By means of this system of dictation, the production of manuscripts was made much less costly than through the work of the _stationarii_, and the dictation system was probably an important reason why the manuscript-trade in the German university cities never became so important as in Paris or London. It is contended by the German writers that, notwithstanding the inconsiderable trade in manuscripts, there was a general knowledge of the subject-matter of the literature pursued in the university, no less well founded or extended among the German cities than among those of France or Italy. This familiarity with the university literature is explained by the fact that the students had, through writing at dictation, so largely possessed themselves of the substance of the university lectures. In the Faculty of Arts at Ingolstadt, it was ordered, in 1420, that there should be not less than one text-book (that is to say, one copy of the text-book) for every three scholars in baccalaureate. This regulation is an indication of the scarcity of text-books. The fact that the industry in loaning manuscripts to students was not well developed in the German universities delayed somewhat the organisation of the book-trade in the university towns. Nevertheless, Richard de Bury names Germany among the countries where books could be purchased, and Gerhard Groote speaks of purchasing books in Frankfort. This city became, in fact, important in the trade of manuscripts for nearly a century before the beginning of German printing.[380] Æneas Silvius says in the preface of his _Europa_, written in 1458, that a _librarius teutonicus_ had written to him shortly before, asking him to prepare a continuation of the book “_Augustalis_.”[381] This publishing suggestion was made eight years after the perfection of Gutenberg’s printing-press, but probably without any knowledge on the part of the _librarius_ of the new method for the production of books. In Germany there was, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, outside of the ecclesiastics, very little demand for reading matter. The women had their psalters, which had, as a rule, been written out in the monasteries. As there came to be a wider demand for books of worship, this was provided for, at least in the regions of the lower Rhine, by the scribes among the Brothers of Common Life. The Brothers took care also of the production of a large proportion of the school-books required.