University of Virginia Library

II.1.12

SCRIPTORIUM AND LIBRARY

Alcuin's poem On the Scribes offers a metrical inscription
intended to decorate the entrance of a monastic scriptorium,
perhaps the scriptorium of the Monastery of St. Martin's
at Tours.[78]

[ILLUSTRATION]

95. LUTTRELL PSALTER, LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM. Add. Ms. 42130, fol. 37

Baptismal scene [by courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum]

[ILLUSTRATION]

97. AACHEN, COLLECTION DR. PETER LUDWIG

Baptismal font, around 1100

[ILLUSTRATION]

96. DEERHURST, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, ENGLAND

Priory church, Saxon baptismal font

LAYOUT

On the northern side of the Church of the Plan, in a
position corresponding exactly to that of the Sacristy and
Vestry, there is a double-storied structure of like design,
which contains "below, the seats for the scribes, and above,
the library" (infra sedes scribentiū, supra bibliotheca). From
a purely functional point of view the location of these two
important cultural facilities is ideal. Their situation at the
northeast corner of the church, in the shadow cast by
transept and choir, protected the scribes from the glare of
the sun as it travelled through the southern and western
portion of its trajectory and allowed them to work in the
more diffused light made available by their east and north
exposure.

The Scriptorium is accessible by a door from the northern
transept arm of the Church. The Library is reached from the
presbytery by a stairway or passage designated the "upper
entrance into the Library above the crypt" (introitus in
bibliothecā sup criptā superius). This implies that there was
another lower entrance, not shown on the Plan, presumably
an internal stair connecting Library and Scriptorium
directly. The Plan depicts the layout of the Scriptorium.
This has in its center a large square table, identical in size
and shape with that for the sacred vessels in the Sacristy
and like the latter, it, too, is raised on a plinth. Along the
north and east walls of the room, there are seven desks for
writing, and seven windows[79] placed to provide the scribes
with adequate lighting. This, incidentally, is one of the
only two instances where windows are marked on the
Plan.[80] Unquestionably they owe this distinction to the
fact that they were of vital importance for the work performed
in this room. The windows must have been glazed.
Glass windows, although still a considerable luxury in
Carolingian times, were indispensable in a monastic scriptorium.
That they were actually in use in Carolingian times
is attested in the chronicles of the Abbey of St. Wandrille
(Fontanella) for the period of Abbot Ansegis (823-833) and
by sources pertaining to the cathedral of Reims, for the
time of Bishop Hincmar (845-882).[81] Also to be mentioned
in this context is a passage in the Casus sancti Galli of
Ekkehard IV, where we are told that Sindolf the Maligner,
while eavesdropping on a conversation carried on in the
scriptorium of St. Gall, pressed his ear at night "to the
glass window where Tutilo was seated" (fenestrae vitreae
cui Tutilo assederat).[82] The tale, written around 1050, is
almost certainly fictitious, but may in fact reflect the
architectural conditions of the Carolingian scriptorium of
St. Gall, which was rebuilt by Abbot Gozbert, when he
reconstructed the monastery church between 830 and 837.
One observes, not without surprise, that the scriptorium is
not furnished with any facilities for heating.

LOCATION

The position of the sacristy "to the right of the apse" (a
dextra absidae) and of the library in a corresponding place
"to the left" (a sinistra eiusdem) is traditional. It existed, as
George H. Forsyth has pointed out, as early as the fifth
century, in the church which St. Paulinus had erected at
Nola near Naples.[83] Forsyth also drew attention to the
interesting fact that the double-storied side chambers of
the kind found on the Plan of St. Gall were common in
many Early Christian churches of the Near East. The most
striking parallel is to be found in the church of St. John of
Ephesus where this motif is combined with the centralized
Latin-cross plan exactly as in the Church of the Plan of St.
Gall.[84]

ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION

The Scriptorium and the Library were the intellectual
nerve centers of the monastery. Without the cultural
activities carried on in these spatially relatively modest
facilities, western civilization would not be what it is today.
A substantial portion of what is known to us of classical
learning was transmitted in manuscripts copied in monastic
scriptoria and rescued for posterity in the carefully protected
bookcases (armaria) of monastic libraries (fig. 105).

By the time the Plan of St. Gall was drawn these two
institutions had already developed internally into a fairly
complex organization. Their management was in the hands
of an official who received his orders from the abbot. In
pre-Carolingian times this was, in general, the choirmaster
(cantor) whose leading role in the performance of the daily
choral services made him a natural candidate for this position.[85]
Under the impetus of the Carolingian renaissance,
scriptorium and library were placed in the care of a special
official, the bibliothecarius or armarius (from armarium, the
"press" or "wardrobe" in which the books were kept).[86]
This official became responsible for the maintenance and
administration of an entire system of different collections
of books: the main collection (kept in the central library),
the liturgical collection, i.e., the books used in the divine
services (often chained to their places of use in the church;
otherwise, kept in the Sacristy), and several branch
libraries: viz., a reference library of school books needed

[ILLUSTRATION]

98. AMBO, HAGIA SOFIA AT SALONIKA

ISTANBUL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM

[redrawn from Orlandos, 11, 1954, fig. 11]

for the training of the novices (by necessity kept in the
Novitiate), another one needed for the teaching in the
Outer School (by necessity kept in that location), and a
third collection used for the daily readings of the monks,
the lectio divina established as a primary monastic occupation
by St. Benedict, for which each monk was allowed in
the aggregate some four hours per day.[87]

READING COLLECTION

The reading collection was of substantial size and must
have been composed of at least as many books as there were
monks in the monastery, since the Rule prescribes that
each monk be handed a book at the beginning of Lent
which as the year went by he was bound "to read it in
consecutive order from cover to cover."[88] The selection
and distribution of this material was one of the duties of the
provost. A directive issued at the synod of 816 allowed him
to augment the regular annual allotment at his discretion.[89]

The titles of the books loaned out in this manner were
entered in a check-out list (breve) to facilitate their return
and assure control over the holdings.[90] Hildemar, in his
commentary to the Rule, written around 845, provides a
detailed, here abridged, description of this procedure:

The librarian (bibliothecarius) with the aid of the brothers
takes all the books to the chapter meeting. There they
spread out a rug, upon which the books are placed. After
the regular business of the chapter meeting has been concluded
the librarian announces from the check-out list
(breve) the titles of the books and the names of the monks
to whom they had been lent in the preceding year. Thereupon
each brother deposits his book on the rug. Then the
provost, or anyone else to whom he may have delegated this
task, collects each book, and as it is being returned, he
probes the brother with questions whether he has diligently
studied his assignment. If the response is satisfactory, he
inquires of the brother which book he considers to be of
use to him in the coming year and provides him with the
desired book. However, if the abbot finds that a book is not
suited for a brother who asked for it, he does not give it to
him but hands him a more suitable one. If the interview
establishes that the brother was derelict in his study, he is
not given a new book, but asked to study the old one for
another year. If the abbot finds that the brother has studied
with diligence, but is nevertheless not capable of comprehending
it, he gives him another one. After the brothers
have left the chapter meeting, the abbot sees to it that all
books that have been entered in the check-out list are
accounted for, and if they are not on record, searches until
they are found.[91]

The books disposed of in this manner were obviously
not kept in the central library, but were in permanent
circulation, each monk retaining his own copy, which he
probably kept on a shelf or locker under or near his bed,
together with the other modest supplies that the Rule
allowed him.[92]

MAIN LIBRARY

In his Renaissance of the Twelfth Century Charles Homer
Haskins made the remark that "when men spoke of a
library in the Middle Ages they did not mean a special
room, and still less a special building" but rather thought
of a "book press" or wardrobe, as is suggested by the word
armarium commonly used for libraries.[93] I do not know
whether this assessment is tenable for the later Middle
Ages. It is certainly not what the framers of the Plan of St.
Gall had in mind for a monastic library of the time of
Charlemagne or Louis the Pious. The Plan provides for a
central library of a surface area of 1600 square feet, located
over a scriptorium of identical dimensions, the two together
totaling 3200 square feet. We know at least of one
other Carolingian library that was installed in a separate
building: that of the monastery of St. Wandrille (Fontanella).
It stood in the cloister yard in front of the Refectory,
and opposite it, on the other side of the yard, was a
twin building which served as charter house.[94] In the
monastery of St. Emmeran there must have been a special
library, for it is said of Bishop Wolfgang (972-94) that he
had it decorated with metrical inscriptions of his own composing.[95]
If Haskins infers from Lanfranc's description of
the annual distribution of the daily reading matter that "all
of the books of a monastery can be piled on a single rug"
this cannot be taken as referring to the whole of the
monastic library, but only to that portion of it that was
checked out to the monks at the beginning of Lent.[96] In
such monasteries as St. Riquier and Corbie, which housed
as many as 350 to 400 monks, even this circulating portion
of the general library holdings must have been of substantial
bulk.

WRITING POSTURE AND VARIOUS
CLASSES OF SCRIBES

All of these books were written by the monks themselves
in the scriptorium. The scriptorium served not only as
work room for copying scribes, it was also the monastery's
chancellery, where letters, deeds, and documents were
written. The scribes sat upon stools before tables or desks,
the writing surface of which rose at a sharp angle so that
the scribe wrote almost in a vertical plane. The book from
which a new text was copied was held in a firm position by
a reading frame. This is a posture quite distinct from that
which was in use in ancient times, when the scribes wrote
either standing (as seems to have been the rule in court
procedure) or seated held their writing materials in their
lap, as is shown in the illumination of prophet Ezra, on fol.
5r of the famous Codex Amiatinus (fig. 105), that was
copied, early in the eighth century, in the monastery of
Jarrow and Monkwearmouth in Northumbria from an
illustration of the same subject in the sixth century manuscript
of the Institutiones of Cassiodorus. The transition
from this ancient custom of holding on one's lap the scroll or
codex on which one was writing to the medieval custom of
writing on a desk (fig. 106) was made in the course of the
eighth century, as a recent study has disclosed. It has two
probable causes: for one the growing popularity of large
deluxe codices, which it was well nigh impossible to cover
with writing without the use of some firm support to steady
the hand of the scribe, and second, the fact that the craft of
writing (in ancient times essentially in the hands of slaves),
in the monastic scriptoria in the north had become the
prerogative of an intellectual elite, whose high social
standing called both for greater comfort and greater efficiency.[97]

Medieval sources in referring to scribes distinguish
between antiquarii, the experienced writers whose skills
were reserved for the making of liturgical books; scriptores,
the less trained but still reliable writers; rubricatores,
writers who specialized in the insertion of decorative letters
rendered in different colors, usually in connection with
opening words; miniatores, the highly skilled scribes who
embellished the manuscript with its pictorial illuminations;
and last, but not least, the correctores, the proof

[ILLUSTRATION]

99. PLAN OF ST. GALL. TRANSEPT, PRESBYTERY, EASTERN APSE AND PARADISE

From the crossing two flights of stairs, each of seven steps, lead to the Presbytery, leaving between them a passage to the CONFESSIO where monks
can pray in privacy near the tomb of St. Gall. Presbytery and Crypt are one of two places on the Plan where different levels are shown in the
same plane: above, the high altar dedicated to SS Mary and Gall; and below, a u-shaped corridor leading laymen to the tomb of St. Gall. In the
two-storied spaces located between Presbytery and transept arms the draftsman delineates the plan of just one level. He identifies another level only
by an inscription—his standard method of indicating a superincumbent level.

readers. The latter were among the most experienced and
most learned monks. The manuscripts of the Abbey of St.
Gall as well as those of many other writing schools abound
with marginal or interlinear annotations that testify to the
care with which this work was done.[98] At Reichenau this
task was performed by Reginbert (d. 847), librarian under
four successive abbots—that same Reginbert who seems to
have supervised the writing of the explanatory titles of the
Plan of St. Gall.[99] At St. Gall this work was done by such
famous teachers as Ratpert, Notker, and Tutilo. Purity and
correctness of the sacred texts was a primary concern of the
period (as Alcuin's poem attests) and of sufficient interest
even to the emperor to be singled out as a matter of
statewide importance in a capitulary issued in 789, or 805,
in which it is stipulated that the copying of such sacred
texts as the Gospels, the Psalter, and the Missal should
only be entrusted to men of superior intellectual attainment
(et si opus est evangelium, psalterium et missale scribere,
perfectae aetatis homines scribant cum omni diligentia).[100]

METHOD OF CATALOGING AND SHELVING BOOKS

Once a manuscript was written and corrected, its title
was entered in the catalogue that listed the monastery's
holdings in books—not in alphabetical sequence, but
according to subject matter, and probably in the same
order in which the books were shelved in their wooden
cases.[101] A splendid example of this kind of furniture is
shown in the illumination of Prophet Ezra on fol. 5R of the
famous Codex Amiatinus (fig. 105).[102] Another one of
practically identical design is depicted on the mosaic of St.
Lawrence in the mausoleum of Galla Placidia (424-450).[103]
The books, as these works disclose, lay on their sides, and
did not stand. This is confirmed by the fact that their titles
are, in general, entered lengthwise, not crosswise, on the
back of the book.[104] To judge by the number of volumes
listed in extant monastic catalogues, Carolingian libraries
must have been equipped with a considerable number of
such wooden "wardrobes" for the shelving of books. A
catalogue compiled by Reginbert of Reichenau enumerates
415 manuscripts.[105] The holdings of the library of St. Gall,
according to a catalogue compiled at the time of Abbot
Grimald (841-872), lists 400 volumes.[106] Grimald himself
had a private collection of 34 volumes that after his death
went to the general library.[107] His follower, Hartmut (872883)
collected for himself another 28 volumes. These, too,
were bequeathed to the general library on his death.[108]
The longest title list found for any Carolingian monastery
appears to be the list of the library of the monastery of
Lorsch. It amounted to 590 titles.[109]

NUMBER OF SCRIBES & COLLABORATION

The number of monks who sat at work in the scriptorium
must have varied greatly. The layout of the Scriptorium on
the Plan of St. Gall would allow fourteen monks to write
simultaneously, if we assume that each writing desk was
manned by two scribes. Since there are ten feet of space
between each window, two scribes could have worked in
comfort at a single desk. But the total number of scribes at
work each day in the Scriptorium could have been considerably
increased if the scribes worked in shifts.

A. Bruckner, on the basis of an actual count of the hands
at work in individual manuscripts, has calculated that the
monastery of St. Gall, between 750 and 770, employed
some twenty-five scribes for copying manuscripts and
around fifteen more for writing documents—a total of
forty.[110] Under Abbot Waldo and shortly after him (770790)
the number of scribes rose to about eighty;[111] under
Abbot Gozbert (816-836) to about a hundred.[112] Some of
these may have worked in carrels, in one of the cloister
walks, as was customary in Tournai in the eleventh
century[113] and to be found later on in many other places.[114]

A codex was rarely written entirely by a single hand. At
the scriptorium of St. Martin's at Tours, in the first half of
the eighth century, more than twenty scribes collaborated
in a copy of Eugippius.[115] The texts of other manuscripts
copied at that same school were written, variously, by five,
seven, eight, or twelve different hands.[116] Fourteen scribes
listed by name in manuscripts of St. Martin appear in a
register drawn up in 820.[117]

[ILLUSTRATION]

ROMANESQUE CHURCH BENCH, MONASTERY OF ALPIRSBACH

100.

100.X

FORMERLY STUTTGART, SCHLOSSMUSEUM

(DESTROYED IN WW II.) After Falke, 1924, pl. 1

Although probably not antedating the thirteenth century, this medieval church bench with its simple carpentry embodies a type one
would expect to have been in use centuries earlier. The drafter of the Plan referred to this type of bench as FORMULA (see above
p. 137 and Glossary, III, s.v.). Four such benches, each with a seating capacity of not more than four people, would have been
set up in the crossing of the Church probably for use by a specially trained choir singing in antiphon.

[ILLUSTRATION]

HEXHAM, NORTHUMBERLAND, ENGLAND

NIGHT STAIRS, PRIORY CHURCH

Unquestionably one of the finest extant medieval night stairs, located in the southern transept arm, it leads directly from dormitory into church.
In general such stairs provided the only connection between dormitory and cloister. In the 12th and 13th centuries, they were invariably made of
stone; in earlier times perhaps of timber. Except for those in the Church, the author of the Plan of St. Gall omits stairs from it.

[ILLUSTRATION]

102.A GOD JANUS UNDER A CELESTIAL CANOPY

Roman medal of A.D. 187, more than twice original size
[after Gnecchi, II, 1912, pl. 84, fig. 5]

[ILLUSTRATION]

104. TYRE, PALESTINE (LEBANON)

Basilica built by Bishop Paulinus in A.D. 314. Reconstructed plan [after
Nussbaum, 1965, II, 24, fig. 1]. The reconstruction is based on a
description by Eusebius, History of the Church (X, 4, 44) where
the layout of Synthronon and Bema is referred to:

"after completing the great building he [Constantine] furnished it with
thrones high up, to accord with the dignity of the prelates, and also with
benches arranged conveniently throughout. In addition to all this, he placed
in the middle the Holy of Holies—the altar—excluding the general public
from this part too by surrounding it with wooden trellis-work wrought
by the craftsmen with exquisite artistry, a marvellous sight for all who
see it."

[ILLUSTRATION]

102.B EMPEROR DOMITIAN ENTHRONED
UNDER CELESTIAL CANOPY

Sestertius, nearly three times original size [after Mattingly, II, 1930, pl. 77,
fig. 9]

[ILLUSTRATION]

103. ROME. OLD ST. PETER'S

Presbytery, as rebuilt by Gregory the Great between 594-604. Drawing by
S. Rizzello [after Toynbee and Ward-Perkins, 1956, 215, fig. 22]

DAILY WORK SPAN

The daily work span of a medieval scribe, to judge by an
anonymous writer of the tenth century, was six hours.[118]
In Cluny, in the twelfth century, the scribes were exempted
from certain choir prayers;[119] but in the ninth century,
according to Hildemar, a scribe was not allowed to complete
a verse "once the bell for the divine service was rung,
not even a letter which he had started, but must instantly
set it aside unfinished."[120] The same author lists as the
indispensable tools of the scribe: the pen (penna), the quill
(calamus), the stool (scamellum), the scraping knife (rasorium),
the pumice stone (pumex), and the parchment
(pergamena).[121]

In general, writing was a daytime activity but occasionally
we hear of a monk being at this task before or after
sunset, as in a marginal annotation to a ninth century copy
of a text by Cassidorus, made in a monastery at Laon,
which reads: "It is cold today. Naturally, Winter. The
lamp gives bad light."[122] From Ekkehart IV we learn that
Ratpert, Notker, and Tutilo had permission from the abbot
to convene at night in the scriptorium for collating and
correcting texts.[123]

But there were also those more joyous occasions in the
spring or early summer when a monk would do his writing
outdoors under the shade of a tree, as evidenced in a
charming marginal gloss of an Irish manuscript of an
eighth- or ninth-century Priscian in the Library of St. Gall
(ms. 904), which reads:

A NOBLE OR BACKBREAKING TASK?

The work in the scriptorium was conducted in silence
and during the hours assigned for that purpose no monk
could leave the scriptorium without permission of the
abbot. Apart from the scribes themselves, only the abbot,
the prior, the subprior, and the librarian had access to the
scriptorium.[125] The writing of sacred texts was held in high
esteem and in general considered a more noble task than
such physical labors as working in the fields. This is expressed
in unmistakable terms in Alcuin's poem about the
scribes.[126] In Ireland where the art of calligraphy had risen
to unprecedented heights the life of a scribe was held in
such high regard that the penalty for killing a scribe was
made as great as that for killing a bishop or abbot.[127]

Yet there is no dearth of evidence that, Alcuin notwithstanding,
writing was also bemoaned as an arduous physical
task, as witnessed by such marginal annotations as:

Writing is excessive drudgery. It crooks your back, dims
your sight, twists your stomach and your sides. Three
fingers write, but the whole body labors.