Books and Their Makers During the Middle Ages: 476-1600. pt. I. Books in manuscript. pt. II. The earlier printed booksG. P. Putnam's Sons, 1896 - 538 pages A study of the conditions of the production and distribution of literature from the fall of the Roman Empire to the close of the seventeenth century. |
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Abbot activity Alcuin Aldine Press Aldus Aldus Manutius appears authority Basel became Benedictine Bible Bishop Bologna book-dealers book-trade booksellers brought carried Cassiodorus centres Charlemagne chronicles Church Cicero classics collection copies dealers devoted earlier early ecclesiastical edition Erasmus Europe evidence fact fifteenth century Florence fourteenth century France Germany Greek Guild Gutenberg important influence intellectual interest issued Italian Italy Kirchhoff labour later Latin learning Leipzig letters libraires literary literature London Mabillon Maitland manu manuscript period manuscript-dealers Mayence Milan monastery monastic monks Montalembert Monte Cassino organisation Padua parchment Paris Pope prepared preserved printed books printers printing-office printing-press production publishing purchase record referred regulations Richard de Bury Rome says Schöffer scholarly scholars schools scribes script scriptorium secured stationarii texts thirteenth tion transcribing treatise undertakings University of Paris utilised Venice vols volumes Wattenbach writing written
Popular passages
Page 136 - Even so late as the year 1471, when Louis XI. borrowed the works of Rasis, the Arabian physician, from the faculty of medicine in Paris, he not only deposited in pledge a considerable quantity of plate, but was obliged to procure a nobleman to join with him as surety in a deed, binding himself under a great forfeiture to restore it.
Page 325 - The scholars who assembled in the lecture-rooms of Chrysoloras, felt that the Greek texts, whereof he alone supplied the key, contained those elements of spiritual freedom and intellectual culture without which the civilisation of the modern world would be impossible.
Page 99 - When I considered all this I remembered also how I saw, before it had been all ravaged and burnt, how the churches throughout the whole of England stood filled with treasures and books, and there was also a great multitude of God's servants, but they had very little knowledge of the books, for they could not understand anything of them, because they were not written in their own language.
Page 74 - For this reason I have diminished your labours out of the monastery, lest by working badly you should only add to your sins ; and have enjoined on you the manual labour of writing and binding books. These, and similar occupations, you may carry on with tranquillity of mind and body, within the inclosure of the monastery. I wish that you may diligently perform even these works of your hands for the love of God, lest you eat the bread of idleness. There is, in my opinion, no manual labour more becoming...
Page 326 - The study of Greek implied the birth of criticism, comparison, research. Systems based on ignorance and superstition were destined to give way before it. The study of Greek opened philosophical horizons far beyond the dream-world of the churchmen and the monks; it stimulated the germs of science, suggested new astronomical hypotheses, and indirectly led to the discovery of America.
Page 78 - God has vouchsafed to me," he goes on — " For the same reason I think it proper to add an account of the great knowledge and capacity for writing which was given me by the Lord in my childhood. When as yet a little child, I was sent to school, and quickly learned my letters ; and I began, long before the usual time of learning, and without any order from the master, to learn the art of writing. But in a furtive and unusual manner, and without any teacher, I attempted to learn that art.
Page 109 - ... glorious Greece transferred to Rome ; The Hebrews draw from their celestial stream, And Africa is bright with learning's beam. Here shines what Jerome, Ambrose, Hilary, thought Or Athanasius and Augustine wrought. Orosius, Leo, Gregory the Great, Near Basil and Fulgentius coruscate. Grave Cassiodorus and John Chrysostom Next Master Bede and learned Aldhelm come, While Victorinus and Boethius stand With Pliny and Pompeius close at hand. Wise Aristotle looks on Tully near. Sedulius and Juvencus...
Page 321 - Decameron, in the fifteenth was expended upon the interpretation of codices, the settlement of texts, the translation of Greek books into Latin, the study of antiquities, the composition of commentaries, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, ephemerides. While we regret this change from creative to acquisitive literature, we must bear in mind that those scholars who ought to have been poets accomplished nothing less than the...
Page 437 - Let us look in upon Aldus,' they say to each other. Then they loaf in and sit and chatter to no purpose. Even these people with no business are not so bad as those who have a poem to offer or something in prose (usually very prosy indeed) which they wish to see printed with the name of Aldus. These interruptions are now becoming too serious for me, and I must take steps to lessen them. Many letters I simply leave unanswered, while to others I send very brief replies; and as I do this not from pride...