclusions from the facts Dr. Kirchhoff, of Leipzig, in a very interwhich he has brought together in his esting and learned series of papers on "Dark Ages," in reply to the strictures the "Serapeum," supplies many curious of Robertson, Hallam, and other writers particulars as to the production, the on the middle ages, we cannot ignore the prices, and the commercial circulation of lifelike and truthful character of many of books in the middle ages; and the prices his pictures of medieval lovers of learn- which he has ascertained may, making ing for learning's sake, nor regard the required reductions, be used as a his reply to the argument in evi- guide in estimating the actual condition dence of the excessive rarity of books of the medieval book-market. It is imwhich these writers found on a few possible for us, of course, to go into deplainly exceptional instances of dearness, tail, but we may say that the trade-prices as other than perfectly conclusive. An of MSS. mainly depended on the number impartial scrutiny of the medieval chroni- of sheets, the sextern sheet of six leaves cles makes it plain that the commerce in being commonly valued at two or two books, like most other branches of trade, and a-half solidi. Many MSS. still show was maintained, in greater or less activity, the trade-price originally marked upon throughout the entire period. It drew its them, specifying the number of sexterns supplies mainly from the monastic scrip- and the price per sextern, as well as the toria, but in part also from certain lit-total cost of the volume. Thus a volume erary centres, and especially the seats of of medical treatises of Avicenna, Averthe schools and universities; and al-roes, Rhases, Serapion, and Isaac, is though examples of extravagant prices marked at octo florenos; but this price is for MSS. of great rarity or luxurious admitted to be beyond the average, and ornamentation, such as Robertson brings is justified "propter magnitudinem autoforward, may be culled without difficulty rum," the price per sextern being four from the records of the time, it is equally instead of two solidi. On the other hand, beyond dispute that in what we may call a "Summa Pisani,"‡ on account of its the every-day department of the book-less special interest, costs but two solidi trade-in the text books of the schools, per sextern; and a MS. of the Dialogues and the practical, theological, ascetical, of St. Gregory the Great and other hisand philosophical literature of the age, the supply was steady; and the prices, though relatively of course far beyond the present value of the nominal sum, differed much less than is commonly imagined from those which were current for printed books nearly a century after the invention of printing.

Memoirs of Libraries, vol. i. pp. 88-91. ↑ Introduction, p. xxiii.'

torical treatises is marked at the same rate. The ponderous theological treatises in use in the University schools, such as the Summa of St. Thomas, or the Sententia of Peter Lombard, were to be had of the Oxford booksellers for

*Serapeum: Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswissenschaft, vol. for 1852, pp. 257, 273, and 279. Serapeum, p. 260.

Ibid. p. 262.

prices varying from thirteen to twenty similar volume in 1357 cost only four shillings. A MS. of Anthony Wood in shillings. No information is given as to the Bodleian, quoted in Oxoniana, p. 36, the size of these volumes, but in the decontains a rather extensive list of prices. partment of school literature we find a A Historia Scholastica cost twenty shil- copy of Baron's Mathematical Treatise, lings; a Biblical Concordance, ten; the consisting of eleven quires, bought in four greater prophets, with glossaries, 1379 for five and sixpence. A book purfive; and several theological treatises, chased by Merton College for one of the one of which is the Summa of Thomas foundation scholars, described generally Aquinas, are set down at ten shillings; as a "school book," without any notice and St. Augustine on Genesis, and a of extent or character, cost only twoCommentary on the Psalms at the same pence; and about the same period, in an price. A still more instructive example inventory of effects, two "Romances' given by Kirchhoff is one in which all are valued at the still lower sum of three the items of the cost of producing the half-pence each.* MS. are enumerated, each being sepa- These practical details present a result rately assigned. The MS., which was in widely different from the picture drawn two volumes, was a new one (ultimatè by Robertson and even by Hallam. Still scriptus), and contained sixty-two sex-it is beyond dispute that the catalogue of terns and a-half. The transcription cost collectors of libraries from the fifth centhirty-nine francs and twelve deniers; tury downwards is a very limited one. A ten skins of parchment, with dressing few of the number are laymen, of whom and preparation, cost thirty-six sous; five gilt initial letters, together with the first letter of the volume, cost thirty sous; other gilt and rubricated letters in different parts of the volume cost three francs and eleven sous; the hire of the original MS. from which the copy was made amounted to five francs; the cost of repairing the edges of the sheets and stretching and pressing the volume was eleven sous; and that of the binding, two francs; making the entire cost of this large and specially expensive work in two volumes, sixty-two livres and eleven sous.

Venantius Ferreolus, Publius Consentius, and Cassiodorus, minister of the Gothic King Theodoric, may be regarded as private collectors, and Charlemagne, Everard of Friuli, and Charles the Bald, as representatives of the line of Royal founders. But it is impossible to doubt Mr. Edwards's conclusion that "the monks, after all, were the great collectors of the middle ages."†

Nevertheless, while their relative deserts are freely admitted, the absolute results as regards the formation of libraries must appear small in modern eyes. Among Monastic Libraries Mr. Edwards The subject of books does not come enumerates those of Canterbury, York, directly within the scope of Mr. Rogers's Wearmouth, Whitby, Glastonbury, Croyinquiry in his elaborate "History of Ag-land, and Durham in England; Monte riculture and Prices in England." But Cassino and Pomposia in Italy; Corvey, his researches have thrown some inci- Richenau, Marburg, St. Gallen, and Spondental light upon the prices and the cir- heim in Germany; and Fleury, Clugni, culation of written literature in Britain, and St. Riquier in France. The stores and have demonstrated the fallacy of the of all these, judging by the extant catanotion that books, during the centuries logues, which the curious in bibliography of which he treats, "were wholly inac-have printed, were scanty enough. The cessible to the general public." The Cathedral Library of Ratisbon in 1251 few examples which he gives are perhaps had but four hundred volumes. That of particularly instructive, as representing Christ Church, Canterbury, printed by various classes of books; not only Mr. Edwards, contains six hundred and church-service books, but also school ninety-eight numbers; but it is right to books, and even light literature. Thus, add that in many instances several disthe bailiff of Farney, in 1278, returns the tinct authors are comprised under one cost of a church book, probably a missal, number. The library of Fulda, founded or gradual, at six and eight pence, and a

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History of Agriculture and Prices in England (1359-1798). By J. E. Thorold Rogers. Oxford, 1866, vol. i. p. 645. ↑ Libraries and Founders, p. 26.

He overlooks the very ancient library of Bobbio, which was transferred to the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and supplied most of the palimpsests of that library and the Vatican.

scribendo libros!

by Charlemagne, contained seven hun- | Nunc ergo, o vir studiose, frange tibi caput pro dred and seventy-four volumes. The Royal Library of France in 1374 had but nine hundred and ten, and that of the Sorbonne itself, in 1392, barely reached

the number of a thousand.

Next in rank after the monks, as book

Mr. Edwards justly calls Richard "the patron saint of British book-lovers."*

collectors in the middle ages, come the great ecclesiastical dignitaries to whom It will easily be understood that the we are indebted for most of the Cathecontents of these libraries lay chiefly in dral libraries the nuclei at a later the department of sacred learning. Nev- period of many important provincial colertheless the Monks of Monte Cassino lections. We need but name as the type had grown famous as early as the eleventh of his class the celebrated Bishop of century for their transcriptions of Virgil, Durham, Richard d'Aungerville, better Horace, Theocritus, Terence, Ovid, and known as Richard of Bury, the first remany of the Latin and even Greek his-corded donor of books to the University torians, and in the monastic collections of Oxford, and author of the well-known generally the proportion of secular books,mation as to medieval books and libraries. Philobiblon, the great repertory of inforif scanty according to our notions, was yet by no means contemptible. In the catalogue of the monastery of Corbey, "under AUGUSTINUS, thirty-nine entries Before passing to the libraries of the appear; under BEDA, thirteen ; under Revival epoch, we may observe that Mr. Edwards has not noticed in either of his BOETIUS, fifteen ; under HIERONYMUS, sixteen; under PRISCIANUS, four; under works the libraries of the Arabs and the VIRGILIUS, Seven; under CICERO, five; Moors during that period of their history under LUCANUS, four; Juvenal, Persius, which corresponds with the middle age Martial, Ovid, Statius, Terence, all occur of European civilization. Of the extent in single entries, together with Pliny, of these libraries the most marvellous acLivy, and Seneca." * In like manner counts are given by the native chronithe Library of Durham contained copies clers. An Arab writer, Ibn Aby Tay, of "the Metaphysics and Ethics of Aris-cited by M. Quatremère in his "Retotle, the Orations and Rhetoric of Ci- cherches sur l'Egypte," is quoted by the cero, the Institutes and Declamations of distinguished author of the article "LiQuintilian; the poetical works of Virgil, braries" in the English Cyclopædia, the Ovid, Horace, Seneca, Juvenal, Claudian, late Mr. Watts, to the effect that the Lucan, and Statius; the histories and his- library of Cairo (which Ibn Aby Tay torical works of Sallust, Suetonius, Va- represents as the largest in the empire) lerius Maximus, Quintus Curtius, and Eu- contained 1,600,000 volumes. Another tropius." These works, it is true, are statement represents the library of Tripbut a handful in the mass of the logical, oli as possessing, under the single ascetical, biblical, and hagiographical head of Theology, no fewer than 3,000,000 treatises which form the staple of the volumes; and even the more sober library. Still it appears beyond all ques- writer, Makrizi, although in his account tion that the copies of the classical au- of the library of the Caliphs he only enuthors were made by the monks them-merates 18,000 volumes on the sciences selves; and Mr. Edwards bears most honourable testimony to the industry of the Benedictines generally, and especially of those of Monte Cassino. The pic tures which he draws of their literary activity from the earliest period may serve as a set-off against the scene of neglect and decay which Boccaccio is alleged to have witnessed in the same library, and from which Boccaccio's disciple, Benvenuto da Imola, who has given an account of the visit, draws the droll but characteristic moral, that he is a fool who "breaks his head in writing books":

*Libraries and Founders, p. 48.
t Ibid., p. 55.

Memoirs of Libraries, i. 270-1.

and 2,400 copies of the Koran, yet declares that the entire collection filled no fewer than forty chambers. The accounts of the Moorish libraries in Spain are somewhat more modest. The Caliph Alhakem at Cordova maintained collectors at Cairo, Bagdad, Damascus, and all the other great centres of literary enterprise in the East; and his collection was reported to contain 400,000 volumes, every one of which Al-bakem was said to have read, catalogued, and noted with his own hand! These accounts for the most part, however, involve a number of contradictory and plainly apocryphal details, and they are in themselves so evidently

Memoirs of Libraries, i. 359.

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