Note 254 — The Library.

"I shall retire back to Godstowe, and, for the farther reputation of the nunns there, shall observe that they spent a great part of their time in reading good books. There was a common library for their use well furnished with books, many of which were English, and divers of them historical. The lives of the holy men and women, especially of the latter, were curiously written on vellum, and many illuminations appeared throughout, so as to draw the nunns the more easily to follow their examples." Hearne's edit. Guil. Neubrig., vol. ii., p. 768. Again he says, "It is probable they (certain sentences) were written in large letters, equal to the writing that we have in the finest books of offices, the best of which were for the use of the nunns, and for persons of distinction, and such as had weak eyes; and many of them were finely covered, not unlike the Kiver for the Gospell book, given to the chapell of Glastonbury by king Ina." p. 773. Can the enlightened reader want further proof of the existence of the Bibliomania in the nunnery of Godstow? As to Peterborough abbey, Gunston, in his history of the same place, has copied the catalogue of the different libraries belonging to the abbots. Benedict, who became abbot in 1177, had a collection of no less than fifty-seven volumes. But alas! the book reputation of this monastery soon fell away: for master Robert, who died abbot in 1222, left but seven books behind him; and Geoffrey de Croyland, who was abbot in 1290, had only that dreary old gentleman, Avicenna, to keep him company! At its dissolution, however, it contained 1700 volumes in MSS. Gunton's Peterborough, p. 173. Glastonbury seems to have long maintained its reputation for a fine library; and even as late as the year 1248 it could boast of several classical authors, although the English books were only four in number; the rest being considered as "vetustas et inutilia." The classical authors were Livy, Sallust, Tully, Seneca, Virgil, and Persius. See Joh. Confrat. Glaston., vol. ii., p. 423, 435: Hearne's edit. "Leland," says Warton, "who visited all the monasteries just before their dissolution, seems to have been struck with the venerable air and amplitude of this library." Hist. Engl. Poetry, Diss. ii.