9. CHAPTER IX: THE USE OF BOOKS TOWARDS THE END OF THE MANUSCRIPT
PERIOD
1. § I
THE cheapening of books has brought many pleasures,
but has been the cause of our losing—or almost
losing—one pleasant social custom,—the pastime
of reciting tales by the fireside or at festivities, which was
popular until the end of the manuscript age.
"Men lykyn jestis for to
here
And romans rede in divers manere."
At their games and feasts and over their ale men were wont to hear tales
and verses.
[9.1] The tale-tellers were
usually professional wayfaring entertainers: "japers and `mynstralles'
that sell `glee,'" as the scald sang his lays before King Hygelac and
roused Beowulf to slay Grendel—
"Gestiours, that tellen
talesBothe of weping and of game."[9.2]
Call hither, cries Sir Thopas, minstrels and gestours, "for
to tellen tales"—
"Of romances that been
royales,
Of popes and of
cardinals,
And eek of love-lykinge." (II. 2035-40).
Rhymers and poets had these entertainments in mind when they wrote—
"And red wher-so thou be, or elles
songe,
That thou be understonde I god beseche,"
cries Chaucer.
[9.3] Note also the preliminary
request for silence and attention at the beginning of
Sir
Thopas—
"Listeth, lordes, in good
entent,
And I wol telle
verrayment
Of mirthe and of solas
[solace];
Al of a kuyght was fair and gent
[gallant]
In bataille and in
tourneyment,
His name was Sir Thopas."
At the beginning of his metrical chronicle of England Robert
Mannyng of Brunne begs the "Lordynges that be now here" to listen to the
story of England, as he had found it and Englished it for the solace of
those "lewed" men who knew not Latin or French.
[9.4]
References to these minstrels are common—
"I warne you furst at the
beginninge,That I will make no vain carpinge
[talk]Of cedes of armys ne of
amours,As dus mynstrelles and
jestours,That makys carpinge in many a
placeOf Octoviane and
Isembrase,And of many other
jestes,And namely, when they come to
festes;Ne of the life of Bevys of
Hampton,That was a knight of gret
renoun,Ne of Sir Gye of Warwyke."[9.5]
The monks of Hyde Abbey or New Minster paid an annuity to a
harper (1180). No less a sum than seventy shillings was paid to
minstrels hired to sing and play the
harp at the feast of the installation of an abbot of St. Augustine's,
Canterbury (1309). When the bishop of Winchester visited the cathedral
priory of St. Swithin or Old Minster, a minstrel was hired to sing the
song of Colbrond the Danish giant—a legend connected with
Winchester—and the tale of Queen Emma delivered from the ploughshares
(1338). Payments to minstrels were commonly made by monks: at Bicester
Priory, for example (1431), and at Maxstoke, where
mimi, joculatores,
jocatores, lusores, and
citharistae were hired. A curious
provision occurs in the statutes of New College, Oxford (1380). The
founder gives his permission to the scholars, for their recreation on
festival days in the winter, to light a fire in the hall after dinner
and supper, where they could amuse themselves with songs and other
entertainments of decent sort, and could recite poems, chronicles of
kingdoms, the wonders of the world, and such like compositions, provided
they befitted the clerical character. At Winchester College—where
minstrels were often employed—and Magdalen College the same practice
was followed. Commonly minstrels formed a regular part of the household
of rich men.
[9.6]
This part of the subject is so interesting that we feel tempted
to linger over it, but it is sufficient for our purpose to observe that
minstrelsy, before and after the Conquest —indeed, up to nearly the end
of the manuscript period— was the chief and almost the only means of
circulating literature among seculars. This fact should be borne in mind
when any comparison is made between the number of religious and
scholastic books in circulation and the number of books of lighter
character. Even books of the scholastic class were read aloud to
students in class, and often to small audiences of older people; but
this method had obvious disadvantages, and the necessity of studying
them personally soon came to be recognised as imperative. Hence such
books, and especially those which summarised the subject of study, were
greatly multiplied. On the other hand, romances were better heard than
read, and only enough copies of them were made to supply wealthy
households and the minstrels and jesters whose business it was to learn
and recite them. Rarely, therefore, did the ordinary layman of medieval
England own many books. The large class to whom romances appealed
seldom owned books at all, simply because the people of this class, even
if wealthy and of noble rank, could not in ninety cases out of one
hundred read at all, or could read so poorly that the pastime was
irksome. Among the educated classes, the books needed were those with
which a reader had made acquaintance at his university, or which were
necessary for his special study and occupation. Yet it is uncommon to
find private libraries; and with few exceptions they were ridiculously
small. The vast majority of the books were owned in common by monastic
or collegiate societies.
Let us bring together the meagre records of three centuries, and
some exceptions to the general rule which serve only to show up the
general poverty of the land. Henry II, an ardent sportsman, a ruler
almost completely immersed in affairs of State, made time for private
reading and for working out knotty questions,
[9.7] and very probably he had a library to his
hand. King John received from the sacristan of Reading a small
collection of books of the Bible and severe theology, perhaps as a
diplomatic gift, perhaps as a subtle reminder that a little food for the
spirit would improve his morals and ameliorate the lot of his subjects.
Edward II borrowed at least two books, the Miracles of St.
Thomas and the Lives of St. Thomas and St. Anselm, from
Christ Church, Canterbury.[9.8] Great Earl
Simon had a
Digestum vetus from the same source. Guy de
Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (
d. 1315), had a little hoard of
romances, and some other books. Hugh le Despenser the elder enjoyed a
"librarie of bookes" (
c. 1321), how big or of what character we
do not know. Archbishop Meopham (
d. 1333) gave some books to
Christ Church, Canterbury; and his successor, John Stratford, presented
a few to the same house. Lady Elizabeth de Clare, foundress of Clare
Hall, bequeathed to her foundation a tiny collection of service books
and volumes on canon law (1355). William de Feriby, Archdeacon of
Cleveland, left a small theological library (1378). One John Percyhay of
Swinton in Rydal (1392), Sir Robert de Roos (1392), John de Clifford,
treasurer of York Church (1392), Canon Bragge of York (1396), and
Eleanor Bohun, Duchess of Gloucester (1399), all left Bibles; and small
collections of books, much alike in character, consisting usually of
psalters, books of religious offfices, legends of the saints, Peter of
Blois, Nicholas Trivet, the Brut chronicle, books of Decretals, and the
Corpus Juris Civilis,—most of it sorry stuff, the last achievements of
dogmatism on threadbare subjects. "Among all the church dignitaries
whose wills are recorded in Bishop Stafford's register at Exeter (1395-1419), the largest library mentioned is only of fourteen volumes. The
sixty testators include a dean, two archdeacons, twenty canons or
prebendaries, thirteen rectors, six vicars, and eighteen layfolk, mostly
rich people. The whole sixty apparently possessed only two Bibles
between them, and only one hundred and thirty-eight books altogether:
or, omitting church service-books, only sixty;
i.e. exactly one
each on an average. Thirteen of the beneficed clergy were altogether
bookless, though several of them possessed the
baselard or dagger
which church councils had forbidden in vain for centuries past;
four more had only their breviary. Of the laity fifteen were bookless,
while three had service books, one of these being a knight who simply
bequeathed them as part of the furniture of his private chapel."
[9.9]
A few exceptions there were, as we have said. Not till the
fifteenth century do we find that a few books were commonly in the
possession of well-to-do and cultivated people; suggesting an advance in
culture upon the prevlous age. But before 1400 several book collectors
were sharp aberrations from the general rule. Richard de Gravesend,
Bishop of London, owned nearly a hundred books, almost all theological,
and each worth on an average more than a sovereign a volume, or in all
about £1740 of our money. A certain Abbot Thomas of St.
Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, gave to his house over one hundred
volumes.[9.10] To the same monastery a
certain John of London, probably a pupil of Friar Bacon, left a
specialist's library of about eighty books, no fewer than forty-six
being on mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.
[9.11] Simon Langham, too, bequeathed to
Westminister Abbey ninety-one works, some very costly.
[9.12] John de Newton, treasurer of York, left a
good library, part of which he bequeathed to York Minster and part to
Peterhouse (1418). A canon of York, Thomas Greenwood, died worth more
than thirty pounds in books alone (1421). And Henry Bowet, Archbishop of
York, left a collection of thirty-three volumes, nearly all of great
price,—copies de luxe, finely illuminated and embellished,
worth on an average a pound a volume (1423).
But Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, is at once the
bibliomaniac's ideal and enigma (1287-1345). All accounts agree in
saying he collected a large number of books.
What became of them we do not know. In the Philobiblon,
of which he is the reputed author, he expressed his intention of
founding a hall at Oxford, and of leaving his books to it. Durham
College, however, was not completed until thirty-six years after his
death. Among the Durham College documents is a catalogue of the books it
owned at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and only the books sent
to Oxford in 1315, and as many more are mentioned, so that his large
library did not go to the college, but was probably dispersed.
[9.13] De Bury, like Cobham, was a heavy debtor,
and as he lay dying his servants stole all his moveable goods and left
him naked on his bed save for an undershirt which a lackey had thrown
over him.[9.14] His executors, as we know,
were glad to resell to St. Albans Abbey the books he had bought from the
monks there.
De Bury has left us an account of his methods of collecting which
throws some light upon the trade in books in his time. "Although from
our youth upwards we had always delighted in holding social commune with
learned men and lovers of books, yet when we prospered in the world, . .
. we obtained ampler facilities for visiting everywhere as we would, and
of hunting as it were certain most choice preserves, libraries private
as well as public, and of the regular as well as of the secular
clergy.... There was afforded to us, in consideration of the royal
favour, easy access for the purpose of freely searching the retreats of
books. In fact, the fame of our love of them had been soon winged abroad
everywhere, and we were reported to burn with such desire for books, and
especially old ones,
that it was more easy for any man to gain our favour by means of books
than of money. Wherefore, since supported by the goodness of the
aforesaid prince of worthy memory, we were able to requite a man well or
ill . . . there flowed in, instead of presents and guerdons, and instead
of gifts and jewels, soiled tracts and battered codices, gladsome alike
to our eye and heart. Then the aumbries of the most famous monasteries
were thrown open, cases were unlocked and caskets were undone, and
volumes that had slumbered through long ages in their tombs wake up and
are astonished, and those that had lain hidden in dark places are bathed
in the ray of unwonted light. These long lifeless books, once most
dainty, but now become corrupt and loathesome, covered with litters of
mice and pierced with the gnawings of the worms, and who were once
clothed in purple and fine linen, now Iying in sackcloth and ashes,
given up to oblivion, seemed to have become habitations of the moth....
Thus the sacred vessels of learning came into our control and
stewardship; some by gift, others by purchase, and some lent to us for a
season."
[9.15]
If his words are true, monastic and other libraries must have
been seriously despoiled to build up his own collection. He was bribed
by St. Albans Abbey, and nobody need disbelieve him when he says he got
many presents from other houses, for the merit of being open-handed was
rewarded with more good mediation and favours than the giver's cause
deserved; indeed, De Bury himself seems to have made judicious use of
bribes for his own advancement.[9.16]
Usually gifts were in jewels or plate, but books were given to men known
to love them; as when
Whethamstede presented Humfrey of Gloucester and the Duke of Bedford
with books they coveted.
While acting as emissary for his "illustrious prince," de Bury
hunts his quarry in the narrow ways of Paris, and captures "inestimable
books" by freely opening his purse, the coins of which are, to his
mind, "mud and sand" compared with the treasures he gets. He blesses
the friars and protects them, and they rout out books from the
"universities and high schools of various provinces"; but how, whether
rightfully or wrongfully, we do not know. He "does not disdain," he
tells us—in truth, he is surely overjoyed—to visit "their libraries
and any other repositories of books"; nay, there he finds heaped up
amid the utmost poverty the utmost riches of wisdom. He freely employs
the booksellers, but the wiles of the collector are as notorious as the
wiles of women, and his chief aim is to "captivate the affection of
all" who can get him books;—not even forgetting "the rectors of
schools and the instructors of rude boys," although we cannot think he
gets much from them. If he cannot buy books, he has copies made: about
his person are scribes and correctors, illuminators and binders, and
generally all who can usefully labour in the service of books; in large
numbers—in no small multitude. And by these means he gets together more
books than all the other English bishops put together: more than five
waggon loads; a veritable hoard, overflowing into the hall of his house,
and into his bedroom, where he steps over them to get to his couch. He
was a man "of small learning," says Murimuth; "passably literate,"
writes Chambre; at the best, according to Petrarch, "of ardent
temperament, not ignorant of literature, with a natural curiosity for
out-of-the-way lore": an antiquarian, not of the lovable kind, but
unscrupulous, pedantic, and vain, indulging an inordinate taste for
collecting and hoarding books, perhaps to satisfy a
craving for shreds and patches of knowledge, but more likely to earn a
reputation as a great clerk.
[9.17] For De
Bury was something of a humbug; the
Philobiblon, if it is his
work, reaches the utmost limit of affectation in the love of books.
2. § II
The literature of the later part of the fourteenth century
affords us glimpses of other readers who were not merely collectors. The
author—or authors—of Piers Plowman seems to have had within his
reach a fair library. His reading was carelessly done for the most part,
his references are vague and incorrect, and his quotations not always
exact. But he was well read in the Scriptures, which he knew far better
than any other book. From the Fathers he gathered much, perhaps by means
of collections of extracts from their works. He used the Golden
Legend, Huon de Meri's allegorical poem of the fight between Jesus
and the Antichrist, Peter Comestor's Bible History, Rustebeuf's
La Voie de Paradis, Grosseteste's religious allegory of Le
Chastel d' Amour, the paraded learning of Vincent of Beauvais in
Speculum Historiale, and other works—numerous and small signs of
booklore, which are completely overshadowed by his illuminating
comprehension of the popular side in the politics of his day. Gower,
too, had at his disposal a little library of some account, including the
Scriptures, theological writings and ecclesiastical histories,
Aristotle, some of the classics, and a good deal of romance in prose and
verse
But Chaucer was the ideal book-lover: knowing Dante, Boccaccio,
and in some degree "Franceys Petrark, the laureat poete," who
"enlumined al Itaille of poetry," Virgil, Cicero, Seneca, Ovid—his
favourite author—and Boëthius;
as well as Guido delle Colonne's prose epic of the story of Troy, the
poems of Guillaume de Machaut, the
Roman de la Rose, and a work
on the astrolabe by Messahala.
[9.18] We have
some excellent pictures of Chaucer's habit of reading. When his day's
work is done he goes home and buries himself with his books—
"Domb as any stoon, Thou sittest at another boke, Til
fullydaswed is thy loke."[9.19]
In the
Parliament of Fowls he tells us that he read books
often for instruction and pleasure, and the coming on of
night alone would force him to put away his book. He
would not have been a true reader had he not developed
the habit of reading in bed.
". . . Whan I saw I might not
slepe,Til now late, this other
night,Upon my bedde I sat
uprightAnd bad oon reche me a
book,A romance, and he hit me
tookTo rede and dryve the night
away;. . . . . . . .
.And in this boke were writen
fablesThat clerkes hadde, in olde
tyme,And other poets, put in ryme...."[9.20]
So he found solace and delight, as countless thousands
have done, in his Ovid. The world of books and of
reading is apt to seem stuffy, the favoured home of the
moody spirit, a lair to which a dirty and ragged Magliabechi
retreats, a palace where a Beckford gloats solitary
over his treasures—a world whence we often desire to
escape, since we know we can return to it when we will.
For if good books shelter us from the realities of life, life
itself refreshes the student like cool rain upon the fevered brow.
Chaucer was the bright spirit who let his books fill their proper place
in his life. In books, he says—
"I me
delyte,
And to hem give I feyth and ful
credence,
And in myn heart have hem in
reverence
So hertely that ther is game
noon
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon."
Yet books are something much less than life: there is the
open air,—the meadows bright with flowers,—the melody
of birds,—
". . . Whan that the month of
MayIs comen, and that I hear the foules
singe,And that the flowers 'ginnen for to
springFarwel my book...."[9.21]
3. § III
By the end of the fourteenth century we find signs that books
more often formed a part of well-to-do households, and that the formal
reading and reciting entertainments were giving place gradually to the
informal and personal use of books. Among many pieces of evidence that
this was so, Chaucer himself furnishes us with two of the best, one in
the Wife of Bath's Tale, and the other in his Troilus and
Criseide. The Wife took for her fifth husband, "God his soule
blesse," a clerk of Oxenford—
"He was, I trowe, a twenty winter
old,
And I was fourty, if I shal seye sooth."
Joly Jankin, as the clerk was called,
"Hadde a book that gladly, night and
day,
For his desport he wolde rede alway.
He cleped [called] it Valerie and Theofraste,
[9.22]At whiche book he lough alwey ful
faste.. . . . . . . . .
And every night and day was his
custume,When he had leyser and
vacaciounFrom other worldly
occupacioun,To reden on this book of wikked wyves."
[9.23]
And having quickly taken measure of the Wife's character,
he could not refrain from reading to her stories which
seemed to contain a lesson and to point a moral for her.
She lost patience, and was "beten for a book, pardee."
"Up-on a night Jankin, that was our
syre,
Redde on his book, as he sat by the fyre."
And when his wife saw he would "never fyne" to read "this
cursed book al night," all suddenly she plucked three leaves out of it,
"right as he radde," and with her fist so took him on the cheek that
he fell "bakward adoun" in the fire. Springing up like a mad lion he
smote her on the head with his fist, and she lay upon the floor as she
were dead. Whereupon he stood aghast, sorry for what he had done; and
"with muchel care and wo" they made up their quarrel: our clerk, let
us hope, winning peace, and his wife securing the mastery of their
household affairs and the destruction of the "cursed book."
In Troilus we are told that Uncle Pandarus comes into the
paved parlour, where he finds his niece sitting with two other ladies—
". . . And they
three
Herden a mayden reden hem the
geste
Of the Sege of Thebes . . ."
"What are you reading?" cries Pandarus. "For Goddes love, what
seith it? Tel it us. Is it of love?" Whereupon the niece returns him a
saucy answer, and "with that they gonnen laughe," and then she says—
"This romaunce is of Thebes, that we
rede;And we can herd how that King Laius
deydeThurgh Edippus his sone, and al that
cede;And here we stenten [left off] at these lettres
recle,How the bisshop, as the book can
telle,Amphiorax, fil through the ground to helle."
[9.24]
This picture of a little informal reading circle is not to be
found in like perfection elsewhere in English medieval
literature.
[9.25]
4. § IV
By the middle of the fifteenth century book-collecting was a more
fashionable pastime. Had it not been so we should have been surprised.
From 1365 to 1450 was an age of library building. Oxford University now
had its library: in quick succession the colleges of Merton, William of
Wykeham, Exeter, University, Durham, Balliol, Peterhouse, Lincoln, All
Souls, Magdalen, Queens' (Cambridge), Pembroke (Cambridge), and St.
John's (Cambridge) followed the example. Library rooms also had been put
up in the cathedrals of Hereford, Exeter, York, Lincoln, Wells,
Salisbury, St. Paul's, and Lichfield. Moreover, in London had been
established the first public library. Dick Whittington, of famous
memory, and William Bury founded it between 1421 and 1426. The civic
records tell us that "Upon the petition of John
Coventry, John Carpenter, and William Grove, the executors of Richard
Whittington and William Bury, the Custody of the New House, or Library,
which they had built, with the Chamber under, was placed at their
disposal by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty."
[9.26] The foundation is described as "a certen
house next unto the sam Chapel apperteynyug, called the library, all
waies res'ved for students to resorte unto,
w
t three chambres under nithe the saide library,
which library being covered wt slate is valued together
w
t the chambres at xiijs. iiijd. yerely.... The
sated library is a house appointed by the sated Maior and cominaltie for
. . . resorte of all students for their education in Divine
Scriptures."
[9.27] Stow, writing in 1598,
spoke of it as "sometime a fayre and large library, furnished with
books.... The armes of Whitington are placed on the one side in the
stone worke, and two letters, to wit, W. and B., for William Bury, on
the other side." Wealthy citizens came forward with pecuniary aid then
as they have ever done. William Chichele, sometime Sheriff, bequeathed
"x
li to be bestowyed on books notable to be
layde in the newe librarye at the gildehall at London for to be
memoriall for John Hadle, sumtyme meyre, and for me there while they
mowe laste."
[9.28] This was in 1425.
Eighteen years later one of Whittington's executors, named John
Carpenter, made this direction in his will: "If any good or rare books
shall be found amongst the said residue of my goods, which, by the
discretion of the aforesaid Master William Lichfield and Reginald
Pecock, may seem necessary to the common library at Guildhall, for the
profit of the students there, and those discoursing to the common
people, then I
will and bequeath that those books be placed by my executors and chained
in that library that the visitors and students thereof may be the sooner
admonished to pray for my soul" (1442)
[9.29]
But this library, like so many others, did not survive the disastrous
years of mid-sixteenth century.
It would be singular if this progress in library making were not
reflected in the habits of a considerable section of the people. The
court and its entourage set the fashion. Henry VI was a lover of books
and a collector. His uncle, John, Duke of Bedford, although much
occupied with public affairs and mercilessly warring with France, got
together a rich library, particularly noteworthy for finely illuminated
books: the famous library of the Louvre was a part of his French booty.
Of his brother Gloucester we have already spoken. Archbishop Kempe owned
a library of theology, canon and civil law, and other books, worth more
than £260. He also gave money towards the cost of Gloucester's
library at Oxford; as did also Cardinal Beaufort and the Duchess of
Gloucester. Sir John Fastolf possessed a small number of books at
Caistor (c. 1450). The collection was of some distinction, as
the inventory will show: "In the Stewe hous; of Frenche books, the
Bible, the Cronycles of France, the Cronicles of Titus Levius, a booke
of Jullius Cesar, lez Propretez dez Choses [by Barth Glanville], Petrus
de Crescentiis, fiber Almagesti, fiber Geomancie cum iiij aliis
Astronomie, fiber de Roy Artour, Romaunce la Rose, Cronicles
d'Angleterre, Veges de larte Chevalerie, Instituts of Justien Emperer,
Brute in ryme, fiber Etiques, fiber de Sentence Joseph, Problemate
Aristotelis, Vice and Vertues, fiber de Cronykes de Grant Bretagne in
ryme, Meditacions Saynt Bernard."[9.30]
Perhaps this little hoard may be taken
as a fair example of a wealthy gentleman's library in the fifteenth
century. A collection perhaps accurately representing the average
prelatical library was that of Richard Browne, running to more than
thirty books of the common medieval character (1452). A canon
residentiary of York named William Duffield had a library of forty
volumes, as fine as Archbishop Bowet's collection, and valued at a
higher figure (1452). Ralph Dreff, of Broadgates Hall, possessed no
fewer than twenty-three volumes, a larger collection than Oxford
students usually had. A vicar of Cookfield owned twenty-four books, some
of them priced cheaply (1451).
Some collections were pathetically small. A disreputable student
of Oxford, John Brette, had among his "bits of things" a book and a
pamphlet. Thomas Cooper, scholar of Brasenose Hall, enjoyed the use of
six volumes. Another scholar, John Lassehowe, had a like number; and
another, Simon Berynton, had fifteen books, worth sixpence (c.
1448)! A rector also had six, one of them Greek; a chaplain was equipped
with six medical works; and James Hedyan, bachelor of canon and civil
law, could employ his leisure in reading one of his little store of
eight volumes. One Elizabeth Sywardby owned eight books, three being
costly (1468).
5. § V
More records of the same kind may be obtained from almost any
collection of wills and inventories, the number of them increasing
towards the end of the manuscript age. How far this change was due to
the influence of Italy we do not fully know. Certainly before the end of
Henry VI's reign the first impulse of the Italian renascence—the
impulse to gather up the materials of a more catholic and
liberal knowledge—had been transmitted to England. Students left our
shores to widen their studies in Italy. Public men in England
corresponded with Italians, and fall into sympathy with their aims.
Occasianally scholars came hither from Italy. Manuel Chrysoloras, one of
the leading revivers of Greek studies in Italy, visited England in the
service of Manuel Palaeologus, and possibly stayed at Christ Church
monastery in 1408.
[9.31] Poggio Bracciolini
came to this country in 1418-23 at the invitation of Cardinal Beautort:
what he did while here we know far too little about, but this visit of
Italy's greatest book-collector and discoverer of Latin classical
manuscripts cannot have been without some effect upon English students.
For Poggio the visit was almost without result. He was in search of
manuscripts, but apparently failed to get any with which he was
unacquainted. He dismissed our libraries with the sharp criticism that
they were full of trash, and described Englishmen as almost devoid of
love for letters.
[9.32] Æneas Sylvius
also came here, and his visit likewise must have borne some fruit
(1435).
Much also was accomplished by correspondence. Among those in
communication with Italians and acquainted with the course of their
studies, were Bishop Bekington, one of the earliest alumni of
Wykeham's foundation at Oxford, Adam de Molyneux, the correspondent of
Æneas Sylvius, Thomas Chaundler, warden of New College, Archdeacon
Bildstone, Archbishop Arundel, the benefactor of Oxford University
Library and correspondent of Salutati, Cardinal Beaufort's secretary,
and Humfrey of Gloucester. Upon the last-named Italian influence was
strong. Among the books he gave to
Oxford were Petrarch, Dante, and Boccaccio, but probably the strongest
evidence of this influence would be found in the books he retained for
his own use. He sought a rendering of Aristotle's
Politics from
Bruni; of Cicero's
Republic from Decembrio; of certain of
Plutarch's
Lives from Lapo da Castiglionchio; and had other works
translated.
[9.33]
But many English students were attracted to visit Italy for the
express purpose of sitting under Italian teachers. As early as 1395,
one Thomas of England, a brother of the Augustine order, went to Italy
and purchased manuscripts, "books of the modern poets," and translations
and other early works of Leonardo Bruni.
[9.34] Thomas was one
of the first of a number of enlightened Englishmen who
journeyed laboriously and in steady procession to Italy,
this time not only to Rome, but to the northern towns,
then, with Venice, "the common ports of humanity,"
whither they were attracted by the fame of the bright
galaxy of humanists—of Coluccio Salutati, collector of
Latin manuscripts, Manuel Chrysoloras, Niccolo de' Niccoli,
grubbing Poggio Bracciolini, Pope Nicholas, sometime
Cosimo de' Medici's librarian and the founder of the
Vatican Library, Giovanni Aurispa, famous collector of
Greek manuscripts in the East, the renowned Guarino da Verona, Palla
degli Strozzi, would-be founder of a public library, Cosimo de' Medici,
whose princely collections are the chiefest treasures of the Laurentian
Library, Francesco Filelfo, another importer of Greek books from
Constantinople, and Vespasiano, the great bookseller.
Sometimes these pilgrims to Italy were poor men, as were John
Free, and the two Oxford men, Norton and Bulkeley, who went thither in
1425-29.[9.35] But as a rule such a journey
was only possible for wealthy men. An important pilgrim was Andrew
Holes, who represensed England at the Pope's court in Florence.
[9.36] In the eyes of Vespasiano, Holes was one of
the most cultivated of Englishmen. He appears to have bought too many
books to send by land, and so was obliged to wait for a ship to
transport them. What became of these books?—did he collect for his own
use?—or was he acting merely for Duke Humfrey or the king?—or did he
leave them, as it is said, to his Church? Unfortunately these are
questions which cannot be answered.
Four other men, Tiptoft, Grey, Free, and Gunthorpe, all of
Balliol College, where the influence of Duke Humfrey may fairly be
suspected, journeyed to Italy. "Butcher" Tiptoft, an intimate of another
enlightened community at Christ Church, visited Guarino, walked
Florentine streets arm-in-arm with Vespasiano, thrilled Æneas
Sylvius, then Pope, with a Latin oration, and returned to his own
country with many books, some of which he intended to give to Oxford
University—one of the best deeds of his unhappy and calamitous
life.[9.37] While in Italy, William Grey,
who sat under Guarino, and made Niccolò Perotti,
well known as a grammarian, free of his princely establishment, was
conspicuously industrious in accumulating books. If he could not obtain
them in any other way he employed scribes to copy for him, and an artist
of Florence to adorn them in a costly manner with miniatures and
initials. In nearly six years he collected over two hundred volumes of
manuscripts, some as old as the twelfth century; probably the finest
library sent to England in that age. No fewer than 152 of his
manuscripts are now in the Balliol College library, to which he gave his
whole collection in 1478; unfortunately most of the miniatures are
destroyed. To his patronage of learning and his book-collecting
propensities Grey owed his friendship with Nicholas V, and his bishopric
of Ely. Grey was also a good friend to Free or Phreas, a poor student,
and aided him in Italy with money for his expenses of living and to
obtain Greek manuscripts to translate.
[9.38]
Free and John Gunthorpe, Dean of Wells, went to Italy together: Free did
not live to return, but Gunthorp brought home manuscripts. He gave the
bulk of them to Jesus College, where only one or two are left; some have
found their way to other Cambridge Colleges.
[9.39] Another Oxford scholar, Robert Flemming,
was in Italy in 1450: here he became the friend of the great librarian
of the Vatican, Platina; and got together a number of manuscripts,
afterwards given to Lincoln College.
6. § VI
The intercourse of all these scholars with Italians was carried
on before mid-fifteenth century. Their chief interest
was in Latin books, although a large number of Greek manuscripts had
been brought to Italy by Angeli da Scarparia, Guarino, Giovanni Aurispa,
and Filelfo. After the fall of Constantinople the Greek immigrants
introduced books into Italy much more freely. George Hermonymus of
Sparta, a Greek teacher and copyist of Greek manuscripts, visited
England on a papal mission in 1475, but whether he had any influence on
our intellectual pursuits does not appear.
[9.40] Certainly, however, English scholars soon
appreciated this new literature.
Letters sent to Pope Sixtus in 1484 by the king, refer to the
skill of John Shirwood, bishop of Durham, in Latin and Greek.
[9.41] Shirwood seems to have collected a
respectable library. His Latin books were acquired by Bishop Foxe, and
formed the nucleus of the library with which the latter endowed Corpus
Christi College, Oxford. Some thirty volumes, a number of them printed,
now remain at the College to bring him to mind: among them we find
Pliny, Terence, Cicero, Livy, Suetonius, Plutarch, and Horace. Less
fortunate has been the fate of his Greek books, which went to the
collegiate church of Bishop Auckland. At the end of the fifteenth
century this church owned about forty volumes. The only exceptions to
its medieval character were Cicero's Letters and
Offices, Silius Italicus, and Theodore Gaza's Greek
grammar.[9.42] But Leland tells us that
Tunstall, who succeeded to the bishopric in 1530, found a store of
Shirwood's Greek manuscripts at this church. What became of them we do
not know.[9.43]
About this same time a certain Emmanuel of Constantinople seems
to have been employed in England as a
copyist. For Archbishop Neville he produced a Greek manuscript
containing some
sermones judiciales of Demosthenes, and letters
of Aeschines, Plato, and Chion (1468).
[9.44]
Dr. Montague James has shown that this manuscript of Emmanuel is by the
same hand as the manuscripts known as the "Ferrar group," which
comprises "a Plato and Aristotle now at Durham, two psalters in
Cambridge libraries, a psalter and part of a Suidas at Oxford, and the
famous Leicester Codex of the Gospels."
[9.45] Dr. James believes the Plato and the
Aristotle to have been transcribed for Neville by Emmanuel. In 1472 the
archbishop's household was broken up, and the "greete klerkys and famous
doctors" of his entourage went to Cambridge. Among them, it is
conjectured, was Emmanuel, and so it came to pass that three manuscripts
in his writing have been at Cambridge; two psalters, as we have said,
are there now, land in the beginning of the sixteenth century one of
them, with the Leicester Codex, was certainly in the hands of the Grey
Friars at Cambridge. This happy fruit of Dr. James' research throws a
welcome ray of light on the pursuit of Greek studies in the last quarter
of the fifteenth century.
[9.46]
In view of all the hard things which have been said of the
religious, it is significant to find them taking a leading part in
bringing Greek studies to England. We cannot collate all the instances
here, but a few may be brought together. Two Benedictines named William
of Selling and William Hadley, some time warden of Canterbury College,
Oxford, were in Italy studying and buying books for three years after
1464.[9.47] The former became distinguished
for his aptitude in learning the ancient tongues, and
consequently won the friendship of Angelo Poliziano. At least two other
visits to Italy were made by him; the last being undertaken as an
emissary of the king. On these occasions he got together as many Greek
and Latin books as he could, and brought them—a large and precious
store—to Canterbury.
[9.48] For some reason
the books were kept in the Prior's lodging instead of in the monastic
library, and here they perished through the carelessness of Layton's
myrmidons.
[9.49] Among the books lost was
possibly a copy of Cicero's
Republic. Only five manuscripts
have been found which can be connected with Selling's library: a
fifteenth-century Greek Psalter, a copy of the Psalms in Hebrew and
Latin, a Euripides, a Livy, and a magnificent Homer.
[9.50] This; Homer we have already referred to in
an earlier chapter, when describing the work of Theodore of Tarsus. The
signature Θεοδωρος has now been more
plausibly explained, "The following note," writes Dr. James, "which I
found in Dr. Masters's copy of Stanley's
Catalogue, preserved
in [Corpus Christi] College Library, suggests another origin for this
Homer. I have been unable to identify the document to which reference is
made. It should obviously be a letter of an Italian humanist in the
Harleian collection.... `Mem.: Humphrey Wanley, Librarian to the late
Earl of Oxford, told Mr. Fran: Stanley, son of the author, a little
before his death, that in looking over some papers in the papers in the
Earl's library, he found a Letter from a learned Italian to his Friend
in England, wherein he told him there was then a very stately Homer just
transcribed for Theodorus
Gaza, of whose Illumination he gives him a very particular description,
which answer'd so exactly in every part to that here set forth, that he
[Wanley] was fully perswaded it was this very Book, and y
t the
Θεοδωρος at the bottom of 1st page
order'd to be placed there by Gaza as his own name, gave occasion to
Abp. Parker to imagine it might have belonged to Theodore of Canterbury,
which however Hody was of opinion could not be of that age.' Th. Gaza,"
continues Dr. James, "died in 1478; the suggestion here made is quite
compatible with the hypothesis that Sellinge was the means of conveying
the Homer to England, and does supply a rather welcome interpretation of
the Θεοδωρος inscription." This
reasonable hypothesis may be strengthened if we point out that Gaza was
in Rome from 1464 to 1472, and Selling visited that city between 1464
and 1467 and again in 1469. Selling may have got the manuscript from
Gaza on one of these occasions.
There is evidence of Greek studies at other monasteries, —at
Westminster after 1465, when Millyng, an "able graecian," became prior
at Reading in 1499 and 1500, and at Glastonbury during the time of Abbot
Bere.[9.51]
But Canterbury's share was greatest Selling seems to have taught
Greek at Christ Church. In the monastic school there Thomas Linacre was
instructed, and probably got the rudiments of Greek from Selling
himself. Thence Linacre went to Oxford, where he pursued Greek under
Cornelius Vitelli, an Italian visitor acting as prælector in New
College.[9.52] In 1485-6 Linacre went with
his old master to Italy—his Sancta Mater Studiorum—where
Selling seems to have introduced him to Poliziano. Linacre perfected his
Greek pursuits under Chalcondylas, and
became acquainted with Aldo Manuzio the famous printer, and Hermolaus
Barbarus. A little story is told of his meeting with Hermolaus. He was
reading a copy of Plato's
Phaedo in the Vatican Library when the
great humanist came up to him and said "the youth had no claim, as he
had himself, to the title Barbarus, if it were lawful to judge from his
choice of a book"—an incident which led to a great friendship between
the two. Grocyn and Latimer were with Linacre in Rome. The former was
the first to carry on effectively the teaching of Greek begun at Oxford
possibly by Vitelli; but he was nevertheless a conservative scholar,
well read in the medieval schoolmen, as his library clearly proves. This
library is of interest because one hundred and five of the one hundred
and twenty-one books in it were printed. The manuscript age is well
past, and the costliness of books, the chief obstacle to the
dissemination of thought, was soon to give no cause for remark.
[[9.2]]
Hous of Fame, 1. 1198.
[[9.3]]
Troilus, Bk. v. Il. 1797-98.
[[9.4]]
Furnivall's ed., Rolls S., pt. 1, p. 1.
[[9.5]]
MS. Reg. 17, C, viii. f. 2; cited in
Skeat's Chaucer, v. 194.
[[9.6]]
Warton, 96-99; Rashdall and Rait, New
Coll., 60
[[9.7]]
Stubbs, Lect. on Med. Hist., 137.
[[9.8]]
James (M. R.), 148.
[[9.9]]
Coulton, Chaucer and his England, 99.
[[9.10]]
James (M. R.), lxxli.; this number is probably
correct, but owing to confusion between three Abbots of this name it is
not certainly right.
[[9.13]]
O. H. S., 32, Collect. 36-40;
also 9.
[[9.14]]
Blakiston, Trin. Coll. 5, 7; A. de
Murimuth, 171.
[[9.15]]
R. de B., 197-199.
[[9.16]]
"R. de Bury . . . qui ipsum episcopatum et omnia
sua beneficia prius habita per preces magnatum et ambitionis vitium
adquisivit, et ideo toto tempore suo inopia laboravit et prodigus
exstitit in expensis."—Murimuth, 171.
[[9.17]]
"Volens tamen magnus clericus
reputari."—Murimuth, 171.
[[9.18]]
Skeat's Chaucer, vi. 381.
[[9.19]]
Hous of Fame, Works, iii. bk. ii. l.
656-58.
[[9.20]]
Book of the Duchesse, 44.
[[9.21]]
Legend of Good Women, prol. 30ff.
[[9.22]]
Valerie: possibly Epistola Valerii ad
Rifinum de uxore non ducenda, attributed to Walter Mapes; it is a
short treatise of about eight folios; it is printed in Cam.
Soc. xvi. 77. Theofraste: Aureolus liber de Nuptiis, by
one Theophrastus.
[[9.24]]
Troilus, ii. 81-105.
[[9.25]]
It seems to be Chaucer's own; only ahout
one-third of the poem comes from Boccaccio's Filostrato.
Chaucer had a copy of the Thebais of Statius.—
Troilus, v. 1. 1484.
[[9.26]]
Letter book K, fo. 39, July 4, 1426.
[[9.27]]
From schedule of the possessions of the
Guildhall College, July 24, 1549.— L. A. R., x. 381.
[[9.28]]
Chichele Register, pt. I, fo. 392b, Lamb. Pal.;
L. A. R., x. 382.
[[9.29]]
Conf. of Librarians (1877), 216; L. A.
R., x. 382.
[[9.30]]
Hist. MSS., 8th Rept., pt. I, 268a
[[9.31]]
Gasquet2, 20;
Sandys, ii. 220; Legrand, Bibliographie Hellénique, i.
(1885) xxiv., where the date is 1405-6.
[[9.32]]
Epp. (ed. Tonelli, 1832-61), i. 43, 70,
74.
[[9.33]]
"Cest livre est a moy Homfrey Duc de Glocestre,
lequel je fis translater de Grec en Latin par un de mes secretaires,
Antoyne de Beccariane de Verone." —Cam. Soc. 1843, Ellis,
Letters, 357.
[[9.34]]
Gherardi, Statuti della Univ. e Studio
Fiorentino, 364; Sandys, ii. 220; Einstein, 15.
[[9.35]]
O. H. S., 35, Anstey, 17, 45.
[[9.36]]
"Messer Andrea Ols" in Italian authority;
identified by Dr. Sandys.
[[9.37]]
O. H. S., 36, Anstey, ii. 380-01;
Sandys, ii. 221-26; Einstein, 26.
[[9.39]]
Leland3, 463;
Leland, iii. 13; Einstein, 23, 54-5; C. A. S., 8vo ser., No.
32 (1899), 13.
[[9.40]]
E. H. R., xxv. 449.
[[9.41]]
Rymer, Foedera, xii. 214, 216; E.
H. R., xxv. 450.
[[9.42]]
Now MS. lit 4, 16, at Cambridge
University Library.
[[9.43]]
On Shirwood's books see E. H. R., xxv. 449-53.
[[9.44]]
Leiden, Voss. MSS. Graec., 56.
[[9.45]]
On this group see Harris, Jas. Rendel, The
Leicester Codex.
[[9.46]]
E. H. R., xxv. 446-7; James.
[[9.47]]
Literae Cant. (Rolls Seh), iii. 239;
cf. Campbell, Matls for Hist. of H. VII., ii. 85, 114,
224.
[[9.48]]
Leland3, 482. The
Obit in Christ Church MS. D. 12 refers to Selling as "Sacrae
Theologiae Doctor. Hic in divinis agendis multum devotus et lingua
Graeca et Latina valde eruditus."—Gasquet2,
24.
[[9.49]]
Gasquet2, 24; James, li.
[[9.50]]
Homer and Euripides are in Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge, the others are in Trinity College,
Cambridge.—James16, 9; Gasquet
2, 30.
[[9.52]]
The point is disputed; cf. Einstein, 32; Lyte,
386; Camb. Lit., iii. 5, 6; Rashdall and Rait, New.
Coll., 93; Dr. Sandys does not mention Vitelli.