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.PLATE XITWELFTH CENTURY ILLUMINATION FROM BURY ST. EDMUNDS ABBEYTHE 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 thelibrary 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 attymes 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:—
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 whathappened 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]
PLATE XII “WESTMINSTER” ILLUMINATION THIRTEENTH CENTURYPLATE XII“WESTMINSTER” ILLUMINATIONTHIRTEENTH 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 weretransferred 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 identifiedeither 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 areneeded; 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.
“For if hevene be on this erthe . and ese to any soule,It is in cloistere or in scole . be many skilles I fynde;For in cloistre cometh no man . to chide ne to fighte,But alle is buxomnesse there and bokes . to rede and to lerne.”Piers Plowman, B. x. 300
“For if hevene be on this erthe . and ese to any soule,It is in cloistere or in scole . be many skilles I fynde;For in cloistre cometh no man . to chide ne to fighte,But alle is buxomnesse there and bokes . to rede and to lerne.”Piers Plowman, B. x. 300
“For if hevene be on this erthe . and ese to any soule,It is in cloistere or in scole . be many skilles I fynde;For in cloistre cometh no man . to chide ne to fighte,But alle is buxomnesse there and bokes . to rede and to lerne.”Piers Plowman, B. x. 300
BEFORE leaving the subject of monastic libraries, it is desirable to say something about their economy.
They were built up partly by importing books, partly by bequests from wealthy ecclesiastics, but largely—and in some cases wholly—by the labours of scribes. The scene of the scribe’s craft was the scriptorium or writing-room, which was usually a screened-off portion of the cloister, or a room beside the church and below the library, as at St. Gall, or a chamber over the chapter-house, as at St. Albans under Abbot Paul, at Cockersand Abbey and Birkenhead Priory. As a rule the monk was not allowed to write outside the scriptorium, although in some houses he could read elsewhere—as at Durham, where a desk to support books was fitted in the window of each dormitory cubicle. But brothers whose work was highly valued were allowed a small writing-room or scriptoriolum. Nicholas, Bernard’s secretary, had a room on the right of the cloister with its
PLAN OF SCRIPTORIUM, BIRKENHEAD PRIORYPLAN OF SCRIPTORIUM, BIRKENHEAD PRIORY
door opening into the novices’ room—a cell, he says, “not to be despised; for it is ... pleasant to look upon, and comfortable for retirement. It is filled with most choice and divine books ... is assigned to me for reading, and writing, and composing, and meditating, and praying, and adoring the Lord of Majesty.”[175]Perhaps Nicholas’s room was like that shown in one manuscript, where we see a monk seated on a stool before a reading-stand of odd shape. The table, which is the top of a hexagonal receptacle for parchment and writing materials, or books, can be moved up and down on the screw. Above the screw is a bookrest; at the foot a pedestal, with the ink-bottle upon it. Apparently the room also contains cupboards for storing books. Nicholas, however, was favoured, for in the same passage he refers to the older monks reading the “books of divine eloquence in the cloister.” In Cistercian monasteries certain monks were so favoured, although they were not allowed to use their studies during the time the monks were supposed to be in the cloister.[176]At Oxford, after mid-fourteenth century, every student friar had set apart for him a place fitted with a combined desk and bookcase, or studium, of the kind commonly depicted in medieval illuminations. Grants of timber for making these studia are recorded: to the Black Friars of Oxford, for example, of seven oaks to repair their studies.[177]
The arrangements in the cloister are carefully described in the Durham Rites. At Durham “in the north syde of the cloister, from the corner over against the church dour to the corner over againste the Dortor dour, was all fynely glased, from the hight to the sole within a litleof the grownd into the cloister garth. And in every wyndowe iij pewes or carrells, where every one of the old Monks had his carrell, severall by himselfe, that, when they had dyned, they dyd resorte to that place of Cloister and there studyed upon there books, every one in his carrell, all the after nonne, unto evensong time. This was there exercise every daie. All there pewes or carrells was all fynely wainscotted and verie close, all but the forepart, which had carved wourke that gave light in at ther carrell doures of wainscott. And in every carrell was a deske to lye there books on. And the carrells was no greater then from one stanchell of the wyndowe to another.”[178]There were carrells at Evesham in the fourteenth century.[179]In 1485 Prior Selling constructed in the south walk at Christ Church, Canterbury, “the new framed contrivances called carrells” for the comfort of the monks at study.[180]Such recesses are to be found at Worcester and Gloucester; remains of some exist at the south end of the west walk of the cloisters at Chester, and others were in the destroyed south walk.[181]At Gloucester Cathedral, which was formerly the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter, are twenty beautiful carrells in the south cloister. They project below the ten main windows, two in each, and are arched, with battlemented tops or cornices. Except for the small double window which lights them, they look like recesses for statuary.
The Carthusian Rule records that few monks of the order could not write.[182]But this was by no means invariably the case. In early monastic times writing was usually the occupation of the weaker brethren: for example,
PLATE XIII THE CLOISTERS, GLOUCESTER, SHEWING CARRELLSPLATE XIIITHE CLOISTERS, GLOUCESTER, SHEWING CARRELLS
ANCIENT STALL, OR CARRELL, IN BISHOPS CANNINGS CHURCH, WILTSANCIENT STALL, OR CARRELL, IN BISHOPS CANNINGS CHURCH, WILTS
Ferreolus, in his rules (c. 550), deems reading and copying fit occupations for monks too weak for severer work.[183]Later, in some monasteries, less labour in the field and more writing was done. At Tours, Alcuin took the monks away from field labour, telling them study and writing were far nobler pursuits.[184]But it was not commonly the case to find in monasteries “ech man a scriveyn able.”
When books were not otherwise obtainable, or not obtainable quickly enough, it was the practice to hire scribes from outside the house. Abbot Gerbert, in a letter to the abbot of Tours, mentions that he had been paying scribes in Rome and various parts of Italy, in Belgium, and Germany, to make copies of books for his library “at great expense.”[185]At Abingdon hired scribes were sometimes employed, and the rule was for the abbot to find the food, and the armarius, or librarian, to pay for the labour.[186]This was commonly done when libraries were first formed. When Abbot Paul began to collect a library at St. Albans none of his brethren could write well enough to suit him, and he was obliged to fill his writing-room with hired scribes. He supplied them with daily rations out of the brethren’s and cellarer’s alms-food; such provision was always handy, and the scribes were not retarded by leaving their work.[187]Sometimes scribes were employed merely to save the monks trouble. At Corbie, in the fourteenth century, the religious neglected to work in the writing-room themselves, but allowed benefactors to engage professional scribes in Paris to swell the number of books. The Gilbertine order forbade hired scribes altogether, perhaps wisely.
The scribe’s method of work was simple. First he took a metal stylus or a pencil and drew perpendicular lines in the side margins of his parchment, and horizontal lines at equal distances from top to bottom of the page. Then the task of copying was straightforward. If the book was to be embellished he left spaces for the illuminator to fill in. When the illuminator took the book over, he carefully sketched in his designs for the capitals and miniatures, and then worked over them in colour, applying one colour to a number of sketches at a time. Anybody who is curious as to medieval methods of illuminating should read a little fifteenth-century treatise which describes “the crafte of lymnynge of bokys.” “Who so kane wyesly considere the nature of his colours, and kyndely make his commixtions with naturalle proporcions, and mentalle indagacions connectynge fro dyvers recepcions by resone of theyre naturys, he schalle make curius colourys.” Thereafter follow recipes to “temper vermelone to wryte therewith”; “to temper asure, roset, ceruse, rede lede,” and other pigments; “to make asure to schyne bryȝt,” “to make letterys of gold,” “blewe lethyre,” and “whyte lethyre”; with other curious information.[188]
In monasteries where the rule was strict the scribe wrought at his task for six hours daily.[189]All work was done by daylight, artificial light not being allowed. Lewis, a monk of Wessobrunn in Bavaria, in a copy of Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel, speaks of writing when he was stiff with cold, and of finishing by the light of night what he could not copy by day.[190]Such diligence was not usual.
In summer-time work in the cloister may well havebeen pleasant; in winter quite the contrary, even when the cloister and carrells were screened, as at Durham and Christ Church, Canterbury. Imagine the poor scribe rubbing his hands to restore the sluggish circulation, and being at last compelled to forgo his labour because they were too numbed to write. Cuthbert, the eighth-century abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow, writes to a correspondent telling him he had not been able to send all Bede’s works which were required, because the cold weather of the preceding winter had paralysed the scribes’ hands.[191]Again, Ordericus Vitalis winds up the fourth book of his ecclesiastical history by saying—nunc hyemali frigore rigens—he must break his narrative here, and take up other occupations for the winter.[192]Jacob, abbot of Brabant (1276), built scriptoria, or possibly carrells, round the calefactory, or warming-room, where the common fire was kept burning, and the lot of the scribe was made somewhat easier to bear.
A scribe could only write what the abbot or precentor set him. When his portion had been given out he could not change it for another.[193]If he were set to copy Virgil or Ovid or some lives of the saints the task would conceivably be pleasant. But such was seldom the scribe’s fortune. The continual transcription of Psalters and Missals and other service books must have been infinitely wearisome, at any rate, to the less devout members of the community. In some large and enterprising houses a scribe copied only a fragment of a book. Several brethren worked upon the same book at once, each beginning upon a skin at the point where another scribe was to leave off.[194]Or the book to be transcribed was dictated to the scribes, as at Tours under Alcuin. Both methods had the advantage of “publishing” a book quickly, but the work was asmechanical as is that of the compositor to-day. Under Abbot Trithemius of Sponheim, subdivision of labour was carried to its extreme limit. One monk cut the parchment, another polished it, the third ruled the lines to guide the scribe. After the scribe had finished his copying, another monk corrected, still another punctuated. In decorating, one artist rubricated, another painted the miniatures. Then the bookbinder collated the leaves and bound them in wooden covers. Even in the case of waxed tablets, one monk prepared the boards, another spread the wax. The whole process was designed to expedite production.
When a manuscript was fully written the scribe wrote his colophon or “explicit,” a short form of the phrase “explicitus est liber.” Sometimes the scribe plays upon words, thus: “Explicit iste liber; sit scriptor crimine liber”; or he exultantly praises: “Deo gratias. Ego, in Dei nomine, Warembertus scripsi. Deo gratias”; or he is modest: “Nomen scriptoris non pono, quia ipsum laudare nolo”;[195]or he feels querulous: “Be careful with your fingers; don’t put them on my writing. You do not know what it is to write. It is excessive drudgery: it crooks your back, dims your sight, twists your stomach and sides. Pray then, my brother, you who read this book, pray for poor Raoul, God’s servant, who has copied it entirely with his own hand in the cloister of St. Aignan.” Another inscription, in a manuscript at Worcester Cathedral, suggests that books were not read: why, argues this monk, write them?—nobody is profited; books are for the edification of readers, not of scribes. Note also the following:—
Finito libro sit laus et gloria ChristoVinum scriptori debetur de melioriHic liber est scriptus qui scripsit sit benedictus. Amen.[196]
Finito libro sit laus et gloria ChristoVinum scriptori debetur de melioriHic liber est scriptus qui scripsit sit benedictus. Amen.[196]
Finito libro sit laus et gloria ChristoVinum scriptori debetur de melioriHic liber est scriptus qui scripsit sit benedictus. Amen.[196]
And this:—
Here endþ þe firste boke of all maner sores þewhyche fallen moste commune and withe þe grace of gode Iwill writte þe ij Boke þe whyche ys cleped the AntitodarieExplicit quod scripcit Thomas Rosse.[197]
Here endþ þe firste boke of all maner sores þewhyche fallen moste commune and withe þe grace of gode Iwill writte þe ij Boke þe whyche ys cleped the AntitodarieExplicit quod scripcit Thomas Rosse.[197]
Here endþ þe firste boke of all maner sores þewhyche fallen moste commune and withe þe grace of gode Iwill writte þe ij Boke þe whyche ys cleped the AntitodarieExplicit quod scripcit Thomas Rosse.[197]
To a poor Raoul of mechanical ability the rule of silence must have been very irksome; the student would be grateful for it. Alcuin forbade gossip to prevent mistakes in copying. Among the Cluniacs the rule was strictly enforced in the church, refectory, cloister, and dormitory. A chapter of the Cistercian order (1134) enjoined silence in all rooms where the brethren were in the habit of writing.[198]The better to maintain silence nobody was permitted to enter the scriptorium save the abbot, the prior and sub-prior, and the precentor. When necessary it was permissible to speak in a low voice in the ear. But among the Cluniacs whispering was avoided as far as possible. Watch the monks communicating with the librarian. One wants a Missal, and he pretends, as the children say, to turn over leaves, thereby making the general sign for a book; then he makes the sign of the Cross to indicate that he wants a Missal book. Another wants the Gospels, and he makes the sign of the Cross on the forehead. This brother wants a pagan book, and, after making the general sign, he scratches his ear with his finger as an itching dog would with his feet; infidel writers were not unfairly compared with such creatures.[199]If such sign-language were really maintained, it must have been extensively supplemented as the library grew in size, for although striking the thumb and little
PLATE XIV A SCRIBE AND HIS TOOLSPLATE XIVA SCRIBE AND HIS TOOLS
finger together would describe an Antiphonary, or making the sign of the Cross and kissing the finger would indicate a Gradual, yet some additions to the signs for a pagan book and a tract were necessary to signify what particular tract or book was wanted. But probably if this rule was observed at all—and we do not think it likely—the signs were used only for church books, and most often in church. In nearly every monastery the rule of silence was made. In the Brigittine house of Syon “silence after some convenience is to be kepte in the lybrary, whyls any suster is there alone in recordyng of her redynge.”[200]But it was at all times difficult to enforce, as the monks, in experience and habits, were but children.
For notes, exercises, brief letters, bills, first drafts, daily services of the church, the names of officiating brethren,—for all temporary purposes waxed tablets were used. They were in common use from classic times: some Greek and many Latin tablets are still preserved;[201]they were much used in ancient Ireland, as we have seen; and they continued to be of service until the late Middle Ages. Anselm habitually wrote his first drafts upon them. At St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, the monks were supplied with tablets, for a novice’s outfit included, after profession, a stylus, tablets, and a knife.[202]The writing was scratched on the wax with a stylus, a sharp instrument of bone or metal. The other end of it was usually flattened for pressing out an incorrect letter; among the Romans the term “vetere stylum” became common in the sense of correcting a work.
TABLET CASE AND WAXED TABLETTABLET CASE AND WAXED TABLET
For all permanent purposes “bōc-fel,” or book-skin, was used; either vellum or “parchëmyn smothe, whyte and scribable.” Vellum and parchment were interchangeable terms in medieval times; but parchment was commonly used. In early monastic days it was prepared by the monks themselves, being rubbed smooth with pumice-stone; later it was bought from manufacturers ready-made. It was not so expensive as vellum: the average price being two shillings per dozen skins as compared with eight shillings per dozen skins of vellum. For a Bible presented to Bury St. Edmunds Abbey, finest Irish (or Scottish) vellum was procured (c.1121-48). This special material wasused for the paintings, which seem to have been pasted down on the leaves of inferior vellum. This manuscript is now in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.[203]
The pens used for writing were either made of reeds (calami) or of quills (pennae). The quill was introduced after the reed, and largely, though not entirely, superseded it. Other implements of the expert scribe were a pencil, compasses, scissors, an awl, a knife for erasures, a ruler, and a weight to keep down the vellum.
Numerous passages might be dug out of old records warning scribes against errors in transcribing. Ælfric, in the preface to his homilies, adjures the copyist, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by His glorious coming, to transcribe correctly. Chaucer, in a well-known verse, expresses his wish that Adam the scrivener shall copyBoëthiusandTroilus“trewe” and not write it “newe.”[204]In copying, however, especially when it is mechanically done, it is almost as difficult to write “trewe” as it is to write “newe”: the imp of the perverse makes his home at the elbow of the scribe, ever ready to profit by drowsiness or trifling inattention. But, as a rule, monkish scribes were exceedingly careful, and their work was invariably corrected by another hand. More than this: they endeavoured to get accurate texts to copy. Lanfranc’s care in this respect, and the Grey Friars’ work in compilingcorrectoria, have already been noted. Reculfus expected his clergy to have books corrected and pointed by those in the “holy mother church”; Adam de Marisco sent a manuscript to be corrected in Paris, begging to have it back as soon as done;[205]and Servatus Lupus, the great abbot of Ferrières, frequently borrowed from his friends books which he might collate with his own copies, and rectify errors and insert omissions.[206]
Before work could be started in the writing-room, books for copying had to be obtained. Usually a few books were bought or borrowed; then several copies were made of each, the superfluous volumes being sold or exchanged for fresh manuscripts to transcribe. Benedict Biscop, as we have seen, obtained his books from Rome and Vienne. Cuthwin, bishop of the East Angles (c.750) was of those who went to Rome, and brought back with him a life of St. Paul, “full of pictures.” Herbert “Losinga,” abbot of Ramsey and afterwards bishop of Norwich, was a zealous book-collector;—asks for a Josephus on loan from a brother abbot, a request not granted because the binding needed repair; and sends abroad for a copy of Suetonius. Robert Grosseteste got a rare book, Basil’sHexaemeron, from Bury St. Edmunds in exchange for a MS. ofPostillae.[207]At Ely, in the fourteenth century, when the scribes there were very active, the precentor was always on the look-out for “copy.” On one occasion he was paid 6s. 7d. for going to Balsham to inquire for books (1329).[208]Abbot Henry of Hyde Abbey exchanged a volume containing Terence, Boëthius, Suetonius, and Claudian for four Missals, theLegend of St. Christopher, and Gregory’sPastoral Care.[209]On one occasion Adam de Marisco tries to get from a brother of Nottingham theMoraliaof St. Gregory, and Rabanus Maurus. He sends from Oxford to an abbot at Vercelli an exposition of the Angelic Salutation, and begs for the abbot’s writings in exchange.[210]Adam had studied at Vercelli,[211]—a new Italian centre with a close English connexion. About 1217 Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, afterwards bishop of Vercelli, was granted the church ofChesterton, near Cambridge, and when he died ten years later he left all his estate, including the church, and a number of books which had been collected at Chesterton or in England, to Vercelli Abbey. Among the gifts were two service books in English, and the famous Codex Vercellensis, which is only less valuable than the Exeter Book as a first source of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The Vercelli Book is in Italy to this day.[212]
In some abbeys the purchase of books, and the copying of them for sale, became just as much a business as the manufacture of Chartreuse. In 1446 Exeter College, Oxford, paid ten shillings and a penny for twelve quires and two skins of parchment bought at Abingdon to send to the monastery of Plympton in Devonshire, where a book was being written for the College.[213]A part—and by no means a negligible part—of the income of Carthusian houses came from copying books. Two continental abbots, Abbot Gerbert of Bobio and Servatus Lupus of Ferrières, were book-makers and sellers on a commercial scale. Lupus, in particular, betrays the commercial spirit by refusing to give more than he was obliged in return for what he received. He will not send a book to a monk at Sens because his messenger must go afoot and the way was perilous: let us hope he thought more of the messenger than of the manuscript. On another occasion he refuses to lend a book because it is too large to be hidden in the vest or wallet, and, besides, its beauty might tempt robbers to steal it. These were good excuses to cover his general unwillingness to lend. For the loan of one manuscript hewas so bothered that he thought of putting it away in a secure place, lest he should lose it altogether.[214]
As a rule the expenses of the writing-room formed a part of the general expenses of the house, but sometimes particular portions of the monastic income and endowments were available to meet them. To St. Albans certain tithes were assigned by a Norman leader for making books (c.1080).[215]The precentor of Abingdon obtained tithes worth thirty shillings for buying parchment.[216]St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, got three marks from the rentals of Milton Church for making books (1144).[217]The monks of Ely (1160), of Westminster (c.1159), of the cathedral convent of St. Swithin’s, Winchester (1171), of Bury St. Edmunds, and of Whitby, received tithes and rents for a like purpose.[218]The prior of Evesham received the tithes of Bengworth to pay for parchment and for the maintenance of scribes; while the precentor was to receive five shillings annually from the manor of Hampton, and ten shillings and eightpence from the tithes of Stoke and Alcester for buying ink, colours for illuminating, and what was necessary for binding books and the necessaries for the organ.[219]
In some houses a rate was levied for the support of the scriptorium, but we have not met with any instance of this practice in English monasteries. At the great Benedictine Abbey of Fleury a rate was levied in 1103 on the officers and dependent priories for the support of the library; forty-three years later it was extended, and it remained in forceuntil 1562.[220]Besides this impost every student in the abbey was bound to give two books to the library. At Corbie, in Picardy, a rate was levied to pay the salary of the librarian, and to cover part of the cost of bookbinding. Here also each novice, on the day of his profession, had to present a book to the library; at Corvey, in Northern Germany, the same rule was observed at the end of the eleventh century. As all the monasteries of an order were conducted much on the same lines, it is difficult to believe that similar rates were not levied by some of the larger houses in England.
The libraries were also augmented by gifts and bequests, as well as by purchase and by transcription in the scriptorium. In most abbeys it was customary for the brethren to give or bequeath their books to their house. A long list of such benefactors to Ramsey Abbey is extant, and one of the brothers, Walter de Lilleford, prior of St. Ives, gave what was in those days a considerable library in itself.[221]Much longer still are the lists of presents given to Christ Church and St. Augustine’s, Canterbury. Dr. James has indexed nearly two hundred donors to Christ Church alone. In most cases the gifts are of one or a few books, but occasionally collections of respectable size were received, as when T. Sturey, senior, enriched the library with nearly sixty books, when Thomas à Becket left over seventy, and when Prior Henry Eastry left eighty volumes at his death. As many or more donors to St. Augustine’s are indexed. Here also some of the donations were fairly large: for example, Henry Belham and Henry Cokeryng gave nineteen books each, a prior twenty-seven, a certain John of London eighty-two, J. Mankael thirty-nine, Abbot Nicholaus sixteen, Michael de Northgate twenty-four, Abbot Poucyn sixteen,J. Preston twenty-three, a certain Abbot Thomas over a hundred, and T. Wyvelesberghe thirty-one. Some sixty persons are also indexed as donors to St. Martin’s Priory, Dover.[222]
William de Carilef, bishop of Durham, endowed his church with books and bequeathed some more at his death (1095). John, bishop of Bath, bequeathed to the abbey church his whole library and his decorated copies of the Gospels (1160). Another bishop of Durham, Hugh Pudsey, bequeathed many books to his church (1195). Thomas de Marleberge (d.1236), when he became prior of Evesham, gave a large collection of books in law, medicine, philosophy, poetry, theology, and grammar.[223]Simon Langham bequeathed seven chests of books to Westminster Abbey (1376).[224]William Slade (d.1384) left to the Abbey of Buckfast, of which he was abbot, thirteen books of his own writing.[225]Cardinal Adam Easton (d.1397) sent from Rome “six barrells of books” to his convent of Norwich, where he had been a monk.[226]One of these books, a fourteenth-century manuscript in an Italian hand, is now preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: the inscription attesting this reads—“Liber ecclesie norwycen per magistrum Adam de Eston monachum dicti loci.” Nor did the poor priest forget to add his mite to the general hoard: “I beqweth to the monastery of Seynt Edmund forseid,” willed a priest named Place, “my book of the dowtes of Holy Scryptur, to ly and remayn in the cloister of the seid monastery as long as yt wyll ther indure.”[227]Such gifts were always highly valued, and in Lent the librarian wasexpected to remind the brethren of those who had given books, and to request that a mass should be said for them.[228]
Some miniatures in early manuscripts give us a good idea of the way books were stored in the Middle Ages. They are shown lying flat on sloping shelves which extend part-way round the room. Curtains are occasionally shown hanging in front of the shelves to protect the books from dust. Or a sloping shelf was fitted to serve as a readingdesk, and a second flat shelf ran beneath it to take books lying on their sides one above the other. In several miniatures lecterns of very curious design are often depicted; some of them stood on a cupboard or cupboards wherein books were stowed away.
In the monasteries books were stored in various places,—in chests, cupboards, or recesses in the wall. When the collection was small, a chest served; a receptacle of this kind is illustrated at p. 50. Cassiodorus had the books of his monastery stored in presses, or armaria. The manuscripts of Abbot Simon of St. Albans were preserved in “the painted aumbry in the church.” An aumbry was a recess in the wall well lined inside with wood so that the damp of the masonry should not spoil the books. It was divided vertically and horizontally by shelves in such a way that it was possible to arrange the books separately one from another, and so to avoid injury from close packing, and delay in consulting them.[229]The same term was applied to a detached closet or cupboard. At Durham the monks distributed their books—keeping some in the spendimentum or cancellary, some near the refectory, andthe bulk in the cloister. Two classes of books were in the cancellary: one stored in a large closet with folding doors, called an armariolum, and used by all the monks; the other kept in an inner room, and apparently reserved for special uses. The books assigned to the reader in the refectory were stored by the doorway leading to the infirmary, and not in the refectory itself, as we should expect: maybe this arrangement was exceptional, and was adopted for special reasons of convenience. Probably two places were reserved for books in the cloister. One case or chest contained the books of the novices, whose place of study was in that part of the cloister facing the treasury. The main store was on the north side of the cloister. “And over against the carrells against the church wall did stande sertaine great almeries of waynscott all full of bookes, wherein dyd lye as well the old auncyent written Doctors of the church as other prophane authors, with dyverse other holie mens wourks, so that every one dyd studye what Doctor pleased them best, havinge the librarie at all tymes to goe studie in besydes there carrells.”[230]Dr. J. W. Clark, the leading authority on early library fittings, has tried to show, from evidences of a similar arrangement at Westminster, that this part of the cloister formed a long room, with glazed windows and carrells on the one hand, bookcases on the other, and screens at each end shutting off the library and writing-place from the rest of the cloister.[231]
Along the south wall of the cloister at Chester is a series of recesses which are believed to have been used for bookcases. Two recesses for aumbries are still to be seen in the cloister at Worcester: it is recorded that one book,theSpeculum Spiritualium, was to be delivered “to ye cloyster awmery.” At Beaulieu the arched recesses in the south wall of the church may have been put to a similar use. These recesses are shown on the plan here reproduced; so also is the common aumbry in the wall of the south transept.