History of booksSumerian language cuneiform script clay tablet, 2400–2200 BC.
Antiquity
When writing systems were invented in ancient civilizations, nearly everything that could be written upon—stone, clay, tree bark, metal sheets—was used for writing.
Alphabetic writing emerged in
Egypt around 1800 BC. At first the words were not separated from each other (scripta continua) and there was no
punctuation. Texts were written from right to left, left to right, and even so that alternate lines read in opposite directions. The technical term for this type of writing is '
boustrophedon,' which means literally 'ox-turning' for the way a farmer drives an ox to plough his fields.
Scroll Egyptian papyrus showing the god
Osiris and the weighing of the heart.
Papyrus, a thick
paper-like material made by weaving the stems of the papyrus plant, then pounding the woven sheet with a hammer-like tool, was used for writing in
Ancient Egypt, perhaps as early as the
First Dynasty, although the first evidence is from the account books of King
Neferirkare Kakai of the
Fifth Dynasty (about 2400 BC). Papyrus sheets were glued together to form a
scroll. Tree bark such as
lime (Latin liber, from there also
library) and other materials were also used.
According to
Herodotus (History 5:58), the
Phoenicians brought writing and papyrus to Greece around the tenth or ninth century BC. The Greek word for papyrus as writing material (biblion) and book (biblos) come from the Phoenician port town
Byblos, through which papyrus was exported to Greece.
[5] From Greeks we have also the word tome (
Greek: τόμος) which originally meant a slice or piece and from there it became to denote "a roll of papyrus". Tomus was used by the Latins with exactly the same meaning as volumen (see also below the explanation by Isidore of Seville).
Whether made from papyrus,
parchment, or paper in East Asia, scrolls were the dominant form of book in the Hellenistic, Roman, Chinese and Hebrew cultures. The more modern
codex book format form took over the Roman world by
late antiquity, but the scroll format persisted much longer in Asia.
Codex
Woman holding a book (or wax tablets) in the form of the
codex. Wall painting from
Pompeii, before 79 AD.
Papyrus scrolls were still dominant in the first century AD, as witnessed by the findings in
Pompeii. The first written mention of the codex as a form of book is from
Martial, in his Apophoreta CLXXXIV at the end of the century, where he praises its compactness. However the codex never gained much popularity in the pagan Hellenistic world, and only within the Christian community did it gain widespread use.
[6] This change happened gradually during the third and fourth centuries, and the reasons for adopting the codex form of the book are several: the format is more economical, as both sides of the writing material can be used; and it is portable, searchable, and easy to conceal. The Christian authors may also have wanted to distinguish their writings from the pagan texts written on scrolls.
A Chinese
bamboo book
Wax tablets were the normal writing material in schools, in accounting, and for taking notes. They had the advantage of being reusable: the wax could be melted, and reformed into a blank. The custom of binding several wax tablets together (Roman pugillares) is a possible precursor for modern books (i.e. codex). The etymology of the word codex (block of wood) also suggests that it may have developed from wooden wax tablets.
In the 5th century,
Isidore of Seville explained the relation between codex, book and scroll in his Etymologiae (VI.13): "A codex is composed of many books; a book is of one scroll. It is called codex by way of metaphor from the trunks (codex) of trees or vines, as if it were a wooden stock, because it contains in itself a multitude of books, as it were of branches."
Middle Ages
Manuscripts
Folio 14 recto of the 5th century
Vergilius Romanus contains an author portrait of
Virgil. Note the
bookcase (capsa), reading stand and the text written without word spacing in
rustic capitals.
The fall of the
Roman Empire in the fifth century A.D. saw the decline of the
culture of ancient Rome. Papyrus became difficult to obtain, due to lack of contact with Egypt, and
parchment, which had been used for centuries, began to be the main writing material.
Monasteries carried on the
Latin writing tradition in the
Western Roman Empire.
Cassiodorus, in the monastery of Vivarium (established around 540), stressed the importance of copying texts.
St. Benedict of Nursia, in his
Regula Monachorum (completed around the middle of the 6th century) later also promoted reading. The Rule of St. Benedict (Ch. XLVIII), which set aside certain times for reading, greatly influenced the monastic culture of the
Middle Ages, and is one of the reasons why the clergy were the predominant readers of books. The tradition and style of the Roman Empire still dominated, but slowly the peculiar medieval book culture emerged.
Before the invention and adoption of the
printing press, almost all books were copied by hand, making books expensive and comparatively rare. Smaller monasteries usually had only some dozen books, medium sized perhaps a couple hundred. By the ninth century, larger collections held around 500 volumes; and even at the end of the Middle Ages, the papal library in
Avignon and Paris library of
Sorbonne held only around 2,000 volumes.
Burgundian scribe (portrait of Jean Miélot, from Miracles de Notre Dame), 15th century. The depiction shows the room's furnishings, the writer's materials, equipment, and activity.
The
scriptorium of the monastery was usually located over the
chapter house. Artificial light was forbidden, for fear it may damage the manuscripts. There were five types of scribes:
Copyists, who dealt with basic production and correspondence
Calligraphers, who dealt in fine book production
Correctors, who collated and compared a finished book with the manuscript from which it had been produced
Rubricators, who painted in the red letters
Illuminators, who painted illustrations
The bookmaking process was long and laborious. The parchment had to be prepared, then the unbound pages were planned and ruled with a blunt tool or lead, after which the text was written by the
scribe, who usually left blank areas for illustration and
rubrication. Finally the book was bound by the
bookbinder.
Desk with chained books in the Library of Cesena, Italy.
Different types of ink were known in antiquity, usually prepared from soot and gum, and later also from
gall nuts and
iron vitriol. This gave writing the typical brownish black color, but black or brown were not the only colors used. There are texts written in red or even gold, and different colors were used for illumination. Sometimes the whole parchment was colored purple, and the text was written on it with gold or silver (eg
Codex Argenteus).
[13]Irish monks introduced spacing between words in the seventh century. This facilitated reading, as these monks tended to be less familiar with Latin. However the use of spaces between words did not become commonplace before the 12th century. It has been argued,
[14] that the use of spacing between words shows the transition from semi-vocalized reading into silent reading.
The first books used
parchment or
vellum (calf skin) for the pages. The book covers were made of wood and covered with leather. As dried parchment tends to assume the form before processing, the books were fitted with clasps or straps. During the later
Middle Ages, when public libraries appeared, books were often chained to a bookshelf or a
desk to prevent theft. The so called libri catenati were used up to 18th century.
At first books were copied mostly in monasteries, one at a time. With the rise of universities in the 13th century, the
Manuscript culture of the time lead to an increase in the demand for books, and a new system for copying books appeared. The books were divided into unbound leaves (pecia), which were lent out to different copyists, so the speed of book production was considerably increased. The system was maintained by
stationers guilds, which were secular, and produced both religious and non-religious material.
Wood block printing
The intricate frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra from
Tang Dynasty China, 868 AD (
British Museum)
In
woodblock printing, a relief image of an entire page was carved into blocks of wood, inked, and used to print copies of that page. This method originated in
China, in the
Han dynasty (before 220AD), as a method of
printing on
textiles and later
paper, and was widely used throughout
East Asia. The oldest dated book printed by this method is
The Diamond Sutra (868 AD).
The method (called
Woodcut when used in art) arrived in Europe in the early 14th century. Books (known as
block-books), as well as
playing-cards and
religious pictures, began to be produced by this method. Creating an entire book was a painstaking process, requiring a hand-carved block for each page; and the wood blocks tended to crack, if stored for long.
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