THE USE OF BOOKS TOWARDS THE END OF THE MANUSCRIPT PERIOD
§ I
The cheapening of books has brought many pleasures, but has been the
cause of our losing--or almost losing--one pleasant social custom,--the
pastime of reciting tales by the fireside or at festivities, which was
popular until the end of the manuscript age.
“Men lykyn jestis for to here
And romans rede in divers manere.”
At their games and feasts and over their ale men were wont to hear tales
and verses.[437] The tale-tellers were usually professional wayfaring
entertainers: “japers and ‘mynstralles’ that sell ‘glee,’” as the scald
sang his lays before King Hygelac and roused Beowulf to slay Grendel--
“Gestiours, that tellen tales
Bothe of weping and of game.”[438]
Call hither, cries Sir Thopas, minstrels and gestours, “for to tellen
tales”--
“Of romances that been royales,
Of popes and of cardinals,
And eek of love-lykinge.” (ll. 2035-40).
Rhymers and poets had these entertainments in mind when they wrote--
“And red wher-so thou be, or elles songe,
That thou be understonde I god beseche,”
cries Chaucer.[439] Note also the preliminary request for silence and
attention at the beginning of _Sir Thopas_--
“Listeth, lordes, in good entent,
And I wol telle verrayment
Of mirthe and of solas [solace];
Al of a knyght was fair and gent [gallant]
In bataille and in tourneyment,
His name was Sir Thopas.”
At the beginning of his metrical chronicle of England Robert Mannyng of
Brunne begs the “Lordynges that be now here” to listen to the story of
England, as he had found it and Englished it for the solace of those
“lewed” men who knew not Latin or French.[440]
References to these minstrels are common--
“I warne you furst at the beginninge,
That I will make no vain carpinge [talk]
Of dedes of armys ne of amours,
As dus mynstrelles and jestours,
That makys carpinge in many a place
Of _Octoviane_ and _Isembrase_,
And of many other jestes,
And namely, whan they come to festes;
Ne of the life of _Bevys of Hampton_,
That was a knight of gret renoun,
Ne of _Sir Gye of Warwyke_.”[441]
The monks of Hyde Abbey or New Minster paid an annuity to a harper
(1180). No less a sum than seventy shillings was paid to minstrels hired
to sing and play the harp at the feast of the installation of an abbot
of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury (1309). When the bishop of Winchester
visited the cathedral priory of St. Swithin or Old Minster, a minstrel
was hired to sing the song of Colbrond the Danish giant--a legend
connected with Winchester--and the tale of Queen Emma delivered from the
ploughshares (1338). Payments to minstrels were commonly made by monks:
at Bicester Priory, for example (1431), and at Maxstoke, where _mimi_,
_joculatores_, _jocatores_, _lusores_, and _citharistae_ were hired. A
curious provision occurs in the statutes of New College, Oxford (1380).
The founder gives his permission to the scholars, for their recreation
on festival days in the winter, to light a fire in the hall after dinner
and supper, where they could amuse themselves with songs and other
entertainments of decent sort, and could recite poems, chronicles of
kingdoms, the wonders of the world, and such like compositions, provided
they befitted the clerical character. At Winchester College--where
minstrels were often employed--and Magdalen College the same practice
was followed. Commonly minstrels formed a regular part of the household
of rich men.[442]
This part of the subject is so interesting that we feel tempted to
linger over it, but it is sufficient for our purpose to observe that
minstrelsy, before and after the Conquest--indeed, up to nearly the end
of the manuscript period--was the chief and almost the only means of
circulating literature among seculars. This fact should be borne in mind
when any comparison is made between the number of religious and
scholastic books in circulation and the number of books of lighter
character. Even books of the scholastic class were read aloud to
students in class, and often to small audiences of older people; but
this method had obvious disadvantages, and the necessity of studying
them personally soon came to be recognised as imperative. Hence such
books, and especially those which summarised the subject of study, were
greatly multiplied. On the other hand, romances were better heard than
read, and only enough copies of them were made to supply wealthy
households and the minstrels and jesters whose business it was to learn
and recite them. Rarely, therefore, did the ordinary layman of medieval
England own many books. The large class to whom romances appealed seldom
owned books at all, simply because the people of this class, even if
wealthy and of noble rank, could not in ninety cases out of one hundred
read at all, or could read so poorly that the pastime was irksome. Among
the educated classes, the books needed were those with which a reader
had made acquaintance at his university, or which were necessary for his
special study and occupation. Yet it is uncommon to find private
libraries; and with few exceptions they were ridiculously small. The
vast majority of the books were owned in common by monastic or
collegiate societies.
Let us bring together the meagre records of three centuries, and some
exceptions to the general rule which serve only to show up the general
poverty of the land. Henry II, an ardent sportsman, a ruler almost
completely immersed in affairs of State, made time for private reading
and for working out knotty questions,[443] and very probably he had a
library to his hand. King John received from the sacristan of Reading a
small collection of books of the Bible and severe theology, perhaps as a
diplomatic gift, perhaps as a subtle reminder that a little food for the
spirit would improve his morals and ameliorate the lot of his subjects.
Edward II borrowed at least two books, the _Miracles of St. Thomas_ and
the _Lives of St. Thomas and St. Anselm_, from Christ Church,
Canterbury.[444] Great Earl Simon had a _Digestum vetus_ from the same
source. Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (_d._ 1315), had a little
hoard of romances, and some other books. Hugh le Despenser the elder
enjoyed a “librarie of bookes” (_c._ 1321), how big or of what character
we do not know. Archbishop Meopham (_d._ 1333) gave some books to Christ
Church, Canterbury; and his successor, John Stratford, presented a few
to the same house. Lady Elizabeth de Clare, foundress of Clare Hall,
bequeathed to her foundation a tiny collection of service books and
volumes on canon law (1355). William de Feriby, Archdeacon of Cleveland,
left a small theological library (1378). One John Percyhay of Swinton in
Rydal (1392), Sir Robert de Roos (1392), John de Clifford, treasurer of
York Church (1392), Canon Bragge of York (1396), and Eleanor Bohun,
Duchess of Gloucester (1399), all left Bibles; and small collections of
books, much alike in character, consisting usually of psalters, books of
religious offices, legends of the saints, Peter of Blois, Nicholas
Trivet, the Brut chronicle, books of Decretals, and the Corpus Juris
Civilis,--most of it sorry stuff, the last achievements of dogmatism on
threadbare subjects. “Among all the church dignitaries whose wills are
recorded in Bishop Stafford’s register at Exeter (1395-1419), the
largest library mentioned is only of fourteen volumes. The sixty
testators include a dean, two archdeacons, twenty canons or
prebendaries, thirteen rectors, six vicars, and eighteen layfolk, mostly
rich people. The whole sixty apparently possessed only two Bibles
between them, and only one hundred and thirty-eight books altogether:
or, omitting church service-books, only sixty; _i.e._ exactly one each
on an average. Thirteen of the beneficed clergy were altogether
bookless, though several of them possessed the _baselard_ or dagger
which church councils had forbidden in vain for centuries past; four
more had only their breviary. Of the laity fifteen were bookless, while
three had service books, one of these being a knight who simply
bequeathed them as part of the furniture of his private chapel.”[445]
A few exceptions there were, as we have said. Not till the fifteenth
century do we find that a few books were commonly in the possession of
well-to-do and cultivated people; suggesting an advance in culture upon
the previous age. But before 1400 several book collectors were sharp
aberrations from the general rule. Richard de Gravesend, Bishop of
London, owned nearly a hundred books, almost all theological, and each
worth on an average more than a sovereign a volume, or in all about
£1740 of our money. A certain Abbot Thomas of St. Augustine’s Abbey,
Canterbury, gave to his house over one hundred volumes.[446] To the same
monastery a certain John of London, probably a pupil of Friar Bacon,
left a specialist’s library of about eighty books, no fewer than
forty-six being on mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.[447] Simon
Langham, too, bequeathed to Westminister Abbey ninety-one works, some
very costly.[448] John de Newton, treasurer of York, left a good
library, part of which he bequeathed to York Minster and part to
Peterhouse (1418). A canon of York, Thomas Greenwood, died worth more
than thirty pounds in books alone (1421). And Henry Bowet, Archbishop of
York, left a collection of thirty-three volumes, nearly all of great
price,--copies _de luxe_, finely illuminated and embellished, worth on
an average a pound a volume (1423).
But Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, is at once the bibliomaniac’s
ideal and enigma (1287-1345). All accounts agree in saying he collected
a large number of books.
What became of them we do not know. In the _Philobiblon_, of which he is
the reputed author, he expressed his intention of founding a hall at
Oxford, and of leaving his books to it. Durham College, however, was not
completed until thirty-six years after his death. Among the Durham
College documents is a catalogue of the books it owned at the beginning
of the fifteenth century, and only the books sent to Oxford in 1315, and
as many more are mentioned, so that his large library did not go to the
college, but was probably dispersed.[449] De Bury, like Cobham, was a
heavy debtor, and as he lay dying his servants stole all his moveable
goods and left him naked on his bed save for an undershirt which a
lackey had thrown over him.[450] His executors, as we know, were glad to
resell to St. Albans Abbey the books he had bought from the monks there.
De Bury has left us an account of his methods of collecting which throws
some light upon the trade in books in his time. “Although from our youth
upwards we had always delighted in holding social commune with learned
men and lovers of books, yet when we prospered in the world, ... we
obtained ampler facilities for visiting everywhere as we would, and of
hunting as it were certain most choice preserves, libraries private as
well as public, and of the regular as well as of the secular clergy....
There was afforded to us, in consideration of the royal favour, easy
access for the purpose of freely searching the retreats of books. In
fact, the fame of our love of them had been soon winged abroad
everywhere, and we were reported to burn with such desire for books, and
especially old ones, that it was more easy for any man to gain our
favour by means of books than of money. Wherefore, since supported by
the goodness of the aforesaid prince of worthy memory, we were able to
requite a man well or ill ... there flowed in, instead of presents and
guerdons, and instead of gifts and jewels, soiled tracts and battered
codices, gladsome alike to our eye and heart. Then the aumbries of the
most famous monasteries were thrown open, cases were unlocked and
caskets were undone, and volumes that had slumbered through long ages in
their tombs wake up and are astonished, and those that had lain hidden
in dark places are bathed in the ray of unwonted light. These long
lifeless books, once most dainty, but now become corrupt and loathesome,
covered with litters of mice and pierced with the gnawings of the worms,
and who were once clothed in purple and fine linen, now lying in
sackcloth and ashes, given up to oblivion, seemed to have become
habitations of the moth.... Thus the sacred vessels of learning came
into our control and stewardship; some by gift, others by purchase, and
some lent to us for a season.”[451]
If his words are true, monastic and other libraries must have been
seriously despoiled to build up his own collection. He was bribed by St.
Albans Abbey, and nobody need disbelieve him when he says he got many
presents from other houses, for the merit of being open-handed was
rewarded with more good mediation and favours than the giver’s cause
deserved; indeed, De Bury himself seems to have made judicious use of
bribes for his own advancement.[452] Usually gifts were in jewels or
plate, but books were given to men known to love them; as when
Whethamstede presented Humfrey of Gloucester and the Duke of Bedford
with books they coveted.
While acting as emissary for his “illustrious prince,” de Bury hunts his
quarry in the narrow ways of Paris, and captures “inestimable books” by
freely opening his purse, the coins of which are, to his mind, “mud and
sand” compared with the treasures he gets. He blesses the friars and
protects them, and they rout out books from the “universities and high
schools of various provinces”; but how, whether rightfully or
wrongfully, we do not know. He “does not disdain,” he tells us--in
truth, he is surely overjoyed--to visit “their libraries and any other
repositories of books”; nay, there he finds heaped up amid the utmost
poverty the utmost riches of wisdom. He freely employs the booksellers,
but the wiles of the collector are as notorious as the wiles of women,
and his chief aim is to “captivate the affection of all” who can get him
books;--not even forgetting “the rectors of schools and the instructors
of rude boys,” although we cannot think he gets much from them. If he
cannot buy books, he has copies made: about his person are scribes and
correctors, illuminators and binders, and generally all who can usefully
labour in the service of books; in large numbers--in no small multitude.
And by these means he gets together more books than all the other
English bishops put together: more than five waggon loads; a veritable
hoard, overflowing into the hall of his house, and into his bedroom,
where he steps over them to get to his couch. He was a man “of small
learning,” says Murimuth; “passably literate,” writes Chambre; at the
best, according to Petrarch, “of ardent temperament, not ignorant of
literature, with a natural curiosity for out-of-the-way lore”: an
antiquarian, not of the lovable kind, but unscrupulous, pedantic, and
vain, indulging an inordinate taste for collecting and hoarding books,
perhaps to satisfy a craving for shreds and patches of knowledge, but
more likely to earn a reputation as a great clerk.[453] For De Bury was
something of a humbug; the _Philobiblon_, if it is his work, reaches the
utmost limit of affectation in the love of books.
§ II
The literature of the later part of the fourteenth century affords us
glimpses of other readers who were not merely collectors. The author--or
authors--of _Piers Plowman_ seems to have had within his reach a fair
library. His reading was carelessly done for the most part, his
references are vague and incorrect, and his quotations not always exact.
But he was well read in the Scriptures, which he knew far better than
any other book. From the Fathers he gathered much, perhaps by means of
collections of extracts from their works. He used the _Golden Legend_,
Huon de Meri’s allegorical poem of the fight between Jesus and the
Antichrist, Peter Comestor’s _Bible History_, Rustebeuf’s _La Voie de
Paradis_, Grosseteste’s religious allegory of _Le Chastel d’Amour_, the
paraded learning of Vincent of Beauvais in _Speculum Historiale_, and
other works--numerous and small signs of booklore, which are completely
overshadowed by his illuminating comprehension of the popular side in
the politics of his day. Gower, too, had at his disposal a little
library of some account, including the Scriptures, theological writings
and ecclesiastical histories, Aristotle, some of the classics, and a
good deal of romance in prose and verse.
But Chaucer was the ideal book-lover: knowing Dante, Boccaccio, and in
some degree “Franceys Petrark, the laureat poete,” who “enlumined al
Itaille of poetry,” Virgil, Cicero, Seneca, Ovid--his favourite
author--and Boëthius; as well as Guido delle Colonne’s prose epic of
the story of Troy, the poems of Guillaume de Machaut, the _Roman de la
Rose_, and a work on the astrolabe by Messahala.[454] We have some
excellent pictures of Chaucer’s habit of reading. When his day’s work is
done he goes home and buries himself with his books--
“Domb as any stoon,
Thou sittest at another boke,
Til fully daswed is thy loke.”[455]
In the _Parliament of Fowls_ he tells us that he read books often for
instruction and pleasure, and the coming on of night alone would force
him to put away his book. He would not have been a true reader had he
not developed the habit of reading in bed.
“...Whan I saw I might not slepe,
Til now late, this other night,
Upon my bedde I sat upright
And bad oon reche me a book,
A romance, and he hit me took
To rede and dryve the night away;
* * * * *
And in this boke were writen fables
That clerkes hadde, in olde tyme,
And other poets, put in ryme....”[456]
So he found solace and delight, as countless thousands have done, in his
Ovid. The world of books and of reading is apt to seem stuffy, the
favoured home of the moody spirit, a lair to which a dirty and ragged
Magliabechi retreats, a palace where a Beckford gloats solitary over his
treasures--a world whence we often desire to escape, since we know we
can return to it when we will. For if good books shelter us from the
realities of life, life itself refreshes the student like cool rain
upon the fevered brow. Chaucer was the bright spirit who let his books
fill their proper place in his life. In books, he says--
“I me delyte,
And to hem give I feyth and ful credence,
And in myn heart have hem in reverence
So hertely that ther is game noon
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon.”
Yet books are something much less than life: there is the open air,--the
meadows bright with flowers,--the melody of birds,--
“...Whan that the month of May
Is comen, and that I hear the foules singe,
And that the flowers ’ginnen for to spring
Farwel my book....”[457]
§ III
By the end of the fourteenth century we find signs that books more often
formed a part of well-to-do households, and that the formal reading and
reciting entertainments were giving place gradually to the informal and
personal use of books. Among many pieces of evidence that this was so,
Chaucer himself furnishes us with two of the best, one in the _Wife of
Bath’s Tale_, and the other in his _Troilus and Criseide_. The Wife took
for her fifth husband, “God his soule blesse,” a clerk of Oxenford--
“He was, I trowe, a twenty winter old,
And I was fourty, if I shal seye sooth.”
Joly Jankin, as the clerk was called,
“Hadde a book that gladly, night and day,
For his desport he wolde rede alway.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXX_
CARMELITE IN HIS STUDY]
He cleped [called] it Valerie and Theofraste,[458]
At whiche book he lough alwey ful faste.
* * * * *
And every night and day was his custume,
When he had leyser and vacacioun
From other worldly occupacioun,
To reden on this book of wikked wyves.”[459]
And having quickly taken measure of the Wife’s character, he could not
refrain from reading to her stories which seemed to contain a lesson and
to point a moral for her. She lost patience, and was “beten for a book,
pardee.”
“Up-on a night Jankin, that was our syre,
Redde on his book, as he sat by the fyre.”
And when his wife saw he would “never fyne” to read “this cursed book al
night,” all suddenly she plucked three leaves out of it, “right as he
radde,” and with her fist so took him on the cheek that he fell “bakward
adoun” in the fire. Springing up like a mad lion he smote her on the
head with his fist, and she lay upon the floor as she were dead.
Whereupon he stood aghast, sorry for what he had done; and “with muchel
care and wo” they made up their quarrel: our clerk, let us hope, winning
peace, and his wife securing the mastery of their household affairs and
the destruction of the “cursed book.”
In _Troilus_ we are told that Uncle Pandarus comes into the paved
parlour, where he finds his niece sitting with two other ladies--
“...And they three
Herden a mayden reden hem the geste
Of the Sege of Thebes....”
“What are you reading?” cries Pandarus. “For Goddes love, what seith it?
Tel it us. Is it of love?” Whereupon the niece returns him a saucy
answer, and “with that they gonnen laughe,” and then she says--
“This romaunce is of Thebes, that we rede;
And we can herd how that King Laius deyde
Thurgh Edippus his sone, and al that dede;
And here we stenten [left off] at these lettres rede,
How the bisshop, as the book can telle,
Amphiorax, fil through the ground to helle.”[460]
This picture of a little informal reading circle is not to be found in
like perfection elsewhere in English medieval literature.[461]
§ IV
By the middle of the fifteenth century book-collecting was a more
fashionable pastime. Had it not been so we should have been surprised.
From 1365 to 1450 was an age of library building. Oxford University now
had its library: in quick succession the colleges of Merton, William of
Wykeham, Exeter, University, Durham, Balliol, Peterhouse, Lincoln, All
Souls, Magdalen, Queens’ (Cambridge), Pembroke (Cambridge), and St.
John’s (Cambridge) followed the example. Library rooms also had been put
up in the cathedrals of Hereford, Exeter, York, Lincoln, Wells,
Salisbury, St. Paul’s, and Lichfield. Moreover, in London had been
established the first public library. Dick Whittington, of famous
memory, and William Bury founded it between 1421 and 1426. The civic
records tell us that “Upon the petition of John Coventry, John
Carpenter, and William Grove, the executors of Richard Whittington and
William Bury, the Custody of the New House, or Library, which they had
built, with the Chamber under, was placed at their disposal by the Lord
Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty.”[462] The foundation is described as “a
certen house next unto the sam Chapel apperteynyng, called the library,
all waies res’ved for students to resorte unto, w^{t} three chambres
under nithe the saide library, which library being covered w^{t} slate
is valued together w^{t} the chambres at xiijs. iiijd. yerely.... The
saied library is a house appointed by the saied Maior and cominaltie for
... resorte of all students for their education in Divine
Scriptures.”[463] Stow, writing in 1598, spoke of it as “sometime a
fayre and large library, furnished with books.... The armes of
Whitington are placed on the one side in the stone worke, and two
letters, to wit, W. and B., for William Bury, on the other side.”
Wealthy citizens came forward with pecuniary aid then as they have ever
done. William Chichele, sometime Sheriff, bequeathed “x^{li} to be
bestowyed on books notable to be layde in the newe librarye at the
gildehall at London for to be memoriall for John Hadle, sumtyme meyre,
and for me there while they mowe laste.”[464] This was in 1425. Eighteen
years later one of Whittington’s executors, named John Carpenter, made
this direction in his will: “If any good or rare books shall be found
amongst the said residue of my goods, which, by the discretion of the
aforesaid Master William Lichfield and Reginald Pecock, may seem
necessary to the common library at Guildhall, for the profit of the
students there, and those discoursing to the common people, then I will
and bequeath that those books be placed by my executors and chained in
that library that the visitors and students thereof may be the sooner
admonished to pray for my soul” (1442).[465] But this library, like so
many others, did not survive the disastrous years of mid-sixteenth
century.
It would be singular if this progress in library making were not
reflected in the habits of a considerable section of the people. The
court and its entourage set the fashion. Henry VI was a lover of books
and a collector. His uncle, John, Duke of Bedford, although much
occupied with public affairs and mercilessly warring with France, got
together a rich library, particularly noteworthy for finely illuminated
books: the famous library of the Louvre was a part of his French booty.
Of his brother Gloucester we have already spoken. Archbishop Kempe owned
a library of theology, canon and civil law, and other books, worth more
than £260. He also gave money towards the cost of Gloucester’s library
at Oxford; as did also Cardinal Beaufort and the Duchess of Gloucester.
Sir John Fastolf possessed a small number of books at Caistor (_c._
1450). The collection was of some distinction, as the inventory will
show: “In the Stewe hous; of Frenche books, the Bible, the Cronycles of
France, the Cronicles of Titus Levius, a booke of Jullius Cesar, lez
Propretez dez Choses [by Barth Glanville], Petrus de Crescentiis, liber
Almagesti, liber Geomancie cum iiij aliis Astronomie, liber de Roy
Artour, Romaunce la Rose, Cronicles d’Angleterre, Veges de larte
Chevalerie, Instituts of Justien Emperer, Brute in ryme, liber Etiques,
liber de Sentence Joseph, Problemate Aristotelis, Vice and Vertues,
liber de Cronykes de Grant Bretagne in ryme, Meditacions Saynt
Bernard.”[466] Perhaps this little hoard may be taken as a fair example
of a wealthy gentleman’s library in the fifteenth century. A collection
perhaps accurately representing the average prelatical library was that
of Richard Browne, running to more than thirty books of the common
medieval character (1452). A canon residentiary of York named William
Duffield had a library of forty volumes, as fine as Archbishop Bowet’s
collection, and valued at a higher figure (1452). Ralph Dreff, of
Broadgates Hall, possessed no fewer than twenty-three volumes, a larger
collection than Oxford students usually had. A vicar of Cookfield owned
twenty-four books, some of them priced cheaply (1451).
Some collections were pathetically small. A disreputable student of
Oxford, John Brette, had among his “bits of things” a book and a
pamphlet. Thomas Cooper, scholar of Brasenose Hall, enjoyed the use of
six volumes. Another scholar, John Lassehowe, had a like number; and
another, Simon Berynton, had fifteen books, worth sixpence (_c._ 1448)!
A rector also had six, one of them Greek; a chaplain was equipped with
six medical works; and James Hedyan, bachelor of canon and civil law,
could employ his leisure in reading one of his little store of eight
volumes. One Elizabeth Sywardby owned eight books, three being costly
(1468).
§ V
More records of the same kind may be obtained from almost any collection
of wills and inventories, the number of them increasing towards the end
of the manuscript age. How far this change was due to the influence of
Italy we do not fully know. Certainly before the end of Henry VI’s reign
the first impulse of the Italian renascence--the impulse to gather up
the materials of a more catholic and liberal knowledge--had been
transmitted to England. Students left our shores to widen their studies
in Italy. Public men in England corresponded with Italians, and fell
into sympathy with their aims. Occasionally scholars came hither from
Italy. Manuel Chrysoloras, one of the leading revivers of Greek studies
in Italy, visited England in the service of Manuel Palaeologus, and
possibly stayed at Christ Church monastery in 1408.[467] Poggio
Bracciolini came to this country in 1418-23 at the invitation of
Cardinal Beaufort: what he did while here we know far too little about,
but this visit of Italy’s greatest book-collector and discoverer of
Latin classical manuscripts cannot have been without some effect upon
English students. For Poggio the visit was almost without result. He was
in search of manuscripts, but apparently failed to get any with which he
was unacquainted. He dismissed our libraries with the sharp criticism
that they were full of trash, and described Englishmen as almost devoid
of love for letters.[468] Æneas Sylvius also came here, and his visit
likewise must have borne some fruit (1435).
Much also was accomplished by correspondence. Among those in
communication with Italians and acquainted with the course of their
studies, were Bishop Bekington, one of the earliest _alumni_ of
Wykeham’s foundation at Oxford, Adam de Molyneux, the correspondent of
Æneas Sylvius, Thomas Chaundler, warden of New College, Archdeacon
Bildstone, Archbishop Arundel, the benefactor of Oxford University
Library and correspondent of Salutati, Cardinal Beaufort’s secretary,
and Humfrey of Gloucester. Upon the last-named Italian influence was
strong. Among the books he gave to Oxford were Petrarch, Dante, and
Boccaccio, but probably the strongest evidence of this influence would
be found in the books he retained for his own use. He sought a rendering
of Aristotle’s _Politics_ from Bruni; of Cicero’s _Republic_ from
Decembrio; of certain of Plutarch’s _Lives_ from Lapo da Castiglionchio;
and had other works translated.[469]
[Illustration: AUTOGRAPH OF DUKE HUMFREY OF GLOUCESTER.]
But many English students were attracted to visit Italy for the express
purpose of sitting under Italian teachers. As early as 1395, one Thomas
of England, a brother of the Augustine order, went to Italy and
purchased manuscripts, “books of the modern poets,” and translations and
other early works of Leonardo Bruni.[470] Thomas was one of the first of
a number of enlightened Englishmen who journeyed laboriously and in
steady procession to Italy, this time not only to Rome, but to the
northern towns, then, with Venice, “the common ports of humanity,”
whither they were attracted by the fame of the bright galaxy of
humanists--of Coluccio Salutati, collector of Latin manuscripts, Manuel
Chrysoloras, Niccolo de’ Niccoli, grubbing Poggio Bracciolini, Pope
Nicholas, sometime Cosimo de’ Medici’s librarian and the founder of the
Vatican Library, Giovanni Aurispa, famous collector of Greek
manuscripts in the East, the renowned Guarino da Verona, Palla degli
Strozzi, would-be founder of a public library, Cosimo de’ Medici, whose
princely collections are the chiefest treasures of the Laurentian
Library, Francesco Filelfo, another importer of Greek books from
Constantinople, and Vespasiano, the great bookseller.
Sometimes these pilgrims to Italy were poor men, as were John Free, and
the two Oxford men, Norton and Bulkeley, who went thither in
1425-29.[471] But as a rule such a journey was only possible for wealthy
men. An important pilgrim was Andrew Holes, who represented England at
the Pope’s court in Florence.[472] In the eyes of Vespasiano, Holes was
one of the most cultivated of Englishmen. He appears to have bought too
many books to send by land, and so was obliged to wait for a ship to
transport them. What became of these books?--did he collect for his own
use?--or was he acting merely for Duke Humfrey or the king?--or did he
leave them, as it is said, to his Church? Unfortunately these are
questions which cannot be answered.
Four other men, Tiptoft, Grey, Free, and Gunthorpe, all of Balliol
College, where the influence of Duke Humfrey may fairly be suspected,
journeyed to Italy. “Butcher” Tiptoft, an intimate of another
enlightened community at Christ Church, visited Guarino, walked
Florentine streets arm-in-arm with Vespasiano, thrilled Æneas Sylvius,
then Pope, with a Latin oration, and returned to his own country with
many books, some of which he intended to give to Oxford University--one
of the best deeds of his unhappy and calamitous life.[473] While in
Italy, William Grey, who sat under Guarino, and made Niccolò Perotti,
well known as a grammarian, free of his princely establishment, was
conspicuously industrious in accumulating books. If he could not obtain
them in any other way he employed scribes to copy for him, and an artist
of Florence to adorn them in a costly manner with miniatures and
initials. In nearly six years he collected over two hundred volumes of
manuscripts, some as old as the twelfth century; probably the finest
library sent to England in that age. No fewer than 152 of his
manuscripts are now in the Balliol College library, to which he gave his
whole collection in 1478; unfortunately most of the miniatures are
destroyed. To his patronage of learning and his book-collecting
propensities Grey owed his friendship with Nicholas V, and his bishopric
of Ely. Grey was also a good friend to Free or Phreas, a poor student,
and aided him in Italy with money for his expenses of living and to
obtain Greek manuscripts to translate.[474] Free and John Gunthorpe,
Dean of Wells, went to Italy together: Free did not live to return, but
Gunthorpe brought home manuscripts. He gave the bulk of them to Jesus
College, where only one or two are left; some have found their way to
other Cambridge Colleges.[475] Another Oxford scholar, Robert Flemming,
was in Italy in 1450: here he became the friend of the great librarian
of the Vatican, Platina; and got together a number of manuscripts,
afterwards given to Lincoln College.
§ VI
The intercourse of all these scholars with Italians was carried on
before mid-fifteenth century. Their chief interest was in Latin books,
although a large number of Greek manuscripts had been brought to Italy
by Angeli da Scarparia, Guarino, Giovanni Aurispa, and Filelfo. After
the fall of Constantinople the Greek immigrants introduced books into
Italy much more freely. George Hermonymus of Sparta, a Greek teacher and
copyist of Greek manuscripts, visited England on a papal mission in
1475, but whether he had any influence on our intellectual pursuits does
not appear.[476] Certainly, however, English scholars soon appreciated
this new literature.
Letters sent to Pope Sixtus in 1484 by the king, refer to the skill of
John Shirwood, bishop of Durham, in Latin and Greek.[477] Shirwood seems
to have collected a respectable library. His Latin books were acquired
by Bishop Foxe, and formed the nucleus of the library with which the
latter endowed Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Some thirty volumes, a
number of them printed, now remain at the College to bring him to mind:
among them we find Pliny, Terence, Cicero, Livy, Suetonius, Plutarch,
and Horace. Less fortunate has been the fate of his Greek books, which
went to the collegiate church of Bishop Auckland. At the end of the
fifteenth century this church owned about forty volumes. The only
exceptions to its medieval character were Cicero’s _Letters_ and
_Offices_, Silius Italicus, and Theodore Gaza’s Greek grammar.[478] But
Leland tells us that Tunstall, who succeeded to the bishopric in 1530,
found a store of Shirwood’s Greek manuscripts at this church. What
became of them we do not know.[479]
About this same time a certain Emmanuel of Constantinople seems to have
been employed in England as a copyist. For Archbishop Neville he
produced a Greek manuscript containing some _sermones judiciales_ of
Demosthenes, and letters of Aeschines, Plato, and Chion (1468).[480] Dr.
Montague James has shown that this manuscript of Emmanuel is by the same
hand as the manuscripts known as the “Ferrar group,” which comprises “a
Plato and Aristotle now at Durham, two psalters in Cambridge libraries,
a psalter and part of a Suidas at Oxford, and the famous Leicester Codex
of the Gospels.”[481] Dr. James believes the Plato and the Aristotle to
have been transcribed for Neville by Emmanuel. In 1472 the archbishop’s
household was broken up, and the “greete klerkys and famous doctors” of
his entourage went to Cambridge. Among them, it is conjectured, was
Emmanuel, and so it came to pass that three manuscripts in his writing
have been at Cambridge; two psalters, as we have said, are there now,
and in the beginning of the sixteenth century one of them, with the
Leicester Codex, was certainly in the hands of the Grey Friars at
Cambridge. This happy fruit of Dr. James’ research throws a welcome ray
of light on the pursuit of Greek studies in the last quarter of the
fifteenth century.[482]
In view of all the hard things which have been said of the religious, it
is significant to find them taking a leading part in bringing Greek
studies to England. We cannot collate all the instances here, but a few
may be brought together. Two Benedictines named William of Selling and
William Hadley, some time warden of Canterbury College, Oxford, were in
Italy studying and buying books for three years after 1464.[483] The
former became distinguished for his aptitude in learning the ancient
tongues, and consequently won the friendship of Angelo Poliziano. At
least two other visits to Italy were made by him; the last being
undertaken as an emissary of the king. On these occasions he got
together as many Greek and Latin books as he could, and brought them--a
large and precious store--to Canterbury.[484] For some reason the books
were kept in the Prior’s lodging instead of in the monastic library, and
here they perished through the carelessness of Layton’s myrmidons.[485]
Among the books lost was possibly a copy of Cicero’s _Republic_. Only
five manuscripts have been found which can be connected with Selling’s
library: a fifteenth-century Greek Psalter, a copy of the Psalms in
Hebrew and Latin, a Euripides, a Livy, and a magnificent Homer.[486]
This Homer we have already referred to in an earlier chapter, when
describing the work of Theodore of Tarsus. The signature Θεοδωρος has
now been more plausibly explained. “The following note,” writes Dr.
James, “which I found in Dr. Masters’s copy of Stanley’s _Catalogue_,
preserved in [Corpus Christi] College Library, suggests another origin
for this Homer. I have been unable to identify the document to which
reference is made. It should obviously be a letter of an Italian
humanist in the Harleian collection.... ‘Mem.: Humphrey Wanley,
Librarian to the late Earl of Oxford, told Mr. Fran: Stanley, son of the
author, a little before his death, that in looking over some papers in
the papers in the Earl’s library, he found a Letter from a learned
Italian to his Friend in England, wherein he told him there was then a
very stately Homer just transcribed for Theodorus
[Illustration: _PLATE XXXI_
A SCRIBE (ST. MARK WRITING HIS GOSPEL)
FROM THE BEDFORD HOURS]
Gaza, of whose Illumination he gives him a very particular description,
which answer’d so exactly in every part to that here set forth, that he
[Wanley] was fully perswaded it was this very Book, and y^{t} the
Θεοδωρος at the bottom of 1st page order’d to be placed there by Gaza as
his own name, gave occasion to Abp. Parker to imagine it might have
belonged to Theodore of Canterbury, which however Hody was of opinion
could not be of that age.’ Th. Gaza,” continues Dr. James, “died in
1478; the suggestion here made is quite compatible with the hypothesis
that Sellinge was the means of conveying the Homer to England, and does
supply a rather welcome interpretation of the Θεοδωρος inscription.”
This reasonable hypothesis may be strengthened if we point out that Gaza
was in Rome from 1464 to 1472, and Selling visited that city between
1464 and 1467 and again in 1469. Selling may have got the manuscript
from Gaza on one of these occasions.
There is evidence of Greek studies at other monasteries,--at Westminster
after 1465, when Millyng, an “able graecian,” became prior at Reading in
1499 and 1500, and at Glastonbury during the time of Abbot Bere.[487]
But Canterbury’s share was greatest. Selling seems to have taught Greek
at Christ Church. In the monastic school there Thomas Linacre was
instructed, and probably got the rudiments of Greek from Selling
himself. Thence Linacre went to Oxford, where he pursued Greek under
Cornelius Vitelli, an Italian visitor acting as prælector in New
College.[488] In 1485-6 Linacre went with his old master to Italy--his
_Sancta Mater Studiorum_--where Selling seems to have introduced him to
Poliziano. Linacre perfected his Greek pursuits under Chalcondylas, and
became acquainted with Aldo Manuzio the famous printer, and Hermolaus
Barbarus. A little story is told of his meeting with Hermolaus. He was
reading a copy of Plato’s _Phaedo_ in the Vatican Library when the great
humanist came up to him and said “the youth had no claim, as he had
himself, to the title Barbarus, if it were lawful to judge from his
choice of a book”--an incident which led to a great friendship between
the two. Grocyn and Latimer were with Linacre in Rome. The former was
the first to carry on effectively the teaching of Greek begun at Oxford
possibly by Vitelli; but he was nevertheless a conservative scholar,
well read in the medieval schoolmen, as his library clearly proves. This
library is of interest because one hundred and five of the one hundred
and twenty-one books in it were printed. The manuscript age is well
past, and the costliness of books, the chief obstacle to the
dissemination of thought, was soon to give no cause for remark.