Manuscripts
Every book written by hand on flexible material and intended to be placed in a library is called a
manuscript. We must therefore set aside from the study of manuscripts (1) books graven on stone
or brick (Library of Assurbanipal at Ninive; graven documents discovered at Cnossus or Phæstos
in Crete); (2) all public acts (diplomas, charters, etc.), the study of which constitutes the object of
diplomatics. Manuscripts have been composed from the most remote antiquity (Egyptian papyri
of the memphite epoch) down to the period of the invention of printing. However, Greek
manuscripts were still copied until the end of the sixteenth century, and in the monasteries of the
East (Mount Athos, Syria, Mesopotamia, etc.), the copying of manuscripts continued well into
the nineteenth century. On the other hand the most recent Western manuscripts date from the last
years of the fifteenth century.
I. MATERIALS AND FORM OF MANUSCRIPTS
The principal materials employed in the making of manuscripts have been papyrus, parchment,
and paper. In exceptional cases other materials have been used (e.g. the linen books of Etruria
and Rome, a specimen of which was found on an Egyptian mummy in the museum of Agram;
the silken books of China, etc.). Besides, in ancient time and during the Middle Ages tablets
dipped in wax on which characters were traced with a stylus were made us of for fugitive
writings, accounts, etc.; these might be folding in two (diptychs), or in three (triptychs), etc.
Papyrus (charta ægyptica) was obtained from a long-stemmed plant terminating in a large and
elegant umbrella; this was the Cyperus Papyrus, which grew in the marshes of Egypt and
Abyssinia. The stem was cut in long strips which were placed one beside the other. On the
vertical strips others were placed horizontally; then after they had been wet with the water of the
Nile they were submitted to strong pressure, dried in the sun, and rubbed with shells to render
them solid. To make a book the separate pages (selides, paginæ) were first written on, then they
were put end to end, the left margin of each page being made to adhere to the right margin of the
preceding page. A roll (volumen) was thus secured, of which the dimensions were sometimes
considerable. Some Egyptian rolls are forty-six feet long by nine or ten inches wide, and the
great Harris papyrus (British Museum) is one hundred and forty-one feet long. The end of the
last page was fastened to a cylinder of wood or bone (omphalos, umbilicus), which gave more
consistency to the roll. The page having been ruled, the writing was done with a sharpened reed
on the horizontal portion of the fibres. From being almost exclusively used in Egypt, the use of
papyrus spread to Greece about the fifth century, then to Rome and throughout the West. Its
price remained very high; in 407 B.C. a roll of twenty leaves was worth twenty-six drachmas, or
about five dollars (Corp. Insc. Attic., I, 324). Pliny the Elder (Hist. Nat., XIII, 11-13) gives a list
of its various grades (charta Augusta, Liviana, etc.). Egypt retained the monopoly of the
manufacture, which furthermore belonged to the State. Alexandria was the principal market. In
the first centuries of the Middle Ages it was exported to the West by the "Syrians", but the
conquest of Egypt by the Arabs (640) stopped the trade. However it still continued to be used for
diplomas (at Ravenna until the tenth century; in the papal chancery until 1057). The Arabs had
attempted to cultivate the plant in Sicily.
Parchment (charta pergamena), made of the skin of sheep, goats, calves (vellum), asses, etc.,
was used by the Ionians and the Asiatics as early as the sixth century B.C. (Herodotus, V, 58);
the anecdote related by Pliny (Hist. Nat., XIII, 11), according to which it was invented at
Pergamus, seems legendary; it would seem that its manufacture was simply perfected there.
Imported to Rome in ancient times, parchment supplanted papyrus but slowly. It was only at the
end of the third century A.D. that it was preferred to papyrus for the making of books. Once
prepared, the parchment (membrana) was cut into leaves which were folded in two; four leaves
together formed a book of eight folios (quaternio); all the books formed a codex. There was no
paging before the fifteenth century; writers merely numbered first the books (signature), then the
folios. The dimensions of the leaves varied; the most in use for literary texts was the large
quarto. An Urbino catalogue (fifteenth century) mentions a manuscript so large that it required
three men to carry it (Reusens, "Paléographie", 457); and there is preserved at Stockholm a
gigantic Bible written on ass-skin, the dimensions of which have won for it the name of "Gigas
librorum". The page was ruled in dry point so deeply that the mark was visible on the other side.
Parchments were written on both sides (opistographs). As parchment became very rare and
costly during the Middle Ages, it became the custom in some monasteries to scratch or wash out
the old text in order to replace it with new writing. These erased manuscripts are called
palimpsests. With the aid of reacting chemicals the old writing has been made to reappear and
lost texts have been thus discovered (the Codex Vaticanus 5757 contains under a text of St.
Augustine the "De Republica" of Cicero; recovered by Cardinal Mai). Manuscripts thus treated
have been nearly always incomplete or mutilated; a complete work has never been recovered on
a palimpsest. Finally, by sewing strips of parchment together, rolls (rotuli) were made similar to
those formed of papyrus (e.g. Hebrew Pentateuch of Brussels, ninth century, on fifty-seven sewn
skins, forty yards in length; "rolls of the dead", used by the associations of prayer for the dead in
the abbeys; administrative and financial rolls used especially in England to transcribe the decrees
of Parliament, etc.)
Paper is said to have been invented in China in A.D. 105 by a certain Tsai-Louen (Chavannes,
"Jounr. Asiatique", 1905, 1). Specimens of paper of the fourth century A.D. have been found in
Eastern Turkestan (expeditions of Stein and Sven Hedin). It was after the taking of Samarkand
(704) that the Arabs learned to make paper, and introduced it to Bagdad (795), and to Damascus
(charta damascena). It was known in Europe as early as the end of the eleventh century, and at
this early date it was used in the Norman chancery of sicily; in the twelfth century it began to be
used for manuscripts. It was sold even then in quires and reams (Arabic, razmah) and in the
thirteenth century appeared the filigranes or watermarks. According to chemical analyses, the
paper of the Middle Ages was made of hempen or linen rags. The expression "charta
Bombycina" comes from the Arab manufactory of Bombyce, between Antioch and Aleppo. The
copyist of the Middle Ages used chiefly black ink, incaustum, composed of a mixture of gall nuts
and vitrol. Red ink was reserved from ancients times for titles. Gold and silver ink were used for
manuscripts de luxe (see EVANGELIARIA). The method of binding codices has varied little
since ancient times. The books were sewn on ox sinews placed in rows of five or six on the back.
These sinews (chordæ) served to attach to the volume wooden covers, which were covered with
parchment or dyed skin. Covers of the manuscripts de luxe were made of ivory or brass,
ornamented with carvings, precious stones, cut and uncut.
II. PAPYRI
Montfaucon (Palæographia græca, 15) confesses that he never saw a papyrus manuscript. There
were such, nevertheless, in some archives, but it was only in the eighteenth century, after the
discover of the papyri of Herculaneum (1752) that attention was devoted to this class of
documents. The first discovery took place in Egypt at Gizeh in 1778, then from 1815 the
discoveries in the tombs have succeeded one another without interruption, especially since 1880.
The hieroglyphic, demotic, Greek, and Latin papyri are at present scattered among the great
libraries (Turin, Rome, Paris, Leyden, Strasburg, Berlin, London, etc.). The publication of the
principal collections has been begun (see below) and the edition of a "Corpus papyrorum" is
projected, which my be one of the greatest undertakings of erudition of the twentieth century.
The importance of these discoveries may be estimated from the consideration of the chief kinds
of papyrus published to-day.
(1) Egyptian Papyri
The greater number are religious documents relating to the veneration of the dead and the future
life. The most ancient date from the epoch of Memphis (2500-2000 B.C.), the most recent belong
to the Roman period. One of the most celebrated is the "Book of the Dead", of which several
copies have been recovered. Moral and philosophical treatises have also been found (the Prisse
Papyrus, in the Bibliothèque Nat., Paris) as well as scientific treatises, romances and tales, and
popular songs.
(2) Greek Papyri
They are distributed over ten centuries (third century B.C.-seventh century A.D.) and contain
registers from archives (giving a very exact idea of the administration of Egypt under the
Ptolemies and the Roman and Byzantine emperors; their study has given rise to a new diplomatic
science), literary works (the finest discovered are the orations of Hyperides found on papyri in
the British Museum in 1847, 1858, 1891, and in the Louvre in 1889; Aristotle's "Republic of
Athens" on a papyrus of the British Museum in 1891; the "Mimes" of Herondas, lyric poems of
Bacchylides and Timotheus; and lastly, in 1905, 1300 verses by Menander at Kom Ishkaou by G.
Lefebvre), and religious documents (fragments of Gospels, of which some remain unidentified,
religious poems, hymns, edifying treatises, etc., e.g.: the Greek Psalter of the British Museum, of
the third century A.D., which is one of the most ancient Biblical manuscripts we possess; the
"Logia" of Jesus, published by Grenfell and Hunt; a hymn in honour of the Holy Trinity similar
to the "Te Deum", discovered on a papyrus of the sixth century; etc.).
(3) Latin Papyri
These are rare, at Herculaneum as well as in Egypt, and we possess only fragments. A papyrus of
Ravenna dated 551 (Library of Naples) is in Ostragothic writing (Catal. of Latin papyri in
Traube, "Biblioth. Ecole des Chartes", LXIV, 455).
Chief Collections
Louvre (Brunet de Presle, "Not. et ext. des MSS.", XVIII), Turin (ed. Peyron, 1826-27); Leyden
(ed. Leemans, 1843); British Museum (ed. Kenyon, 1898); Flinders Petrie (ed. Mahaffy, Dublin,
1893-94); University of California (Tebtunis Papyrus, ed. Grenfell and Hunt, London and New
York, 1902); berlin (Berlin, 1895-98); Archduke Renier (ed. Wessely, Vienna, 1895); Strasburg
(ed. Keil, 1902); Oxyrhyncos excavations (Grenfell and Hunt, London, since 1898); Th. Reinach
(Paris, 1905).
III. THE MAKING OF MANUSCRIPTS
In ancient times the copyists of manuscripts were free workmen or slaves. Athens, which was
before Alexandria a great library center, had its Bibliographos, copyists, who were at the same
time librarians. At Rome Pomponius Atticus thought of competing with booksellers by training
slaves, for the most part Greeks, to copy manuscripts, their work to be afterwards sold. Some
booksellers were at once copyists, calligraphers, and even painters. to the great libraries founded
by the emperors were attached rooms for copyists; in 372 Valens attached to that of
Constantinople four Greek and three Latin copyists (Theod. code, XIV, ix, 2). The edict of
Diocletian fixing the maxima of prices sets down the monthly salary of the librarius at fifty
denarii (Corp. Inscript. Latin, III(2) 831). Unfortunately, except for the Egyptian papyri, none of
the works copied in ancient times has come down to us, and our oldest manuscripts date only
from the beginning of the fourth century. The copyists of this century, several of whom were
Christian priests, seem to have displayed great activity. It was by transcribing on parchment the
works hitherto written on papyrus and in danger of being destroyed (Acacius and Euzoïus at
Cæsarea; cf. St. Jerome, "Epist.", cxli), that they assured the preservation of ancient literature
and prepared the work of the copyists of the Middle Ages. The most ancient and the most
precious manuscripts of our collection date from this period; Biblical manuscripts: Codex
Sinaiticus, a Greek fourth century manuscript discovered by Tischendorf at the monastery of St.
Catherine of Sinai (1844-59), now at St. Petersburg; Codex Alexandrinus, a Greek Bible
executed at Alexandria in the beginning of the fifth century, now in the British Museum; Codex
Ephræmi Rescriptus, a palimpsest of the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, containing fragments
of a New Testament written in the fifth century; Latin Bible of Quedlinburg, fourth century, in
the Library of Berlin; Fragments of the Cotton Latin Bible (Brit. Mus.), fifth century. Profane
authors: The seven manuscripts of Virgil in capitals [the most famous is that of the Vatican (Lat.
3225), fourth century]; the "Iliad" of the Ambrosian Library, fifth century; the Terence of the
Vatican (Lat. 3226) in capitals, fifth century, the "Calendar" of Philocalus written in 354, known
only by modern copies (Brussels, Vienna, etc.).
The barbarian invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries brought about the destruction of the
libraries and the scattering of the books. However, in the midst of barbarism, there were a certain
number of privileged refuges, in which the copying of books went on. It is to these copyists of
the Middle Ages that moderns owe the preservation of the Sacred Books as well as the treasures
of classical antiquity; they veritably saved civilization. The chief of these copying centres were:
Constantinople, where the library and schools continued to exist; the monasteries of the East and
West, where the copying of books was regarded as one of the essential labours of monastic life;
the synagogues and schools of the Jews, to which we owe the Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible,
the most ancient of which date only from the ninth century (British Museum, MSS. Orient, 4445,
ninth century; Codex Babylonicaus of St. Petersburg, copied in 916); the Mussulman schools
(Medressehs), provided with large libraries (that at Cordova had 400,000 vols.) and copying
rooms, in which were transcribed not only the Koran but also theological works and Arabic
translations of Greek authors (Aristotle, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, etc.). The most important works
undoubtedly was done by the monasteries; its history is identical with the history of the
transmission of sacred and profane texts of antiquity.
(1) Oriental Christendom
From the very beginning of Egyptian monasticism copying rooms were installed in the
monasteries, as is shown by the Coptic chronicle on papyrus studied by Strzygowski ("Eine
Alexandrinische Weltchronik", Vienna, 1905). In Palestine, Syria, Ethiopia, and Armenia, in
Melchite, Jacobite, or Nestorian monasteries, the copying of manuscripts was held in esteem. We
know the name of one scribe, Emmanuel, of the monastery of Qartamin on the Tigris, who
copied with his own hand seventy manuscripts (one of them the Berlin Nestorian Evangeliarium;
Sachau, 304, tenth century). At the Nestorian school of Nisibis the students copied the Holy
Scriptures, the text of which was afterwards explained to them. Indeed the Bible was copied by
preference, hence the numerous Biblical manuscripts, whether Syriac (text of the "Peshitto"
preserved at Milan; end of the fifth century), Coptic (fragments discovered by Maspero at
Akhmin; see "Journal Asiatique", 1892, 126), Armenian (Gospel in capitals, Institute Lazarev of
Moscow, dated 887; the most ancient complete Bible belongs to the twelfth century), Ethiopian,
etc. Commentaries on Holy Scripture, liturgical books, translations from the Greek Fathers,
theological or ascetical treatises, and some universal chronicles constitute the greater number of
these manuscripts, from which the classic writers are excluded.
(2) Greek Church
In the Greek monasteries St. Basil also recommended the copying of manuscripts and his treatise
"On the usefulness of reading profane authors" bears sufficient witness that side by side with the
religious texts the Basilian monks assigned an important place to the copying of classical
authors. That a large number of texts have perished is not the fault of the monks, but is due to the
custom of Byzantine scholars of composing "Excerpta" from the principal authors, and
afterwards neglecting the originals (e.g. Encyclopedia of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in the
library of Photius. See Krumbacher, "Gesch. der Syzant. litter.", p. 505). Wars, and especially the
taking of Constantinople in 1204 also brought about the destruction of a great number of
libraries. The work of the Byzantine copyists from the sixth to the fifteenth centuries was
considerable; and to convince ourselves it is enough to peruse the list of three thousand names of
known copyists recovered by Maria Vogel and Gardthausen from Greek manuscripts ("Beihefte
zum Zentralblatt für Bibliothekwesen", XXXIII, Leipzig, 1909). It will be seen that the greater
number of copyists are monks; at the end of the manuscript they often place their signature and
the name of their monaster. Some of them through humility preserve anonymity: Graphe tis;
oide theos ("Who wrote this? God knows"). Others on the contrary inform posterity concerning
the rapidity with which they have completed their task. The scribe Theophilus wrote in thirty
days the Gospel of St. John (985). A manuscript of St. Basil begun on Pentecost (28 May) of
1105 was ended 8 August of the same year. With the monks there were some secular copyists
known as notarii, tabularii, among them a tax collector of the eleventh century (Montfaucon,
"Palæog. gr.", 511), a judge of the Morea (Cod. paris, gr. 2005, written at Mistra in 1447), and
even emperors. Theodosius II (408-450) had earned the surname of "Calligrapher" (Codinus ed.
of Bonn, 151) and John V Cantacuzenus, having in 1355 retired to a monastery, copied
manuscripts. Among copyists is also mentioned the Patriarch Methodius (843-847), who in one
week copied seven psalters for the seven weeks of Lent (Pat. Gr. G. 1253).
The monasteries of Constantinople remain the chief centres for the copying of manuscripts. From
them perhaps proceeded in the sixth century the beautiful Gospels on purple parchment in letters
of gold (see MANUSCRIPTS, ILLUMINATED). In the ninth century the reform of the Studites
was accompanied by a veritable renascence of calligraphy. St. Plato, uncle and master of
Theodore of Studion, and Theodore himself copied many books, and their biographies extol the
beauty of their writing. Theodore installed at Studion a scriptorium, at the head of which was a
"protocalligrapher" charged with preparing the parchment and distributing to each one his task.
In Lent the copyists were dispensed from the recitation of the Psalter, but rigorous discipline
reigned in the work-room. A stain on a manuscript, an inexactness in copy was severely
punished. All the monasteries which came under the influence of Studion also adopted its
method of copying; all had their libraries and their copying rooms. In the eleventh century St.
Christodoulos, another monastic reformer, found of the convent of St. John of Patmos, ordained
that all monks "skillful in the art of writing should with the authorization of the hegoumenos
make use of the talents with which they had been endowed by nature". There has been preserved
a catalogue of the library of Patmos, dated 1201; it comprised two hundred and sixty-seven
manuscripts on parchment, and sixty-three on paper. The majority are religious works, among
them twelve Evangeliaries, nine Psalters, and many Lives of the saints. Among the seventeen
profane manuscripts are works on medicine and grammar, the "Antiquities" of Josephus, the
"Categories" of Aristotle, etc.
In the monasteries located at the extremities of the Hellenic world are found the same
occupations. The monastic colony of Sinai, which has existed since the fourth century, formed an
admirable library, of which the present remains (1220 manuscripts) afford but a faint idea. In
Byzantine Italy from the tenth to the twelfth century, the Basilian monks also cultivated
calligraphy at Grottaferrata, at St. Salvatore at Messina, at Stilo in Calabria, at the monastery of
Cassola, near Otranto, at St. Elias at Carbone, and especially at the Patir of Rossano, founded in
the eleventh century by St. Bartholomew, who bought books at Constantinople and copied
several manuscripts. The library of Rossano became one of the sources from which the
manuscripts of the Vatican library were drawn. Besides, from the end of the tenth century the
great monasteries of Mt. Athos, the great laura of St. Athanasiu, Vatopedi, Esphigmenou, etc.,
became most important centres for the copying of manuscripts. Without speaking of the treasures
of sacred and profane literature which are still preserved there, there is not a library of Greek
manuscripts which does not possess some examples of their work. Finally the monasteries
founded in the Slav countries, in Russia, Bulgaria, Servia, on the model of the Greek convents,
also had their copying rooms, in which were translated into the Slavonic language, with the help
of the alphabet invented in the ninth century by St. Cyril, the Holy Scriptures and the most
important works of the ecclesiastical literature of the Greeks. It was also in these monastic study
halls that the first monuments of the national literature of the Slavs were copied, such as the
"Chronicle of Nestor", the "Song of Igor", etc.
(3) The West
The work of the Western copyists begins with St. Jerome (340-420), who in his solitude of
Chalcis and later in his monastery of Bethlehem, copied books and commended this exercise as
one most becoming to monastic life (Ep. cxxiii). At the same time St. Martin of Tours introduced
this rule into his monastery. The copying of manuscripts appears as one of the occupations of all
the founders of monastic institutions, of St. Honoratus and St. Capresius at Lérins, of Cassian at
St. Victor's at Marseilles, of St. Patrick in the monasteries of Ireland, of Cassiodorus in his
monasteries of Scyllacium (Squillace). In his treatise "De Institutione divinarum litterarum"
(543-545) Cassiodorus has left a description of his library with its nine armaria for manuscripts
of the Bible; he also describes the copying room, the scriptorium, directed by the antiquarius. He
himself set the example by copying the Scriptures and he believed that "each word of the Saviour
written by the copyist is a defeat inflicted on Satan" ("De Institut.", I, 30). The work of the
copyists was also considered meritorious by St. Benedict. In the sixth century copying rooms
existed in all the monasteries of the West.
Since the time of Damasus, the popes had a library which was probably provided with a copying
room. The missionaries who left Rome to evangelize the Germanic peoples, such as Augustine in
597, brought with them manuscripts which they were to reproduce in the monasteries founded by
them. In the seventh century Benedict Biscop made four journeys to Rome and brought thence
numerous manuscripts; in 682 he founded the monastery of Jarrow which became one of the
chief intellectual centres of England. Theodore of Tarsus (668-680) accomplished a similar work
when he reorganized the Anglo-Saxon Church. The first period of monastic activity (sixthseventh centuries) is represented in our libraries by a large number of Biblical manuscripts, many
of which come from Ireland ("Liber Armachanus" of Dublin), England ("Codex Amiatinus" of
Florence, copied at Wearmouth under Wilfred, and offered to the pope in 716; "Harley
Evangeliary", Brit. Mus., seventh century), some from Spain ("Palimpsest of Leon", cathedral
archives, seventh century). Finally the library of the University of Upsala possesses the "Codex
Argenteus", on purple parchment, written in the fifth century, which contains the Bible of
Ulphilas, the first translation into a Germanic language of the Holy Scriptures.
At the end of the seventh and during the eighth century Gaul became more and more barbarous;
monasteries were destroyed or ravaged, culture disappeared, and when Charlemagne undertook
the reorganization of Europe he addressed himself to the countries in which culture was still
flourishing in the monasteries, to England, Ireland, Lombardy. The Carolingian renaissance, as
the movement has been called, had as its principle, the establishment of copying rooms at the
imperial court itself and in the monasteries. One of the most active promoters of the movement
was Alcuin (735-804), who after having directed the library and school of York, became in 793
Abbot of St. Martin of Tours. Here he founded a school of calligraphy which produced the most
beautiful manuscripts of the Carolingian epoch. Several specimens distributed by Charlemagne
among the various monasteries of the empire became the models which were imitated
everywhere, even in Saxony, where the new monasteries founded by Charlemagne became the
foremost centres of Germanic culture. M.L. Delisle (Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript., XXXII, 1)
has compiled a list of twenty-five manuscripts which proceeded from this school of Tours (Bible
of Charles the Bald, Paris, Bib. Nat., Lat. No. 1; Bible of Alcuin, Brit. Mus., 10546; manuscripts
at Quedlinburg relating to the life of St. Martin; Sacramentaries of Metz and Tours of the Paris
Bibliothèque Nationale, etc.)
Among the works proceeding from the imperial scriptorium attached to the Palatine School is
mentioned the Evangeliary copied for Charlemagne by the monk Godescalc in 781 (now at the
Bibliothèque Nationale), and the Psalter of Dagulf presented to Adrian I (now at the Imperial
Library of Vienna). Other important scriptoria were established at Orléans by Bishop Theodulfe
(whence issued the two beautiful Bibles now kept in the treasury of the cathedral of Puy Amand
(where the copyist Hucbald contributed eighteen volumes to the library), at St. Gall, under the
Abbots Grimaldus (841-872) and Hardmut (872-883), who caused the making of a complete
Bible in nine volumes; there are extant ten Biblical manuscripts written or corrected by Hardmut.
At St. Gall and in many other monasteries the influence of Irish monks is very marked
(manuscripts of Tours, Würzburg, Berne, Bobbio, etc.). Besides numerous Biblical manuscripts
there are found among the works of the Carolingian epoch many manuscripts of the classical
authors. Hardmut had had copied Josephus, Justin, Martianus Capella, Orosius, Isidore of
Seville; one of the most beautiful manuscripts of the school of Tours is the Virgil of the library
of Berne, copied by the deacon Bernon. Many of these works were even translated into the
vulgar tongue: at St. Gall there were Irish translations of Galen and Hippocrates, and at the end
of teh ninth century King Alfred (849-900) translated into English the works of Boethius,
Orosius, Bede, etc. At this epoch many monasteries possessed libraries of considerable size;
when in 906 the monks of Novalaise (near Susa) fled before the Saracens they carried to Turin a
library of six thousand manuscripts.
The period of the eleventh and twelfth centuries may be considered as the golden age of
monastic manuscript writing. In each monastery there was a special hall, called the
"scriptorium", reserved for the labours of the copyists. On the ancient plan of St. Gall it is shown
beside the church. In the Benedictine monasteries there was a special benediction formula for
this hall (Ducange, Glossar. mediæ et inf. latin.", s.v. Scriptorium). Absolute silence reigned
there. At the head of the scriptorium the bibliothecarius distributed the tasks, and, once copied,
the manuscripts were carefully revised by the correctores. In the schools the pupils were often
allowed as an honour to copy manuscripts (for instance at Fleury-sur-Loire). Everywhere the
monks seem to have given themselves with great ardour to the labour which was considered one
of the most edifying works of the monastic life. At St. Evroult (Normandy) was a monk who was
saved because the number of letters copied by him equalled the number of his sins (Ordericus
Vitalis, III, 3). In the "explicit" which concluded the book the scribe often gave his name and the
date on which he wrote "for the salvation of his soul" and commended himself to the prayers of
the reader. Division of labour seems as yet not to have been fully established, and there were
monks who were both scribes and illuminators (Ord. Vital., III, 7). The Bible remained the book
which was copied by preference. The Bible was copied either entire (bibliotheca) or in part
(Pentateuch, the Psalter, Gospels and Epistles, Evangeliaria, in which the Gospels followed the
order of the feasts). Then came the commentaries on the Scriptures, the liturgical books, the
Fathers of teh Church, works of dogmatic or moral theology, chronicles, annals, lives of the
saints, histories of churches or monasteries, and lastly profane authors, the study of which never
ceased entirely. Rather a large number of them are found among the ne thousand manuscripts in
the library of Cluny. At St. Denis even Greek manuscripts were copied (Paris, Bib. Nation., gr.
375, copied in 1033). The newer religious orders, Cistercians, Carthusians, etc., manifested the
same zeal as the Benedictines in the copying of manuscripts.
Then beginning with the thirteenth century the labour of copyists began to be secularized. About
the universities such as that of Paris were a large number of laymen who gained a livelihood by
copying; in 1275 those of Paris were admitted as agents of the university; in 1292 we find at
Paris twenty-four booksellers who copied manuscripts or caused them to be copied. Colleges
such as the Sorbonne also had their copying rooms. On the other hand at the end of the thirteenth
century in the greater number of monasteries the copying of manuscripts ceased. Although there
were still monks who were copyists, such as Giles of Mauleon, who copied the "Hours" of
Queen Jeanne of Burgundy (1317) at St. Denis, the copying and the illumination of manuscripts
became a lucrative craft. At this juncture kings and princes began to develop a taste for books
and to form libraries; that of St. Louis was one of the earliest. In the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries these amateurs had in their pay veritable armies of copyists. Thenceforth it was they
who directed the movement of the production of manuscripts. The most famous were Popes John
XXII (1316-34), Benedict XII (1334-42); the poet Petrarch (1304-74), who was not satisfied
with purchasing the manuscripts in convents but himself formed a school of copyists in order to
have accurate texts, the King of France, Charles V (1364-1380), who collected in the Louvre a
library of twelve hundred volumes, the French princes Jean, Duke of Berry, a forerunner of
modern bibliophiles (1340-1416), Louis Duke of Orléans (1371-1401) and his son Charles of
Orléans (d. 1467), the dukes of Burgandy, the kings of Naples, and Matthias Corvinus. Also
worthy of mention are Richard of Bury, Chancellor of England, Louis of Bruges (d. 1492), and
Cardinal Georges d'Amboise (1460-1510).
The copying rooms were made more perfect, and Trithemius, Abbot of Spanheim (1462-1513),
author of "De laude scriptorum manualium", shows the well-established division of labour in a
studio (preparation and polishing of parchment, ordinary writing, red ink titles, illumination,
corrections, revision, each task was given to a specialist). Among those copies religious
manuscripts, Bibles, Psalters, Hours, lives of the saints, were always represented, but an
increasingly important place was accorded the ancient authors and the works of national
literature. In the fifteenth century a great many Greek refugees fleeing before the Turks came to
Italy and copied the manuscripts they brought with them to enrich the libraries of the collectors.
A number of them were in the service of Cardinal Bessarion (d. 1472), who after collecting five
hundred Greek manuscripts, bequeathed them to the Republic of Venice. Even after the
invention of printing, Greek copyists continued to work, and their names are found on the most
beautiful Greek manuscripts of our libraries, for instance Constantine Lascaris (1434-1501), who
lived a long time at Messina; John Lascaris (1445-1535), who came to France under Charles
VIII; Constantine Palæocappa, a former monk of Athos, who entered the service of Cardinal de
Lorraine; John of Otranto, the most skilful copyist of the sixteenth century.
But the copying of manuscripts had ceased long before in consequence of the invention of
printing. The copyists who had toiled for long centuries had completed their tasks in bequeathing
to the modern world the sacred and profane works of antiquity.
IV. PRESENT LOCATION OF MANUSCRIPTS
Save for some exceptions, which are becoming more and more rare, the manuscripts copied
during the Middle Ages are at present stored in the great public libraries. The private collections
which have been formed since the sixteenth century (Cotton, Bodley, Christina of Sweden,
Peiresc, Gaignières, Colbert, etc.) have eventually been fused with the great repositories. The
suppression of a great number of monasteries (England and Germany in the sixteenth century,
France in 1790) has also augmented the importance of storehouses of manuscripts, the chief of
which are,
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Italy: Rome, Vatican Library, founded by Nicholas V (1447-55), which has acquired
successively the manuscripts of the Elector Palatine (given by Tilly to Gregory XV), of
the Duke of Urbino (1655), of Christina of Sweden, of the Houses of Caponi and
Ottoboni, in 1856 the collections of Cardinal Mai, and in 1891 of the Borghese library:
45,000 manuscripts (codices Vaticani and according to their particular foundation,
Palatini, Urbinates, etc.); Florence: Laurentian Library, ancient collection of the Medici;
9693 manuscripts largely of the Greek and Latin classical authors (Codices Laurentiani);
National Library (formerly the Uffizi), founded in 1860, 20,028 manuscripts; Venice,
Marcian Library (collection of Petrarch, 1362, of Bessarion, 1468, etc.), 12,096
manuscripts (Codices Marciani); Verona: Chapter Library, 1114 manuscripts; Milan,
Ambrosian Library, founded 1609 by Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, 8400 manuscripts
(Codices Ambrosiani); Turin, National Library, founded in 1720, collection of the Dukes
of Savoy. In Jan. 1904 a fire destroyed most of its 3979 manuscripts, nearly all of them of
the first rank (Codices Taurienses); Naples, National Library (ancient collection of the
Bourbon family), 7990 manuscripts.
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Spain: Library of the Escorial, founded in 1575 (one of the principal constituents is the
collection of Hurtado de Mendoza, formed at Venice by the ambassador of Philip II),
4927 MSS. (Codices Escorialenses).
France: National Library (had its origin in the royal collections gathered at Fontainebleau
as early as Francis I, and contains the libraries of Mazarin, Colbert, etc., and those of the
monasteries confiscated in 1790), 102,000 MSS. (Codices Parisini).
England: British Museum (contains the collections of Cotton, Sloane, Harley, etc.),
founded in 1753, 55,000 manuscripts; Oxford, Bodleian Library, founded in 1597 by Sir
Thomas Bodley, 30,000 MSS.
Belgium: Brussels, Royal Library, founded in 1838 (the principal basis is the library of
the Dukes of Burgandy), 28,000 MSS.
Holland: Leyden, Library of the University, founded in 1575, 6400 MSS.
Germany: Berlin Royal Library, 30,000 manuscripts; Göttingen University, 6000
manuscripts; Leipzig, Albertina Library, founded in 1543, 4000 manuscripts; Dresden,
Royal Library, 60,000 MSS.
Austria: Vienna, Imperial Library, founded in 1440 (collections of Matthias Corvinus and
of Prince Eugene), 27,000 MSS.
Scandinavian countries: Stockholm, royal Library, 10,435 manuscripts; Upsala,
University, 13,637 manuscripts; Copenhagen, Royal Library, 20,000 MSS.
Russia: St. Petersburg, Imperial Library, 35,350 manuscripts; Moscow, Library of the
Holy Synod, 513 Greek manuscripts, 1819 Slavic MSS.
United States: New York Public Library, founded 1850 (Astor collection, 40
manuscripts; Lenox collection 500 manuscripts); Pierpont Morgan collection, 115
manuscripts, illuminated miniatures.
Orient: Constantinople, Library of the Seraglio (cf. Ouspensky, Bulletin of the Russian
Archeological Institute, XII, 1907); Monasteries of Athos (13,000 manuscripts), of
Smyrna, of St. John of Patmos at Athens, the Library of the Senate -- at Cairo, the
Library of the Khedive (founded in 1870, 14,000 Arabic manuscripts) and the Patriarchal
Library (Greek and Coptic manuscripts). The Library of the Monastery of St. Catherine
of Sinai, the patriarchal libraries of Etschmaidzin (Armenian manuscripts) and of
Mossoul (Syriac manuscripts).
The dangers of all kinds which threaten manuscripts have induced the greater number of these
libraries to undertake the reproduction in facsimile of their most precious manuscripts. In 1905
an international congress assembled at Brussels to study the best practical means of reproduction.
This is a great undertaking, the accomplishment of which depends on the progress of
photography and of colour photography. By this means will the works of the copyists of the
Middle Ages be preserved. (See LIBRARIES.) Source:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09614b.htm