z 53 734a MEDIAEVAL W&W'W^A ND Ex Ubris C. K. OGDEN X THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/ancientmediaevalOOzeibiala ANCIKNT MEDIiEVAL SHORTHAND; DK. J. W. ZEIBIG'S GescMcJtte der GeschwindscJireibJcunst, N. P. HKKKI.BY, MEMRER OF THB INTERNATIONAL SHORTHAND CONGRESS, AND THB BTOLZE 8TXIC0- OKAPHIC SOCIETY OF BERLIN, OERM ANY ; ASSOCIATE MEMBKR OF THE SHORTHAND SOCIETY. LONDON ; HONORARY MBUBEB OF THE Jt. Y. STATE STENOGBAPHEBS' ASSOCIATION AND OF THE NEBRASKA STENOGRAPHERS' ASSOCIATION. (Be-printed from the Proceedings of the N. T. State Stenographers' Ass'n for 1887.) BROOKLYN, N. Y. 1888. y ^ COPYRIGHTED. 18fi8L^ z 53 PREFACE ^^AVING been greatly interested in the historical aspects of short- hand ever since beginning its study, I undertook, some years ago, to compile a detailed and impartial history of " Stenography and Phonography, or Shorthand." Since the publication by me of the " Biography of the Father of Stenography," etc., for the purpose of ascertaining whether the interest in the history of this art woidd justify the publication of the detailed work, as outlined, various causes have prevented its entire completion. Moreover, the little interest generally manifested concerning the history of the art has rather discouraged the preparation and publication of the proposed -work. Solely as an aid in \\\y investigations, I translated, in 1882, that portion of Dr. Zeibig's celebrated work* which relates to ancient shorthand ; this work being the most complete, in this respect, of any history of the art published in any modern -language. In view of the proposed celebration of the Jubilee of Phonography and Tercenten- ary of Shorthand at London next September, and in the hope of creating an increased interest in the history of the art, I have con- cluded to publish this translation, adding, in foot notes, renditions of the more important Latin passages occurring in the original. If this hope shall be realized, I shall at some future time issue a fuller and more exhaustive work upon the history of shorthand from the most ancient to the present time. Brooklyn, K Y., August 1, 1887. N. P. H. *Ge8chichte und Llteratur der Geschwindschreibkunst von Dr. .Julius Woldeinar Zeibig, Professor am Konigl. stenograftschcn Instilutzu Dresden. Herausgegeben voui Kouigl. stenografischen Institut zu Dresden. Zweite, vermehrte, verbesserte und uiit 41 Tafeln versehene AuHage. Dresden. Verlag von Gustav Dietze. 1878. INTRODUCTION. It needs no authority for the statement that writing had to climb many steps of simplification before it reached its climax — tachygra- phy. The older a nation, and the more elaborate and unhandy its writing, the more difficult and perplexing becariie the path which led to this object. Among nations of antiquity, the Romans alone, and in their later days, the Greeks, seem to have developed a quick-writing. But with regard to their systems, we may well exclaim with Tacitus: "Everything was not better with our forefathers; ' ' our age also has produced much that is praiseworthy and of use " for coming generations." Interesting as it is to trace the art of writing from its first incep- tion to the invention which reduced it to its greatest simplicity, we must only consider so much of the history of its development as appears indispensably necessary to a better understanding of the several methods. As regards the various appellations and definitions of tachygraphy, the majority of these will be discussed in their re- spective places. We may refrain from referring to them in advance for the further reason, that, in spite of the mani- fold terminology, the aim which the inventor of every sys- tem of tachygraphy has in view is one and the same, namely : to offer to every one the possibility to write as quickly as one speaks, and with such accuracy that at any time the writing can, not only be read by himself as common writing, but also that others conversant with the system may be able to read it. To show what exertions have from time to time been made, and by whom, in order to attain this end, is the object of this history of stenography. THE ALLEGED AGE OF THE ART OF SHORTHAND WRITING. Kai iq fikv axpoaatv tatoq to (itj [lu^wdeq abrmv axeptziarepov ^^Q shorthand writing dates back into antiquity, has been an- 'u'5^ swered with suppositions and assertions which cannot be maintained when more carefully investigated. People are very apt to trace the origin of an art into the obscurity of the earliest times, in order to make it more venerable. Gabels- berger, in the first edition of his Guide, traces the art of shorthand writing to the earliest times of writing practice. In the very begin- ning of the use of writing, he finds the highest development. In the second edition of this Guide, made up from his posthumous pa- pers, scarcely anything is found of the historical material of the fli"st edition, a fact which perhaps justifies the presumption that the author himself may have entertained doubts as to the correctness of the statements made in his ^rlier work. Nevertheless, the subse- quent editors of his system did not entertain such doubts respecting the history of stenography, and almost all of them have repeated the essential statements that were contained in the first edition. If, therefore, my investigation of the question : Does the art of short- hand writing date back as far into antiquity as has been alleged? is attended with different results than appear in the writings of my predecessors in this field of historical research, no one, I hope, will accuse me of irreverence to Gabelsberger, or condemn the hand which destroys the halo discovered to be false. If, however, con- trary to my belief, some one should accuse me, I will say to him : " Truth is more to me than Plato and Aristotle." That the ancient Egyptians did not know the art of shorthand writing (which people were inclined to believe in former times) can easily be established by making ourselves acquainted with the sys- tems of writing used by that people. This erroneous hypothesis has, therefore, rightfully been rejected by Dr. Anders. When Gresenius infers from the change in the form of the written signs of the Phoenicians the existence of shorthand writing among that people, he can only have had the current writing in mind. The Phoenicians had but a poor literature. We have knowledge only of a few monumental inscriptions or priest's books. Their merchants, who were the disseminators of writing along the Mediterranean, wrote to suit their own purposes and naturally made use of briefer signs than those found on the monuments of stone and metal. The necessity for a real shorthand writing did not exist then, and nothing justifies the assumption that it did. But the evidence which Gesenius adduces for his opinion of the alleged existence of tachygraphers among the Hebrews, is, as we shall presently show, entirely insup- portable. Further, we read : " Xerxes, for a quicker execution of his com- " mands, employed shorthand writers." In Herodotus, upon whom they seem to base this statement, we search in vain for a confirmation thereof. The only passages which possibly might have led to such a view are the following: In the 7th book we read : " After Xerxes "had his army counted and mustered he wished to inspect it him- "self; he seated himself in a chariot and visited all the various na- .1 "tionalities of which the army was composed. Each of these " nationalities he investigated, and made inquiries about their circum- '• stances, and his writers noted down the information Tie received, until " he had passed from one end to the other and had seen all his in- " fantry and cavalry. Then he ordered the ships to goto sea, and, ' ' alighting from his chariot, entered into a Sidonian vessel and *' seated himself under a gold woven tent. He passed in front of " every vessel and put the same questions which he had addressed " to the army, to the various divisions of the fleet, and had the an- ' ' swers, likewise, written down." In the 3rd book it is said that " the subordinate generals all had royally appointed writers." Both of these passages can only be forcibly strained into proof that short- hand writers existed among the ancient Persians. Does this need any further comment? The supposition that the Hebrews knew and practiced the art of shorthand writing has no better foundation. As a proof that " among these people, the foundation and elaboration of the higher " art of shorthand writing, based upon abbreviations of writing, is " mainly to be sought," Gabelsberger adduces as his authorities Bib- liander and Rader. Although the words of the former, under the heading, de notis, and those of the latter, in a translation of the well- known epigram of Martial upon a quick writer, merely suggest that abbreviations were used, while from the tenor of these authors' works they seem to have considered these abbreviations as short- hand writing, nothing follows from this but the fact that the Hebrews used letters for syllables and words, and words for whole sentences ; a mode of abbreviation which was also in use among other nations, but is by no means necessarily connected with a sys- tematic art. Moreover, how do we know that the Hebrews used the above named abbreviations for stenographic purposes, and not rather, as appears far more probable, for the purpose of secret writing? Equally weak are the supports given and based upon the passages quoted from the Bible and the apochryphal 4th book of Ezra. Neither the xlvth Psalm, verse 1 : " My tongue is the pen of a ready writer ;" nor Jeremiah, Chap, xxxvi, verses 4 and 18 : " Then Jeremiah called " Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of ' ' Jeremiah all the words of the Lord, which he had spoken unto "him, upon a roll of a book," — "He pronounced all these words " unto me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book," — impel us to think of shorthand writers. The Hebrew word "l^fl/D ^" *^^* passage of the Psalm may mean "conversant" as well as "quick," but "write from the mouth " is nothing else than writing from dictation ; and as regards the proof of the passages from the so-called 4th book of Ezra, which read as follows : "But thou take with thee many tablets and take with thee .Sareas, Dabrias, Semelias, Echanas and Asiel, these five men, because they are ready to write," (" skilled in quick writ- ing") ; but in the 40 days 94 (204) books were written," we have to oppose the fact that this alleged book of Ezra, which was compiled from 94 to 95 A. D. by a Jew who knew how to imitate skilfully the older prophets, only exists in translations — a Latin, an Arabic and an Ethiopian- Abyssinian ; that the texts of these translations in manj^ instances differ from one another, not even all of them containing the book complete ; that the translation which is referred to by the oppos- ing demonstrators is the most corrupted; and that, finally, even apart from all this, no plausible reason exists which compels us to recog- nize in the above named five writers, shorthand writers, but merely writers of common writing, who generally or always were found among the Hebrews, carrjing their writing materials with them in a belt fastened to a little chain. The argument which Gabelsberger borrows from the quantity of matter the five writers wrote in 40 days is considerably shaken when we read instead of tlie Latin trans- lation, which is " dvcenti quatuor," 204, the other and better texts, " nonagtnta qnatuor," 94, for in that case not quite one-half of a book, instead of more than a whole book, comes to the share of each writer. But since a " book " is a most indefinite quantity with regard to volume and contents, and according to the mode of expression of those days corresponds to our "paragraph" or "chapter," evidence based upon such vague expressions is of course no proof. Nowhere do we find distinct mention of shorthand writers in any of the writings of the Jews before the birth of Christ, while such allusion naturally should be expected if the art had flourished among that people in those days. Neither do w^e meet any express references to the art among Jewish authors of a later period. The Hebrews preserved with a faithful conscientiousness everything per- taining to their theocracy up to the destruction of Jerusalem. This adherence to earlier things went to the extent of pettj' pedantry. Had they once had a stenographic alphabet they would have pre- served it. The suppositious statement at one time attributed to St. Paul "that even at the courts of the temple and synagogue of "Jerusalem, a kind of shorthand writers were employed as record- " ers, and that, from documents of this kind, the Christians might " have collected copies after the death of Jesus ; especially, as schol- " ars and priests were found among the adherents of Jesus," — lacks all historical foundation, as Wegscheider, in our opinion, has full}' demonstrated. Finally, Gabelsberger acknowledges and regrets, as does also Anders, that positive proofs of real Hebrew shorthand writing have not been handed down to our times. But as the evidence furnished in support of the views contested by us, has not proven tenable, we have no reason to wonder at the fact that hitherto no evidence of Hebrew tachygraphy has been found. This fact rather tends to sus- tain our doubts as to the existence of this art in Judea. As to the alleged possession of shorthand writing by the ancient Indians, enough has been said by Dr. Mitzschke. He has demon- strated that there cannot consistently be any talk of an Indian sten- ography. The same author refutes the opinion that the existence of shorthand writing among the Armenians can be inferred from the words of the Armenian evangelist, Agathangelos, (who died 352): " The secretaries of the king Tiridates noted down with signs everj'- " thing that the holy man spoke," and again, "they came thither, "and after they had noted down with signs all the words of the " saints, they read the same to the king." The Chinese possess among their three forms of writing a sort of quick writing called tsa5 schu, or grass writing, in which the writ- ing pencil does not leave the paper, and in which the various indi- vidual strokes, of which a character consists, are made in one move- ment. The brush which describes the direction of the several strokes gives also an outline of a character, but without any very distinct expression of details. The tsa5 writing is tachygraphy, and space is not spared. The written strokes appear in manifold twist- ings, so that i1 requires not a little practice and a considerable knowl- edge of the language to be able to read these signs, allowing much scope to the will of the writer to bring forth many very peculiar characters with each stroke of tlie brush. This mode of writing is said to date from the period of the Han dynasty. Its invention is ascribed to the various scholars who lived during the period from 48 to 80 A. D. As regards Japan, writing there was at first with Chinese characters, but subsequently these were abbreviated, and only indi- vidual characteristic elements were taken and used as phonetic signs. From the printed characters arose the Katakana, and from the quick writing the Hiragana. Stenographic, that is, space-saving signs, often occurred in epistolary style for frequently occurring words. In our days, a manual of tachygraphy is said to have been published at Yokohama, but inquiries made directly at the Japanese embassy at Berlin cause us to doubt the existence in Japan of a sten- ography in its more restricted sense. The modern Persians likewise possess a sort of quick writing. Wilken in his " Rudiments of the Persian Language," (Leipsig, 1805) says in regard to it: "In their letters they frequently omit, " especially in intelligently written compositions, diacritical points "of sentences ; this they call Schekestheh, that is, broken sentence "writing." Furthermore, we read, with regard to the nature and the use of this writing, in the "Phonetic Journal" (1869, P. 146): " Is is used in all the courts of law, and it is found quite sufficient "for the purpose of taking down the evidence of witnesses. As " making set speeches is a thing almost unknown in India, there has " never been a necessitj' felt for anything more rapid than this " shikest. I have often been present when the magistrate's clerk ' ' (Sheristatar) was taking down the actual spoken evidence of some " native witness, and I have found it, afterwards, to be quite ver- " batim. They leave out all the vowels, just as we do. I cannot say ' • much for the legibility of their reports. I am sure of one thing ; " they would never be tit to go to press ; but in the matter of speed, " this system of writing is but little behind our own. To obtain a ' ' degree in this branch of learning is looked upon as a great honor, " and this degree, which is called Chisnovisi, is considered quite as " grand a thing to attain as our degree of LL. D." In an article headed " On the Tachygraphy of the Greeks," in the periodical "Hermes" 11th volume, pages 443 to 457, Dr. Gard- thausen, of Leipzig, endeavors to refute the supposition that the in- troduction of stenography among the Greeks was antedated by sten- ography among the Romans. He expresses himself thus : " Still ' ' more perplexing than the variety of opinions regarding the time of " the invention of the Grecian tachygraphy, is the supposition that " the Tironean Notes were the very prototype of Grecian tachygra- " phy, for not only would thereby the relation of giving and taking, " as in fact it existed between the two nations, be completely (?) re- " versed, but that we find the Greek letters in the Tironean alphabet "would also be inexplicable." Mr. Gardthausen can not dispute the possibility that the rules of giving and taking in a special case could have been reversed without thereby completely reversing the re- lation of giving and taking. But the appearance of Greek letters in the Tironean alphabet, is not strange to him who remembers that the lists of Tironean Notes did not originate at the same time with the alphabet. The subsequent introduction of Greek words into the note commentaries was the occasion for the employment of Greek letters. Has it, in fact, been otherwise with the common Latin alphabet, which orignally contained neither the aspirates nor the letters z or y ? Again, Mr. Gardthausen says : " But what surprises " us most is that the practical requirements of the Greeks should not "have led to this invention; inasmuch as wherever judicial and po- "litical eloquence exists, this invention naturally suggests itself." Mr. Gardthausen does not mention that others before him had enter- tained the same view, nor that on page 9 of the history of the art of quick- writing, discussions are found referring to actual counter reasons, for which a Greek tachygraphy could not be claimed at so early a period as Mr. Gardthausen thinks. In this case, all should have been spe- cially refuted that has been adduced in other places, according to Schneider's precedent, against the supposition that uxotrrj/ieiouffi^at means stenography. Mr. Gardthausen, while occupying himself ex- clusively with the passage of Diogenes of Laertius, referring to Xcnophon, wholly ignores the parallel expression, uTzoffrj/istoKTecq iTTocelTo, explanatory of : unoffr^iieiooaf^ai^ which the same Diogenes xises with reference to the mnemotechnic {Jhv iixvy^fiuvsue'/) minutes, which the Athenian gxuTOToiioq Simon made of the colloquies of So- crates ! Hence, it is obvious that in the passage of Diogenes the V7:o(r/j;isti>offi9at, in consequence of the well-known significations of the preposition (Stto^ may mean either to make " jottings, or noting- down, without the knowledge of others ;" or, as seems more likely, " before and after writing." So long as it has not been proven, and Mr. Gardthausen has forgotten to prove it, that this conception and translation of the passages of Diogenes are false, it remains simply an uncorroborated assertion that urofTTjrjLetw is a technical expression for tachygraphically noting down. It is difficult to see, without petitio pnncipii, how, in the words from the Church history of. Eu- sebius, page 283A, and from the letters of Pliny, 1, 10, an allu- sion to tachygraphic notes can be found. Obviously, the preposition UTZo in this case, just as the Latin sub in subnoto (and subsigno) in Pliny, retains its original literary signification, so that v-o.) was based on fact, the authority for which we have vainly sought, namely : " That " during the life of Augustus there were about 300 special schools " in the Roman Empire in which nothing but stenography was " taught." With regard to " Seneca," mentioned by Isidor as a promoter and developer of Roman shorthand writing, opinions are greatly divided as to whether it means, M. Annaus Seneca, the orator (56 B. C. 34 A. D.), or his son Lucius Annaus Seneca, the philosopher (3-65 A. D.). Lipsius and Kopp decide for the former. Sarpe, on the other hand, is of the opposite opinion. He takes the ground that : " even if Lucius expressed himself contemptuously with regard to tachy graphy, he only did so, when in opposition to Posidonius (of Agamea, called the Rhodian, a philosopher and hi.storian, who lived from 135 to 51 B. C, and whose writings have only come down to us in fragments, so that we do not know against which passage and which of his works the attack of Seneca was directed) he denied that philosophy was the mother of the arts of every day life, and that we were indebted to the ingenuity of man to devise the arts and not to his wisdom. Wisdom is seated deeper ; it does not make the hand skilled in arts ; it is the ruler of thought. But if we would infer from this that Seneca despised in life what he denied in his writ- ings, one might as well go so far as to deny him eloquence, learning, ambition and the possession of unlimited wealth. But as Lucius himself had written much, and in part, as his writings show, had frequently dictated, what prevents us from a.ssuming that shorthand writing had interested him sufficiently to induce him to collect and make additions to the stenographic signs? In addition to this we must bear in mind that it was customary with the Latin authors to desig- nate well-known men only by one name, less known ones, by sev- eral. But if, in spite of this, we should incline to the opinion that Seneca himself had nothing to do with the collection of tachygraphic signs, we must remember that in Greek and Latin it is frequently said of a person that he had done Um or that — which had been done only by his order or by some representative." 24 Here again we see entirely different opinions opposed to each other. No wonder, for all facts relating to the tachygraphy of the ancients are more or less shrouded in obscurity and it would be dif- ficult, if not impossible, to present the truth in every instance. If we are called upon to state our opinion we will express the convic- tion that neither the orator nor the philosopher took the trouble to learn stenography, far less to enrich it with new inventions. Such an occupation of either, is, in our opinion, diametrically opposed to the known direction of their minds. The works of the father as the works of the son, especially the latter, are characterized by deterioration. At that time, we find, profound knowledge was no longer the main thing. Troublesome and time-exhausting spe- cial researches entering into details were already looked down upon with a certain degree of superciliousness, just as in our time able and detailed studies are disposed of by cer- tain writers simply designating them as pedantic. Not con- sidering that great and general results are the fruits only of un- ceasing and earnest investigation, they expected to reap the harvest without taking the trouble to bestow their undivided attention to the tree which was to bear the fruit. We cannot wonder that the fruit gathered was poor. The writings of the courtier, and so- called philosopher, Seneca, are of a flimsy, fastidious character. The ideas express that tone of aristocracy which, by the way, the sen tence : "stenography was an invention of the meanest race of slaves " strikingly illustrates. How can we then suppose that such authors would have busied themselves with an occupation "so dry and lusterless " as the collection of tachygraphic signs and their augmentation ? If the rhetorician, or his son, had really con- descended to do such work, surely neither of them would have put his " light under a bushel ;" at least not the latter, whose well- known vanity would surelj^ not have allowed such an achievement to sink into oblivion. Nowhere in his numerous letters and disserta- tions do we find the least allusion to the matter. Again, the ground which Sarpe assumes for his supposition that widely-known men were briefly designated by one name only, is by no means reliable. Frequently unimportant men were designated only by one name, as for instance, Ennius, the grammarian, while there existed a famous poet of that name, hence a distinction of the latter from the former would have appeared to be a necessity. On the other hand, cele- brated men were not infrequently designated by several names, as Marcus Tullius Cicero. There was, besides, another Seneca who lived, at the latest, about the time of Domitian in the first century after Christ, and who edited the poems of Lucan ; this Seneca might be the one alluded to. Nay, if we consider that the name of Seneca was by no means an uncommon one, even a third supposition would not appear out of 25 place. This supposition is, that shortly aft«r Tiro, Philargyrus and Aquila in their noble strife to bring Roman shorthand writing to blooming perfection in the circles accessible to them (the circle of the copyists and grammarians) had laid a firm foundation, a freed- man by the name of Seneca gathered much of the scattered materials and augmented them by his own additional devices. "Everywhere," saj's Schmitz, in his Tironiana, "the name of Seneca!" Which Seneca is meant? While the claims of Tiro to an essential share in the invention and'development of Roman stenog- raphy are not disputed by any one, it is impossible, from the nature of our traditions, to give a definite answer to the query about who was the particular Seneca alluded to by Schmitz. I forego, therefore, a discussion of the various hypotheses which declare in favor of the rhetorician or the philosopher, or against father and son, and in favor of a third person of that name. Only the following two remarks I would offer concerning the activity of that mysterious l)ersonage. First, Krause errs when he says that Seneca's "work contained about 15,000 stenographic signs, as we glean from a work of Isidor," for in Gruter we find, including the numerous Christian notes, altogether only about 13,000 — compare Kopp 1, paragraph 71. page 57. Second, Sarpe already says in his Prolegg. ad Tachygr. Rome, page 26 (compare Zeibig page 30) with full justice, although not with the desirable emphasis, that the frequently quoted words in the 90th letter of the philosopher Seneca (paragraph 25), "quid ver- borum noias . . . vilvmmorum mancijnorum ista commenta sunt," do not by any means compel us to claim for their author a share in the origination of the collection of notes. It is necessary now to enter briefly, but more accurately than hitherto upon the train of thoughts. After Seneca had, on the one hand, declared himself, in consonance with Posidonius' philosophy, that philosophy was the author of a happy life and the nder of the golden age, he, on the other hand, opposed the opinion of that philosopher (Posidoniu.s), that philosophy was the source of invention of the arts of every daj' life, and asserts that philosophy had no more to do with the art of building houses and cities than in laying out our artificial fish ponds ; all the.se things, he maintained, emanated from desire of luxury as did " feiTamenta fabrilia," and the working of metal gen- erally . . . (§19) " a natura luxTiria descivit, quae . . . novis- sime animum corpori addixit [the extravagance, which very recently sacrifled the soul to the bod}', — the substance to the form — was a de- parture from nature."] The assertion of Posidonius (§20), "omnia " haec sapiens quidem in venit : sed minora quam ut ipse tractaret, " sordidioribus ministris dedit " was also wrong: " immo non aliis " excogitata ista stmt quam quibus hodieque curantur : quaedam ' ' nostra demum prodisse memoria scimus, ut speculariorum usum " perlucente testa clarum transmittentium lumen, ut suspensuras 4 26 " balneorum et impressos parietibus tubos per quos circumfunderetur " calor, qui ima simulac summa foveret aequaliter . . . quid loquar " marmora, quibus templa, quibus domus fulgeut ? quid lapideas " moles in rotundum ac leve formata*!. quibus porticus et capacia " populoruni tecta suscipimus ? quid verboriim nolo.*, quibus quamvis " dtaUi excipittii' orntio et cdentntem linguae mamin Keqvitur? vHi^- '* nmoinim mancipiomm ista c&mmenta mint. Stipientia altiun sedet " nee m/inus edocet : nnimorum mayutra eat. "* Who does not see that iii this connection not merely the " ver- borum notae," but also other previously mentioned artificialities (" quaedam nostra demum . . . tecta suscipimus ") are included iu the meaning of "commenta?" If this he the case, who can prove that those "commenta" had ull emanated from real slaves, who, in consequence of their condition, were lightly esteemed ? If such proof could be given, we should nevertheless be compelled to admit that Seneca did not refer to the generally despised caste of slaves, but to the sentiment which instigated these inventions. In other words, by the " vilissima mancipia" we must not understand, contemptible slaves in the civic sense, but men, who, contrary to the higher aspiration and the nobler activity of the '* sage " aiming at the elevation of mind, liad been estranged from natural simplicity and Ijecjime slaves to their artificially increased wants, by showing a servile sentiment in the creation and satisfaction of these wants, in opposition to the higher aims of wisdom. The question who the ''Seuecu" wsis that Isidor meutions will hardly ever be answered satisfactorily. We know next to nothing about the life and activity of the ancient Roman grammarians, apart from Suetou's little work. The reason for this seems simply to be that these grammarians were considered too insignificant to have the circumstances of their lives handed down to posterity. Whoever that Seneca may have been, this much may be regarded as certain , that his collection had for its object especially to promote a certain imifonnity in the method of Avriting and abbreviation among all the shorthand writers ; for even at that time occasional innwrtant dif- ferences and peculiarities of prominent shorthand writers appeared. In the following statements and references we shall not separate the *[" A wise man indeed invented (or discovered) all these things: but matters that " were too trivial for him to discuss he left to hamblei- instruments. Nay, indeed. " these ver}' thinirs were thought out by other than those by whom they are cultivated ■'at the present time: finally we know'that certain things have been discovered within " our own memory, as for example, the use of mirrors for the transmi.'-sion of bright " light: the arching (or vaulting) of baths and the insertion of tubes fn walls of houses " by means of which warmth is diflfused. so that the lowest and highest j)arts ai-e equally "warmed. Why should I mention the marble with which temples and houses arc •'adorned? Wliy the masses of stone moulded into gracefully rounded columns -with ■• which we support poiticos and spacious dwelling houses ?" " Again. " Why the sign^ " of words, with which a speech though rapid, is taken down and the hand "follows (or •• keeps up with) the speeil of the tongue ? These are the inventions (devices or con- " trivances) of men in a servile station (or men of servile occupations). Wisdom holds " a loftier place, and does not instruct the hands. It is the sovereign (Hterally, miMrtm) '• of the intellect."! 2-7 Greek tachygraphy from the Roman, to avoid too many details in our exposition. It is liardly necessary to prove that Tiro and his associates communicated shorthand writing to others. We have, moreover, already intimated that Maecenas encouraged instruction in this art. It is also generally assumed that Caesar Augustus instructed his grandsons in stenography, an assumption based upon the words of Sueton (Nepotes et literas ct notare aliaque rudimenta \)er se plerumque docuit.) taking for granted, that Lipsius means in that passage : notare — ?to<^M intelltgere — / instead of the earlier expression reading nature. To l>e sure, Torrentius, in opposition to this, and as we believe .iustly, asserts that the expression " literas et natare " like the Greek "aiyrr vsrv /zijr; ypdiiimra " had been a universally known and current phrase to designate the harraonius cultivation of the child which does not permit the body to be neglected for the in- tellect. The object of Augustus was to develop his grandsons, who were some time to become the rulers of a great empire, into competent men endowed with intellectual and bodily vigor of the highest order. Still more definite evidence of the fact that shorthand writing was an object of instruction, especially of juveniles, we find in an edict issued by the Emi)eror Diocletian; A. D. 301, concerning the highest prizes and rewards for bodily and mental development. We read there that the teacher of .shorthand writing should receive 75 Denares per month for ever}' pupil. This passage gives us, at the same time, an intimation of the salary paid to the then teachers of tachygraphj'. From ^lommsen's investigations regarding the value of the Denare adopted as standard measure by Diocletian, we conclude that the 75 Denares mentioned there amounted to about $1.50. If, therefore, .such a teacher had a large number of pupils we may figure out a profitable sum for him as monthly salaiy. For the sake of compari- son, we beg leave to state that for instruction in reading and writing for each individual boy, 50 Denares (about $1) was paid monthly, but for intruction in the Latin and Greek languages 200 Denares were paid. From communications left by the poet Prudentius (born about 348 A. D. at Calahorra in Spain) we learn that after having been ex- pelled from his Episcopal see at Brescia, the holy Cassianus, in the fourth centurj^ established a school at Imolaand instructed juveniles, among other things, in shorthand writing ; but finally he was killed by his exasperated pupils with their styluses. Further corroboration of the fact that the art of shorthand writing <-onstituted a part of juvenile instruction, we find in the words of the grammarian, F. Planciades Fulgentius, (480 A. D.) " all instruction " is of a lower and higher nature, as the instruction of the youth in " writing, is divided in the usual one, and the stenographic one." 28 Finally, Theodoretos, bishop of Kyrrhas in Syria (386-458), re- lates in liis ecclesiastical history of a certain Protogenes, wlio beina; banished to the city of Antinous, likewise established a school and instructed his pupils in shorthand writing, as well as in religion. Before we pass to an exhibit of the variety of shorthand writing employed in the days prior to Cicero, down to the Church fathers, permit me to refer to the fact that writing, after the inven- tion of shorthand writing proper, had become threefold: First, a writing of all the letters of the word, perscribere, which in- cluded the caligraphy ; ypdipsiv e;? xdXXix; ; second, a writing in siglae, and third, a writing in tachygraphic signs, notu or j^er com- pendia, ncribere. The stenographers were called (Tr^fisioypdfs'.. ra^uypd^ot, o^uypdtpoi, ypa/x/iarsit;, o-oypaai and ya'^ddvooffui used on this occasion so that by the fonner tachjg- raphei-s were meant, who wrote down with Gregory's previous knowledge, and who, therefore, were a kind of otficial writers, but that by the latter tachygi-aphers were meant, who wrote without his jMirmission, and who perhaps had been secretly sent by his adversaries in order to secure something by which they could accuse him. Like- wise, several zealous scholars tachygraphically reported what the apostolic father Cyrillus, Bishop of Jerusalem, (died 386 A. D.) de- livered concerning the fundamental doctrines and mysteries of Chris- tianity. Socrates relates that the sensible and practical sermons of John Chrysostom. presbyter at Athens, (347-407 A. D.) were partly pub- lished by himself and partly reported by shorthand writers, which lat- terfact is positively confirmed by Nikephoros and Georgius Patriarcha. Concerning Atticus, Bishop of Constantinople, the second successor of John, it is said, according to our authorities, that his .sermons were so ordinary that they were not deemed worthy of being reported. Tlie esteem in which Gaudentius, of Brescia, (died 410 A. I).) Bishop of Sebusa, was held is, among other things, made apparent by the fact that many of his sermons were taken down by tachygraphere. But Gaudentius did not look with favor on the stenographers, as he did not consider their reports of his sermons true pictures of his words. He feared his enemies would take advantage of the custom of writ- ing down the sermons and ascribe to him sermons which would cause 33 him to be suspected of heresj\ "Gaudentius really had," says Augusti, "every reason to be on his guard, as he was violently per- "secuted by the Arians, and his sernaons were frequently falsified "and misrepresented." Sometimes he yielded to the entreaties of his friends to review and correct his reported sermons. It is related of the apostolic father, Aurelius Augustinus, (354r430 A. D.) that his sermons, which were attended by a great number of heretics, were stenographed whenever occasion offered. This is also indicated by his own words. A sermon delivered by Archbishop Eusebius, of Alexandria, an influential and powerful clergyman, who probably lived in Jus- tinian's time, is in existence in two forms — a lengthy one and an abbreviated one. That the short one is not an epitome of the longer one is evident, for it contains passages which are not found in the longer. It is very probable that these two forms represent two re- ports of this sermon, which were written down by different short- hand writers. Gregory, the Great, (Pope from 590-604) observes in the dedication to Bishop Maximus of his homilies on the Prophet Ezekiel, that he had reviewed and corrected these sermons, which had been taken down by tachygraphers. " Again," Neander says. " the publication of the records in the ec- ' ' clesiastical proceedings {gesta ecdesiastica), which were taken down "with great accuracy, made necessary the appointment of secre- ' ' taries from the clergy (notarii, exceptores), who were skilled in " rapid writing with abbreviations. " The pleadings and important proceedings at the Councils, and especially the discussions concerning dogmatical subjects between the true believers and heretics, had to be reported in shorthand. Eusebius relates, for instance, that a discus- sion between a certain Malchion and Paulus, of Somosata, was faith- fully reported by shorthand writers, and Socrates relates the same of a religious contest of Basilius Ancyranus with Photinus. We find further the following proofs that the "Tironean Notes" were employed in the Councils — the church gatherings. The records of the great conference held at Carthage on the 2nd of June, 411, confirm the fact that the Donatists obtained the publication of the preceding conference, the proceedings of which were stenographed. St. Augustin relates, in his 141st letter, that eight stenographers, two writing alteruatelj', reported the speeches of the Bishops assembled in Carthage. We also read, in his 44th letter, that, as the notaries were not wUling to stenograph any one of his speeches, his faithful adher- ents themselves took the trouble to do it, which goes to show that shortliand writing was very prevalent. Hefele, in his history of the Councils, gives a further instance of the employment of notaries to report their proceedings. Clerical 5 34 men, he says, especially deacons, were used as secretaries, notaries, ifcc, in the synods; thus, for instance, in Chalcedon the notaries, and particularly their chief, Primicerius notaiiorum, had considerable in- fluence, although tliey were not entitled to vote. Some of these notaries were official, and served the Synod itself, but every indi- vidual Bishop could bring his own notary', and through him could record the proceedings of the sessions, excepting at the Robber's Synod, where the tyrannical Dioskurus allowed only his own no- taries and those of his friends to be present. " In some churches young men who wei-e to be educated for the "ministerial services were chosen for such tachygraphical purposes, "as, for instance, to the office of reader. Epiphanius, subsequently "Bishop of Ticinum (Pa via), in the 5th century, became 'lector' "when he was eight years old, and, as soon as he had acquired ■'practice in the use of abbre%'iations. he was received among the ''exceptares of the church." "The notaries occupied similar positions to the Apocritriarien "(that is, deputies who acted in the name of others, especially for " high church officials), as do our secretaries of legations." "Furthermore, the Bishops and Patriarchs, on their official jour- "neys, used shorthand writere as secretaries." "In Rome, in the (Jth century, there were twelve noturios regio- " nation, each of whom, in his district (regio), performed the duties of "a notary in ordinary affairs and business, in judicial and non-judi- " cial proceedings, and regarding donations and grants. Here was also " the Primiceiius notai-iornm, who was afterwards called Vrotono- " tanm, (a title which Gregory had already known), and corre- "sponded to the llpcoro- tu» r^tirfaair/ixiuj -Mi-ainur^ at Constanli- " nople, a man of rank and influence. The notaries were, especially "in ancient times, occasionally called charlularii.ox yapruruaipu: "as well &s ya[tr»a>b)M/.t':. I» Constantinople, ;iiya^ yapTooken of thera when mentioning the services which the tachygraphers had rendered by reporting tlie sayings of the martyrs. Finally, as regards the credil)ility of the tachygraphieal reports, it was considei-od tiiat they did not deserve full confidence until they ha«l been entered in the records. This closely resembles our custom of to-day, when the verbatim report of the stenographer has no official character, although it no doubt offers a better, because a more objective and complete picture of the speech than the official record. To give a clear and corapreheasive sUitement of the social standing of the tachygraphei-s of the olden times, we must, if possible, pene- trate the darkness which still hovers over the art of writing among the Romans. In regard to tlie materials used by stenograpliei*s we will briefly state the following : In ancient times, in place of our memorandum books and pencils, small wooden tables, provided with raised mar- gins, were used. These were laid over with a thin coating of wax — tn/mlfie eeratae, eenie, codicilli, puffillnrex — on which the writing was scratched with a metallic, or bone, pencil — »tilv8, yrapkvcm, — pointed on one end for writing, and the other end left blunt for erasing, (nlilum oei'(ere). These were used by schohirs for writing down their thoughts and annotations, as well as by business men, for keeping book accounts, in hou.sekeeping, and for correspondence. In fact, this appears to have been the most jwpular writing material. The custom of writing on such wax tablets continued, probably in conse- quence of its convenience, and especially on account of the easiness of the Avriting, almost to our time. What wonder, therefore, that the shorthand writers made use, almost exclusively, of the wax tab- lets and .styluses, several of which were generally bound together — hence the name, diptychi, triptychi, ».tc. The employment of the kind of writing material just mentioned was, unquestionably, a great loss of information to ix)sterity. As soon as a .siieech was stenographed and transcribed the wax was rublted smooth in order that another might bt* taken down on the same sur- face, while the transcribed speech was elaborated and published. To the best of our knowledge, no real stenographic: writing has been transmitted to us ; we know only the elaborate products of the ora- tory of those days. What a loss to the examiner of the historical domain of tachygraphyl What a loss to the study of the oratory of the ancients I Here we can only allude briefly to the chai-acter of the Tiro- nean 2sotes. For a more accurate knowledge of the ancient tachy- graphy we must refer our readers to the very copious and often cited work by Kopp, as well as to the excellent works of Professor 39 Wilhelm Schmitz, of Cologne, which have been published in the " Panstenographikon," and in the Reinisches Musetini for Philology, under the title " Tironiana," in the SymboJ/t philulogm'um Bonnenmum. The so-called Tironean Notes originated, as Kopp has plainly proven, from the majuskeln — Latin capital letters — with which are mixed several Greek letters. These, naturally, through the haste of the tachygraphers, were often abbreviated and mutilated even to un- discernibleness, and their form changed after they were combined with this or that sign, or even written in a different order. Only such parts of the capitals were employed as api)eared neces- , sary for the designation of a word. A capital letter, which was mostly, but not always, abbreviated and simplified, either stood in the place of a whole word, or a sign was added which represented the end- ing ; or there were two or more parts of the capitals placed together, or with the addition of small terminal signs united in one stroke, which represented either the endings, the tenses of the words, or helped to distinguish cognate words from one another. Those larger capitals, representing the root or the radical of a word are called xigna paincipalia ; while the smaller signs representing the terminations or tenses placed beloAV, above, to the right or to the left of the signum principale, arc the uuxlliariu. These smaller signs con- sisted either of parts of capitals, or of lines and points. This ancient tachygraphy, representing through the ttigna pnneijxilm and uiixilunui, whole words or even whole sentences (which may be called verbaJi-x) we must distinguish from the xyllnbai-ut, by which syllables only are designated. It is very evident that, in the ancient practice, a certain oscillation in the mode of abbreviation was common among the fraternity, and that the latter, in the haste of writing, did not paj' too strict attention to orthogifiphy, l)ut represented frequently occurring words by one sign and involuntarily left unrepresented immaterial parts, syllables, words, common phrases, which could easily be replaced by the con- text. That the demotic Avriting of the Egyptians exerted an in- fluence on the ancient shorthand writing, as has recently been main- tained, we decline to accept. There may have been abbreviations used in the hieroglyphics — as everyw-here — but this, in principle is very different from stenography. It is not demonstrable that any similarity exists, especially in such simple forms as those used for u, e and z. For, even in Grerman writing, we csiu trace something resembling the forms of Anibic letters. The demotic writing is an abbreviation of the writing with short- ened or rude pictures, of the second jiower ; it may include, as all writings do, word-signs, (our ciphers are indeed, of the same nature), but we cannot convince ourselves that between it and the Roman shorthand writing there is any. connection. 40 As regards the tachygraphy of the Greeks, Kopp denies, and suc- cessfull}' proves his denial, that the Roman shorthand writing was probablj' borrowed from the Greeks. This view is in opposition to that of Lipsius, Carpentier and Amati, whose opinions Gabelsberger supports, in so far as he believed, ' ' that the idea of the art "of shorthand writing of the Greeks had passed over to the "Romans, and that Tiro having obtained some knowledge "of tachygraphy, directed himself, especially during his next "sojourn with Cicero in Athens and Eleusis which ^as "chiefly devoted to science, to improving his knowledge." But closer investigation into the character of both systems, their similarity and dilferences, clearly shows that the former opin- ion is absolutelj' unfounded. " The Greek notes, as well as the Ro- "man, consist of majuskeln. If one considers this, and remembers "at the same time that the Latin and Greek letters (because of one ' ' origin) are even now similar, and were formerly still more so, we "can easily find a reason for that similarity, without believing "that one writing grew out of the other. And again, in spite of all " similarity in the arrangement of the letters, and in the transposi- " tion of the signs, &c., there exists such an extraordinary difference ' ' between the two ways of writing that it cannot be supposed the one "originated from the other." That single signs had passed from the Greek to the Roman tachygraphy can readilj^ be admitted, but there is nothing remarkable about that, because Roman shorthand writers must frequently have been comi>elled to write Greek. Kopp believes that Greek tachygraphy did uot-originate until the third or fourth century. He believes this on account of the similarity which exists between the tachygraphic signs and the letters in manuscripts of the second and third centuries. In modern times. Dr. Lehman, a member of the Royal Steno- graphic Institute, has made a specialty of Greek stenography. The result of his investigation is, that neither the time of the first appear- ance of stenography in Greece, nor the time of its decline, can be determined exactly. We have, however, given sufficient evidence in the numerous foregoing instances and data quoted, that Greek shorthand writing found manifold practical applications. As to the question, whetlier the writing in the manuscript 3,032 of the Paris Library is really a sample of note-writing which the Greek short- hand writers used, Lehman denies. It should also be noticed that the Tironean Notes differ from the Greek, principally because the woid-forms of the latter were written by syllables, and not, as the former, with one stroke. Aspirates and accents were added. Manuscripts in Tironean Notes have not come down to us from ancient times. AVhatever is preserved of the kind is from the pens of the notaries, who used the tachj-graphic forms, but were not able to comprehend the substance of the same. Hence, the frequent in- 41 termixing of common writing with the stenographic, and the inaccu- rate word-forms of later times. The Tironean Notes were no longer scriptura Uteralis, they had grown to be a na-iptura realis. If we go into details concerning what has been preserved in Tironean Notes, we must first consider the collection of commen- taries on Roman tachygraphy, of which we find a treatise in the ap- pendix to JnHcnptionea Antiquae totius orbis Romani, published in 1603, in Heidelberg, by Gruter, {ex-officina commeliniana); the ap- pendix being part of a sort of compendium under the title : " Notae Tullii Tyronu ac Annaei Senecae sive charaeteres, quibus utebantur Ronuini veteres in scriptura compendiaria ubi Litera verbum facit." The notes were published a second time in the same year (" iterum," says Gruter in the dedication), and again as a supplement to the work in the Seneca edition, by Andreas Schott, under the title : " Notae Romanorum veterum quibus Utera verbum fa^it Tullii Tyronis Ciceronis liberti, et Annaei Senecae; Erutaenunc primum e bibliotaphiis editaeque a Jano Grutero. Ex officina Commeliniana CIO 10 CUT. A commen tator says of Gruter's work : Si quern dura manet sententia judicis olim Datnnatuuvi aerumnis 8upplicii<sitively assured. It would not be out of the way to mention, in this connection, the " broken writing'' of the modern Persians. They possess a spe- 49 cial writing approaching stenography which is frequently employed bj- them in ordinary life, and which is not easily read by foreigners otherwise well acquainted with the Persian language. Khalfa, professor in the College Aiinenien-Mom'at in Paris, gives in his " Guide de la conversation" (Paris 1854) for stenographer the Turkish word " H&tti moukhtasmr yazan " — one who writes with ab- breviations — but the matter itself is unknown in Turkey. Anders mentions a certain Abbot Eckard in St. Gall who was a skilful shorthand writer. My predecessor probably did not have anything else in view than the notice given in Kopp's work (P. 485) that Ekkehard (died 973) the dean of the abbey at St. Gall, through his " Notulae," amazed theEmeror Otto Second. But Kopp does not venture to decide whether or not any Tironean shorthand writing is to be understood by this notulae. In the life of St. Bernard (1091-1153) it is related that God, whilst the choir sang, opened his eyes and that he saw an angel standing next to the monks, who, as a kind of shorthand writer, truly noted down what the former sang. We are especiallj'' indebted to Valentin Rose of Berlin, for the statement, that on the soil upon which shorthand writing of modern limes originated, namely, in England, centuries before, in the second half of the twelfth century, an attempt at a complete system of stenog- laphy had been made which, like modern stenography, is in marked contrast to the notes of the ancients — a stenography which was termed ivova notaiHa, as differing from the long perished and forgotten ars notaiiu. The time from the tenth to the sixteenth century is no longer a blank page in the history of stenography. The author, John of Tilburj-, consid- ere himself the first inventor. He pretends to serve especially the needs of the scholares ; he has at the same time the highest idea of the importance and success of his invention, through which in the twinkling of an eye, the scholars will equal the teacher ; through which a sure foundation will be acquired for a more comprehensive mastery of existing knowlege and of its effective extension, — ut unicuique velde quacunqmre inteiTogetiir semper aliquid respondendum habeat prae manibus* Outside of England this '' ars notarui aristoiilis " appears to have been scarcely known. It is embodied in .several manuscripts, one of which is preserved at Florence ; the best and most complete is at Oxford, and a third at London. The author guards against the confounding of this art with the magical arts. He pretends to be indebted for it to suggestions of St. Thomas. Pie de- scribes the art as follows : E^us vis et efflcada est velocitas sciibendi ilocere ut ea celeritate, qua ex oi'e verba profei'untur, pan qixoque celocitate volantis manus notariae excipiantur, ita ut rum praeveniat os r*"Tbat be might have something ready to respond, whosoever might question ' nim conoeming any snbiect."] 50 loqueniis vianum notwii, sed jyraeeurrenff manus notarii semper nnticipet OHloquentis, dtaUm cumimpetu verba non fundantur* He further sjjys that he had previously explained his new writ- ing in three vohimes; two comprising the theory and analy- sis of his new system throvigh conversations between )wia- riug and amicim, and one on practice, which contains a dictionary of the notes. Of these liooks we know nothing. What lies before us is a kind of abridgement in the form of a letter. In the introduc- tion there is a criticism on the antirjuu uotariu. Those examples which Joh;i of Tilbury produces as characterizing the Tironean Notes indicate, however, according to Schmitz, that the English monk either possessed a mangled text, oi- had an incomplete knowl- edge of the Tironean Notes. He assigns, as technical terminations, the words nokt, and titula, for the principal sign and for the auxiliary signs. In his systenr; an alteration of the letter " I," through differ- ent beginnings (»f a cross stroke, designates the twenty, or lather the nineteen fundamental letters of the notarial alphabet, and from the same I, through points (and by round and tailed strokes), and points added to it, in various positions, are formed the nuiltiplicity of the note figures and all the titidae. From the uncertain and even defi- cient context of the letter and the absence of the aforesaid three complete books, we can form no correct idea of the whole matter nor of what it accomplished. It is a (jueslion wliether this invention in the main, was really more than an amusement of the cloister cell, or whether it was perfected in the mind t>f the author. Finally, as regards the author himself, Mr. Kosc has only the following to say : John of Tilbiu-y was a monk and a clergyman, a learned man and an author, but was sickly and suffered especially with his eyes. He did not write the letter preserved to us before 1174, and probably not very long afterwards. Above all, the question which it is important to au>\ver is, whether shorthand writing was known in the old universities and was made use of in tUem. In this connection we find the following facts : "Not an unimportant part of the present existing conuuentarial lit- "erature," says Savigny, "consists of college note books. Even "among the several commentators of the earlier times, individual " students were known as collectoi's and editors. Indeed Nicolaus Furiosus, the pupil of Joannes Bassianus," — who flourished in Bo- logna in the latter part of the 12th century, — " undertook that work." He gained great credit, as is further related, by a verbatim annota- tion and the dissemination of the lectures of his teacher. ["* The power and etticacy of this isr.apidity in writing, to show tliat words are re- peated by the hands of a rapid reporter with the same rapidity with which they are uttered : so that tho speech of the speaker shail not outrun the movement of the hand of the reporter, but the hand of the notary, running- ahead, may anticipate the speech of the 8t)eaker, if the woitls be not uttered with veheracncc." " Now, althong-h I am incensed and in-itated to no pur|)osc that my thoughts, uttered .atbreakfasts and dinners, are given to the public, I am even compelled, by the en- treaties of other friends, to adorn whatever I have to say with a preface, although I have nothing— unless, as I do not care to deny— my woi-ds, even, have been thought out."] / 51 •' This same service was rendered Azo (died 1330) by Alexander de ■' Sanclo Aegidio, who mentions it in the preface to the printed lec- " tures of Azo concerning the Codex. Likewise the best and the "most important writings we have of Odofredus (died 1356) — his ■' exegetical writings — and which secured for him a lasting fame, are •' lectures written down by the hearers and subsequently circulated '■ in real books. The correctness of this opinion appears from the "character of that work, wherein the hearers are constantly ad- " dressed with: or (tignori. The positive appellation lecturae, further ' • confirm, this, while the commentary of Accursius is constantly named •' apparatus. This explains the extraordinary diflferenceof the hand- " writings, which could not easily have occurred in real books." The confidential and vivacious tone, but also the negligence which characterized many of these lectui^es, the rendition of all phrases, memorial verses and jocular remarks, and the referring of the audi- tors to their own study of the passages which had been omitted in the lecture : all this testifies still further to the literal rendering of the lecturae. On the other hand it supports the a.ssumption that the lec- ture must have been delivered entirely extemjwraneously l>y the teacher. " The e.xegetical writings of Guidos de Suzaria, one of the theo- " rists (died between 1383 and 1293 at Bologna), which, according to ■'Accursius, relate to the code, exist in manuscripts in Paris, are "likewi.se not commentaries, but are reported lectures. The con- " elusion of one of them reads : iVisc dico phira hie, qxiia tarda lurra " e«t. Perhaps two of his pupils. Jacobus de Arena and Guido de " Baisio, wrote down these lectures." The greater part of what we have of Bartolus (died 1357) are like- wise lecturae, many of which were preserved merely because they were taken down liy heareiv. " In the twelfth and fifteenth centuries almost the entire legal lit- " erature was condensed by this method of procedure." Also, in other universities, writing down lectures was a daily exer- cise, for which Savjgny presents a remarkable proof, especiallj' re- garding the practice at the university of Paris. That this custom was also observed in the medical school at Salerno, is highly proba- )»le, althougli proof of it is lacking at the present time. Quetif and Echardet, the publishers of the sc?^f 'tores ordinlit praedicatoi'iim state that among those manuscripts preserved in Sar- bonne, there are lectures delivered by Albert the Great (died 1380) which were taken down by the most nimble fingered hearers. A hint that in the thirteenth century shorthand writing was in use is derived by the Italian authors from the well known passage in Dante's Divine Comedy (Paradise, Canto 19, Line 133), in which the 52 poet alludes to the avaricious king Frfderick of Sicily, son of Peter of Arragon : Et a dare ad inteuder quanto e ijoco, La sua scrittura lien lettere mozze. Che noteranno molto in par\^o locf). The mode of preaching of the 13th and subsequent centuries also oflfers to the investigators in our tield many interesting facts. Thus, it is related of the Franciscan monk Bertold. one of the most popular of all men who lived and worked before and after his time in Germany, that most of his sermons delivered in the open air before an almost incredibly large crowd of people, and which ser- mons are acknowledged as the most excellent of the German homilies of the thirteenth century, uniting rare vivacity and freshness of sub- stance as well as form of delivery, were written down by hearers. Indeed, Jacob Grimm says : " I must sjiy. further, that I consider "it was written down with the utmost reliability, and that the pecii- "liarities of the orators in phraseology, expressions, and even in the "dialects were accurately comprehended. If the orator himself had "written out his sermons lie would, perhaps, have polished and con- "tracted the periods, and thereby deprived them of their natural - "ness, which, to the reader as well as the hearer, however, was the "most delightful and attractive part." "There is no doubt of the possibility," continues our author, "of "a faithful and complete reporting of a recently delivered ser- • • mon from memory by intelligent hearers. Such is the case even in "our day; how much more in those times, when the powers of mem- "ory, on the whole, were more acute and concentrated, and the pnu- " tice of writing down was held in a proportionately higher estima- "tion. In Tauler's (died 1361) sermons (old edition printed at Leip- " zig) there is mentioned a .sermon which was fully noted down by a " hearer." '• Since Tauler, Strasbourg, nay, entire Germany, has seen no ' • popular preacher of such brilliant qualities that his sermons were ' ' universally received as oracles, none who so earnestly and candidly "exercised his calling, as Johann Geiler, of Kaisersberg, (died 1510). "His sermons, originally composed in Latin," — which he, as Beatus Rhenanus says, had hastily written down at home — "were, as he him- • .self never published anything, for the most part published by the '• Franciscan monk, Johannes Pauli, (1506-1510, guardian of the '• Minorite Convent at Strasbourg) ' who Avrote down as much as he "'remembered of every .sermon.' Jacob Wimpheling, Joh. Adel- " phus (city physician at Schaflfhausen) and Henry Wessmer have "also translated several of his .series of sermons into German." Wickgram, Geiler's nephew and successor in the office of preacher, as well as Jacob Other and Beatus Rhenanus, edited a part of Geiler's orations in the original writing. The just mentioned relative of 53 the great pulpit orator speaks in a very deprecatory manner of Pauli's publications, whether from envy, because the latter anticipated him, or from policy, in order to render less conspicuous some passages reflecting upon the clergy that would thus aid in preserving the good standing of his uncle in the church. In Tlvomae a Kempis vita Florentt, cap. 33, we find the statement that the numerous scholars whom the fame of Florentius (died 1400) drew to Deventer, noted down the words of the mastei", in order to send them to distant friends. Joannes Gcrson (really Charlier, of Gerson, or Jerson, a village in the diocese of Rheims, died 1429), Geiler's teacher, diligently preached in his native language. His inimerous sermons were writ- ten down by devout hearers and transcribed into the French lan- guage, not verbatim, but according to the sense, and were subse- quently tran.slated into Latin. But the peculiar charm of freshness and originality, according to Wlmpheling's preface (A. D. 1401), iin- fortunatelj' became lost in the transcriptions. We read further that the sermons of St. Bernhardin, of Siena (15 in number), delivered in the year 1437 in the public market of the city, were written down by a citizen of Siena named Antonio de' Bartolomei, a cloth cutter by trade, upon wax tablets {in tnvolette de rera) and invariably engrossed on the same day. The style of the sermons is clear and ingenious, simple and tem- perate, not obscured through deficiencies which characterized the Italian language subsequent to the lime of the 15th century. The words are in a large part peculiar to the dialect of Siemi, which was familiar and very valuable to the saint from his j'outh, until the Crusca, in expunging them, deprived the sermons of their richest bloom. Abbot Luigi de Angelis supposes that it must have been an easy tiling for the shorthand writers to follow the rapid discourse ver' batim, even in a standing position, and without support, and sur- rounded by the pious midtitude. "The tablets," says he, "render " sufHcient resistance, they were easy to turn, occupied little space ' ' and once covered with wax received every impression. In the past " centuries they made use of those tablets covered with wax in order "to accomplish what modern tachygraphers accomplish with paper " and pencil. The former process woiild present no difficulty even ■ ' in oiu' days, as it appears that Benedetto di Bartolommeo in the ■ 15th century got along very well with it." " The tachygraphers," adds de Angelis. " expressly employed signs and abbreviations in or- " der to Avrite quicker, and this art of shorthand writing has extended "to our days, although it did not come into universal, nor even into " frequent use." A great part of the sermons of the " new prophet," Girolamo Savonarola, (died 1498) were reported by the worshipers, especiallj- by a Florentine " notary" by the name of r^orenzo di Jacopo Violi. In all the older editions of his sermons tliis fact has been mentione