The Book Trade (a question of history)

[Illuminatus!]

Was the trade in books in medieval Europe (or at least Islamic Europe) significant enough to warrant a small gold bonus to town's with Libraries?

[Elvain]

this trade was only(or significant was only) between monasteries. And it was rather based on: We will lend you our book if we'll get some other in revenge, we will make copy of yours and you can get copy of ours)
there was not so many books before 1500A.D. to make books significant trade good(significant for money, sure it was quite important for schollars but not for merchants or kingdom treasuries)

[Illuminatus!]

Thanks for the info! Also, for future reference, I think the word you meant was "return," not "revenge." Revenge is reciprocal action in a negative, often violent way (i.e. "You killed my brother first! I will kill yours in revenge!").

[Elvain]

thanks
:sad: yes I meant return. Sorry for my bad english :bash:

[maladominus]

Also remember that in Orthodox nations.... the books were VERY precious, especially the ones called the Illuminations from kingdoms like Armenia, Georgia, and of course Byzantium. The books themselves were very precious because the book covers or pages were often using gold and precious inks.

Here is a LINK.... Armenian Biblical Manuscripts of the 13th Century..... sometimes using gold ink or gold borders! Real gold is used.

http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/bpg/annual/v10/bp10-12.html

and

http://special.lib.umn.edu/rare/msslist

[Shane]

In monasteries, gold was also used in the manuscripts. Contrary to popular belief, quite a few nobles in the high middle ages could read and write, but there generally weren't enough books for this skill to be usefull. In fact, in Universities, when you used the library, you'd have to read the books in the library, because of the dangers of the books getting lost, books there had chains connected to the shelves!