There was a lot of interest in St Bartholomew Day earlier this week. There’s another patron saint of bookbinders (as well as poets): St. Columba. His feast day is June 9 (hopefully I can remember that for next year!) and the story is that he wrote 300 book in his lifetime and went to great lengths to obtain or make copies of valuable manuscripts (he lived 521-597). And this blog tells this rather modern story:
In 540 his first master procured a copy of St. Jerome’s Vulgate. Columba got permission to view it and made a copy of it for his own use. His master, Finnian, on being told of this, laid claim not only to the original but also to the copy. Columba withheld this copy, made by his own hand, and the question of ownership was put before the King of Ireland. Columba lost, the trial ending with King’s decree: “To every cow her calf, and to every book its son-book” (an interesting early case of copyright infringement).
