University of Virginia Library

2. § II

From the first we hear of books in connexion with Canterbury. Gregory the Great gave to Augustine, either just before his English mission, or sent to him soon afterward, nine volumes, which were put in St. Augustine's monastery

—the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul, beyond the walls. Being for church purposes, the books were very beautiful and valuable. There was the Gregorian Bible in two volumes, with some of its leaves coloured rose and purple, which gave a wonderful reflection when held to the light; the Psalter of Augustine; a copy of the Gospels called the Text of St. Mildred, upon which a countryman in Thanet swore falsely and, it is said, lost his sight; as well as another copy of the Gospels; a Psalter, with plain silver images of Christ and the four Evangelists on the cover; two martyrologies, one adorned with a silver figure of Christ, the other enriched with silver-gilt and precious stones; and an Exposition of the Gospels and Epistles, also enriched with gems. [2.1] Some of these books were kept above the altar. Bede also records the gift by Gregory to Augustine of "many manuscripts," and his authority is unimpeachable, as he derived his knowledge of Canterbury affairs from written records and information supplied by Albinus, first English abbot of Augustine's house. [2.2] This monastery "was thus the mother-school, the mother-university of England,... at a time when Cambridge was a desolate fen, and Oxford a tangled forest in a wide waste of waters. They remind us that English power and English religion have, as from the very first, so ever since, gone along with knowledge, with learning, and especially with that learning and that knowledge which those old manuscripts give—the knowledge and learning of the Gospel." [2.3] Few books would be treasured more carefully and treated with greater reverence by English churchmen and book lovers than these "first books of the English church," if any of them could be found. They are referred to as existing when William Thorne wrote his chronicle (c. 1397),[2.4] and Leland tells us he saw and admired them; but after his time nearly all trace of them is lost.[2.5]

No further hint of books occurs until Theodore became Archbishop more than seventy years later. Theodore, who had been educated both at Tarsus and Athens, where he became a good Greek and Latin scholar, well versed in secular and divine literature, began a school at Canterbury for the study of Greek, and provided it with some Greek books. None of these books has been traced with certainty. Some may have existed in Archbishop Parker's time. "The Rev. Father Matthew," says Lambarde, in his Perambulation of Kent, . . . "showed me, not long since, the Psalter of David, and sundry homilies in Greek, Homer also, and some other Greek authors, beautifully written on thick paper with the name of this Theodore prefixed in the front, to whose library he reasonably thought (being led thereto by show of great antiquity) that they sometime belonged." The manuscript of Homer, now in Corpus Christi Library, Cambridge, did not belong to Theodore, but to Prior Selling, of whom we shall hear later. But possibly the famous Graeco-Latin copy of the Acts, now in the Bodleian Library, belonged either to Theodore or to his companion, Hadrian.[2.6]

[Description: FROM THE GRÆCO-LATIN COPY OF THE ACTS, PROBABLY USED BY BEDE]

Theodore, with Hadrian's help, not only started the Canterbury School, but encouraged similar foundations in other English monasteries. In southern England, however, Canterbury remained the centre of learning, and many ecclesiastics were attracted to it in consequence. Bede amply proves its efficiency as a school. And forasmuch as both Theodore and Hadrian were "fully instructed both in sacred and in secular letters, they gathered a crowd of disciples, and rivers of wholesome knowledge daily flowed from them to water the hearts of their hearers; and, together with the books of Holy Scripture, they also taught them the metrical art, astronomy, and ecclesiastical arithmetic. A testimony whereof is, that there are still living at this day some of their scholars, who are as well versed in the Greek and Latin tongues as in their own, in which they were born."[2.7] Elsewhere he mentions some of these scholars by name. Albinus, already referred to as the first English abbot of St. Augustine's, "was so well instructed in literary studies, that he had no small knowledge of the Greek tongue, and knew the Latin as well as the English, which was his native language."[2.8] "A most learned man" was another disciple, Tobias, bishop of Rochester, who, besides having a great knowledge of letters, both ecclesiastical and general, learned the Greek and Latin tongues "to such perfection, that they were as well known and familiar to him as his native language." [2.9]

Canterbury's most notable scholar was Aldhelm, the first bishop of Sherborne. In him were united the learning of the Canterbury and the Irish monks, for he studied first under Maildulf, the Irish monk and scholar

who founded and gave his name to Malmesbury, and then under Hadrian. When he went to be consecrated an incident befell him which at once shows his zeal for learning, and casts a welcome ray of light on the importation of books. While at Canterbury he heard of the arrival of ships at Dover, and thither he journeyed to see whether they had brought anything in his way. He found on board plenty of books, among them one containing the complete Testaments. He offered to buy it, but his price was too low; although, afterwards, when it was believed his prayers had delivered the owner from a storm, he secured it on his own terms. [2.10]

Aldhelm at length became abbot of Malmesbury (c. 675), and under him it grew to much greater eminence, and attracted a large number of students. Here, in the solitude of the forest tract, he passed his time in singing merry ballads to win the ear of the people for his more serious words, playing the harp, in teaching, and in reading the considerable library he had at hand. Bede describes him as a man "of marvellous learning both in liberal and ecclesiastical studies." Judging by his writings he was in these respects in the forefront of his contemporaries, although his learning was heavy and pretentious. From them also it is perfectly evident he could make use not only of the Bible, but of lives of the saints, of Isidore, of the Recognitions of Clement, of the Acts of Sylvester, of writings by Sulpicius Severus, Athanasius, Gregory, Eusebius, and Jerome, as well as of Terence, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, Persius, and Prosper, and some other authors.[2.11]