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BOOKS FOR SCHOLARS The development of universities for the first time (out of what were originally Cathedral and monastery-based schools) in the late 12th and early 13th centuries led to a new demand for books for scholars and students. University curricula were somewhat different than they are today and theology was one of the main faculties at each medieval university. For this reason, the Bible and other important Christian religious texts were among the most important book types of that time. Paris, home of one of the earliest universities became a major center of book production, and of the standardization of the Christian Bible in particular. In Paris and other major European cities, the profession of bookseller developed into a major business. Such professionals not only sold books, but commissioned new manuscripts and subcontracted scribes to write them and professional illuminators to illustrate them, University students enjoyed a more efficient learning experience with their own Bibles close at hand during lectures, and they did not hesitate to add their own commentaries (“glosses”) in the margins of their pages. By the mid- to late thirteenth century, the complete, portable Bible as a single volume was a bestseller, and these manuscripts are the most common surviving books from their century. We need only look at any modern Bible’s format to see how the physical form of the sacred text remains largely unchanged. |
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