Volume 1 — CHAPTER I. (continued 2)

The work of the scribes was not always voluntary; there is evidence that it was not unfrequently imposed as a penance. In a codex from Lorch[101] occur after the words, Jacob scripsit, written in by another hand, the lines: Quandam partem hujus libri non spontanea voluntate, sed coactus, compedibus constrictus sicut oportet vagum atque fugitivum vincire.[102] (Jacob wrote ... a certain portion of this book not of his own free will but under compulsion, bound by fetters, just as a runaway and fugitive has to be bound.)

The aid of the students in the monastery schools was not unfrequently called in. Fromund of Tegernsee wrote under a codex: Cœpi hunc libellum, sed pueri nostri quos docui, meo juvamine perscripserunt.[103] (I began this book, but the students whom I taught, finished transcribing it with my help.)

The monk who was placed in charge of the armarium was called the armarius, and upon him fell the responsibility of providing the writing materials, of dividing the work, and probably also of preserving silence while the work was going on, and of reprimanding the writers of careless or inaccurate script. In some monasteries the armarius must also have been the librarian, and, in fact, as much of the work done in the writing-room was for the filling up of the gaps in the library, it would be natural enough for the librarian to have the planning of it. It was also the librarian, who, being in correspondence with the custodians of the libraries of other monasteries, was best able to judge what work would prove of service in securing new books in exchange for duplicates of those in his own monastery. Upon the librarius or armarius, or both, fell the responsibility of securing the loans of the codices of which copies were to be made. On such loans it was usually necessary to give security in the shape of pledges either of other manuscripts or of property apart from manuscripts.

The scribes were absolved from certain of the routine of the monastery work. They were called into the fields or gardens only at the time of harvest, or in case of special need. They had also the privilege of visiting the kitchen, in order to polish their writing tablets, to melt their wax, and to dry their parchment.[104]

The custom of reading at meals, while a part of the usual monastic routine, was by no means confined to the monasteries. References to the use of books at the tables of the more scholarly noblemen are found as early as the time of Charlemagne. Eginhart records that Charlemagne himself while at supper was accustomed to listen to histories and the deeds of ancient kings. He delighted also in the books of S. Augustine and especially in the Civitate Dei.[105]

In England, after the Norman conquest, there was for a time a cessation of literary work in the Saxon monasteries. The Norman ecclesiastics, however, in taking possession of certain of the older monasteries and instituting also new monasteries of their own, carried on the production of manuscripts with no less zeal. One of the most important centres of literary activity in England was the monastery of St. Albans, where the Abbot Paul secured, about the year 1100, funds for instituting a scriptorium, and induced some wealthy friends to present some valuable codices for the first work of the scribes. As the monks at that time in St. Albans were not themselves skilled in writing, Paul brought scribes from a distance, and, through the liberality of his friends, secured funds by which they were paid daily wages, and were able to work undisturbed. It would appear from this description that some at least among these scribes were not themselves monks.

In the thirteenth century, Matthew Paris compiled his chronicles, the writing in which appears to have been, for the greater part at least, done by his own hand, but at this time, in a large proportion of the literary work carried on in the English monasteries, the transcribing was done by paid scribes. This, however, was much less the case in the Continental monasteries. In Corbie, towards the latter half of the century, there is a record of zealous writing on the part of a certain Brother Nevelo. Nevelo tells us that he had a penance to work off for a grave sin, and that he was allowed to do this by work in the scriptorium.[106] During this century, the monasteries of the Carthusians were particularly active in their literary work, but this work was limited almost entirely to theological and religious undertakings. An exception is presented in the chronicles of the Frisian monk Emo. While Emo was still a school-boy, he gave the hours which his companions employed in play, to mastering penmanship and the art of illuminating. Later, he was, with his brother Addo, a student in the schools in Paris, Orleans, and Oxford, and while in these schools, in addition to their work as students, they gave long hours of labour, extending sometimes through the entire night, to the transcribing of chronicles and to the preparation of copies of the so-called heathen literature.

Emo was the first abbot of the monastery in Wittewierum (1204-1237), and it is recorded that the abbot, while his brothers were sleeping, devoted his nights to the writing and illuminating of the choir books. In this monastery, Emo succeeded in bringing together in the armarium librorum an important collection of manuscripts, and he took pains himself to give instructions to the monks in their work as scribes.

The quaint monastic record entitled the Customs of Clugni was written by Ulrich, a monk of Clugni, some time between the years 1077 and 1093 at the request or under the instructions of William, Abbot of Hirschau. This was the Abbot William extolled by Trithemius as having restored the Order of S. Benedict, which had almost fallen into ruin in Germany. Trithemius speaks of his having founded eight monasteries and restored more than one hundred, and says that next to the reformation wrought by the foundation and influence of Clugni, the work done by Abbot William was the most important recorded in the annals of his Order.

William trained twelve of his monks to be excellent writers, and to these was committed the office of transcribing the Holy Scriptures and the treatises of the Fathers. Besides these, there were in the scriptorium of Hirschau a large number of lesser scribes, who wrought with equal diligence in the transcription of other books. In charge of the scriptorium was placed a monk “well versed in all kinds of knowledge,” whose business it was to assign the task for each scribe and to correct the mistakes of those who wrote negligently. William was Abbot of Hirschau for twenty-two years, and during this time his monks wrote a great many volumes, a large proportion of which were distributed to supply the wants of other and more needy monasteries.

There was often difficulty, particularly in the less wealthy monasteries, in securing the parchment required for their work. It is evident from such account-books as have been preserved, that throughout the whole of Europe, but particularly in the north of the Continent and in England, parchment continued to be a very costly commodity until quite late in the thirteenth century. It was not unnatural that, as a result of this difficulty, the monastic scribes should, when pressed for material, have occasionally utilised some old manuscript by cleaning off the surface, for the purpose of making a transcript of the Scriptures, of some saintly legend, or of any other religious work the writing of which came within the range of their daily duty.

There has been much mourning on the part of the scholars over the supposed value of precious classics which may thus have been destroyed, or of which but scanty fragments have been preserved in the lower stratum of the palimpsest. Robertson is particularly severe upon the ignorant clumsiness of the monks in thus destroying, for the sake of futile legends, so much of the great literature of the world. Among other authors, Robertson quotes in this connection Montfaucon as saying that the greater part of the manuscripts on parchment which he had seen (those of an ancient date excepted), are written on parchment from which some former treatise had been erased. Maitland, who is of opinion that the destruction of ancient literature brought about by the monks has been much overestimated, points out that Robertson has not quoted Montfaucon correctly, the statement of the latter being expressly limited to manuscripts written since the “twelfth century.” It is Maitland’s belief that a large proportion of the palimpsests or doubly written manuscripts which bear date during the twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth centuries, represent, as far as they are monastic at all, not monastery writings placed upon classic texts, but monastery work replacing earlier works of the monastery scriptoria. Partial confirmation of this view is the fact that so large an interest was taken by monks in all parts of Europe in the preservation and transcribing of such classical works as came into their hands. In fact, as previously pointed out, the preservation of any fragments whatsoever of classical literature is due to the intelligent care of the monks. To the world outside of the monastery, the old-time manuscripts were, with hardly an exception, little more than dirty parchments.

It seems probable that a great part of such scraping of old manuscripts as was done was not due to the requirements of the legends or missals, but was perpetrated in order to carry on the worldly business of secular men. An indication of the considerable use of parchment for business purposes, and of instances of what we should to-day call its abuse, is the fact that, as late as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, notaries were forbidden to practise until they had taken an oath to use none but new parchment.[107]

The belief that the transcribing of good books was in itself a protection against the wiles of the evil one, naturally added to the feeling of regard in which the writer held his work, a feeling under the influence of which it became not unusual to add at the close of the manuscript an anathema against any person who should destroy or deface it. A manuscript of St. Gall contains the following:

Auferat hunc librum nullus hinc omne per ævum

Cum Gallo partem quisquis habere cupit.[108]

[Let no one through all ages who wishes to have any part with Gallus (the Saint or the Abbey) remove (or purloin) this book.]

In a Sacramentary of the ninth century given to St. Bénoît-sur-Loire, the donor, having sent the volume as a present from across seas, devotes to destruction like to that which came upon Judas, Ananias, and Caiaphas any person who should remove the book from the monastery.[109] In a manuscript of S. Augustine, now in the Bodleian Library is written: “This book belongs to S. Mary of Robert’s Bridge; whosoever shall steal it or sell it, or in any way alienate it from this house, or mutilate it, let him be anathema maranatha. Amen.” A later owner had found himself sufficiently troubled by this imprecation to write beneath: “I, John, Bishop of Exeter, know not where the aforesaid house is, nor did I steal this book, but acquired it in a lawful way.”[110]

In an exhortation to his monks, delivered in 1486, by John of Trittenheim (or Trithemius), Abbot of Sponheim, the abbot, after rebuking the monks for their sloth and negligence, goes on to say: “I have diminished your labours out of the monastery, lest by working badly you should only add to your sins; and have enjoined on you the manual labour of writing and binding books.... There is, in my opinion, no labour more becoming a monk than the writing of ecclesiastical books, and preparing what is needful for others who write them, for this holy labour will generally admit of being interrupted by prayer and of watching for the food of the soul no less than of the body. Need also urges us to labour diligently in writing books if we desire to have at hand the means of usefully employing ourselves in spiritual studies. For you will recall that all the library of this monastery, which formerly was so fine and complete, had been dissipated, sold, and made away with by the disorderly monks before us, so that when I came here, I found but fourteen volumes. It is true that the industry of the printing art, lately, in our own day, discovered at Mentz, produces many volumes every day; but depressed as we are by poverty, it is impossible for us to buy them all.”[111]

It was certainly the case that, after the invention of printing, there was a time during which manuscripts came to be undervalued, neglected, and even destroyed by wholesale, but Maitland is of opinion that this time had been prepared for by a long period of gradually increasing laxity of discipline and morals in many monastic institutions. This view is borne out by the history of the Reformation, the popular feeling in regard to which was undoubtedly very much furthered by the demoralisation of the monasteries, a demoralisation which naturally carried with it a breaking down of literary interests and pursuits. There had, for some time, been less multiplication, less care, and less use of books, and many a fine collection had mouldered away. According to Martene and Mabillon, the destruction due to the heedlessness of the monks themselves was largely a matter of the later times, that is, of the fifteenth century and the last half of the fourteenth century.

Maitland is of the opinion that in the later portions of the Middle Ages the work of the monastic scribes was more frequently carried on not in a general writing-room, but in separate apartments or cells, which were not usually large enough to contain more than one person. Owing to the fact that writing was the chief and almost only in-doors business of a monk not engaged in religious service, and because of the great quantity of work that was done and the number of cells devoted to it, these small rooms came to be generally referred to as scriptoria, even when not actually used or particularly intended for the purpose of writing. Thus we are told that Arnold, Abbot of Villers in Brabant, from 1240 to 1250, when he resigned his office, occupied a scriptorium (he called it a scriptoriolum or little writing cell), where he lived as a private person in his own apartment.[112] These separate cells were usually colder and in other ways less comfortable than the common scriptorium. Lewis, a monk of Wessobrunn in Bavaria, in an inscription addressed to the reader, in a copy he had prepared of Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel, says: Dum scripsit friguit, et quod cum lumine solis scribere non potuit, perfecit lumine noctis.[113] (He was stiff with cold, while he wrote, and what he could not write by the light of the sun, he completed by the light of night.) There is evidence, however, in some of the better equipped monasteries, of the warming of the cells by hot air from the stove in the calefactory. Martene mentions that when S. Bernard, owing to the illness produced by his early austerities, was compelled by the Bishop of Chalons to retire to a cell, he could not be persuaded to relax the severity of his asceticism so far as to permit the introduction of any fireplace or other means of warming it. His friends, however, contrived, with pious fraud, to heat his cell without his knowledge, by introducing hot air through the stone floor under the bed.[114]

The scriptorium of earlier times was, however, as previously described, an apartment specially set aside as a general workroom and capable of containing many workers, and in which many persons did, in fact, work together, usually under the direction of a librarius or chief scribe, in a very business-like manner, in the transcription of books. Maitland quotes from a document, which is, he states, one of the very few existing specimens of French Visigothic manuscripts in the uncial character, and which dates from the eighth century, the following form of consecration or benediction, entitled (in monastic Latin) Orationem in scriptorio: “Vouchsafe, O Lord, to bless this scriptorium of Thy servants and all that work therein: that whatsoever sacred writings shall be here read or written by them, they may receive with understanding and may bring the same to good effect.”[115] (see also page 61).

In the more carefully constructed monasteries, the scriptorium was placed to adjoin the calefactory, which simplified the problem of the introduction of hot air.

A further evidence, if such were needed, that the larger literary undertakings were carried on in a scriptorium common room and not in separate cells, is given by the regulation of the general Chapter of the Cistercian Order in 1134, which directs that the same silence should be maintained in the scriptorium as in the cloister: In omnibus scriptoriis ubicunque ex consuetudine monachi scribunt, silentium teneatur sicut in claustro.[116]

Odo, who in 1093 became Abbot of S. Martin at Tournai, writes that he confided the management of the outside work of the monastery to Ralph, the prior. This left the abbot free to devote himself to reading and to supervising the work in his scriptorium. Odo exulted in the number of writers whom the Lord had given to him. “If you had gone into the cloister during the working hours, you would have seen a dozen scribes writing, in perfect silence, at tables constructed for the purpose.” Odo caused to be transcribed all of Jerome’s Commentaries on the Prophets, all the works of S. Gregory, and all the works that he could find of S. Augustine, S. Ambrose, Bishop Isidore, the Venerable Bede, and Anselm, then Abbot of Bec and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. Odo’s successor, Heriman, who gives this account, says with pride that such a library as Odo brought together in S. Martin could hardly be paralleled in any monastery in the country, and that other monasteries were begging for texts from S. Martin’s with which to collate and correct their own copies.[117]

Maitland mentions that certain of the manuscripts written in Odo’s scriptorium, including the fourth volume of the Gregorialis of Alulfus, were (in 1845) in the library of Dr. Todd, of Trinity College, Dublin.[118]

In estimating the extent of book production of the manuscript period, we may very easily place too large a comparative weight on the productive power of the Press. Maitland points out that although the power of multiplication of literary productions was, of course, during the Dark Ages infinitely below that which now exists, and while the entire book production of the two periods may not be compared, yet as regards those books which were considered as the standard works in sacred literature and in the approved secular literature, the difference was not so extreme as may easily be supposed. He enquires, to emphasise his point, what proportion the copies of Augustine’s City of God and of Gregory’s Morals, printed between the years 1700 and 1800, bear to those written between the years 1100 and 1200.[119]

I think, with Maitland, that, according to the evidence on record, for books such as those given above as typical examples, the written production during the century selected would probably have exceeded the number of copies of the same books turned out by the printing-presses during the eighteenth century. We must recall to ourselves that for a term of six or seven centuries, writing was a business, and was also a religious duty; an occupation taken up by choice and pursued with a degree of zeal, persistence, and enthusiasm for which in the present day there is no parallel.

Mabillon speaks of a volume by Othlonus, a monk of S. Emmeram’s at Ratisbon, who was born about the year 1013. In this book, which is entitled De ipsius tentationibus, varia fortuna, et scriptis, the monk gives an account of his literary labours and of the circumstances which led to his writing the various works bearing his name.

“For the same reason, I think proper to add an account of the great knowledge and capacity for writing which was given me by the Lord in my childhood. When as yet a little child, I was sent to school and quickly learned my letters, and I began, long before the usual time of learning and without any order from the master, to learn the art of writing. Undertaking this in a furtive and unusual manner, and without any teacher, I got a habit of holding my pen wrongly, nor were any of my teachers afterwards able to correct me on that point; for I had become too much accustomed to it to be able to change. Those who saw my earlier work unanimously decided that I should never write well. After a short time the facility came to me, and while I was in the monastery of Tegernsee (in Bavaria) I wrote many books.... Being sent to Franconia while I was yet a boy, I worked so hard at writing that before I returned I had nearly lost my sight.... After I became a monk in the monastery of S. Emmeram, I was appointed the schoolmaster. The duties of this office so fully occupied my time, that I was able to do the transcribing in which I was interested only by night and on holidays.... I was, however, able, in addition to writing the books which I had myself composed, and the copies of which I gave away for the edification of those who asked for them, to prepare nineteen missals (ten for the abbots and monks in our own monastery, four for the brethren at Fulda, and five for those in other places), three books of the Gospels, and two with the Epistles and Gospels, which are called Lectionaries; besides which, I wrote four service-books for matins. I wrote in addition a good many books for the brethren at Fulda, for the monks at Hirschfeld and at Amerbach, for the Abbot of Lorsch, for certain friends at Passau, and for other friends in Bohemia, for the monastery of Tegernsee, for the monastery of Pryel, for the monastery of Obermünster and for that of Niedermünster, and for my sister’s son. Moreover, to many others I gave or sent, at different times, sermons, proverbs, and edifying writings.... Afterwards, old age’s infirmity of various kinds hindered me.”[120]

If there were many hundred scribes of the diligence of Othlonus, the mass of literature produced in the scriptorium may very easily have rivalled the later output of the printing-presses. The labours of Othlonus were, if the records are to be trusted, eclipsed by those of the nun Diemude or Diemudis of the monastery of Wessobrunn. An anonymous monk of this monastery, writing in the year 1513, says:

“Diemudis was formerly a most devout nun of this our monastery of Wessobrunn. [Pez states that Diemudis lived in the time of Gregory VII., who became Pope in 1073. She was, therefore, though probably somewhat younger, a contemporary of the monk Othlonus of Ratisbon.] For our monastery was formerly double or divided into two parts; that is to say, of monks and nuns. The place of the monks was where it now is; but that of the nuns, where the parish church now stands. This virgin was most skilful in the art of writing: for though she is not known to have composed any work, yet she wrote with her own hand many volumes in a most beautiful and legible character, both for divine service and for the public library of the monastery. Of these books she has left a list in a certain plenarius.[121] The titles are as follows:

A Missal, with the Gradual and Sequences. Another Missal, with the Gradual and Sequences, given to the Bishop of Trèves. Another Missal, with the Epistles, Gospels, Graduals, and Sequences. Another Missal, with the Epistles and Gospels for the year, the Gradual and Sequences, and the entire service for baptism. A Missal, with Epistles and Gospels. A Book of Offices. Another Book of Offices, with the baptismal service (given to the Bishop of Augsburg). A Book, with the Gospels and Lessons. A Book, with the Gospels. A Book, with the Epistles. A Bible, in two volumes, given for the estate in Pisinberch. A Bible, in three volumes. S. Gregory ad regaredum. S. Gregory on Ezekiel. Sermons and Homilies of certain ancient Doctors, three volumes. Origen on the Old Testament. Origen on the Canticles. Augustine on the Psalms, three volumes. Augustine on the Gospels and on the First Epistle of S. John, two volumes. Augustine, Epistles, to the number of lxxv. Augustine, Treatises. S. Jerome’s Epistles, to the number of clxiv. The Tripartite History of Cassiodorus. The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. S. Augustine, Fifty Sermons. The Life of S. Silvester. Jerome against Vigilantius. Jerome, De Consolatione Mortuorum. The Life of S. Blasius. The Life of John the Almoner, Patriarch of Alexandria early in the seventh century. Paschasius on the Body and Blood of Christ. The Conflict of Lanfranc with Berengarius. The Martyrdom of S. Dionysius. The Life of S. Adrian. S. Jerome, De Hebraicis Quæstionibus. S. Augustine, Confessions. Canons. Glossa per A. B. C. Composita (i. e., a Gloss alphabetically arranged).

These are the volumes written with her own hand by the aforesaid handmaid of God, Diemudis, to the praise of God and of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, the patrons of the monastery.”[122]

The same writer says that Diemudis (whom he calls exaratrix diligentissima) carried on a correspondence by very sweet letters (epistolæ suaves valde) with Herluca, who was for thirty-six years a nun at Eppach, and that the letters were in his time (1513), that is four and a half centuries later, extant in the monastery of Bernried.

The Influence of the Scriptorium.

—Hildebrand, who, under the name Gregory VII., became Pope in 1073, appears to have made large use of the literary facilities of the monasteries to bring effectively before the public the doctrinal teachings which seemed to him essential for the wholesome development of the strength of the Church in its great contest with the imperial power and for the proper rule of the world. The histories of the time speak of monks travelling throughout the Empire circulating writings in favour of the Church, by means of which writings schism could be withstood and the zeal of good Catholics aroused.[123]

Certain of the monasteries, in connection with their literary activity in behalf of the Pope, came into special disfavour with the Emperor. Among them was Hirschau, the importance of whose literary work has been previously referred to. This monastery fell under the displeasure of the Emperor Frederick IV., but the monks, says their own annalist, sustained by their prayers, braved the sword of the tyrant and despised the menaces of offended princes.[124] Abbot William of Hirschau had for twenty-two years been the soul of monastic regeneration in Germany. He was one of the great scholars of his time and had done not a little to further the literary pre-eminence of his monastery, and he became one of the most valiant defenders of the popes during this contest. Among other ecclesiastical writers whose pens were active in the defence of the papal decrees and in assailing the utterances of the schismatics, and whose work, by means of the distributing machinery which had already been organised between the monasteries, secured for the time a large circulation, were Bernard, at one time master of the schools of Constance, but later a monk at Hirschau; Bernold, a monk of St. Blaise; Adelbert, a monk of Constance; and Gebhard, another monk of Hirschau.[125]

Gregory was possibly the first pope who made effective and extended use of the writings of devout authors for the purpose of influencing public opinion. If we may judge by the results of his long series of contests with the imperial power in Germany, the selection of these literary weapons was one proof of his sagacity. In this contest, the scriptoria of the monasteries proved more powerful than the armies of the emperors; as, five hundred years later, the printing-presses of the Protestants proved more effective than the Bulls of the Papacy.

The most important, in connection with its influence and consequences, of the discoveries made by scholars concerning the fraudulent character of historic documents, occurred as late as the beginning of the fifteenth century. It was about 1440 when Laurentius Valla, at that time acting as secretary for King Alphonso of Naples, wrote his report upon the famous Donation of Constantine, the document upon which the Roman Church had for nearly a thousand years based its claims to be the direct representative in Western Europe of the old imperial authority. Valla brought down upon his head much ecclesiastical denunciation. The evidences produced by him of the fact that the document had been fabricated a century or more after the death of Constantine could not be gotten rid of, and, although for a number of years the Church continued to maintain the sacred character of the Donation, and has, in fact, never formally admitted that it was fraudulent, it was impossible, after the beginning of the sixteenth century, even for the ecclesiastics themselves to base any further claims for the authority of the Church upon this discredited parchment.

Of almost equal importance was the discovery of the fabrication of the pseudo Isidoric Decretals. The Decretals had been concocted early in the ninth century by certain priests in the West Frankish Church, and had been eagerly accepted by Pope Nicholas I., who retained in the archives of the Vatican the so-called originals. The conclusion that the Decretals had been fraudulently imposed upon the Church was not finally accepted until the beginning of the fourteenth century. It was with the humanistic movement of the Renaissance that historical criticism had its birth, and a very important portion of the work of such criticism consisted in the analysis of the lack of foundation of a large number of fabulous legends upon which many of the claims of the Church had been based.

There were evidently waves of literary interest and activity in the different monasteries, between which waves the art of writing fell more or less into disuse and the libraries were neglected. In the monastery at Murbach, for instance, in which, in the beginning of the century, important work had been done, it is recorded that in 1291 no monks were found who were able to write, and the same was said in 1297 of the more famous monastery of St. Gall.[126] On the other hand, the newly organised Orders of travelling or mendicant monks took an active interest in preparing and in distributing manuscript copies of works of doctrine at about the time when, in the older and richer Orders, literary earnestness was succumbing to laziness and luxury. With these mendicant monks, began also to come into circulation a larger proportion of original writings, transcribed and corrected, and probably to some extent sold by the authors themselves. Richard de Bury makes bitter references in his Philobiblon (chapters v. and vi.) to the general antagonism of the Church towards literature, but speaks with appreciation of the educational services rendered by the mendicant monks. Writing was done also by the monks of the Minorite Order, but their rules and their methods of life called for such close economy that the manuscripts left by them are distinguished by the meagreness and inadequacy of the material and the closely crowded script, which, in order further to save space, contains many abbreviations.

Roger Bacon is said to have come into perplexity because, when he wished to send his treatises to Pope Clement IV., he could find no one among the Brothers of his Order who was able to assist him in transcribing the same, while scribes outside of the Order to whom he attempted to entrust the work gave him untrustworthy and slovenly copies.[127]

With the beginning of the fourteenth century, it is possible to note a scholarly influence exercised upon certain of the monasteries by the universities. The most enterprising of the monks made opportunities for themselves to pass some years of their novitiate in one or more of the universities, or later secured leave of absence from the monasteries for the purpose of visiting the universities. It also happened that from the monasteries where literary work had already been successfully carried on, monks were occasionally called to the universities in order to further the literary undertakings of the theological faculties. Finally, the abbots, and other high officials of the monasteries, were, after the beginning of the fourteenth century, more frequently appointed from among the ecclesiastics who had had a university training.

The library in Heidelberg, the university of which dates from 1386, received from the monastery at Salem a large number of beautiful manuscripts, and finally, an illuminated breviary was completed in 1494 by the Cistercian Amandus, who, after the destruction of his monastery in Strasburg, had found refuge in Salem, where in 1529 he became abbot. There is evidence that, at this time, both in Salem and in other monasteries in which the business of manifolding and of selling or exchanging manuscripts became important, a large proportion of the work of illustrating or illuminating was done by paid artists.

After the reform movement which began with the Council of Basel, there came into existence, in connection with the renewal of theological discussions, a fresh literary activity in many of the monasteries. In the monastery at Camp, in 1440, the library was renewed and very much extended, and here were written by Guillaume de Reno, scriptor egregius nulli illo tempore in arte sua secundus, the Catholicon, books of the Mass, and other devotional works. Abbot Heinrich von Calcar provided Guillaume for eighteen years with a yearly supply of parchment, valued at seventeen florins, and of other writing material.

In Michelsberg, Abbot Ulrich III. (1475-1483) and his successor Andreas restored the long-time deserted library, and by work by the scribes of the monastery and through the exchange of works for the productions of other monasteries, secured an important collection of manuscripts. In 1492, Andreas, abbot of the monastery of Bergen, near Magdeburg, renewed the scriptorium, which, later, became active in the production of copies of works connected with this earlier reformation.

Adolph von Hoeck, who died in 1516, Prior of Scheda in Westphalia, was a skilled scribe as well as a zealous reformer. In Monsee, a certain Brother, Jacob of Breslau, who died in 1480, was said to have written so many volumes that six horses could with difficulty bear the burden of them.[128] In the monastery at Tegernsee, already referred to, there was, under Abbot Conrad V. (1461-1492), an active business in the manifolding and distribution of writings. The same was the case in Blaubeuern, where, as early as 1475, a printing-press was put into operation, but the preparation of manuscripts continued until the end of the century. Among the works issued from Blaubeuern in manuscript form after the beginning of printing, were the Chronicles of Monte Cassino, by Andreas Ysingrin, completed in 1477, and the Life of the Holy Wilhelm of Hirschau, by Brother Silvester, completed in 1492.[129]

This year of 1492 appears to have been one of exceptional intellectual as well as physical activity. It records not merely the completion of a number of important works marking the close of the manuscript period of literary production, but the publication, as will be noted in a later chapter, of a long series of the more important of the earlier printed books in Mayence, Basel, Venice, Milan, and Paris.

In Belgium, through the first half of the fifteenth century, while many of the monasteries had fallen into a condition of luxurious inactivity, work was still carried on in the Laurentium monastery of Liége by Johann of Stavelot, and by other zealous scribes, and in several other of the Benedictine monasteries of the Low Countries the scriptoria were kept busied. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, and for some years after the beginning of the work of the German printers, the production of manuscripts in Germany continued actively in the monastery of S. Peter at Erfurt, and in the monasteries of S. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg, the work of which has been recorded with full precision and detail in the famous catalogue of Wilhelm Wittwer.

In 1472, in this latter monastery, Abbot Melchior founded the first printing-office at Augsburg in order to give to the monks continued employment, and in order also to be able to enlarge the library by producing copies of books for exchange. It was a long time, however, before the work of the printing-press came to be sufficiently understood to bring to a stop the labours of the scribes in manifolding manuscripts for sale and for exchange. The writings of the nun Helena of Hroswitha, the Chronicle of Urspergense, and other works continued to be prepared in manuscript form after printed editions were in the market. The same was the case with the great choir books, which continued during nearly half the century to be very largely prepared by hand in the scriptoria. This persistence of the old methods was partly due to habit and to the difficulty of communication with the centres in which the printing-presses were already at work, but was very largely, of course, the result of the fact that in the monasteries was always available a large amount of labour, and that the use of this labour for the preparation of sacred books had come to form part of the religious routine of the institution.

With the development of the system of common schools, the educational work which had previously been carried on in the convents was very largely given up, thus throwing upon the hands of the monks a still greater proportion of leisure time. In 1492, Johann of Trittenheim, Abbot of Sponheim, wrote to the Abbot Gerlach of Deutz a letter, De Laude Scriptorum, in which he earnestly invokes the scribes (he was addressing the scribes of the monasteries) by no means to permit themselves to be deterred from their holy occupation by the invasion of the printing-presses. Such admonitions might continue the work of the monks in certain of the scriptoria, but were, of course, futile in the attempt to preserve for any length of time the business of circulating manuscript copies in competition with the comparatively inexpensive, and often beautiful, productions of the printers.

An important part in the work of the preparation and distribution of manuscripts was taken by the so-called “Brothers of common life” (clerici de vita communi), who later, also occupied themselves with the new invention of printing. They cannot properly be classed with the scribes of the monasteries, for they made their work a trade and a means of revenue. This practice obtained, to be sure, also with certain of the monasteries, but it must be considered as exceptional with them. The Brothers differed also from the writers in the university towns and elsewhere, who prepared manuscripts for renting out to students and readers, partly because of the special conditions of their Brotherhood, under which the earnings of individual Brothers all went into a common treasury, but chiefly because they made their work as scribes a means of religious and moral instruction. The earnings secured from the sale of manuscripts were also largely devoted to the missionary work of the Brotherhood. The chief authority for the history of the Brotherhood is the work of Delprat, published in Amsterdam in 1856.

The Brotherhood house in Deventer, Holland, founded by Gerhard Groote in 1383, became an important workshop for the production and distribution of manuscripts. Delprat states that the receipts from these sales were for a time the main support of the Brotherhood house. In 1389, a copy of the Bible which had been written out by Brother Jan von Enkhuizen was sold for five hundred gulden in gold.[130] In Liége, the Brothers were known as Broeders van de Penne, because they carried quill pens in their caps. Groote seems himself to have taken a general supervision of this business of the production of books, selecting the books to be manifolded, verifying the transcripts, and arranging for the sale of the copies which were passed as approved. Florentius Radewijus had the general charge of the manuscripts (filling the rôle which to-day would be known as that of stock clerk) and of preparing the parchment for the scribes and writing in the inscriptions of the finished manuscripts. Later, with the development of the Order and the extension of its book business, each Brotherhood house had its librarius, or manager of the manufacturing and publishing department; its rubricator, who added the initial letters or illuminated letters in the more expensive manuscripts; its ligator, who had charge of the binding, etc.

It was a distinctive feature of the works prepared by the Brothers that they were very largely written in the language of the land instead of in Latin, which elsewhere was, as we have seen, the exclusive language for literature. It was, in fact, one of the charges made by the ecclesiastics against the Order that they put into common language doctrinal instruction which ordinary readers, without direct guidance of the Church, were not competent to understand, and which tended, therefore, to work mischief. In 1398, the Brothers took counsel on the point whether it were permissible to distribute among the people religious writings in Low German, and they appear to have secured the authorisation required. They laid great stress upon the precision of their script, and they were, as a rule, opposed to needless expenditure for ornamentation of text or of covers. Under the influence of Groote, the work of preparing manuscripts of good books was taken up by the monks and the nuns of Windesheim, but, according to Busch, the books produced in Windesheim were but rarely sold. In some cases these seem to have been distributed gratis, while in others they were given in exchange for other books required for the library of the monastery or convent.[131]

Wattenbach says that the Brothers in the Home at Hildesheim were called upon for an exceptional amount of labour in preparing books of the Mass and other devotional works in connection with the reform movement in the monasteries of lower Saxony, which was active in the middle of the fifteenth century. In the year 1450 (the year in which Gutenberg perfected his printing-press) it is recorded that the Hildesheim Brothers earned from the sale of their manuscripts no less than a thousand gulden.[132] In connection with their interest in the production and distribution of cheap literature, the Brothers did not fail to make very prompt and intelligent utilisation of the new invention of printing, and among the earlier printing-offices established in Germany and in the Low Countries were those organised by the Brothers at Deventer, Zwoll, Gouda, Bois-le-duc, Brussels, Louvain, Marienthal, Rostock, etc.

The Literary Monks of England.

—

In accepting the influence of literary ideals, the Anglo-Saxon monks were much slower and less imaginative than the quicker and more idealistic Celts. The quickening of the intellectual development of the monasteries in England was finally brought about through the influence of Celtic missionaries coming directly from Ireland or from the Irish monasteries of the Scottish region, such as Iona and its associates.

Before the literary work of the English monasteries began, there was already in existence a considerable body of literature, which was the expression of the pre-christian conceptions and ideals of the Anglo-Saxons and their Scandinavian kinsmen. Certain of the most famous of the literary creations of the Anglo-Saxons were probably produced subsequent to the time of the acceptance by the people of Christianity, but these productions continued to represent the imagination and the methods of thought of the pagan ancestry, and to utilise as their themes the old-time legends. These Saxon compositions were almost exclusively in the form of poems, epics, and ballads devoted to accounts of the achievements of heroes (more or less legendary) in their wars with each other, and in their adventures with the gods and with the powers of magic and evil. In these early epics, devoted chiefly to strife, women bear but a small part, and the element of love enters hardly at all.

While it is doubtless the case that the Saxon epics, like the Greek poems of the Homeric period and the compositions of the Celtic bards, were preserved for a number of generations in the memories of the reciters, there are references indicating that the writing of the texts on the parchment began at a comparatively early date after the occupation of England. This would imply the existence of some trained scribes before work was begun in the scriptoria of the Saxon monasteries. Such lay scribes must, however, have been very few indeed, and the task of handing down for posterity the old legendary ballads must have depended chiefly upon the scops, which was the name given to the poets or bards attached to the court of a prince or chieftain. It is, however, not until the acceptance of Christianity by the Saxons that there comes to be any abiding interest in letters. As Jusserand puts it: “These same Anglo-Saxons, whose literature at the time of their invasion consisted of the songs mentioned by Tacitus, carmina antiqua, which they trusted to memory alone, who compiled no books, and who for written monuments had Runic inscriptions graven on utensils or on commemorative stones, now have in their turn monks who compose chronicles and kings who know Latin. Libraries are formed in the monasteries; schools are attached to them; manuscripts are thus copied and illuminated in beautiful caligraphy and in splendid colours. The volutes and knots with which the worshippers of Woden ornamented their fibulæ, their arms, the prows of their ships, are reproduced in purple and azure, the initials of the Gospels. The use made of them is different, the taste remains the same.”

It is undoubtedly the case that the preservation of such fragments of Anglo-Saxon literature as have come down to us, and probably of most of the Scandinavian compositions which were transmitted through the Saxons, was due to the monastery scribes whose copies were in part transcribed from the earlier parchments and in part were taken down from the recitals made in the monasteries by the bards or minstrels. The service was in fact similar to that previously rendered by the Irish monks to Celtic literature, and by the scribes of Gaul and Italy to the writings of classic times.

The identity or kinship of much of the heroic poetry of the Anglo-Saxons with that of the Scandinavians is pointed out by Grein in his Anglo-Saxon Library, and by Vigfusson and York-Powell in their Corpus Poeticum Boreale. The greatest of the old English epics, Beowulf, sometimes called “the Iliad of the Saxons,” was put into written form some time in the eighth century and, like all similar epics, was doubtless the result of the weaving together of a series of ballads of varied dates and origins. The text of the poem has been preserved almost complete in a manuscript, now placed in the Cottonian collection in the British Museum, which dates from the latter part of the tenth century.

It will be understood that, as a matter of convenience in a brief reference of this kind, I am using the term Saxon and Anglo-Saxon in no strict ethnological sense, but simply to designate the Teutonic element of the people of England, an element whose influence is usually considered to have begun with the landing of Hengist and Horsa in 451.

The first of the Anglo-Saxon monks to be ranked as a poet appears to have been the cowherd Cædmon, a vassal of the Abbess Hilda and a monk of Whitby. Caædmon’s songs were sung about 670. He is reported to have put into verse the whole of Genesis and Exodus, and, later, the life of Christ and the Acts of the Apostles, but his work was not limited to the paraphrasing of the Scriptures. A thousand years before the time of Paradise Lost, the Northumbrian monk sang before the Abbess Hilda the Revolt of Satan. Fragments of this poem, discovered by Archbishop Usher, and printed for the first time in 1655, have been preserved, and have since that date been frequently published.[133] Cædmon died in 680, and Milton in 1674. The Abbess Hilda, who was herself a princess of royal family, appears to have had a large interest in furthering the study of literature, not only in the nunnery founded by her, but in a neighbouring monastery which came largely under her influence. In both nunnery and monastery, schools for the children of the district were instituted, which schools were probably the earliest of their class in that portion of Britain.

The Northumbrian poet Cynewulf, whose work was done between the years 760 and 800, may be referred to as a connecting link between the group of national or popular bards and the literary workers of the Church. His earlier years were passed as a wandering minstrel, but later in life he passed through some religious experience and entered a monastery, devoting himself thereafter to religious poetry. His conversion was doubtless the means of preserving (through the scriptorium of his monastery) such of his compositions as have remained, and thus of making a place for his name among the authors of England.

Among the earlier Saxon monks whose educational work was important are to be included S. Wilfred (634-709) and S. Cuthbert (637-687). Wilfred introduced into England the Rule of the Benedictines, and exercised a most important influence in instituting Benedictine monasteries and in bringing these monasteries into relations with the Church of Rome. His life was a stormy one, but notwithstanding the various contentions with the several monarchs who at that time divided between them the territory of England, and in spite of several periods of banishment, he found time to carry on a great work in furthering the intellectual life of his Benedictine monks. It was largely due to him that the Benedictine monasteries accepted almost from the first the responsibility of conducting the schools of the land. These schools achieved so great repute that Anglo-Saxons of high rank were eager to confide their children to Wilfred to be brought up in one of his monastic establishments. At the close of their school training they were to choose between the service of God and that of the King. Wilfred is also to be credited with the establishing within the English monasteries of a course of musical instruction, the teachers of which had largely been trained in the great school of Gregorian music at Canterbury.

Another of the Saxon abbots whose name remains associated with the intellectual life of the monasteries was Benedict Biscop. Montalembert speaks of Biscop as representing science and art in the Church, as Wilfred had stood for the organising of the English Church as a public body, and Cuthbert for the renewal and development of its life. The monasteries of Wearmouth and of Yarrow, founded by Biscop, were endowed with great libraries and became the centres of an active literary life. Biscop made no less than six journeys to Rome in the interest of his monastery work, and, in the seventh century, a journey to Rome from Britain was not an easy experience. His fourth expedition, begun in the year 671, was undertaken partly in the interests of literature and for the purpose of securing books for the education of his monks. He obtained in the Papal capital a rich cargo of books, some of which he had purchased while others were given to him. In Vienne, the ancient capital of Gaul, he secured a further collection. The monastery of Wearmouth, founded in 673, had the benefit of a large portion of the books brought from Italy by the abbot. It was his desire that each monastery for which he was responsible should possess a library, which seemed to him indispensable for the instruction, discipline, and the good organisation of the community. Biscop’s fifth journey was made partly for the purpose of securing pictures, coloured images, and artistic decorations for the chapel of the monastery, but the sixth pilgrimage, made in 685, was again devoted almost entirely to the collection of books.

For the details of the work of Biscop in the organisation of his monasteries and in the supervision of the work in their scriptoria, and concerning his various architectural and artistic undertakings, we are largely indebted to the historian Beda, or Bede. Bede was a pupil of Biscop in the monastery of Yarrow, and it was in this monastery that were written the famous Chronicles. It was the time of comparative peace in the island which preceded the first Danish invasion. The fame of the scholar who produced these chronicles was destined to eclipse that of nearly all the Saxon saints and kings, who were in fact known to posterity principally through the pen of the Venerable Bede. It is to Biscop, however, that should be credited the literary surroundings under which Bede was educated, and it is probable that without the stimulating influence of the books secured by the abbot in his wearisome journeys to Southern Europe, the monk would hardly have had the capacity or the incentive to complete his work.

Coelfried, who later became Abbot of Yarrow, and who, after the death of Biscop, was in charge also of the monastery of Wearmouth, continued the interest of his predecessor in the libraries and in the work done by the scribes in the scriptoria. Among the books brought from Rome by Biscop was a curious work on cosmography, which King Alfred was very anxious to possess. Abbot Coelfried finally consented to let the King have the book in exchange for land sufficient to support eight families. Coelfried had had made in the scriptorium of Wearmouth two complete copies of the Bible according to the version of S. Jerome, the text of which had been brought from Rome. These copies were placed, one in the church of Wearmouth and one in that of Yarrow, and were open for the use not only of the monks, but of any others who might desire to consult them and who might be able to read the script. Montalembert refers to this instance as a refutation of “the stupid calumny” which represents the Church as having in former times interdicted to her children the knowledge of the sacred Scriptures.[134]

When Aldhelm, who became Bishop of Sherborn in the year 705, went to Canterbury to be consecrated by his old friend and companion Berthwold (pariter literis studuerant, pariterque viam religionis triverant—together they had studied literature and together they had followed the path of religion), the Archbishop kept him there many days, taking counsel with him about the affairs of his diocese. Hearing of the arrival during this time of ships at Dover, he went there to inspect their unloading and to see if they had brought anything in his way (si quid forte commodum ecclesiastico usui attulissent nautæ qui e Gallico sinu in Angliam provecti librorum copiam apportassent—to see whether the ships which had arrived from the French coast had brought, with the books which formed a part of their cargoes, any volumes of value for the work of the Church). Among many other books he saw one containing the whole of the Old and New Testaments, which book he bought, and which, according to William of Malmesbury, who in the twelfth century wrote the life of Aldhelm, was at that time still preserved at Sherborn.[135]

The great Bible given by King Offa, in 780, to the church at Worcester is described in the chronicle of Malmesbury as Magnam Bibliam.[136] As before indicated, however, the common name of this time for a collection of the Scriptures was not Biblia but Bibliotheca. In a return of their property which the monks of St. Riquier at Centule made in the year 831, by order of Louis the Débonnaire, we find, among a considerable quantity of books: Bibliotheca integra ubi continentur libri lxxii., in uno volumine (a complete Bible, in which seventy-two books are comprised in one volume), and also Bibliotheca dispersa in voluminibus xiv.[137] (a Bible divided into fourteen volumes).

Fleury says of Olbert, Abbot of Gembloux: Étant abbé, il amassa à Gembloux plus de cent volumes d’auteurs ecclésiastiques, et cinquante d’auteurs profanes, ce qui passoit pour une grande Bibliothèque.[138] Warton, using Fleury for his authority, speaks of the “incredible labour and immense expense” which Olbert had given to the formation of this library. There is, however, no authority in the quotation from Fleury for such a description of the exceptional nature of the labour and of the outlay. On the contrary, Fleury goes on to say that Olbert, who had been sent to reform and restore the monastery, which was in a state of great poverty and disorder, had put the monks to work at writing, in order to keep them from being idle. He himself set an example of industry as a scribe by writing out, with his own hand, the whole of the Old and the New Testament, a work which was completed in the year 1040.[139] Maitland calculates that a scribe must be both expert and industrious to perform in less than ten months the task of transcribing all the books of the Old and the New Testament. He estimates, further, that at the rate at which the law stationers of London paid their writers in his time (1845), such a transcript would cost, for the writing only, between sixty and seventy pounds.[140]

The sterling service rendered by King Alfred to the literary interests of England was important in more ways than one, and while his work does not strictly belong to the record of the English monasteries, it may properly enough be associated with the literary history of the English Church; for the King had been adopted as a spiritual son by Pope Leo IV., and in organising and supervising the work of the Church, he took upon himself a large measure of the responsibilities which later were discharged by the Primate. Alfred ruled over the West Saxons from 871 to 901. His reign was a stormy one, and during a number of years it seemed doubtful whether the existence of the little Saxon Kingdom could be maintained against the assaults of the Danes. There came finally, however, a period of peace when Alfred, with Winchester as his capital, was able to give attention to the organisation of education in his kingdom.

During the long years of invasion and of civil war, the literary interests and culture that had come to the Saxons through the Romans had been in great part swept away. The collections of books had been burned and could not be replaced because the clerics had forgotten their Latin. Alfred complained that at the time of his accession in Winchester he could not find south of the Thames a single Englishman able to translate a letter from Latin into English. “When I considered all this, I remembered also how I saw, before it had all been ravaged and burned, how the churches throughout the whole of England stood filled with treasures and books, and there was also a great multitude of God’s servants, but they had very little knowledge of the books; they could not understand any of them because they were not written in their own language.” Alfred can find but one explanation for the omission of the “good and wise men who were formerly all over England” to leave translations of these books. “They did not think that men could ever be so careless and that learning could so soon decay.” The King recalls, however, that there are still left many who “can read English writing.” “I began therefore among the many and manifold troubles of this Kingdom, to translate into English the book which is called in Latin Pastoralis and in English Shepherd’s Book (Hirdeboc), sometimes word for word and sometimes according to the sense, as I had learned it from Plegmund, my Archbishop, and Asser, my Bishop, and Grimbold my Mass-priest, and John my Mass-priest.”[141] It will be noted in these references of King Alfred, that the collections of books, the loss of which he laments, had been contained in the churches. It was also to the ecclesiastics that he was turning for help in the work of rendering into English the instruction for his people to be found in the few Latin volumes that had been preserved.

Jusserand says that Asser was to Alfred what Alcuin had been to Charlemagne, and that he helped the King, by means of the production of translations and by founding schools, to preserve and to spread learning. King Alfred was, however, not content with using his royal authority and influence for the instituting of schools, but himself gave to work as a translator personal time and labour which must have been spared with difficulty from his duties as a ruler and as a military commander. He chooses for his translations books likely to fill up the greatest gaps in the minds of his countrymen, “some books that are most needful for all men to know”: the Book of Orosius, which is to serve as a hand-book of universal history; the Chronicles of Bede, that will instruct them concerning the history of their own ancestors; the Pastoral Rule of S. Gregory, which will make clear to churchmen their ecclesiastical duties; and the Consolation of Philosophy of Boëthius, recommended as a guide for the lives of both ecclesiastics and laymen. These royal translations are at once placed in the scriptoria of the monasteries and in the writing-rooms of the monastery schools for manifolding, and secure through these channels an immediate and important educational influence.

It is also under the instructions of Alfred that the old national chronicles, written in the Anglo-Saxon tongue, are copied, corrected, and continued. Of these chronicles, seven, more or less complete and differing from each other to some extent, have been preserved. The history of the world presents possibly no other instance of a monarch who devoted himself so steadfastly, with his own personal labour, to the educational and spiritual development of his people.

In the latter portion of the tenth century, S. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury under King Edgar, takes up the task of instructing the clergy and people. Under his influence, new monasteries are endowed, a further series of monastery schools is instituted, and special attention is given in the scriptoria and in the writing-rooms of the schools to the production of copies of translations of pious works. The special literary feature of the work done in Dunstan’s school was the attention given to the production of collections of sermons in the vulgar tongue. A number of these collections has been preserved, an example of which, known as the Blickling Homilies (from Blickling Hall, Norfolk, where the MS. was found) was compiled before 971. The series also included homilies by Ælfric, who was Abbot of Eynsham in 1005, and sermons of Wulfstan, who was Bishop of York in 1002.

The canons of Ælfric were written between the years 950 and 1000. The authorities do not appear to be clear whether these canons were the work of the Archbishop or of a grammarian of the same name, while, according to one theory, the Archbishop and the grammarian were the same person. The canons were addressed to Wulfin, Bishop of Sherborn, and they were written in such a form that the Bishop might communicate them to his clergy as a kind of episcopal charge. The twenty-first canon orders: “Every priest also, before he is ordained, must have the arms belonging to his spiritual work; that is, the holy books, namely, the Psalter, the Book of Epistles, the Book of Gospels, the Missal, the Book of Hymns, the Manual, the Calendar (Computus), the Passional, the Penitential, the Lectionary. These books a priest requires and cannot do without, if he would properly fulfil his office and desires to teach the law to the people belonging to him. And let him carefully see that they are well written.”[142]

The library of the English monastery or priory was under the care of the chantor, who could neither sell, pawn, nor lend books without an equivalent pledge; he might, however, with respect to neighbouring churches or to persons of consideration, relax somewhat the strictness of this rule. In the case of a new foundation, the King sometimes sent letters-patent to the different abbeys requesting them to give copies of theological and religious books in their own collections. In certain instances, the King himself provided such transcripts for the new foundation. In the catalogue of the abbatial libraries of England, prepared by Leland, record is found of only the following classics: Cicero and Aristotle (these two appear in nearly all the catalogues), Terence, Euclid, Quintus Curtius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Julius Frontinus, Apuleius, and Seneca.[143] It is difficult from such a list to arrive at the basis or standard of selection.

Thomas Duffus Hardy gives some interesting information concerning the later literary and historical work done in the monasteries of Britain,[144] and for a portion of the following notes concerning this work I am chiefly indebted to him. The Abbey of St. Albans was founded towards the close of the eighth century, but it was not until the latter part of the eleventh century, or nearly three hundred years later, that the scriptorium was instituted. The organisation of the scriptorium was due to Paul, the fourteenth abbot, who presided over the monastery from 1077 to 1093, and who had the assistance in this work of the Bishop Lanfranc. Paul was by birth a Norman, and was esteemed a man of learning as well as of piety. After the scriptorium had been opened, the abbot placed in it eight Psalters, a Book of Collects, a Book of Epistles, a book containing the Gospels for the year, two Gospels bound in gold and silver and ornamented with gems, and twenty-eight other notable volumes. In addition to these, there was a number of ordinals, costumals, missals, troparies, collectories, and other books for the use of the monks in their devotions. This summary of the first contents of the library is taken by Hardy from the Gesta Abbatum, a chronicle of St. Albans.

The literary interests of Paul were, it appears, continued by a large proportion at least of his successors, and many of these made important contributions to the library. Geoffrey, the sixteenth abbot, gave to the scriptorium a missal bound in gold, and another missal in two volumes, both incomparably illuminated in gold and written in an open and legible script. He also gave a precious illuminated psalter, a book containing the benediction and sacraments, a book of exorcism, and a collectory. (The description is taken from the Gesta.)

Ralph, the seventeenth abbot, was said to have become a lover of books after having heard Wodo of Italy expound the Scriptures. He collected with diligence a large number of valuable manuscripts. Robert de Gorham, who was called the reformer of the liberty of the Church of St. Albans, after becoming prior, gave many books to the scriptorium, more than could be mentioned by the author of the Gesta. Simon, who became abbot in 1166, caused to be created the office of historiographer. Simon had been educated in the abbey, and did not a little to add to its fame as a centre of literature. He repaired and enlarged the scriptorium, and he kept two or three scribes constantly employed in it. The previous literary abbots had for the most part brought from without the books added to the collection, but it was under Simon that the abbey became a place of literary production as well as of literary reproduction. He had an ordinance enacted to the effect that every abbot must support out of his personal funds one adequate scribe. Simon presented to the abbey a considerable group of books that he had himself been collecting before his appointment as abbot, together with a very beautiful copy of the Old and New Testaments.

The next literary abbot was John de Cell, who had been educated in the schools of Paris, and who was profoundly learned in grammar, poetry, and physics. On being elected abbot, he gave over the management of the temporal affairs of the abbey to his prior, Reymond, and devoted himself to religious duties and to study. Reymond himself was a zealous collector, and it was through him that was secured for the library, among many other books, a copy of the Historica Scholastica cum Allegoriis, of Peter Comester. The exertions of these scholarly abbots and priors won for St. Albans a special distinction among the monasteries of Britain, and naturally led to the compilation of the historic annals which gave to the abbey a continued literary fame. Hardy is of opinion that these historic annals date from the administration of Simon, between the years 1166 and 1183.

Richard of Wendover, who succeeded Walter as historiographer, compiled, between the years 1230 and 1236, the Flores Historiarum, one of the most important of the earlier chronicles of England. Hardy points out that it could have been possible to complete so great a work within the term of six years, only on the assumption that Richard found available much material collected by Walter, and it is also probable that other compilations were utilised by Richard for the work bearing his name. It is to be borne in mind that the monastic chronicles were but seldom the production of a single hand, as was the case with the chronicles of Malmesbury and of Beda. The greater number of such chronicles grew up from period to period, fresh material being added in succeeding generations, while in every monastic house in which there were transcribers, fresh local information was interpolated until the tributary streams had grown more important than the original current. In this manner, the monastic annals were at one time a transcript, at another time an abridgment, and at another an original work. “With the chronicler, plagiarism was no crime and no degradation. He epitomised or curtailed or adapted the words of his predecessors in the same path with or without alteration (and usually without acknowledgment), whichever best suited his purpose or that of his monastery. He did not work for himself but at the command of others, and thus it was that a monastery chronicle grew, like a monastery house, at different times, and by the labour of different hands.”

Of the heads that planned such chronicles or of the hands that executed them, or of the exact proportion contributed by the several writers, no satisfactory record has been preserved. The individual is lost in the community.

In the earlier divisions of Wendover’s chronicle, covering the centuries from 231 down to about 1000, Wendover certainly relied, says Hardy, upon some previous compilation. About the year 1014, that narrative, down to the death of Stephen, showed a marked change in style, giving evidence that after this period some other authority had been adopted, while there was also a larger introduction of legendary matter. From the accession of Henry II., in 1235, when the Flores Historiarum ends, Wendover may be said to assume the character of an original author. On the death of Richard, the work of historiographer was taken up by Matthew Paris. His Lives of the Two Offas and his famous Chronicles were produced between the years 1236 and 1259.

In certain of the more literary of the English monasteries, the divine offices were moderated in order to allow time for study, and, under the regulations of some foundations, “lettered” persons were entitled to special exemption from the performance of certain daily services, and from church duty.[145]

At a visitation of the treasury of St. Pauls, made in the year 1295, by Ralph de Baudoke, the Dean (afterwards Bishop of London), there were found twelve copies of the Gospels adorned, some with silver, and others with pearls and gems, and a thirteenth, the case (capsa) containing which was decorated not merely with gilding but with relics.[146] The treasury also contained a number of other divisions of the Scriptures, together with a Commentary of Thomas Aquinas. Maitland says that the use of relics as a decoration was an unusual feature. He goes on to point out that the practice of using for manuscripts a decorated case, caused the case, not infrequently, to be more valuable than the manuscript itself, so that it would be mentioned among the treasures of the church, when the book contained in it was not sufficiently important to be even specified.

The binding of the books which were in general use in the English monasteries for reference was usually in parchment or in plain leather. The use of jewels, gold, or silver for the covers, or for the capsæ, was, with rare exceptions, limited to the special copies retained in the church treasury. William of Malmesbury in the account which he gives of the chapel made at Glastonbury by King Ina, mentions that twenty pounds and sixty marks of gold were used in the preparation of the Coöpertoria Librorum Evangelii.[147]

The Earlier Monastery Schools.

—At the time when neither local nor national governments had assumed any responsibilities in connection with elementary education, and when the municipalities were too ignorant, and in many cases too poor, to make provision for the education of the children, the monks took up the task as a part of the regular routine of their duty. The Rule of S. Benedict had in fact made express provision for the education of pupils.

An exception to the general statement concerning the neglect of the rulers to make provision for education should, however, be made in the case of Charlemagne, whose reign covered the period 790 to 830. It was the aim of Charlemagne to correct or at least to lessen the provincial differences and local barbarities of style, expression, pression, orthography, etc., in the rendering of Latin, and it was with this end in view that he planned out his great scheme of an imperial series of schools, through which should be established an imperial or academic standard of style and expression. This appears to have been the first attempt since the time of the Academy of Alexandria to secure a scholarly uniformity of the standard throughout the civilised world, and the school at Tours may be considered as a precursor of the French Academy of modern times. For such a scheme the Emperor was dependent upon the monks, as it was only in the monasteries that could be found the scholarship that was required for the work. He entrusted to Alcuin, a scholarly English Benedictine, the task of organising the imperial schools. The first schools instituted by Alcuin in Aachen and Tours, and later in Milan, were placed in charge of Benedictine monks, and formed the models for a long series of monastic schools during the succeeding centuries. Alcuin had been trained in the cathedral schools founded in York by Egbert, and Egbert had been brought up by Benedict Biscop in the monastery of Yarrow, where he had for friend and fellow pupil the chronicler Bede. The results of the toilsome journeys taken by Biscop to collect books for his beloved monasteries of Wearmouth and Yarrow[148] were far-reaching. The training secured by Alcuin as a scribe and as a student of the Scriptures, the classics, and the “seven liberal arts” was more immediately due to his master Ælbert, who afterward succeeded Egbert as archbishop.

The script which was accepted as the standard for the imperial schools, and which, transmitted through successive Benedictine scriptoria, served seven centuries later as a model for the first type-founders of Italy and France, can be traced directly to the school at York.

Alcuin commemorated his school and its master in a descriptive poem On the Saints of the Church at York, which is quoted in full by West.[149] In 780, Alcuin succeeded Ælbert as master of the school, and later, was placed in charge of the cathedral library, which was at the time one of the most important collections in Christendom. In one of his poems he gives a kind of metrical summary of the chief contents of this library. The lines are worth quoting because of the information presented as to the authors at that time to be looked for in a really great monastic library. The list includes a distinctive though very restricted group of Latin writers, but, as West points out, the works “by glorious Greece transferred to Rome” form but a meagre group. The catalogue omits Isidore, although previous references make clear that the writings of the great Spanish bishop were important works of reference in York as in all the British schools. It is West’s opinion that the Aristotle and other Greek authors referred to were probably present only in Latin versions. These manuscripts in the York library were undoubtedly for the most part transcripts of the parchments collected for Wearmouth and Yarrow by Biscop.

The Library of York Cathedral.

Alcuin’s work on the Continent began in 782, when, resigning his place as master of the cathedral school in York, he took charge of the imperial or palace school at Tours. His work in the palace school included not only the organisation of classes for the younger students, but the personal charge of a class which comprised the Emperor himself, his wife Luitgard, and other members of the royal or imperial family. Whether for the younger or for the older students, however, the instruction given had to be of a very elementary character. The distinctive value of the work was, it is to be borne in mind, not in the extent of the instruction given to the immediate pupils, but in making clear to the Emperor and to his sons who were to succeed him, the importance of securing a certain uniformity of script and of educational work throughout the Empire.

It is very probable that not a few of the earlier copyists who completed in the scriptoria the tasks set for them by the instructors trained in Tours and in Aachen, transcribed texts the purport of which they had not mastered. It was through their work, however, that the texts themselves were preserved and were made available for later scribes and students who were competent to comprehend the spirit as well as the letter of their contents.

Mabillon is in accord with later authorities such as Compayré and West, as to the deplorable condition of learning at this time throughout the Empire ruled by Charles. Says West: “The plight of learning in Frankland at this time was deplorable. Whatever traditions had found their way from the early Gallic schools into the education of the Franks had long since been scattered and obliterated in the wild disorders which characterised the times of the Merovingian kings.... The copying of books had almost ceased, and all that can be found that pretends to the name of literature in this time is the dull chronicle or ignorantly conceived legend.”[151]

A description such as this emphasises the importance of the work initiated by Alcuin, work the value of which the ruler of Europe was fortunately able to appreciate and ready to support. In his relation to scholarly interests in Europe and to the preservation of the literature of the past, Alcuin may fairly be considered as the successor of Cassiodorus. He was able in the eighth century to render a service hardly less distinctive than that credited to Cassiodorus three hundred years earlier. There is the further parallel that, like Cassiodorus, he possessed a very keen and intelligent interest in the form given to literary expression, and in all the details of the work given to the copyists. The instructions given in Alcuin’s treatise on orthography for the work of the scribes, follow very closely in principle, and differ, in fact, but slightly in detail from, the instructions given by Cassiodorus in his own treatise on the same subject. A couplet which stands at the head of the first page reads as follows: “Let him who would publish the sayings of the ancients read me, for he who follows me not will speak without regard to law.”[152] Alcuin’s care in regard to the consistency of punctuation and orthography and his intelligent selection of a clearer and neater form of script than had heretofore been employed, have impressed a special character on the series of manuscripts dating from the early portion of the ninth century and written in what is termed the Caroline minuscule. In a letter written to Charles from Tours in 799, Alcuin mentions that he has copied out on some blank parchment which the King had sent him a short treatise on correct diction, with illustrations from Bede. He goes on to speak of the special value to literature of the distinctions and subdistinctions of punctuation, the knowledge of which has, he complains, almost disappeared: “But even as the glory of all learning and the ornaments of wholesome erudition begin to be seen again by reason of your noble exertions, so also it seems most fitting that the use of punctuation should also be resumed by scribes.... Let your authority so instruct the youths at the palace that they may be able to utter with perfect elegance whatsoever the clear eloquence of your thought may dictate, so that whatsoever may go to the parchment bearing the royal name it may display the excellence of the royal learning.”[153] A very delicate hint, remarks West, for Charles to mind his commas and his colons.

Up to the time of Charlemagne there appears to have been so little facility in writing and so few scribes were available, that government records were not kept even at the Courts. The schools established by Alcuin at Tours, under the direction of Charlemagne, were in fact the first schools for writers which had existed in Western Europe for centuries. One of the earlier applications made of the knowledge gained in the imperial schools was for the critical analysis of certain historical documents which had heretofore been accepted as final authorities. In the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages, anything that was in writing appears to have been accepted as necessarily trustworthy and valuable, very much as in the earlier times of printing the fact that a statement was in print caused it to be accepted as something not to be contradicted. The critical faculty, combined with the scholarly knowledge necessary and properly applied, was, however, of slow growth, and centuries must still have passed before, in this work of differentiating the value of documents, the authority of scholars secured its full recognition.

After this work of Alcuin began, that is to say, after the beginning of the ninth century, it became the rule of each properly organised monastery to include, in addition to the scriptorium, an armarium, or writing-chamber, which was utilised as a class-room for instruction in writing and in Latin. In a letter of Canonicus Geoffrey, of St.-Barbe-en-Auge, dated 1170, occurs the expression, Claustrum sine armario est quasi castrum sine armamentario,[154] (a monastery without a writing-chamber is like a camp without a storehouse of munitions or an armory.)

The Capitular of Charlemagne, issued in the year 789, addressed itself to the correction of the ignorance and carelessness of the monks, and to the necessity of preserving a standard of correctness for the work of transcribing holy writings. It contains the phrase:

Et pueros vestros non sinite eos vel legendo vel scribendo corrumpere. Et si opus est evangelium, psalterium et missale scribere, perfectæ ætatis homines scribant cum omni diligentia.

(Do not permit your pupils, either in reading or writing, to garble the text;—and when you are preparing copies of the gospel, the psalter, or the missal, see that the work is confided to men of mature age, who will write with due care.)

The following lines were written by Alcuin as an injunction to pious scribes:

AD MUSÆUM LIBROS SCRIBENTIUM.

(Quoted from the Vienna Codex, 743. Denis, i., 313.)

Wattenbach is of opinion that these lines stood over the door of the scriptorium of S. Martin’s Monastery.

West says that the lines were written as an injunction to the scribes of the school at Tours. He gives the following version, which takes in certain further lines of the original than those cited by Wattenbach:

“Here let the scribes sit who copy out the words of the Divine Law, and likewise the hallowed sayings of the holy Fathers. Let them beware of interspersing their own frivolities in the words they copy, nor let a trifler’s hand make mistakes through haste. Let them earnestly seek out for themselves correctly written books to transcribe, that the flying pen may speed along the right path. Let them distinguish the proper sense by colons and commas, and let them set the points each one in its due place, and let not him who reads the words to them either read falsely or pause suddenly. It is a noble work to write out holy books, nor shall the scribe fail of his due reward. Writing books is better than planting vines, for he who plants a vine serves his belly, but he who writes a book serves his soul.”[155]

In a manuscript which was written in S. Jacob’s Monastery in Liége, occurred the following lines:

The most important of the works of Alcuin that can be called original were his educational writings, comprising treatises On Grammar, On Orthography, On Rhetoric and the Virtues, On Dialectics, A Disputation with Pepin, and a study of astronomy entitled De Cursu et Saltu Lunæ ac Bissexto. West mentions three other treatises which have been ascribed to him: On the Seven Arts, A Disputation for Boys, and the Propositions of Alcuin.[157] Alcuin was more fortunate than his great predecessor Cassiodorus in respect to the preservation of his writings. Manuscripts of all of these remained in existence until the time came when the complete set of works could be issued in printed form, and the work of the old instructor could be appreciated by a generation living a thousand years after his life had closed. He died at Tours in 804, in his seventieth year. Mabillon speaks of Alcuin as “the most learned man of his age.” Laurie is disposed to lay stress upon the monastic limitations of his intellect, and thinks that his principal ability was that of an administrator; West emphasises the “pure unselfishness of his character,” and adds, with discriminating appreciation: “We must also credit him with a certain largeness of view, in spite of his circumscribed horizon. He had some notion of the continuity of the intellectual life of man, of the perils that beset the transmission of learning from age to age, and of the disgrace which attached to those who would allow those noble arts to perish which the wisest of men among the ancients had discovered.... Perceiving that the precious treasure of knowledge was then hidden in a few books, he made it his care to transmit to future ages copies undisfigured by slips of the pen or mistakes of the understanding. Thus in every way that lay within his power, he endeavoured to put the fortunes of learning for the times that should succeed him in a position of advantage, safeguarded by an abundance of truthfully transcribed books, interpreted by teachers of his own training, sheltered within the Church and defended by the civil power.”[158] Professor West’s appreciative summary does full justice to the work and the ideals of Charlemagne’s great schoolmaster. I should only add that in the special service he was in a position to render in the preservation, transmission, and publication of the world’s literature, Alcuin must be accorded a very high place in the series of literary workers which, beginning with Cassiodorus, includes such names as Columba, Biscop, Aurispa, Gutenberg, Aldus, Estienne, and Froben.

The most noteworthy of the successors of Alcuin in the palace school at Tours was John Scotus Erigena, who in 845 was appointed master by Charles the Bold. The influence of the Irish monk widened the range of study and gave to it an active-minded and speculative tendency that brought about a wide departure from the settled conservatism which had always characterised the teaching of Alcuin. The list of books given to the scribe for copying was increased, and now included, for instance, works of such doubtful orthodoxy as the Satyricon of Martianus Capella, a voluminous compilation constituting a kind of cyclopædia of the seven liberal arts. Its composition dates from about 500.[159]

In a treatise, De Instituto Clericorum, written in 819 (that is, during the reign of Louis I.), by Rabanus Maurus, who was Abbot of Fulda and later, Archbishop of Mayence, is cited the following regulation: “The canons and the decrees of Pope Zosimus have decided that a clerk proceeding to holy orders shall continue five years among the readers ... and after that shall for four years serve as an acolyte or sub-deacon.” (The Zosimus referred to was Pope for but one year, 417-418.) Rabanus had just before remarked, “Lectores are so called a legendo.” He goes on to say that “he who would rightly and properly perform the duty of a reader must be imbued with learning and conversant with books, and must further be instructed in the meaning of words and in the knowledge of the words themselves,” etc.[160] Rabanus follows this with a series of very practical instructions and suggestions for effective education on the part of the readers. These were based upon the treatise on elocution written nearly two hundred years earlier by the learned Bishop Isidore of Seville, and they were again copied three years after the time of Rabanus by Ibo, Bishop of Chartres, in the treatise De Rebus Ecclesiasticis. Maitland, to whom I am indebted for this citation, finds cause for indignant criticism of the historian Robertson for the superficial and misleading references made by the historian to the dense ignorance of the Church in the Middle Ages. Maitland suggests that if Robertson had applied for holy orders to the Archbishop of Seville in the seventh century, the Archbishop of Mayence in the ninth, or the Bishop of Chartres in the eleventh, he would have found the examination rather more of a task than he expected. West speaks of Rabanus as “Alcuin’s greatest pupil,” and as intellectually “a greater man than his master.”[161] He wrote a long series of theological and educational treatises.

From the Constitutions of Reculfus, who became Bishop of Soissons in 879, it is evident that he expected the clergy to be able both to read and to write. The Bishop says: “We admonish that each one of you should be careful to have a Missal, a Lectionary, a Book of the Gospels, a Martyrology, an Antiphonary, a Psalter, and a copy of the Forty Homilies of S. Gregory, corrected and pointed by our copies which we use in the holy mother Church; and also fail not to have as many sacred and ecclesiastical books as you can get, for from these you shall receive food and condiment for your souls.... If, however, any one of you is not able to obtain all the books of the Old Testament, at least let him diligently take pains to transcribe for himself correctly the first book of the whole sacred history, that is, Genesis, by reading which he may come to understand the creation of the world.”[162] The counsel was good, even although a perfectly clear understanding of the creation might after all not have been secured.

By the close of the ninth century, a large proportion of the monasteries of the Continent and of England carried on schools which were open to the children of as large a district as could be reached. In many cases, the elementary classes were succeeded by classes in advanced instruction, while from these were selected favourites or exceptionally capable pupils, who enjoyed in still higher studies the advantage of the guidance and service of the best scholars in the monastery. West, in summing up the later influence of Alcuin, speaks of the stream of learning as having flowed from York to Tours and from Tours (through Rabanus) to Fulda, thence to Auxerre, Ferrières, Corbies (old and new), Reichenau, St. Gall, and Rheims, one branch of it finally reaching Paris.[163] Mabillon speaks of the abbey schools of Fleury as containing during the tenth and eleventh centuries as many as five thousand scholars.

In Italy, the most important schools were those instituted at Monte Cassino, Pomposa, and Classe. Giesebrecht is, however, of opinion that the educational work of the Italian monasteries was less important than that carried on by the monasteries in Germany, France, or England. In Germany, the monasteries which have already been mentioned as centres of intellectual activity were also those which had instituted the most important and effective of the schools, the list including St. Gall, Fulda, Reichenau, Hirschau, Wissembourg, Hersfeld, and many others.

In France and Belgium, the names of the conspicuous abbey schools include those of Marmoutier, Fontenelle, Fleury, Corbie, Ferrières, Bec, Clugni. In England, the most noteworthy of the abbey schools were St. Albans, Glastonbury, Malmesbury, Croyland, and S. Peter’s of Canterbury. From the epoch of Charlemagne to that of S. Louis, the great abbeys of Christian Europe served in fact not only as its schools but as its universities. The more intelligent of the nobility and the kings themselves were interested in securing for their children the educational advantages of the monastery schools. Among the French kings who were brought up in this way are to be named Pepin the Little, Robert the Pious, and Louis the Fat. In Spain, Sancho the Great, King of Navarre and of Castile, was a graduate of the monastery of Leyre.