Philobiblon
If you are wondering where the lovely word comes from, it is from the title of a book by Richard de Bury (1281-1345), The Love of Books, Being the Philobiblon of Richard de Bury. Here's a sample from my 1903 version, "newly translated into English by E.C. Thomas" (Alexander Moring, London):
"Almighty Author and Lover of peace, scatter the nations that delight in war, which is above all plagues injurious to books. For wars being without the control of reason make a wild assault on everything they come across, and, lacking the check of reason they push on without discretion or distinction to destroy the vessels of reason." (p.46)
posted by Natalie Bennett at 7/25/2004 11:03:00 pm
4 Comments:
At the time when Richard Aungerville collected his manuscripts, the word biblos and the diminutive biblion were certainly used to refer to books. In its original meaning however, I suppose biblos primarily meant scroll.
History somehow reapeats itself, I thought, as I was scolling through this aptly named blog.
And there's an interesting theory around - I read it in Regis Debray but I don't think that it is original to him - that the fact that the Christians preferred codexes while the pagans liked scrolls helped the former to triumph, their "technology" being more efficient.
You should perhaps have mentioned for completeness that Richard of Bury included among the enemies of books the two-legged beast whose cohabitation with clerics is forbidden by the canons.
Biblos was originally Byblos, the Phoenician port from where the papyrus was imported to Greece. Originally it would certainly have been a scroll, though by the 4th century AD codices were the norm, as was parchment, which thankfully began replacing papyrus, and also the quill pen, which replaced the reed pen. Good century for books then, and yes, I think we can thank the Christians.
Interestingly, both liber (book) and codex originally meant bark, and even the word book is cognate with 'beech'.
And, by the way, my favourite passage of the Bury is when he attacks scribblers and youthful despoilers of books, for which see my post here: http://vunex.blogspot.com/2006/01/marginalia.html
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