Empire and Communications

by Harold Adams Innis

  [137] Schulz, op. cit., pp. 8-11.

  [138] Samuel Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (London, 1904), p. 567.

  [139] John Edwin Sandys, A Short History of Classical Scholarship (Cambridge, 1915), p. 32. As a result of competition for manuscripts between the Ptolemies and Attalus I (241-197 B.C.), sellers lengthened their works in order to secure higher prices, and critical study and editing were necessary to detect forgeries. Long rolls were inconvenient and works of Greek literature were divided into a number of rolls. Philology found new scope in textual criticism. Dictionaries and grammars were produced, Greek accents were introduced.

  [140] Papyri of the latter part of the second century B.C. discovered in Egypt show the disappearance of eccentric texts and the emergence of standard texts. See The Legacy of Egypt, ed. S. R. K. Glanville (Oxford, 1942), p. 260.

  [141] Sandys, op. cit., p. 34.

  [142] F. P. Chambers, Cycles of Taste (Cambridge, 1928), pp. 29-35.

  [143] E. E. Kellett, Fashion in Literature (London, 1931), p. 279.

  [144] Medical writings of the third century B.C., cited Benjamin Farrington, Science and Politics in the Ancient World (London, 1939), p. 63.

  [145] Gustave Glotz, ‘Le prix du papyrus dans l'antiquité grecque’ (Annales d'histoire économique et sociale, January 1929, pp. 3-12).

  [146] J. W. Clark, The Care of Books (Cambridge, 1908), p. 8.

  [147] W. W. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilization (London, 1941), p. 147.

  [148] Cited E. R. Bevan, The House of Seleucus (London, 1902), i, p. 200.

  [149] Tarn, op. cit., p. 285.

  [150] In spite of a general increase in wages, those of stone letter writers declined 67 per cent. in a century. At Delphi they received 9 obols per 100 letters in 340 B.C., 6 obols in 335 B.C., 6 obols for 300 letters in 300 B.C., and the same for 350 letters in 250 B.C. M. O. Wason, Class Struggle in Ancient Greece (London, 1947), p. 174.

  [151] G. H. Sabine, A History of Political Theory (New York, 1937), p. 150.

  [152] See D. R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism from Diogenes to the 6th Century A.D. (London, 1937).

  [153] See Tenney Frank, Life and Literature in the Roman Republic (Berkeley, 1930).

  [154] See E. V. Hansen, The Attalids of Pergamon (Ithaca, 1947).

  [155] Naphtali Lewis, op. cit., p. 86.

  [156] See A. H. Byrne, Titus Pomponius Atticus, Chapters of a Biography (Bryn Mawr, 1920), pp. 14 ff. Egyptians used rolls of 100 feet and over in length, but the Greeks limited them to 35 feet. The papyrus sheet was generally 10×7½ inches and rarely over 13×9 inches. In Pliny's time 20 sheets constituted a roll. A roll was a cylinder from 9 to 10 inches in height and 1 to 1½ inches in diameter. In writing, the width of columns varied from a normal of 2 or 3 inches to 5 and 7 inches. A line ranged from 18 to 25 letters with 25 to 45 to a column. The recto side of papyrus was used as the pen ran more smoothly along the fibres of papyrus lying horizontally. Writing on papyrus necessitated lightness of pressure. Authors divided their works in portions conveniently contained in single rolls. It was ‘a common practice down to the end of Roman literary history’ to publish books such as those of the Aeneid separately. Dill, op. cit., p. 162.

  [157] Cited Fritz Schulz, Principles of Roman Law (Oxford, 1936), p. 98.

  [158] C. E. Boyd, Public Libraries and Literary Culture in Ancient Rome (Chicago, 1915).

  [159] Grant Showerman, ‘The Great Mother of the Gods’ (Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, Philological and Literature Series, 1901).

  [160] The several grades included the hieratica (later called Augusta and Liviana), the best paper, 24·03 cm. in size; hieraticaa of the Roman Empire, 20·33 cm.; amphitheatrica, 16·63 cm., which was improved by Fannius apparently in charge of an entrepôt in Rome and became Fanniana, 18·48 cm.; sartica, a lower grade made at Sais in the delta, 12·95 to 14·78 cm.; taenotica, strong, thick, heavy paper; and emporetica, 11·09 cm., used for wrapping.

  [161] See A. M. Duff, Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire (Oxford, 1928).

  [162] See F. F. Abbott and A. C. Johnson, Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire (Princeton, 1926).

  [163] James Westfall Thompson, Ancient Libraries (Berkeley, 1940).

  [164] Seneca wrote in A.D. 49: ‘outlay upon studies, best of all outlays, is reasonable so long as it is kept within certain limits.... Nowadays a library takes rank with a bathroom as a necessary ornament of a house ... these productions of men whose genius we revere, paid for at a high price ... are got together to adorn and beautify a wall.’ Cited J. W. Clark, The Care of Books (Cambridge, 1901), p. 21. For a description of rolls and libraries see pp. 27-30.

  [165] Felix Reichmann, ‘The Book Trade at the Time of the Roman Empire’ (The Library Quarterly, xiii, 1938, pp. 40 ff.).

  [166] Samuel Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, p. 160.

  [167] Ibid., p. 4.

  [168] See F. A. Walbank, The Decline of the Roman Empire in the West (London, 1946); also Gordon Childe, What Happened in History (New York, 1946).

  [169] See Gustaf Hamburg, Studies in Roman Imperial Art (Copenhagen, 1945).

  [170] See W. H. P. Hatch, An Album of Dated Syrian Manuscripts (Boston, 1946), p. 4.

  [171] See Edgar J. Goodspeed, New Chapters in New Testament Study (New York, 1937); also F. G. Kenyon, Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford, 1932).

  [172] W. M. Flinders Petrie, Egypt and Israel (London, 1911), p. 141.

  [173] See Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, translated and edited by James Moffatt (London, 1908).

  [174] See Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (New York, 1912).

  [175] Cited Franz Cumont, The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism (Chicago, 1911), p. 213; also S. J. Case, The Origins of Christian Supernaturalism (Chicago, 1946), p. 147.

  [176] See Vaughan Cornish, The Great Capitals; an Historical Geography (London, 1923), pp. 66 ff.

  [177] See A. A. Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire (Madison, 1928) i, pp. 174 ff.

  [178] C. K. Allen, Law in the Making (Oxford, 1939), p. 111.

  [179] R. W. Lee, The Elements of Roman Law (London, 1944), p. 28.

  V

  PARCHMENT AND PAPER

  The spread of Mohammedanism reduced exports of papyrus from Egypt. It had been imported at Bordeaux and Marseilles for use in schools and in the bureaucratic administration, but between 659 and 679 was replaced by parchment in the Merovingian court and after 716[180] practically disappeared. The change roughly coincided with the rise of the Carolingian dynasty. In contrast with papyrus, which was produced in a restricted area under centralized control to meet the demands of a centralized bureaucratic administration and which was largely limited by its fragile character to water navigation, parchment was the product of a widely scattered agricultural economy suited to the demands of a decentralized administration and to land transportation.

  An appraisal of a civilization based on a medium of communication demands a recognition of the significance of peculiarities of the medium. Papyrus largely disappeared but parchment could be preserved. Historical writing is distorted by over-emphasizing periods and regions in which durable materials prevail and under-emphasizing periods and regions in which impermanent or unknown materials prevail. The parchment codex was adapted to large books in emphasizing facility of reference and consequently lent itself to religion and law in the scriptures and the codes. A permanent medium suited to use over wide areas facilitated the establishment of libraries, and the production of a limited number of large books which could be copied. Since the material of an earlier culture must be recopied, an extensive censorship emerged in which material suited to religion and law was given enormous emphasis. The size of the scriptures and of the writings of the Fathers made heavy demands on the energies available for copying. With the breakdown of the Roman empire in the West and the increasing importance of the Church law was largel
y neglected. We have described the implications of papyrus to the rise and fall of bureaucratic administration in the Roman empire and the tendency of each medium of communication to create monopolies of knowledge to the point that the human spirit breaks through at new levels of society and on the outer fringes, and can now turn to the implications of parchment to the civilization of the West in the growth of a monopoly of knowledge and to its breakdown following the introduction of paper.

  The peculiarities of parchment gave an important impetus to the power of monastic organization. In Egypt retreat from the ubiquitous demands of the state favoured the establishment of monasteries. Buddhism, probably introduced into Egypt after the Persian occupation in 525 B.C., provided a model. Pachomios, formerly a pagan monk of Serapis, started the first monastic community at Tabennisi in A.D. 322. St. Basil the Great worked out the elements of Christian moralia, and as a law-giver drafted a scheme of communal organization to provide appropriate means for its realization, and became the founder of Greek monasticism. Athanasius carried a knowledge of monasticism to Rome in 340. Jerome visited Egyptian monasteries in 386 and introduced a Latin version of the rules of Pachomios. Monasticism spread with rapidity as a protest against the worldliness of Christianity under Caesaropapism and against the sacramental sacerdotal basis of the Church established by St. Cyprian (about 200-58), who held that no one could remain permanently without sin after baptism, and that sins must be expunged by exceptional works of merit, notably alms-giving.[181] Recognition of its power was evident in an edict of 361 in which Constantius exempted monks from public obligations. Between 420 and 430 St. John Cassian completed the classics of monasticism in the Institutes and the Collations. Monasticism spread with great rapidity in Gaul, but in spite of its independence it was gradually brought under control and in the Council of Chalcedon in 451 establishment of a monastery was made conditional to the bishop's permission. The Council of Orleans in 511 subordinated monks and abbots to episcopal authority. Monasticism probably strengthened the independence of the Gallic bishop who succeeded to the dignity of the Augustan cult in the municipal community and followed the lines of demarcation of the Roman administrative system. Gallican organization defeated Arianism and became largely independent of the papacy.

  Eastern Monasticism was gradually adapted to the demands of the West. St. Benedict followed St. Basil but differed in the ‘elimination of austerity and in the sinking of the individual in the community’. He founded a monastery at Monte Cassino about 520 and published his rule about 526. It required each monk to spend a specified amount of time each day in reading and assumed a library and provision for copying books. In 531 Cassiodorus, a minister under Theodoric, established a monastery at Vivarium and with his successors ‘completed the work of St. Benedict by making the writing of books, the preservation of authors, a sacred duty and an act of piety’ (Loew). He was the first librarian of the Latin West and collected manuscripts of ancient writings on a large scale. His Institutiones divinarum lectionum outlined a scheme of study for monks and included an account of the methods and technique of transcription. Organization of a scriptorium in which books were copied provided a model for Benedictine monasteries. He ‘gave a scholarly bent to Western monasticism and played a major role in the preservation and transmission of classical culture’[182] and exercised an important influence on literature of the West.[183]

  Western monasticism was securely established over a wide area under Gregory the Great (596-604). He disapproved of the ‘idle vanities of secular learning’. ‘For the same mouth cannot sing the praises of Jupiter and the praises of Christ.’ ‘There is no merit in a faith whereof reason provides the proof.’ Monasticism was given a higher religious status and the Benedictine order gained enormously from his support. At the same time he encouraged extension of the Church.

  Since Ireland had never been a part of the Roman empire monasticism lacked the discipline of Roman order. Independent and self-governing monasteries were established through the work of St. Patrick after about 432. Absence of a fixed endowment favoured the abbot rather than the bishop. Columba crossed over to the isle of Iona about 565 and developed the practice of establishing religious houses in relation to the central body. With great missionary zeal Columban monks migrated to the Continent and established monasteries at Gallus about 613 and at Bobbio in 614. Conflict with the Roman Church led to the calling of a synod at Whitby in 664 by King Oswin and ultimately to acceptance of the Roman system. Iona recognized the Roman Easter in 714. Benedict Biscop brought from Rome ‘many books of all subjects of divine learning’[184] (Bede), and from the resources of his monastery established at Wearmouth in 674 Bede prepared his Ecclesiastical History. Libraries increased rapidly in England from 670 to 735 and fresh impetus was given to Irish and English influence on the Continent. Wynfrith, renamed Boniface (680-754), was sent to Germany by Gregory II and with his successor Lull drew on English libraries to meet the needs of new monasteries, particularly at Fulda. York had superseded Yarrow as the chief educational centre of England, indeed of medieval Europe, and from here Alcuin, ‘a man of wide reading rather than original thought’, was brought by Charlemagne to the palace school at Aachen after 782. Transcriptions were made from English codices, and after Danish raids, from Roman codices and a large collection of books built up at Aachen to supply the monasteries of France and Germany. Alcuin ‘marks the beginning of the period ... described as the Benedictine age ... extending ... to the rise of the University of Paris’.[185]

  The position of the Church was profoundly affected by the success of Mohammedanism in the East and in the West, and by the problems of political organization which accompanied it. In the Byzantine empire Constantine IV administered the first check to Islam in a treaty of 678, but the menace persisted until Leo III, who was crowned emperor in 717, defeated the Moslems at Constantinople in 717-18. An attempt had been made to restore religious unity between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the papacy in the Œcumenical Council of Constantinople (680-1), but such attempts alienated monophysite influence and it became necessary to take effective steps to weaken its support to the Mohammedans and to check Mohammedan aggression. Mohammedanism developed its strength in relation to various peoples who came under its control by emphasizing the sacred position of the written word. ‘Images are an abomination of the work of Satan’ (Koran). The Caliph Iezid II (720-4) ordered the destruction of all pictures in the Christian churches within his dominion. In A.D. 730 Leo III issued a decree, sanctioned by the signature of the patriarch, against images and a decree of Constantine V in 753-4 solemnly condemned image worship.[186] Proscription of images was not only designed to strengthen the empire externally but also internally, since it was aimed at the monks ‘who found in the images and in their cult the most powerful sanction for their acts’,[187] and who had come into possession of large landed properties through exemption from taxes and had become competitors of the state for labour. The Isaurian emperors secularized large monastic properties, restricted the number of monks, and through persecution, particularly after the martyrdom of Stephen in 764, drove large numbers to Italy.

  In the West Pope Gregory I had regarded images as useful for the illiterate ‘who could at least read by looking at the walls what they cannot read in books’. In a letter to the bishop of Marseilles in 599 he wrote ‘in forbidding the adoration of pictures, you deserve commendation, but in destroying them you are to blame’.[188] Pope Gregory III was the last pope to be confirmed by the Byzantine emperor. In 731 the iconoclasts were anathematized and excluded from the Church. In 732 defeat of the Arabs by Charles Martel brought Mohammedan expansion in the West to an end. ‘Without Islam the Frankish empire would probably never have existed and Charlemagne without Mahomet would be inconceivable’ (Pirenne). The aristocracy of the Merovingian line had been weakened by the increasing power of the Church. Boniface brought the tradition of an organized Church under the authority of the pope from England to Germany and his consecration of Pippin in
751 provided a precedent for the later crowning of Charlemagne. Pope Zacharias recognized in the person of Pippin the succession of the family of mayors of the palace. In 754 Pippin presented territories formerly belonging to the Byzantine empire to Stephen II. The election of Paul was announced to Pippin and not to the emperor, and after 772 the papacy no longer dated documents by the years of the reign of the Eastern emperor. The synod of Gentilly summoned in 767 by Pippin approved the practice of image worship and the Lateran Council of 769 decided that images were subject to veneration by all Christians.

  In order to recapture the sympathy of the West Leo IV abandoned the anti-monastic policy in 775. At the Œcumenical Council of Nicaea in 787 images were allowed ‘due salutation and honourable reverence but not the worship which pertains alone to the divine nature’,[189] and the decrees were approved by Pope Hadrian. Charlemagne, on the other hand, in the Caroline Books (790) and the Synod of Frankfort in 794, attacked the decrees of the Council of Nicaea and forbade the worship or veneration of images. These views were tolerated by the pope since Constantinople refused to recognize his territorial claims. With the accession of Irene, a woman, to the Byzantine throne in 797, Charlemagne and the Papacy, following Salic law, regarded the position as vacant and Charlemagne was crowned emperor[190] in 800. The humiliation of the Byzantine empire was confirmed in the treaty of 812 in which two emperors were recognized and Italy, except for Venice and districts in the south part, was lost to the Eastern empire. Leo V was crowned in 813 and a local council in Constantinople in 815 revived the decrees of 753 and proscribed images.