11. CHAPTER XI: THE CHARACTER OF THE MEDIEVAL LIBRARY, AND THE EXTENT
OF CIRCULATION OF BOOKS
1. § I
"Some ther be that do defye
All that is newe, and ever do crye
The olde is better, away with the new
Because it is false, and the olde is true.
Let them this booke reade and beholde
For it preferreth the learning most olde."
A Comparison betwene the old learrynge and the newe
(1537).[11.1]
AFTER a storm a fringe of weed and driftwood
stretches a serried line along the sands, and now
and then—too often on the flat shores of one of
our northern estuaries, whence can be seen the white teeth
of the sea biting at the shoals flanking the fairway—are
mingled with the flotsam sodden relics of life aboard ship
and driftwood of tell-tale shape, which silently point to a
tragedy of the sea. Usually the daily paper completes
the tale; but on some rare occasion these poor bits of
drift remain the only evidence of the vain struggle, and
from them we must piece together the narrative as best
we can. And as the sea does not give up everything, nor
all at once, some wreckage sinking, or perishing, or floating
upon the water a long time before finding a well-concealed hiding-place upon some unfrequented shore, so
the past yields but a fraction of its records, and that
fraction slowly and grudgingly. So far this book has been a gathering of
the flotsam of a past age: odd relics and scattered records, a sign here
and a hint there; often unrelated, sometimes contradictory. In more
skilful hands possibly a coherent story might be wrought out of these
pièces justificatives; but the author is too well aware of
the difficulty of arranging and selecting from the mass of material,
remembers too well the tale of mistakes thankfully avoided, and is too
apprehensive that other errors lurk undiscovered, to be confident that
he has succeeded in his aim. Whether the story is worth telling is
another matter. Surely it is. To be able to follow the history of the
Middle Ages, to become acquainted with the people, their mode of life
and customs and manners, is of profound interest and great utility; and
it is by no means the least important part of such study to discover
what books they had, how extensively the books were read, and what
section of the people read them.
Let us here sum up the information given in detail in the
foregoing pages; adding thereto some other facts of interest. And first,
what of the character of the medieval library?
During the earlier centuries monastic libraries contained books
which were deemed necessary for grammatical study in the claustral
schools, and other books, chiefly the Fathers, as we have seen, which
were regarded as proper literature for the monk. The books used in the
cathedral schools were similar. Such schools and such libraries were for
the glory of God and the increase of clergy and religious. At first,
especially, the ideal of the monks was high, if narrow. It is epitomised
in the untranslatable epigram Claustrum sine armario (est) quasi
castrum sine armamentario.[11.2] "The
library is the
monastery's true treasure," writes Thomas a Kempis;
[11.3] "without which the monastery is like . . .
a well without water . . . an unwatched tower." Again: "Let not the toil
and fatigue pain you. They who read the books formerly written
beautifully by you will pray for you when you are dead. And if he who
gives a cup of cold water shall not lack his guerdon, still less shall
he who gives the living water of wisdom lose his reward in heaven."
[11.4] St. Bernard wrote in like terms. Books were
their tools, "the silent preachers of the divine word," or the weapons
of their armoury. "Thence it is," writes a sub-prior to his friend,
"that we bring forth the sentences of the divine law, like sharp arrows,
to attack the enemy. Thence we take the armour of righteousness, the
helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit
which is the Word of God."
[11.5] With such
an end in view Reculfus of Soissons required his clergy to have a
missal, a lectionary, the Gospels, a martyrology, an antiphonary, a
psalter, a book of forty homilies of Gregory, and as many Christian
books as they could get (879). With this end in view were chosen for
reading in the Refectory at Durham (1395) such books as the Bible,
homilies, Legends of the Saints, lives of Gregory, Martin, Nicholas,
Dunstan, Augustine, Cuthbert, King Oswald, Aidan, Thomas of Canterbury,
and other saints.
[11.6] With this end in
view the monastic libraries contained a very large proportion of Bibles,
books of the Bible, and commentaries —a proportion suggesting the
Scriptures were studied with a closeness and assiduity for which the
monks have not always received due credit.
[11.7] A great deal of room was
given up to the works of the Fathers—their confessions, retractations,
and letters, their polemics against heresies, their dogmatic and
doctrinal treatises, and their sermons and ethical discourses. Of all
these writings those of Hilary, Basil, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Jerome, and
the great Augustine were most popular. John Cassian, Leo, Prosper,
Cassiodorus, Gregory the Great, Aldhelm, Bede, Anselm, and Bernard, and
the two encyclopædists, Martianus Capella and Isidore of Seville,
were the church's great teachers, and their works and the sacred poetry
and hymns of Juvencus the Spanish priest, of Prudentius, of Sedulius,
the author of a widely-read and influential poem on the life of Christ,
and of Fortunatus, were nearly always well represented in the monastic
catalogues, as may be seen on a cursory examination of those of Christ
Church and St. Augustine's, Canterbury, of Durham, of Glastonbury in
1248, of Peterborough in 1400, and of Syon in the sixteenth century. In
the earlier libraries the greater part of the books were Scriptural and
theological; to these were added later a mass of books on canon and
civil law; so that the monastic collection may be characterised as
almost entirely special and fit for Christian service, as this service
was conceived by the religious.
And classical literature was received into the fold for a like
purpose. From the earliest days of Christendom prejudice against the
classics was widespread among Christians. Such books, it was urged, had
no connexion with the Church or the Gospel; Ciceronianism was not the
road to God; Plato and Aristotle could not show the way to happiness;
Ovid, above all, was to be avoided.[11.8] In
dreams the poets took the form of demons; they must be exorcised, for
the soul did not profit by them. The precepts —and for these the
Christian sought—in the poems were
like serpents, born of the evil one; the characters, devils. Some
Christians sighed as they thrust the tempting books away. Jerome frankly
confesses he cared little for the homely Latin of the Psalms, and much
for Plautus and Cicero. For a time he renounced them with other vanities
of the world; yet when going through the catacombs at Rome, where the
Apostles and Martyrs had their graves, a fine line of Virgil thrills
him; and later he instructed boys at Bethlehem in Plautus, Terence, and
Virgil, much to the horror of Rufinus. Even in the eleventh century this
feeling existed. Lanfranc wrote to Dumnoaldus to say it was unbefitting
he should study such books, but he confessed that although he now
renounced them, he had read them a good deal in his youth. Somewhat
later Herbert "Losinga," abbot of Ramsey, had a dream which led him to
cease reading and imitating Virgil and Ovid; but elsewhere he recommends
his pupils to accept Ovid as a model in Latin verse, while he quotes the
Tristia.
[11.9] The rules of some
orders, as those of Isidore, St. Francis, and St. Dominic, forbade the
reading of the classics, save by permission. For their value in
teaching grammar and as models of literary style, however, certain
classic authors— especially Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, Horace, Juvenal, and
Statius —were regarded as supplementary to the grammatical works of
Donatus, Victorinus, Macroblus, and Priscian, and were studied by the
religious throughout the Middle Ages. They were grammatical text-books,
as indeed they are still; but then they were very little else. A man
would call himself Virgil, not from inordinate vanity, but from a naive
pride in his profession of grammarian: to his way of thinking the great
poet was no more.
[11.10] "As decade
followed decade," writes Mr. H. O. Taylor, "and century followed
century, there was no falling off in the study of the
Æneid. Virgil's
fame towered, his authority became absolute. But how? In what respect?
As a supreme master of grammatical correctness and rhetorical excellence
and of all learning. With increasing emptiness of soul, the
grammarians—the `Virgils'—of the succeeding centuries put the great
poet to ever baser uses."
[11.11]
From time to time the use of the classics even for grammatical
purposes was condemned, though unavailingly. They were necessary in the
schools; evils, doubtless, but unavoidable. Then, again, some of the
classics were looked upon as allegorical: from the sixth century to the
Renascence the Æneid was often interpreted in this way;
and Virgil's Fourth Eclogue was thought to be a prophecy of Christ's
coming. Ovid allegorised contained profound truths; his Art of
Love, so treated, was not unfit for nuns.
[11.12] Other writers, as Lucan, were appreciated
for their didacticism; Juvenal, Cato and Seneca the younger as
moralists. And some of the religious fell a prey to these evils,
inasmuch as they assessed them at their true value as literature.
The classics therefore were accepted. Anselm recommended Virgil.
Horace, in his most amorous moods, was sung by the monks. Ovid, either
adapted or in his natural state, was a great favourite. In an appendix
we have scheduled the chief classics found in English monastic
catalogues to indicate roughly the extent to which they were collected
and used. A glance at Becker's sheaf of catalogues will show us that
Aristotle, Horace, Juvenal, Lucan, Persius, Plato, Pliny the elder,
Porphyry, Sallust, Statius, Terence, and especially Cicero, Ovid,
Seneca, and Virgil are well represented. But it must not be supposed
that they were in monastic libraries in excessive numbers. On the
contrary. An inspection of almost any catalogue of
such a library will prove that only a small proportion of it
consisted of classical writings, especially in those catalogues
compiled prior to the time when Aristotle's works dominated
the whole of medieval scholarship. The monastic library
was throughout the Middle Ages the armoury of the
religious against evil, and the few slight changes of character
which it underwent at one time and another do not alter
the fact that on the whole it was a fit and proper collection
for its purpose.[11.13]
2. § II
After the twelfth century broadening influences were at work. The
education given in the cathedral and monastic schools was found to be
too restricted; the monasteries, moreover, now began to refuse
assistance to secular students.[11.14] To
some extent the catechetic method of the theologians was forced to give
place to the dialectic method, equally dogmatic, but more exciting and
stimulating. Hence was compiled such a book as Peter Lombard's
Sentences (1145-50), a cyclopædia of disputation, wherein
theological questions were collected under heads, together with
Scriptural passages and statements of the Fathers bearing on these
questions. By the thirteenth century Lombard was the standard text-book
of the schools: a work of such reputation that it was studied in
preference to the Scriptures, as Bacon complained.
A demand also arose for instruction in civil and canon law, which
the existing schools did not supply. This broader learning was provided
in the early universities, at first to the dislike of the Church, and
sometimes to the
annoyance of royal heads. Particular objection was taken to the study of
law. An Italian named Vicario (Vacarius) lectured on Justinian at Oxford
in 1149. Then he abridged the
Code and
Digest for his
students there. King Stephen forbade him to proceed with his lectures,
and prohibited the use of treatises on foreign law, many manuscripts of
which were consequently destroyed. But these measures were not very
effectual. Within a short time civil law became recognised in the
University as a proper subject of study. By 1275, when another Italian
jurist named Francesco d'Accorso, a distinguished teacher at Bologna,
came to Oxford to lecture, the study of civil law was pursued with the
royal favour.
[11.15]
The searcher among old wills cannot fail to be struck with the
number of law books in the small private libraries. Sometimes the whole
of one of these little collections consists of law books; often there
are more books of this kind than of any other. For example, of eighty
books bequeathed by Prior Eastry to Christ Church, Canterbury,
forty-three were on canon and civil law: of eighty-four books given to
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, by the founder, exactly one-half were
juridical. A wealthy canon of York left but half a dozen books, all on
law. The books bequeathed to Peterborough Abbey by successive abbots
were chiefly on law. Many other examples could be recited. There was a
reason for this. Friar Bacon,writing in 1271, complained that jurists
got all rewards and benefices, while students of theology and philosophy
lacked the means of livelihood, could not obtain books, and were unable
to pursue their scientific studies. Canonists, even, were only rewarded
because of their previous knowledge of civil law: at Oxford three years
had to be devoted to the study of civil law before a student could be
admitted as bachelor of canon
law. Consequently a man of parts, with a leaning towards theological and
philosophical learning, took up the study of civil law, with the hope of
more easily winning preferment.
[11.16]
"Compared with such [legal] lore," writes Mr. Mullinger, "theological
learning became but a sorry recommendation to ecclesiastical preferment;
most of the Popes at Avignon had been distinguished by their attainments
in a subject which so nearly concerned the temporal interests of the
Church; and the civilian and the canonist alike looked down with
contempt on the theologian, even as Hagar, to use the comparison of
Holcot, despised her barren mistress."
[11.17] The most casual glance through some pages
of monastic records will show how frequent and endless was the
litigation in which the Church was engaged, and consequently how useful
a knowledge of civil law would be.
But these changes were trifling compared with the stimulus given
to medieval learning by the influx of Greek books and of Arabic versions
of them. In the second half of the eleventh century the works of Galen
and Hippocrates were re-introduced into Italy from the Arabian empire by
a North African named Constantine, who translated them at the famous
monastery of Monte Cassino. These translations, with the numerous
Arabian commentaries, and the conflict of the physicians of the new
school with those of the old and famous school of Salerno, constitute
the revival of medical studies which occurred at that time.
[11.18] It would seem that this revival was felt
quickly in England, as in the twelfth century four books by Galen and
two by Hippocrates, with some Arabian works, were to be found in the
monastic library of Durham; a number significant of the liberal feeling
of the monks of this house, inasmuch as in all the catalogues
transcribed by Becker appear only
ten books by Galen and nine by Hippocrates.
[11.19] Before 1150 the whole of the
Organon of Aristotle was known to scholars;
[11.20] but not till about that time did the
other works begin to be exported from Arabic Spain. Then Latin versions
of Arabic translations of the
Physics and
Metaphysics
were first made.
Daniel of Morley (fl. 1170-90) brought into this country
manuscripts of Aristotle, and commentaries upon him got in the Arab
schools of Toledo, then the centre of Mohammedan learning. Michael the
Scot (c. 1175-1234), "wondrous wizard, of dreaded fame," was
another agent of the Arab influence. He received his education perhaps
at Oxford, certainly at Paris and Toledo. From manuscripts obtained at
the last place he translated two abstracts of the Historia
animalium, and some commentaries of Averroës on Aristotle
(1215-30).[11.21] A third pilgrim from
these islands, Alfred the Englishman, also made use of Arabic versions;
and most likely both he and Michael brought home with them manuscripts
from Toledo and Paris. Of the renderings made by these men and by some
foreign workers in the same field, Friar Bacon speaks with the utmost
contempt. Their writings were utterly false. They did not know the
sciences they dealt with. The Jews, the Arabs, and the Greeks, who had
good manuscripts, destroyed and corrupted them, rather than let them
fall into the hands of unlettered and ignorant Christians.
[11.22] Aristotle should be read in the original,
he also says; it would be better if all translations were burnt. The
criticism is acrid; but the men he contemns served scholarship well by
quickening the interest in Greek books,
and they succeeded so well because they gave to the schoolmen not only
versions of Aristotle's text, but commentaries and elucidations written
by Arabs and Jews who had carefully studied the text, and could explain
the meaning of obscure passages in it.
[11.23]
When these translations were coming to England, travellers were
bringing Greek books directly from the East. A doctor of medicine named
William returned to Paris from Constantinople in 1167, carrying with him
"many precious Greek codices."[11.24] About
1209 a Latin translation of Aristotle's Physics or
Metaphysics was made from a Greek manuscript brought straight
from Constantinople. Some of these few importations were certainly
destroyed at once, probably all were, for Aristotle was proscribed in
Paris in the following year, and again in 1215, at the very time when
Michael the Scot was procuring versions in another direction, at
Toledo.[11.25] Not until mid-thirteenth
century was the ban wholly removed.
For a time, owing to the capture of Constantinople by the
Crusaders, intercourse between East and West had become far freer than
it had been for centuries (1203-61). Certain Greek philosophers of
learned mien came to England about 1202, but did not stay; and some
Armenians, among them a bishop, visited St. Albans. Whether they or
Nicholas the Greek, clerk to the abbot of that monastery, brought books
with them we do not know; Nicholas, at any rate, seems to have assisted
Grosseteste in his Greek studies.[11.26]
John of Basingstoke,
Grosseteste's archdeacon, carried Greek manuscripts—many valuable
manuscripts, we are told—from Athens, whither Grosseteste had sent him.
The bishop himself imported books to this country, probably from Sicily
and South Italy.
[11.27] He had a copy of
Suidas'
Lexicon, possibly the earliest copy brought to the
West. The
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs was also in
Grosseteste's possession: the manuscript was brought home by John of
Basingstoke, and still exists in the Cambridge University Library.
[11.28] These forged
Testaments were
translated by Nicholas the Greek, and as no fewer than thirty-one copies
of the Latin version still remain they must have had a good
circulation.
[11.29] Possibly the Greek
Octateuch (Genesis to Ruth), now in the Bodleian Library, was imported
into this country by Grosseteste or by somebody for him; at one time the
manuscript was in the library of Christ Church, Canterbury.
[11.30] Among other Greek books which Grosseteste
used and translated, or had translated under his direction, were the
Epistles of St. Ignatius, a Greek romance of Asenath, the Egyptian wife
of the patriarch Joseph, and some writings of Dionysius the Areopagite.
At Ramsey, where the bishop's influence may be suspected, Prior Gregory
(
fl. 1290) owned a Græco-Latin psalter, still
extant.
[11.31] Possibly all the
importations were of similar character, and the number of them cannot
have been great or we should have heard more of them.
Friar Bacon, writing about 1270, complains that he could not get
all the books he wanted, nor were the versions of the books he had
satisfactory. Parts of the Scriptures were untranslated, as, for
example, two books of Maccabees,
which he knew existed in Greek, and books of the Prophets referred to in
the books of Kings and Chronicles; the chronology of the
Antiquities of Josephus was incorrectly rendered, and biblical
history could not be usefully studied without a true version of this
book. Books of the Hebrew and Greek expositors were almost wanting to
the Latins: Origen, Basil, Gregory, Nazianzene, John of Damascus,
Dionysius, Chrysostom, and others, both in Hebrew and Greek.
[11.32] The scientific books of Aristotle, of
Avicenna, of Seneca, and other ancients could only be had at great cost.
Their principal works had not been translated into Latin. "The
admirable books of Cicero
De Republica are not to be found
anywhere, as far as I can hear, although I have made anxious inquiry for
them in different parts of the world and by various messengers."
[11.33]
The period during which the intellectual life of the Middle Ages
was broadened by the introduction of new knowledge and ideas originally
from Greek sources, began, as we have said, with the influx of
translations from the Arabic. The movement culminated with the work of
William of Moerbeke, Greek Secretary at the Council of Lyons (1274),
who, between 1270 and 1281, translated several of Aristotle's works from
the Greek, including the Rhetorica and the Politica.
Fortunately we have a record belonging to this time of a collection of
books which shows admirably the character of the change. A certain John
of London (c. 1270-1330), believed to have been Bacon's pupil,
probably became a monk of St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, and in due
course bequeathed a library of books to his house. This collection
amounted to nearly eighty books, of which twenty-three were on
mathematics and astronomy, a like number on medicine, ten on philosophy,
six on logic, four historical, three on grammar,
one poetry, and the rest collections.
[11.34] Such a collection is remarkable not only
for its character, but on account of its size, which was very large for
anybody to own privately in that age.
3. § III
On one occasion, after spending much time in searching wills and
in examining catalogues without finding a reference to an interesting
book—to either an ancient or a medieval classic the writer well
remembers the little shock of pleasure he felt when, in a single
half-hour, he noted Piers Plowman in one brief unpromising will,
and six English books among the relics of a mason. Nearly all the
libraries of private persons and of academies are depressing in
character. Rarely can be found a bright human book gleaming like a
diamond in the dust. Score after score of decreta, decretales, Sextuses,
and Clementines, and chestsful of the dreariest theological disquisition
impress upon the weary searcher the fact that academic libraries were
usually even more dryasdust than monastic collections, and he begins to
understand how prosperous law may be as a calling, and to have an
inkling of what is known, in classic phrase, as a good plain Scotch
education.
Between an academic library and a monastic collection there were
differences of character and in the beauty and value of the manuscripts.
As a general rule a large proportion of the monks' books were more or
less richly ornamented: they were the treasures as well as the tools of
the community. The books of the colleges were usually for practical
purposes: they were tools, treasured, doubtless, for their contents, not
for the beauty of the writing or because they were decorated. The
difference in character of the collections as a whole was one of
proportion in the
representation of the various classes of books. Generally speaking, the
monastic collection comprised proportionately more theology and less
canon and civil law than the academic library. In the subjects of the
trivium and the
quadrivium, and in philosophy, a college
was more strongly equipped than a monastery; on the other hand, a
monastery frequently had a larger proportion of classical literature,
and always more "light" or romance literature.
Early university studies were in two parts, the trivium
—grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and the quadrivium— music,
astronomy, geometry, and arithmetic. These were the seven liberal arts.
A fresco in a chapel in the Church of S. Maria Novella at Florence
illustrates these arts. On the right of the cartoon is the figure of
grammar; beneath is Priscian. For the study of this subject John Garland
recommended Priscian and Donatus. Priscian was a leading text-book on
the subject, and it was supported by a short manual compiled from
Donatus. At Oxford extracts from these authors were thrown into the form
of logical quaestiones to afford subjects of argument at the
disputations held once a week before the masters of grammar.
[11.35] To these books should be added a
dictionary, with some peculiar and quaint etymologies, by Papias the
Lombard; grammatical works by John Garland; Bishop Hugutio's
etymological dictionary (c. 1192); a dreary hexameter poem by
Alexander Gallus, the Breton Friar (d. 1240)—"the olde
Doctrinall, with his diffuse and unperfite brevitie";
Eberhard's similar poem (c. 1212), called Graecismus, because
it includes a chapter on derivations from the Greek; and a very large
book, the
Catholicon (
c. 1286), partly a grammar and partly a
dictionary, with copious quotations from Latin classics, which had been
compiled with some skill and care by John Balbi, a Genoese Black Friar.
Papias and Hugutio were sharply condemned by Friar Bacon, but they
remained in use long after his time, and Balbi owed much to both of
them. Many copies of the
Catholicon seem to have been made,
although the transcription of so large a book was costly: even before it
was printed (1460), copies for reference were sometimes chained up in
English churches, and after it was printed this practice became more
general, at any rate in France. By the fourteenth century Priscian was
almost superseded by Alexander and Eberhard, whose versified grammars
came into common use; a jingle, whether it be—
" `Ne facias' dices `oroque ne
facias.'
Humane, dure, large, firmeque,
benigne,
Ignaveque, probe vel avare sive
severe,
Inde rove, plene, vel abunde sive
prolerve,
Dicis in er vel'in e, quamvis sint illa secundae,"
in the fourteenth century, or
"Feminine is Linter,
boat
Learn these neuters nine by rote,"
in the twentieth century, seems to help the harassed student
along the linguistic path. The reading of Virgil and
Statius and some other writers put flesh upon these
grammatical dry bones. But as the masters of grammar
at Oxford were expected to be guardians of morals as
well, they were expressly forbidden to read and expound
to their pupils Ovid's
Ars amandi, the
Elegies of Pamphilus,
and other indecent books.
[11.36]
Next to the figure of Grammar is Rhetoric, with Cicero
seated beneath. Cicero, with Aristotle, Quintilian and Boëthius
were the chief exponents of rhetoric; with Virgil, Ovid, Statius, and
sometimes such a book as Guido delle Colonne's epic of Troy, as examples
of literary style. John Garland (
fl. 1230) recommended Cicero's
De Inventione (
Rhetorica),
De Oratore, the
Ad
Herennium ascribed to Cicero, Quintilian's
Institutes and the
Declamationes ascribed to him. The third figure is Logic, coupled
with the figure of Aristotle. The
Categories and Porphyry's
Isagoge were the books of greatest service in the study of this
subject; with Boëthius' translations and expositions of Aristotle
and Porphyry. All the foregoing and Cicero's
Topica are selected
by John Garland. Later the
Summulae logicales of Peter the
Spaniard (
fl. 1276), William of Heytesbury's
Sophismata
(
c. 1340), the
Summa logices of the great English
schoolman, William of Ockham (
d. c. 1349), and the
Quaestiones of William Brito (
d. 1356) were the chief
manuals of dialectic.
The first figure in the representation of the quadrivium
is Music, with Tubal Cain beneath. In this subject, for which few books
were necessary, Boëthius was the guide. With Astronomy is
associated Ptolemy. The Cosmographia and Almagest of
Ptolemy, and the works of some Arabian authors, with books of tables,
were the student's manuals. In our cartoon Geometry has Euclid for
companion. Arithmetic is associated with Pythagoras in the picture: for
this subject Boëthius was the text-book.
[11.37]
Besides the seven liberal arts, natural, metaphysical, and moral
philosophy, or the three philosophies, were added in the thirteenth
century. For these studies Aristotle and his
commentators were the chief guides. The medical authorities of the
middle ages have been catalogued for us by Chaucer in his description of
a doctor of "phisyk"—
"Wel knew he the olde
Esculapius
And Deiscoricles, and eek
Rufus,
Old Ypocras, Haly and
Galien;
Serapion, Razis and
Avicen;
Averrois, Damascien and
Constantyn;
Bernard, and Gatesden, and Gilbertyn."
Of these names eight are included in Duke Humfrey's gifts
to Oxford in 1439 and 1443; and ten of them are
represented in the catalogue of Peterhouse Library in 1418.
Besides the writers mentioned by Chaucer, works on fevers
by Isaac the Arab, the
Antidotarium of Nicholas, and the
Isagoge of Johannicius were in general use.
Next to theology—in which class the chief books were the same as
in the claustral library, although liturgical books are more rarely
found—the largest section of an academic collection was that of civil
and canon law. It comprised the various digests, the works of Cinus of
Pistoia and Azo; texts of decrees, decretals, Liber Sextus
Decretalium, Liber Clementinae, with many commentaries, the
Constitutions of Ottobon and Otho, the book compiled by Henry of
Susa, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, called Summa Ostiensis, the
Rosarium of Archdeacon Guido de Baysio, and Durand's Speculum
Judiciale. The last three books are frequently met with, and were
highly esteemed by medieval jurists.[11.38]
In a previous chapter we have noted the somewhat fresher
character of the library given to Oxford University by the Duke of
Gloucester. We have two later records which may be referred to now to
indicate the change wrought by the Renascence. A catalogue of William
Grocyn's books was drawn up soon after his death in 1519. This
collection proves its owner to have been conservative in his tastes, as
the medieval favourites are well represented. Of Greek books there are
only Aristotle, Plutarch in a Latin translation, and a Greek and Latin
Testament—a curiously small collection in view of his interest in
Greek, and in view of the fact that many of the chief Greek authors had
been printed before his death. It seems likely that his Greek books had
been dispersed. But the change is apparent in the excellent series of
Latin classics, which included Tacitus and Lucretius, and in the number
of books by Italian writers, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ficino, Filelfo,
Lorenzo della Valle, Æneas Sylvius, and Perotti.
Still more significant of the change are the references to the
course of study in the statutes of Corpus Christi College, Oxford
(1517). The approved prose writers are Cicero—an apology is offered for
the use of barbarous words not known to Cicero—Sallust, Valerius
Maximus, Suetonius, Pliny, Livy, and Quintilian. Virgil, Ovid Lucan,
Juvenal, Terence and Plautus are approved as poets. Suitable books to
study during the vacations are the works of Lorenzo della Valle, Aulus
Gellius, and Poliziano. In Greek the writings—most of them quite new
to the age—of Isocrates, Lucian, Philostratus, Aristophanes,
Theocritus, Euripides, Sophocles, Pindar, Hesiod, Demosthenes,
Thucydides, Aristotle, and Plutarch are recommended. Such a list bears
few resemblances to the academic library we have attempted to
describe.[11.39]
4. § IV
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries romances began to creep
into all libraries, save the academic, in
which they are rarely found. As soon as romance literature took a firm
hold upon public favour the monks added some of it to their collections.
Probably romances were first bought to be copied and sold to augment the
monastic income; and more perhaps were sold than preserved. Ascham avers
that "in our fathers tyme nothing was red, but bookes of fayned
cheualrie, wherein a man by redinge, shuld be led to none other ende,
but onely to manslaughter and baudrye.... These bokes (as I haue heard
say) were made the moste parte in Abbayes and Monasteries, a very
lickely and fit fruite of suche an ydle and blynde kinde of
lyuyne."
[11.40] Thomas Nashe, in his story
of
The Unfortunate Traveller, describes romances as "the
fantasticall dreams of those exiled Abbie lubbers," that is, the
monks.
[11.41] These writers were but
echoing such charges as that in
Piers Plowman, which declares
that a friar was much better acquainted with the
Rimes of Robin
Hood and
Randal Erle of Chester than with his Paternoster.
A number of romances are indeed found in monastic catalogues. The
library at Glastonbury included four romances (1248); that at Christ
Church, Canterbury, contained a few in late thirteenth century. Guy de
Beauchamp bequeathed romances to Bordesley Abbey (1315), In the first
year of the fifteenth century Peterborough had some romances. At the end
of the same century St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, had in its
library of over eighteen hundred books only a few romances; while in
Leicester Abbey, among a library of about three hundred and fifty books,
we find only the Troy book,
Drian and Madok, Beves of Hamtoun,
all in French,
Gesta Alexandri Magni, and one or two others.
Edward III bought a book of romance from a nun of Amesbury in 1331—a
work of such interest that he kept it in his
room. There are plenty of other instances. But in no case have we found
an excessive number of romances in monastic libraries, and the
charges—if they can worthily be called charges—so often made against
monks on this score fall to the ground.
[11.42]
The romances oftenest appearing in monastic catalogues and other
records are the following: The Story of Troy, especially Joseph of
Exeter's Latin version, the great Arthurian cycle, the beautiful story
of Amis and Amiloun, renowned all over Europe, Joseph of
Arimathea, Charlemagne, Alexander, which was of the best of
romances, Guy of Warwick, which was very popular, and the semi-historical Richard Cœur de Lion. But many others were in
circulation. In Cursor mundi a number of the popular stories of
the day are mentioned—
"Men lykyn jestis for to
here,And romans rede in divers
maneree,Of Alexandre the
conquerour,Of Julius Cæsar[11.43]
the
emperour,Of Greece and Troy the strong
stryf,Ther many a man lost his
lyfe:Of Brut,[11.44] that baron bold
of
hond,The first conquerour of
Englond,Of King Arthur that was so
ryche;Was non in hys tyme so ilyche [alike,
equal]:Of wonders that among his knyghts
felle,And auntyrs [adventures] dedyn as men her
telleAs Gaweyn, and othir full
abylle,Which that kept the round
tabyll,How King Charles and Rowland
fawght,With Sarazins, nold thei be
cawght;Of Tristram and Ysoude the
swete,How thei with love first gall
mete,Of Kyng John, and of
Isenbras,Of Ydoine and Amadas."[11.45]
Again, many "speak of men who read romances—
Of Bevys,[11.46]
Gy, and
Gwayane,Of Kyng Rychard, and
Owayne,Of Tristram and
Percyvayle,Of Rowland Ris,[11.47]
and
Aglavaule,Of Archeroun, and of
Octavian,Of Charles, and of
Cassibelan.Of Keveloke,[11.48]
Horne, and of
WadeIn romances that ben of hem
bimade,That gestours dos of hem
gestes,At maungeres, and at great
festes,Her dedis ben in
remembrance,In many fair romance."
Popular romances of this kind had a great influence upon the
lives of the people. The long lists of medieval theology and sophistry
usually laid before us, and the great majority of the writings which
have survived, sometimes lead us to believe the culture of the Middle
Ages to have been of a more serious cast than it really was. The oral
circulation of romance literature must have been enormous. The spun-out,
dreary poems which now make such difficult reading are infinitely more
entertaining when read aloud: the voice gives life and character to a
humdrum narrative, and the gestour would know how to make the best of
incidents which he knew from experience to be specially interesting to
an audience. Such yarns would be most attractive to "lewd" or
illiterate men—
"For lewde men y
undyrtokeOn Englyssh tunge to make thys
boke:For many ben of swyche
manereThat talys and rymys wyl blethly[11.49]
here,Ye gamys and festys, and at the ale."
[11.50]
The need of multiplying manuscripts of these poems would not be
greatly felt. The reciter would be obliged to learn them off by heart;
he need not, and often did not, possess written versions of the poems he
recited. And even literate men, as Bishop Grosseteste, preferred to
listen to these gestours, rather than to read the narrative themselves.
Therefore, any estimate we may form of the number of manuscripts of
romances in existence at any time in the fourteenth century, for
example, would give not the smallest idea of the extent to which these
tales were known.
5. § V
The medieval collector of books sometimes, and the monastic
librarian nearly always, took care that his library was strong in
hagiology and history. He felt the need of books which would tell him of
the past history of his church and of the lives of her greatest
teachers. When collected these books were an incentive to the more
cultivated of the monks to begin the history of his country or his
house, or to write or re-write the lives of saints. The fruit is
preserved for us in a long line of monkish historians and hagiographers.
As a rule the histories they wrote were of little value; but when they
had brought the tale down to their own times they continued it with the
help of records to their hand, narrated events within their own memory,
and maintained the narrative in the form of annals. The method of
annalising was simple. At the end of the incomplete manuscript a loose
or easily detachable sheet was kept, whereon events of importance to the
nation and the monastery and locality of the annalist were written in
pencil from time to time during the year. At the end of the year the
historian welded these jottings into a narrative. When this was done
another leaf for notes was placed after
the manuscript. The value of the work so accomplished is incalculable.
Without these records it would now be impossible for us to realise what
the Middle Ages were like. This service, added to the enormously
greater service which monachism did for us in preserving ancient
literature, will always breed kind thoughts of a system so repugnant to
our modern view of human endeavour.
6. § VI
What was the extent of circulation of books during the manuscript
age? For the period before the Conquest we can only offer the merest
conjecture, which does not help us materially. The rarity of the extant
manuscripts of this age is no guide to the extent of their production.
During the raids of the northmen the destruction and loss must have been
very great indeed. After the Conquest the indifference and contempt with
which the conquerors regarded everything Saxon must have been
responsible for the destruction of nearly every manuscript written in
the vernacular. But, on the other hand, we find suggestions of a greater
production than is commonly credited to this period. Religious fervour
to make books was not wanting, as some of our most beautiful
relics—works exhibiting much painstaking and skilful and even loving
labour, calligraphy, and decoration aflame with high endeavour— belong
to the Hiberno-Saxon period and the days of Ethelwold. Nor after
Alfred's day was regard lacking for vernacular literature itself rather
than for the glory of a faith: how else are we to explain the precious
fragments of Anglo-Saxon manuscript which have been preserved for us,
especially the Exeter book and the Vercelli book? That the production
was considerable is suggested by the records we have. Think of the Irish
manuscripts now scattered
on the continent; of the library of York; of Bede's workshop and the
northern libraries; and of those in the south, at Canterbury,
Malmesbury, and elsewhere. But the use of such manuscripts as were in
existence was restricted to monks, wealthy ecclesiastics, and a few of
the wealthy laity.
After the Conquest the state of affairs was the same. The period
of the greatest literary activity in the monasteries now began, and
large claustral libraries were soon formed. The monks then had plenty
of books; wealthy clergy also had small collections. An ecclesiastic or
a layman who had done a monastery some service, or whose favour it was
politic to cultivate, could borrow books from the monastic library,
under certain strict conditions. Some people availed themselves of this
privilege; but not at any time during the manuscript period to a great
extent.[11.51]
Outside this small circle the people were almost bookless:
nearly the whole of the literary wealth of the Middle Ages belonged to
the monks and the church. Books were extremely costly. The medieval
book-buyer paid more for his book on an average than does the modern
collector of first editions and editions de luxe, who pays in
addition several guineas a volume for handsome bindings. The prices we
have tabulated will fully bear out this statement. But even more
striking evidence of the high value set upon books is the care taken in
selling or bequeathing them. To-day a line or two in a wealthy man's
will disposes of all his books. He commonly throws them in with the
"residue," unmentioned. In the manuscript age a testator distributed
his little hoard book by book. Often he not only bequeaths a volume to a
friend, but determines its fate after his friend's death. For example, a
daughter is to have a copy of the Golden Legend, "and to occupye
to hir
owne use and at hir owne liberte durynge hur lyfe, and after hur decesse
to remayne to the prioress and the convent of Halywelle for evermore,
they to pray for the said John Burton and Johne his wife and alle
crystene soyles (1460)."
[11.52] A
manuscript now in Worcester Cathedral Library bears an inscription
telling us that, likewise, one Thomas Jolyffe left it to Dr. Isack, a
monk of Worcester, for his lifetime, and after his death to Worcester
Priory. A manuscript now in the British Museum was bought in 1473 at
Oxford by Clement of Canterbury, monk and scholar, from a bookseller
named Hunt for twenty shillings,
in the presence of Will. Westgate,
monk.
[11.53] In a manuscript of the
Sentences is a note telling us that it was the property of
Roger, archdeacon of Lincoln: he bought it from Geoffrey the chaplain,
the brother of Henry, vicar of North Elkington, the witnesses being
master Robert de Luda, clerk, Richard the almoner, the said Henry the
vicar, his
clerk, and others.
[11.54] An instance of a
different kind will suffice. When, after a good deal of rioting at
Oxford, many of the more studious masters and scholars went to Stamford,
the king threatened that if they did not return to Oxford they would
lose their goods, and especially their books. The warning was
disregarded, but the threatened forfeiture of their books was evidently
thought to be a strong measure.
[11.55]
In his poems Chaucer endows two poor clerks with small libraries.
His first portrait of an Oxford clerk is delightful—
"For him was lever have at his beddes heed
[rather]
Twenty bokes, clad in blak or
reed,
Of Aristotle and his
philosophye,
Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrye [fiddle,
psaltery].
But al be that he was a
philosophre,
Yet hadde he but liter gold in
cofre;
But al that he mighte of his freendes hente
[get],
On bokes and on lerninge he it
spente,
And bisily gan for the soules
preye
Of hem that yaf him wherewith to scoleye [gave,
study].
Of studie took he most cure and most
hede.
Noght o word spak he more than was
nede,
And that was seyd in forme and
reverence,
And short and quik, and ful of hy sentence
[high].
Souninge in moral vertu was his speche [conducing
to],
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche."
Almost equally pleasing is his picture of another who lived with
a rich churl—
"A chambre hadde he in that
hostelrye
Allone, with-outer any
companye,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
His Almageste and bokes grete and
smale,
His astrelabie, longinge for his
art,
His augrim-stones layen faire
a-part
On shelves couched at his beddes heed."
Both descriptions have been used as evidence that books
were not so scarce as supposed; that poor people could get books if they
specially needed them. But are these pictures quite true? Has not the
poet taken advantage of the licence allowed to his kind? The records
preserved at Oxford do not corroborate him. Some of the students were
very poor. It seems likely that a would-be clerk attached himself to a
master or scholar as a servant in return for teaching in the "kunnyng
of writyng" and perhaps other knowledge—
"This endenture bereth witnesse that I, John Swanne, þ
e sone of John Swanne of Bridlington, in
þ
e counte of Yorke, have putte me
servante unto William Osbarne, forto serve him undir þ
e foorme of a servante for te terme of iiii.
yere, and þ
e seide William Osbarne
forto enfoorme þ
e seide John Swann in
þ
e kunnyng of writyng, and þ
e seide John Swann forto have þ
e first yere of te seide William Osbarne iijs.
iiijd. in money, and ij. peter [pairs] of hosen, and ij. scherts
[shirts] and iiij. peire schoon [pairs of shoes], and a gowne, and in
þ
e secunde yeere xiijs. iiijd., and
in þ
e iij. yere xxs. and a gowne, and
in þ
e iiij. yeere xls. And in
þ
e witnesse hereof, etc."
(1456).
[11.56]
Mr. Anstey points out that a very large number, probably the
majority of scholars, were not well provided for. They eked out their
precarious allowances by begging, by learning handicrafts, and by
"picking up the various doles at funerals and commemoration masses,
where such needy miserables were always to be found."
[11.57] Such students would not be likely to have
many or perhaps any books. "The stock of books possessed by the
younger scholars seems to have been almost
nil. The inventories of goods, which we possess, in the case of
non-graduates contain hardly any books. The fact is that they mostly
could not afford to buy them.... The chief source of supplying books was
by purchase from the University sworn stationers, who had to a great
extent a monopoly, the object of which was to
prevent the sale and removal from Oxford of valuable books. Of such
books there were plainly very large numbers constantly changing hands;
they were the pledges so continually deposited on borrowing from chests,
and seem, from scattered hints, to have been a very fruitful source of
litigation and dispute."
[11.58] Most of
these books were in the hands of seniors. Truly enough many a poor clerk
would as lief have twenty "bokes" to his name as anything else treble
the value. But he would undergo much sharp self-denial and receive much
"wherewith to scoleye" ere he got together so considerable a collection
of "bokes grete and smale," to say nothing of instruments. As such a
large proportion of the scholars were poor, and unable to acquire books,
nearly all the instruction given was oral. Well-to-do scholars would not
find, therefore, books of very great service; and indeed they were as
ill-equipped in this respect as their poorer brethren. The accounts of
the La Fytes, two scholars whose expenses were paid by Edward I himself,
contain records of the purchase of two copies of only the
Institutions of Quintilian (
c. 1290).
[11.59] Is not Chaucer describing his own room in
both passages—the room he loved to seek after his day's work at the
desk? Here at the bedhead are his books, including the astronomical
treatise of Ptolemy called
Almagest. Beside them is the
astrolabe, an instrument about which he wrote; and trimly arranged apart
his augrim-stones, or counters for making calculations. Such an outfit
we might expect him to have: just such a library, neither smaller nor
larger.
This supposition calls to mind another argument sometimes used to
prove how easy it was to make a small collection of books. Chaucer's
poems display his acquaintance, more or less thoroughly, with many
authors. Surely,
it is urged, his library was a good one for the time: then how was it
possible for a man of his means to own such? He was not wealthy. As a
courtier and a public officer the calls upon his purse must have been
heavy: little indeed could be left for books. The explanation is
probably simple. Books were freely lent, more freely than nowadays; and
Chaucer would be able to eke out his library in this way. Another point
is important. Professor Lounsbury, who has spent years in an exhaustive
study of Chaucer, points out a curious circumstance. "It must be
confessed," he says—a shade of disparagement lurks in the phrase—"it
must be confessed that Chaucer's quotations from writers exhibit a
familiarity with prologues and first books and early chapters which
contrasts ominously with the comparative infrequency with which he makes
citations from the middle and latter parts of most of the works he
mentions."
[11.60] Surely the implication is
unjust. Stationers used to let out on hire parts of books or quires.
Manuscript volumes were also often made up of parts of works by several
authors. Books being scarce, it was preferable to make some volumes
select miscellanies, little libraries in themselves. Hear Chaucer
himself—
"And eek ther was som-tyme a clerk at
Rome,A cardinal, that highte Seinte
Jerome,That made a book agayn
Jovinian;In whiche book eek ther was
Tertulan,Crisippus, Trotula, and
Helowys,That was abbesse net fer fro
Parys;And eek the Parables of
Salomon,Ovydes Art, and bokes many
on,And alle thise were bounder in o volume."
[11.61]
In composite volumes often only the earlier parts of authors'
works were included. If Chaucer owned a few
books of this kind, his familiarity with parts of authors— and oftenest
with the earlier parts—is accounted for satisfactorily; so also is the
range and variety of his reading. Examine the Christ Church Canterbury
catalogue in Henry Eastry's time, and note what a remarkable variety of
subjects is comprised in what we nowadays consider rather a paltry
number of books. There is another point worth bearing in mind. Speaking
of Bishop Shirwood's books, a writer in the
English Historical
Review says: "Many of the books bear his mark,
Nota,
scattered over the margins, or a hand with a long pointing finger.
These notes occur usually at the beginnings. In the days when chapters
and sections were unknown and division into books rare, when headlines
were not and pages sometimes had no signatures even, not to speak of
numbers, a reader had to go solidly through a book, and could not
lightly turn up a passage he wished for, by the aid of a reference. But
except in Cicero and in Plutarch—which is read almost from beginning to
end—the marks do not often go far. Shirwood was doubtless too busy to
find much time for reading, and before he had made much way with a book
a new purchase had come to arouse his interest."
[11.62]
But to the general rule of scarcity of books some exceptions are
known. When a book won a reputation, the cost of producing copies was
not wholly restrictive of circulation. Copies of some works of the
Fathers were produced in great numbers. The Bible, whole or in part, was
copied with such industry that it became the commonest of manuscripts,
as it now is the commonest of printed books. Peter Lombard's
Sentences became a famous book: the standard of the schools;
everywhere to be found side by side with the Bible, everywhere discussed
and commented
upon. A twelfth century author of quite different character had a
good hold upon the people; the number of copies of Geoffrey of Monmouth
must have been considerable, for the British Museum now has thirty-five
copies and Bodley's Library sixteen. "Possibly, no work before the age
of printed books attained such immediate and astonishing popularity . .
. translations, adaptations, and continuations of it formed one of the
staple exercises of a host of medieval scribes."
[11.63] A glance at the monastic and academic
library catalogues of later date than mid-thirteenth century will prove
more clearly than a shelf full of books how enormous was the influence
of Aristotle. If such a collocation as the Bible and Shakspere sums up
the present-day Englishman's ideals of spiritual sustenance and literary
power, a similar collocation of the Bible and Aristotle would sum up,
with a greater approach to truth, the ideals of the medieval schoolman.
Popularity fell to
Piers Plowman. Apart from the large currency
given to it by ballad singers, many manuscripts were in existence, for
even now forty-five of them, more or less complete, remain. As M.
Jusserand aptly remarks: "This figure is the more remarkable when we
consider that, contrary to works written in Latin or in French,
Langland's book was not copied and preserved outside his own
country."
[11.64] Again, but a few years
after the writing of the
Canterbury Tales, a copy of it was
bequeathed, among other books, by a clerk named Richard Sotheworth of
East Hendred, Berks (1417).
[11.65] The
impression is left upon one's mind that this work had found its way
quickly and in many copies into country places.
But as only a few books had a comparatively large circulation,
these few had a disproportionately powerful
influence. The Bible was paramount. Aristotle dominated the whole mental
horizon of the schoolmen. Alfred of Beverley tells us that Geoffrey of
Monmouth's book "was so universally talked of that to confess ignorance
of its stories was the mark of a clown."
[11.66] So great was the influence of
Piers
Plowman, that from it were taken watchwords at the great rising of
the peasants.
[11.67] The power of such
works could not be wholly hemmed in by the barrier of manuscript: like
a spring torrent it would burst forth and carry all before it. In the
manuscript period a book of great originality and power, or a work which
reproduced the thought of the time accurately and with spirit, ran no
great risk of being passed over and forgotten; too little was produced
for much that was good to be lost. It was copied once and again; became
very slowly but very surely known to a few, then to many; and all the
time waxed more and more influential in its teaching. The growth was
slow, but then the lifetime was long. Now the chance of a good book
going astray is much greater What watcher of the great procession of
modern books does not fear that something supremely fine and great has
passed unobserved in the huge, motley crowd?
[[11.1]]
Cited in Gasyuet2,
17.
[[11.2]]
Martène, Thesaurus, i. 511.
[[11.3]]
Opera, fo. 1523. Fo. xlvii. 7,
Doctrinale juvenum, c. v.
[[11.6]]
Surtees Soc., vii. 80.
[[11.7]]
V. Catalogues in Becker; James (M. R.);
Bateson; Surtees Soc., vii.; etc.
[[11.8]]
Sandys, i. 638; and see Jerome, Ep.
xxii., ed. 1734, i. 114.
[[11.10]]
Comparetti, Vergil in the M. A., 77.
[[11.11]]
Taylor, Classical Heritage, 37.
[[11.12]]
Sandys, i. 638-39; see what is said about use
of Ovid at Canterbury.
[[11.13]]
On the use of classics in the Middle Ages see
Sandys, i. 630 (Plautus and Terence), 631 (Lucretius), 633 (Catullus and
Virgil), 635 (Horace), 638 (Ovid), 641 (Lucan), 642 (Statius), 643
(Martial), 644 (Juvenal), 645 (Persius), 648 (Cicero), 653 (Seneca), 654
(Pliny), 655 (Quintilian), etc.
[[11.14]]
Rashdall, i. 42.
[[11.15]]
Lyte, 88-89; Einstein, 180.
[[11.16]]
Bacon, Op. ined., 84, 148.
[[11.17]]
Mullinger, 211.
[[11.18]]
Rashdall, i. 77-8.
[[11.20]]
Cf. Becker, index.
[[11.21]]
On Michael, see Bacon, Op. maj., 36,
37; Dante, Inferno, xx. 116; Boccaccio, 8 day, 9 novel; Scott,
Lay, II. xi.; Brown, Life and Legend of M. S.
(1897)
[[11.22]]
Bacon, Op. ined, Comp. stud., 472
(Rolls Series).
[[11.23]]
In Peterhouse Library, Cambridge, is a
manuscript of Aristotle's Meta-physica, with Latin
translations from the Arabic and the Greek in parallel columns: the one
being called the old translation, the other the new. The manuscript is
of the thirteenth or fourteenth century.—James
3, 43.
[[11.24]]
Gasquet3, 143-44;
see other instances, Camb. Med. Hist., i. 588.
[[11.25]]
Jourdain, Recherches . . . traductions
Latines d'A., 187; Gasquet3, 148.
[[11.26]]
Paris, Chron. Maj., iv. 232-3; cp.
Bacon, Op. ined., 91, 434.
[[11.27]]
Stevenson, 224, 227; Camb. Mod.
Hist., i. 586; James, lxxxvi.
[[11.28]]
MS. Ff. i. 24; Paris, C.M. iv. 232;
cf. v. 285.
[[11.29]]
Sandys, i. 576.
[[11.30]]
Now Canon. gr. 35 Bodleian; James, lxxxvi.
This may be the Liber grecorum in the list of books repaired in
1508.—James, lxxxvi., 163.
[[11.33]]
Op. Tertium, p. 55, 56.
[[11.34]]
James (M. R. ), lxxiv.
[[11.35]]
Mun. Acad., 86, 430, 444; cf. Lyte,
235. Donatus came to be regarded as a synonymous term for grammar. In
Piers Plowman a grammatical lesson or text book is called
"Donet." A Greek grammar was called a "Donatus Graecorum."
[[11.36]]
Mun. Acad., 441.
[[11.37]]
In the right-hand doorway of the west front of
Chartres Cathedral are figures of the Seven Arts, Grammar being
associated with Priscian, Logic with Aristotle, Rhetoric with Cicero,
Music with Pythagoras, Arithmetic with Nicomachus, Geometry with Euclid,
and Astronomy with Ptolemy. Cf.. Marriage, Sculp. of Chartres
Cath., 71-73 (1909).
[[11.38]]
On medieval studies see further Mun.
Acad., 34, 242-43, 285, 412-13; Sandys, i 670.
[[11.39]]
Oxford Stat., c. 21.
[[11.40]]
Toxophilus, Arber's ed., p. 19.
[[11.41]]
Camb. Eng. Lit., iii. 364.
[[11.42]]
Cf Warton, ii. 95.
[[11.43]]
By Jehan de Tuim, c. 1240.
[[11.44]]
Wace or Layamon.
[[11.45]]
Amadas et Idoine, an anonymous Norman
French poem of the twelfth century.
[[11.46]]
Sir Beves of Hamtoun (Fr. 13 cent., Eng. 14
cent. ).
[[11.47]]
Character in romance of Tristrem, by
Thomas the Rymer.
[[11.48]]
Haveloke. For other metrical
catalogues see first and second prologues to Richard Cœur de
Lion.—Ritson, Anc, Eng Metr. Romances, i. 55,
[[11.49]]
Gladly, blithely.
[[11.50]]
From beginning of Handlyng Synne, by
Robert Mannying of Brunne.
[[11.51]]
Bateson x.; Gasquet
4, 30-31; James (M. R.), 148.
[[11.52]]
Written at the end of the manuscript, which is
in the Douce collection.— Warton, i. 182-83.
[[11.53]]
MS. gurney, II; James (M.R.), 515.
[[11.54]]
B. M. MS. Reg., 9 B ix. I.
[[11.56]]
Mun. Acad., 665. Cf. p. 661.
[[11.57]]
Mun. Acad., ci.
[[11.58]]
Mun. Acad., lxxvii.
[[11.60]]
Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, ii. 265.
[[11.61]]
Wife of Bath's Prologue, ll. 673-81.
[[11.62]]
E. H. R., XXV. 453.
[[11.63]]
Camb. Lit., i. 262.
[[11.64]]
Piers Plowman, 186.
[[11.65]]
"Quendam libru' meu' de Canterbury Tales."—N.
& Q., II ser. ii. 26.
[[11.66]]
Camb. Lit., i. 262.
[[11.67]]
Jusserand, Piers, 13.