University of Virginia Library

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— in the fourteenth century, or 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"— 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]