Books and their makers during the Middle Ages : $b 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, Vol. IPutnam, George Haven
History
Books and their makers during the Middle Ages : $b 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, Vol. I
Putnam, George Haven
Books -- History -- 400-1450; Copyright; Freedom of the press -- History -- To 1500; Manuscripts; Printers
The account books of the monks of Ely showed that in the year 1300
they purchased five dozen sheets of parchment, four pounds of ink,
eight calf-skins, four sheep-skins, five dozen sheets of vellum, and
six pairs of book clasps. In the same year they paid six shillings
for a _Decretal_ and two shillings for a _Speculum Gregor._ In 1329,
the Precentor received six shillings and seven pence with which he
was instructed to go to Balsham to purchase books. In the same year,
four shillings were paid for twelve iron chains (used, of course, for
fastening the books safely to the reading-desks). Between 1350 and
1356, the purchases appear to have included no less than seventy dozen
sheets of parchment and thirty dozen sheets of vellum.[237]
Prince Borwin, of Rostock, in 1240 presented the monastery of Dargun
with a hide of land, the proceeds of which were to be used for the
repairing and preservation of the books in the library.[238] Adam,
treasurer of the Chapter of Rennes, in 1231, presented his library to
the abbey of Penfont, with the condition that the books were never
to be diverted from the abbey, and that copies were to be lent only
against adequate pledges.
In 1345, a library was founded in the House of the German Brothers
of Beuggen, near Rheinfelden, through the exertions of Wulfram of
Nellenberg. He directed that all books left by deceased Brothers
throughout Elsass were to be brought to this library, and the living
Brothers were also earnestly urged to present their own books to the
same collection.[239]
The great library of the monastery of Admunt was catalogued in 1380
by Brother Peter of Arbonne. The Chapter of S. Pancras, in Leyden,
received in 1380, through a bequest of Philip of Leyden, a collection
of eighty manuscripts, the catalogue of which has been preserved.[240]
As before indicated, the Monastery Reform, which was instituted with
the beginning of the fifteenth century, exercised a very decided
influence upon the interest in books and upon the development of
libraries. In Tegernsee, where the once noted library had fallen into
ruins, the Abbot Casper (1426-1461) reorganised it, restored such of
the old manuscripts as were still in existence, bought new codices,
and put to work a number of hired scribes. His successor, Conrad V.,
carried on the work actively and purchased for the sum of eleven
hundred pounds heller no less than 450 volumes, in addition to which he
secured a number of gifts or devout presents.[241]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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