Homer, after observing that neither in the Iliad nor Odyssey is there
any thing that conveys the idea of letters or reading, nor any allusion
to literal writing, adds, “As to symbolical, hieroglyphical, or
picture-like description, something of that kind was, no doubt, known to
Homer, of which the letter (as it is called) which Bellerophon carried
to the king of Lycia is a proof.” This letter was sent from Prœtus;
(_Iliad_, vi. line, 168, &c.)
“To Lycia the devoted youth he sent,
With _marks_, expressive of his dire intent
GRAV’D on a tablet, that the Prince should die.”
The probability that Homer lived much nearer the times he described than
is usually supposed, has been shewn by Mr. Mitford (_Hist. of Greece,
Appx. to ch. 4._) with all the clearness of which so distant an event is
capable.
To this account of the ignorance of the Greeks in literal writing may be
added that the Mexicans, though a civilized people, had no alphabet; the
art of writing was no farther advanced among them than the using of
figures composed of painted feathers, by which they made a shift to
communicate some simple thoughts; and in that manner was the Emperor
Montezuma informed of the landing of the Spaniards in his territories.
ACCOUNT OF THE SCRIPTORIA, OR WRITING ROOMS IN THE MONASTERIES OF
ENGLAND.
It would be in vain to attempt to trace the state of learning among the
Anglo-Saxons before their conversion to Christianity, sometime after
which event, schools and seminaries of learning were established in the
kingdom of Kent, and soon after the year 635, in that of the East
Angles. Previously to this period of our history, the two principal
scholars of the Britons were Gildas and Nennius, the first of whom
flourished towards the latter end of the sixth century, and the latter
in the beginning of the seventh. To Gildas we owe the first lights which
are cast upon the troublesome times of the Britons, and of the miseries
those wretched people suffered by the invasion and conquests of the
Saxons. He has left a short history of Britain and an epistle, in which
he heavily accuses the British princes and clergy who were contemporary
with him.[9]
To Nennius we owe also a short history of the Britons, and their wars
with the Saxons, but the whole is so concise, and so many miracles are
crowded into it, that it is no easy matter to separate truth from
fiction.
Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, who came into Britain at the latter
end of the seventh century, contributed greatly to the improvement of
learning. About the same time flourished Aldhelm, a near relation of
Ina, king of the West Saxons; he was Abbot of Malmesbury, which
monastery himself had founded, and he was afterwards Bishop of
Sherborne, where he died in the year 709. Besides other works he left a
book on the prosody of the Latin tongue in which he was very expert,
being the first Anglo-Saxon that ever wrote in that language both in
prose and verse.
On the establishment of Monasteries and Religious Houses in this
kingdom, there was a room called the _Scriptorium_, allotted in all the
greater Abbeys, or else some portion of the cloister was appropriately
fitted up for the same purpose, where their music and missals, the works
of the fathers and other religious books, the latin classics, and such
literary works as the monks could obtain, were copied. In the old
library in Worcester Cathedral, and in the remaining libraries of some
other Cathedral churches, may still be seen the manner of writing music,
before the invention of the present notes, and some of the old copies of
books.
By means of these _Scriptoria_, or writing rooms, the monks compiled and
preserved, the first annals of Saxon History; without which, however
strange the composition of some of them may appear at this time, this
would now have been a land of darkness, as to any account of what passed
therein, during former ages.
The custom of making this one good use of monasteries and of christian
societies, was derived from very early days. About the year 220,
Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, built a library there, for preserving
the epistles of learned ecclesiastical persons, written one to another;
and their commentaries on the holy scriptures. And in what manner Origen
was aided to write his admirable works, we learn from Eusebius, who
tells us that he had more than seven notaries appointed for him, who,
every one in his turn, wrote that which he uttered; and as many more
scriveners, together with _maidens_, well exercised and practised in
penmanship, who were to write copies. (_Eccl. Hist. of Eusebius
Pamphilus, lib. 6. cap. 20 and 21._)
The preservation and progress of science by means of monasteries, is a
very curious fact, and the precious estimation in which books were held,
when few could read them, is still more so. Some few learned men existed
in different parts of Europe throughout those times of darkness and
ignorance. Our countryman the Venerable Bede was well versed both in
sacred and profane history, as his numerous works testify.
St. Egbert, Archbishop of York, was a disciple of Venerable Bede; he was
a man of great learning, and founded a noble library at York about 735,
which was casually burnt in the reign of king Stephen, with the
cathedral, the monastery of St. Mary, and several other religious
houses.
Alcuin, called also Albinus Flaccus, was born in Northumberland; he was
the disciple of Archbishop Egbert, whom he succeeded in the charge of
the famous school, which that prelate had opened at York. Alcuin was in
all respects the most learned man of the age in which he lived; he was
an orator, historian, poet, mathematician, and divine. The fame of his
learning induced Charlemagne to invite him to his court; and by his
assistance that Emperor, founded, enriched, and instructed, the
universities of Tours and Paris. In 794 Alcuin was one of the fathers of
the synod of Frankfort, and died at his abbey at Tours, in 804. In his
epistle to Charlemagne he mentions with great respect his master Egbert,
and the noble library which he had founded at York. Towards the latter
end of the same century flourished our great king Alfred, who engaged
the learned Grimbald, and other foreigners of distinguished abilities in
his service.
Eadfrid, who was bishop of Lindisfarne in the year 698, was one of the
most learned men of his time. He translated the gospels into latin,
which work after his death was highly decorated by his successor with
gold and jewels. Bilfrid, a hermit, illuminated it with various
paintings and rich devices; and Adred a priest, interlined it with a
Saxon version. Before each gospel is prefixed a painting of the
evangelist who wrote it, and the opposite page is full of beautiful
ornaments, enriched with various colours; then follows the commencement
of the gospel, the first page of which is most elaborately ornamented
with letters of a peculiar form, and very large, which displays at once
the zeal of the writer, and the taste of the age in which the book was
written.[10] This curious work is now among the Cottonian manuscripts in
the British Museum. It was lost in the sea during the removal of the
body of St. Cuthbert in those troublesome times, about the year 876,
when the Danes were laying waste the whole country, but it was
afterwards found washed up on the shore without suffering any injury.
(_Hutchinson’s History of Durham_, 1. p. 57.) It was under the patronage
of the same learned prelate Eadfrid, that the Venerable Bede[11] wrote
the life of St. Cuthbert.
The books which Fergus the second, king of Scotland, who assisted Alaric
the Goth, had brought with him as a part of the plunder from Rome, had
been deposited in the monastery in the island of Iona. From thence they
were, by degrees, copied for the use of other monasteries; and besides
these, other books were obtained afterwards by means of various journeys
to Rome. Benedict Biscop, the founder of the monastery of Weremouth, and
the friend of Archbishop Wilfrid, made no fewer than five journeys to
Rome to purchase copies of books. These books became deposited in
various monasteries. Some such were at Canterbury, where also were books
that had been brought from Rome, both by Augustine and Theodore. And the
letter of Aldhelm, the very person who founded the monastery of
Malmesbury, containing an account of his studies, and progress at
Canterbury by the help of such books, is one of the most curious
fragments of antiquity. (_Angl. Sacra. tom. 2. p. 6._)
The price of these books was at various times enormous. Aldfred, king of
Northumberland, gave _eight hides of land_, that is, as much as eight
ploughs could till, for one volume of cosmography; and on this occasion
it perhaps ought not to be forgotten, that there is still preserved in
the library of Hereford cathedral, an ancient map on parchment, for the
illustration of cosmography as known at the period of its being drawn.
In the reign of William the Conqueror books were extremely scarce.
Grace, Countess of Anjou, paid for a collection of homilies, two hundred
sheep, a quarter of wheat, another of rye, and a third of millet,
besides a number of martin skins. (_Kaimes’s Sketches_, 1. 136.)
In these conventual _Scriptoria_ were copied the writings of the fathers
and the abstruse works of the first schoolmen; here also were copied
little works of genius, sometimes the effusion of fancy and imagination.
The fables of Æsop were so much in repute, that we are told king Alfred
himself made a translation of them from the Greek. The fanciful devices
on the friezes and mouldings of some of our ecclesiastical structures,
which have an allusion to Æsop’s Fables, had their first origin amongst
pious and ingenious persons, in the peaceful retirement of their
conventual retreats. This remark is much confirmed by a curious
observation which has been lately made, that even many of the fables
themselves that now pass for Æsop’s, seem to have had their real
invention and origin in the abodes of the religious. In a very curious
memoir concerning the works of Mary, an Anglo-Norman poetess, born in
France, who wrote in the French language in the reign of king Henry the
third of England, and who among other things translated the fables of
Æsop, it is made to appear that there were indeed but few of Æsop’s
original fables in her collection, and even those she had borrowed
entirely from England, and the greater part, from several allusions in
them, evidently shew, that they must have been composed in monasteries,
before her time. (_See Hume’s Hist. of Eng. vol. 1. 4to. p. 68.—King’s
Munimenta Ant. vol. 4. p. 113.—and Archæologia, vol. 13. p. 36-67._)
It is an interesting circumstance, deserving to be mentioned on this
occasion, that before the time of Venerable Bede, there lived an
Anglo-Saxon poet, of the name of _Cædman_, or _Kedman_, of the wondrous
powers of whose mind Bede speaks in the highest terms, (_Bede’s Eccles.
Hist. book 4. ch. 24._) and says he sung of the creation of the world,
of the origin of mankind, and of the whole history of the book of
Genesis. He died about the year 680, and therefore must have been
contemporary with Etheldreda, who founded the monastery of Ely. And it
is a very curious fact, little known, that Lye, the author of the
Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, translated this poem, and that therein it was
found had been introduced, almost exactly, the same idea of the fallen
angels, and even the peculiarity of the nine days falling, and of
Satan’s assembling his _Thanes_, on their rousing themselves, which was
afterwards introduced by Milton into his Paradise Lost. This account,
Mr. King says, he received from Dr. Percy, bishop of Dromore, who had
several manuscripts of Lye’s bequeathed to him; and who was well
qualified to investigate such curious matters of ancient literature.
It should not be forgotten with regard to manuscripts, the productions
of these industrious penmen in their _Scriptoria_, that king Alfred is
said by the Saxon writers, to have first received his eagerness for
erudition, in an age when he himself complained of the general ignorance
even of the clergy, from his mother’s shewing him a book of Saxon poems,
beautifully written, and illuminated, and promising to give it to which
ever of her sons should soonest learn to read it.
Until the eleventh century, musical notes were expressed only by letters
of the alphabet; and till the fourteenth century they were expressed
only by large lozenge-shaped black dots or points, placed on different
lines, one above another, and then first named _ut_, _re_, _mi_, _fa_,
_sol_, _la_, to which _si_ was afterwards added; and they were all
expressed without any distinction as to length of time; and without any
such things as breves, semi-breves, minims, crotchets, or quavers, &c.
The old psalters in many cathedral churches are found thus written; and
in consequence of this it was, that the _Scriptoria_ in some other
places, as well as at Gloucester, are found so contrived, as to have
long ranges of seats, or benches, one beyond another, for the copyists;
so that a master or person standing at one end, and naming each note, it
might quickly be copied out by all, naming it in succession from one end
to the other. Hence the psalters were more easily copied than any other
books, and it is not a little remarkable that in the library at
Worcester, there is a copy of St. Matthew’s gospel, set to music
throughout, with these sort of notes.
In foreign monasteries, the boys and novices were chiefly occupied in
these labours, but the missals and bibles were ordered to be written by
monks of mature age and discretion. The _Scriptorium_ of St. Albans’s
abbey was built by Abbot Paulin, a Norman, who ordered many volumes to
be written there, about the year 1080. Archbishop Lanfranc furnished the
copies. Estates were often granted for the support of the _Scriptorium_;
that at St. Edmundsbury was endowed with two mills, and in the year
1171, the tithes of a rectory were appropriated to the cathedral convent
of St. Swithin at Winchester, _ad Libros transcribendos_. Many instances
of this species of benefaction occur from the tenth century. Nigel, in
the year 1160, gave the monks of Ely two churches, _ad libros
faciendos_.
This employment of copying manuscripts appears to have been diligently
practised at Croyland; for Ingulphus relates, that when the library of
that convent was burned in the year 1091, seven hundred volumes were
consumed. Fifty-eight volumes were transcribed at Glastonbury, during
the government of one abbot, about the year 1300. And in the library of
this monastery, the richest in England, there were upwards of four
hundred volumes in the year 1248. More than eighty books were thus
transcribed for St. Alban’s abbey, by Abbot Whethamstede, who died about
1400. At the foundation of Winchester college, by William of Wykeham,
about 1393, one or more transcribers were hired and employed by the
founder to _make books_ for the library. They transcribed and took their
commons within the college, as appears by computations of expenses on
their account now remaining.
In the monastery of Ely, the Precentor, or Chantor, was the chief
librarian, and had within his Office, the _Scriptorium_, where writers
were employed in transcribing books for the library, and missals and
other books used in divine service. This officer furnished the vellum,
parchment, paper, ink, colours, gums, and other necessaries for limners,
used in illuminating their books; and leather, and other implements for
binding, and keeping them in repair.
Some of the Roman classics were copied in the English monasteries at a
very early period. Henry, a Benedictine monk of Hyde abbey, near
Winchester, transcribed in the year 1178, Terence, Boethius, Suetonius,
and Claudian. Of these he formed one volume, illuminating the initials,
and forming the brazen bosses of the covers with his own hands; but this
abbot had more devotion than taste, for he exchanged this manuscript a
few years afterwards for four missals, the legend of St. Christopher,
and St. Gregory’s PASTORAL CARE, with the Prior of the neighbouring
cathedral convent. Benedict, abbot of Peterborough, author of the latin
chronicle of king Henry the second, amongst a great variety of
scholastic and theological treatises, transcribed Seneca’s epistles and
tragedies, Terence, Martial, and Claudian, to which may be added GESTA
ALEXANDRI, about the year 1180.
In a catalogue of the books of the library of Glastonbury, we find Livy,
Sallust, Seneca, Tully de SENECTUTE and AMICITIA, Virgil, Persius, and
Claudian, in the year 1248. Among the royal manuscripts of the British
Museum, is one of the twelve books of Statius’s Thebaid, supposed to
have been written in the tenth century, which once belonged to the
cathedral convent of Rochester. And another of Virgil’s Æneid, written
in the thirteenth, which came from the library of St. Austin’s,
Canterbury. Wallingford, abbot of St. Alban’s, gave or sold from the
library of that monastery to Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, author
of the “PHILOBIBLION,” and a great collector of books, Terence, Virgil,
Quintilian, and Jerome against Rufinus, together with thirty-two other
volumes, valued at fifty pounds of silver. The scarcity of parchment
undoubtedly prevented the transcription of many other books in these
societies. About the year 1120, one Master Hugh, being appointed by the
convent of St. Edmundsbury in Suffolk, to write and illuminate a grand
copy of the bible for their library, could procure no parchment for this
purpose in England. It is to this scarcity of parchment that we owe the
loss and destruction of many valuable manuscripts of the ancients, which
otherwise might have been preserved to us. The venerable fathers who
employed themselves in erasing the writing of some of the best works of
the most eminent Greek or Latin authors for the purpose of transcribing
upon the obliterated parchment or vellum the lives of saints, or
legendary tales, possibly mistook these lamentable depredations for
works of piety. The ancient fragment of the 91st book of Livy,
discovered by Mr. Burns in the Vatican, in 1772, was found to be much
defaced in this respect by the pious labours of some well-intentioned
monk.
The monks of Durham having begun to build a college for their novices at
Oxford, about the year 1290, Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, not only
assisted, but also partly endowed it. At his decease, in 1345, he left
to this college, then called Durham, and since Trinity, college, all his
books, which were more in number than all the bishops in England then
possessed, in order that the students of that college, and of the
University, might, under certain conditions make use of them. After the
college came into possession of these books, they were, for many years,
kept in chests, under the custody of several scholars deputed for that
purpose, and a library being built in the reign of king Henry the
fourth, these books were put into pews or studies, and chained to them.
They continued in this manner till the college was dissolved by king
Henry the eighth, when they were conveyed away, some to Duke Humphrey’s
library, where they remained till the reign of king Edward the sixth,
and others to the library of Baliol college. Some which remained came
into the hands of Dr. George Owen, a physician of Godstow, who purchased
Trinity college of Edward the sixth.
The bishop of Durham wrote a treatise containing rules for the
management of the library above-mentioned, describing how the books were
to be preserved, and upon what conditions they were to be lent out to
scholars, and appointed five keepers, to whom he granted yearly
salaries. This treatise he called “_Philobiblion_,” from whence he
himself came to be called by the same name, “a lover of books,” and this
very justly, if, as he says himself in the preface to it, his love of
them was so violent that it put him into a kind of rapture, and made him
neglect all his other affairs. He finished it at Auckland, the 24th of
January, 1345, being then just 63 years of age. It was printed at Spires
in 1483; at Paris, by Badius Ascensius, in 1500; by the learned Thomas
James, at Oxford, in 1599, in quarto; and at Leipsic, in 1674, at the
end of _Philologicarum Epistolarum Centuria una, ex Bibliotheca Melch.
Hamingfeldii_. It appears also in manuscript in the Cottonian library,
in the royal library, and in other libraries in Oxford and Cambridge.
The “_Philobiblion_,” is written in very indifferent Latin, and in a
declamatory style. It is divided into twenty chapters. In chapter 1. the
author praises wisdom, and books in which it is contained. 2. That books
are to be preferred to riches and pleasure. 3. That they ought to be
always bought. 4. How much good arises from books, and that they are
misused only by ignorant people. 5. That good monks write books, but the
bad ones are otherwise employed. 6. The praise of the ancient begging
friars, with a reproof of the modern ones. 7. He bewails the loss of
books by fire and wars. 8. He shews what fine opportunities he had had
of collecting books, whilst he was chancellor and treasurer, as well as
during his embassies. 9. That the ancients outdid the moderns in hard
studying. 10. That learning is by degrees arrived at perfection, and
that he had procured a Greek and Hebrew grammar. 11. That the law and
law books are not properly learning. 12. The usefulness and necessity of
grammar. 13. An apology for poetry, and the usefulness of it. 14. Who
ought to love books. 15. The manifold advantages of learning. 16. Of
writing new books and mending the old. 17. Of using books well, and how
to place them. 18. An answer to his calumniators. 19. Upon what
conditions books are to be lent to strangers. 20. Conclusion.
In the “_Philobiblion_” the bishop apologizes for admitting the poets
into his collection; _quare non negleximus Fabulas Poetarum_. But he is
more complaisant to the prejudices of his age, where he says, that the
laity are unworthy to be admitted to any commerce with books: _Laici
omnium librorum communione sunt indigni_. He prefers books of the
liberal arts to treatises of the law. He laments that good literature
had entirely ceased in the university of Paris. He admits _Panfletos
exiguos_ into his library. He employed _Stationarios_ and _Librarios_,
not only in England, but in France, Italy, and Germany. He regrets the
total ignorance of the greek language; but adds that he has provided for
the students of his library both Greek and Hebrew grammars. He calls
Paris the “paradise of the world,” and says that he purchased there a
variety of invaluable volumes in all sciences, which yet were neglected
and perishing. While he was Chancellor and Treasurer of England, instead
of the usual presents and new year’s gifts appendant to his office, he
chose to receive those perquisites in books. By the favour of king
Edward the third, he gained access to the libraries of the principal
monasteries, where he shook off the dust from various volumes preserved
in chests and presses, which had not been opened for many ages.
There were several collections of manuscripts in England before the
general restoration of science in Europe, which had at different times
been brought hither by those who had travelled into foreign countries;
these were chiefly preserved in the two Universities, in the cathedral
churches, and in religious houses, but in the fifteenth and sixteenth
century several valuable libraries were formed in England.