![]() | CHAPTER IX: THE USE OF BOOKS TOWARDS THE END OF THE MANUSCRIPT
PERIOD Old English libraries; the making, collection and use of books during the middle ages | ![]() |
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.
And romans rede in divers manere."
Of popes and of cardinals,
And eek of love-lykinge." (II. 2035-40).
That thou be understonde I god beseche,"
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—
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 place
Of 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
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
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
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
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,
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
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
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;
Til now late, this other night,
Upon my bedde I sat upright
And bad oon reche me a book,
A romance, and he hit me took
To rede and dryve the night away;
. . . . . . . . .
And in this boke were writen fables
That clerkes hadde, in olde tyme,
And other poets, put in ryme...."[9.20]
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."
Is comen, and that I hear the foules singe,
And that the flowers 'ginnen for to spring
Farwel 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—
And I was fourty, if I shal seye sooth."
For his desport he wolde rede alway.
![illustration](http://static.lib.virginia.edu/legacy/S/SavOP30.jpg)
At whiche book he lough alwey ful faste.
. . . . . . . . .
And every night and day was his custume,
When he had leyser and vacacioun
From other worldly occupacioun,
To reden on this book of wikked wyves." [9.23]
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—
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—
And we can herd how that King Laius deyde
Thurgh 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]
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
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
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
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
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
[Description: AUTOGRAPH OF DUKE HUMFREY OF
GLOUCESTER.]
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,
6. § VI
The intercourse of all these scholars with Italians was carried on before mid-fifteenth century. Their chief interest
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
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
![illustration](http://static.lib.virginia.edu/legacy/S/SavOP31.jpg)
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
James (M. R.), lxxli.; this number is probably correct, but owing to confusion between three Abbots of this name it is not certainly right.
"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.
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.
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.
From schedule of the possessions of the Guildhall College, July 24, 1549.— L. A. R., x. 381.
Gasquet2, 20; Sandys, ii. 220; Legrand, Bibliographie Hellénique, i. (1885) xxiv., where the date is 1405-6.
"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.
Literae Cant. (Rolls Seh), iii. 239; cf. Campbell, Matls for Hist. of H. VII., ii. 85, 114, 224.
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.
![]() | CHAPTER IX: THE USE OF BOOKS TOWARDS THE END OF THE MANUSCRIPT
PERIOD Old English libraries; the making, collection and use of books during the middle ages | ![]() |