In books during the middle ages, the plan of rolls was dismissed, and tbAt of leaves sewed togetherand inclosed in boards came generally into use. The material employed was steparchment, prepared from the skins of goats, sheep, deer, and other animals; for although the art of making paper was known in the 9th c., this new mai-t rial came slowly into use. The fabricators of the books were for the most part different orders of monks, more particularly the Benedictines (q.v.), a learned and industrious body of men, whose peaceful establishments were long the great centers whence liters ture was dispersed in ages of intellectual darkness and social disorder. At the head: of the book manufacturing department in the monastery was the armarian, who, besides Inking charge of the library, gave out books to be copied. along with the pens, ink„ and parchment required by the transcribers. Some of the monks were allowed to transcribe in the solitude of their cells, but the business of transcription was conducted chiefly in an apartment called the scriptorium, which was provided with ranges of desks and forms. There, the scribes or copyists, who were under strict regulations as to kosping silence, carried on their tedious but useful labors. The writing was effected to die tinctly formed letters in an old character; regularity in the lines and pages being, secured by previous ruling. There was an injunction that no one should on any account alter a single letter or word, without the sanction of the superior. With all the care that was bestowed, however, errors crept in, and were repeated from copy to copy, some of which mistakes have sorely puzzled the scholarly inquirers of later time.4.. There was a divi sion of labor in the monasteries. To some of the monks was assigned the duty of throw ing in embellishments. With leaf-gold and brilliant water-colors, they adorned the devotional works, lives of saints, and copies of the Scriptures with pictorial illustra tions and fancifully illuminated letters at the beginning of chapters. By another class of these monkish artists, the books were bound in styles suitable to the quality of the works. ID many instances, the binding was superb. The boards of wood, covered with leather or velvet, were decorated with precious stones and devices in metal; and in front, the volume was held together with clasps of gold or silver-gilt. Skelton. the poet laureate, in his Garland of Laurel, written about the year 1510, rapturously alludes to the splendid bindings of those old times: With that of the boke losende were the claspis: The margent was all with golden mines And byse, enpicturid with gressoppes and wasp's, With buttertlyis and freshe pecoke taylis, Entlorid with flowris and slymy snaylis; Envivid [enuiuid] picturis well towchid and quikly; It would haue made a man hole that had be tight sekely, To beholde how it was garnisshyd and bounde, Encouerde over with golde of tissew fyne; The claspis and bully,ms were worth a thousande pounde; With balassis* and charbancles the borders did sliyce; With a urunt musicumt euery other lyne Was • "A book usually known by the name of Talus Sanctus Cuthberti, preserved in the Cottonian library, is a fine specimen of Saxon caligraphy and decoration of tile ith century. It was written by Eadtrid, Bishop of Durham; and Ethelwold, his successor. executed the illuminations, the capitals, and other illustrations, with infinite labor and elegance. Bilfrid, a monk of Durham, covered the book and adorned it with gold and silver plates set with precious stones. We find also that Dageus, a monk who tiourishol in Ireland in the early part of the 6th c., was a skillful caligraphist, and manufactured and ornamented binding in gold, silver, and precious stones."—Haimetes Inytir y into the Books of the Ancients (Lond. 1843). Books of a common quality were plainly bound in parchment, and instead of clasps they were tied iu front with thongs. In order to enable monasteries to sustain the expense incurred by their book-fabricating establish ments, they were occasionally endowed with lands by pious laymen, the bequests being expressly for " the making and mending of books." Among the works produced were copies of the Scriptures, in whole or in part; breviaries orbooks of prayers used in the church services; missals, psaltery, books in philosophy, and copies of the Greek anti Latin classics and fathers; also legends of the saints. Books of history, poetry, romance, etc., were less commonly transcribed; though, from the extent of some of the mediaeval libraries, these and various other subjects were not neglected. Indeed, but for the monks we should have possessed scarcely any chronicles of the middle ages; nor are wu less indebted to them for the preservation of those classics which are now habitually used in our colleges and academies.
The method of dispersing the books was not less remarkable than that of their tram scription. Some of the books were sold at exorbitant prices; some were executed to the order of kings, nobles, and church dignitaries; some were exchanged: and some found their way into the hands of the station/till, or dealers in books, in the principal cities. It was customary to lend books for transcription, under an agreement to receive nn addi tional copy on their return. In all cases of lendin,g books, penalties were stipulated to be paid iu the event of their not being restored. Latterly, there sprang up a practice among the stationarii of Paris, and some other cities, of lending out books, at certain rates, on the principle of a library (q. v.), by which means the poorer class of students and others were accommodated. In these later times, also, as we approach the period when printing superseded transcription, the process of copying- books began to be undertaken by lay scribes for a livelihood, of which there were examples in London. To the monks, however, and also to some orders of nuns, belongs the unspeakable merit of having not only supplied the religious orders with the books which were in daily use, but those which replenished the libraries of the learned and wealthy, until their Inge nious craft was supplanted by that of the printer and bookseller. In the higher-class monasteries there were libraries of from 500 to 1,000 volumes; but many of the poorer conventual establishments could boast of no more than from 20 to 30 books. In the list of 'effects which belonged to a monastery in Scotland—St. Serf, on an island in Loch Leven—there appear only 16 books; and yet, in this poorly provided insult* establish meat, the prior, Andrew Winioun (1420), completed his Oryllynale Cronykit of .S.'-otland, a work in verse, which is not less valuable as a picture of ancient Instillers than as a specimen of the attainments of the old monkish writers. But there are said to have been instances of a greater scarcity of books than in St. Serf 's. Often, only two or three breviaries and missals, a psalter, and a copy of the Gospels, were all the books owned by it religious house. The possession of an entire copy of the Scriptures (the Latin version of St. Jerome) gave immense importance to a monastery or church. Nor was this surprising, when the enormous labor of transcribing a Bibje, letter by letter, is considered. Aleum, a native of England, and one of the most industrious and inge nious monks of his time, occupied himself from about 778 to 800 A.D., a space of 22 Years, in making a copy of the Bible for the emperor Charlemagne. This ancient and extremely interesting monument of piety and labor is now in the British :Museum, which became possessed of it for the sum of .a.750. The museum is also euriched with a variety of missals and otherworks executed by the monks. In the present day, it is scarcely possible to form a correct idea of the value put upon books, even of a common order, or of the prodigious care which was taken of them, during the middle ages. To preserve them from embezzlement, they were in some cases chained to shelves and reading-desks; and in the dwellings of nobles, a volume might be seen chained to a table in the hall, for the use of such members of the family as were able to read.
The establishment of universities in the 12th c. greatly stimulated the manufacture of books by transcription, more particularly those classics and philosophical treatises that were required.by stialents in the colleges. The anxiety of the authorities in these schools of learning to insure accuracy in the text-books; as well as to prevent the use of books of an improper kind, led to the establishment of censorships and privileges which interfered with the preparation of, and traffic in, books, long after the invention of print ing. Unfortunately, while this art was superseding the ancient process of transcription, the convulsions consequent on the reformation caused an enormous destruction of books. lu England, the libraries of monasteries, representing the labor of it thousand years, were mercilessly destroyed on the spot, or carried off and consumed in base puts poses, without a thought as to their value. In Scotland, the monastic libraries which had escaped the ravages of Danish and other invaders, were similarly destroyed. The sante fate otertook the ancient monastic libraries of France at the revolution. See LIBRARIES.