Bibliomania in the Middle Ages Part 11

These were books continually in requisition, and which he possessed to save the trouble of constantly referring to the library. His successor, abbot Holdernesse, possessed also twelve volumes,[230] and Walter of St.

Edmundsbury Abbot, in 1233, had eighteen books, and among them a fine copy of the Bible for his private study. Robert of Sutton in 1262, also abbot of Peterborough, possessed a similar number, containing a copy of the Liber Naturalium Anstotelis; and his successor, Richard of London, among ten books which formed his private library, had the Consolation of Philosophy, a great favorite in the monasteries. In the year 1295 William of Wodeforde, collected twenty volumes, but less than that number const.i.tuted the library of Adam de Botheby, who was abbot of Peterborough many years afterwards, but among them I notice a Seneca, with thirty-six others contained in the same volume.[231]

Abbot G.o.dfrey, elected in the year 1299, was a great benefactor to the church, as we learn from Walter de Whytlesse, who gives a long list of donations made by him; among a vast quant.i.ty of valuables, "he gave to the church _two Bibles_, one of which was written in France," with about twenty other volumes. In the war which occurred during his abbacy, between John Baliol of Scotland and Edward I. of England, the Scots applied to the pope for his aid and council; his holiness deemed it his province to interfere, and directed letters to the king of England, a.s.serting that the kingdom of Scotland appertained to the Church of Rome; in these letters he attempt to prove that it was opposed to justice, and, what he deemed of still greater importance, to the interests of the holy see, that the king of England should not have dominion over the kingdom of Scotland. The pope's messengers on this occasion were received by abbot G.o.dfrey; Walter says that "He honorably received two cardinals at Peterborough with their retinues, who were sent by the pope to make peace between the English and the Scotch, and besides cheerfully entertaining them with food and drink, gave them divers presents; to one of the cardinals, named Gaucelin, he gave a certain psalter, beautifully written in letters of gold and purple, and marvellously illuminated, _literis aureis et a.s.suris scriptum et mirabiliter luminatum_.[232] I give this anecdote to show how splendidly the monks inscribed those volumes designed for the service of the holy church. I ought to have mentioned before that Wulstan, archbishop of York, gave many rare and precious ornaments to Peterborough, nor should I omit a curious little book anecdote related of him. He was born at Jceritune in Warwickshire, and was sent by his parents to Evesham, and afterwards to Peterborough, where he gave great indications of learning. His schoolmaster, who was an Anglo-Saxon named Erventus, was a clever calligraphist, and is said to have been highly proficient in the art of illuminating; he instructed Wulstan in these accomplishments, who wrote under his direction a sacramentary and a psalter, and illuminated the capitals with many pictures painted in gold and colors; they were executed with so much taste that his master presented the sacramentary to Canute, and the psalter to his queen."[233]

From these few facts relative to Peterborough Monastery, the reader will readily perceive how earnestly books were collected by the monks there, and will be somewhat prepared to learn that a catalogue of 1,680 volumes is preserved, which formerly const.i.tuted the library of that fraternity of bibliophiles. This fine old catalogue, printed by Gunton in his history of the abbey, covers fifty folio pages; it presents a faithful mirror of the literature of its day, and speaks well for the bibliomanical spirit of the monks of Peterborough. Volumes of patristic eloquence and pious erudition crowd the list; chronicles, poetry, and philosophical treatises are mingled with the t.i.tles of an abundant collection of cla.s.sic works, full of the lore of the ancient world.

Although the names may be similar to those which I have extracted from other catalogues, I must not omit to give a few of them; I find works of--

Augustine.

Ambrose.

Albinus.

Ca.s.siodorus.

Gregory.

Cyprian.

Seneca.

Prosper.

Tully.

Bede.

Basil.

Lanfranc.

Chrysostom.

Jerome.

Eusebius.

Boethius.

Isidore.

Origin.

Dionysius.

Ca.s.sian.

Bernard.

Anselm.

Alcuinus.

Honorius.

Donatus.

Macer.

Persius.

Virgil.

Isagoge of Porphry.

Aristotle.

Entyci Grammatica.

Socrates.

Ovid.

Priscian.

Hippocrates.

Horace.

Sedulus.

Theodulus.

Sall.u.s.t.

Macrobius.

Cato.

Prudentius.

But although they possessed these fine authors and many others equally choice, I am not able to say much for the biblical department of their library, I should have antic.i.p.ated a goodly store of the Holy Scriptures, but in these necessary volumes they were unusually poor. But I suspect the catalogue to have been compiled during the fifteenth century, and I fear too, that in that age the monks were growing careless of Scripture reading, or at least relaxing somewhat in the diligence of their studies; perhaps they devoured the attractive pages of Ovid, and loved to read his amorous tales more than became the holiness of their priestly calling.[234] At any rate we may observe a marked change as regards the prevalence of the Bible in monastic libraries between the twelfth and the fifteenth century. It is true we often find them in those of the later age; but sometimes they are entirely without, and frequently only in detached portions.[235] I may ill.u.s.trate this by a reference to the library of the Abbey of St. Mary de la Pre at Leicester, which gloried in a collection of 600 volumes, of the choicest and almost venerable writers. It was written in the year 1477, by William Chartye,[236] prior of the abbey, and an old defective and worn out Bible, _Biblie defect et usit_, with some detached portions, was all that fine library contained of the Sacred Writ. The bible _defect et usit_ speaks volumes to the praise of the ancient monks of that house, for it was by their constant reading and study, that it had become so thumbed and worn; but it stamps with disgrace the affluent monks of the fifteenth century, who, while they could afford to buy, in the year 1470,[237] some thirty volumes with a Seneca, Ovid, Claudian, Macrobius, aesop, etc., among them, and who found time to transcribe twice as many more, thought not of restoring their bible tomes, or adding one book of the Holy Scripture to their crowded shelves. But alas! monachal piety was waxing cool and indifferent then, and it is rare to find the honorable t.i.tle of an _Amator Scripturarum_ affixed to a monkish name in the latter part of the fifteenth century.

FOOTNOTES:

[215] Gough's Hist. Croyland in Bibl. Top. Brit. xi. p. 3.

[216] Inguph. in Gale's Script. tom. i. p. 53.

[217] "Debit iste Abbas Egebricus communi bibliothecae clanstralium monachorum magna volumina diversorum doctorum originalia numero quadraginta; minora vero volumina de diversae tractatibus et historiis, quae numerum centenarium excedibant." Ingul. p. 53.

[218] The fire occurred in 1091. Ingulphus relates with painful minuteness the progress of the work of destruction, and enumerates all the rich treasures which those angry flames consumed. I should have given a longer account of this event had not the Rev. Mr.

Maitland already done so in his interesting work on the "_Dark Ages_."

[219] Gale's Remin. Ang. Scrip. i. p. 98.

[220] Ingulph. ap. Gale i. p. 25.

[221] See Gunter's Peterborough, suppl. 263.

[222] Hugo Candid, p. 31; Tamer Bib. Brit. et Hib. p. 175. Candidus says, "Flos literaris disciplina, torrens eloquentiae, decus et norma rerum divinarum et secularium."

[223] Hugo Candid. ap. Sparke, Hist. Ang. Scrip. p. 41. Gunter's Peterboro, p. 15, ed. 1686.

[224] Hugo Candid. p. 42.

[225] Leland de Scrip. Brit. p. 217.

[226] Published by Hearne, 2 vol. 8vo. _Oxon._ 1735.

[227] Rt. Swap. ap. Sparke, p. 97. "Erat. enin literarum scientiae satis imbutus; regulari disciplina optime instructus; sapientia seculari plenissime eruditus."

[228] Swapham calls this "Egregium volumen," p. 98.

[229] Now preserved in the library of the Society of Antiquaries.

[230] Gunter, Peterborough, p. 29.

[231] Ibid, p. 37.

[232] Walter de Whytlesse apud Sparke, p. 173.

[233] Gunter's Hist. of Peterborough, p. 259.

[234] At any rate, we find about thirty volumes of Ovid's works enumerated, and several copies of "de Arte Amandi," and "de Remedis Amoris."

[235] Let the reader examine Leland's Collect., and the Catalogues printed in Hunter's Tract on Monastic Libraries. See also Catalogue of Canterbury Library, MS. Cottonian Julius, c. iv. 4., in the British Museum.

[236] Printed by Nichols, in Appendix to Hist. of Leicester, from a MS. Register. It contains almost as fine a collection of the cla.s.sics and fathers as that at Peterborough, just noticed, Aristotle, Virgil, Plato, Ovid, Cicero, Euclid, Socrates, Horace, Lucan, Seneca, etc., etc. are among them, pp. 101 to 108. It is curious that Leland mentions only six MSS. as forming the library at the time he visited the Abbey of Leicester, all its fine old volumes were gone. He only arrived in time to pick up the crumbs.