Note 210 — The Library.

As early as the sixth century commenced the custom, in some monasteries, of copying ancient books and composing new ones. It was the usual, and even only, employment of the first monks of Marmoutier. A monastery without a library was considered as a fort or a camp deprived of the necessary articles for its defence: "claustrum sine armario, quasi castrum sine armentario." Peignot, Dict. de Bibliolog., vol. i., 77. I am fearful that this good old bibliomanical custom of keeping up the credit of their libraries among the monks had ceased—at least in the convent of Romsey, in Hampshire—towards the commencement of the sixteenth century. One would think that the books had been there disposed of in bartering for strong liquors; for at a visitation by Bishop Fox, held there in 1506, Joyce Rows, the abbess, is accused of immoderate drinking, especially in the night time; and of inviting the nuns to her chamber every evening, for the purpose of these excesses, "post completorium." What is frightful to add,—"this was a rich convent, and filled with ladies of the best families." See Warton's cruel note in his Life of Sir Thomas Pope, p. 25, edit. 1772. A tender-hearted bibliomaniac cannot but feel acutely on reflecting upon the many beautifully-illuminated vellum books which were, in all probability, exchanged for these inebriating gratifications! To balance this unfavourable account read Hearne's remark about the libraries in ancient monasteries, in the sixth volume of Leland's Collectanea, p. 86-7, edit. 1774: and especially the anecdotes and authorities stated by Dr. Henry in book iii., chap, iv., sec. 1.