Books Before Typography: A Primer of Information About the Invention of the Alphabet and the History of Book-Making up to the Invention of Movable Types by Frederick W. Hamilton

Author:Frederick W. Hamilton [Hamilton, Frederick W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Books -- History
Published: 2009-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

The growth of the universities from the 12th century onward played a great part in the multiplication of books and the growth of libraries. Then, as now, the library was the heart of the university. Even more than now the students depended on its contents. Obviously only the richest students could buy any great number of books, and, equally obviously, every student needed to use them, bought what he could, borrowed the rest, and became a book collector for the rest of his life. The university libraries grew by purchase, by copies made on the spot, and by bequests. Then, as now, there were in every university a good number of men “working their way.” The copying of manuscripts was their great resource.

Naturally all this demand caused the production of many very badly executed manuscripts. This and other abuses were, however, controlled to a great extent by the university authorities who assumed control over the publication and sale of books. Old books, of course, could be freely sold, subject only to careful checking up of the correctness of the copy. New books had to be read three days in succession before the heads of the university or other public judges, always churchmen, and had to receive their sanction before being copied and put on sale.

This was done by the stationer who derived his name from the Latin word statio meaning a shop. The stationers made, sold, and rented books and sold writing materials and the like very much as at present. They were stringently regulated by the universities. They must be men of learning and character; must bind themselves to obey the laws of the university; must offer no copy for sale unless it was approved; must sell at rates fixed by the university; must purchase only books sanctioned by the university; and must loan books to those too poor to buy them at rates fixed by the university.

This careful regulation of the book trade of the university towns was originally intended for the best of purposes and was productive of much good. Unfortunately it also opened the door to much evil. It established the principle of control of the press, a principle always destructive of liberty and progress. By long use this control came to appear quite the right and normal thing. Used at first to secure the interests of learning and the protection of scholars, it became at length the powerful weapon of party in Church and State. It was used alternately to silence Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, and to muzzle all discussion of social and political questions. Control of the printing press became at last the greatest enemy of civilization, freedom, and enlightenment alike in the old world and in the new and it remained until largely swept away by the movement which culminated in the French Revolution of 1793.

Some of the university libraries early grew to generous size. That of the Sorbonne, for example, numbered 1720 volumes in 1338. This particular library consisted very largely of religious literature, as the main interest of the Sorbonne of that day was theological.

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