The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bibliomania in the Middle Ages, by
Frederick Somner Merryweather

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Title: Bibliomania in the Middle Ages

Author: Frederick Somner Merryweather

Release Date: May 28, 2007 [EBook #21630]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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BIBLIOMANIA

IN

THE MIDDLE AGES

BY

F. SOMNER MERRYWEATHER

_With an Introduction by_
CHARLES ORR
Librarian of Case Library

NEW YORK
MEYER BROTHERS & COMPANY
1900

Copyright, 1900
By Meyer Bros. & Co.

Louis Weiss & Co.
Printers....
118 Fulton Street
... New York

Bibliomania in the Middle Ages

OR

SKETCHES OF BOOKWORMS, COLLECTORS, BIBLE STUDENTS, SCRIBES AND
ILLUMINATORS

_From the Anglo-Saxon and Norman Periods to the Introduction of Printing
into England, with Anecdotes Illustrating the History of the Monastic
Libraries of Great Britain in the Olden Time by_ F. Somner Merryweather,
_with an Introduction by_ Charles Orr, _Librarian of Case Library._

INTRODUCTION.

In every century for more than two thousand years, many men have owed
their chief enjoyment of life to books. The bibliomaniac of today had his
prototype in ancient Rome, where book collecting was fashionable as early
as the first century of the Christian era. Four centuries earlier there
was an active trade in books at Athens, then the center of the book
production of the world. This center of literary activity shifted to
Alexandria during the third century B. C. through the patronage of
Ptolemy Soter, the founder of the Alexandrian Museum, and of his son,
Ptolemy Philadelphus; and later to Rome, where it remained for many
centuries, and where bibliophiles and bibliomaniacs were gradually
evolved, and from whence in time other countries were invaded.

For the purposes of the present work the middle ages cover the period
beginning with the seventh century and ending with the time of the
invention of printing, or about seven hundred years, though they are more
ac