Bibliomania in the Middle Ages

Bibliomania in the Middle Ages,
by

Frederick Somner Merryweather This eBook is for the use of anyone
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Title: Bibliomania in the Middle Ages
Author: Frederick Somner Merryweather
Release Date: May 28, 2007 [EBook #21630]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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BIBLIOMANIA
IN

THE MIDDLE AGES
BY
F. SOMNER MERRYWEATHER
With an Introduction by CHARLES ORR Librarian of Case Library

NEW YORK MEYER BROTHERS & COMPANY 1900

Copyright, 1900 By Meyer Bros. & Co.

Louis Weiss & Co. Printers.... 118 Fulton Street ... New York

Bibliomania in the Middle Ages
OR
SKETCHES OF BOOKWORMS, COLLECTORS, BIBLE
STUDENTS, SCRIBES AND ILLUMINATORS
From the Anglo-Saxon and Norman Periods to the Introduction of
Printing into England, with Anecdotes Illustrating the History of the
Monastic Libraries of Great Britain in the Olden Time by F. Somner
Merryweather, with an Introduction by Charles Orr, Librarian of Case
Library.

INTRODUCTION.
In every century for more than two thousand years, many men have
owed their chief enjoyment of life to books. The bibliomaniac of today
had his prototype in ancient Rome, where book collecting was

fashionable as early as the first century of the Christian era. Four
centuries earlier there was an active trade in books at Athens, then the
center of the book production of the world. This center of literary
activity shifted to Alexandria during the third century B. C. through the
patronage of Ptolemy Soter, the founder of the Alexandrian Museum,
and of his son, Ptolemy Philadelphus; and later to Rome, where it
remained for many centuries, and where bibliophiles and bibliomaniacs
were gradually evolved, and from whence in time other countries were
invaded.
For the purposes of the present work the middle ages cover the period
beginning with the seventh century and ending with the time of the
invention of printing, or about seven hundred years, though they are
more accurately bounded by the years 500 and 1500 A. D. It matters
little, however, since there is no attempt at chronological arrangement.
About the middle of the present century there began to be a disposition
to grant to mediæval times their proper place in the history of the
preservation and dissemination of books, and Merryweather's
Bibliomania in the Middle Ages was one of the earliest works in
English devoted to the subject. Previous to that time, those ten
centuries lying between the fall of the Roman Empire and the revival of
learning were generally referred to as the Dark Ages, and historians and
other writers were wont to treat them as having been without learning
or scholarship of any kind.
Even Mr. Hallam,[1] with all that judicial temperament and patient
research to which we owe so much, could find no good to say of the
Church or its institutions, characterizing the early university as the
abode of "indigent vagabonds withdrawn from usual labor," and all
monks as positive enemies of learning.
The gloomy survey of Mr. Hallam, clouded no doubt by his antipathy
to all things ecclesiastical, served, however, to arouse the interest of the
period, which led to other studies with different results, and later
writers were able to discern below the surface of religious fanaticism
and superstition so characteristic of those centuries, much of interest in
the history of literature; to show that every age produced learned and

inquisitive men by whom books were highly prized and industriously
collected for their own sakes; in short, to rescue the period from the
stigma of absolute illiteracy.
If the reader cares to pursue the subject further, after going through the
fervid defense of the love of books in the middle ages, of which this is
the introduction, he will find outside of its chapters abundant evidence
that the production and care of books was a matter of great concern. In
the pages of Mores Catholici; or Ages of Faith, by Mr. Kenelm
Digby,[2] or of The Dark Ages, by Dr. S. R. Maitland,[3] or of that
great work of recent years, Books and their Makers during the Middle
Ages, by Mr. George Haven Putnam,[4] he will see vivid and
interesting portraits of a great multitude of mediæval worthies who
were almost lifelong lovers of learning and books, and zealous laborers
in preserving, increasing and transmitting them. And though little of the
mass that has come down to us was worthy of preservation on its own
account as literature, it is exceedingly interesting as a record of