How Medieval Scribes Balanced the Books
As the medieval book trade declined, Oxford scribes had to turn their hands to other crafts to get by.
At its height Oxford’s book trade enjoyed the establishment of Dominican and Franciscan friaries in need of books for university activities and preaching, and an early demand from lay figures for luxury private prayerbooks. From the 13th century, these books were increasingly produced not by monks in monastic scriptoria but by professional craftspeople.
The best documented scribe of medieval Oxford is William de Brailes, who, in the mid-13th century lived in Catte Street, the city’s book trade quarter. He was an exceptional scribe and artist, producing several illuminated works for religious houses and wealthy lay owners, including the so-called De Brailes Hours (c.1240), the earliest known stand-alone Book of Hours written in England. At a time when most scribes remained anonymous, de Brailes signed his work and added a self-portrait, captioned: ‘W. de Brailes who painted me’. He is further recorded in several property deeds as a witness and as a property owner himself, reflecting his financial success.
By the later Middle Ages, however, the industry was facing challenges: print was threatening the demand for handwritten texts, and Oxford felt increasing competition from other book production markets, such as the City of London, which supplied a growing literate lay community of merchants and civic elites, and new centres of religious education, including the Guildhall Library (established in 1425). The decline meant Oxford’s scribes had to find ways of supplementing their incomes. These were often related to the book trade. John Cornish, for example, was employed by Magdalen College between 1486 and 1504 to copy standard service books for its chapel, but he was also responsible for a range of other tasks in the production and repair of books. The college accounts show him being paid to rebind manuscripts.
The university also ran a loan chest system, which allowed students and masters to pledge books, clothing, plate, and other goods in exchange for financial loans. Items were deposited in chests stored in the university church as security. Surviving manuscripts contain transaction notes from booksellers or stationers employed to determine their value. A sermon collection, still held at Oxford, contains a pledge record of stationer John Godsond (active c.1435-58), and his valuation at 26 shillings and 6 pence. A second note records that it was pledged again in 1481 along with a belt and other items by Lincoln fellow Thomas Pawnton. Pawnton’s pledge was appraised at 40 shillings by Thomas Hunt, a printer and stationer to the university c.1473-91. Hunt was one of the first to publish printed books in Oxford and may have used his proceeds from the loan chest system to invest in his printing press business in the 1480s, supplying several colleges with theological and legal works. Yet at this early date printed books were mainly imported from continental centres like Venice, as printing was a costly endeavour with only a small market. Hunt’s press folded after several years: in 1486 it published its last known book, a copy of clergyman John Mirk’s Festival of Homilies.
Brewing was another industry closely connected to the book trade. Ale was cheap to produce and soured quickly, so alongside commercial brewers who supplied taverns and college dining halls, it was common for local people to brew domestically and sell leftover batches, perhaps a few dozen gallons at a time, to top up their income. For those in the book trade, brewing was a natural complement: the ingredients of beer, such as bran, were also used in manuscript production as a chemical aid in the preparation of parchment skins and as a medium in the mixing of colour pigments. Oxford scribe John Lutton is described as a ‘writer and brewer’ in a university servant list of 1410. He copied a range of manuscripts for academics and religious houses, from university statute registers to volumes of the Polychronicon, by Benedictine monk Ralph Higden. Lutton signed his books with his own name, and also added short Biblical quotations, including a line from the First Epistle to Timothy: ‘The worker deserves his wages.’
Brewing in the Middle Ages, while generally a casual trade, was subject to the Assize of Bread and Ale, a court which regulated the price, weight, and quality of bread and beer, and members of the book trade often appear in its records. Scribe Stephen Bromyerd of Abingdon and his wife Juliana lived on Catte Street from 1315 until c.1340, and they were frequently fined for breaking the Assize between 1324 and 1345, most likely for selling inferior quality beer or for overcharging. Similarly, university stationer John Poul, who also lived on Catte Street in a building leased by the university, was fined nine times between 1324 and 1349. Those fined do not appear to have faced any consequences from the university, suggesting it was considered a minor issue for workers to operate in the university book trade while brewing – even if they fell afoul of the Assize.
However, accounts of the Chancellor’s Court, the university’s own legal system, separate from that of the city, do feature cases relating to the book trade. Walter Bokbinder, an early 15th-century university stationer, had several suits made against him by the university for selling books after they had been deposited in the university chests. Although he died before the suits were settled, in January 1434 the university agreed to an acquittal for his widow Agnes.
Although manuscripts continued to be copied for university patrons and library collections into the first half of the 16th century, demand for new works decreased. The book trade faced further change during the Reformation, as the manuscripts of closed religious houses were lost or recycled into newly printed books. The Oxford book trade gradually adapted to print, and once again achieved major commercial success when, in 1636, Charles I issued a royal grant allowing the university to print ‘all manner of books’. The formal establishment, in 1668-69, of a central university press to publish texts for the academic community would eventually become the Oxford University Press.
Alison Ray is archivist of Lincoln College, University of Oxford, and academic engagement officer at the Bodleian Library.