them by the illuminator and the binder. The true office of the book was perverted. It was regarded, not as a medium of instruction, but as a means for the display of wealth and artistic tastes. The reader was really taught to value it more for its dress than for its substance; the book-maker was most appreciated when he made books so expensive that they were out of the reach of ordinary buyers. To the modern book-buyer, the prices asked for books of size and merit during the middle ages seem excessive, and especially so when they are contrasted with the prices then paid for food or labor.[1]
At the end of the fourteenth century, books of instruction were larger, more ornamental, and, to the unschooled reader, more pedantic and more forbidding than ever. We do not find in them any valuable contributions to knowledge, nor do we discover in the writers or teachers of the day any disposition to make knowledge easy to be acquired. The love of great books during this period, frequently noticed as one of the evidences of a true revival of literature, is, when critically examined, evidence only of the artistic tastes of book-buyers and of the exclusiveness of scholars. So far from paving the way for the introduction of printing, this trifling with litera-
- ↑ Stow says that a Bible "fairly written" was sold in 1274, in England, for 50 marks, equal to about 33 pounds. At this time a laborer's wages were 1½d. per day, and a sheep could be had for a shilling.—Roger Bacon, who died in 1292, said that he had spent more than 2,000 pounds for books. At this time the annual income of an English curate was £3 6s. 8d.—In 1305, the priory of Bolton gave 30 shillings for The Book of Sentences, by Peter Lombard. Hallam says that the accounts of the priory show that the jolly monks bought but three books in forty years. He estimates the equivalent in modern money of this 30 shillings at near 40 pounds.—The Mirror of History, a work in four volumes, was sold at Paris in 1332, with great formalities, for 40 livres of Paris.—In 1357, The Scholastic History was sold to the Earl of Salisbury for 100 marks, or about 67 pounds. At this time the pay of the king's surgeon was fixed at £5 13s. 4d. per annum and a shilling a day besides.—Wickliffe's translation of the New Testament was sold in 1380 for 4 marks and 40 pence.—Pierre Plaont bequeathed, in 1415, to the regents of the University of Paris, a big quarto Bible, which he said was worth 15 pounds. Chevillier says that a printed Bible of the same size in the seventeenth century could be had for 6 francs.
