LIBRARIES OF THE GREAT ABBEYS--BOOK-LOVERS AMONG THE
MENDICANTS--DISPERSAL OF MONKISH LIBRARIES
§ I
The Conquest wrought both good and evil to literature--evil because the
Normans thought books written in the vernacular unworthy of
preservation;[90] good because the change brought to the country settled
government, and to the church an opportunity for reformation. Lanfranc
was the moving spirit of reform, both in church administration and in
the learning of its members. While still in Normandy he had built up a
reputation for the monastic school at Bec, and probably had a share in
collecting the excellent library that we know the monastery possessed in
the twelfth century.[91] When he was appointed to the see of Canterbury
he continued to work for the same ends, although his primacy can have
left him little leisure. A fresh beginning had to be made in Canterbury.
In 1067 a fire destroyed the city, including the cathedral and almost
the whole of the monastic buildings; and in this disaster many “sacred
and profane books” were burned. It was Lanfranc’s task to repair this
loss. He brought books with him,[92] and introduced some changes and
more method in the making and use of them. In the customary of the
Benedictine order which he drew up to correspond with the best monastic
practice, he included minute instructions about lending and reading
books. He was also responsible in the main for the substitution of the
continental Roman handwriting for the beautiful Hiberno-Saxon hand. In
another respect his influence was more beneficial. Both at Bec and in
England he aimed to turn out accurate texts of patristic books, and the
better to achieve this end he himself corrected manuscripts. In the
abbey of St. Martin de Sécz at one time there was a copy of the first
ten _Conferences_ of Cassian with his corrections; and in the library of
Mans is a St. Ambrose which was overlooked by him.[93] Happily he was in
a position to lend texts to monks for transcribing, and his help in this
direction was sought by Abbot Paul of St. Albans. Recent research by Dr.
Montagu James suggests that Lanfranc’s work for the Canterbury library
was a good deal more practical and influential than has been usually
believed. Among the survivors of the Canterbury collections at Trinity
College, Cambridge, and elsewhere, “are some scores of volumes
undoubtedly from Christ Church, all of one epoch,” the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, and all written in hands modelled on an Italian
style. “Another distinguishing mark,” writes Dr. James, “in these
volumes is the employment of a peculiar purple in the decorative
initials and headings.... The nearest approaches I find to it in England
are in certain manuscripts which were once at St. Augustine’s Abbey, and
in others which belonged to Rochester. It can be shown that books did
occasionally pass from Christ Church to St. Augustine’s, and it can also
be shown that certain of the Rochester books were written at Christ
Church.” All these books, therefore, Dr. James believes, were given by
Lanfranc or produced under his direction.[94]
Lanfranc also encouraged original composition, for Osbern, monk of
Canterbury, compiled his lives of St. Dunstan, St. Alphege, and St. Odo
under his eye.
In this work of bookmaking and collecting Lanfranc was supported or his
example was followed by other monks from Normandy: by Abbot Walter of
Evesham, who made many books;[95] by Ernulf of Rochester, who compiled
the _Textus Roffensis_; and by many others. At this time grew up the
practice of using English houses to supply books for Norman abbeys; this
partly explains the number of manuscripts of English workmanship now
abroad. A manuscript preserved in Paris contains a note by a canon of
Ste-Barbe-en-Auge referring to Beckford in Gloucestershire, an English
cell of his house, whence books were sent to Normandy.[96]
From Lanfranc to the close of the thirteenth century, was the
summer-time of the English religious houses. The Cluniac or reformed
Benedictines settled here about 1077. In 1105 the Austin Canons first
planted a house in this country. The White Monks, another reformed
Benedictine order, entered England in 1128, and in the course of four
and twenty years founded fifty houses. Soon after, in 1139, the English
Gilbertines were established, then came the White Canons, and in 1180
the Carthusian monks. The land was peppered with houses. In less than a
century and a half, from the Conquest to about 1200, it is estimated
that no fewer than 430 houses were founded, making, with 130 founded
before the Conquest, 560 in all.[97] Many were wealthy: some were
powerful, because they owned much property, and popular because, like
Malmesbury, they were “distinguished for their ‘delightful hospitality’
to guests who, arriving every hour, consume more than the inmates
themselves.”[98] The Cluniacs could almost be called a fashionable
order.
During this prosperous age some of the great houses did their best work
in writing and study. Thus to pick out one or two facts from a string of
them. In 1104 Abbot Peter of Gloucester gave many books to the abbey
library. In 1180 the refounded abbey of Whitby owned a fair library of
theological, historical, and classical books.[99] About the same time
Abbot Benedict ordered the transcription of sixty volumes, containing
one hundred titles, for his library at Peterborough.[100] By 1244, in
spite of losses in the fire of 1184, Glastonbury had a library of some
four hundred volumes, historical books consorting with romances, Bibles
and patristical works almost crowding out some forlorn classics.[101]
Nearly half a century later
[Illustration: _PLATE VII_
ABBOT ROGER DE NORTHONE WITH HIS BOOKS
ABBOT GARIN WITH HIS BOOKS]
Abbot John of Taunton added to Glastonbury forty volumes, a notable gift
in those days of costly books, while Adam of Domerham tells us he also
made a fine, handsome, and spacious library.[102] In 1277 a general
chapter of the Benedictines ordered the monks, according to their
capabilities, to study, write, correct, illuminate, and bind books,
rather than to labour in the field.[103]
To such facts as these should be added the record of the Canterbury,
Dover, and Bury libraries, the histories of which have been so admirably
written by Dr. M. R. James.[104] Of the library of St. Albans Abbey we
have not such a fine series of catalogues. Yet no abbey could have a
nobler record. From Paul (1077) to Whethamstede (_d._ 1465) nearly all
its abbots were book-lovers.[105] Paul built a writing-room, and put in
the aumbries twenty-eight fine books (_volumina notabilia_), and eight
Psalters, a Collectarium, books of the Epistles and Gospels for the
year, two copies of the Gospels adorned with gold and silver and
precious stones, without speaking of ordinals, customaries, missals,
troparies, collectaria, and other books. Here, as everywhere, the
library began with church books: later, easier circumstances made the
stream of knowledge broader, if shallower. The next abbot also added
some books. Geoffrey, the sixteenth abbot, was the author of a miracle
play, an industrious scribe, and the donor of some books finely
illuminated and bound. His successor, at one time the conventual
archivist, loved books equally well, and got together a fair collection.
Great Abbot Robert had many books written--“too many to be
mentioned.”[106] Simon, the next abbot (1167), a learned and good-living
man who encouraged others to learn, was especially fond of books, and
had many fine manuscripts written for the painted aumbry in the church.
He repaired and improved the scriptorium. He also made a provision
whereby each succeeding abbot should have at work one special scribe,
called the historiographer, an innovation to which we owe the matchless
series of chronicles of Roger of Wendover, Matthew Paris, William
Rishanger, and John of Trokelowe. In a Cottonian manuscript is a
portrait of Abbot Simon at his book-trunk, a picture interesting because
it illustrates his predominant taste for books, as well as one
method--then the usual method--of storing them.
John, worthy follower of Simon, was a man of learning, who added many
noble and useful books to St. Albans’ store. William of Trompington
(1214) distinguished himself by giving to the abbey books he had taken
from his prior. Abbot Roger was a better man, and gave many books and
pieces; but John III and IV and Hugh are barren rocks in our fertile
valley, for apparently they did nothing for the library. Richard of
Wallingford did worse than nothing. He bribed Richard de Bury with four
volumes, and sold to him thirty-two books for fifty pounds of silver,
retaining one-half of this sum for himself, and devoting the other
moiety to Epicurus--“a deed,” cries the chronicler, “infamous to all who
agreed to it, so to make the only nourishment of the soul serve the
belly, and upon any account to apply spiritual dainties to the demands
of the flesh.”[107] Abbot Michael de Mentmore, who had been educated at
Oxford, and became schoolmaster at St. Albans, encouraged the
educational work of the abbey by making
[Illustration: _PLATE VIII_
ABBOT SIMON OF ST. ALBANS AT HIS BOOK CHEST]
studies for the scholars. As he also ordered the morning mass to be
celebrated directly after prime, or six o’clock, instead of at tierce,
or about nine, to allow the students more time, it is safe to assume he
was more zealous than popular. He also gave books which cost him more
than £100. His successor, Thomas, enlarged his own study, and bought
many books for it; and, with the assistance of Thomas of Walsingham,
then precentor and master of the scriptorium, he built a writing-room at
his own expense.
But Whethamstede was St. Albans’ greatest book-loving abbot. An ardent
book-lover, especially fond of finely-illuminated volumes, he indulged
his passion for manuscripts, and for conventual buildings, vestments,
and property, until he got the abbey into debt, and was led to resign.
After the death of his successor, Whethamstede was re-elected. In his
time no fewer than eighty-seven volumes were transcribed.[108] In
1452-53 he built a new library at a cost of more than £150. Another
library was erected for the College of the Black Monks at Oxford, for
£60.[109] It was described as a “new erection of a library joyning on
the south-side of the chapel, containing on each side five or more
divisions, as it may be partly seen to this day by the windows thereof,
to which he gave good quantity of his own study, and especially those of
his own composition, which were not a few, and to deter plagiaries and
others from abusing of them, prefixt these verses in the front of every
one of the same books, as he did also to those that he gave to the
publick library of the University:
“Fratribus Oxoniae datur in munus liber iste
Per patrem pecorum prothomartyris Angligenarum;
Quem, si quis rapiat raptim, titulumve retractet,
Vel Judae laqueum, vel furcas sentiat; Amen
“In other books which he gave to the said library these:
“Discior ut docti fieret nova regia plebi
Culta magisque Deae datur hic liber ara Minervae,
His qui Diis dictis libant holocausta ministris
Et circa bibulam sitiunt prae nectare limpham
Estque librique loci, idem dator, actor et unus.”[110]
This, in brief, is the story of St. Albans’ tribute to learning. In most
monasteries the same kind of work went on, in a more circumscribed
fashion, and without the same distinction of finish, which could
probably only be attained at the big places where expert scribes and
illuminators could be well trained.[111]
§ II
Fortunately, just when the great houses had attained the summit of their
prosperity, and were beginning the slow decline to dissolution, learning
and book-culture were freshly encouraged by the coming of the Friars.
The Black Friars settled at Canterbury and in London, near the Old
Temple in Holborn, in 1221. The Grey Friars were at London, Oxford, and
Cambridge in 1224, and by 1256 they were in forty-nine different
localities.[112] It is strange how the latter order, founded by a man
who forbade a novice to own a Psalter, came to be as earnest in buying
books as the Benedictines were in copying them. St. Francis’ ideal,
however, was impossible. The peripatetic nature of their calling, and
their duty of tending the sick, compelled many friars to learn foreign
languages, and to acquire some medical knowledge. Books were,
therefore, useful to them, if not essential; as indeed St. Francis
ultimately recognized. However, they could not own books themselves, but
only in common with other members of the convent. If a friar was
promoted to a bishopric, he had to renounce the use of the books he had
had as a friar; and Clement IV forbade the consecration of a bishop
until he had returned the books to his friary. When a book was given to
a friar--and this often happened--he was in duty bound to hand it to his
Superior. But if the friar was a man of parts the gift was devoted to
acquiring books for his studies, or to giving him other necessary
assistance; the duty, it was held, which the Superior owed him.[113] But
these principles do not seem to have been strictly observed. In little
more than thirty years after St. Francis’ death it was found necessary
to draw up rules forbidding the brethren to own books except by leave
from the chief officer of the order, or to keep any books which were not
regarded as the property of the whole order, or to write books, or have
them written for sale.[114]
By the end of the thirteenth century the Mendicants of Oxford were
fairly well provided with books. Michael Scot came to Oxford, at the
time of the greatest literary activity of the brethren, and introduced
to them the physical and metaphysical works of Aristotle (1230).[115]
Adam de Marisco seems to have been responsible for the first
considerable additions to the collection. From his brother, Bishop
Richard, he had already received a library; possibly this, with his own
books, came into possession of the convent. Then out of love for him,
Grosseteste left his writings or his library--it is not clear which--to
the Grey Friars.[116] This gift may have formed part--it is not
certain--of the two valuable hoards existing in the fifteenth century in
the same friary, one the convent library, open only to graduates, the
other the Schools library, for seculars living among the brethren for
the sake of the teaching they could get. In these collections were many
Hebrew books, which had been bought upon the banishment of the Jews from
England (1290).[117] Such books were not often found in the abbeys,
although some got to Ramsey, where Grosseteste’s influence may be
suspected.
The White Friars also had a library at Oxford, wherein they garnered the
works of every famous writer of their order. They are praised for taking
more care of their books than the brethren of other colours.[118] In
later times, at any rate, some cause for the complaint against the Grey
Friars existed. They appear to have sold many manuscripts to Dr. Thomas
Gascoigne (_c._ 1433). He ultimately gave them to the libraries of
Lincoln, Durham, Balliol, and Oriel Colleges. As the friars’ mode of
life grew easier and the love of learning less keen, they got rid of
many more books. In Leland’s time the library had melted away. After
much difficulty he was allowed to see the book-room, but he found in it
nothing but dust and dirt, cobwebs and moths, and some books not worth a
threepenny piece.[119]
Roger de Thoris, afterwards Dean of Exeter, presented a library to the
Grey Friars of his city in 1266.[120] What became of it we do not know.
About the same time, in 1253 to be exact, the will of Richard de Wyche,
Bishop of Chichester, is notable for its bequests to the friars; thus he
left books to various friaries of the Grey Brethren--at
[Illustration: _PLATE IX_
GREY FRIARS, LONDON: THE OLD HALL AND WHITTINGTON’S LIBRARY]
Chichester his glossed Psalter, at Lewes the Gospels of St. Luke and St.
John, at Winchelsea the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, at
Canterbury Isaiah glossed, at London the Epistles of St. Paul glossed,
and at Winchester the twelve Prophets glossed; as well as some volumes
to the Black Friars--at Arundel the _Book of Sentences_, at Canterbury
Hosea glossed, at London the Books of Job, the Acts, the Apocalypse,
with the canonical epistles, and at Winchester the _Summa_ of William of
Auxerre.[121] Such friendliness for the Mendicants was far from common
among the secular clergy. Besides the southern places mentioned in this
bequest, friaries in the east, at Norwich and Ipswich, and in the west,
at Hereford and Bristol, had goodly libraries.
The friary collections in London seem to have been important, especially
that given to the Grey Friars in 1225,[122] just when they had settled
near Newgate. The Austin Friars may have owned a library before 1364,
when two of their number left the London house, taking with them books
and other goods.[123] Early in the fifteenth century a library was built
and a large addition was made to the books of this house by Prior Lowe,
a friar afterwards occupying the sees of St. Asaph and of
Rochester.[124] At this time the friars of London were specially
fortunate. The White Friars enjoyed a good library, to which Thomas
Walden, a learned brother of the order, presented many foreign
manuscripts of some age and rarity.[125] The Grey Friars’ library was
founded or refounded by Dick Whittington (1421).[126] The room “was in
length one hundred twentie nine foote, and in breadth thirtie one: all
seeled with Wainscot, having twentie eight desks, and eight double
setles of Wainscot. Which in the next yeare following was altogither
finished in building, and within three yeares after, furnished with
Bookes, to the charges of” over £556, “whereof Richard Whittington bare
foure hundred pound, the rest was borne by Doctor Thomas Winchelsey, a
Frier there.”[127] On this occasion one hundred marks were paid for
transcribing the works of Nicholas de Lyra, a Grey Friar highly esteemed
for his knowledge of Hebrew, and “the greatest exponent of the literal
sense of Scripture whom the medieval world can show.”[128]
Of few of the friary libraries have we definite knowledge of their size
and character. But in the case of the Austin Friars of York, a catalogue
of their library is extant. The collection was a notable one. The
inventory was made in 1372, and the items in it, forming the bulk of the
whole, with some later additions, amounted to 646. One member of the
society named John Erghome was a remarkable man. He was a doctor of
Oxford, where he had studied logic, natural philosophy, and theology.
More than 220 books were his contribution to this splendid library, and
he it was who added the Psalter and Canticles in Greek and a Hebrew
book,--rarities indeed at that date. Classical literature is fairly well
represented in the collection as a whole, but theology, and especially
logic and philosophy, make up the bulk.[129]
In Scotland, too, the Grey Friars were busy library-making. We find the
convent at Stirling buying five dozen parchments (1502). Fifty pounds
were paid for books sent to them this year by the Cistercians of
Culross, and to the Austin Canons of Cambuskenneth in the following
year about half as much was paid; and similar records appear in the
accounts.[130]
Other interesting testimony to the bookcraft and collecting habits of
the friars is not wanting. Adam de Marisco writes to the Friar Warden of
Cambridge asking for vellum for scribes.[131] Or he expresses the hope
that Richard of Cornwall may be prevailed upon to stay in England, but
if he goes he will be supplied with books and everything necessary for
his departure.[132] From this letter, it was evidently usual for friars
to seek and obtain permission to carry away books with them when going
abroad, or going from one custody to another.[133] Then again Adam
writes asking Grosseteste to send Aristotle’s _Ethics_ to the Grey
Friars’ convent in London.[134] In getting books the friars were
sometimes unscrupulous. A royal writ was issued commanding the Warden of
the Grey Friars at Oxford and another friar, Walter de Chatton, to
return two books worth forty shillings which they were keeping from the
rightful owner (1330).[135] More striking testimony to the
book-collecting habits of the friars is the complaint to the Pope of
their buying so many books that the monks and clergy had difficulty in
obtaining them. In every convent, it was urged, was a grand and noble
library, and every friar of eminence in the University had a fine
collection of books.[136] Archbishop Fitzralph, who made this statement,
detested the friars, and was besides prone to exaggerate; but he was not
wholly wrong in this instance, as De Bury tells a similar tale.
“Whenever it happened,” he says, “that we turned aside to the cities and
places where the mendicants ... had their convents, we did not disdain
to visit their libraries ...; there we found heaped up amid the utmost
poverty the utmost riches of wisdom. These men are as ants.... They have
added more in this brief [eleventh] hour to the stock of the sacred
books than all the other vine-dressers.”[137] Instead of declaiming
against the hawks, De Bury trained them to prey for him, and was well
rewarded for his pains. Nor is it beyond the bounds of probability that
he enriched his own collection at the expense of the Grey Friars’
library at Oxford.[138]
The friars were not merely collectors. The scholarship of Bacon and
other brethren does not concern us. But their correction of the texts of
Scripture, and their bibliographical work, are germane to our subject.
In mid-thirteenth century some Black Friars of Paris laboured to correct
the text of the Latin Bible; and to enable copyists to restore the true
text when transcribing, they drew up manuals, called _Correctoria_. One
such manual, now known as the _Correctorium Vaticanum_, was prepared by
William de la Mare, a Grey brother of Oxford, in the course of forty
years’ labour; and it is “a work which before all others laid down sound
principles of true scientific criticism upon which to base a correction
of the Vulgate text.”[139]
Another special work of the Grey brethren, the _Registrum Librorum
Angliae_[140] was less important, although it more clearly illustrates
their high regard for books. Some time in the fourteenth century, by
seeking information from about one hundred and sixty monasteries, some
friars drew
[Illustration: _PLATE X_
THE GREY FRIARS’ CATALOGUE OF CONVENTUAL LIBRARIES
BODL. MS. TANNER 165, F. 119]
up a list of libraries under the heads of the seven custodies or
wardenships of their order in England, and catalogued the writings of
some eighty-five authors represented in these collections. In this way
was formed a combined bibliography and co-operative catalogue. Of this
catalogue we are able to reproduce a page on which are indexed five
authors, with numerical references to the libraries containing each
work. Early in the fifteenth century a monk of Bury St. Edmunds, John
Boston by name--possibly the librarian of that house--expanded the
register by increasing to nearly seven hundred the number of authors,
and by adding a score of names to the list of libraries. He also
provided a short biographical sketch of each author “drawn from the best
sources at his disposal; so that the book in its completed form might
claim to be called a dictionary of literature.”[141]
§ III
We would fain fill in the outline we have given, for the friars and
their book-loving ways are interesting. But enough has been written to
show the origin and growth of libraries among the religious both of the
abbeys and the friaries. Of the later days of monachism it is not so
pleasant to write. The story has been well told many times, but no two
writers, even in a broad and general way, let alone in detail, have read
the facts alike. On the one hand it is urged that monachism became
degenerate, both in reverence for spiritual affairs and in love of
learning. Many monks, we are told, came to find more enjoyment in easy
living than in ascetic and religious observances. Apart from the savage
onslaughts in _Piers Plowman_, and the yarns of Layton and Legh, now
quite discredited, we have the most credible evidence in Chaucer’s
gentle satire:--
“A monk ther was, a fair for the maistrye,
An out-rydere, that lovede venerye; [hunting]
A manly man, to been an abbot able,
Ful many a deyntee hors hadde he in stable:
* * * * *
He was a lord ful fat and in good point [well-equipped]
His eyen stepe, and rollinge in his heed.” [eyes bright]
The friars, too, were sometimes “merye and wantoun,” and
“knew the tavernes wel in every toun,
And everich hostiler or gay tappestere.”
And an indictment of some force might be based on the fact that the
general chapter of the Benedictine order at Coventry in 1516 found it
necessary to make regulations against immoderate and illicit eating and
drinking, and against hunting and hawking.[142]
No doubt also many a monk would argue with himself:--
“What sholde he studie, and make him-selven wood [mad]
Upon a book in cloistre alwey to poure
Or swinken with his handes, and laboure [toil]
As Austin bit?” [As St. Augustine bids]
De Bury declaimed against the monks’ neglect of books. “Now slothful
Thersites,” he cries, “handles the arms of Achilles and the choice
trappings of war-horses are spread upon lazy asses, winking owls lord it
in the eagle’s nest, and the cowardly kite sits upon the perch of the
hawk.
“Liber Bacchus is ever loved,
And is into their bellies shoved,
By day and by night.
Liber Codex is neglected,
And with scornful hand rejected
Far out of their sight.”
“And as if the simple monastic folk of modern times were deceived by a
confusion of names, while Liber Pater is preferred to Liber Patrum, the
study of the monks nowadays is in the emptying of cups and not the
emending of books; to which they do not hesitate to add the wanton music
of Timotheus, jealous of chastity, and thus the song of the merrymaker
and not the chant of the mourner is become the office of the monks.
Flocks and fleeces, crops and granaries, leeks and potherbs, drink and
goblets, are nowadays the reading and study of the monks, except a few
elect ones, in whom lingers not the image but some slight vestige of the
fathers that preceded them.”[143] Specific instances of neglect and
worse are recorded. We have already mentioned the giving and selling of
books by the monks of St. Albans to Richard de Bury. From the account
books of Bolton Abbey it would appear that three books only were bought
during forty years of the fourteenth century.[144] At St. Werburgh’s,
Chester, discipline was very lax. Two monks robbed the abbot of a book
valued at £20, and of property valued at £100 or more, and stole from
two of their brethren books and money (1409). About four years later one
of the thieves was elected abbot, and his respect for learning may be
gauged from the fact that in 1422 he was charged with not having
maintained a scholar at Oxford or Cambridge for twelve years, although
it was his duty to do so by the rules of his order.[145]
At Bury books were going astray in the first half of the fifteenth
century. Abbot William Curteys (1429-45) issued an ordinance in which he
declares books given out by the precentor to the brethren for purposes
of study had been lent, pledged, and even stolen by them. Some of them
he had recovered, and he hoped to secure more, but the process of
recovery had been expensive and troublesome, both to himself and the
people he found in possession of the books. He therefore sternly forbade
the brethren to alienate books, and decrees certain punishments if his
order was disobeyed. Brethren studying at the University seem to have
been not immune from such faults.[146] The prior of Michelham sold
books, papers, horses, and timber for his own personal profit (1478). A
visitation of Wigmore showed that books were not “studied in the
cloister because the seats were uncomfortable.”[147] Bishop Goldwell’s
visitation of his diocese of Norwich in 1492 showed that at Norwich
Priory no scholars were sent to study at Oxford, and at Wymondham Abbey
the monks “refused to apply themselves to their books.” At Battle Abbey,
in 1530, the one time fine library was in a sad state of neglect; no
doubt books had been parted with. And as the last years of the
monasteries coincided with a renewed interest among seculars in learning
and with a revival of book-collecting, the monks of all houses must have
been sorely tempted to sell books which laymen coveted, as the monks of
Mount Athos have been bartering away their libraries ever since the
seventeenth century.
But among so many houses some were bound to be ill-conducted. And it is
important to remember that irregularities would be recorded oftener than
more favourable facts. What had been usual would go unnoted; what was
strange, and a departure from the highest standard of monachism, would
be observed with regret by friends and dwelt on with spite by enemies.
Although human memory is apt to register evil acts with more assiduity
and fidelity than good, yet a contrary view of the last state of
monachism may be argued with as much reason and with the support of
equally reliable evidence. The great majority of the houses were not
under lax control. The general organisation was not defective; nor was
every monk a “lorel, a loller, and a ‘spille-tyme.’” Setting aside the
question of general conduct, with which we have little to do, plenty of
evidence may be collected to show that the work of the earlier periods
was not only continued in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but
that some of the monks enjoyed special distinction among their
contemporaries. Writing was encouraged by directions of chapters in
1343, 1388, and 1444.[148] The early part of the fifteenth century was
an age of library building, in the monasteries, as at the Universities.
Special rooms for books were put up at Gloucester, Christ Church
(Canterbury), Durham, Bury St. Edmunds, and other houses. Large and
growing monastic libraries were in existence--at St. Albans and
Peterborough, two at Canterbury of nearly two thousand volumes each, two
thousand volumes at Bury, a thousand and more at Durham, six hundred at
Ramsey, three hundred and fifty at Meaux. When John Leland crossed the
threshold of the library at Glastonbury he stood stock still for a
moment, awestruck and bewildered at the sight of books of the greatest
antiquity. In 1482, the abbess of Syon monastery, Isleworth, entered
into a regular contract for writing and binding books.[149] Some forty
years later this abbey had at least fourteen hundred and twenty-one
printed and manuscript volumes in its library.[150] More facts of
similar character will be noted in the next chapter. Here we will
content ourselves with noting a few of the most conspicuous instances of
monkish scholarship in these later days. At Glastonbury, Abbot John
Selwood was familiar with John Free’s work; indeed, presents a monk with
one of that scholar’s translations from the Greek.[151] His successor,
Bere, was a pilgrim to Italy, and was in correspondence with Erasmus,
who desired him to examine his translation of the New Testament from the
Greek. A monk of Westminster, who became abbot of his house in 1465, was
a diligent student, noted for his knowledge of Greek.[152] At Christ
Church, Canterbury, Prior Selling was particularly zealous on behalf of
the library, and was one of the first to import Greek books into England
in any considerable quantity.[153] Two manuscripts now in the library of
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and one in New College, were transcribed
by a Greek living at Reading Abbey (1497-1500).[154] These few
references to the study of Greek are especially significant, as the
revival of Greek studies had only just begun.
§ IV
The whole truth about the later days of the monasteries will never be
known. Many of the original sources of our knowledge are tainted with
partisanship and religious rancour and flagrant dishonesty. What does
seem to be true is that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
monastic influence grew slowly weaker, although the system may not have
been degenerate in itself. The cause is to be found in the very
prosperity of monachism, which brought to the religious houses wealth
and all its responsibilities. Wealth always imposes fetters, as every
rich man, from Seneca downwards, has declared with unctuous lamentation.
But
[Illustration: _PLATE XI_
TWELFTH CENTURY ILLUMINATION FROM BURY ST. EDMUNDS ABBEY
THE MINIATURE IS ON SPECIAL VELLUM STUCK ON TO THE LEAF. MS. 2 FO. 281
B. C.C. COLL. CAMB.]
what first strikes the student who compares early English monachism with
the later is, that whereas the monks of the first period were most
concerned with their monastic duties, their religious observances, and
their scribing and illuminating, the monks of the later period, and
especially during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were immersed
in business, in the management of their wealth, the control of large
estates. The possession of wealth led in one direction to excessive
display, and to purchasing land and building beyond their means; a
course which monks might easily persuade themselves was progressive and
exemplary of true religious fervour, but which attracted to them envious
eyes. Heavy subsidies to the Crown and the Pope oppressed them. Then
again, many houses indulged in unwise and excessive almsgiving, which
the monks might well believe to be right, but which brought them only
the interested friendship of the needy. And in the management of their
estates much litigation obstinately pursued caused internal dissension,
was costly, and gained them only bitter enemies. Had the monasteries
been allowed to exist, probably these evils would have cured themselves.
But, owing to these evils,--to the decline of monastic influence of
which they were the cause,--the Dissolution, once decided upon, could be
carried out with terrible swiftness and completeness; no influence nor
power which the religious could wield was able to delay or avert the
blow struck by the king. Within a few years over one thousand houses
were closed and their lands and property confiscated.
In the hastiness of the overthrow some conventual books were destroyed,
or stolen, or sold off at low prices. In a few places damage was done
even before the actual dissolution. At Christ Church, Canterbury, for
example, the drunken servants of a royal commission carelessly brought
about a fire, almost entirely destroying the library of Prior
Selling,[155] which he probably designed to add to the collection of his
monastery. But when the houses were suppressed, we are told, “whole
libraries were destroyed, or made waste paper of, or consumed for the
vilest uses. The splendid and magnificent Abbey of Malmesbury, which
possessed some of the finest manuscripts in the kingdom, was ransacked,
and its treasures either sold or burnt to serve the commonest purposes
of life. An antiquary who travelled through that town, many years after
the Dissolution, relates that he saw broken windows patched up with
remnants of the most valuable manuscripts on vellum, and that the bakers
had not even then consumed the stores they had accumulated, in heating
their ovens.”[156] John Bale tells us the loss of the libraries had not
mattered so much, “beynge so many in nombre, and in so desolate places
for the more parte, yf the chiefe monumentes and most notable workes of
our excellent wryters had been reserved. If there had been in every
shyre of Englande but one solempne lybrary to the preservacyon of those
noble workes, and preferrement of good lernynges in oure posteryte, it
had bene yet sumwhat. But to destroye all without consyderacyon, is and
wyll be unto Englande for ever, a most horryble infamy amonge the grave
senyours of other nacyons. A great nombre of them whych purchased these
superstycyouse mansyons reserved of those lybrary bokes, some to serve
theyr jakes, some to scoure theyr candlestycks, and some to rubbe theyr
bootes. Some they sold to the grossers and sopesellers, and some they
sent over see to the bokebynders, not in small nombre, but at tymes
whole shyppes full, to the wonderynge of the foren nacyons. Yea, the
unyversytees of this realme are not all clere in this detestable
fact.... I know a merchant man which shall at thys tyme be namelesse,
that boughte the contentes of two noble lybraryes for xl shyllynges
pryce, a shame it is to be spoken. Thys stuffe hath he occupyed in the
stede of graye paper by the space of more than these x years, and yet he
hath store ynough for many yeares to come.”[157] To some extent Bale’s
account of the contemptuous treatment of books is confirmed by records
of sales: as, for example, the following:--
Item, sold to Robert Doryngton, old boke, and a cofer in the library ijs.
Item, old bokes in the vestry, sold to the same Robert viiid.
Item, sold to Robert Whytgreve, a missale viijd.
Fyrst, sold to Mr. Whytgreve, a masse boke xijd.
Item, old bokes in the quyer vjd.
Item, a fryers masse boke, solde to Marke Wyrley iiijd.[158]
Bale’s statement is sadly borne out by the fate of the library of the
Austin Friars of York. At one time this friary owned between six and
seven hundred books. Now but five are known to remain.[159] “It is
hardly open to doubt,” writes Dr. James, “that nine-tenths of the books
have ceased to exist. To be sure, it is no news to us that thousands,
perhaps hundreds of thousands, of manuscripts were destroyed in the
first half of the sixteenth century; but the truth comes heavily home
when we are confronted with the actual figures of the loss sustained in
one small corner of the field. We may fairly reckon that what happened
in the case of the Austin Friars at York happened to many another house
situated like it, in a populous centre, and thus enjoying good
opportunities for acquiring books.”[160]
But the loss may be--and has been--exaggerated. In some instances a good
part of a library was preserved. The Prior of Lanthony, a house in the
outskirts of Gloucester, saved the books of his little community. From
him they passed into the hands of one Theyer; later, possibly through
Archbishop Bancroft, they found an ultimate resting-place in Lambeth
Palace. During this interval many of them were perhaps lost or sold, but
to-day some one hundred and thirty are known certainly to have come from
Lanthony, or may be credited to that place on reasonably safe
evidence.[161]
Then again Henry’s myrmidons--to use the classic word--would be unlikely
to carry their vandalism too far. To do so, in view of the great value
of books, would bring them no profit. Knowing their character, may we
not reasonably assume that they sold as many books as they could to make
illicit gains?[162] Sometimes they fell in love with their finds, as was
natural. “Please it you to understand,” writes Thomas Bedyll, one of
Henry VIII’s commissioners, “that in the reding of the muniments and
charters of the house of Ramesey, I found a charter of King Edgar,
writen in a very antiq Romane hand, hard to be red at the first sight,
and light inowghe after that a man found out vj or vij words and after
compar letter to letter. I am suer ye wold delight to see the same for
the straingnes and antiquite thereof.... I have seen also there a
chartor of King Edward writen affor the Conquest.”[163]
[Illustration: _PLATE XII_
“WESTMINSTER” ILLUMINATION
THIRTEENTH CENTURY]
John Leland was one of those who saved books. Already he had been
commissioned to examine the libraries of cathedrals, abbeys, priories,
colleges, and other places wherein the records of antiquity were kept,
when, observing with dismay the threatened loss of monastic treasures,
he asked Cromwell to extend the commission to collecting books for the
king’s library. The Germans, he says, perceiving our “desidiousness” and
negligence, were daily sending young scholars hither, who spoiled the
books, and cut them out of libraries, and returned home and put them
abroad as monuments of their own country.[164]
His request was granted in part, and he tells us he sent to London for
the royal library the choicest volumes in St. Augustine’s Abbey; but
very few of these books now remain.[165] He had, he said, “conservid
many good autors, the which otherwise had beene like to have perischid
to no smaul incommodite of good letters, of the whiche parte remayne yn
the moste magnificent libraries of yowr royal Palacis. Parte also
remayne yn my custodye. Wherby I truste right shortely so to describe
your most noble reaulme, and to publische the Majeste and the excellent
actes of yowr progenitors.”[166]
Robert Talbot, rector of Haversham, Berkshire (_d._ 1558), collected
monastic manuscripts: the choicest of them he left to New College. A
portreeve of Ipswich, named William Smart, came into possession of some
hundred volumes from Bury Abbey library. In 1599 he gave them to
Pembroke College, where they are now.[167] John Twyne, (_d._ 1581),
schoolmaster and mayor of Canterbury, certainly once owned the
fifteenth-century catalogue of the St. Augustine’s Abbey library, and
seems to have possessed many manuscripts. Both catalogue and manuscripts
were transferred to Dr. John Dee, the famous alchemist. The catalogue,
with some other books belonging to the doctor, got to the library of
Trinity College, Dublin. But the manuscripts passed into the hands of
Brian Twyne, John’s grandson, who bequeathed them to Corpus Christi
College, Oxford; they are still there.[168] John Stow, whose gatherings
form part of the Harleian collection, saved some books which once
reposed in claustral aumbries, mainly owing to the protection and help
of Archbishop Parker.
Archbishop Parker himself was assiduous in garnering books. “I have
within my house, in wages,” he writes to Lord Burleigh, in 1573,
“drawers and cutters, painters, limners, writers and bookbinders.”
Again, “I toy out my time, partly with copying of books.” He made a
strenuous endeavour to recover as many of the monks’ books as possible,
using money and influence to this end; and accumulated an unusually
large library, quite priceless in character.[169] Most of his choice
books were presented to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and
twenty-five of them to Cambridge University Library (1574). Dr. Montagu
James, the leading authority on the provenance of Western manuscripts,
has discovered or made suggestions as to the origin of nearly two
hundred out of about three hundred and eighty.[170] Forty-seven are
traced to Christ Church, Canterbury; twenty-six to St. Augustine’s
Abbey. Later Dr. James extended his work to identifying the manuscripts
which were once in the Canterbury abbeys and in the priory of St. Martin
at Dover. From the fragmentary Christ Church catalogue of 1170, Dr.
James has identified two, and possibly six, manuscripts; from Henry
Eastry’s catalogue (14 cent.) of Christ Church books, he has identified
either certainly or with much probability about one hundred and eighty;
from the catalogue of St. Augustine’s Abbey library (_c._ 1497) over one
hundred and seventy-five; as well as twenty from the Dover catalogue
(1389). In addition, Dr. James has identified about one hundred and
fifty manuscripts still extant which are certainly or probably
attributable to Christ Church monastic library, but which are not in the
catalogues handed down to us; and over sixty which are likewise
attributable to St. Augustine’s monastery.[171] There are therefore
about five hundred and seventy Canterbury manuscripts now remaining to
us.
By making a similarly thorough investigation Dr. James has traced about
three hundred and twenty-two manuscripts from Bury St. Edmunds.[172] Of
the Westminster Abbey manuscripts it is difficult to say how many are
extant, as the common medieval press marks are absent from the books of
this house. But the presence of eleven manuscripts in the British
Museum; two in Lambeth Palace; one at Sion College; three at the
Bodleian, and five more in Oxford colleges; two at the Cambridge
University Library, and two more in the colleges there; one at the
Chetham Library, Manchester; and two at Trinity College, Dublin, well
illustrate how the monastic books have been scattered since the
Dissolution.[173] To these special examinations Dr. James has gradually
added vastly to our knowledge of the provenance of manuscripts by his
masterly series of catalogues of the ancient treasures of the Cambridge
colleges, and he has proved to us that a considerable number of monastic
books still survive.[174] Much more work of the same kind remains to be
done; other labourers are needed; but the men of parts who are able and
content to labour at a task without remuneration and with small thanks
are few and far between; while fewer still are the publishers who can be
persuaded to produce the results of these researches.