Gaul.
During the first few centuries after the fall of the Western empire,
literary activity at Constantinople had fallen to its lowest ebb. In the
West, amidst the general neglect of learning and literature, the
collecting of books, though not wholly forgotten, was cared for by few.
Sidonius Apollinaris tells us of the libraries of several private
collectors in Gaul. Publius Consentius possessed a library at his villa
near Narbonne which was due to the labour of three generations. The most
notable of these appears to have been the prefect Tonantius Ferreolus,
who had formed in his villa of Prusiana, near Nîmes, a collection which
his friend playfully compares to that of Alexandria. The Goths, who had
been introduced to the Scriptures in their own language by Ulfilas in
the 4th century, began to pay some attention to Latin literature.
Cassiodorus, the favourite minister of Theodoric, was a collector as
well as an author, and on giving up the cares of government retired to a
monastery which he founded in Calabria, where he employed his monks in
the transcription of books.
Henceforward the charge of books as well as of education fell more and
more exclusively into the hands of the church. While the old schools of
the rhetoricians died out new monasteries arose everywhere. Knowledge
was no longer pursued for its own sake, but became subsidiary to
religious and theological teaching. The proscription of the old
classical literature, which is symbolized in the fable of the
destruction of the Palatine library by Gregory the Great, was only too
effectual. The Gregorian tradition of opposition to pagan learning long
continued to dominate the literary pursuits of the monastic orders and
the labours of the scriptorium.
Alcuin.
Charlemagne.
During the 6th and 7th centuries the learning which had been driven from
the Continent took refuge in the British Islands, where it was removed
from the political disturbances of the mainland. In the Irish
monasteries during this period there appear to have been many books, and
the Venerable Bede was superior to any scholar of his age. Theodore of
Tarsus brought a considerable number of books to Canterbury from Rome in
the 7th century, including several Greek authors. The library of York,
which was founded by Archbishop Egbert, was almost more famous than that
of Canterbury. The verses are well known in which Alcuin describes the
extensive library under his charge, and the long list of authors whom he
enumerates is superior to that of any other library possessed by either
England or France in the 12th century, when it was unhappily burnt. The
inroads of the Northmen in the 9th and 10th centuries had been fatal to
the monastic libraries on both sides of the channel. It was from York
that Alcuin came to Charlemagne to superintend the school attached to
his palace; and it was doubtless inspired by Alcuin that Charles issued
the memorable document which enjoined that in the bishoprics and
monasteries within his realm care should be taken that there shall be
not only a regular manner of life, but also the study of letters. When
Alcuin finally retired from the court to the abbacy of Tours, there to
carry out his own theory of monastic discipline and instruction, he
wrote to Charles for leave to send to York for copies of the books of
which they had so much need at Tours. While Alcuin thus increased the
library at Tours, Charlemagne enlarged that at Fulda, which had been
founded in 774, and which all through the middle ages stood in great
respect. Lupus Servatus, a pupil of Hrabanus Maurus at Fulda, and
afterwards abbot of Ferrières, was a devoted student of the classics and
a great collector of books. His correspondence illustrates the
difficulties which then attended the study of literature through the
paucity and dearness of books, the declining care for learning, and the
increasing troubles of the time. Nor were private collections of books
altogether wanting during the period in which Charlemagne and his
successors laboured to restore the lost traditions of liberal education
and literature. Pepin le Bref had indeed met with scanty response to the
request for books which he addressed to the pontiff Paul I. Charlemagne,
however, collected a considerable number of choice books for his private
use in two places. Although these collections were dispersed at his
death, his son Louis formed a library which continued to exist under
Charles the Bald. About the same time Everard, count of Friuli, formed a
considerable collection which he bequeathed to a monastery. But the
greatest private collector of the middle ages was doubtless Gerbert,
Pope Sylvester II., who showed the utmost zeal and spent large sums in
collecting books, not only in Rome and Italy, but from Germany, Belgium
and even from Spain.
St. Benedict.
The hopes of a revival of secular literature fell with the decline of
the schools established by Charles and his successors. The knowledge of
letters remained the prerogative of the church, and for the next four or
five centuries the collecting and multiplication of books were almost
entirely confined to the monasteries. Several of the greater orders made
these an express duty; this was especially the case with the
Benedictines. It was the first care of St Benedict, we are told, that in
each newly founded monastery there should be a library, "et velut curia
quaedam illustrium auctorum." Monte Cassino became the starting-point of
a long line of institutions which were destined to be the centres of
religion and of literature. It must indeed be remembered that literature
in the sense of St Benedict meant Biblical and theological works, the
lives of the saints and martyrs, and the lives and writings of the
fathers. Of the reformed Benedictine orders the Carthusians and the
Cistercians were those most devoted to literary pursuits. The abbeys of
Fleury, of Melk and of St Gall were remarkable for the splendour of
their libraries. In a later age the labours of the congregation of St
Maur form one of the most striking chapters in the history of learning.
The Augustinians and the Dominicans rank next to the Benedictines in
their care for literature. The libraries of St Geneviève and St Victor,
belonging to the former, were amongst the largest of the monastic
collections. Although their poverty might seem to put them at a
disadvantage as collectors, the mendicant orders cultivated literature
with much assiduity, and were closely connected with the intellectual
movement to which the universities owed their rise. In England Richard
of Bury praises them for their extraordinary diligence in collecting
books. Sir Richard Whittington built a large library for the Grey Friars
in London, and they possessed considerable libraries at Oxford.
It would be impossible to attempt here an account of all the libraries
established by the monastic orders. We must be content to enumerate a
few of the most eminent.
Monastic libraries.
In Italy Monte Cassino is a striking example of the dangers and
vicissitudes to which monastic collections were exposed. Ruined by the
Lombards in the 6th century, the monastery was rebuilt and a library
established, to fall a prey to Saracens and to fire in the 9th. The
collection then reformed survived many other chances and changes, and
still exists. Boccaccio gives a melancholy description of its condition
in his day. It affords a conspicuous example of monastic industry in the
transcription not only of theological but also of classical works. The
library of Bobbio, which owed its existence to Irish monks, was famous
for its palimpsests. The collection, of which a catalogue of the 10th
century is given by Muratori (_Antiq. Ital. Med. Aev._ iii. 817-824),
was mainly transferred to the Ambrosian library at Milan. Of the library
of Pomposia, near Ravenna, Montfaucon has printed a catalogue dating
from the 11th century (_Diarium Italicum_, chap. xxii.).
Of the monastic libraries of France the principal were those of Fleury,
of Cluny, of St Riquier and of Corbie. At Fleury Abbot Macharius in 1146
imposed a contribution for library purposes upon the officers of the
community and its dependencies, an example which was followed elsewhere.
After many vicissitudes, its MSS., numbering 238, were deposited in 1793
in the town library of Orleans. The library of St Riquier in the time
of Louis the Pious contained 256 MSS., with over 500 works. Of the
collection at Corbie in Picardy we have also catalogues dating from the
12th and from the 17th centuries. Corbie was famous for the industry of
its transcribers, and appears to have stood in active literary
intercourse with other monasteries. In 1638, 400 of its choicest
manuscripts were removed to St Germain-des-Prés. The remainder were
removed after 1794, partly to the national library at Paris, partly to
the town library of Amiens.
The chief monastic libraries of Germany were at Fulda, Corvey, Reichenau
and Sponheim. The library at Fulda owed much to Charlemagne and to its
abbot Hrabanus Maurus. Under Abbot Sturmius four hundred monks were
hired as copyists. In 1561 the collection numbered 774 volumes. The
library of Corvey on the Weser, after being despoiled of some of its
treasures in the Reformation age, was presented to the university of
Marburg in 1811. It then contained 109 vols., with 400 or 500 titles.
The library of Reichenau, of which several catalogues are extant, fell a
prey to fire and neglect, and its ruin was consummated by the Thirty
Years' War. The library of Sponheim owes its great renown to John
Tritheim, who was abbot at the close of the 15th century. He found it
reduced to 10 vols., and left it with upwards of 2000 at his retirement.
The library at St Gall, formed as early as 816 by Gozbert, its second
abbot, still exists.
England.
In England the principal collections were those of Canterbury, York,
Wearmouth, Jarrow, Whitby, Glastonbury, Croyland, Peterborough and
Durham. Of the library of the monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury,
originally founded by Augustine and Theodore, and restored by Lanfranc
and Anselm, a catalogue has been preserved dating from the 13th or 14th
century, and containing 698 volumes, with about 3000 works. Bennet
Biscop, the first abbot of Wearmouth, made five journeys to Rome, and on
each occasion returned with a store of books for the library. It was
destroyed by the Danes about 867. Of the library at Whitby there is a
catalogue dating from the 12th century. The catalogue of Glastonbury has
been printed by Hearne in his edition of John of Glastonbury. When the
library of Croyland perished by fire in 1091 it contained about 700
vols. The library at Peterborough was also rich; from a catalogue of
about the end of the 14th century it had 344 vols., with nearly 1700
titles. The catalogues of the library at the monastery of Durham have
been printed by the Surtees Society, and form an interesting series.
These catalogues with many others[8] afford abundant evidence of the
limited character of the monkish collections, whether we look at the
number of their volumes or at the nature of their contents. The
scriptoria were manufactories of books and not centres of learning. That
in spite of the labours of so many transcribers the costliness and
scarcity of books remained so great may have been partly, but cannot
have been wholly, due to the scarcity of writing materials. It may be
suspected that indolence and carelessness were the rule in most
monasteries, and that but few of the monks keenly realized the whole
force of the sentiment expressed by one of their number in the 12th
century--"Claustrum sine armario quasi castrum sine armamentario."
Nevertheless it must be admitted that to the labours of the monastic
transcribers we are indebted for the preservation of Latin literature.
The development of library arrangements.
The subject of the evolution of the arrangement of library rooms and
fittings as gradually developed throughout medieval Europe should not be
passed over.[9] The real origin of library organization in the Christian
world, one may almost say the origin of modern library methods, began
with the rule of St Benedict early in the 6th century. In the 48th
chapter the monks were ordered to borrow a book apiece and to read it
straight through. There was no special apartment for the books in the
primitive Benedictine house. After the books became too numerous to be
kept in the church they were preserved in _armaria_, or chests, in the
cloister; hence the word _armarius_, the Benedictine librarian, who at
first joined with it the office of precentor. The Benedictine
regulations were developed in the stricter observances of the Cluniacs,
which provided for a kind of annual report and stocktaking. The
Carthusians were perhaps the first to lend books away from the convent;
and the Cistercians to possess a separate library official as well as a
room specially devoted to books. The observances of the Augustinians
contained rules for the binding, repairing, cataloguing and arranging
the books by the librarian, as well as a prescription of the exact kind
of chest to be used. Among the Premonstratensians or Reformed
Augustinians, it was one of the duties of the librarian to provide for
the borrowing of books elsewhere for the use of the monks. The Mendicant
Friars found books so necessary that at last Richard de Bury tells us
with some exaggeration that their libraries exceeded all others. Many
volumes still exist which belonged to the library at Assisi, the parent
house of the Franciscans, of which a catalogue was drawn up in 1381. No
authentic monastic bookcase can now be found; the doubtful example shown
at Bayeux probably contained ecclesiastical utensils. At the Augustinian
priory at Barnwell the presses were lined with wood to keep out the damp
and were partitioned off both vertically and horizontally. Sometimes
there were recesses in the walls of the cloisters fitted with shelves
and closed with a door. These recesses developed into a small windowless
room in the Cistercian houses. At Clairvaux, Kirkstall, Fountains,
Tintern, Netley and elsewhere this small chamber was placed between the
chapter-house and the transept of the church. At Meaux in Holderness the
books were lodged on shelves against the walls and even over the door of
such a chamber. In many houses the treasury or spendiment contained two
classes of books--one for the monks generally, others more closely
guarded. A press near the infirmary contained books used by the reader
in the refectory. By the end of the 15th century the larger monasteries
became possessed of many volumes and found themselves obliged to store
the books, hitherto placed in various parts of the building, in a
separate apartment. We now find libraries being specially built at
Canterbury, Durham, Citeaux, Clairvaux and elsewhere, and with this
specialization there grew up increased liberality in the use of books
and learned strangers were admitted. Even at an early date students were
permitted to borrow from the Benedictines at St Germain-des-Prés at
Paris, of which a later foundation owned in 1513 a noble library erected
over the south wall of the cloister, and enlarged and made very
accessible to the outer world in the 17th and 18th centuries. The
methods and fittings of college libraries of early foundation closely
resembled those of the monastic libraries. There was in both the annual
giving out and inspection of what we would now call the lending
department for students; while the books, fastened by chains--a kind of
reference department kept in the library chamber for the common use of
the fellows--followed a similar system in monastic institutions. By the
15th century collegiate and monastic libraries were on the same plan,
with the separate room containing books placed on their sides on desks
or lecterns, to which they were attached by chains to a horizontal bar.
As the books increased the accommodation was augmented by one or two
shelves erected above the desks. The library at Cesena in North Italy
may still be seen in its original condition. The Laurentian library at
Florence was designed by Michelangelo on the monastic model. Another
good example of the old form may be seen, in the library of Merton
College at Oxford, a long narrow room with bookcases standing between
the windows at right angles to the walls. In the chaining system one end
was attached to the wooden cover of the book while the other ran freely
on a bar fixed by a method of double locks to the front of the shelf or
desk on which the book rested. The fore edges of the volumes faced the
reader. The seat and shelf were sometimes combined. Low cases were
subsequently introduced between the higher cases, and the seat replaced
by a step. Shelf lists were placed at the end of each case. There were
no chains in the library of the Escorial, erected in 1584, which showed
for the first time bookcases placed against the walls. Although chains
were no longer part of the appliances in the newly erected libraries
they continued to be used and were ordered in bequests in England down
to the early part of the 18th century. Triple desks and revolving
lecterns, raised by a wooden screw, formed part of the library
furniture. The English cathedral libraries were fashioned after the same
principle. The old methods were fully reproduced in the fittings at
Westminster, erected at a late date. Here we may see books on shelves
against the walls as well as in cases at right angles to the walls; the
desk-like shelves for the chained volumes (no longer in existence) have
a slot in which the chains could be suspended, and are hinged to allow
access to shelves below. An ornamental wooden tablet at the end of each
case is a survival of the old shelf list. By the end of the 17th century
the type of the public library developed from collegiate and monastic
prototypes, became fixed as it were throughout Europe (H. R. Tedder,
"Evolution of the Public Library," in _Trans. of 2nd Int. Library
Conference_, 1897, 1898).
Arabians.
The first conquests of the Arabians, as we have already seen, threatened
hostility to literature. But, as soon as their conquests were secured,
the caliphs became the patrons of learning and science. Greek
manuscripts were eagerly sought for and translated into Arabic, and
colleges and libraries everywhere arose. Baghdad in the east and Cordova
in the west became the seats of a rich development of letters and
science during the age when the civilization of Europe was most
obscured. Cairo and Tripoli were also distinguished for their libraries.
The royal library of the Fatimites in Africa is said to have numbered
100,000 manuscripts, while that collected by the Omayyads of Spain is
reported to have contained six times as many. It is said that there were
no less than seventy libraries opened in the cities of Andalusia.
Whether these figures be exaggerated or not--and they are much below
those given by some Arabian writers, which are undoubtedly so--it is
certain that the libraries of the Arabians and the Moors of Spain offer
a very remarkable contrast to those of the Christian nations during the
same period.[10]
Renaissance.
The literary and scientific activity of the Arabians appears to have
been the cause of a revival of letters amongst the Greeks of the
Byzantine empire in the 9th century. Under Leo the Philosopher and
Constantine Porphyrogenitus the libraries of Constantinople awoke into
renewed life. The compilations of such writers as Stobaeus, Photius and
Suidas, as well as the labours of innumerable critics and commentators,
bear witness to the activity, if not to the lofty character of the
pursuits, of the Byzantine scholars. The labours of transcription were
industriously pursued in the libraries and in the monasteries of Mount
Athos and the Aegean, and it was from these quarters that the restorers
of learning brought into Italy so many Greek manuscripts. In this way
many of the treasures of ancient literature had been already conveyed
to the West before the fate which overtook the libraries of
Constantinople on the fall of the city in 1453.
Meanwhile in the West, with the reviving interest in literature which
already marks the 14th century, we find arising outside the monasteries
a taste for collecting books. St Louis of France and his successors had
formed small collections, none of which survived its possessor. It was
reserved for Charles V. to form a considerable library which he intended
to be permanent. In 1373 he had amassed 910 volumes, and had a catalogue
of them prepared, from which we see that it included a good deal of the
new sort of literature. In England Guy, earl of Warwick, formed a
curious collection of French romances, which he bequeathed to Bordesley
Abbey on his death in 1315. Richard d'Aungervyle of Bury, the author of
the _Philobiblon_, amassed a noble collection of books, and had special
opportunities of doing so as Edward III.'s chancellor and ambassador. He
founded Durham College at Oxford, and equipped it with a library a
hundred years before Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, made his benefaction
of books to the university. The taste for secular literature, and the
enthusiasm for the ancient classics, gave a fresh direction to the
researches of collectors. A disposition to encourage literature began to
show itself amongst the great. This was most notable amongst the Italian
princes. Cosimo de' Medici formed a library at Venice while living there
in exile in 1433, and on his return to Florence laid the foundation of
the great Medicean library. The honour of establishing the first modern
public library in Italy had been already secured by Niccolo Niccoli, who
left his library of over 800 volumes for the use of the public on his
death in 1436. Frederick, duke of Urbino, collected all the writings in
Greek and Latin which he could procure, and we have an interesting
account of his collection written by his first librarian, Vespasiano.
The ardour for classical studies led to those active researches for the
Latin writers who were buried in the monastic libraries which are
especially identified with the name of Poggio. For some time before the
fall of Constantinople, the perilous state of the Eastern empire had
driven many Greek scholars from that capital into western Europe, where
they had directed the studies and formed the taste of the zealous
students of the Greek language and literature. The enthusiasm of the
Italian princes extended itself beyond the Alps. Matthias Corvinus, king
of Hungary, amassed a collection of splendidly executed and
magnificently bound manuscripts, which at his death are said to have
reached the almost incredible number of 50,000 vols. The library was not
destined long to survive its founder. There is reason to believe that it
had been very seriously despoiled even before it perished at the hands
of the Turks on the fall of Buda in 1527. A few of its treasures are
still preserved in some of the libraries of Europe. While these
munificent patrons of learning were thus taking pains to recover and
multiply the treasures of ancient literature by the patient labour of
transcribers and calligraphers, an art was being elaborated which was
destined to revolutionize the whole condition of literature and
libraries. With the invention of printing, so happily coinciding with
the revival of true learning and sound science, the modern history of
libraries may be said to begin.