Loading your reading…

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 — John Shaqi

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

Name: 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
Author: Putnam, George Haven

Putnam, George Haven

Books -- History -- 400-1450; Copyright; Freedom of the press -- History -- To 1500; Manuscripts; Printers

WILDER, DANIEL W. _The Life of Shakespeare, Compiled from the Best
Sources, without Comment._ Boston, 1893.

WILKEN, R. F. _Geschichte der Heidelberg. Bücher-Sammlungen._
Heidelberg, 1817.

WILLEMS, ALPHONSE. _Les Elzevier, Histoire et Annales Typographiques._
Brussels, 1880.

WINTER, V. A. _Die Cistercianer._ Munich, 1815.

WIRTH, HERM. _Archives für die Geschichte der Stadt Heidelberg._ 4
vols. Heidelberg.

WOOD, A. _Athenæ_, etc. (See _Athenæ._)

WRIGHT, THOMAS. _A Selection of Latin Stories from MSS. of the
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries._ Percy Society. London, 1842.

ZASIUS. _Epistolæ ad viros ætatis suæ doctissimos._ Ulm, 1774.

_Zeitschrift für Deutsches Alterthum._

_Zeitschrift für Geschichte des Oberrheins._

ZIEGELBAUER, H. _Observationes Literariæ S. Benedicti._ 4 vols.
Leipzig, 1784.




PART I.

BOOKS IN MANUSCRIPT.




[Illustration]

PART I.

BOOKS IN MANUSCRIPT.

INTRODUCTORY.


IN the year 410, Rome was captured and sacked by Alaric the Visigoth.
At this time, S. Jerome, in his cell at Bethlehem, was labouring
at his _Commentaries on Ezekiel_, while it was the downfall of the
imperial city which incited S. Augustine to begin the composition
of his greatest work, _The City of God_: “the greatest city of the
world has fallen in ruin, but the City of God abideth forever.” The
treatise required for its completion twenty-two books. “The influence
of France and of the printing-press,” remarks Hodgkin, “have combined
to make impossible the production of another _De Civitate Dei_. The
multiplicity of authors compels the controversialist who would now
obtain a hearing, to speak promptly and concisely. The examples of
Pascal and of Voltaire teach him that he must speak with point and
vivacity.”[1] S. Augustine was probably the most voluminous writer of
the earlier Christian centuries. He was the author of no less than
232 books, in addition to many tractates or homilies and innumerable
epistles.[2] His literary work was continued even during the siege
of Hippo by the Vandals, and he died in Hippo (in 431), in his
seventy-sixth year, while the siege was still in progress.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

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

No reviews yet