Bibliomania in the Middle Ages. F. Somner Merryweather
that she restricted the number of librarii, though this fell into disuse as the wants of the students increased. Twenty-four seems to have been the original number,[70] which is sufficiently great to lead to the conclusion that bookselling was a flourishing trade in those old days. By the statutes of the university, the bookseller was not allowed to expose his transcripts for sale, without first submitting them to the inspection of certain officers appointed by the university, and if an error was discovered, the copies were ordered to be burnt or a fine levied on them, proportionate to their inaccuracy. Harsh and stringent as this may appear at first sight, we shall modify our opinion, on recollecting that the student was in a great degree dependent upon the care of the transcribers for the fidelity of his copies, which rendered a rule of this nature almost indispensable; nor should we forget the great service it bestowed in maintaining the primitive accuracy of ancient writers, and in transmitting them to us through those ages in their original purity.[71]
In these times of free trade and unrestrained commercial policy, we shall regard less favorably a regulation which they enforced at Paris, depriving the bookseller of the power of fixing a price upon his own goods. Four booksellers were appointed and sworn in to superintend this department, and when a new transcript was finished, it was brought by the bookseller, and they discussed its merits and fixed its value, which formed the amount the bookseller was compelled to ask for it; if he demanded of his customer a larger sum, it was deemed a fraudulent imposition, and punishable as such. Moreover, as an advantage to the students, the bookseller was expected to make a considerable reduction in his profits in supplying them with books; by one of the laws of the university, his profit on each volume was confined to four deniers to student, and six deniers to a common purchaser. The librarii were still further restricted in the economy of their trade, by a rule which forbade any one of them to dispose of his entire stock of books without the consent of the university; but this, I suspect, implied the disposal of the stock and trade together, and was intended to intimate that the introduction of the purchaser would not be allowed, without the cognizance and sanction of the university.[72] Nor was the bookseller able to purchase books without her consent, lest they should be of an immoral or heretical tendency; and they were absolutely forbidden to buy any of the students, without the permission of the rector.
But restricted as they thus were, the book merchants nevertheless grew opulent, and transacted an important and extensive trade; sometimes they purchased parts and sometimes they had whole libraries to sell.[73] Their dealings were conducted with unusual care, and when a volume of peculiar rarity or interest was to be sold, a deed of conveyance was drawn up with legal precision, in the presence of authorized witnesses.
In those days of high prices and book scarcity, the poor student was sorely impeded in his progress; to provide against these disadvantages, they framed a law in 1342, at Paris, compelling all public booksellers to keep books to lend out on hire. The reader will be surprised at the idea of a circulating library in the middle ages! but there can be no doubt of the fact, they were established at Paris, Toulouse, Vienna, and Bologne. These public librarians, too, were obliged to write out regular catalogues of their books and hang them up in their shops, with the prices affixed, so that the student might know beforehand what he had to pay for reading them. I am tempted to give a few extracts from these lists:
St. Gregory's Commentaries upon Job, for reading 100 pages, 8 sous.
St. Gregory's Book of Homilies, 28 pages for 12 deniers.
Isidore's De Summa bona, 24 pages, 12 deniers.
Anselm's De Veritate de Libertate Arbitrii, 40 pages, 2 sous.
Peter Lombard's Book of Sentences, 3 sous.
Scholastic History, 3 sous.
Augustine's Confessions, 21 pages, 4 deniers.
Gloss on Matthew, by brother Thomas Aquinas, 57 pages, 3 sous.
Bible Concordance, 9 sous.
Bible, 10 sous.[74]
This rate of charge was also fixed by the university, and the students borrowing these books were privileged to transcribe them if they chose; if any of them proved imperfect or faulty, they were denounced by the university, and a fine imposed upon the bookseller who had lent out the volume.
This potent influence exercised by the universities over booksellers became, in time, much abused, and in addition to these commercial restraints, they assumed a still less warrantable power over the original productions of authors; and became virtually the public censors of books, and had the power of burning or prohibiting any work of questionable orthodoxy. In the time of Henry the Second, a book was published by being read over for two or three successive days, before one of the universities, and if they approved of its doctrines and bestowed upon it their approbation, it was allowed to be copied extensively for sale.
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