Part 11

The development of paper-making in Europe cannot be traced with any degree of certainty. There are Italian authors who assert that linen paper was made in Lombardy and Tuscany as early as the year 1300, and that the Italian knowledge of the art was derived not from Spain or Sicily, but through the Greeks at Constantinople, who had been taught how to make paper by the Saracens. The earliest authentic mention of an Italian paper-mill is that concerning the mill of Fabiano, which had been in operation for some years before 1340, and which produced at that time nothing but the cotton card-paper. There is no record of paper-mills in the Netherlands during the fourteenth century. Paper was made at Troyes, France, in the year 1340. In the British Islands there was no paper-mill before that of John Tate, who is supposed to have established it in the year 1498. In Germany, a paper-mill was established at Nuremberg by Ulman Stromer about the year 1390.[63] But the different paper-marks in the home-made paper of German manuscripts of this period are indications that there were paper-mills in many German towns. [p142]

The gradual development of paper-making in Europe is but imperfectly presented through these fragmentary facts. Paper may have been made for many years before it found chroniclers who thought the manufacture worthy of notice. The Spanish paper-mills of Toledo which were at work in the year 1085, and an ancient family of paper-makers which was honored with marked favor by the king of Sicily in the year 1102, are carelessly mentioned by contemporary writers as if paper-making was an old and established business. It does not appear that paper was a novelty at a much earlier period. The bulls of the popes of the eighth and ninth centuries were written on cotton card or cotton paper, but no writer called attention to this card, or described it as a new material. It has been supposed that this paper was made in Asia, but it could have been made in Europe. A paper-like fabric, made from the barks of trees, was used for writing by the Longobards in the seventh century, and a coarse imitation of the Egyptian papyrus, in the form of a strong brown paper, had been made by the Romans as early as the third century. The art of compacting in a web the macerated fibres of plants seems to have been known and practised to some extent in Southern Europe long before the establishment of Moorish paper-mills.

The Moors brought to Spain and Sicily not an entirely new invention, but an improved method of making paper, and what was more important, a culture and civilization that kept this method in constant exercise. It was chiefly for the lack of ability and lack of disposition to put paper to proper use that the earlier European knowledge of paper-making was so barren of results. The art of book-making as it was then practised was made subservient to the spirit of luxury more than to the desire for knowledge. Vellum was regarded by the copyists as the only substance fit for writing on, even when it was so scarce that it could be used only for the most expensive books. The card-like cotton paper once made by the Saracens was certainly known in Europe for many years [p143] before its utility was recognized. Hallam says that the use of this cotton paper was by no means general or frequent, except in Spain or Italy, and perhaps in the South of France, until the end of the fourteenth century. Nor was it much used in Italy for books.[64]

Paper came before its time and had to wait for recognition. It was sorely needed. The Egyptian manufacture of papyrus, which was in a state of decay in the seventh century, ceased entirely in the ninth or tenth. Not many books were written during this period, but there was then, and for at least three centuries afterward, an unsatisfied demand for something to write upon. Parchment was so scarce that reckless copyists frequently resorted to the desperate expedient of effacing the writing on old and lightly esteemed manuscripts. It was not a difficult task. The writing ink then used was usually made of lamp-black, gum, and vinegar; it had but a feeble encaustic property, and it did not bite in or penetrate the parchment. The work of effacing this ink was accomplished by moistening the parchment with a weak alkaline solution and by rubbing it with pumice-stone. This treatment did not entirely obliterate the writing, but made it so indistinct that the parchment could be written over the second time. Manuscripts so treated are now known as palimpsests. All the large European public libraries have copies of the palimpsests which are melancholy illustrations of the literary tastes of many writers or book-makers during the middle ages. More convincingly than by argument, they show the utility of paper. Manuscripts of the _Gospels_, of the _Iliad_, and of works of the highest merit, often of great beauty and accuracy, are dimly seen underneath stupid sermons, and theological writings of a nature so paltry [p144] that no man living cares to read them. In some instances the first writing has been so thoroughly scrubbed out that its meaning is irretrievably lost.

Much as paper was needed, it was not at all popular with copyists. Their prejudice was not altogether unreasonable, for it was thick, coarse, knotty, and in every way unfitted for the display of ornamental penmanship or illumination. The cheaper quality, then known as cotton paper, was especially objectionable. It seems to have been so badly made as to need governmental interference. Frederick II of Germany, in the year 1221, foreseeing evils that might arise from bad paper, made a decree by which he made invalid all public documents that should be put on cotton paper, and ordered them within two years to be transcribed upon parchment. Peter II, of Spain, in the year 1338, publicly commanded the paper-makers of Valencia and Xativa to make their paper of a better quality and equal to that of an earlier period.

The better quality of paper, now known as linen paper, had the merits of strength, flexibility and durability in a high degree, but it was set aside by the copyists because the fabric was too thick and the surface was too rough. The art of calendering or polishing papers until they were of a smooth, glossy surface, which was then practised by the Persians, was unknown to, or at least unpractised by, the early European makers. The changes of fashion in the selection of writing papers are worthy of passing notice. The rough hand-made papers so heartily despised by the copyists of the thirteenth century are now preferred by neat penmen and draughtsmen. The imitations of medieval paper, thick, harsh, and dingy, and showing the marks of the wires upon which the fabric was couched, are preferred by men of letters for books and correspondence, while highly polished modern plate papers, with surfaces much more glossy than any preparation of vellum, are now rejected by them as finical and effeminate.

There is a popular notion that the so-called inventions of paper and xylographic printing were gladly welcomed by [p145] men of letters, and that the new fabric and the new art were immediately pressed into service. The facts about to be presented in succeeding chapters will lead to a different conclusion. We shall see that the makers of playing cards and of image prints were the men who first made extended use of printing, and that self-taught and unprofessional copyists were the men who gave encouragement to the manufacture of paper. The more liberal use of paper at the beginning of the fifteenth century by this newly created class of readers and book-buyers marks the period of transition and of mental and mechanical development for which the crude arts of paper-making and of block-printing had been waiting for centuries. We shall also see that if paper had been ever so cheap and common during the middle ages, it would have worked no changes in education or literature; it could not have been used by the people, for they were too illiterate; it would not have been used by the professional copyists, for they preferred vellum and despised the substitute.

[p146]

IX

The Book-Makers of the Middle Ages.

Education controlled by the Church . . . All Books in Latin . . . Ecclesiastics the only Scholars and Book-Makers . . . Copyists in Constantinople . . . In Ireland . . . Charlemagne’s Educational Policy . . . Copyists of France and their Work . . . The Scriptoriums of Monasteries . . . Errors of Copyists . . . Illuminators of Books . . . Bookbinders . . . Profuse Ornamentation of Books . . . Neglect of Books and Copying by Monks . . . Copyists and Book-Makers appear among the Laity . . . Regulations of the University of Paris about Copyists . . . Character of Medieval Books . . . Universal Appreciation of Pictures . . . General Use of Abbreviations . . . Paper Used only for Inferior Books . . . Rise of the Romance Literature . . . Its Luxurious Books . . . Book-Collecting a Princely Pastime . . . High Prices paid for Books of Merit . . . Fondness for Expensive Books retarded the Development of Printing.

* * * * *

With that of the boke losende were the claspis: The margent Was illumynid all With golded railles And byse, enpicturid with gressoppes and waspis, With butterflyis and freshe pecocke taylis, Enflorid With flowris and slymy snaylis; Enuyuid picturis well towchid and quikly; It wolde haue made a man hole that had be ryght sekely, To beholde how it was garnyschyd and bounde, Encouerde ouer with gold of tisseu fyne; The claspis and bullyons were worth a thousande pounde; With balassis and charbuncles the borders did shyne; With aurum mosaicum every other lyne Was wrytin.

_Skelton._

* * * * *

From the sixth to the thirteenth century, the ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic church held all the keys of scholastic knowledge. They wrote the books, kept the libraries, and taught the schools. During this period there was no literature worthy of the name that was not in the dead language Latin, and but little of any kind that did not treat of theology. A liberal education was of no value to any one who did not propose to be a monk or priest. Science, as we [p147] now understand the word, and classical literature, were sadly neglected. Scholastic theology and metaphysical philosophy were the studies which took precedence of all others. The knowledge derived through these narrow channels may have been imperfect, but it was a power. The church kept it to and for itself; hedging it in with difficulty and mystery, and making it inaccessible to poor people. The study of Latin would have been neglected, and its literature forgotten, if this dead language had not been the language of the Scriptures, of the canons and liturgies of the church, and of the writings of the fathers. Ecclesiastics were required, by virtue of their position, to study Latin, but there were many in high station, even as late as the fourteenth century, who were barely able to read,[65] and many more who could not write.

The manufacture by professional copyists of the books of devotion required for the services of the church, which had died of neglect in Rome, and which had been driven out of Constantinople by the hostility of the iconoclastic emperors, re-appeared in Ireland, with unprecedented elegance of workmanship. It does not appear that the diligence of the monks at Iona was of any permanent benefit to Ireland, but it was of great value to the corrupted religion and waning civilization of Western Europe. Irish missionaries founded schools and monasteries in England, and taught their Anglo-Saxon converts to ornament books after a fashion now known and described as the Saxon style. Books of great beauty, [p148] admirably[66] written by unknown Irish copyists, are still preserved in Germany, France and Switzerland, to which countries Irish missionaries were sent from Iona between the sixth and ninth centuries. These missionaries revived the taste for letters.

Flaccus Alcuin, an Englishman and a graduate of Anglo-Saxon schools, the teacher and adviser of Charlemagne, was authorized by the great emperor to institute a policy which would multiply books and disseminate knowledge. It was ordered that every abbot, bishop and count should keep in permanent employment a qualified copyist who must write correctly, using Roman letters only, and that every monastic institution should maintain a room known as the _scriptorium_, fitted up with desks and furnished with all the implements for writing. The work of copying manuscripts and increasing libraries was made a life-long business. Alcuin earnestly entreated the monks to zealousness in the discharge of this duty. “It is,” he writes, “a most meritorious work, more beneficial to the health than working in the fields, which profits only a man’s body, whilst the labor of the copyist profits his soul.” On another occasion, Alcuin exhorted the monks who could not write neatly to learn to bind books. [p149]

The copyists of the middle ages may be properly divided in two classes: the class that considered copying an irksome duty and that did its work mechanically and badly; the class that treated book-making as a purely artistic occupation, and gave the most time and care to ornamentation. The book-makers who made search for authentic copies, comparing the different texts of books and correcting their errors, did not appear until after the invention of printing. The mechanical drudges, who were always most numerous, not only repeated the errors of their faulty copies, but added to them. Errors became so frequent that some of the more careful and conscientious copyists thought it necessary to repeat at the end of every book the solemn adjuration of Irenæus:

I adjure thee who shall transcribe this book, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by his glorious coming to judge the quick and dead, [p150] that thou compare what thou transcribest, and correct it carefully according to the copy from which thou transcribest, and that thou also annex a copy of this adjuration to what thou hast written.

The illustration annexed, the fac-simile of a few lines from a Latin Bible written in the ninth century, is a fair example of the carelessness of many mechanical copyists. The words _In illo tempore_ are not to be found in correct copies of the Vulgate;[67] the very awkward writing, the running together of words, the unnecessary contractions, and the misuse of capital letters, are flagrant blemishes that call for no comment.

The letters of this book are of the Roman form, as had been commanded by Charlemagne; but this form of writing gradually went out of use, not only in France, but even in Italy and Spain. The unskillful writers who could not properly produce the plain lines and true curves of Roman letters, tried to hide the ungainliness of their awkwardly constructed characters by repeated touches of the pen, which made them bristle with angles. In the golden age of pointed architecture and superfluous ornamentation, this fault became a fashion. The pointed letters became known as ecclesiastic letters, and then there seemed to be a special propriety in putting finials and crockets on the letters of books of piety. It is to the failing skill and bad taste of inexpert copyists more than to their desire to construct an improved form of writing, that [p151] we may trace the origin of the Black or Gothic letter,[68] which, under a great many names and modifications, was employed in all books until supplanted by the Roman types of Jenson.

The copyists and calligraphers were stimulated to do their best by the religious zeal of wealthy laymen who frequently gave to religious houses large sums of money for the copying and ornamentation of books. It was taught that the gift of an illuminated book, or of the means to make it, was an act of piety which would be held in perpetual remembrance. For the medieval books of luxury thus made to order, the finest vellum was selected. The size most in fashion was that now known as demy folio, of which the leaf is about ten inches wide and fifteen inches long, but smaller sizes were often made. The space to be occupied by the written text was mapped out with faint lines, so that the writer could keep his letters on a line, at even distance from each other and within the prescribed margin. Each letter was carefully drawn, and filled in or painted with repeated touches of the pen. With good taste, black ink was most frequently selected for the text; red ink was used only for the more prominent words, and the catch-letters, then known as the rubricated letters. Sometimes texts were written in blue, green, purple, gold or silver inks, but it was soon discovered that texts in bright color were not so readable as texts in black.

When the copyist had finished his sheet, he passed it to the designer, who sketched the border, pictures and initials. The sheet was then given to the illuminator, who painted it. [p152] The ornamentation of a medieval book of the first class is beyond description by words or by wood-cuts. Every inch of space was used. Its broad margins were filled with quaint ornaments, sometimes of high merit, admirably painted in vivid colors. Grotesque initials, which, with their flourishes, often spanned the full height of the page, or broad bands of floriated tracery that occupied its entire width, were the only indications of the changes of chapter or of subject. In printers’ phrase, the composition was “close-up and solid” to the extreme degree of compactness. The uncommonly free use of red ink for the smaller initials was not altogether a matter of taste; if the page had been written entirely in black ink, it would have been unreadable through its blackness. This nicety in writing consumed much time, but the medieval copyist was seldom governed by considerations of time or expense. It was of little consequence whether the book he transcribed would be finished in one or in ten years. It was required only that he should keep at his work steadily and do his best. His skill is more to be commended than his taste. Many of his initials and borders were outrageously inappropriate for the text for which they were designed. The gravest truths were hedged in with the most childish conceits. Angels, butterflies, [p153] goblins, clowns, birds, snails and monkeys, sometimes in artistic, but much oftener in grotesque, and sometimes in highly offensive positions, are to be found in the illuminated borders of copies of the gospels and the writings of the fathers.

The book was bound by the forwarder, who sewed the leaves and put them in a cover of leather or velvet; by the finisher, who ornamented the cover with gilding and enamel. The annexed illustration of bookbinding, published by Amman in his _Book of Trades_, puts before us many of the implements still in use. The forwarder, with his customary apron of leather, is in the foreground, making use of a plow-knife for trimming the edges of a book. The lying-press which rests obliquely against the block before him contains a book that has received the operation of backing-up from a queer-shaped hammer lying upon the floor. The workman at the end of the room is sewing together the sections of a book, for sewing was properly regarded as a man’s work, and a scientific operation altogether beyond the capacity of the raw seamstress. The work of the finisher is not represented, but the brushes, the burnishers, the sprinklers and the wheel-shaped gilding tools hanging against the wall leave us in no doubt as to their use. There is an air of antiquity about everything connected with this bookbindery which suggests the thought that its tools [p154] and usages are much older than those of printing. Chevillier says that seventeen professional bookbinders found regular employment in making up books for the University of Paris, as early as 1272. Wherever books were produced in quantities, bookbinding was set apart as a business distinct from that of copying.

The poor students who copied books for their own use were also obliged to bind them, which they did in a simple but efficient manner, by sewing together the folded sheets, attaching them to narrow parchment bands, the ends of which were made to pass through a cover of stout parchment, at the joint near the back. The ends of the bands were then pasted down under the stiffening sheet of the cover, and the book was pressed. Sometimes the cover was made flexible by the omission of the stiffening sheet; sometimes the edges of the leaves were protected by flexible and overhanging flaps which were made to project over the covers; or by the insertion in the covers of stout leather strings with which the two covers were tied together. Ornamentation was entirely neglected, for a book of this character was made for use and not for show. These methods of binding were mostly applied to small books intended for the pocket: the workmanship was rough, but the binding was strong and serviceable. [p155]

Books of larger size, made for the lecturn, were bound up in boards—not an amalgamation of hard-pressed oakum, tar, and paper-pulp, but veritable boards of planed wood, which were never less than one-quarter inch, and sometimes were two inches in thickness.[69] The sheets encased in these boards were gathered in sections usually of five double leaves. The sections were sewed on rounded raw-hide bands protected from cutting or cracking by a braided casing of thread. A well-bound medieval book is a model of careful sewing: the thread, repeatedly passed in and out of the sections and around the bands, sometimes diagonally from one corner of the book to the other, is caught up and locked in a worked head at the top and bottom of the back. The bands, often fan-tailed at their ends, were pasted and sometimes riveted in the boards. The joints were protected against cracking by broad linings of parchment.

For a book that might receive rough usage, and that did not require a high ornamental finish, hog-skin was selected as the strongest and most suitable covering for the boards. The covers and the back were decorated by marking them with fanciful patterns, lightly burnt in the leather by heated rolls or stamps, from patterns and by processes substantially the same as those used in manufacturing modern accountbooks. For a book intended to receive an ornamentation of gilded work, calf and goat-skin leathers were preferred. The gilding was done with care, elaborately, artistically, with an excess of minute decoration that is really bewildering, when one considers the sparsity and simplicity of the tools in use. To protect the gilding on the sides, the boards were often paneled or sunk in the centre, and the corners, and sometimes the entire outer edges of the cover, were shielded with thick projecting plates of brass or copper. A large boss of [p156] brass in the centre, with smaller bosses or buttons upon the corners, was also used to protect the gilding from abrasion. On the cheaper books, bound in hog-skin, iron corners and a closely set studding of round-headed iron nails were used for the same purpose. To prevent the covers from warping outward, two clasps of brass were attached to the covers.

[From Chambers.]]