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08915_Field_TCGG T680.txt
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the characteristics of manuscript appearance, so bookselling
long depended on the medieval fair as an outlet. “The trade in
books throughout the Middle Ages, it need scarcely be stressed,
was largely a second-hand business; only with the invention of
printing did a new-book market become a commonplace.” (72)
The meaning of the medieval book trade as a second-hand
operation can only be grasped in our time through the parallel
that the market in great paintings is largely a secondhand
market. For, in general, paintings and antiques are in the
category of the manuscript book before printing. For the
printed book retaining a manuscript format, this was necessary
if only for sales, since readers were trained and disposed to the
manuscript mode. Bühler has fascinating details (p. 16) about
the early habit of sending printed books to the scribe to be
copied, so that the student of the earliest printing would be
well advised if he viewed the new invention, as the first printers