Bibliomania in the Middle Ages Part 17

Register.

Liber dictus Paradisus.

Jerome against Jovinian.

Ambrose against Novatian.

Seven Volumes of the Pa.s.sions of the Saints for the circle of the whole year.

Lives of the Caesars.

Acts of the Britons.

Acts of the English.

Acts of the Franks.

Pascasius.

Radbert on the Body and Blood of the Lord.

Book of the Abbot of Clarevalle _de Amando Deo_.

Hugo de S. Victore de duodecim gradibus Humilitatis et de Oratione.

Physiomania Lapedarum et Liber Petri Alsinii in uno volumine.

Rhetoric, two volumes.

Quintilian _de Causes_, in one volume.

Augustine upon the Lord's Prayer and upon the Psalm _Miserero mei Deus_.

A Benedictional.

Decreta Cainotensis Episcopi.

Jerome upon the Twelve Prophets, and upon the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

Augustine upon the Trinity.

Augustine upon Genesis.

Isidore's Etymology.

Paterius.

Augustine on the Words of our Lord.

Hugo on the Sacraments.

Ca.s.sinus on the Incarnation of our Lord.

Anselm's _Cui Deus h.o.m.o_.[316]

The reader, I think, will allow that the catalogue enumerates but little unsuitable for a christian's study; he may not admire the principles contained in some of them, or the superst.i.tion with which many of them are loaded; but after all there were but few volumes among them from which a Bible reading monk might not have gleaned something good and profitable. These books were transcribed about the end of the thirteenth century, after the catalogue of the monastic library mentioned above was compiled.

Walter Taunton, elected in the year 1322, gave to the library several volumes; and his successor, Adam Sodbury,[317] elected in the same year, increased it with a copy of the whole Bible,[318] a Scholastic history, Lives of Saints, a work on the Properties of Things, two costly Psalters, and a most beautifully bound Benedictional.

But doubtless many a bookworm nameless in the page of history, dwelled within those walls apart from worldly solicitude and strife; relieving what would otherwise have been an insupportable monotony, with sweet converse, with books, or the avocations of a scribe.

Well, years rolled on, and this fair sanctuary remained in all its beauty, encouraging the trembling christian, and fostering with a mother's care the literature and learning of the time. Thus it stood till that period, so dark and unpropitious for monkish ascendency, when Protestant fury ran wild, and destruction thundered upon the heads of those poor old monks! A sad and cruel revenge for enlightened minds to wreck on mistaken piety and superst.i.tious zeal. How widely was the fine library scattered then. Even a few years after its dissolution, when Leland spent some days exploring the book treasures reposing there, it had been broken up, and many of them lost; yet still it must have been a n.o.ble library, for he tells us that it was "scarcely equalled in all Britain;" and adds, in the spirit of a true bibliomaniac, that he no sooner pa.s.sed the threshold than the very sight of so many sacred remains of antiquity struck him with awe and astonishment. The reader will naturally wish that he had given us a list of what he found there; but he merely enumerates a selection of thirty-nine, among which we find a Grammatica Eriticis, formerly belonging to Saint Dunstan; a life of Saint Wilfrid; a Saxon version of Orosius, and the writings of William of Malmsbury.[319] The antiquary will now search in vain for any vestige of the abbey library; even the spot on which it stood is unknown to the curious.

No christian, let his creed be what it may, who has learnt from his master the principles of charity and love, will refuse a tear to the memory of Richard Whiting, the last of Glas...o...b..ry's abbots. Poor old man! Surely those white locks and tottering limbs ought to have melted a Christian heart; but what charity or love dwelt within the soul of that rapacious monarch? Too old to relinquish his long cherished superst.i.tions; too firm to renounce his religious principles, Whiting offered a firm opposition to the reformation. The fury of the tyrant Henry was aroused, and that grey headed monk was condemned to a barbarous death. As a protestant I blush to write it, yet so it was; after a hasty trial, if trial it can be called, he was dragged on a hurdle to a common gallows erected on Torr Hill, and there, in the face of a brutal mob, with two of his companion monks, was he hung! Protestant zeal stopped not here, for when life had fled they cut his body down, and dividing it into quarters, sent one to each of the four princ.i.p.al towns; and as a last indignity to that mutilated clay, stuck his head on the gate of the old abbey, over which he had presided with judicious care in the last days of his troubled life. It was Whiting's wish to bid adieu in person to his monastery, in which in more prosperous times he had spent many a quiet hour; it is said that even this, the dying prayer of that poor old man, they refused to grant.[320]

On viewing the ruins of Glas...o...b..ry Abbey, so mournful to look upon, yet so splendid in its decay, we cannot help exclaiming with Michael Dayton,--

"On whom for this sad waste, should justice lay the crime."

Whilst in the west we cannot pa.s.s unnoticed the monastery of Malmsbury, one of the largest in England, and which possessed at one time an extensive and valuable library; but it was sadly ransacked at the Reformation, and its vellum treasures sold to the bakers to heat their stoves, or applied to the vilest use; not even a catalogue was preserved to tell the curious of a more enlightened age, what books the old monks read there; but perhaps, and the blood runs cold as the thought arises in the mind, a perfect Livy was among them, for a rare _amator librorum_ belonging to this monastery, quotes one of the lost Decades.[321] I allude to William of Malmsbury, one of the most enthusiastic bibliomaniacs of his age. From his youth he dwelt within the abbey walls, and received his education there. His constant study and indefatigable industry in collecting and perusing books, was only equalled by his prudence and by his talents; he soon rose in the estimation of his fellow monks, who appointed him their librarian, and ultimately offered him the abbacy, which he refused with Christian humility, fearing too, lest its contingent duties would debar him from a full enjoyment of his favorite avocation; but of his book pa.s.sion let William of Malmsbury speak for himself: "A long period has elapsed since, as well through the care of my parents as my own industry, I became familiar with books. This pleasure possessed me from my childhood; this source of delight has grown with my years; indeed, I was so instructed by my father, that had I turned aside to other pursuits, I should have considered it as jeopardy to my soul, and discredit to my character. Wherefore, mindful of the adage, 'covet what is necessary,' I constrained my early age to desire eagerly that which it was disgraceful not to possess. I gave indeed my attention to various branches of literature, but in different degrees. Logic, for instance, which gives arms to eloquence, I contented myself with barely learning: medicine, which ministers to the health of the body, I studied with somewhat more attention. But now, having scrupulously examined the various branches of ethics, I bow down to its majesty, because it spontaneously inverts itself to those who study it, and directs their minds to moral practice, history more especially; which by a certain agreeable recapitulation of past events, excites its readers by example, to frame their lives to the pursuit of good or to aversion from evil.

When, therefore, at my own expense I had procured some historians of foreign nations, I proceeded during my domestic leisure, to inquire if anything concerning our own country could be found worthy of handing down to posterity. Hence it arose, that not content with the writings of ancient times, I began myself to compose, not indeed to display my learning, which is comparatively nothing, but to bring to light events lying concealed in the confused ma.s.s of antiquity. In consequence, rejecting vague opinions, I have studiously sought for chronicles far and near, though I confess I have scarcely profited anything by this industry; for perusing them all I still remained poor in information, though I ceased not my researches as long as I could find anything to read."[322]

Having read this pa.s.sage, I think my readers will admit that William of Malmsbury well deserves a place among the bibliomaniacs of the middle ages. As an historian his merit is too generally known and acknowledged to require an elucidation here. He combines in most cases a strict attention to fact, with the rare attributes of philosophic reflection, and sometimes the bloom of eloquence. But simplicity of narrative const.i.tute the greatest and sometimes the only charm in the composition of the monkish chroniclers. William of Malmsbury aimed at a more ambitious style, and attempted to adorn, as he admits himself, his English history with Roman art; this he does sometimes with tolerable elegance, but too often at the cost of necessary detail. Yet still we must place him at the head of the middle age historians, for he was diligent and critical, though perhaps not always impartial; and in matters connected with Romish doctrine, his testimony is not always to be relied upon without additional authority; his account of those who held opinions somewhat adverse to the orthodoxy of Rome is often equivocal; we may even suspect him of interpolating their writings, at least of Alfric, whose homilies had excited the fears of the Norman ecclesiastics. His works were compiled from many sources now unknown; and from the works of Bede, the Saxon chronicles, and Florilegus, he occasionally transcribes with little alteration.

But is it not distressing to find that this talented author, so superior in other respects to the crude compilers of monkish history, cannot rise above the superst.i.tion of the age? Is it not deplorable that a mind so gifted could rely with fanatical zeal upon the verity of all those foul lies of Rome called "Holy" miracles; or that he could conceive how G.o.d would vouchsafe to make his saints ridiculous in the eyes of man, by such gross absurdities as tradition records, but which Rome deemed worthy of canonization; but it was then, as now, so difficult to conquer the prejudices of early teaching. With all our philosophy and our science, great men cannot do it now; even so in the days of old; they were brought up in the midst of superst.i.tion; sucked it as it were from their mother's breast, and fondly cradled in its belief; and as soon as the infant mind could think, parental piety dedicated it to G.o.d; not, however, as a light to shine before men, but as a candle under a bushel; for to serve G.o.d and to serve monachism were synonymous expressions in those days.

The west of England was honored by many a monkish bibliophile in the middle ages. The annals of Gloucester abbey record the names of several.

Prior Peter, who became abbot in the year 1104, is said to have enclosed the monastery with a stone wall, and greatly enriched it with many books "_copia librorum_."[323] A few years after (A. D. 1113), G.o.deman the Prior was made abbot, and the Saxon Chronicle records that during his time the tower was set on fire by lightning and the whole monastery was burnt; so that all the valuable things therein were destroyed except a "few books and three priest's ma.s.s-hackles."[324] Abbot Gamage gave many books to the library in the year 1306;[325] and Richard de Stowe, during the same century, gave the monks a small collection in nine or ten volumes; a list of them is preserved in an old ma.n.u.script.[326]

But earlier than this in the eleventh century, a bishop of Exeter stands remarkable as an _amator librorum_. Leofric, the last bishop of Crediton, and "sometime lord chancellor of England,"[327] received permission from Edward the Confessor to translate the seat of his diocese to the city of Exeter in the year 1050. "He was brought up and studied in _Lotharingos_," says William of Malmsbury,[328] and he manifested his learning and fondness for study by collecting books. Of the nature of his collections we are enabled to judge by the volumes he gave to the church of Exeter. The glimpse thus obtained lead us to consider him a curious book-collector; and it is so interesting to look upon a catalogue of a bishop's private library in that early time, and to behold his tastes and his pursuits reflected and mirrored forth therein, that I am sure the reader will be gratified by its perusal.[329] After enumerating some broad lands and a glittering array of sumptuous ornaments, he is recorded to have given to the church "Two complete ma.s.s books; 1 Collectarium; 2 Books of Epistles (_Pistel Bec_[330]); 2 complete _Sang Bec_; 1 Book of _night sang_; 1 Book _unus liber_, a Breviary or Tropery; 2 Psalters; 3 Psalters according to the Roman copies; 2 Antiphoners; A precious book of blessings; 3 others; 1 Book of Christ _in English_; 2 Summer Reading bec; 1 Winter ditto; Rules and Canons; 1 Martyrology; 1 Canons in Latin; 1 Confessional _in English_; 1 Book of Homilies and Hymns for Winter and Summer; 1 Boethius on the Consolation of Philosophy, _in English_ (King Alfred's translation); 1 Great Book of Poetry in English; 1 Capitular; 1 Book of very ancient nocturnal _sangs_; 1 Pistel bec; 2 Ancient raeding bec; 1 for the use of the priest; also the following books in Latin, viz., 1 Pastoral of Gregory; 1 Dialogues of Gregory; 1 Book of the Four Prophets; 1 Boethius Consolation of Philosophy; 1 Book of the offices of Amalar; 1 Isagoge of Porphyry; 1 Pa.s.sional; 1 book of Prosper; 1 book of Prudentius the Martyr; 1 Prudentius; 1 Prudentius (_de Mrib._); 1 other book; 1 Ezechael the Prophet; 1 Isaiah the Prophet; 1 Song of Songs; 1 Isidore Etymology; 1 Isidore on the New and Old Testament; 1 Lives of the Apostles; 1 Works of Bede; 1 Bede on the Apocalypse; 1 Bede's Exposition on the Seven Canonical Epistles; 1 book of Isidore on the Miracles of Christ; 1 book of Orosius; 1 book of Machabees; 1 book of Persius; 1 Sedulus; 1 Avator; 1 book of Statius with a gloss."

Such were the books forming a part of the private library of a bishop of Exeter in the year of grace 1073. Few indeed when compared with the vast mult.i.tudes a.s.sembled and ama.s.sed together in the ages of printed literature. But these sixty or seventy volumes, collected in those times of dearth, and each produced by the tedious process of the pen, were of an excessive value, and mark their owner as distinctly an _amator librorum_, as the enormous piles heaped together in modern times would do a Magliabechi. Nor was Leofric an ordinary collector; he loved to preserve the idiomatic poetry of those old Saxon days; his ancient _sang bec_, or song books, would now be deemed a curious and precious relic of Saxon literature. One of these has fortunately escaped the ravages of time and the fate of war. "The great boc of English Poetry" is still preserved at Exeter--one of the finest relics of Anglo Saxon poetry extant. Mark too those early translations which we cannot but regard with infinite pleasure, and which satisfactorily prove that the Gospels and Church Service was at least partly read and sung in the Saxon church in the common language of the people; let the Roman Catholics say what they will.[331] But without saying much of his church books, we cannot but be pleased to find the Christian Boethius in his library with Bede, Gregory, Isidore, Prosper, Orosius, Prudentius, Sedulus, Persius and Statius; these are authors which retrieve the studies of Leofric from the charge of mere monastic lore.

But good books about this time were beginning to be sought after with avidity. The Cluniac monks, who were introduced into England about the year 1077, more than one hundred and sixty years after their foundation, gave a powerful impetus to monastic learning; which received additional force by the enlightened efforts of the Cistercians, inst.i.tuted in 1098, and spread into Britain about the year 1128. These two great branches of the Benedictine order, by their great love of learning, and by their zeal in collecting books, effected a great change in the monkish literature of England. "They were not only curious and attentive in forming numerous libraries, but with indefatigable a.s.siduity transcribed the volumes of the ancients, _l'a.s.siduite infatigable a transcrire les livres des anciens_, say the Benedictines of St. Maur,"[332] who perhaps however may be suspected of regarding their ancient brethren in rather too favorable a light. But certain it is, that the state of literature became much improved, and the many celebrated scholars who flourished in the twelfth century spread a taste for reading far and wide, and by their example caused the monks to look more eagerly after books. Peter of Blois, Archdeacon of London, is one of the most pleasing instances of this period, and his writings have even now a freshness and vivacity about them which surprise as they interest the reader. This ill.u.s.trious student, and truly worthy man, was born at Blois in the early part of the twelfth century. His parents, who were wealthy and n.o.ble, were desirous of bestowing upon their son an education befitting their own rank; for this purpose he was sent to Paris to receive instruction in the general branches of scholastic knowledge. He paid particular attention to poetry, and studied rhetoric with still greater ardor.[333] But being designed for the bar, he left Paris for Bologna, there to study civil law; and succeeded in mastering all the dry technicalities of legal science. He then returned to Paris to study scholastic divinity,[334] in which he became eminently proficient, and was ever excessively fond. He remained at Paris studying deeply himself, and instructing others for many years.

About the year 1167 he went with Stephen, Count de Perche, into Sicily, and was appointed tutor to the young King William II., made keeper of his private seal, and for two years conducted his education.[335] Soon after leaving Sicily, he was invited by Henry II. into England,[336] and made Archdeacon of Bath. It was during the time he held that office that he wrote most of these letters, from which we obtain a knowledge of the above facts, and which he collected together at the particular desire of King Henry; who ever regarded him with the utmost kindness, and bestowed upon him his lasting friendship. I know not a more interesting or a more historically valuable volume than these epistolary collections of Archdeacon Peter. They seem to bring those old times before us, to seat us by the fire-sides of our Norman forefathers, and in a pleasant, quiet manner enter into a gossip on the pa.s.sing events of the day; and being written by a student and an _amator librorum_, they moreover unfold to us the state of learning among the ecclesiastics at least of the twelfth century; and if we were to take our worthy archdeacon as a specimen, they possessed a far better taste for these matters than we usually give them credit for. Peter of Blois was no ordinary man; a churchman, he was free from the prejudices of churchmen--a visitant of courts and the a.s.sociate of royalty, he was yet free from the sycophancy of a courtier--and when he saw pride and unG.o.dliness in the church, or in high places, he feared not to use his pen in stern reproof at these abominations. It is both curious and extraordinary, when we bear in mind the prejudices of the age, to find him writing to a bishop upon the looseness of his conduct, and reproving him for his inattention to the affairs of his diocese, and upbraiding another for displaying an unseemly fondness for hunting,[337]

and other sports of the field; which he says is so disreputable to one of his holy calling, and quotes an instance of Pope Nicholas suspending and excluding from the church Bishop Lanfred for a similar offence; which he considers even more disgraceful in Walter, Lord Bishop of Winchester, to whom he is writing, on account of his advanced age; he being at that time eighty years old. We are constantly reminded in reading his letters that we have those of an indefatigable student before us; almost every page bears some allusion to his books or to his studies, and prove how well and deeply read he was in Latin literature; not merely the theological writings of the church, but the cla.s.sics also. In one of his letters he speaks of his own studies, and tells us that when he learnt the art of versification and correct style, he did not spend his time on legends and fables, but took his models from Livy, Quintus Curtius, Trogus Pompeius, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and other cla.s.sics; in the same letter he gives some directions to the Archdeacon of Nantes, who had undertaken the education of his nephews, as to the manner of their study. He had received from the archdeacon a flattering account of the progress made by one of them named William, to which he thus replies--"You speak," says he, "of William--his great penetration and ingenious disposition, who, without grammar or the authors of science, which are both so desirable, has mastered the subtilties of logic, so as to be esteemed a famous logician, as I learn by your letter. But this is not the foundation of a correct knowledge--these subtilties which you so highly extol, are manifoldly pernicious, as Seneca truly affirms,--_Odibilius nihil est subtilitate ubi est soloe subtilitas_. What indeed is the use of these things in which you say he spends his days--either at home, in the army, at the bar, in the cloister, in the church, in the court, or indeed in any position whatever, except, I suppose, the schools?" Seneca says, in writing to Lucalius, "_Quid est, inquit acutius arista et in quo est utiles!_"[338] In many letters we find him quoting the cla.s.sics with the greatest ease, and the most appropriate application to his subject; in one he refers to Ovid, Persius, and Seneca,[339] and in others, when writing in a most interesting and amusing manner of poetic fame and literary study, he extracts from Terence, Ovid, Juvenal, Horace, Plato, Cicero, Valerius Maximus, Seneca, etc.[340] In another, besides a constant use of Scripture, which proves how deeply read too he was in Holy Writ, he quotes with amazing prodigality from Juvenal, Frontius, Vigetius, Dio, Virgil, Ovid, Justin, Horace, and Plutarch.[341] Indeed, Horace was a great favorite with the archdeacon, who often applied some of his finest sentences to ill.u.s.trate his familiar chat and epistolary disquisitions.[342] It is worth noticing that in one he quotes the Roman history of Sall.u.s.t, in six books, which is now lost, save a few fragments; the pa.s.sage relates to Pompey the Great.[343] We can scarcely refrain from a smile at the eagerness of Archdeacon Peter in persuading his friends to relinquish the too enticing study of frivolous plays, which he says can be of no service to the interest of the soul;[344] and then, forgetting this admonition, sending for tragedies and comedies himself, that he might get them transcribed.[345] This puts one in mind of a certain modern divine, whose conduct not agreeing with his doctrine, told his hearers not to do as he did, but as he told them. It appears also equally ludicrous to find him upbraiding a monk, named Peter of Blois, for studying the pagan authors: "the foolish old fables of Hercules and Jove," their lies and philosophy;[346] when, as we have seen, he read them so ravenously, and so greatly borrowed from them himself. But then we must bear in mind that the archdeacon had also well stored his mind with Scripture, and certainly always deemed _that_ the first and most important of all his studies, which was perhaps not the case with the monk to whom he writes. In some of his letters we have pleasing pictures of the old times presented to us, and it is astonishing how homely and natural they read, after the elapse of 700 years. In more than one he launches out in strong invectives against the lawyers, who in all ages seems to have borne the indignation of mankind; Peter accuses them of selling their knowledge for hire, to the direct perversion of all justice; of favoring the rich and oppressing the poor.[347] He reproves Reginald, Archdeacon of Salisbury, for occupying his time with falconry, instead of attending to his clerical duties; and in another, a most interesting letter, he gives a description of King Henry II., whose character he extols in panegyric terms, and proves how much superior he was in learning to William II. of Sicily. He says that "Henry, as often as he could breathe from his care and solicitudes, he was occupied in secret reading; or at other times joined by a body of clergy, would try to solve some elaborate question _quaestiones laborat evolvere_."[348]

Frequently we find him writing about books, begging transcripts, eagerly purchasing them; and in one of his letters to Alexander, Abbot of Jenniege, _Gemiticensem_, he writes, apologizing, and begging his forgiveness for not having fulfilled his promise in returning a book which he had borrowed from his library, and begs that his friend will yet allow him to retain it some days longer.[349] The last days of a scholar's life are not always remarkable, and we know nothing of those of Archdeacon Peter; for after the death of Henry II., his intellectual worth found no royal mind to appreciate it. The lion-hearted Richard thought more of the battle axe and crusading than the encouragement of literature or science; and Peter, like many other students, grown old in their studies, was left in his age to wander among his books, unmolested and uncared for. With the friendship of a few clerical a.s.sociates, and the archdeaconry of London, which by the bye was totally unproductive,[350] he died, and for many ages was forgotten. But a student's worth can never perish; a time is certain to arrive when his erudition will receive its due reward of human praise. We now, after a slumber of many hundred years, begin to appreciate his value, and to entertain a hearty friendship and esteem for the venerable Archdeacon Peter.

FOOTNOTES:

[310] See Speed's Chron. p. 228. Samme's Antiq. p. 578.

[311] Stowe's Annales, 4to. 1605, p. 97. See also Hearne's Hist.

Glas...o...b..ry.

[312] _Will. Malm. ap. Gale Script._ 311.--Coopertoria Librorum Evangelii. For many other instances of binding books in gold, and sometimes with costly gems, I refer the reader to _Du Cange_ verb-Capsae, and to _Mr. Maitland's Dark Ages_.

[313] Warton says, that this library was at the time the "_richest in England_." In this, however, he was mistaken.

[314] John of Glast. p. 423.

[315] John of Glas...o...b..ry Edt., Hearne, Oxon, 1726, p. 451. Steven's Additions to Dugdale, vol. i. p. 447.

[316] Printed in _Tanner's Not.i.tia Monastica_, 8vo. Edit. 1695, p.

75, and in _Hearne's History of Glas...o...b..ry_, p. 141; but both these works are scarce, and I have thought it worth reprinting; the reader will perceive that I have given some of the items in English--the original of course is in Latin.

[317] John of Glas. p. 262.

[318] Librario dedit. bibliam preciosam.--_John of Glast._ p. 262.

[319] Among them was a "Dictionarum Latine et Saxonic.u.m."--_Leland Collect._ iii. p. 153.

[320] Leland, in his MSS. preserved in the Bodleian Library, calls Whiting "_h.o.m.o sane candidissimus et amicus meus singularis_," but he afterwards scored the line with his pen. See _Arch Bodl._ A.

Dugdale Monast. vol. i. p. 6.

[321] See Hume's Hist. Engl.; Moffat's Hist. of Malmsbury, p. 223, and Will. Malms. Novellae Hist. lib. ii.; Sharpe's translation, p.

576.

[322] William of Malmsbury, translated by the Rev. J. Sharpe, 4to.

_Lond._ 1815, p. 107.

[323] MS. _Cottonian Domit._ A. viii. fol. 128 b.

[324] Saxon Chron. by Ingram, p. 343.

[325] Dugdale's _Monastica_, vol. i. p. 534. Leland gives a list of the books he found there, but they only number about 20 volumes. See _Collect._ vol. iv. p. 159.