The literary interests of Paul were, it appears, continued by a

large proportion at least of his successors, and many of these made

important contributions to the library. Geoffrey, the sixteenth abbot,

gave to the _scriptorium_ a missal bound in gold, and another missal in

two volumes, both incomparably illuminated in gold and written in an

open and legible script. He also gave a precious illuminated psalter, a

book containing the benediction and sacraments, a book of exorcism, and

a collectory. (The description is taken from the _Gesta_.)

Ralph, the seventeenth abbot, was said to have become a lover of books

after having heard Wodo of Italy expound the Scriptures. He collected

with diligence a large number of valuable manuscripts. Robert de

Gorham, who was called the reformer of the liberty of the Church of St.

Albans, after becoming prior, gave many books to the _scriptorium_,

more than could be mentioned by the author of the _Gesta_. Simon,

who became abbot in 1166, caused to be created the office of

historiographer. Simon had been educated in the abbey, and did not a

little to add to its fame as a centre of literature. He repaired and

enlarged the _scriptorium_, and he kept two or three scribes constantly

employed in it. The previous literary abbots had for the most part

brought from without the books added to the collection, but it was

under Simon that the abbey became a place of literary production as

well as of literary reproduction. He had an ordinance enacted to the

effect that every abbot must support out of his personal funds one

adequate scribe. Simon presented to the abbey a considerable group

of books that he had himself been collecting before his appointment

as abbot, together with a very beautiful copy of the Old and New

Testaments.

The next literary abbot was John de Cell, who had been educated in the

schools of Paris, and who was profoundly learned in grammar, poetry,

and physics. On being elected abbot, he gave over the management of

the temporal affairs of the abbey to his prior, Reymond, and devoted

himself to religious duties and to study. Reymond himself was a

zealous collector, and it was through him that was secured for the

library, among many other books, a copy of the _Historica Scholastica

cum Allegoriis_, of Peter Comester. The exertions of these scholarly

abbots and priors won for St. Albans a special distinction among

the monasteries of Britain, and naturally led to the compilation of

the historic annals which gave to the abbey a continued literary

fame. Hardy is of opinion that these historic annals date from the

administration of Simon, between the years 1166 and 1183.

Richard of Wendover, who succeeded Walter as historiographer, compiled,

between the years 1230 and 1236, the _Flores Historiarum_, one of the

most important of the earlier chronicles of England. Hardy points out

that it could have been possible to complete so great a work within

the term of six years, only on the assumption that Richard found

available much material collected by Walter, and it is also probable

that other compilations were utilised by Richard for the work bearing

his name. It is to be borne in mind that the monastic chronicles were

but seldom the production of a single hand, as was the case with the

chronicles of Malmesbury and of Beda. The greater number of such

chronicles grew up from period to period, fresh material being added in

succeeding generations, while in every monastic house in which there

were transcribers, fresh local information was interpolated until the

tributary streams had grown more important than the original current.

In this manner, the monastic annals were at one time a transcript, at

another time an abridgment, and at another an original work. “With the

chronicler, plagiarism was no crime and no degradation. He epitomised

or curtailed or adapted the words of his predecessors in the same

path with or without alteration (and usually without acknowledgment),

whichever best suited his purpose or that of his monastery. He did not

work for himself but at the command of others, and thus it was that a

monastery chronicle grew, like a monastery house, at different times,

and by the labour of different hands.”

Of the heads that planned such chronicles or of the hands that executed

them, or of the exact proportion contributed by the several writers, no

satisfactory record has been preserved. The individual is lost in the

community.

In the earlier divisions of Wendover’s chronicle, covering the

centuries from 231 down to about 1000, Wendover certainly relied,

says Hardy, upon some previous compilation. About the year 1014, that

narrative, down to the death of Stephen, showed a marked change in

style, giving evidence that after this period some other authority had

been adopted, while there was also a larger introduction of legendary

matter. From the accession of Henry II., in 1235, when the _Flores

Historiarum_ ends, Wendover may be said to assume the character of an

original author. On the death of Richard, the work of historiographer

was taken up by Matthew Paris. His _Lives of the Two Offas_ and his

famous _Chronicles_ were produced between the years 1236 and 1259.

In certain of the more literary of the English monasteries, the divine

offices were moderated in order to allow time for study, and, under the

regulations of some foundations, “lettered” persons were entitled to

special exemption from the performance of certain daily services, and

from church duty.[145]

At a visitation of the treasury of St. Pauls, made in the year 1295,

by Ralph de Baudoke, the Dean (afterwards Bishop of London), there

were found twelve copies of the Gospels adorned, some with silver,

and others with pearls and gems, and a thirteenth, the case (_capsa_)

containing which was decorated not merely with gilding but with

relics.[146] The treasury also contained a number of other divisions

of the Scriptures, together with a _Commentary_ of Thomas Aquinas.

Maitland says that the use of relics as a decoration was an unusual

feature. He goes on to point out that the practice of using for

manuscripts a decorated case, caused the case, not infrequently, to be

more valuable than the manuscript itself, so that it would be mentioned

among the treasures of the church, when the book contained in it was

not sufficiently important to be even specified.

The binding of the books which were in general use in the English

monasteries for reference was usually in parchment or in plain leather.

The use of jewels, gold, or silver for the covers, or for the _capsæ_,

was, with rare exceptions, limited to the special copies retained in

the church treasury. William of Malmesbury in the account which he

gives of the chapel made at Glastonbury by King Ina, mentions that

twenty pounds and sixty marks of gold were used in the preparation of

the _Coöpertoria Librorum Evangelii_.[147]

=The Earlier Monastery Schools.=--At the time when neither local nor

national governments had assumed any responsibilities in connection

with elementary education, and when the municipalities were too

ignorant, and in many cases too poor, to make provision for the

education of the children, the monks took up the task as a part of the

regular routine of their duty. The Rule of S. Benedict had in fact made

express provision for the education of pupils.

An exception to the general statement concerning the neglect of the

rulers to make provision for education should, however, be made in the

case of Charlemagne, whose reign covered the period 790 to 830. It was

the aim of Charlemagne to correct or at least to lessen the provincial

differences and local barbarities of style, expression, pression,

orthography, etc., in the rendering of Latin, and it was with this end

in view that he planned out his great scheme of an imperial series of

schools, through which should be established an imperial or academic

standard of style and expression. This appears to have been the first

attempt since the time of the Academy of Alexandria to secure a

scholarly uniformity of the standard throughout the civilised world,

and the school at Tours may be considered as a precursor of the French

Academy of modern times. For such a scheme the Emperor was dependent

upon the monks, as it was only in the monasteries that could be found

the scholarship that was required for the work. He entrusted to Alcuin,

a scholarly English Benedictine, the task of organising the imperial

schools. The first schools instituted by Alcuin in Aachen and Tours,

and later in Milan, were placed in charge of Benedictine monks, and

formed the models for a long series of monastic schools during the

succeeding centuries. Alcuin had been trained in the cathedral schools

founded in York by Egbert, and Egbert had been brought up by Benedict

Biscop in the monastery of Yarrow, where he had for friend and fellow

pupil the chronicler Bede. The results of the toilsome journeys taken

by Biscop to collect books for his beloved monasteries of Wearmouth

and Yarrow[148] were far-reaching. The training secured by Alcuin as

a scribe and as a student of the Scriptures, the classics, and the

“seven liberal arts” was more immediately due to his master Ælbert, who

afterward succeeded Egbert as archbishop.

The script which was accepted as the standard for the imperial schools,

and which, transmitted through successive Benedictine _scriptoria_,

served seven centuries later as a model for the first type-founders of

Italy and France, can be traced directly to the school at York.

Alcuin commemorated his school and its master in a descriptive poem

_On the Saints of the Church at York_, which is quoted in full by

West.[149] In 780, Alcuin succeeded Ælbert as master of the school, and

later, was placed in charge of the cathedral library, which was at the

time one of the most important collections in Christendom. In one of

his poems he gives a kind of metrical summary of the chief contents of

this library. The lines are worth quoting because of the information

presented as to the authors at that time to be looked for in a really

great monastic library. The list includes a distinctive though very

restricted group of Latin writers, but, as West points out, the works

“by glorious Greece transferred to Rome” form but a meagre group.

The catalogue omits Isidore, although previous references make clear

that the writings of the great Spanish bishop were important works of

reference in York as in all the British schools. It is West’s opinion

that the _Aristotle_ and other Greek authors referred to were probably

present only in Latin versions. These manuscripts in the York library

were undoubtedly for the most part transcripts of the parchments

collected for Wearmouth and Yarrow by Biscop.

_The Library of York Cathedral._

There shalt thou find the volumes that contain

All of the ancient Fathers who remain;

There all the Latin writers make their home

With those that glorious Greece transferred to Rome,

The Hebrews draw from their celestial stream,

And Africa is bright with learning’s beam.

Here shines what Jerome, Ambrose, Hilary thought,

Or Athanasius and Augustine wrought.

Orosius, Leo, Gregory the Great,

Near Basil and Fulgentius coruscate.

Grave Cassiodorus and John Chrysostom

Next Master Bede and learned Aldhelm come,

While Victorinus and Boëthius stand

With Pliny and Pompeius close at hand.

Wise Aristotle looks on Tully near,

Sedulius and Juvencus next appear.

Then come Albinus, Clement, Prosper too,

Paulinus and Arator. Next we view

Lactantius, Fortunatus. Ranged in line

Virgilius Maro, Statius, Lucan, shine.

Donatus, Priscian, Phobus, Phocas, start

The roll of masters in grammatic art.

Entychius, Servius, Pompey, each extend

The list. Comminian brings it to an end.

There shalt thou find, O reader, many more

Famed for their style, the masters of old lore,

Whose many volumes singly to rehearse

Were far too tedious for our present verse.[150]

Alcuin’s work on the Continent began in 782, when, resigning his

place as master of the cathedral school in York, he took charge of

the imperial or palace school at Tours. His work in the palace school

included not only the organisation of classes for the younger students,

but the personal charge of a class which comprised the Emperor

himself, his wife Luitgard, and other members of the royal or imperial

family. Whether for the younger or for the older students, however,

the instruction given had to be of a very elementary character. The

distinctive value of the work was, it is to be borne in mind, not in

the extent of the instruction given to the immediate pupils, but in

making clear to the Emperor and to his sons who were to succeed him,

the importance of securing a certain uniformity of script and of

educational work throughout the Empire.

It is very probable that not a few of the earlier copyists who

completed in the _scriptoria_ the tasks set for them by the instructors

trained in Tours and in Aachen, transcribed texts the purport of which

they had not mastered. It was through their work, however, that the

texts themselves were preserved and were made available for later

scribes and students who were competent to comprehend the spirit as

well as the letter of their contents.

Mabillon is in accord with later authorities such as Compayré and West,

as to the deplorable condition of learning at this time throughout

the Empire ruled by Charles. Says West: “The plight of learning in

Frankland at this time was deplorable. Whatever traditions had found

their way from the early Gallic schools into the education of the

Franks had long since been scattered and obliterated in the wild

disorders which characterised the times of the Merovingian kings....

The copying of books had almost ceased, and all that can be found that

pretends to the name of literature in this time is the dull chronicle

or ignorantly conceived legend.”[151]

A description such as this emphasises the importance of the work

initiated by Alcuin, work the value of which the ruler of Europe was

fortunately able to appreciate and ready to support. In his relation to

scholarly interests in Europe and to the preservation of the literature

of the past, Alcuin may fairly be considered as the successor of

Cassiodorus. He was able in the eighth century to render a service

hardly less distinctive than that credited to Cassiodorus three hundred

years earlier. There is the further parallel that, like Cassiodorus,

he possessed a very keen and intelligent interest in the form given to

literary expression, and in all the details of the work given to the

copyists. The instructions given in Alcuin’s treatise on orthography

for the work of the scribes, follow very closely in principle, and

differ, in fact, but slightly in detail from, the instructions given by

Cassiodorus in his own treatise on the same subject. A couplet which

stands at the head of the first page reads as follows: “Let him who

would publish the sayings of the ancients read me, for he who follows

me not will speak without regard to law.”[152] Alcuin’s care in regard

to the consistency of punctuation and orthography and his intelligent

selection of a clearer and neater form of script than had heretofore

been employed, have impressed a special character on the series of

manuscripts dating from the early portion of the ninth century and

written in what is termed the Caroline minuscule. In a letter written

to Charles from Tours in 799, Alcuin mentions that he has copied out on

some blank parchment which the King had sent him a short treatise on

correct diction, with illustrations from Bede. He goes on to speak of

the special value to literature of the distinctions and subdistinctions

of punctuation, the knowledge of which has, he complains, almost

disappeared: “But even as the glory of all learning and the ornaments

of wholesome erudition begin to be seen again by reason of your noble

exertions, so also it seems most fitting that the use of punctuation

should also be resumed by scribes.... Let your authority so instruct

the youths at the palace that they may be able to utter with perfect

elegance whatsoever the clear eloquence of your thought may dictate,

so that whatsoever may go to the parchment bearing the royal name it

may display the excellence of the royal learning.”[153] A very delicate

hint, remarks West, for Charles to mind his commas and his colons.

Up to the time of Charlemagne there appears to have been so little

facility in writing and so few scribes were available, that government

records were not kept even at the Courts. The schools established

by Alcuin at Tours, under the direction of Charlemagne, were in fact

the first schools for writers which had existed in Western Europe

for centuries. One of the earlier applications made of the knowledge

gained in the imperial schools was for the critical analysis of certain

historical documents which had heretofore been accepted as final

authorities. In the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages, anything that

was in writing appears to have been accepted as necessarily trustworthy

and valuable, very much as in the earlier times of printing the fact

that a statement was in print caused it to be accepted as something

not to be contradicted. The critical faculty, combined with the

scholarly knowledge necessary and properly applied, was, however, of

slow growth, and centuries must still have passed before, in this work

of differentiating the value of documents, the authority of scholars

secured its full recognition.

After this work of Alcuin began, that is to say, after the beginning

of the ninth century, it became the rule of each properly organised

monastery to include, in addition to the _scriptorium_, an _armarium_,

or writing-chamber, which was utilised as a class-room for instruction

in writing and in Latin. In a letter of Canonicus Geoffrey, of

St.-Barbe-en-Auge, dated 1170, occurs the expression, _Claustrum sine

armario est quasi castrum sine armamentario_,[154] (a monastery without

a writing-chamber is like a camp without a storehouse of munitions or

an armory.)

The Capitular of Charlemagne, issued in the year 789, addressed itself

to the correction of the ignorance and carelessness of the monks, and

to the necessity of preserving a standard of correctness for the work

of transcribing holy writings. It contains the phrase:

_Et pueros vestros non sinite eos vel legendo vel scribendo corrumpere.

Et si opus est evangelium, psalterium et missale scribere, perfectæ

ætatis homines scribant cum omni diligentia._

(Do not permit your pupils, either in reading or writing, to garble the

text;--and when you are preparing copies of the gospel, the psalter,

or the missal, see that the work is confided to men of mature age, who

will write with due care.)

The following lines were written by Alcuin as an injunction to pious

scribes:

AD MUSÆUM LIBROS SCRIBENTIUM.

_Hic sedeant sacræ scribentes famina legis,

Nec non sanctorum dicta sacrata patrum.

His interserere caveant sua frivola verbis,

Frivola ne propter erret et ipsa manus,

Correctosque sibi quærant studiose libellos,

Tramite quo recto penna volantis eat.

Per cola distinguant proprios et commata sensus.

Et punctos ponant ordine quosque suo,

Ne vel falsa legat taceat vel forte repente,

Ante pios fratres lector in ecclesia._

* * * * *

(Quoted from the Vienna Codex, 743. Denis, i., 313.)

Wattenbach is of opinion that these lines stood over the door of the

_scriptorium_ of S. Martin’s Monastery.

West says that the lines were written as an injunction to the scribes

of the school at Tours. He gives the following version, which takes in

certain further lines of the original than those cited by Wattenbach:

“Here let the scribes sit who copy out the words of the Divine Law, and

likewise the hallowed sayings of the holy Fathers. Let them beware of

interspersing their own frivolities in the words they copy, nor let a

trifler’s hand make mistakes through haste. Let them earnestly seek out

for themselves correctly written books to transcribe, that the flying

pen may speed along the right path. Let them distinguish the proper

sense by colons and commas, and let them set the points each one in

its due place, and let not him who reads the words to them either read

falsely or pause suddenly. It is a noble work to write out holy books,

nor shall the scribe fail of his due reward. Writing books is better

than planting vines, for he who plants a vine serves his belly, but he

who writes a book serves his soul.”[155]

In a manuscript which was written in S. Jacob’s Monastery in Liége,

occurred the following lines:

_Jacob Rebeccæ dilexit simplicitatem,

Altus mens Jacobi scribendi sedulitatem.

Ille pecus pascens se divitiis cumulavit,

Iste libros scribens meritum sibi multiplicavit.

Ille Rachel typicam præ cunctis duxit amatam,

Hic habeat vitam justis super astra paratam._[156]

[(The Hebrew) Jacob loved the simplicity of Rebecca,

The lofty soul of (the monk) Jacob (loved) the work of the scribe.

The former accumulated riches in pasturing his flocks,

The latter increased his fame through the writing of books.

The former won his Rachel, loved beyond all others.

May the scribe have the eternal life which is prepared above the

stars for the just.]

The most important of the works of Alcuin that can be called original

were his educational writings, comprising treatises _On Grammar_,

_On Orthography_, _On Rhetoric and the Virtues_, _On Dialectics_, _A

Disputation with Pepin_, and a study of astronomy entitled _De Cursu et

Saltu Lunæ ac Bissexto_. West mentions three other treatises which have

been ascribed to him: _On the Seven Arts_, _A Disputation for Boys_,

and the _Propositions of Alcuin_.[157] Alcuin was more fortunate than

his great predecessor Cassiodorus in respect to the preservation of

his writings. Manuscripts of all of these remained in existence until

the time came when the complete set of works could be issued in printed

form, and the work of the old instructor could be appreciated by a

generation living a thousand years after his life had closed. He died

at Tours in 804, in his seventieth year. Mabillon speaks of Alcuin as

“the most learned man of his age.” Laurie is disposed to lay stress

upon the monastic limitations of his intellect, and thinks that his

principal ability was that of an administrator; West emphasises the

“pure unselfishness of his character,” and adds, with discriminating

appreciation: “We must also credit him with a certain largeness of

view, in spite of his circumscribed horizon. He had some notion of the

continuity of the intellectual life of man, of the perils that beset

the transmission of learning from age to age, and of the disgrace which

attached to those who would allow those noble arts to perish which the

wisest of men among the ancients had discovered.... Perceiving that

the precious treasure of knowledge was then hidden in a few books,

he made it his care to transmit to future ages copies undisfigured

by slips of the pen or mistakes of the understanding. Thus in every

way that lay within his power, he endeavoured to put the fortunes

of learning for the times that should succeed him in a position of

advantage, safeguarded by an abundance of truthfully transcribed

books, interpreted by teachers of his own training, sheltered within

the Church and defended by the civil power.”[158] Professor West’s

appreciative summary does full justice to the work and the ideals

of Charlemagne’s great schoolmaster. I should only add that in the

special service he was in a position to render in the preservation,

transmission, and publication of the world’s literature, Alcuin must

be accorded a very high place in the series of literary workers which,

beginning with Cassiodorus, includes such names as Columba, Biscop,

Aurispa, Gutenberg, Aldus, Estienne, and Froben.

The most noteworthy of the successors of Alcuin in the palace school

at Tours was John Scotus Erigena, who in 845 was appointed master by

Charles the Bold. The influence of the Irish monk widened the range of

study and gave to it an active-minded and speculative tendency that

brought about a wide departure from the settled conservatism which had

always characterised the teaching of Alcuin. The list of books given to

the scribe for copying was increased, and now included, for instance,

works of such doubtful orthodoxy as the _Satyricon_ of Martianus

Capella, a voluminous compilation constituting a kind of cyclopædia of

the seven liberal arts. Its composition dates from about 500.[159]

In a treatise, _De Instituto Clericorum_, written in 819 (that is,

during the reign of Louis I.), by Rabanus Maurus, who was Abbot

of Fulda and later, Archbishop of Mayence, is cited the following

regulation: “The canons and the decrees of Pope Zosimus have decided

that a clerk proceeding to holy orders shall continue five years

among the readers ... and after that shall for four years serve as an

acolyte or sub-deacon.” (The Zosimus referred to was Pope for but one

year, 417-418.) Rabanus had just before remarked, “_Lectores_ are so

called _a legendo_.” He goes on to say that “he who would rightly and

properly perform the duty of a reader must be imbued with learning and

conversant with books, and must further be instructed in the meaning

of words and in the knowledge of the words themselves,” etc.[160]

Rabanus follows this with a series of very practical instructions and

suggestions for effective education on the part of the readers. These

were based upon the treatise on elocution written nearly two hundred

years earlier by the learned Bishop Isidore of Seville, and they were

again copied three years after the time of Rabanus by Ibo, Bishop of

Chartres, in the treatise _De Rebus Ecclesiasticis_. Maitland, to whom

I am indebted for this citation, finds cause for indignant criticism of

the historian Robertson for the superficial and misleading references

made by the historian to the dense ignorance of the Church in the

Middle Ages. Maitland suggests that if Robertson had applied for

holy orders to the Archbishop of Seville in the seventh century, the

Archbishop of Mayence in the ninth, or the Bishop of Chartres in the

eleventh, he would have found the examination rather more of a task

than he expected. West speaks of Rabanus as “Alcuin’s greatest pupil,”

and as intellectually “a greater man than his master.”[161] He wrote a

long series of theological and educational treatises.

From the _Constitutions_ of Reculfus, who became Bishop of Soissons in

879, it is evident that he expected the clergy to be able both to read

and to write. The Bishop says: “We admonish that each one of you should

be careful to have a Missal, a Lectionary, a Book of the Gospels,

a Martyrology, an Antiphonary, a Psalter, and a copy of the Forty

Homilies of S. Gregory, corrected and pointed by our copies which we

use in the holy mother Church; and also fail not to have as many sacred

and ecclesiastical books as you can get, for from these you shall

receive food and condiment for your souls.... If, however, any one of

you is not able to obtain all the books of the Old Testament, at least

let him diligently take pains to transcribe for himself correctly the

first book of the whole sacred history, that is, _Genesis_, by reading

which he may come to understand the creation of the world.”[162] The

counsel was good, even although a perfectly clear understanding of the

creation might after all not have been secured.

By the close of the ninth century, a large proportion of the

monasteries of the Continent and of England carried on schools which

were open to the children of as large a district as could be reached.

In many cases, the elementary classes were succeeded by classes in

advanced instruction, while from these were selected favourites or

exceptionally capable pupils, who enjoyed in still higher studies the

advantage of the guidance and service of the best scholars in the

monastery. West, in summing up the later influence of Alcuin, speaks

of the stream of learning as having flowed from York to Tours and

from Tours (through Rabanus) to Fulda, thence to Auxerre, Ferrières,

Corbies (old and new), Reichenau, St. Gall, and Rheims, one branch of

it finally reaching Paris.[163] Mabillon speaks of the abbey schools of

Fleury as containing during the tenth and eleventh centuries as many as

five thousand scholars.

In Italy, the most important schools were those instituted at Monte

Cassino, Pomposa, and Classe. Giesebrecht is, however, of opinion that

the educational work of the Italian monasteries was less important than

that carried on by the monasteries in Germany, France, or England. In

Germany, the monasteries which have already been mentioned as centres

of intellectual activity were also those which had instituted the most

important and effective of the schools, the list including St. Gall,

Fulda, Reichenau, Hirschau, Wissembourg, Hersfeld, and many others.

In France and Belgium, the names of the conspicuous abbey schools

include those of Marmoutier, Fontenelle, Fleury, Corbie, Ferrières,

Bec, Clugni. In England, the most noteworthy of the abbey schools

were St. Albans, Glastonbury, Malmesbury, Croyland, and S. Peter’s

of Canterbury. From the epoch of Charlemagne to that of S. Louis,

the great abbeys of Christian Europe served in fact not only as its

schools but as its universities. The more intelligent of the nobility

and the kings themselves were interested in securing for their children

the educational advantages of the monastery schools. Among the French

kings who were brought up in this way are to be named Pepin the Little,

Robert the Pious, and Louis the Fat. In Spain, Sancho the Great, King

of Navarre and of Castile, was a graduate of the monastery of Leyre.

In England, we have the noteworthy example of Alfred, who was not

ashamed, after having reached mature years, to repair his imperfect

education by attending the school established in Oxford by the

Benedictines, where he is said to have studied grammar, philosophy,

rhetoric, history, music, and versification.[164]

A large number of the convents, following the example of the abbeys,

contained schools in which were trained not only the future novices,

but also numbers of young girls destined for the life of the Courts or

of the world.

Mabillon finds occasion to correct the impression on the part of

some writers of the sixteenth century, that the monasteries had been

established solely for the purpose of carrying on educational work.

He writes: _C’est une illusion de certains gens qui ont écrit dans le

siècle précédent que les monastères n’avaient esté d’abord établis que

pour servir d’écoles faisantes profession d’enseigner les sciences

humaines_.

De Rancé, who wrote a _Traité de la saincteté et du devoir de la

vie monastique_, took the ground that the pursuit of literature was

inconsistent with the monastic profession, and that the reading of

the monks ought to be confined to the Scriptures and a few books

of devotion. The treatise was understood to be an attack upon the

Benedictine monks of St. Maur, for that they were learned was a matter

of general knowledge, and the monks of La Trappe, the Order with

which De Rancé had associated himself, had an old-time antagonism to

their scholarly neighbours. It may be considered as a good service for

literature and for monastic history that the treatise of De Rancé,

narrow and unimportant in itself as it was, should have been published.

Nine years later, in the year 1691, was issued the reply of the

Benedictines, the learned and valuable _Traité des Études Monastiques_

of Dom Mabillon, which will be referred to more particularly in the

following chapter.

The historians of these monastic schools have laid stress upon the

limited conceptions possessed by their founders and by the instructors,

of the purpose and possibilities of education, conceptions which of

necessity affected not only the work done in the school-room, but the

character of the literature produced in the _scriptoria_. Laurie, for

instance, writes as follows: “The Christian conception of education

was, unfortunately (like that of old Cato), narrow. It tended steadily

to concentrate and to contract men’s intellectual interests. The

Christian did not think of the culture of the whole man. He could not

consistently do so. His whole purpose was the salvation of the soul....

Salvation was to be obtained through abnegation of the world and

through faith.... Christianity, accordingly, found itself necessarily

placed in mortal antagonism to ‘Humanitas’ and to Hellenism, and had

to go through the troublous experiences of nearly 1400 years before

the possibility of the union of reason with authority, of religion

with Hellenism, could be conserved.... As was indeed inevitable,

theological discussion more and more occupied the active intellect of

the time, to the subordination, if not total neglect of humane letters

and philosophy. The Latin and Greek classics were ultimately denounced.

As the offspring of the pagan world, if not indeed inspired by demons,

they were dangerous to the faith.”[165]

From the _Apostolic Constitutions_, ascribed to the middle of the

fourth century, Mr. Bass Mullinger quotes the injunction: “Refrain from

all the writings of the heathen: for what hast thou to do with strange

discourses, laws, or false prophets, which, in truth, turn aside from

the faith those who are weak in the understanding ... wherefore abstain

scrupulously from all strange and devilish books.”[166]

It was S. Augustine who said _Indocti cœlum rapiunt_--“It is the

ignorant who take the kingdom of heaven,”--and Gregory the Great who

asserted that he would blush to have Holy Scripture subjected to the

rules of grammar.[167] West speaks of the conceptions of grammar and of

rhetoric taught by Alcuin as “crude” and “puerile,” and of his theories

of language as “childish.”

It is, of course, a truism to point out that the educational work done

by Alcuin and the other great instructors of the monastic schools

is not to be judged by the standard of later ages. The students for

whose training they were responsible, whether children or adults,

princes or peasants, must have been, with hardly an exception, in a

very elementary condition of mental development, and it was necessary

for the instruction to be in like manner elementary. In this study, I

am, however, not undertaking to consider the history of education in

early Europe, a subject which has been so ably presented in the works

of Mullinger, Laurie, Compayré, and West. I am concerned with the

work of these early schoolmasters simply because to their persistent

efforts was due the preservation of literature in Europe. If Alcuin and

his successors had done nothing else than to secure a substantially

uniform system of writing throughout the great schools in which were

trained abbots and scribes for hundreds of monasteries, they would

have conferred an inestimable service upon Europe. But their work did

go much further. Notwithstanding the various injunctions and warnings

of ecclesiastical leaders against “pagan” literature, it proved

impracticable to prevent this literature from being preserved and

manifolded in numberless _scriptoria_. The record of the opposition

has been preserved in a series of edicts and injunctions. But the fact

that the interest in the writings of the ancients proved strong enough

to withstand all the fulminations and censures is evidenced by the

long series of manuscripts of the classics produced in the monasteries

during the tenth and eleventh centuries. The writers of these

manuscripts were the product of the schools instituted by Charlemagne

and Alcuin.

=The Benedictines of the Continent.=--The two writers who have given

the largest attention to the record of the literary and scholarly

work of the Benedictines during the seven centuries between 500 and

1200 A.D., are Mabillon and Ziegelbauer. Dom Mabillon was himself a

Benedictine monk and had a full inheritance of the literary spirit and

scholarly devotion which characterised the Order. He was born in Rheims

in 1632, and his treatise on monastic studies, _Traité des Études

Monastiques_, which has remained the chief authority on its subject,

was published in Paris in 1691. Ziegelbauer’s _Observationes Literariæ

S. Benedicti_ appeared a century later.[168]

Mabillon’s work forms a magnificent monument not only to the learning,

diligence, and literary skill of its writer, but to the enormous value

of the services rendered, during a number of centuries, by the monks

of his Order, in the preservation of literature from the ravages of

barbarism and in the development of scholarship. Mabillon also makes

clear the lasting importance of the original initiative given to the

literary labour of the Benedictines by the Rule of their founder.

An important portion of the material upon which Mabillon’s treatise

was based, was collected during a series of journeys made by him in

company with his brother under the instructions first of the great

minister Colbert, and later, of Le Tellier, Archbishop of Rheims, for

the purpose of examining or of searching for documents relating to the

royal family and of procuring books for the royal library. The first

of these journeys, undertaken in the year 1682, was completed entirely

within French territory and was entitled _Iter Burgundicum_. The second

covered a considerable portion of South Germany and Switzerland, and

is known as the _Iter Germanicum_. The third was devoted to Italy,

and is described under the title of _Iter Italicum_; while the fourth

investigation was made in Alsace and Lorraine, and the record is

entitled _Iter Literarium in Alsatiam et Lotharingiam_.

The plan of the journeys involved a thorough ransacking of as many

libraries as they could secure admission to, the libraries being, with

but few exceptions, contained in the monasteries. The immediate result

of these journeys was the addition to the royal library of some three

thousand volumes, chiefly collected in Italy, and the later result,

the publication of the records above specified, which form a most

valuable presentation of the condition of the monastic collections

in the seventeenth century, and which give in their lists the titles

of a considerable number of valuable works which have since entirely

disappeared.

A century later than S. Benedict, an unknown hermit called “the

Master” prepared a Rule under which monks were required to study until

they reached the age of fifty.[169] The Rule of S. Aurelian and S.

Ferreol rendered this regulation universal, and that of Grimlaïcus

identified the character of the hermit with that of “doctor.”[170] In

all countries where the Benedictine Orders flourished, literature and

scholarship exercised an abiding influence. It is impossible, contends

Montalembert, to name an abbey famed for the number and holiness of

its monks which is not also noted for learning and for its school of

literature. The Benedictine monks during the four or five centuries

after the foundation of the Order certainly appear to have held

themselves faithful to the precept of S. Jerome, “A book always in

your hand or under your eyes.” (_Nunquam de manu necque oculis recedat

liber._[171]) They also accepted very generally the example of Bede,

who said that it had been for him always delightful either to learn, to

teach, or to write.[172] Warton is authority for the statement that in

the year 790 Charlemagne granted to the abbot and monks of Sithiu an

unlimited right of hunting, in order that they might procure from the

skins of the deer killed, gloves, girdles, and covers for their books.

He goes on to say: “We may imagine that these religious were more fond

of hunting than of reading. It is certain that they were obliged to

hunt before they could read, and it seems probable that under these

circumstances they did not manufacture many volumes.”[173] Maitland, in

referring to the original text of the concession, finds, however, that

this has been misread by Warton. The permission to hunt, for the useful

purpose specified, was given not for the monks but for the servants of

the monastery.

With all the great Benedictine monasteries, it was the routine to

institute first a library, then a _scriptorium_ for the manifolding

of books, and finally schools, open, not only to students who were

preparing for the Church, but to all in the neighbourhood who had need

of or desire for instruction. The copies prepared in the _scriptorium_

of the texts from the library were utilised in the first place for the

duplicates needed of the works in most frequent reference, but more

particularly for securing by exchange copies of texts not already in

the library, and, in many instances, also for adding either to the

direct wealth of the monastery (by exchange for lands or cattle) or to

its income by making sale of the works through travelling monks or by

correspondence with other monasteries.

The list of monasteries which became in this manner literary and

publishing centres would include nearly all the great Benedictine

foundations of both Britain and the Continent. There was probably,

however, a greater activity during the period between 600 and 1200,

in the matter at least of collecting and circulating books, in the

monasteries of France than in those of Italy, Germany, or Britain; but

more important even than Clugni, Marmoutier, or Corbie, in France, was

the great Swiss abbey of St. Gall, an abbey the realm of which reached

almost to the proportions of a small municipality. In the shade of

its walls, there dwelt a whole nation, divided into two branches, the

_familia intus_, which comprised the labourers, shepherds, and workmen

of all trades, and the _familia foris_, composed of serfs, who were

bound to do three days’ work in each week.

Within the monastery itself, there were, in the latter half of the

tenth century, no less than five hundred monks, together with a great

group of students. In Germany, the most noted of what might be called

the literary monasteries during the ninth and tenth centuries were

those of Fulda, Reichenau, Lorsch, Hirschau, and Gandersheim. It was

in the latter that the nun Hroswitha composed her famous dramas. In

France, in addition to those already specified, should be mentioned

Fleury, St. Remy, St. Denis, Luxeuil, S. Vincent at Toul, and Aurillac.

In Belgium, S. Peter’s at Ghent was, during the tenth century, the most

important of the scholarly monasteries. In England, in addition to the

earlier foundations, already referred to, of Wearmouth and Yarrow, St.

Albans and Glastonbury became the most famous. Before the eleventh

century, the literature that came into existence from contemporary

writers or reproductions of the works of classic writers outside of

the monasteries must have been very trifling indeed. One of the most

noteworthy publications which emanated from St. Gall was the great

dictionary or _Vocabulary_ bearing the name of Solomon (Abbot of St.

Gall and later, Bishop of Constance), a work which was in fact a kind

of literary and scientific encyclopædia. This manuscript, comprising in

all 1070 pages, was put into print in the latter part of the fifteenth

century.[174] The records of the famous library of the monastery have

been brought together by later scholars, and it is their testimony

that the manuscripts contained in it were among the most beautiful and

accurate specimens of caligraphy known. These St. Gall manuscripts

were also noted for their exquisite miniatures and illuminations.

The parchment used for them was prepared by the hands of the monks,

and they also did their own binding.[175] The fame of Sintram, one

of the most noteworthy of the copyists, was known throughout all the

countries north of the Alps; _Omnis orbis cisalpinus Sintramni digitos

miratur_.[176]

In the two schools attached to St. Gall, lectures were given, in the

latter half of the tenth century, on Cicero, Quintilian, Horace,

Terence, Juvenal, Persius, Ovid, and Sophocles.[177] There was even

said to be among the monks of St. Gall a society established for the

study of Greek, called the Hellenic Brothers.[178] The Duchess Hedwig

of Suabia herself taught Greek to Abbot Burckhart II. when he was a

child, and rewarded him by the gift of a “Horace” for his readiness

in verse-making. The Abbot later described in verse the embarrassment

caused to him by a kiss with which the learned Duchess had favoured

him.[179] The Duchess had, when a young woman, learned Latin from

the Ekkehart who, later, became Dean of St. Gall (Ekkehart I.), in

partnership with whom she wrote a commentary on Virgil. A very

charming account of the tuition of this fascinating young Duchess is

given in Scheffel’s famous romance called _Der Treue Ekkehart_. Arx

states that Ekkehart III. and IV. and Notker Labeo were familiar with

Homer, Plato, and Aristotle, and made from them Greek verses.[180]

There is every evidence to indicate that there was during the tenth

century a knowledge of Greek in certain monastery centres of South

Europe, which knowledge, two centuries later, had disappeared almost

entirely, so that the re-introduction into Italy of the writings

of Greek poets and philosophers in the thirteenth and fourteenth

centuries came as a fresh revelation. Mabillon contended that while

the monks made Holy Scripture the basis for their theological studies,

it is certain that they acquired apart from these studies, a mass of

other knowledge, and notably all that they could gather with regard

to physical science. Thence it arose that in mediæval works the term

_scripturæ_, or even _scripturæ sacræ_, does not always mean the Holy

Scriptures, but stands for all books which treat of Christian or

ecclesiastical truths or which are useful aids in understanding the

Word of God.[181] Montalembert, commenting on this passage, goes on to

say that to the monk of the tenth century no knowledge was unfamiliar.

Philosophy in its scholastic form, grammar and versification,

music, botany, mechanics, astronomy, geometry in its most practical

application, all of these were the objects of their research and of

their writings. The curious poem addressed by the monk Alfano to

Theodoric, son of the Count Marses and at the time a novice at Monte

Cassino, is cited in support of this view. The poem presents a detailed

account of the daily occupations in the great monastery, in which

occupations literary work holds a very large place. It also gives a

summary of the scholastic pursuits carried on in the monastery.[182]

A service possibly even greater than that of the preservation of

literature and of the keeping alive of an intellectual spirit, was

rendered by the monks in the great educational work carried on by them.

In the Monasterium Resbacense, in Brieggan, founded by Bishop Andœnus

in 634, whose first abbot, S. Ægilius, was a pupil of S. Columban’s,

the list of books in the _scriptorium_ included Cicero, Virgil, Horace,

Terence, Donatus, Priscian, and Boëthius. Of later authors, the works

of Beda, Isidore, Aldhelm, the _Gesta Francorum_, etc.[183] By the

time of Charles Martel and the battle of Poitiers, there had been

much plundering and devastation of the monasteries and convents, the

effects of which remained even after the Arabs were driven back. During

the tumultuous reigns of the Pepins, many clerics returned to or took

up the profession of arms, and devotion and literature were alike

neglected.[184] The biographer of S. Eligius, writing in 760 (under

Pepin) says:[185]

“What do we want with the so-called philosophies of Pythagoras,

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, or with the rubbish and nonsense of

such shameless poets as Homer, Virgil, and Menander? What service can

be rendered to the servants of God by the writings of the heathen

Sallust, Herodotus, Livy, Demosthenes, or Cicero?” Fredegar, called

_Scholasticus_, wrote his chronicle in a Burgundian monastery, about

600. He complains that “the world is in its decrepitude. Intellectual

activity is dead, and the ancient writers have no successors.”

The man to whom the revival of the literary interests of the northern

monasteries was largely due was the Archbishop Chrodegang of Metz,

742-766, Chancellor of Charles Martel, a Benedictine. He framed rules

for the monasteries which restored discipline and infused new life.

His code was adopted throughout France, Italy, and Germany, and even in

England. A certain uniformity of instruction was thus secured in the

monastery schools in singing, language, and script, which persisted

almost until the time of Alcuin, and the influence of which extended

even beyond the monasteries.

Mabillon tells a story of Odo, Abbot of Clugni (who died about 942),

who was so seduced by the love of knowledge that he was led to employ

himself with the vanities of the poets, and resolved to read the works

of Virgil regularly through. On the following night, however, he saw in

a dream a large vase of marvellous beauty, but filled with innumerable

serpents, which, springing forth, twined about him, but without doing

him any injury. The holy man, waking and prudently considering the

vision, took the serpents to stand for the figments of the poets, and

the vase to represent Virgil’s book, which was painted outwardly with

worldly eloquence, but was internally defiled with the vanity of impure

meaning. From thenceforward, renouncing Virgil and his pomps, and

keeping the poets out of his chamber, he sought his mental nourishment

solely from the sacred writings.[186]

Honorius, the reputed author of the _Gemma Animæ_, writes in 1120: “It

grieves me when I consider in my mind the number of persons who, having

lost their senses, are not ashamed to give their utmost labour to the

investigation of the abominable figments of the poets, and the captious

arguments of the philosophers, which are wont inextricably to bind

the mind that is drawn away from God in the bonds of vices and to be

ignorant of the Christian profession whereby the soul may come to reign

everlastingly with God; as it is the height of madness to be anxious to

learn the laws of an usurper and to be ignorant of the edicts of the

lawful sovereign. Moreover, how is the soul profited by the strife of

Hector, or the argumentation of Plato, or the poems of Virgil, or the

elegies of Ovid, who now, with their like, are gnashing their teeth

in the prison of the infernal Babylon, under the cruel tyranny of

Pluto.”[187]

Peter the Venerable, who was Abbot of Clugni in the middle of the

twelfth century, is referred to by the historian Milner as a flagrant

example of the ignorance of the monastic authorities of his time.

Maitland finds cause for no little indignation with the hasty and

ill-founded statements of Milner, and devotes several chapters to an

account of the monastery of Clugni under the rule of Peter, presenting

very ample evidence of the literary activity and scholarly interests

of the abbot and of his close relations with the intellectual leaders

of his time, leaders who were, with hardly an exception, monks and

ecclesiastics. “Who will venture to say,” writes Maitland, “that Peter

would have been pilloried as an ignorant and trifling writer if Milner

had happened to have any personal knowledge of his history and his

works and if he had read in one of the long series of Peter’s Epistles

the words, _Libri et maxime Augustiniani, ut nosti, apud nos auro

preciosiores sunt_.”[188] (Books, and especially those of S. Augustine,

are esteemed by us as more precious than gold.)

The literary journeys of Mabillon were followed by similar journeys on

the part of Father Montfaucon and Edouard Martene, who were both, like

Mabillon, members of the learned Benedictines of St. Maur. Mabillon’s

journeys covered the period of the long wars following the revocation

of the Edict of Nantes (in 1685), including the campaigns between

France and England in the Low Countries. It was probably due to these

campaigns that his researches did not include any of the monasteries

of the lower Rhine, of Flanders, or of Brabant. Martene’s journeys

continued during a term of six years, in which time he examined

manuscripts in more than one hundred cathedrals and at least eight

hundred abbeys. The materials collected were utilised first in the new

edition of the _Gallia Christiana_, and later, in five folio volumes,

comprising only matter previously unpublished, issued under the title

_Thesaurus Novum Anecdotorum_. The account of the journey was printed

under the title _Voyage Littéraire de Deux Religieux Benedictins_.

In 1718, Martene and Montfaucon were again sent on their literary

travels, and the later collections were issued in 1724 in nine

folio volumes, under the title _Veterum Scriptorum et Monumentorum

Historicorum, Dogmaticorum, Moralium, Amplissima Collectio_. I specify

these works of the literary Benedictines because, although by their

date they do not properly belong to my narrative, they form a very

important authority for what is known of the literary history of the

monasteries. In some of the monasteries which had in earlier times

been famous as centres of literary activity, the libraries were found

by Mabillon and Martene in a grievous condition of destitution and

dilapidation. At Clugni, for instance, they describe the catalogue

(itself six hundred years old), written on parchment-covered boards

three feet and a half long and eighteen inches wide (_grandes tablettes

qu’on ferme comme un livre_), containing some thousands of titles, but

of the books there remained scarcely one hundred. Martene was told that

the Huguenots had carried them off to Geneva. At Novantula, of all its

former riches Mabillon found but two manuscripts; and at Beaupré, of

the great collection of manuscripts there remained but two or three;

while many other famous libraries were in similar condition. The

destruction of so large a portion of the collection of manuscripts and

of the earlier printed books was due to a variety of causes. During the

ninth century, the ravages of the Danes and Normans brought desolation

upon a long list of the monasteries throughout Europe which could most

easily be reached from the coast. In the index to the third volume of

Mabillon’s annals, is given a long list of the Benedictine monasteries

pillaged or destroyed by the Normans. The record begins _Normanni,

monasteria et eis incensa, eversa, direpta_. In many of these

visitations the loss of books must have been considerable. When, for

instance, the abbey of Peterborough in Northamptonshire was burned by

the Danes in the year 870, Ingulph records the destruction of a large

collection of books, _sanctorum librorum ingens bibliotheca_.[189]

Maitland points out that this expression probably stood for really a

great library, as when Ingulph speaks of the destruction in 1091 of the

collection of 700 volumes belonging to his own monastery, he does not

so describe it.[190]

Serious ravages were also made in Central Europe in the tenth century

by the Hungarians. Martene says that after the battle on the river

Brenta, the pagans advanced to Novantula, killed many of the monks,

and burned the monastery with a number of books, _codices multos

concremavere_.[191] The monasteries in Italy suffered primarily from

the Saracens, and those in Spain from the Moors. The losses caused by

the religious wars of the later centuries were, however, according to

Mabillon, much more serious than those brought about by the pagans.

The Calvinists are held responsible for the destruction, among others,

of St. Theodore, near Vienna, of St. Jean, Grimberg, Dilighen, of

Jouaire, and, most important of all, of Fleury.[192] The ravages

caused by fire were possibly greater than those produced by war, many

of the collections having been kept in wooden buildings. Among the

noted monasteries which suffered in this way were Gembloux, Liége,

Lucelle, Loroy, St. Gall, Fulda, Lorsch, Croyland, and Teano near

Monte Cassino. In the burning of the latter perished, as Mabillon was

informed, the original manuscript of the famous Rule of S. Benedict.

Martene speaks of the Church of Romans in Dauphiny as having been

ruined six times: by the Moors, by the Archbishop Sebon, twice by

fire, by Guigne Dauphin in the twelfth century, and finally by the

Calvinists. The library at the time of his visit still contained a few

manuscripts.

In view of these various classes of perils, it may well be a matter of

wonder, not that the monastic collections have so largely perished, but

that so considerable a number of manuscripts has been preserved. The

fact that so many mediæval manuscripts have escaped destruction by fire

and flood, and have been saved from the ravages of invading pagans or

of contending Christians, seems indeed to be good presumptive evidence

of the enormous activity of literary production in the monastery

scriptoria during the centuries between 529 and 1450, the date of the

founding of Monte Cassino, and that of the invention of printing.

=The Libraries of the Monasteries and Their Arrangements for the

Exchange of Books.=--Geoffrey, sub-prior of S. Barbe, in Normandy,

is the author of a phrase which has since been frequently quoted. In

a letter written in 1170 to Peter Mangot, a monk of Baugercy, in the

diocese of Tours, he says: “A monastery (_claustrum_) without a library

(_sine armario_) is like a castle (_castrum_) without an armory (_sine

armamentario_). Our library is our armory. Thence it is that we bring

forth the sentences of the Divine Law like sharp arrows to attack

the enemy. Thence we take the armour of righteousness, the helmet of

salvation, the shield of faith, and the sword of the spirit, which is

the Word of God.”[193]

Among the monasteries whose collections of books were noteworthy and

whose literary exchanges were not infrequently sufficiently important

to be described as a publishing or bookselling trade, may be mentioned

the following: Wearmouth and Yarrow, already referred to, the book

production in which was active as early as the seventh century; St.

Josse-sur-Mer, where, in the ninth century, the Abbot Loup of Ferrières

is reported to have kept a depot of books, from which he carried on

an active trade with England[194]; Bobbio in Lombardy, the literary

treasures in which have been largely preserved in the Ambrosian

library; the monastery of Pomposa near Ravenna, whose library,

collected by Abbot Jerome in 1093, was said to be finer than any other

of the time in Italy; La Chiusa, whose collection rivalled that of

Pomposa; Novalese, whose library, at the time of the destruction of

the abbey by the Saracens in 905, is reported to have contained no

less than 6500 volumes[195]; and Monte Cassino, which under the Abbot

Didia, a friend of Gregory VII., possessed a very rich collection. This

collection was the result of the researches in Italy of the African

Constantine, who, after having passed forty years in the East studying

the scientific treatises of Egypt, Persia, Chaldea, and India, had

been driven from Carthage by envious rivals. He came to the tomb of

S. Benedict, where he assumed the monastic habit, and he endowed his

new dwelling with the rich treasures collected in his wanderings.[196]

There are also to be mentioned Fulda, whose library at one time

surpassed all others in Germany, excepting perhaps that of St. Gall;

Croyland, whose library in the eleventh century numbered 3000 volumes;

and many others.

The work of Ziegelbauer gives in detail the old catalogue of the

library of Fulda and those of a number of other abbeys. The estimates

of the relative importance of these collections are in the main

based upon Ziegelbauer’s statistics. There seems to be no question

that these monastery libraries carried on with each other an active

correspondence and exchange of books, and that this exchange business

developed in not a few cases, as in that of St. Josse-sur-Mer, into

what was practically a book-trade. It is the conclusion of Mabillon,

as of Montalembert, that during the time in which Christian Europe

was covered with active monasteries and convents in which thousands

of monks and nuns were engaged in constant transcription, books could

hardly have been really rare, at least as compared with the extent of

the circle of scholars and readers who required them.

Cahier points out that in addition to these great monastery

collections, there were libraries of greater or less importance in

nearly all the cathedrals, in many of the collegiate churches, and

in not a few of the castles. Mabillon is of opinion that the prices

of books during the Middle Ages have been very much overestimated,

and that the impression as to such prices has been largely based upon

isolated and misunderstood instances.[197] Robertson speaks of the

collection of Homilies bought in 1056 by Grecia, Countess of Arizon,

for two hundred sheep, a measure of wheat, one of millet, one of rye,

several marten skins, and four pounds of silver, but Robertson omits

to mention that the volumes so purchased were exceptionally beautiful

specimens of caligraphy, of painting, and of carving. Maitland points

out that it would be as reasonable to quote as examples of prices in

the nineteenth century the exorbitant sums paid at special sales by

the bibliomaniacs of to-day. “May not some literary historian of the

future,” he goes on to say, “at a time when the march of intellect

has got past the age of cumbersome and expansive penny magazines and

is revelling in farthing cyclopædias, record as an evidence of the

scarcity and costliness of books in the nineteenth century, that in

the year 1812 an English nobleman gave £2260 and another £1060 for

a single volume, and that the next year a Johnson’s Dictionary was

sold by public auction for £200. A few such facts would quite set up

some future Robertson, whose readers would never dream that we could

get better reading, and plenty of it, very much cheaper at that very

time.”[198]

It is, of course, the case that there has been such a thing as

bibliomania since there have been books in the world, no less in

the manuscript period than after the age of printing. “The art of

printing,” says Morier, “is unknown in Persia, and beautiful writing

is, therefore, considered a high accomplishment. It is carefully taught

in the schools, and those who excel in it are almost classed with

literary men. They are employed to copy books, and some have attained

to such eminence in this art, that a few lines written by one of

these celebrated penmen are often sold for a considerable sum. I have

known seven pounds given for four lines written by Dervish Musjeed, a

celebrated penman, who has been dead for some time, and whose beautiful

specimens of writing are now scarce.”[199]

Robertson quotes in support of his general contention a statement

of Naudé to the following effect: “In 1471, when Louis XI. borrowed

from the Faculty of Medicine in Paris the works of Rasis, the Arabian

physician, he not only deposited as a pledge a considerable quantity of

plate, but was obliged to procure a nobleman to join with him as surety

in a deed, binding himself, under a great forfeiture, to restore the

volumes.”[200] In the eighteenth century, however, when Selden wished

to borrow a manuscript from the Bodleian Library, he was required to

give a bond for a thousand pounds. It does not, therefore, follow that

the reign of George II. was a dark age in English literature.[201]

Maitland points out one very important detail, which served to

give to some individual manuscript a value that might, when later

referred to, appear disproportionate to the expense of the hand

labour in its preparation. Under the process of the multiplication

of books by printing, each copy of a given edition must of course

be a fac-simile of all the other copies, sharing their measure of

correctness, and equally sharing their blunders. In the manuscript

period, however, every copy of a work was of necessity unique, and the

correctness of a particular manuscript was no pledge for the quality

even of those which had been copied directly from it. “In fact, the

correctness of every single copy could be ascertained only by minute

and laborious collation, and by the same minuteness of method which

is now requisite from an editor who revises the text of an ancient

writer.... If a manuscript had received such a collation at the hands

of trustworthy scholars, and if it had been shown to present a text of

such completeness and accuracy as might safely be trusted as copy for

future transcripts, such a manuscript would undoubtedly be valued at an

exceptional price.”[202]

Muratori speaks of books when presented to churches being offered

at the altar, _pro remedio animæ suæ_,[203] and on this quotation

Robertson bases a further argument concerning the high value of books.

It was, however, the ordinary routine that when a person made a present

of anything to a church, it was offered at the altar, and it was

understood, if not always specifically expressed, that such offering

was made either for his own spiritual benefit or for that of some other

person. It was doubtless the case that gifts of books to a church were

rare as compared with the gifts of other things, for the simple reason

that nearly all the books that came into existence were produced in

the churches or in the attendant monasteries.

Delisle says that the loan of books from monastery libraries was

considered one of the most meritorious of all acts of mercy. Against

this view there are many examples of the formal prohibition of

the lending of any books outside of the walls of the monastery.

Some communities placed the books of their libraries under an

anathema,--that is to say, they forbade under pain of excommunication

either borrowing or lending. This selfish policy was, however, formally

condemned in 1212 by the Council of Paris, the Fathers of which urged

more charitable sentiments on these bibliophiles: “We forbid monks to

bind themselves by any oath not to lend books to the poor, seeing that

such a loan is one of the chief works of mercy. We desire that the

books of a community should be divided into two classes, one to remain

in the house for the use of the Brothers, the other to be lent out to

the poor according to the judgment of the abbot.”[204]

In support of his contention concerning the general disappearance of

literature during the Middle Ages, Robertson quotes the authority of

Muratori to the effect that, “even monasteries of considerable note

had only one missal.”[205] Maitland has no difficulty in showing

that the passage cited has been wrongly understood, and that the

generalisation based upon it is absurd. Muratori was referring to a

letter of a certain Bonus, who was for thirty years (1018-1048) Abbot

of the monastery of S. Michael, in Pisa. In this letter, Bonus gives an

account of the founding of the monastery, and says that when he came

to Pisa he found there, not a monastery, but simply a chapel, which

was in a most deplorable and destitute condition, wanting vessels,

vestments, bells, and nearly all the requisites for the performance

of divine service, and having no service-books but a missal (_nisi

unum missale_). The statement so worded is of course no evidence that

there may not have been several copies of the missal. It simply shows

that there were no other books (such as texts of the Epistles or

Gospels) for use in the service. Bonus goes on to say, with commendable

pride, that in fifteen years’ time “the little hut,” as he calls

it, had expanded into a monastery, with suitable offices and with a

considerable estate in land, the single tin cup had been exchanged

for gold and silver chalices, and in place of one “missal,” the monks

rejoiced in the possession of a library of thirty-four volumes. It is

difficult to understand how Robertson could have justified himself in

basing, on a careless version of a statement concerning a missal in

a single half-ruined chapel, a broad and misleading generalisation

concerning the general absence of books from monasteries. The list of

the library later secured by the abbot includes copies of the Gospels,

the Psalms, and the Epistles, the Rule of S. Benedict, the Book of

Job, the Book of Ezekiel, five Diurnals, eight _Antiphonarii_, three

Nocturnals, a tractate by S. Augustine on Genesis, a book of Dialogues,

a Glossary, a Pastoral, a book of Canons, a book entitled _Summum

Bonum_, five Missals, a book entitled _Passionarum unum novum ubi sunt

omnes passiones ecclesiasticæ_ (I give the wording from the catalogue),

and the _Liber Bibliotheca_. “Bibliotheca” is the term very generally

applied at this period to the Bible, and often used for a collection

comprising but a few books of the Bible. The catalogue shows that the

good Abbot had made a very fair beginning towards a monastic library.

The letters of Gerbert, Abbot of Bobbio (who, in 998, became Pope

under the name of Sylvester II.), throw some light upon the literary

interests of that famous monastery and of the time. He writes (about

984) to a monk named Rainald (letter 130 of the collection): “You know

with what zeal I seek for copies of books from all quarters, and you

know how many scribes there are everywhere in Italy, both in the cities

and in the rural districts, I entreat you then ... that you will have

transcripts made for me of M. Manilius’ _De Astrologia_, Victorinus’

_De Rhetorica_, and of the _Ophthalmicus_ of Demosthenes.... Whatever

you lay out I will repay you to the full, according to your accounts.”

In letter 123, Gerbert writes to Thietmar of Mayence for a portion

of one of the works of Boëthius, his copy being defective. In letter

9, written to Abbot Giselbert, he asks for assistance in making good

certain deficiencies in his manuscript of the oration of Cicero, _Pro

Rege Deiotaro_. In letter 8, to the Archbishop of Rheims, he requests

that prelate to borrow for him from Abbot Azo a copy of Cæsar’s

_Commentaries_. In return he offers the loan of eight volumes of

Boëthius. In letter 7, he requests his friend Airard to attend to the

correction of the manuscript of Pliny, and to preparing transcripts

of two other manuscripts. In letter 44, to Egbert, Abbot of Tours, he

states that he has been much occupied in collecting a library, and that

he had for a long time been paying transcribers in Rome, in other parts

of Italy, in Germany, and in Belgium, and in buying at great expense

texts of important authors. He asks the Abbot to aid in doing similar

work in France, and he gives a list (unfortunately lost) of the works

for transcripts of which he is looking. He is ready to supply the

parchment and to defray all the expenses of the work. In other letters

he makes reference to his own writings on rhetoric, arithmetic, and

spherical geometry.

These letters, for the reference to which I am indebted to

Maitland,[206] assuredly give the impression that even in the dark

period of the tenth century, there was no little activity in certain

ecclesiastical circles and monastic centres in the transcribing,

collecting, and exchanging of books, and not merely of missals,

breviaries, or monkish legends, but of literature recognised as classic.

Another letter, written a century and a half later, makes reference

to the practice of exchanging books or of using them as pledges. A

prior writes to an abbot in 1150: “To his Lord, the Venerable Abbot

of---- wishes health and happiness. Although you desire to have the

books of Tully, I know that you are a Christian and not a Ciceronian.

But you go over to the camp of the enemy not as a deserter, but as

a spy. I should, therefore, have sent you the books of Tully which

we have, _De Re Agraria_, the Philippics, and the Epistles, but that

it is not our custom that any books should be lent to any person

without good pledges. Send us, therefore, the _Noctes Atticæ_ of Aulus

Gellius and Origen on the Canticles. The books which we have just

brought from France, if you wish for any of them, I will send you.”

The Abbot replies at the end of a long letter: “I have sent you as

pledges for your books, Origen on the Canticles, and instead of Aulus

Gellius (which I could not have at this time), a book which is called

_Strategematon_, which is military.”[207]

The custom of securing books by chains, which prevailed with the

libraries of all the earlier religious institutions, did not originate

with these. Eusebius mentions that the Roman Senate in the time of

Claudius ordered the treatise of Philo Judæus on the Impiety of

Caligula to be chained in the library as a famous monument. There

appears to have been an early appreciation on the part of certain of

the monastery scholars of the importance of indexes. Fosbroke quotes

among others the example of John Brome, Prior of Gorlestone, who, in

the fifteenth century, put indexes to almost all the books in his

library. From an examination of the catalogues of various of the

ecclesiastical libraries, Fosbroke arrives at the calculation that the

proportion of the works contained under the several main sub-headings

was approximately as follows: Divinity, 175; scholastic literature,

89; epistles and controversial literature, 65; history, 54; biography,

32; arts, mathematics, and astrology, 31; philosophy, 13; law, 6.[208]

This classification does not give any separate heading for allegory,

although this was a subject in which not a few of the earlier monkish

writers largely interested themselves.

As an example of monkish allegorical literature, Fosbroke mentions a

work written in 1435, under the instructions of a cloth shearer in

France, whose name he does not give. The cloth cutter, being a great

lover of tennis, had written a ballad upon that game. When he was

old, he wished to atone for his early sins and frivolities, and he

secured the services of a Dominican monk, who wrote, at his instance

and expense, an allegory on the game of tennis. The wall of the tennis

court stood for faith, which should always rest on a solid foundation,

while in the other conditions of the game the Dominican finds the

cardinal virtues, the evangelists, active and contemplative life, the

old and the new law, etc.

In the thirteenth century, Omons, who might be described as the

Lucretius of his day, wrote a work entitled _The Picture of the World_,

from which one could gather an impression of the character of the

philosophy of the early Middle Ages. In the department of metaphysics,

Omons (using largely material borrowed from Thales, Anaxagoras,

Epicurus, and Plato) described God as comparatively an idle being, and

speaks of Him as having at the time of creating Matter also created

Nature. Nature executed the will of God as an axe executes the will of

the carpenter; it sometimes, however, through want or excess of matter,

produces deformities.

The Liberal Arts, Omons divides under the usual septenary

arrangement, which is adopted as early as the fifth century by Capella.

Omons makes mathematics, however, not a mere science of numbers, but

the knowledge of everything that is produced in any regular order

whatever, while rhetoric includes judicial verdicts, decretals, laws,

etc. The term “liberal” he applied only to an art which explicitly

appertained to the mind; and therefore, medicine, painting, sculpture,

navigation, the military art, architecture, etc., although in their

theories as intellectual as are mathematics and astronomy, were,

because applicable to bodily purposes, denominated trades. The term

“philosopher” means only men versed in the occult sciences of nature,

and among the later philosophers Omons held no one so eminent as

Virgil. This was not the Bard of Mantua, but an ugly little Italian

conjurer, who, during the tenth century, had performed various feats of

legerdemain.

When Peter of Celle had borrowed two volumes of S. Bernard’s works,

he wrote to him: “Make haste and quickly copy these and send them to

me; and according to my bargain, cause a copy to be made for me, and

both those which I have sent to you, and the copies, as I have said,

send to me, and take care that I do not lose a single tittle.” Writing

to the Dean of Troyes, he says: “Send me the Epistles of the Bishop

of Le Mans, for I want to copy them”; and, indeed, he seems to have a

constant eye to the acquisition and multiplication of books.[209]

As to this _commercium librorum_, it would be easy, says Maitland, to

multiply examples. In a letter of the Abbot Peter to Guigo, Prior of

Chartreuse, he mentions that he had sent him the Lives of S. Nazianzen

and S. Chrysostom, and the argument of S. Ambrose against Symmachus.

That he had not sent the work of Hilary on the Psalms because his copy

contained the same defect as the Prior’s. That he did not possess

_Prosper against Cassius_, but that he had sent to Aquitaine for a

copy. He begs the Prior to send the greater volume of S. Augustine,

containing the letters which passed between him and S. Jerome, because

a great part of their copy, while lying in one of the cells, had been

eaten by a bear (_casu comedit ursus_),[210] a novel difficulty in the

way of preserving literature.

Peter of Clugni, known as Peter the Venerable, became abbot of the

monastery in 1122. Clugni, the _Caput Ordinis_, was at that time the

most considerable of the Benedictine foundations, and might, in fact,

be termed the most important monastery of its age. The correspondence

of Peter and of his secretary Nicholas, who was for a time also

secretary of Bernard of Clairvaux, forms an important contribution to

the monastic history of the country and contains not a few references

throwing light on the literary conditions of the time. Nicholas had,

in addition to his business as the Abbot’s amanuensis, what Mabillon

calls a _librorum commercium_ with various persons. It appears from his

letters that he used to lend books on condition that a copy should be

returned with the volume lent. Nicholas, while a diligent scribe and an

active-minded scholar, was discovered later, to be a very untrustworthy

person. He left Clairvaux with books, money, and gold service that did

not belong to him, and also (which Abbot Bernard mentions as a special

grievance) with three seals, his own, the prior’s, and the abbot’s.

His further career was a checkered one, but does not belong to this

narrative.

Abbot Peter of Clugni, writing to Master Peter of Poitiers in 1170,

lays some emphasis on the inadvisability of devoting too much time

to the study of the ancients. “See, now, without the study of Plato,

without the disputations of the Academy, without the subtleties of

Aristotle, without the teaching of philosophers, the place and the way

of happiness are discovered.... You run from school to school, and why

are you labouring to teach and to be taught? Why is it that you are

seeking through thousands of words and multiplied labours, what you

might, if you pleased, obtain in plain language and with little labour?

Why, vainly studious, are you reciting with the comedians, lamenting

with the tragedians, trifling with the metricians, deceiving with the

poets and deceived with the philosophers? Why is it that you are now

taking so much trouble about what is not in fact philosophy but should

rather (if I may say it without offence) be called foolishness.”

Counsels of this kind give some indication at least of the tendency

in Poitiers, and doubtless also in Clugni, to devote to the old-time

poetry and philosophy some of the hours which, under a stricter

observance, should be reserved for the Scriptures or the Fathers.

The venerable Abbot must himself have had some fairly comprehensive

knowledge of the literature he was criticising, and the gentle satire

of the phrase “deceived with the philosophers” does not give one the

impression of coming from a clumsy-minded and ignorant monk such as

Robertson describes Peter the Venerable to have been.

A further evidence not only of comprehensive knowledge but of a

liberal spirit, is afforded by the fact that Peter gave to the West

a translation (possibly the first) of the Alkoran. This is the form

used by Peter himself for the Mohammedan scriptures. In a letter to

S. Bernard, he speaks of having had this translation prepared of a

work which had so greatly influenced the thought of the world that it

ought to be known to Europe. He says further that the defenders of

the true faith should familiarise themselves with the contentions of

the Mohammedan heretics, in order to be able to refute these when the

necessity arose.[211]

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