6. § VI
What was the extent of circulation of books during the manuscript
age? For the period before the Conquest we can only offer the merest
conjecture, which does not help us materially. The rarity of the extant
manuscripts of this age is no guide to the extent of their production.
During the raids of the northmen the destruction and loss must have been
very great indeed. After the Conquest the indifference and contempt with
which the conquerors regarded everything Saxon must have been
responsible for the destruction of nearly every manuscript written in
the vernacular. But, on the other hand, we find suggestions of a greater
production than is commonly credited to this period. Religious fervour
to make books was not wanting, as some of our most beautiful
relics—works exhibiting much painstaking and skilful and even loving
labour, calligraphy, and decoration aflame with high endeavour— belong
to the Hiberno-Saxon period and the days of Ethelwold. Nor after
Alfred's day was regard lacking for vernacular literature itself rather
than for the glory of a faith: how else are we to explain the precious
fragments of Anglo-Saxon manuscript which have been preserved for us,
especially the Exeter book and the Vercelli book? That the production
was considerable is suggested by the records we have. Think of the Irish
manuscripts now scattered
on the continent; of the library of York; of Bede's workshop and the
northern libraries; and of those in the south, at Canterbury,
Malmesbury, and elsewhere. But the use of such manuscripts as were in
existence was restricted to monks, wealthy ecclesiastics, and a few of
the wealthy laity.
After the Conquest the state of affairs was the same. The period
of the greatest literary activity in the monasteries now began, and
large claustral libraries were soon formed. The monks then had plenty
of books; wealthy clergy also had small collections. An ecclesiastic or
a layman who had done a monastery some service, or whose favour it was
politic to cultivate, could borrow books from the monastic library,
under certain strict conditions. Some people availed themselves of this
privilege; but not at any time during the manuscript period to a great
extent.[11.51]
Outside this small circle the people were almost bookless:
nearly the whole of the literary wealth of the Middle Ages belonged to
the monks and the church. Books were extremely costly. The medieval
book-buyer paid more for his book on an average than does the modern
collector of first editions and editions de luxe, who pays in
addition several guineas a volume for handsome bindings. The prices we
have tabulated will fully bear out this statement. But even more
striking evidence of the high value set upon books is the care taken in
selling or bequeathing them. To-day a line or two in a wealthy man's
will disposes of all his books. He commonly throws them in with the
"residue," unmentioned. In the manuscript age a testator distributed
his little hoard book by book. Often he not only bequeaths a volume to a
friend, but determines its fate after his friend's death. For example, a
daughter is to have a copy of the Golden Legend, "and to occupye
to hir
owne use and at hir owne liberte durynge hur lyfe, and after hur decesse
to remayne to the prioress and the convent of Halywelle for evermore,
they to pray for the said John Burton and Johne his wife and alle
crystene soyles (1460)."
[11.52] A
manuscript now in Worcester Cathedral Library bears an inscription
telling us that, likewise, one Thomas Jolyffe left it to Dr. Isack, a
monk of Worcester, for his lifetime, and after his death to Worcester
Priory. A manuscript now in the British Museum was bought in 1473 at
Oxford by Clement of Canterbury, monk and scholar, from a bookseller
named Hunt for twenty shillings,
in the presence of Will. Westgate,
monk.
[11.53] In a manuscript of the
Sentences is a note telling us that it was the property of
Roger, archdeacon of Lincoln: he bought it from Geoffrey the chaplain,
the brother of Henry, vicar of North Elkington, the witnesses being
master Robert de Luda, clerk, Richard the almoner, the said Henry the
vicar, his
clerk, and others.
[11.54] An instance of a
different kind will suffice. When, after a good deal of rioting at
Oxford, many of the more studious masters and scholars went to Stamford,
the king threatened that if they did not return to Oxford they would
lose their goods, and especially their books. The warning was
disregarded, but the threatened forfeiture of their books was evidently
thought to be a strong measure.
[11.55]
In his poems Chaucer endows two poor clerks with small libraries.
His first portrait of an Oxford clerk is delightful—
"For him was lever have at his beddes heed
[rather]
Twenty bokes, clad in blak or
reed,
Of Aristotle and his
philosophye,
Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrye [fiddle,
psaltery].
But al be that he was a
philosophre,
Yet hadde he but liter gold in
cofre;
But al that he mighte of his freendes hente
[get],
On bokes and on lerninge he it
spente,
And bisily gan for the soules
preye
Of hem that yaf him wherewith to scoleye [gave,
study].
Of studie took he most cure and most
hede.
Noght o word spak he more than was
nede,
And that was seyd in forme and
reverence,
And short and quik, and ful of hy sentence
[high].
Souninge in moral vertu was his speche [conducing
to],
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche."
Almost equally pleasing is his picture of another who lived with
a rich churl—
"A chambre hadde he in that
hostelrye
Allone, with-outer any
companye,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
His Almageste and bokes grete and
smale,
His astrelabie, longinge for his
art,
His augrim-stones layen faire
a-part
On shelves couched at his beddes heed."
Both descriptions have been used as evidence that books
were not so scarce as supposed; that poor people could get books if they
specially needed them. But are these pictures quite true? Has not the
poet taken advantage of the licence allowed to his kind? The records
preserved at Oxford do not corroborate him. Some of the students were
very poor. It seems likely that a would-be clerk attached himself to a
master or scholar as a servant in return for teaching in the "kunnyng
of writyng" and perhaps other knowledge—
"This endenture bereth witnesse that I, John Swanne, þ
e sone of John Swanne of Bridlington, in
þ
e counte of Yorke, have putte me
servante unto William Osbarne, forto serve him undir þ
e foorme of a servante for te terme of iiii.
yere, and þ
e seide William Osbarne
forto enfoorme þ
e seide John Swann in
þ
e kunnyng of writyng, and þ
e seide John Swann forto have þ
e first yere of te seide William Osbarne iijs.
iiijd. in money, and ij. peter [pairs] of hosen, and ij. scherts
[shirts] and iiij. peire schoon [pairs of shoes], and a gowne, and in
þ
e secunde yeere xiijs. iiijd., and
in þ
e iij. yere xxs. and a gowne, and
in þ
e iiij. yeere xls. And in
þ
e witnesse hereof, etc."
(1456).
[11.56]
Mr. Anstey points out that a very large number, probably the
majority of scholars, were not well provided for. They eked out their
precarious allowances by begging, by learning handicrafts, and by
"picking up the various doles at funerals and commemoration masses,
where such needy miserables were always to be found."
[11.57] Such students would not be likely to have
many or perhaps any books. "The stock of books possessed by the
younger scholars seems to have been almost
nil. The inventories of goods, which we possess, in the case of
non-graduates contain hardly any books. The fact is that they mostly
could not afford to buy them.... The chief source of supplying books was
by purchase from the University sworn stationers, who had to a great
extent a monopoly, the object of which was to
prevent the sale and removal from Oxford of valuable books. Of such
books there were plainly very large numbers constantly changing hands;
they were the pledges so continually deposited on borrowing from chests,
and seem, from scattered hints, to have been a very fruitful source of
litigation and dispute."
[11.58] Most of
these books were in the hands of seniors. Truly enough many a poor clerk
would as lief have twenty "bokes" to his name as anything else treble
the value. But he would undergo much sharp self-denial and receive much
"wherewith to scoleye" ere he got together so considerable a collection
of "bokes grete and smale," to say nothing of instruments. As such a
large proportion of the scholars were poor, and unable to acquire books,
nearly all the instruction given was oral. Well-to-do scholars would not
find, therefore, books of very great service; and indeed they were as
ill-equipped in this respect as their poorer brethren. The accounts of
the La Fytes, two scholars whose expenses were paid by Edward I himself,
contain records of the purchase of two copies of only the
Institutions of Quintilian (
c. 1290).
[11.59] Is not Chaucer describing his own room in
both passages—the room he loved to seek after his day's work at the
desk? Here at the bedhead are his books, including the astronomical
treatise of Ptolemy called
Almagest. Beside them is the
astrolabe, an instrument about which he wrote; and trimly arranged apart
his augrim-stones, or counters for making calculations. Such an outfit
we might expect him to have: just such a library, neither smaller nor
larger.
This supposition calls to mind another argument sometimes used to
prove how easy it was to make a small collection of books. Chaucer's
poems display his acquaintance, more or less thoroughly, with many
authors. Surely,
it is urged, his library was a good one for the time: then how was it
possible for a man of his means to own such? He was not wealthy. As a
courtier and a public officer the calls upon his purse must have been
heavy: little indeed could be left for books. The explanation is
probably simple. Books were freely lent, more freely than nowadays; and
Chaucer would be able to eke out his library in this way. Another point
is important. Professor Lounsbury, who has spent years in an exhaustive
study of Chaucer, points out a curious circumstance. "It must be
confessed," he says—a shade of disparagement lurks in the phrase—"it
must be confessed that Chaucer's quotations from writers exhibit a
familiarity with prologues and first books and early chapters which
contrasts ominously with the comparative infrequency with which he makes
citations from the middle and latter parts of most of the works he
mentions."
[11.60] Surely the implication is
unjust. Stationers used to let out on hire parts of books or quires.
Manuscript volumes were also often made up of parts of works by several
authors. Books being scarce, it was preferable to make some volumes
select miscellanies, little libraries in themselves. Hear Chaucer
himself—
"And eek ther was som-tyme a clerk at
Rome,A cardinal, that highte Seinte
Jerome,That made a book agayn
Jovinian;In whiche book eek ther was
Tertulan,Crisippus, Trotula, and
Helowys,That was abbesse net fer fro
Parys;And eek the Parables of
Salomon,Ovydes Art, and bokes many
on,And alle thise were bounder in o volume."
[11.61]
In composite volumes often only the earlier parts of authors'
works were included. If Chaucer owned a few
books of this kind, his familiarity with parts of authors— and oftenest
with the earlier parts—is accounted for satisfactorily; so also is the
range and variety of his reading. Examine the Christ Church Canterbury
catalogue in Henry Eastry's time, and note what a remarkable variety of
subjects is comprised in what we nowadays consider rather a paltry
number of books. There is another point worth bearing in mind. Speaking
of Bishop Shirwood's books, a writer in the
English Historical
Review says: "Many of the books bear his mark,
Nota,
scattered over the margins, or a hand with a long pointing finger.
These notes occur usually at the beginnings. In the days when chapters
and sections were unknown and division into books rare, when headlines
were not and pages sometimes had no signatures even, not to speak of
numbers, a reader had to go solidly through a book, and could not
lightly turn up a passage he wished for, by the aid of a reference. But
except in Cicero and in Plutarch—which is read almost from beginning to
end—the marks do not often go far. Shirwood was doubtless too busy to
find much time for reading, and before he had made much way with a book
a new purchase had come to arouse his interest."
[11.62]
But to the general rule of scarcity of books some exceptions are
known. When a book won a reputation, the cost of producing copies was
not wholly restrictive of circulation. Copies of some works of the
Fathers were produced in great numbers. The Bible, whole or in part, was
copied with such industry that it became the commonest of manuscripts,
as it now is the commonest of printed books. Peter Lombard's
Sentences became a famous book: the standard of the schools;
everywhere to be found side by side with the Bible, everywhere discussed
and commented
upon. A twelfth century author of quite different character had a
good hold upon the people; the number of copies of Geoffrey of Monmouth
must have been considerable, for the British Museum now has thirty-five
copies and Bodley's Library sixteen. "Possibly, no work before the age
of printed books attained such immediate and astonishing popularity . .
. translations, adaptations, and continuations of it formed one of the
staple exercises of a host of medieval scribes."
[11.63] A glance at the monastic and academic
library catalogues of later date than mid-thirteenth century will prove
more clearly than a shelf full of books how enormous was the influence
of Aristotle. If such a collocation as the Bible and Shakspere sums up
the present-day Englishman's ideals of spiritual sustenance and literary
power, a similar collocation of the Bible and Aristotle would sum up,
with a greater approach to truth, the ideals of the medieval schoolman.
Popularity fell to
Piers Plowman. Apart from the large currency
given to it by ballad singers, many manuscripts were in existence, for
even now forty-five of them, more or less complete, remain. As M.
Jusserand aptly remarks: "This figure is the more remarkable when we
consider that, contrary to works written in Latin or in French,
Langland's book was not copied and preserved outside his own
country."
[11.64] Again, but a few years
after the writing of the
Canterbury Tales, a copy of it was
bequeathed, among other books, by a clerk named Richard Sotheworth of
East Hendred, Berks (1417).
[11.65] The
impression is left upon one's mind that this work had found its way
quickly and in many copies into country places.
But as only a few books had a comparatively large circulation,
these few had a disproportionately powerful
influence. The Bible was paramount. Aristotle dominated the whole mental
horizon of the schoolmen. Alfred of Beverley tells us that Geoffrey of
Monmouth's book "was so universally talked of that to confess ignorance
of its stories was the mark of a clown."
[11.66] So great was the influence of
Piers
Plowman, that from it were taken watchwords at the great rising of
the peasants.
[11.67] The power of such
works could not be wholly hemmed in by the barrier of manuscript: like
a spring torrent it would burst forth and carry all before it. In the
manuscript period a book of great originality and power, or a work which
reproduced the thought of the time accurately and with spirit, ran no
great risk of being passed over and forgotten; too little was produced
for much that was good to be lost. It was copied once and again; became
very slowly but very surely known to a few, then to many; and all the
time waxed more and more influential in its teaching. The growth was
slow, but then the lifetime was long. Now the chance of a good book
going astray is much greater What watcher of the great procession of
modern books does not fear that something supremely fine and great has
passed unobserved in the huge, motley crowd?