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:—
"A monk ther was, a fair for the
maistrye,
An out-rydere, that lovede venerye;
[hunting]
A manly man, to been an abbot
able,
Ful many a deyntee hors hadde he in
stable:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.
He was a lord ful fat and in good point
[well-equipped]
His eyen stepe, and rollinge in his heed." [eyes bright]
The friars, too, were sometimes "merye and wantoun," and
"knew the tavernes wel in every
toun,
And everich hostiler or gay tappestere."
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:—
"What sholde he studie, and make him-selven wood
[mad]
Upon a book in cloistre alwey to
poure
Or swinken with his handes, and laboure
[toil]
As Austin bit?" [As St. Augustine bids]
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.
"Liber Bacchus is ever
loved,
And is into their bellies
shoved,
By day and by
night.
Liber Codex is
neglected,
And with scornful hand
rejected
Far out of their sight."
"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.