College and Research Libraries


By C. U . F A Y E 

Landmarks in the Development 
of the Western Book 
Mr. Faye is a language specialist in the 

Catalog Department of the University of 

Illinois Library. In this article he out-

lines the landmarks in the development of 

the Western book stressing the importance 

of the Latin alphabet. 

TH E O B J E C T of this sketch is to deal briefly with the elements that make 
up the Western book. T h e following will 
be touched u p o n : the codex form of the 
book, the material of the book (paper, 
etc.), printing with movable type, and the 
development of the Latin alphabet, which 
is the alphabet of W e s t e r n books as dis-
tinguished from Oriental books. T h i s al-
phabet appears today in our printed books 
(in capitals and lower-case letters), in 
three main styles: Roman, Gothic, and 
Italic. 

The Latin Alphabet 

Experience has shown that the Latin 
alphabet, with its less than thirty letters, 
is more practical for putting thoughts on 
paper than an ideogrammatic system, such 
as the Chinese, with its several hundred 
ideograms. 

It is generally accepted that our alpha-
bet originated with the Semites, was 
adopted by the Greeks,1 who added 

1 G. E. M y l o n a s h a s fixed the date f o r t h e intro-
duction of the historic Greek alphabet into Greece 
between the t w e l f t h a n d eighth c e n t u r i e s B.C. 

See his article " T h e Date of the I n t r o d u c t i o n of 
the Greek A l p h a b e t " in The Classical Bulletin 

DECEMBER, 1940 

vowels, and was transmitted to the 
Romans through the Greek colonies in 
South Italy. 

Let us turn from the origins of our 
alphabet to the chief materials (papyrus, 
etc.) that have been used in making the 
Western book, and to the two main forms 
(roll and codex) that it has assumed. 

Papyrus, Parchment, Roll, Codex, Paper 

A passage in a Greek inscription2 of the 
year 305 A.D. is evidence that, at that 
time, papyrus and parchment were the 
chief materials of which books were 
made.3 

A t first both papyrus and parchment 
books were rolls; later both appeared in 

12:54-56, 1936. Published by St. Louis U n i v e r s i t y . 
T h e Greek alphabet is an i m p o r t a n t element in the 

history of Christendom and of E u r o p e a n civilization. 
I t is the alphabet of native Greek l i t e r a t u r e and of 
Hellenistic l i t e r a t u r e , which, it is scarcely necessary 
to point out, includes both the Septuagint and the 
Greek New T e s t a m e n t . I t is also the link between 
th e original Semitic alphabet and the alphabets of 
the Christian world, being the ancestor of the L a t i n 
alphabet used in the W e s t e r n Church, and of various 
alphabets (Cyrillic, Coptic, etc.) used in the E a s t e r n 
Church. 

I n this sketch but one of the d e s c e n d a n t s of the 
Greek alphabet, namely the L a t i n alphabet, will be 
dealt with. 

2 T h i s inscription is published in the Corpus inscrip-
tionum atticarum, 3:48. T h e passage in question is 
discussed in T h . B i r t ' s Kritik und Hermeneutik nebst 
Abriss des antiken Buchwesens. Miinchen, 1913. 
p. 264. 

T h e passage r e a d s : " . . . T h e marginal notes . . 
preserved in books ( i v f i i f i y i o i s ) either p a r c h m e n t s 
( d ^ e p a i t ) or papyri ( x&o-rais) or in any kind 
of tablets ( iv . . .ypannaTtlois )." T h e inscription, then, 
considers both p a r c h m e n t s and papyri as being 
books, while other materials that received w r i t i n g 
a r e gathered together u n d e r and covered by the t e r m 
ypafitiareia ( ypantiartlov, that on which one writes) . 

3 P a p y r u s continued to be used f o r a long time 
in the papal chancellery. T h e latest known papal 
bull on p a p y r u s is one that was issued d u r i n g the 
reign of Pope Boniface V I I I (1012-24).—Catholic 
Encyclopedia, 3:54. 

33 



codex form. Papyrus, being brittle, was 
not so well adapted to the codex form as 
parchment. D u r i n g the fourth century 
A.D. the parchment codex became supreme. 
Once established, it held its own through-
out the M i d d l e Ages. As regards form, 
modern books are codices. 

T h e reappearance of the roll, in the 
photographic film book, has indeed de-
stroyed the monopoly, but has hardly chal-
lenged the pre-eminence of the codex. 

O u r modern books differ, as to material, 
from the medieval books in one important 
respect: paper has taken the place of 
parchment. Paper was invented by the 
Chinese as early, at least, as the first cen-
tury of the Christian E r a . I t was brought 
into the Near East by the Arabs about 
the eighth century. T h e earliest example 
in Europe appears to be a document in 
the Escorial dated 1009.4 Since the inven-
tion of printing, paper, which already ear-
lier had been encroaching upon the 
monopoly of parchment, after a while 
definitely took possession of the field. 

U p to the Renaissance, medieval books 
were chiefly parchment codices, written in 
Roman capitals, to which, in the course 
of time, were added minuscules (by print-
ers called "lower-case" letters) and letters 
in the Gothic script. Let us proceed to a 
consideration of these. 

Roman Majuscules (Capitals) and Mi-

nuscules (Small Letters) 

T h e Roman capitals of our books today 
are, essentially, the same as the monu-
mental "square" capitals of the Roman in-
scriptions. T h e y were also commonly 
used as a book hand up to and including 
the fifth century A.D. Characteristic of 
Roman genius are these letters that have 

4 Esdaile, A r u n d e l l . A Student's Manual of Bibliog-
raphy. L o n d o n , 1932, p. 36. 

marched in stately array down the ages. 
A n examination of the script of the Al-

cuin Bible,5 written at St. M a r t i n ' s 
Monastery, T o u r s , while Alcuin (hence 
its name) was Abbot there (796-804) re-
veals remarkable similarity between its 
minuscules and our present Roman lower-
case letters. H o w did these letters come 
into being? O n e must not think of the 
various styles of writing that have ap-
peared as being related to each other in a 
vertical genealogical line and descending, 
the later script from the earlier, in dis-
tinct chronological layers. T h e Caro-
lingian minuscules are not direct descend-
ants of the Roman capitals, they 
"emerged"—to use a term that has become 
established—from scripts then in exist-
ence.6 

Important scripts that have not had so 
evident an influence upon modern letter 
forms as, for instance, the Carolingian 
minuscule, must be passed over in silence. 
W e proceed to a mention of the Gothic 
script. 

The Gothic Script 

As the Roman square capitals reflect 
the genius of Rome, so the Gothic script 
is a flower of the spirit that produced the 
Gothic cathedrals. As the curve of the 
Roman arch was broken in the Gothic 
arch, so the smooth outlines of the Roman 

5 A facsimile of the first page of Genesis in this 
Bible is given in F r a n z S t e f f e n s ' Lateinische Palaog-
raphie, 2 v e r m , aufl., 1929, plate 47. 

T h i s facsimile a f f o r d s a n i l l u s t r a t i o n of t h e " h i e r -
a r c h y of s c r i p t s . " T h e scribes used d i f f e r e n t styles of 
w r i t i n g f o r d i f f e r e n t p u r p o s e s . A s t h e C h u r c h h a d 
its h i e r a r c h y : pope, a r c h b i s h o p , bishop, priest, so 
w r i t i n g also h a d its h i e r a r c h y . T h e R o m a n s q u a r e 
capitals, being, as it w e r e , popes, w e r e used f o r t h e 
i m p o r t a n t book h e a d i n g s ; the minuscules, c o r r e s p o n d -
ing to c o m m o n clerics, w e r e used f o r the text i t s e l f ; 
while for m a t e r i a l of i n t e r m e d i a t e i m p o r t a n c e o t h e r 
styles of script w e r e used. 

8 H e l l m u t L e h m a n n - H a u p t h a s p r e s e n t e d a conveni-
e n t o u t l i n e of what took place in his " T h e H e r i t a g e 
of t h e M a n u s c r i p t " in A History of the Printed Book, 
Being the Third Number of The Dolphin, ed. by 
L . C. W r o t h , N e w Y o r k , 1938, pp. 3-23. F o r details, 
w o r k s on p a l a e o g r a p h y should be c o n s u l t e d . 

34 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



letters became broken and angular in 
G o t h i c w r i t i n g ; e.g., the almost circular 
Carolingian o becomes jQf,—the circle is 
broken,—hence the terms used to denote 
this s c r i p t : fractura, by medieval scholars ; 
Fraktur in G e r m a n ; and brise in French. 

W i t h the material under the next head-
ing we conclude our consideration of the 
chief varieties of script that have survived 
in our present-day printed books. 

Italian Humanistic and Cursive (i.e., 

Italic) Hand 

O u r lower-case R o m a n letters are de-
rived f r o m the humanistic book hand of 
the fifteenth century, a product of the 
Renaissance in Italy, being the f r u i t of 
study and imitation of earlier models of 
Carolingian w r i t i n g . 

T h e r e developed also in Italy, d u r i n g 
the fifteenth century, a cursive hand, 
Italic—a modification of the humanistic 
book hand, w i t h some borrowings f r o m the 
G o t h i c cursive then c u r r e n t in Italy. 
T h i s hand survives both in Italic type and 
in our present-day cursive w r i t i n g . 

The Stage Now Set for the Invention of 

Printing 

All the elements of the printed book, 
except movable type, were now at h a n d : 
the handy codex form of t h e b o o k ; paper, 
cheaper t h a n all varieties of parchment, 
and less bulky and more pliable than ordi-
nary p a r c h m e n t ; the Latin alphabet, avail-
able in the R o m a n square capitals, in 
Gothic, in the Renaissance modification of 
the Carolingian minuscules, and in italics. 

Books were, indeed, made, but at great 
expense; expert technicians and much time 
were needed. O n e of the results of the 
Renaissance was an insistent demand, 
which scribes and professional calligra-
phists could not meet, for more books at a 

reasonable price. P r i n t i n g was the solu-
tion. Compared w i t h the o u t p u t of the 
scribes, that of printing was mass produc-
tion. T h e essence of the new invention 
was t h a t the letters of the alphabet and 
the c u r r e n t abbreviations and ligatures 
were each cast into a separate and indi-
vidual movable type. T h e tendency has 
been to lessen the number of the abbrevia-
tions ( a survival is X for Christ-, as in 
Xmas) and of the ligatures ( a survival 
is for et) that early printing carried on 
as a legacy f r o m the manuscripts. 

Precursors of Typography; a Rival of 

Typography: Xylography 

I n earlier examples of printing (namely 
that done by wood-blocks for the making 
of playing cards, figures of saints, stamped 
textiles) t h a t which was printed formed a 
unified design; letters t h a t perchance ap-
peared in the pattern were not set sepa-
rately—the design was as much a unit as 
the poster is today. 

T h e s e remarks apply also to xylography. 
In this variety of printing the whole page, 
consisting usually of illustration with text, 
was cut on a block of wood and the page 
printed as a unit. T h e artist had to make 
as many designs as there were pages in the 
book. Xylography flourished most dur-
ing the years f r o m 1460 to 1480. Its in-
herent disadvantages made it impossible 
for xylography to continue competing with 
typography, which is the kind of printing 
that uses movable type, the letters being 
cast in separate, individual types. 

The Date of the Invention of Typography 

T h e oldest datable specimen of typog-
raphy is an astronomical calendar, which, 
it is concluded, must have been printed in 
1447, because it is for the year 1448. 

A m o n g the documents f r o m a lawsuit 

DECEMBER, 1940 35 



of 1439 in which Gutenberg took part is 
the deposition of one H a n s D u n n e "that 
about three years before (i.e., 1436) he 
had made a profit of about one hundred 
guilders on material 'pertaining to print-
i n g ' (das zu dem Trucken gehoret) sold 
to Gutenberg." T h e incunabulist Haebler 
uses the documents of this lawsuit to dis-
pose of Coster's claims to priority and to 
establish Gutenberg as the inventor of 
printing. His implied interpretation of 
Trucken, in the phrase quoted, appears to 
be that it is equivalent to the modern 
DruckenJ 

O n the basis of this lawsuit it is reason-
able to assume that, in the 1430's, Guten-
berg either invented printing or was 
conducting experiments that led to its 
invention. 

Johann Gutenberg the Father of Printing 

It may never be proved who was the 
first actual printer in Europe. Claims 
have been made for Laurens Janszoon 
Coster. T h e r e may be others with claims 
of priority over Gutenberg. If so, then, 
after having spent time, ingenuity, indus-
try, and money in inventing movable type, 
they have failed to leave for posterity 
products from their print shops or other 
testimony sufficiently convincing to sub-
stantiate their claims. 

Gutenberg, on the other hand, stands 
pre-eminent among the earliest printers. 
N o other printer seems to have had so 
significant an influence upon early print-
ing. I t is a fact that, from his activities 
in M a i n z , printing spread through Eu-
rope. Whoever may have been the first 
actual printer, J o h a n n Gutenberg, besides 
having strong claims to that title, may 
with good reason be considered the first 

7 H a e b l e r , K o n r a d , Handbuch der Inkunabelkunde. 
Leipzig, 1925, pp. 30-31. 

among effectual printers, and, therefore, 
may justly be honored as the father of 
printing. 

What Has Been Achieved by the Printed 

Book 

Next to the alphabet, printing is the 
most important achievement of mankind. 

By means of the alphabet, it is possible 
to record the ipsissima verba which clothe 
our thoughts. T h e imposing structure of 
comparative philology is made possible 
and depends upon documents in alphabetic 
script. Preserved for us are the very 
sounds of the words in the Sacred Scrip-
tures and in the masterpieces of litera-
ture—what would poetry be, if the sounds 
of its words were lacking? 

T h e letters of the Latin alphabet, cast 
in movable types, are the essential element 
of printing. Later developments in the 
mass production of printed material 
(stereotype, linotype, offset, etc.) and in 
the conservation of the space taken up by 
printed material ( f i l m ) — a l l these depend 
upon, as their final irreducible units, the 
single movable types, the individual letters 
of the Latin alphabet. 

T h r o u g h the medium of printing can be 
communicated, practically without limit, 
recorded thought. Anyone able to read 
may have access to whatever he may desire 
of what has been set down of human ex-
perience, endeavor and aspiration—all this 
because of less than thirty letters cast in 
movable type. 

Selected References 
General Handbooks of Library Science 

Dahl, Svend, ed. Haandbog i Biblioteksund-
skab. 3. for0gede udg. 1. bd. Hagerup, 
K0benhavn, 1924. 

Milkau, Fritz, ed. Handbuch der Biblio-

36 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



thekswissenschaft. i. bd. Harrassowitz, 
Leipzig, 1931. 

Writing (Ideogrammatic and Alphabetic 

Systems): General Works on Philology 

and Treatises on Special Subjects 

Bloomfield, Leonard. Language. Holt, 
New York [01933]. 

Conference on phonetic transcription and 
transliteration, Copenhagen, 1925. "Pho-
netic transcription and transliteration; 
proposals of the Copenhagen conference, 
April 1925." Oxford, 1926. 

International institute of intellectual co-
operation. "L'adoption universelle des 
caracteres latins." Societe des nations, 
Institut international de cooperation in-
tellectuelle, Paris, 1934. 

Jensen, Hans. Die Schrift in Vergangen-
heit und Gegenwart. J . J . Augustin, 
Gliickstadt und Hamburg, [1935]. 

Twaddell, W . F. On Defining the Phoneme. 
Waverly press, Baltimore [1935]. (Lan-
guage monographs, pub. by The Linguis-
tic society of America, no. 16.) 

The Western Book 

Wroth, L. C., ed. A History of the Printed 
Book, Being the Third Number of The 
Dolphin. . . . The limited editions club, 
New York, 1938. 

The Book of Classical Antiquity 

Birt, Theodor. Kritik und Hermeneutik 
nebst Abriss des antiken Buchwesens. 
Beck'sche verlagsbh., Miinchen, 1913. 

Gardthausen, V. E. Das Buchwesen im 
Altertum und im Byzantischen Mittel-
alter. 2. aufl. Veit, Leipzig, 1911. 
(Griechische Palaeographie. 1. bd.) 

The Latin Script 

Steffens, Franz. Lateinische Palaographie. 
. . . 2. verm. aufl. W . de Gruyter, Ber-
lin und Leipzig, 1929. 

The Influence of the Manuscript 

Ullman, B. L. Ancient Writing and Its 
Influence. Longmans, New York, 1932. 

The Discovery of Printing and Incu-

nabula 

Haebler, Konrad. Handbuch der Inkun-
abelkunde. Hiersemann, Leipzig, 1925. 

Scholderer, Victor. Gutenberg: the Man 
and His Invention. (Issued by The Lon-
don Times, Jan. 5, 1 9 4 0 - ) 

Uhlendorf, B. A. The Invention of Print-
ing and Its Spread till 1470. (In The 
Library Quarterly, 2:179-231, July, 
1 9 3 2 . ) 

T h e Subject Specialist 
(Continued from page 21) 

make it increasingly useful to those patrons 
of the library who are engaged in serious 
research. These considerations, however, 
will not prevent the assignment, from time 
to time, of some lesser field of research to 
a person whose main work may be general 
and miscellaneous in character. 

W i t h a view, then, to smoothing the 
path for those investigators who use our 

libraries, decreasing administrative costs, 
giving sympathetic service, and expanding 
the opportunity for satisfying and con-
structive work to the more ambitious and 
capable members of the staff, the principle 
of division of work by subject as against 
division by process should receive the care-
f u l attention of the administrators of our 
large university and reference libraries. 

DECEMBER, 1940 37