For centuries the knowledge of reading and writing was so fan contined to the clerics that there was no demand for such manuscripts outside of the monasteries. Later, under the influence of such monarchs as Alfred in England. and through the developed interest of certain other princes who had owed their early education to monas tery schools, the fashion arose of collecting in the libraries of kings and nobles manuscripts containing specimens of the world's literature. Such a taste could advantageously be cultivated by the abbots and their scribes. A nobleman desiring, as a matter of scholarly interest or honorable ambition, to possess a certain manu script, was willing to pay a high price for it. Not a few of the landed estates connected with the literary monasteries, and more particularly with those of England and Burgundy, were large ly secured in exchange for noteworthy manu scripts.
The next important work in the production, exchange, and sale of books was carried on in the universities. The term stationarii, which stands for the official bookmakers of the university, first appears in Bologna in 1259 and in Paris some years later, hut the work of preparing books for the use of instructors and students had already been carried on for a number of years. In Paris, as in Bologna, the stationarii were university officials, and, in the majority of eases, graduates. The conditions of their trade, closely controlled by the regulations of the university, were pecu liar. During the Thirteenth and part of the Fourteenth Century, the books supplied to the students were not sold, but rented, and the amount of the hire was fixed by university regu lation. The bidelli of the university published front term to term a list of the authoritative university texts which the booksellers were or dered to prepare, to keep in stock, and to hire out. The statutes of the University of Padua of the year 1283 provided that two stationarii should be employed. The rental for a term of a fortnight of a pee' (a division of from 16 to 32 pages) of the prescribed text was four denarii, of the glossarii (the commentaries on the text) five denarii, and of texts not on the official list six denarii. ID the year 1289 the list of texts which must be kept in stock in Bologna com prised 117 works. In Padua, as in Bologna, the stationarii, in entering upon their business, had to make a deposit of 400 ((bra•, and go through an examination. Toward the close of the Thir teenth Century the statutes of Bologna per mitted the sale of manuscripts for a commission of 21/2 per cent.
The authorities of the University of Paris exer cised from the beginning a very complete con trol over all the details of making, renting, and selling books. Two centuries and a half before the introduction of the printing-press the book trade of the university had become in great meas ure the book trade of the city. The scribes and
their masters who were manifolding manuscripts in the Latin Quarter were not only supplying text-books to the students of the university, hut preparing literature for the scholarly readers of France and of Europe. The book-dealers of Paris constituted for centuries a guild organized within the university. its members, the libraiies jun's, were members of the university, and its operations were under the direct control of the academie authorities. It was essential not only to secure for the members of the university, at a fixed and moderate charge. a sufficient sup ply of correct and complete texts of the pre scribed works, but also to protect these students from the contamination of heretical writings or of heretical comments on books of accepted orthodoxy. (See CENsonsutr.) In the univer sides of Oxford and Cambridge the slationarii began their work some years later than in Paris or Bologna. They had, however. the advantage of freedom from the greater portion of the re strictions which hampered the work of the French and Italian scribes, and their business developed so actively that they soon became the booksellers of the university towns and in large part of the scholarly public of the whole country. It was, of course, from the university term that the name 'stationers' came at the outset to he applied to the organized book-dealers of Great Britain. The first guild of the British book dealers (the forerunner of the Stationers' Com pany of 1536) completed its organization in 1403, nearly sixty years before the introduction into England of the printing-press.
Outside of the universities, an important trade in manuscripts came into being with the close of the Fourteenth and beginning of the Fifteenth Century. The headquarters, not only for Italy, hut for Europe, of the trade in Greek manu scripts was for a number of years in Venice, whose close relations with the East gave it an early advantage in connection with this par ticular class of Eastern products. Amon, the great manuscript dealers of Italy of the Four teenth Century may be noted the name of Aure tinus and Vespasiano of Florence, of Aurispa of Venice, and Galiotti of Milan. The trade in manuscript books in the Low Countries was dis tinguished by the beauty of the art work which was associated with the text of the scribes. The manuscripts from Bruges secured, chiefly on this ground, a larger price in the market than is noted for the productions of any other book centre of Europe. The Dukes of Burgundy, dur ing the first half of the Fifteenth Century, were noted for their literary interests, and did much to further the book trade of Ghent. Antwerp. and Bruges. The first publishers' guild of the Low Countries was organized in 1424 at Ghent.