Note 90 — Chapter III · LIBRARIES OF THE GREAT ABBEYS—BOOK-LOVERS AMONG THE MENDICANTS—DISPERSAL OF MONKISH LIBRARIES

Most old English poems are preserved in unique manuscripts, sometimes not complete, but in fragments; two fragments, for example, were found in the bindings of other books.—Warton, ii. 7. In 1248, only four books in English were at Glastonbury, and they are described as old and useless.—John of G., 435; Ritson, i. 43. About fifty years later only seventeen such books were in the big library at Canterbury.—James (M. R.), 51. A striking illustration of the disuse of the vernacular among the religious is found in an Anglo-Saxon Gregory’s Pastoral Care, which is copiously glossed in Latin, in two or three hands. This manuscript, now in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, No. 12, came from Worcester Priory.—James17, 33.