[1] Most old English poems are preserved in unique manuscripts, sometimes not complete, but in fragments; two fragments, for example, were found in the bindings of other books.—Warton, ii. 7. In 1248, only four books in English were at Glastonbury, and they are described as old and useless.—John of G., 435; Ritson, i. 43. About fifty years later only seventeen such books were in the big library at Canterbury.—James (M. R.), 51. A striking illustration of the disuse of the vernacular among the religious is found in an Anglo-Saxon Gregory's Pastoral Care, which is copiously glossed in Latin, in two or three hands. This manuscript, now in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, No. 12, came from Worcester Priory.—James 17, 33.

[3] Becker, 199, 257

[4] In an eleventh century manuscript in Trinity College Library, Cambridge (MS. B. 16, 44), is an inscription, perhaps by Lanfranc himself, recording that he brought it from Bec and gave it to Christ Church.

[5] At the end of the manuscript of Cassian is written: "Hucusque ego Lanfrancus correxi."—Hist. Litt. de la France, vii. 117. At the end of the Ambrose (Hexaemeron) the note reads, "Lanfrancus ego correxi."

[6] James (M. R.), xxx.

Lanfranc also encouraged original composition, for Osbern, monk of Canterbury, compiled his lives of St. Dunstan, St. Alphege, and St. Odo under his eye.

In this work of bookmaking and collecting Lanfranc was supported or his example was followed by other monks from Normandy: by Abbot Walter of Evesham, who made many books;[1] by Ernulf of Rochester, who compiled the Textus Roffensis; and by many others. At this time grew up the practice of using English houses to supply books for Norman abbeys; this partly explains the number of manuscripts of English workmanship now abroad. A manuscript preserved in Paris contains a note by a canon of Ste-Barbe-en-Auge referring to Beckford in Gloucestershire, an English cell of his house, whence books were sent to Normandy.[2]

[1] Chron. Abb. de Evesham, 97.

[2] Library of Ste. Genevieve, Paris, MS. E. 1. 17, in 40, fol. 61. The note reads: Quia autem apud Bequefort victualium copia erat, scriptores etiam ibi habebantur quorum opera ad nos in Normaniam mittebantur.—Library, v. 2 (1893).

From Lanfranc to the close of the thirteenth century, was the summer-time of the English religious houses. The Cluniac or reformed Benedictines settled here about 1077. In 1105 the Austin Canons first planted a house in this country. The White Monks, another reformed Benedictine order, entered England in 1128, and in the course of four and twenty years founded fifty houses. Soon after, in 1139, the English Gilbertines were established, then came the White Canons, and in 1180 the Carthusian monks. The land was peppered with houses. In less than a century and a half, from the Conquest to about 1200, it is estimated that no fewer than 430 houses were founded, making, with 130 founded before the Conquest, 560 in all.[1] Many were wealthy: some were powerful, because they owned much property, and popular because, like Malmesbury, they were "distinguished for their delightful hospitality' to guests who, arriving every hour, consume more than the inmates themselves."[2] The Cluniacs could almost be called a fashionable order.

[1] Stevenson, Grosseteste, 149.

[2] Gesta R. Angl., lib. v.; Camb. Lit., i. 159-60.

During this prosperous age some of the great houses did their best work in writing and study. Thus to pick out one or two facts from a string of them. In 1104 Abbot Peter of Gloucester gave many books to the abbey library. In 1180 the refounded abbey of Whitby owned a fair library of theological, historical, and classical books.[1] About the same time Abbot Benedict ordered the transcription of sixty volumes, containing one hundred titles, for his library at Peterborough.[2] By 1244, in spite of losses in the fire of 1184, Glastonbury had a library of some four hundred volumes, historical books consorting with romances, Bibles and patristical works almost crowding out some forlorn classics.[3] Nearly half a century later Abbot John of Taunton added to Glastonbury forty volumes, a notable gift in those days of costly books, while Adam of Domerham tells us he also made a fine, handsome, and spacious library.[4] In 1277 a general chapter of the Benedictines ordered the monks, according to their capabilities, to study, write, correct, illuminate, and bind books, rather than to labour in the field.[5]

[1] Surtees S., Ixix. 341.

[2] Merryweather, 96-7.

[3] Joh. Glaston, Chronica, ed. Hearne (1726), ii. 423-44; Merryweather, 140.

[4] Librariam fecit optimum pulcherrimum et copiosum.—Holmes, Wells and Glastonbury, 229.

[5] MS. Twyne, Bodl. L., 8, 272.

To such facts as these should be added the record of the Canterbury, Dover, and Bury libraries, the histories of which have been so admirably written by Dr. M. R. James.[1] Of the library of St. Albans Abbey we have not such a fine series of catalogues. Yet no abbey could have a nobler record. From Paul (1077) to Whethamstede (d. 1465) nearly all its abbots were book-lovers.[2] Paul built a writing-room, and put in the aumbries twenty- eight fine books (volumina notabilia), and eight Psalters, a Collectarium, books of the Epistles and Gospels for the year, two copies of the Gospels adorned with gold and silver and precious stones, without speaking of ordinals, customaries, missals, troparies, collectaria, and other books. Here, as everywhere, the library began with church books: later, easier circumstances made the stream of knowledge broader, if shallower. The next abbot also added some books. Geoffrey, the sixteenth abbot, was the author of a miracle play, an industrious scribe, and the donor of some books finely illuminated and bound. His successor, at one time the conventual archivist, loved books equally well, and got together a fair collection. Great Abbot Robert had many books written—"too many to be mentioned."[3] Simon, the next abbot (1167), a learned and good-living man who encouraged others to learn, was especially fond of books, and had many fine manuscripts written for the painted aumbry in the church. He repaired and improved the scriptorium. He also made a provision whereby each succeeding abbot should have at work one special scribe, called the historiographer, an innovation to which we owe the matchless series of chronicles of Roger of Wendover, Matthew Paris, William Rishanger, and John of Trokelowe. In a Cottonian manuscript is a portrait of Abbot Simon at his book-trunk, a picture interesting because it illustrates his predominant taste for books, as well as one method—then the usual method —of storing them.

[1] James, and James 1.

[2] In the fine MS. Cott. Claud. E. iv. (Gesta Abatum) is a series of portrait miniatures of the abbots, and in most cases they are represented as reading or carrying books, or with books about them.

[3] Fecit etiam scribi libros plurimos, quos lougum esset enarrare.

John, worthy follower of Simon, was a man of learning, who added many noble and useful books to St. Albans' store. William of Trompington (1214) distinguished himself by giving to the abbey books he had taken from his prior. Abbot Roger was a better man, and gave many books and pieces; but John III and IV and Hugh are barren rocks in our fertile valley, for apparently they did nothing for the library. Richard of Wallingford did worse than nothing. He bribed Richard de Bury with four volumes, and sold to him thirty-two books for fifty pounds of silver, retaining one-half of this sum for himself, and devoting the other moiety to Epicurus—"a deed," cries the chronicler, "infamous to all who agreed to it, so to make the only nourishment of the soul serve the belly, and upon any account to apply spiritual dainties to the demands of the flesh."[1] Abbot Michael de Mentmore, who had been educated at Oxford, and became schoolmaster at St. Albans, encouraged the educational work of the abbey by making studies for the scholars. As he also ordered the morning mass to be celebrated directly after prime, or six o'clock, instead of at fierce, or about nine, to allow the students more time, it is safe to assume he was more zealous than popular. He also gave books which cost him more than L 100. His successor, Thomas, enlarged his own study, and bought many books for it; and, with the assistance of Thomas of Walsingham, then preceptor and master of the scriptorium, he built a writing-room at his own expense.

[1] Some of the books were restored, others were resold to the abbey.

But Whethamstede was St. Albans' greatest book-loving abbot. An ardent book-lover, especially fond of finely-illuminated volumes, he indulged his passion for manuscripts, and for conventual buildings, vestments, and property, until he got the abbey into debt, and was led to resign. After the death of his successor, Whethamstede was re-elected. In his time no fewer than eighty-seven volumes were transcribed.[1] In 1452-53 he built a new library at a cost of more than L 150. Another library was erected for the College of the Black Monks at Oxford, for L 60.[2] It was described as a "new erection of a library joyning on the south-side of the chapel, containing on each side five or more divisions, as it may be partly seen to this day by the windows thereof, to which he gave good quantity of his own study, and especially those of his own composition, which were not a few, and to deter plagiaries and others from abusing of them, prefixt these verses in the front of every one of the same books, as he did also to those that he gave to the publick library of the University:

"Fratribus Oxoniae datur in munus liber iste Per patrem pecorum prothomartyris Angligenarum; Quem, si quis rapiat raptim, titulumve retractet, Vel Judae laqueum, vel furcas sentiat; Amen

[1] A lot of forty-nine, with prices attached, is given in Annales a J. Amund., ii. 268 et seq.

[2] Gloucester House, now Worcester College.

"In other books which he gave to the said library these:

"Discior ut docti fieret nova regia plebi Culta magisque Deae datur hic fiber ara Minervae, His qui Diis dictis libant holocausta ministris Et circa bibulam sitinnt prae nectare limpham Estque librique loci, idem dator, actor et unus."[1]

[1] Dugdale, iv. 405.

This, in brief, is the story of St. Albans' tribute to learning. In most monasteries the same kind of work went on, in a more circumscribed fashion, and without the same distinction of finish, which could probably only be attained at the big places where expert scribes and illuminators could be well trained.[2]

[2] For St. Albans see Gesta Abbatum., i. 58, 70, 94, 106, 179, 184; ii. 200, 306, 363; iii. 389, 393



Section II

Fortunately, just when the great houses had attained the summit of their prosperity, and were beginning the slow decline to dissolution, learning and book-culture were freshly encouraged by the coming of the Friars.

The Black Friars settled at Canterbury and in London, near the Old Temple in Holborn, in 1221. The Grey Friars were at London, Oxford, and Cambridge in 1224, and by 1256 they were in forty-nine different localities.[1] lt is strange how the latter order, founded by a man who forbade a novice to own a Psalter, came to be as earnest in buying books as the Benedictines were in copying them. St. Francis' ideal, however, was impossible. The peripatetic nature of their calling, and their duty of tending the sick, compelled many friars to learn foreign languages, and to acquire some medical knowledge. Books were, therefore, useful to them, if not essential; as indeed St. Francis ultimately recognized. However, they could not own books themselves, but only in common with other members of the convent. If a friar was promoted to a bishopric, he had to renounce the use of the books he had had as a friar; and Clement IV forbade the consecration of a bishop until he had returned the books to his friary. When a book was given to a friar—and this often happened—he was in duty bound to hand it to his Superior. But if the friar was a man of parts the gift was devoted to acquiring books for his studies, or to giving him other necessary assistance; the duty, it was held, which the Superior owed him.[2] But these principles do not seem to have been strictly observed. In little more than thirty years after St. Francis' death it was found necessary to draw up rules forbidding the brethren to own books except by leave from the chief officer of the order, or to keep any books which were not regarded as the property of the whole order, or to write books, or have them written for sale.[3]

[1] Mon, Fr., ii., viii.

[2] Bryce, i. 440n, 29.

[3] Clark, 62.

By the end of the thirteenth century the Mendicants of Oxford were fairly well provided with books. Michael Scot came to Oxford, at the time of the greatest literary activity of the brethren, and introduced to them the physical and metaphysical works of Aristotle (1230).[1] Adam de Marisco seems to have been responsible for the first considerable additions to the collection. From his brother, Bishop Richard, he had already received a library; possibly this, with his own books, came into possession of the convent. Then out of love for him, Grosseteste left his writings or his library—it is not clear which—to the Grey Friars.[2] This gift may have formed part—it is not certain—of the two valuable hoards existing in the fifteenth century in the same friary, one the convent library, open only to graduates, the other the Schools library, for seculars living among the brethren for the sake of the teaching they could get. In these collections were many Hebrew books, which had been bought upon the banishment of the Jews from England (1290).[3] Such books were not often found in the abbeys, although some got to Ramsey, where Grosseteste's influence may be suspected.

[1] These works would be Latin translations based upon Arabic versions Opus Majus, iii. 66; Camb. Lit., i. 199; Gasquet 3, 156.

[2] Close roll, 10 Hen. III, m. 6 (3rd Sep.); Trivet, Annales, 243; Mon. Fr., i. 185; Stevenson, 76; O. H. S., Little, 57.

[3] Wood, Hist. Ant. U. Ox. (1792), i. 329.

The White Friars also had a library at Oxford, wherein they garnered the works of every famous writer of their order. They are praised for taking more care of their books than the brethren of other colours.[1] In later times, at any rate, some cause for the complaint against the Grey Friars existed. They appear to have sold many manuscripts to Dr. Thomas Gascoigne (c. 1433). He ultimately gave them to the libraries of Lincoln, Durham, Balliol, and Oriel Colleges. As the friars' mode of life grew easier and the love of learning less keen, they got rid of many more books. In Leland's time the library had melted away. After much difficulty he was allowed to see the book-room, but he found in it nothing but dust and dirt, cobwebs and moths, and some books not worth a threepenny piece.[2]

[1] There is an imperfect catalogue of their library in Leland, iii. 57.

[2] Leland 3, 286.

Roger de Thoris, afterwards Dean of Exeter, presented a library to the Grey Friars of his city in 1266.[1] What became of it we do not know. About the same time, in 1253 to be exact, the will of Richard de Wyche, Bishop of Chichester, is notable for its bequests to the friars; thus he left books to various friaries of the Grey Brethren—at Chichester his glossed Psalter, at Lewes the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John, at Winchelsea the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, at Canterbury Isaiah glossed, at London the Epistles of St. Paul glossed, and at Winchester the twelve Prophets glossed; as well as some volumes to the Black Friars—at Arundel the Book of Sentences, at Canterbury Hosea glossed, at London the Books of Job, the Acts, the Apocalypse, with the canonical epistles, and at Winchester the Summa of William of Auxerre.[2] Such friendliness for the Mendicants was far from common among the secular clergy. Besides the southern places mentioned in this bequest, friaries in the east, at Norwich and Ipswich, and in the west, at Hereford and Bristol, had goodly libraries.

[1] Oliver, Mon. Dioc. Exon., 332, 333.

[2] Sussex Archaeol. Collections, i. (1848), 168-187.

The friary collections in London seem to have been important, especially that given to the Grey Friars in 1225,[1] just when they had settled near Newgate. The Austin Friars may have owned a library before 1364, when two of their number left the London house, taking with them books and other goods.[2] Early in the fifteenth century a library was built and a large addition was made to the books of this house by Prior Lowe, a friar afterwards occupying the sees of St. Asaph and of Rochester.[3] At this time the friars of London were specially fortunate. The White Friars enjoyed a good library, to which Thomas Walden, a learned brother of the order, presented many foreign manuscripts of some age and rarity.[4] The Grey Friars' library was founded or refounded by Dick Whittington (1421).[5] The room "was in length one hundred twentie nine foote, and in breadth thirtie one: all seeled with Wainscot, having twentie eight desks, and eight double setles of Wainscot. Which in the next yeare following was altogither finished in building, and within three yeares after, furnished with Bookes, to the charges of" over L 556, "whereof Richard Whittington bare foure hundred pound, the rest was borne by Doctor Thomas Winchelsey, a Frier there."[6] On this occasion one hundred marks were paid for transcribing the works of Nicholas de Lyra, a Grey Friar highly esteemed for his knowledge of Hebrew, and "the greatest exponent of the literal sense of Scripture whom the medieval world can show."[7]

[1] Mon. Fr., ii. 18.

[2] Cal. of Pap. Letters, iv. 42-43.

[3] Leland, iii. 53.

[4] Camb. Mod. Hist., i., 597.

[5] For date see Stow (Kingsford's ed.), i. 108; i, 318; Mon. Fr., i. 519,

[6] Stow, i. 318.

[7] Camb. Mod. Hist., i. 591.

Of few of the friary libraries have we definite knowledge of their size and character. But in the case of the Austin Friars of York, a catalogue of their library is extant. The collection was a notable one. The inventory was made in 1372, and the items in it, forming the bulk of the whole, with some later additions, amounted to 646. One member of the society named John Erghome was a remarkable man. He was a doctor of Oxford, where he had studied logic, natural philosophy, and theology. More than 220 books were his contribution to this splendid library, and he it was who added the Psalter and Canticles in Greek and a Hebrew book,—rarities indeed at that date. Classical literature is fairly well represented in the collection as a whole, but theology, and especially logic and philosophy, make up the bulk.[1]

[1] The catalogue is edited by Dr. M. R. James in Fasciculus Ioanni Willis Clark dicatus, 2-96.

In Scotland, too, the Grey Friars were busy library- making. We find the convent at Stirling buying five dozen parchments (1502). Fifty pounds were paid for books sent to them this year by the Cistercians of Culross, and to the Austin Canons of Cambuskenneth in the following year about half as much was paid; and similar records appear in the accounts.[1]

[1] Bryce, i. 369.

Other interesting testimony to the bookcraft and collecting habits of the friars is not wanting. Adam de Marisco writes to the Friar Warden of Cambridge asking for vellum for scribes.[1] Or he expresses the hope that Richard of Cornwall may be prevailed upon to stay in England, but if he goes he will be supplied with books and everything necessary for his departure.[2] From this letter, it was evidently usual for friars to seek and obtain permission to carry away books with them when going abroad, or going from one custody to another.[3] Then again Adam writes asking Grosseteste to send Aristotle's Ethics to the Grey Friars' convent in London.[4] In getting books the friars were sometimes unscrupulous. A royal writ was issued commanding the Warden of the Grey Friars at Oxford and another friar, Walter de Chatton, to return two books worth forty shillings which they were keeping from the rightful owner (1330).[5] More striking testimony to the book-collecting habits of the friars is the complaint to the Pope of their buying so many books that the monks and clergy had difficulty in obtaining them. In every convent, it was urged, was a grand and noble library, and every friar of eminence in the University had a fine collection of books.[6] Archbishop Fitzralph, who made this statement, detested the friars, and was besides prone to exaggerate; but he was not wholly wrong in this instance, as De Bury tells a similar tale. "Whenever it happened," he says, "that we turned aside to the cities and places where the mendicants . . . had their convents, we did not disdain to visit their libraries . . .; there we found heaped up amid the utmost poverty the utmost riches of wisdom. These men are as ants.... They have added more in this brief [eleventh] hour to the stock of the sacred books than all the other vine-dressers."[7] Instead of declaiming against the hawks, De Bury trained them to prey for him, and was well rewarded for his pains. Nor is it beyond the bounds of probability that he enriched his own collection at the expense of the Grey Friars' library at Oxford.[8]

[1] Mon. Fr., i. 391.

[2] Ibid. i. 366.

[3] But see O. H. S., Little, 56; Mon. Fr., ii. 91—Libri fratrum decedentium.

[4] Mon. Fr., i. 114.

[5] Bodl. MS. Twyne, xxiii. 488; O. H. S., Little, 60.

[6] R. Armachanus, Defensorium Curetorum; cf. Wyclif' English Works, ed. Matthew, 128, 221.

[7] R. de B., Thomas' ed. 203.

[8] Stevenson, 87.

The friars were not merely collectors. The scholarship of Bacon and other brethren does not concern us. But their correction of the texts of Scripture, and their bibliographical work, are germane to our subject. In mid- thirteenth century some Black Friars of Paris laboured to correct the text of the Latin Bible; and to enable copyists to restore the true text when transcribing, they drew up manuals, called Correctoria. One such manual, now known as the Correctorium Vaticanum, was prepared by William de la Mare, a Grey brother of Oxford, in the course of forty years' labour; and it is "a work which before all others laid down sound principles of true scientific criticism upon which to base a correction of the Vulgate text."[1]

[1] Gasquet 3, 140, q.v. for full description of these Correctoria.

Another special work of the Grey brethren, the Registrum Librorum Angliae,[1] was less important, although it more clearly illustrates their high regard for books. Some time in the fourteenth century, by seeking information from about one hundred and sixty monasteries, some friars drew up a list of libraries under the heads of the seven custodies or wardenships of their order in England, and catalogued the writings of some eighty-five authors represented in these collections. In this way was formed a combined bibliography and co-operative catalogue. Of this catalogue we are able to reproduce a page on which are indexed five authors, with numerical references to the libraries containing each work. Early in the fifteenth century a monk of Bury St. Edmunds, John Boston by name—possibly the librarian of that house—expanded the register by increasing to nearly seven hundred the number of authors, and by adding a score of names to the list of libraries. He also provided a short biographical sketch of each author "drawn from the best sources at his disposal; so that the book in its completed form might claim to be called a dictionary of literature."[2]

[1] MS. Bodl. Tanner, 165.

[2] Camb. MKod. Hist., i. 592; James, xlix.



Section III

We would fain fill in the outline we have given, for the friars and their book-loving ways are interesting. But enough has been written to show the origin and growth of libraries among the religious both of the abbeys and the friaries. Of the later days of monachism it is not so pleasant to write. The story has been well told many times, but no two writers, even in a broad and general way, let alone in detail, have read the facts alike. On the one hand it is urged that monachism became degenerate, both in reverence for spiritual affairs and in love of learning. Many monks, we are told, came to find more enjoyment in easy living than in ascetic and religious observances. Apart from the savage onslaughts in Piers Plowman, and the yarns of Layton and Legh, now quite discredited, we have the most credible evidence in Chaucer's gentle satire:—

"A monk ther was, a fair for the maistrye, An out-rydere, that lovede venerye; [hunting] A manly man, to been an abbot able, Ful many a deyntee hors hadde he in stable: . . . . . . . . He was a lord ful fat and in good point [well-equipped] His eyen stepe, and rollinge in his heed." [eyes bright]

The friars, too, were sometimes "merye and wantoun," and

"knew the tavernes wel in every toun, And everich hostiler or gay tappestere."

And an indictment of some force might be based on the fact that the general chapter of the Benedictine order at Coventry in 1516 found it necessary to make regulations against immoderate and illicit eating and drinking, and against hunting and hawking.[1]

[] Hist, et Cart. Mon. Glouc., iii. lxxiv.

No doubt also many a monk would argue with himself:—

"What sholde he studie, and make him-selven wood [mad] Upon a book in cloistre alwey to poure Or swinken with his handes, and laboure [toil] As Austin bit?" [As St. Augustine bids]

De Bury declaimed against the monks' neglect of books. "Now slothful Thersites," he cries, "handles the arms of Achilles and the choice trappings of war-horses are spread upon lazy asses, winking owls lord it in the eagle's nest, and the cowardly kite sits upon the perch of the hawk.

"Liber Bacchus is ever loved, And is into their bellies shoved, By day and by night. Liber Codex is neglected, And with scornful hand rejected Far out of their sight."

"And as if the simple monastic folk of modern times were deceived by a confusion of names, while Liber Pater is preferred to Liber Patrum, the study of the monks nowadays is in the emptying of cups and not the emending of books; to which they do not hesitate to add the wanton music of Timotheus, jealous of chastity, and thus the song of the merrymaker and not the chant of the mourner is become the office of the monks. Flocks and fleeces, crops and granaries, leeks and potherbs, drink and goblets, are nowadays the reading and study of the monks, except a few elect ones, in whom lingers not the image but some slight vestige of the fathers that preceded them."[1] Specific instances of neglect and worse are recorded. We have already mentioned the giving and selling of books by the monks of St. Albans to Richard de Bury. From the account books of Bolton Abbey it would appear that three books only were bought during forty years of the fourteenth century.[2] At St. Werburgh's, Chester, discipline was very lax. Two monks robbed the abbot of a book valued at L 20, and of property valued at L 100 or more, and stole from two of their brethren books and money (1409). About four years later one of the thieves was elected abbot, and his respect for learning may be gauged from the fact that in 1422 he was charged with not having maintained a scholar at Oxford or Cambridge for twelve years, although it was his duty to do so by the rules of his order.[3]

[1] R. de B., c. v. 183.

[2] Whitaker, Hist. of Craven, (1805), 330; another computus, discovered later, does not refer to books (ed. 1878).

[3] Morris, Chester during Plantagenet and Tudor Reigns, 128-129.

At Bury books were going astray in the first half of the fifteenth century. Abbot William Curteys (1429-45) issued an ordinance in which he declares books given out by the preceptor to the brethren for purposes of study had been lent, pledged, and even stolen by them. Some of them he had recovered, and he hoped to secure more, but the process of recovery had been expensive and troublesome, both to himself and the people he found in possession of the books. He therefore sternly forbade the brethren to alienate books, and decrees certain punishments if his order was disobeyed. Brethren studying at the University seem to have been not immune from such faults.[1] The prior of Michelham sold books, papers, horses, and timber for his own personal profit (1478). A visitation of Wigmore showed that books were not "studied in the cloister because the seats were uncomfortable."[2] Bishop Goldwell's visitation of his diocese of Norwich in 1492 showed that at Norwich Priory no scholars were sent to study at Oxford, and at Wymondham Abbey the monks "refused to apply themselves to their books." At Battle Abbey, in 1530, the one time fine library was in a sad state of neglect; no doubt books had been parted with. And as the last years of the monasteries coincided with a renewed interest among seculars in learning and with a revival of book-collecting, the monks of all houses must have been sorely tempted to sell books which laymen coveted, as the monks of Mount Athos have been bartering away their libraries ever since the seventeenth century.

[1] James, M. R. 1, 109-110.

[2] Bateson, Med. Eng., 339.

But among so many houses some were bound to be ill- conducted. And it is important to remember that irregularities would be recorded oftener than more favourable facts. What had been usual would go unnoted; what was strange, and a departure from the highest standard of monachism, would be observed with regret by friends and dwelt on with spite by enemies. Although human memory is apt to register evil acts with more assiduity and fidelity than good, yet a contrary view of the last state of monachism may be argued with as much reason and with the support of equally reliable evidence. The great majority of the houses were not under lax control. The general organisation was not defective; nor was every monk a "lorel, a loller, and a spille-tyme.' " Setting aside the question of general conduct, with which we have little to do, plenty of evidence may be collected to show that the work of the earlier periods was not only continued in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but that some of the monks enjoyed special distinction among their contemporaries. Writing was encouraged by directions of chapters in 1343, 1388, and 1444.[1] The early part of the fifteenth century was an age of library building, in the monasteries, as at the Universities. Special rooms for books were put up at Gloucester, Christ Church (Canterbury), Durham, Bury St. Edmunds, and other houses. Large and growing monastic libraries were in existence—at St. Albans and Peterborough, two at Canterbury of nearly two thousand volumes each, two thousand volumes at Bury, a thousand and more at Durham, six hundred at Ramsey, three hundred and fifty at Meaux. When John Leland crossed the threshold of the library at Glastonbury he stood stock still for a moment, awestruck and bewildered at the sight of books of the greatest antiquity. In 1482, the abbess of Syon monastery, Isleworth, entered into a regular contract for writing and binding books.[2] Some forty years later this abbey had at least fourteen hundred and twenty-one printed and manuscript volumes in its library.[3] More facts of similar character will be noted in the next chapter. Here we will content ourselves with noting a few of the most conspicuous instances of monkish scholarship in these later days. At Glastonbury, Abbot John Selwood was familiar with John Free's work; indeed, presents a monk with one of that scholar's translations from the Greek.[4] His successor, Bere, was a pilgrim to Italy, and was in correspondence with Erasmus, who desired him to examine his translation of the New Testament from the Greek. A monk of Westminster, who became abbot of his house in 1465, was a diligent student, noted for his knowledge of Greek.[5] At Christ Church, Canterbury, Prior Selling was particularly zealous on behalf of the library, and was one of the first to import Greek books into England in any considerable quantity.[6] Two manuscripts now in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and one in New College, were transcribed by a Greek living at Reading Abbey (1497-1500).[7] These few references to the study of Greek are especially significant, as the revival of Greek studies had only just begun.

[1] Gasquet 4, 49.

[2] E. H. R., xxv. 122.

[3] Bateson, vii.

[4] Synesius de laude Calvitii, MS. Bodl. 80.

[5] Gasquet 2, 36-37.

[6] Sandys., ii. 225; and see post, p. 195.

[7] Gasquet 2, 37; Rashdall and Rait, New Coll. (1901), 251.



Section IV

The whole truth about the later days of the monasteries will never be known. Many of the original sources of our knowledge are tainted with partisanship and religious rancour and flagrant dishonesty. What does seem to be true is that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries monastic influence grew slowly weaker, although the system may not have been degenerate in itself. The cause is to be found in the very prosperity of monachism, which brought to the religious houses wealth and all its responsibilities. Wealth always imposes fetters, as every rich man, from Seneca downwards, has declared with unctuous lamentation. But what first strikes the student who compares early English monachism with the later is, that whereas the monks of the first period were most concerned with their monastic duties, their religious observances, and their scribing and illuminating, the monks of the later period, and especially during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were immersed in business, in the management of their wealth, the control of large estates. The possession of wealth led in one direction to excessive display, and to purchasing land and building beyond their means; a course which monks might easily persuade themselves was progressive and exemplary of true religious fervour, but which attracted to them envious eyes. Heavy subsidies to the Crown and the Pope oppressed them. Then again, many houses indulged in unwise and excessive almsgiving, which the monks might well believe to be right, but which brought them only the interested friendship of the needy. And in the management of their estates much litigation obstinately pursued caused internal dissension, was costly, and gained them only bitter enemies. Had the monasteries been allowed to exist, probably these evils would have cured themselves. But, owing to these evils,—to the decline of monastic influence of which they were the cause,—the Dissolution, once decided upon, could be carried out with terrible swiftness and completeness; no influence nor power which the religious could wield was able to delay or avert the blow struck by the king. Within a few years over one thousand houses were closed and their lands and property confiscated.

In the hastiness of the overthrow some conventual books were destroyed, or stolen, or sold off at low prices. In a few places damage was done even before the actual dissolution. At Christ Church, Canterbury, for example, the drunken servants of a royal commission carelessly brought about a fire, almost entirely destroying the library of Prior Selling,[1] which he probably designed to add to the collection of his monastery. But when the houses were suppressed, we are told, "whole libraries were destroyed, or made waste paper of, or consumed for the vilest uses. The splendid and magnificent Abbey of Malmesbury, which possessed some of the finest manuscripts in the kingdom, was ransacked, and its treasures either sold or burnt to serve the commonest purposes of life. An antiquary who travelled through that town, many years after the Dissolution, relates that he saw broken windows patched up with remnants of the most valuable manuscripts on vellum, and that the bakers had not even then consumed the stores they had accumulated, in heating their ovens."[2] John Bale tells us the loss of the libraries had not mattered so much, "beynge so many in nombre, and in so desolate places for the more parse, yf the chiefe monumentes and most notable workes of our excellent wryters had been reserved. If there had been in every shyre of Englande but one solempne Iybrary to the preservacyon of those noble workes, and preferrement of good lernynges in oure posteryte, it had bene yet sumwhat. But to destroye all without consyderacyon, is and wyll be unto Englande for ever, a most horryble infamy amonge the grave senyours of other nacyons. A great nombre of them whych purchased these superstycyouse mansyons reserved of those lybrary bokes, some to serve theyr jakes, some to scoure theyr candlestycks, and some to rubbe theyr bootes. Some they sold to the grossers and sopesellers, and some they sent over see to the bokebynders, not in small nombre, but at tymes whole shyppes full, to the wonderynge of the foren nacyons. Yea, the unyversytees of this realme are not all clere in this detestable fact.... I know a merchant man which shall at thys tyme be namelesse, that boughte the contentes of two noble lybraryes for xl shyllynges pryce, a shame it is to be spoken. Thys stuffe hath he occupyed in the stede of graye paper by the space of more than these x years, and yet he hath store ynough for many yeares to come."[3] To some extent Bale's account of the contemptuous treatment of books is confirmed by records of sales: as, for example, the following:—

Item, sold to Robert Doryngton, old boke, and a cofer in the library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ijs. Item, old bokes in the vestry, sold to the same Robert. . viiid. Item, sold to Robert Whytgreve, a missale . .. . . . . . viijd. Fyrst, sold to Mr. Whytgreve, a masse boke. . . . . . . . xijd. Item, old bokes in the quyer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vjd. Item, a fryers masse boke, solde to Marke Wyrley. . . iiijd.[4]

[1] A few volumes escaped: a copy of Basil's Commentary on Isaiah, presumably in Greek, and some others. "Among them must in all probability be reckoned the first copy of Homer whose presence can be definitely traced in England since the days of Theodore of Tarsus."—Camb. Mod. Hist,, i. 598. Cp. James, li.

[2] Aubrey, Lett. of Em. Per. from the Bod., i. 278.

[3] Laboryouse Journey and Serche of Johann Leylande for Englandes Antiquitees, by Bale, 1549. Cf. Strype, Parker (1711), 528.

[4] Accounts of John Scudamore (king's receiver), detailing proceeds of sale of goods from Bordesley Abbey, and other monasteries.—Cam. Soc., xxvi. 269, 271, 275.

Bale's statement is sadly borne out by the fate of the library of the Austin Friars of York. At one time this friary owned between six and seven hundred books. Now but five are known to remain.[1] "It is hardly open to doubt," writes Dr. James, "that nine-tenths of the books have ceased to exist. To be sure, it is no news to us that thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of manuscripts were destroyed in the first half of the sixteenth century; but the truth comes heavily home when we are confronted with the actual figures of the loss sustained in one small corner of the field. We may fairly reckon that what happened in the case of the Austin Friars at York happened to many another house situated like it, in a populous centre, and thus enjoying good opportunities for acquiring books."[2]

[1] Fasciculus I. W. Clark dicatus, 16, and cf. 96.

[2] Fasciculus I. W. CIark dicatus, 16, 17.

But the loss may be—and has been—exaggerated. In some instances a good part of a library was preserved. The Prior of Lanthony, a house in the outskirts of Gloucester, saved the books of his little community. From him they passed into the hands of one Theyer; later, possibly through Archbishop Bancroft, they found an ultimate resting-place in Lambeth Palace. During this interval many of them were perhaps lost or sold, but to-day some one hundred and thirty are known certainly to have come from Lanthony, or may be credited to that place on reasonably safe evidence.[1]

[1] C. A. S. 8vo. Publ., No. 33 (1900), Dr. James on MSS. in the Library of Lambeth Palace, pp. 1, 2, 6.

Then again Henry's myrmidons—to use the classic word—would be unlikely to carry their vandalism too far. To do so, in view of the great value of books, would bring them no profit. Knowing their character, may we not reasonably assume that they sold as many books as they could to make illicit gains?[1] Sometimes they fell in love with their finds, as was natural. "Please it you to understand," writes Thomas Bedyll, one of Henry VIII's commissioners, "that in the reding of the muniments and chartors of the house of Ramesey, I found a chartor of King Edgar, writen in a very antiq Romane hand, hard to be red at the first sight, and light inowghe after that a man found out vj or vij words and after compar letter to letter. I am suer ye wold delight to see the same for the straingnes and antiquite thereof.... I have seen also there a chartor of King Edward writen affor the Conquest."[2]

[1] See Dr. James' view of the dispersion of Bury Abbey Library.—James 1, 9-10.

[2] Monasticon, Dugdale, ii. 586-587.

John Leland was one of those who saved books. Already he had been commissioned to examine the libraries of cathedrals, abbeys, priories, colleges, and other places wherein the records of antiquity were kept, when, observing with dismay the threatened loss of monastic treasures, he asked Cromwell to extend the commission to collecting books for the king's library. The Germans, he says, perceiving our "desidiousness" and negligence, were daily sending young scholars hither, who spoiled the books, and cut them out of libraries, and returned home and put them abroad as monuments of their own country.[1]

[1] Ath. Ox. (1721), i. 82, 83.

His request was granted in part, and he tells us he sent to London for the royal library the choicest volumes in St. Augustine's Abbey; but very few of these books now remain.[1] He had, he said, "conservid many good autors, the which otherwise had beene like to have perischid to no smaul incommodite of good letters, of the whiche parse remayne yn the moste magnificent libraries of yowr royal Palacis. Parte also remayne yn my custodye. Wherby I truste right shortely so to describe your most noble reaulme, and to publische the Majeste and the excellent actes of yowr progenitors."[2]

[1] James (M. R.), lxxxi.

[2] Leland, Itinerary (1907), i. xxxviii.

Robert Talbot, rector of Haversham, Berkshire (d. 1558), collected monastic manuscripts: the choicest of them he left to New College. A portreeve of Ipswich, named William Smart, came into possession of some hundred volumes from Bury Abbey library. In 1599 he gave them to Pembroke College, where they are now.[1] John Twyne, (d. 1581), schoolmaster and mayor of Canterbury, certainly once owned the fifteenth-century catalogue of the St. Augustine's Abbey library, and seems to have possessed many manuscripts. Both catalogue and manuscripts were transferred to Dr. John Dee, the famous alchemist. The catalogue, with some other books belonging to the doctor, got to the library of Trinity College, Dublin. But the manuscripts passed into the hands of Brian Twyne, John's grandson, who bequeathed them to Corpus Christi College, Oxford; they are still there.[2] John Stow, whose gatherings form part of the Harleian collection, saved some books which once reposed in claustral aumbries, mainly owing to the protection and help of Archbishop Parker.

[1] James (M. R.) 1, II.

[2] Notes and Q., 2. i. 485; James (M. R.), lvii, lxxxli.

Archbishop Parker himself was assiduous in garnering books. "I have within my house, in wages," he writes to Lord Burleigh, in 1573, "drawers and cutters, painters, limners, writers and bookbinders." Again, "I toy out my time, partly with copying of books." He made a strenuous endeavour to recover as many of the monks' books as possible, using money and influence to this end; and accumulated an unusually large library, quite priceless in character.[1] Most of his choice books were presented to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and twenty-five of them to Cambridge University Library (1574). Dr. Montagu James, the leading authority on the provenance of Western manuscripts, has discovered or made suggestions as to the origin of nearly two hundred out of about three hundred and eighty.[2] Forty-seven are traced to Christ Church, Canterbury; twenty-six to St. Augustine's Abbey. Later Dr. James extended his work to identifying the manuscripts which were once in the Canterbury abbeys and in the priory of St. Martin at Dover. From the fragmentary Christ Church catalogue of 1170, Dr. James has identified two, and possibly six, manuscripts; from Henry Eastry's catalogue (14 cent.) of Christ Church books, he has identified either certainly or with much probability about one hundred and eighty; from the catalogue of St. Augustine's Abbey library (c. 1497) over one hundred and seventy-five; as well as twenty from the Dover catalogue (1389). In addition, Dr. James has identified about one hundred and fifty manuscripts still extant which are certainly or probably attributable to Christ Church monastic library, but which are not in the catalogues handed down to us; and over sixty which are likewise attributable to St. Augustine's monastery.[3] There are therefore about five hundred and seventy Canterbury manuscripts now remaining to us.

[1] Strype, Parker (1711), 528.

[2] James (M. R.), Sources of Archbishop Parker's MSS. (Camb. Antiq. Soc.).

[3] James (M. R.), 505-534.

By making a similarly thorough investigation Dr. James has traced about three hundred and twenty-two manuscripts from Bury St. Edmunds.[1] Of the Westminster Abbey manuscripts it is difficult to say how many are extant, as the common medieval press marks are absent from the books of this house. But the presence of eleven manuscripts in the British Museum; two in Lambeth Palace; one at Sion College; three at the Bodleian, and five more in Oxford colleges; two at the Cambridge University Library, and two more in the colleges there; one at the Chetham Library, Manchester; and two at Trinity College, Dublin, well illustrate how the monastic books have been scattered since the Dissolution.[2] To these special examinations Dr. James has gradually added vastly to our knowledge of the provenance of manuscripts by his masterly series of catalogues of the ancient treasures of the Cambridge colleges, and he has proved to us that a considerable number of monastic books still survive.[3] Much more work of the same kind remains to be done; other labourers are needed; but the men of parts who are able and content to labour at a task without remuneration and with small thanks are few and far between; while fewer still are the publishers who can be persuaded to produce the results of these researches.

[1] James (M. R.) 1, 42; ibid. xciv. But later Dr. James was less certain of some of his identifications. See James (M. R.) 10, viii.

[2] Robinson.

[3] See also Macray's Annals of the Bodleian.



CHAPTER IV. BOOK-MAKING AND COLLECTING IN THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES

"For if hevene be on this erthe . and ese to any soule, It is in cloistere or in score . be many skilles I fynde; For in cloistre cometh no man . to chide ne to fighte, But alle is buxolllllesse there and bokes . to rede and to lerne." Piers Plowman, B. x. 300

Section 1

Before leaving the subject of monastic libraries, it is desirable to say something about their economy.

They were built up partly by importing books, partly by bequests from wealthy ecclesiastics, but largely—and in some cases wholly—by the labours of scribes. The scene of the scribe's craft was the scriptorium or writing- room, which was usually a screened-off portion of the cloister, or a room beside the church and below the library, as at St. Gall, or a chamber over the chapter-house, as at St. Albans under Abbot Paul, at Cockersand Abbey and Birkenhead Priory. As a rule the monk was not allowed to write outside the scriptorium, although in some houses he could read elsewhere—as at Durham, where a desk to support books was fitted in the window of each dormitory cubicle. But brothers whose work was highly valued were allowed a small writing-room or scriptoriolum. Nicholas, Bernard's secretary, had a room on the right of the cloister with its door opening into the novices' room—a cell, he says, "not to be despised; for it is . . . pleasant to look upon, and comfortable for retirement. It is filled with most choice and divine books . . . is assigned to me for reading, and writing, and composing, and meditating, and praying, and adoring the Lord of Majesty."[1] Perhaps Nicholas's room was like that shown in one manuscript, where we see a monk seated on a stool before a reading-stand of odd shape. The table, which is the top of a hexagonal receptacle for parchment and writing materials, or books, can be moved up and down on the screw. Above the screw is a bookrest; at the foot a pedestal, with the ink-bottle upon it. Apparently the room also contains cupboards for storing books. Nicholas, however, was favoured, for in the same passage he refers to the older monks reading the "books of divine eloquence in the cloister." In Cistercian monasteries certain monks were so favoured, although they were not allowed to use their studies during the time the monks were supposed to be in the cloister.[2] At Oxford, after mid-fourteenth century, every student friar had set apart for him a place fitted with a combined desk and bookcase, or studium, of the kind commonly depicted in medieval illuminations. Grants of timber for making these studia are recorded: to the Black Friars of Oxford, for example, of seven oaks to repair their studies.[3]

[1] Maitland, 404-405.

[2] Stat. selecta Cap. Gen. O. Cisterc., A.D. 1278, Martene, iv. 1462; Maitland, 406.

[3] O. H. S., Little, 55.

The arrangements in the cloister are carefully described in the Durham Rites. At Durham "in the north syde of the cloister, from the corner over against the church dour to the corner over againste the Dortor dour, was all fynely glased, from the highs to the sole within a litle of the grownd into the cloister garth. And in every wyndowe iij pewes or carrells, where every one of the old Monks had his carrell, severall by himselfe, that, when they had dyned, they dyd resorte to that place of Cloister and there studyed upon there books, every one in his carrell, all the after nonne, unto evensong time. This was there exercise every daie. All there pewes or carrells was all fynely wainscotted and verie close, all but the forepart, which had carved wourke that gave light in at ther carrell doures of wainscott. And in every carrell was a deske to lye there books on. And the carrells was no greater then from one stanchell of the wyndowe to another."[1] There were carrells at Evesham in the fourteenth century.[2] In 1485 Prior Selling constructed in the south walk at Christ Church, Canterbury, "the new framed contrivances called carrells" for the comfort of the monks at study.[3] Such recesses are to be found at Worcester and Gloucester; remains of some exist at the south end of the west walk of the cloisters at Chester, and others were in the destroyed south walk.[4] At Gloucester Cathedral, which was formerly the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter, are twenty beautiful carrells in the south cloister. They project below the ten main windows, two in each, and are arched, with battlemented tops or cornices. Except for the small double window which lights them, they look like recesses for statuary.

[1] Surtees Soc., xv., Durham Rites, 70-71.

[2] Chron. abb. de Evesham, 301.

[3] James (M. R.), li.; Cox, Canterbury, 199.

[4] Windle, Chester, 171-172; Library, ii. 285

The Carthusian Rule records that few monks of the order could not write.[1] But this was by no means invariably the case. In early monastic times writing was usually the occupation of the weaker brethren: for example, Ferreolus, in his rules (c. 550), deems reading and copying fit occupations for monks too weak for severer work.[2] Later, in some monasteries, less labour in the field and more writing was done. At Tours, Alcuin took the monks away from field labour, telling them study and writing were far nobler pursuits.[3] But it was not commonly the case to find in monasteries "ech man a scriveyn able."

[1] Geraud, Essai sur les livres, 181.

[2] Sandys, i. 266.

[3] Cp. Du Cange, Gloss. art. Scriptores; citation from Const. of Carthusians.

When books were not otherwise obtainable, or not obtainable quickly enough, it was the practice to hire scribes from outside the house. Abbot Gerbert, in a letter to the abbot of Tours, mentions that he had been paying scribes in Rome and various parts of Italy, in Belgium, and Germany, to make copies of books for his library "at great expense."[1] At Abingdon hired scribes were sometimes employed, and the rule was for the abbot to find the food, and the armarius, or librarian, to pay for the labour.[2] This was commonly done when libraries were first formed. When Abbot Paul began to collect a library at St. Albans none of his brethren could write well enough to suit him, and he was obliged to fill his writing- room with hired scribes. He supplied them with daily rations out of the brethren's and cellarer's alms-food; such provision was always handy, and the scribes were not retarded by leaving their work.[3] Sometimes scribes were employed merely to save the monks trouble. At Corbie, in the fourteenth century, the religious neglected to work in the writing-room themselves, but allowed benefactors to engage professional scribes in Paris to swell the number of books. The Gilbertine order forbade hired scribes altogether, perhaps wisely.

[1] Maitland, 56.

[2] Chron. mon. de Abingd, ii. 371.

[3] Gesta abb. m. S. Albani, i. 57-58.

The scribe's method of work was simple. First he took a metal stylus or a pencil and drew perpendicular lines in the side margins of his parchment, and horizontal lines at equal distances from top to bottom of the page. Then the task of copying was straightforward. If the book was to be embellished he left spaces for the illuminator to fill in. When the illuminator took the book over, he carefully sketched in his designs for the capitals and miniatures, and then worked over them in colour, applying one colour to a number of sketches at a time. Anybody who is curious as to medieval methods of illuminating should read a little fifteenth-century treatise which describes "the crafte of lymnynge of bokys." "Who so kane wyesly considere the nature of his colours, and kyndely make his commixtions with naturalle proporcions, and mentalle indagacions connectynge fro dyvers recepcions by resone of theyre naturys, he schalle make curius colourys." Thereafter follow recipes to "temper vermelone to wryte therewith"; "to temper asure, roses, ceruse, rede lede," and other pigments; "to make asure to schyne bry3t{sic}," "to make letterys of gold," "blewe lethyre," and "whyte lethyre"; with other curious information.[1]

[1] From the Porkington MS.; this treatise has been printed in Early Engish Miscellanies, ed. J. O. Halliwell, for the Warton Club (1855), p. 72. Other treatises are in Mrs. Merrifield's Arts of Painting (1849).

In monasteries where the rule was strict the scribe wrought at his task for six hours daily.[1] All work was done by daylight, artificial light not being allowed. Lewis, a monk of Wessobrunn in Bavaria, in a copy of Jerome's Commentary on Daniel, speaks of writing when he was stiff with cold, and of finishing by the light of night what he could not copy by day.[2] Such diligence was not usual.

[1] Madan, 37.

[2] Pez, Thesaurus, i. xx.

In summer-time work in the cloister may well have been pleasant; in winter quite the contrary, even when the cloister and carrells were screened, as at Durham and Christ Church, Canterbury. Imagine the poor scribe rubbing his hands to restore the sluggish circulation, and being at last compelled to forgo his labour because they were too numbed to write. Cuthbert, the eighth-century abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow, writes to a correspondent telling him he had not been able to send all Bede's works which were required, because the cold weather of the preceding winter had paralysed the scribes' hands.[1] Again, Ordericus Vitalis winds up the fourth book of his ecclesiastical history by saying—nunc hyemali frigore rigens—he must break his narrative here, and take up other occupations for the winter.[2] Jacob, abbot of Brabant (1276), built scriptoria, or possibly carrells, round the calefactory, or warming-room, where the common fire was kept burning, and the lot of the scribe was made somewhat easier to bear.

[1] Bede, Works, ed. Plummer, xx.

[2] O. V., pars II. lib. iv.

A scribe could only write what the abbot or preceptor set him. When his portion had been given out he could not change it for another.[1] If he were set to copy Virgil or Ovid or some lives of the saints the task would conceivably be pleasant. But such was seldom the scribe's fortune. The continual transcription of Psalters and Missals and other service books must have been infinitely wearisome, at any rate, to the less devout members of the community. In some large and enterprising houses a scribe copied only a fragment of a book. Several brethren worked upon the same book at once, each beginning upon a skin at the point where another scribe was to leave off.[2] Or the book to be transcribed was dictated to the scribes, as at Tours under Alcuin. Both methods had the advantage of "publishing" a book quickly, but the work was as mechanical as is that of the compositor to-day. Under Abbot Trithemius of Sponheim, subdivision of labour was carried to its extreme limit. One monk cut the parchment, another polished it, the third ruled the lines to guide the scribe. After the scribe had finished his copying, another monk corrected, still another punctuated. In decorating, one artist rubricated, another painted the miniatures. Then the bookbinder collated the leaves and bound them in wooden covers. Even in the case of waxed tablets, one monk prepared the boards, another spread the wax. The whole process was designed to expedite production.

[1] Hardy, iii. xiii.

[2] Surtees Soc., vii. xxv.

When a manuscript was fully written the scribe wrote his colophon or "explicit," a short form of the phrase "explicitus est fiber." Sometimes the scribe plays upon words, thus: "Explicit iste liber; sit scriptor crimine liber"; or he exultantly praises: "Deo gratias. Ego, in Dei nomine, Warembertus scripsi. "Deo gratias"; or he is modest: "Nomen scriptoris non pono, quia ipsum laudare nolo";[1] or he feels querulous: "Be careful with your fingers; don't put them on my writing. You do not know what it is to write. It is excessive drudgery: it crooks your back, dims your sight, twists your stomach and sides. Pray then, my brother, you who read this book, pray for poor Raoul, God's servant, who has copied it entirely with his own hand in the cloister of St. Aignan." Another inscription, in a manuscript at Worcester Cathedral, suggests that books were not read: why, argues this monk, write them?—nobody is profited; books are for the edification of readers, not of scribes. Note also the following:—

Finito libro sit laus et gloria Christo Vinum scriptori debetur de meliori Hic liber est scriptus qui scripsit sit benedictus. Amen.[2]

[1] Lecoq de la Marche, 103.

[2] In a MS. of Joh. Andreas, Super Decretales, Peterhouse, Camb.—James 3, 29.

And this:—

Here endth the firste boke of all maner sores the whyche fallen moste commune and withe the grace of gode I will writte the ij Boke the whyche ys cleped the Antitodarie Explicit quod scripcit Thomas Rosse.[1]

[1] MS. on surgery, Peterhouse, Camb.—James 3, 137.

To a poor Raoul of mechanical ability the rule of silence must have been very irksome; the student would be grateful for it. Alcuin forbade gossip to prevent mistakes in copying. Among the Cluniacs the rule was strictly enforced in the church, refectory, cloister, and dormitory. A chapter of the Cistercian order (1134) enjoined silence in all rooms where the brethren were in the habit of writing.[1] The better to maintain silence nobody was permitted to enter the scriptorium save the abbot, the prior and sub-prior, and the preceptor. When necessary it was permissible to speak in a low voice in the ear; But among the Cluniacs whispering was avoided as far as possible. Watch the monks communicating with the librarian. One wants a Missal, and he pretends, as the children say, to turn over leaves, thereby making the general sign for a book; then he makes the sign of the Cross to indicate that he wants a Missal book. Another wants the Gospels, and he makes the sign of the Cross on the forehead. This brother wants a pagan book, and, after making the general sign, he scratches his ear with his finger as an itching dog would with his feet; infidel writers were not unfairly compared with such creatures.[2] If such sign-language were really maintained, it must have been extensively supplemented as the library grew in size, for although striking the thumb and little finger together would describe am Antiphonary, or making the sign of the Cross and kissing the finger would indicate a Gradual, yet some additions to the signs for a pagan book and a tract were necessary to signify what particular tract or book was wanted. But probably if this rule was observed at all—and we do not think it likely—the signs were used only for church books, and most often in church. In nearly every monastery the rule of silence was made. In the Brigittine house of Syon "silence after some convenience is to be kepte in the lybrary, whyls any suster is there alone in recordyng of her redynge."[3] But it was at all times difficult to enforce, as the monks, in experience and habits, were but children.

[1] Du Cange, Gloss., art., Scriptorium.

[2] Martene, De Ant. Mon. Ritibus, v. c. 18, Section 4.

[3] E. H. R., xxv. 121.

For notes, exercises, brief letters, bills, first drafts, daily, services of the church, the names of officiating brethren,— for all temporary purposes waxed tablets were used. They were in common use from classic times: some Greek and many Latin tablets are still preserved;[1] they were much used in ancient Ireland, as we have seen; and they continued to be of service until the late Middle Ages. Anselm habitually wrote his first drafts upon them. At St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, the monks were supplied with tablets, for a novice's outfit included, after profession, a stylus, tablets, and a knife.[2] The writing was scratched on the wax with a stylus, a sharp instrument of bone or metal. The other end of it was usually flattened for pressing out an incorrect letter; among the Romans the term "vetere stylum" became common in the sense of correcting a work.

[1] Thompson, pp. 19 ff., 322.

[2] Customary of St. A. (H. Brads. Soc.), i. 401. These tablets were called ceratae tabellae, tabellae cerae, or simpty cerae. The name of a book, caudex, codex, was first given to these tabellae when they were strung together to form a square "book."—V. Antiquary, xii. 277.

For all permanent purposes "boc-fel," or book-skin, was used; either vellum or "parchemyn smothe, whyte and scribable." Vellum and parchment were interchangeable terms in medieval times; but parchment was commonly used. In early monastic days it was prepared by the monks themselves, being rubbed smooth with pumice-stone; later it was bought from manufacturers ready-made. It was not so expensive as vellum: the average price being two shillings per dozen skins as compared with eight shillings per dozen skins of vellum. For a Bible presented to Bury St. Edmunds Abbey, finest Irish (or Scottish) vellum was procured (c. 1121-48). This special material was used for the paintings, which seem to have been pasted down on the leaves of inferior vellum. This manuscript is now in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.[1]

[1] James 1, 7; ibid. 17, 3

The pens used for writing were either made of reeds (calami) or of quills (pennae). The quill was introduced after the reed, and largely, though not entirely, superseded it. Other implements of the expert scribe were a pencil, compasses, scissors, an awl, a knife for erasures, a ruler, and a weight to keep down the vellum.

Numerous passages might be dug out of old records warning scribes against errors in transcribing. Aelfric, in the preface to his homilies, adjures the copyist, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by His glorious coming, to transcribe correctly. Chaucer, in a well-known verse, expresses his wish that Adam the scrivener shall copy Boethius and Troilus "trewe" and not write it "newe."[1] In copying, however, especially when it is mechanically done, it is almost as difficult to write "trewe" as it is to write "newe": the imp of the perverse makes his home at the elbow of the scribe, ever ready to profit by drowsiness or trifling inattention. But, as a rule, monkish scribes were exceedingly careful, and their work was invariably corrected by another hand. More than this: they endeavoured to get accurate texts to copy. Lanfranc's care in this respect, and the Grey Friars' work in compiling correctoria, have already been noted. Reculfus expected his clergy to have books corrected and pointed by those in the "holy mother church"; Adam de Marisco sent a manuscript to be corrected in Paris, begging to have it back as soon as done;[2] and Servatus Lupus, the great abbot of Ferrieres, frequently borrowed from his friends books which he might collate with his own copies, and rectify errors and insert omissions.[3]

[1] Works, ed. Skeat, i. 379.

[2] Mon. Fr., i. 359.

[3] Epp., 8. 69; Sandys, i. 487-488.

Before work could be started in the writing-room, books for copying had to be obtained. Usually a few books were bought or borrowed; then several copies were made of each, the superfluous volumes being sold or exchanged for fresh manuscripts to transcribe. Benedict Biscop, as we have seen, obtained his books from Rome and Vienne. Cuthwin, bishop of the East Angles (c. 750) was of those who went to Rome, and brought back with him a life of St. Paul, "full of pictures." Herbert "Losinga," abbot of Ramsey and afterwards bishop of Norwich, was a zealous book-collector;—asks for a Josephus on loan from a brother abbot, a request not granted because the binding needed repair; and sends abroad for a copy of Suetonius. Robert Grosseteste got a rare book, Basil's Hexaemeron, from Bury St. Edmunds in exchange for a MS. of Postillae.[1] At Ely, in the fourteenth century, when the scribes there were very active, the preceptor was always on the look-out for "copy." On one occasion he was paid 6s. 7d. for going to Balsham to inquire for books (1329).[2] Abbot Henry of Hyde Abbey exchanged a volume containing Terence, Boethius, Suetonius, and Claudian for four Missals, the Legend of St. Christopher, and Gregory's Pastoral Care.[3] On one occasion Adam de Marisco tries to get from a brother of Nottingham the Moralia of St. Gregory, and Rabanus Maurus. He sends from Oxford to an abbot at Vercelli an exposition of the Angelic Salutation, and begs for the abbot's writings in exchange.[4] Adam had studied at Vercelli,[5]—a new Italian centre with a close English connexion. About 1217 Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, afterwards bishop of Vercelli, was granted the church of Chesterton, near Cambridge, and when he died ten years later he left all his estate, including the church, and a number of books which had been collected at Chesterton or in England, to Vercelli Abbey. Among the gifts were two service books in English, and the famous Codex Vercellensis, which is only less valuable than the Exeter Book as a first source of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The Vercelli Book is in Italy to this day.[6]

[1] James (M. R.) 10.

[2] Stevenson, Suppl. to Bentham's Ch. of Ely.

[3] Warton, i. 213

[4] Mon. Fr., i. 206.

[5] O, H, S., Little, 135; best account of Adam in this book.

[6] C. A. S. (N.S.), 8vo ser. vii. 187 (1909). The story of the connexion between Chesterton and Vercelli is n1ost interesting. A list of the books is in Lampugnani, Sulla Vita di Guala Bicchieri, Vercelli (1842), 125 et seq.; but I have not been able to see the book. See further Bekynton's Correspondence, ii. 344 (Rolls Ser.); and Kennedy, Poems of Cynewulf (1910), 6.

In some abbeys the purchase of books, and the copying of them for sale, became just as much a business as the manufacture of Chartreuse. In 1446 Exeter College, Oxford, paid ten shillings and a penny for twelve quires and two skins of parchment bought at Abingdon to send to the monastery of Plympton in Devonshire, where a book was being written for the College.[1] A part—and by no means a negligible part—of the income of Carthusian houses came from copying books. Two continental abbots, Abbot Gerbert of Bobio and Servatus Lupus of Ferrieres, were book-makers and sellers on a commercial scale. Lupus, in particular, betrays the commercial spirit by refusing to give more than he was obliged in return for what he received. He will not send a book to a monk at Sens because his messenger must go afoot and the way was perilous: let us hope he thought more of the messenger than of the manuscript. On another occasion he refuses to lend a book because it is too large to be hidden in the vest or wallet, and, besides, its beauty might tempt robbers to steal it. These were good excuses to cover his general unwillingness to lend. For the loan of one manuscript he was so bothered that he thought of putting it away in a secure place, lest he should lose it altogether.[2]

[1] O. H. S., 27 Boase, xxxvii n.

[2] Sandys, i. 486-489, q.v. for other interesting facts about this abbot.

As a rule the expenses of the writing-room formed a part of the general expenses of the house, but sometimes particular portions of the monastic income and endowments were available to meet them. To St. Albans certain tithes were assigned by a Norman leader for making books (c. 1080).[1] The preceptor of Abingdon obtained tithes worth thirty shillings for buying parchment.[2] St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, got three marks from the rentals of Milton Church for making books (1144).[3] The monks of Ely (1160), of Westminster (c. 1159), of the cathedral convent of St. Swithin's, Winchester (1171), of Bury St. Edmunds, and of Whitby, received tithes and rents for a like purpose.[4] The prior of Evesham received the tithes of Bengworth to pay for parchment and for the maintenance of scribes; while the preceptor was to receive five shillings annually from the manor of Hampton, and ten shillings and eightpence from the tithes of Stoke and Alcester for buying ink, colours for illuminating, and what was necessary for binding books and the necessaries for the organ.[5]

[1] Gesta Abbatum, i. 57.

[2] Chron. mon. de Abingd., ii. 153. A list of the preceptor's rents, applied to expenses of the writing-room and the organ, will be found in ii. 328.

[3] H. Mon. S. A., 392.

[4] Stewart, Ely Cath, 280; Surtees Soc., lxix. 15-20; Robinson, I.

[5] Chron. abb. de Eivesham, 208-210.

In some houses a rate was levied for the support of the scriptorium, but we have not met with any instance of this practice in English monasteries. At the great Benedictine Abbey of Fleury a rate was levied in 1103 on the officers and dependent priories for the support of the library; forty- three years later it was extended, and it remained in force until 1562.[1] Besides this impost every student in the abbey was bound to give two books to the library. At Corbie, in Picardy, a rate was levied to pay the salary of the librarian, and to cover part of the cost of bookbinding. Here also each novice, on the day of his profession, had to present a book to the library; at Corvey, in Northern Germany, the same rule was observed at the end of the eleventh century. As all the monasteries of an order were conducted much on the same lines, it is difficult to believe that similar rates were not levied by some of the larger houses in England.

[1] Full document in Edwards, i. 283.

The libraries were also augmented by gifts and bequests, as well as by purchase and by transcription in the scriptorium. In most abbeys it was customary for the brethren to give or bequeath their books to their house. A long list of such benefactors to Ramsey Abbey is extant, and one of the brothers, Walter de Lilleford, prior of St. Ives, gave what was in those days a considerable library in itself.[1] Much longer still are the lists of presents given to Christ Church and St. Augustine's, Canterbury. Dr. James has indexed nearly two hundred donors to Christ Church alone. In most cases the gifts are of one or a few books, but occasionally collections of respectable size were received, as when T. Sturey, senior, enriched the library with nearly sixty books, when Thomas a Becket left over seventy, and when Prior Henry Eastry left eighty volumes at his death. As many or more donors to St. Augustine's are indexed. Here also some of the donations were fairly large: for example, Henry Belham and Henry Cokeryng gave nineteen books each, a prior twenty-seven, a certain John of London eighty- two, J. Mankael thirty-nine, Abbot Nicholaus sixteen, Michael de Northgate twenty-four, Abbot Poucyn sixteen, J. Preston twenty-three, a certain Abbot Thomas over a hundred, and T. Wyvelesberghe thirty-one. Some sixty persons are also indexed as donors to St. Martin's Priory, Dover.[2]

[1] Chron. abb. Rameseiensis, 356.

[2] James, 535-544.

William de Carilef, bishop of Durham, endowed his church with books and bequeathed some more at his death (1095). John, bishop of Bath, bequeathed to the abbey church his whole library and his decorated copies of the Gospels (1160). Another bishop of Durham, Hugh Pudsey, bequeathed many books to his church (1195). Thomas de Marleberge (d. 1236), when he became prior of Evesham, gave a large collection of books in law, medicine, philosophy, poetry, theology, and grammar.[2] Simon Langham bequeathed seven chests of books to Westminster Abbey (1376).[1] William Slade (d. 1384) left to the Abbey of Buckfast, of which he was abbot, thirteen books of his own writing.[2] Cardinal Adam Easton (d. 1397) sent from Rome "six barrells of books" to his convent of Norwich, where he had been a monk.[3] One of these books, a fourteenth- century manuscript in an Italian hand, is now preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: the inscription attesting this reads—"Liber ecclesie norwycen per magistrum Adam de Eston monachum dicti loci." Nor did the poor priest forget to add his mite to the general hoard: "I beqweth to the monastery of Seynt Edmund forseid," willed a priest named Place, "my book of the dowses of Holy Scryptur, to ly and remayn in the cloister of the seid monastery as long as yt wyll ther indure."[4] Such gifts were always highly valued, and in Lent the librarian was expected to remind the brethren of those who had given books, and to request that a mass should be said for them.[5]

[1] Chron. abb. de Evesham, 267.

[2] Robinson, 4.

[3] O. H. S., 27, Boase, 19.

[4] Rymer, Foedera, viii. 501; cf. James 17, 153.

[5] Cam. Soc., Bury Wills (1850), 105. Many of the gifts to Syon monastery came from priests.—Bateson, xxiii-xxvii. Cf. also lists of donors in James (M. R.), 535 et seq.

[6] Cf James (M R.), lxxii n.



Section II

Some miniatures in early manuscripts give us a good idea of the way books were stored in the Middle Ages. They are shown lying flat on sloping shelves which extend part-way round the room. Curtains are occasionally shown hanging in front of the shelves to protect the books from dust. Or a sloping shelf was fitted to serve as a reading- desk, and a second flat shelf ran beneath it to take books lying on their sides one above the other. In several miniatures lecterns of very curious design are often depicted; some of them stood on a cupboard or cupboards wherein books were stowed away.

In the monasteries books were stored in various places, —in chests, cupboards, or recesses in the wall. When the collection was small, a chest served; a receptacle of this kind is illustrated at p. 50. Cassiodorus had the books of his monastery stored in presses, or armaria. The manuscripts of Abbot Simon of St. Albans were preserved in "the painted aumbry in the church." An aumbry was a recess in the wall well lined inside with wood so that the damp of the masonry should not spoil the books. It was divided vertically and horizontally by shelves in such a way that it was possible to arrange the books separately one from al other, and so to avoid injury from close packing, and delay in consulting them.[1] The same term was applied to a detached closet or cupboard. At Durham the monks distributed their books—keeping some in the spendimentum or cancellary, some near the refectory, and the bulk in the cloister. Two classes of books were in the cancellary: one stored in a large closet with folding doors, called an armariolum, and used by all the monks; the other kept in an inner room, and apparently reserved for special uses. The books assigned to the reader in the refectory were stored by the doorway leading to the infirmary, and not in the refectory itself, as we should expect: maybe this arrangement was exceptional, and was adopted for special reasons of convenience. Probably two places were reserved for books in the cloister. One case or chest contained the books of the novices, whose place of study was in that part of the cloister facing the treasury. The main store was on the north side of the cloister. "And over against the carrells against the church wall did stande sertaine great almeries of waynscott all full of bookes, wherein dyd lye as well the old auncyent written Doctors of the church as other prophane authors, with dyverse other holie mens wourks, so that every one dyd studye what Doctor pleased them best, havinge the librarie at all tymes to goe studie in besydes there carrells."[2] Dr. J. W. Clark, the leading authority on early library fittings, has tried to show, from evidences of a similar arrangement at Westminster, that this part of the cloister formed a long room, with glazed windows and carrells on the one hand, bookcases on the other, and screens at each end shutting off the library and writing-place from the rest of the cloister.[3]

[1] Customary of Barnwell (Harl. MS, 3061).

[2] Surtees Soc. xv., Durham Rites, 70-71. The library would be that built by Wessington in 1446.

[3] But see Robinson, 3.

Along the south wall of the cloister at Chester is a series of recesses which are believed to have been used for bookcases. Two recesses for aumbries are still to be seen in the cloister at Worcester: it is recorded that one book, the Speculum Spiritualium, was to be delivered "to ye cloyster awmery." At Beaulieu the arched recesses in the south wall of the church may have been put to a similar use. These recesses are shown on the plan here reproduced; so also is the common aumbry in the wall of the south transept.

In large continental houses a bookroom was sometimes needed very early. One of the monasteries of Cassiodorus included a special room for the library, with at least nine presses in it.[1] At St. Gall, a special bookroom was planned, if not actually built, as early as the ninth century. According to the old drawing still preserved at St. Gall, this room was to be on the north side of the presbytery, symmetrically with the sacristy on the south side. It was in two stories. The ground floor was to be arranged as a writing-room,—infra sedes scribentium,—the furniture being a large table in the centre, and seven writing-desks against the walls. The upper story was the library.[2] In England we hear of bookrooms oftenest in the fifteenth century, They were a usual feature in later Cistercian houses. The plan just given shows the position of this room between the church and the chapter-house, and not far from the common claustral aumbry. At Whalley Abbey, also a Cistercian house, there was evidently a separate library room, because an inventory of the house's goods taken in 1537 refers to the "litle Revestry next unto the lebrary."[3] Kirkstall and Furness also had bookrooms. On each side of the massive arch of the Chapter House at Furness Abbey is a similar arch leading to a small square room, most likely used for books. The illustrations facing this show the position of these rooms on either side of the Chapter House doorway. An extant catalogue of another Cistercian house, that of Meaux in Yorkshire, clearly indicates the whereabouts of the conventual books. Some church books were before the great altar, others were in the choir, a few in the infirmary chapel, and in the common press and other presses of the church. The bulk of them was in the common aumbry, not apparently in the open cloister, but in a room off the cloister. Over the door, on a shelf or in a cupboard, were four Psalters; thirty-six books were on the top shelf on the other side of the room; the remainder, to the number of about 270, were on other shelves marked by letters of the alphabet.[4]

[1] Sandys, i. 266.

[2] Archaeol. Jour. (1848), v. 85.

[3] Lancs. and Ches. Hist. Soc., xix. 106.

[4] Chron. mon. de Melsa, iii. lxxxiii,

At the Premonstratensian Abbey of Titchfield the books were stored in a small room, in four cases, each having eight shelves. We do not positively know that a separate room existed at the Benedictine house of Christ Church, Canterbury, before the fifteenth century, "yet," as Dr. James says, "the form of Prior Eastry's catalogue, with its division into Demonstrations and Distinctions, irresistibly suggests that the collection must in his time [1284-1331] have occupied a special room, of which the two Demonstrations represent the two sides. The Distinctions would be narrow vertical divisions of these, and each of them would have its numerous subdivisions into Gradus. As the best English equivalent of Demonstratio I would suggest the word Display,' which fairly gives the idea of a wall-surface covered with books; and I figure the building to myself as an enlarged example of those Cistercian bookrooms with which Dr. J. W. Clark's researches have familiarized us. It would thus be no place for study, such as the later libraries were, but merely a storeroom whence books were fetched to be read at leisure in the cloister."[1] Between 1414 and 1443 a library was built over the Prior's Chapel by Archbishop Chichele: it was about sixty-two feet long on the north side, fifty-four on the south side, and twenty- two feet broad. This was the room which Prior Selling fitted up with wainscot, and put books in for the benefit of the studious.[2] At St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, there was a bookroom in 1340, for the manuscript of the Ayenbite of Inwyt contains a note that it belongs to the "bochouse."[3] The form of the catalogue of c. 1497 also suggests that a bookroom was then in use.