University of Virginia Library

3. § III

We would fain fill in the outline we have given, for the friars and their book-loving ways are interesting. But enough has been written to show the origin and growth of libraries among the religious both of the abbeys and the friaries. Of the later days of monachism it is not so pleasant to write. The story has been well told many times, but no two writers, even in a broad and general way, let alone in detail, have read the facts alike. On the one hand it is urged that monachism became degenerate, both in reverence for spiritual affairs and in love of learning. Many monks, we are told, came to find more enjoyment in easy living than in ascetic and religious observances. Apart from the savage onslaughts in Piers Plowman, and the yarns of Layton and Legh, now quite discredited, we

have the most credible evidence in Chaucer's gentle satire:— The friars, too, were sometimes "merye and wantoun," and And an indictment of some force might be based on the fact that the general chapter of the Benedictine order at Coventry in 1516 found it necessary to make regulations against immoderate and illicit eating and drinking, and against hunting and hawking.[3.53]

No doubt also many a monk would argue with himself:—

De Bury declaimed against the monks' neglect of books. "Now slothful Thersites," he cries, "handles the arms of Achilles and the choice trappings of war-horses are spread upon lazy asses, winking owls lord it in the eagle's nest, and the cowardly kite sits upon the perch of the hawk.

"And as if the simple monastic folk of modern times were deceived by a confusion of names, while Liber Pater is preferred to Liber Patrum, the study of the monks nowadays is in the emptying of cups and not the emending of books; to which they do not hesitate to add the wanton music of Timotheus, jealous of chastity, and thus the song of the merrymaker and not the chant of the mourner is become the office of the monks. Flocks and fleeces, crops and granaries, leeks and potherbs, drink and goblets, are nowadays the reading and study of the monks, except a few elect ones, in whom lingers not the image but some slight vestige of the fathers that preceded them."[3.54] Specific instances of neglect and worse are recorded. We have already mentioned the giving and selling of books by the monks of St. Albans to Richard de Bury. From the account books of Bolton Abbey it would appear that three books only were bought during forty years of the fourteenth century.[3.55] At St. Werburgh's, Chester, discipline was very lax. Two monks robbed the abbot of a book valued at £20, and of property valued at £100 or more, and stole from two of their brethren books and money (1409). About four years later one of the thieves was elected abbot, and his respect for learning may be gauged from the fact that in 1422 he was charged with not having maintained a scholar at Oxford or Cambridge for twelve years, although it was his duty to do so by the rules of his order. [3.56]

At Bury books were going astray in the first half of the fifteenth century. Abbot William Curteys (1429-45) issued an ordinance in which he declares books given out

by the preceptor to the brethren for purposes of study had been lent, pledged, and even stolen by them. Some of them he had recovered, and he hoped to secure more, but the process of recovery had been expensive and troublesome, both to himself and the people he found in possession of the books. He therefore sternly forbade the brethren to alienate books, and decrees certain punishments if his order was disobeyed. Brethren studying at the University seem to have been not immune from such faults.[3.57] The prior of Michelham sold books, papers, horses, and timber for his own personal profit (1478). A visitation of Wigmore showed that books were not "studied in the cloister because the seats were uncomfortable." [3.58] Bishop Goldwell's visitation of his diocese of Norwich in 1492 showed that at Norwich Priory no scholars were sent to study at Oxford, and at Wymondham Abbey the monks "refused to apply themselves to their books." At Battle Abbey, in 1530, the one time fine library was in a sad state of neglect; no doubt books had been parted with. And as the last years of the monasteries coincided with a renewed interest among seculars in learning and with a revival of book-collecting, the monks of all houses must have been sorely tempted to sell books which laymen coveted, as the monks of Mount Athos have been bartering away their libraries ever since the seventeenth century.

But among so many houses some were bound to be ill-conducted. And it is important to remember that irregularities would be recorded oftener than more favourable facts. What had been usual would go unnoted; what was strange, and a departure from the highest standard of monachism, would be observed with regret by friends and dwelt on with spite by enemies. Although human

memory is apt to register evil acts with more assiduity and fidelity than good, yet a contrary view of the last state of monachism may be argued with as much reason and with the support of equally reliable evidence. The great majority of the houses were not under lax control. The general organisation was not defective; nor was every monk a "lorel, a loller, and a `spille-tyme.' " Setting aside the question of general conduct, with which we have little to do, plenty of evidence may be collected to show that the work of the earlier periods was not only continued in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but that some of the monks enjoyed special distinction among their contemporaries. Writing was encouraged by directions of chapters in 1343, 1388, and 1444.[3.59] The early part of the fifteenth century was an age of library building, in the monasteries, as at the Universities. Special rooms for books were put up at Gloucester, Christ Church (Canterbury), Durham, Bury St. Edmunds, and other houses. Large and growing monastic libraries were in existence—at St. Albans and Peterborough, two at Canterbury of nearly two thousand volumes each, two thousand volumes at Bury, a thousand and more at Durham, six hundred at Ramsey, three hundred and fifty at Meaux. When John Leland crossed the threshold of the library at Glastonbury he stood stock still for a moment, awestruck and bewildered at the sight of books of the greatest antiquity. In 1482, the abbess of Syon monastery, Isleworth, entered into a regular contract for writing and binding books. [3.60] Some forty years later this abbey had at least fourteen hundred and twenty-one printed and manuscript volumes in its library.[3.61] More facts of similar character will be noted in the next chapter. Here we will content ourselves with noting a few of the most conspicuous instances of monkish scholarship in these later days. At Glastonbury, Abbot John Selwood was familiar with John Free's work; indeed, presents a monk with one of that scholar's translations from the Greek.[3.62] His successor, Bere, was a pilgrim to Italy, and was in correspondence with Erasmus, who desired him to examine his translation of the New Testament from the Greek. A monk of Westminster, who became abbot of his house in 1465, was a diligent student, noted for his knowledge of Greek.[3.63] At Christ Church, Canterbury, Prior Selling was particularly zealous on behalf of the library, and was one of the first to import Greek books into England in any considerable quantity.[3.64] Two manuscripts now in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and one in New College, were transcribed by a Greek living at Reading Abbey (1497-1500). [3.65] These few references to the study of Greek are especially significant, as the revival of Greek studies had only just begun.