It will come as no surprise that books were read in the Middle Ages. However, it is less widely known that these books were very often not produced in monasteries. Research indicates that from the thirteenth century onwards, there was a well-organized book trade, where manuscripts were written, decorated and sold for profit. In this world of profit and competition, we see the contours of our modern book industry looming.
The historian G.R. Elton once said that the past is like a foreign land:they do things differently. Yet there are often striking similarities between our world and that of centuries ago. As a medieval book historian, you notice that when you look at the object in which readers read their texts before the invention of the printing press:the handwritten book.
At first glance, such a "manuscript" looks very different from today's printed book, not to mention the e-book. Made of cowhides and written with a feather or reed, the medieval objects cannot be compared with what we buy in the bookstore or download on our e-reader.
But if we take a closer look, we see striking similarities. For example, the medieval and modern pages have the same relative dimensions (the ratio between height and width), they both contain footnotes, page numbers and chapter titles, and the end of the line is neatly justified on both. The main difference lies in the production of the object – pen versus printing press – and not so much in the way in which the text is presented to the reader.
Writing as a profession
An even more striking similarity is that of the trade in the book:there too the Middle Ages appear to be remarkably modern. Take the bookstore. As early as the fourteenth-century city, you could go to a bookseller, who would then take your order as if it were a bag of chips. You told him what text you wanted and what it should look like:written in one or two columns, with or without page numbers and pictures, written on parchment or paper, and of a certain size.
Then you had to wait for the book to be made, which could take up to a year:there were no books in stock in the Middle Ages, they were too expensive for that. Sometimes the bookseller made the ordered book himself. Duplicate occupations of this kind are common in the medieval book world, where bookbinders sometimes illustrated and copyists sold books. Such a professional writer, who was allowed (yes, had to) make a profit, unlike his professional brother in the monastery, knew how to attract customers with all kinds of clever tricks.
For example, so-called 'writing sheets' have been preserved, parchment sheets on which up to twenty different writing specimens are displayed. The names of the script are always written under the short writing tests, in gold, so that customers could use the professional jargon of the copyist when ordering. “I would like the psalms in a littera rotunda”, it sounded then.
Medieval Marketing
The blank backs of the writing surfaces show that they were hung on the wall. Presumably outside the door, because one of them reads:“Whoever wants to have something written, comes in here.” Such texts are precursors of our advertising messages, elegant signboards that show that late medieval craftsmen tried hard to promote their goods.
We sometimes come across such examples of medieval marketing in the books. One Herneis, who wrote books in Paris for a fee, noted at the back of a French legal handwriting:“If anyone else wants such a beautiful book, come and see me in Paris, opposite Notre Dame.”
We know a lot about the Paris bookshop because the accounts of the medieval tax office have largely been preserved. It shows that in the street opposite the cathedral there were dozens of craftsmen like Herneis, from writers and bookbinders to illuminators who painted the pictures. Studies show that the craftsmen in such streets formed a close-knit community, who, for example, testified for each other when disputes were fought in court.
As a customer it was extremely convenient that all the people lived in one street, because that way you knew exactly where to go if you wanted a book; comparable to our residential boulevards. Nowadays you can still read this kind of agglomeration around the book from the street names such as 'parchmentstraat' and 'writers alley'.
Book industry
It was also easy for the bookseller that his colleagues lived around the corner. Because he not only earned money as a writer, he also acted as an intermediary. If an order was too large or too specialized, the bookseller could engage others. One neighbor might have been a better painter than he was, while the other was more than happy to help copy the text, cutting production time in half and leaving the customer with only half a year to wait for his book.
In such cases, the bookseller drew up contracts that set out what the "temporary worker" would do and how much money he would receive for it. During the production of the book, he checked how the work went smoothly and whether the quality was good enough. That was not always the case. There are known lawsuits in which a trader was sued by an illuminator for refusing to pay for the work delivered, presumably because it was not to be seen.
Research shows that booksellers often worked with the same groups of craftsmen, neighbors he knew from 'drinking beer' after work. If you look at the products of such collectives, you see how well these befriended illuminators and copyists are attuned to each other:together they deliver the most beautiful books we know from the Middle Ages.
No fat pot
Professional writers outside the book center proper were also to be found in the medieval town. Around 1400, for example, the schoolmaster of Egmond wrote a number of books for the monastery – which demonstrates how much monastic book production is on the decline. Clerks who worked in the town hall's writing studio, the chancellery, are also known for their commercial activities. They did this in the evening, when the actual work was already done.
The books they made for a fee can be recognized by all kinds of chancellery characteristics, such as certain abbreviations or how the sheets were folded. Chancellor clergy are also the first (around the middle of the fourteenth century) to make literary books from paper, long before monks did, suspicious as these were of this "inferior" material.
Although these examples show that you could live off the pen in the Middle Ages, it didn't really make you rich. In the back of a Dutch chronicle from about 1450, a grumbling copyist wrote:“I will never make another book for such an amount!” This explains exactly why book writers usually also had other professions, such as schoolmaster or clerk.
Dry inkwells
This handwritten world falls apart when the printing press is invented, in the middle of the fifteenth century:the writing surfaces disappeared from the wall, the inkwells dried up. Copyists were now only needed for books that were too large for the press, such as large choir books, as well as for luxury copies that often reflected very specific wishes.
The book may have become old-fashioned with the advent of the printing press, but the remaining professionals who wielded the pen could create spectacular books, cut to size and incomparable with the uniformity of printed work.
But even the expertise of these craftsmen could not prevent the book trade as an industry undergoing a metamorphosis:many businesses went bankrupt under the influence of the mechanical production method, while others sought refuge in the production of printed books. Here again we see a striking resemblance to our own time, where the bookstore has to adapt to the new appearance of the book, in which ink gives way to pixels.