world. In the sixth century the business of bookmaking
had fallen into hopeless decay. The books
that had been written were seldom read, and the
number of readers diminished with every succeeding
generation. Ignorance pervaded in all ranks of
society. The Emperor Justin I, who reigned between
the years 518 and 527, could not write, and
was obliged to sign state papers with the form of
stencil plate that had been recommended by Quintilian.
Respect for literature was dead. In the
year, 476, Zeno, the Isaurian, burned 120,000 volumes
in the city of Constantinople. During the
year 640, Amrou, the Saracen, fed the baths of
Alexandria for six months with the 500,000 books
that had been accumulating for centuries in its
famous library of the Serapion. Yet books were
so scarce in Rome at the close of the seventh century
that Pope Martin requested one of his bishops
to supply them, if possible, from Germany. The
ignorance of ecclesiastics in high station was
alarming. During this century, and for centuries
afterward, there were many bishops and archbishops
of the church who could not sign their names. It
was asserted at a council of the church held in the
year 992, that scarcely a single person was to be
found in Rome itself who knew the first elements of
letters. Hallam says, 'To sum up the account of
ignorance in a word, it was rare for a layman of
any rank to know bow to sign his name.' He repeats
the statements that Charlemagne could not