University of Virginia Library

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.

At their games and feasts and over their ale men were wont to hear tales and verses.[9.1] The tale-tellers were usually professional wayfaring entertainers: "japers and `mynstralles' that sell `glee,'" as the scald sang his lays before King Hygelac and roused Beowulf to slay Grendel— Call hither, cries Sir Thopas, minstrels and gestours, "for to tellen tales"— Rhymers and poets had these entertainments in mind when they wrote— cries Chaucer.[9.3] Note also the preliminary request for silence and attention at the beginning of 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—

The monks of Hyde Abbey or New Minster paid an annuity to a harper (1180). No less a sum than seventy shillings was paid to minstrels hired to sing and play the

harp at the feast of the installation of an abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury (1309). When the bishop of Winchester visited the cathedral priory of St. Swithin or Old Minster, a minstrel was hired to sing the song of Colbrond the Danish giant—a legend connected with Winchester—and the tale of Queen Emma delivered from the ploughshares (1338). Payments to minstrels were commonly made by monks: at Bicester Priory, for example (1431), and at Maxstoke, where mimi, joculatores, jocatores, lusores, and citharistae were hired. A curious provision occurs in the statutes of New College, Oxford (1380). The founder gives his permission to the scholars, for their recreation on festival days in the winter, to light a fire in the hall after dinner and supper, where they could amuse themselves with songs and other entertainments of decent sort, and could recite poems, chronicles of kingdoms, the wonders of the world, and such like compositions, provided they befitted the clerical character. At Winchester College—where minstrels were often employed—and Magdalen College the same practice was followed. Commonly minstrels formed a regular part of the household of rich men.[9.6]

This part of the subject is so interesting that we feel tempted to linger over it, but it is sufficient for our purpose to observe that minstrelsy, before and after the Conquest —indeed, up to nearly the end of the manuscript period— was the chief and almost the only means of circulating literature among seculars. This fact should be borne in mind when any comparison is made between the number of religious and scholastic books in circulation and the number of books of lighter character. Even books of the scholastic class were read aloud to students in class, and often to small audiences of older people; but this method had obvious disadvantages, and the necessity of studying

them personally soon came to be recognised as imperative. Hence such books, and especially those which summarised the subject of study, were greatly multiplied. On the other hand, romances were better heard than read, and only enough copies of them were made to supply wealthy households and the minstrels and jesters whose business it was to learn and recite them. Rarely, therefore, did the ordinary layman of medieval England own many books. The large class to whom romances appealed seldom owned books at all, simply because the people of this class, even if wealthy and of noble rank, could not in ninety cases out of one hundred read at all, or could read so poorly that the pastime was irksome. Among the educated classes, the books needed were those with which a reader had made acquaintance at his university, or which were necessary for his special study and occupation. Yet it is uncommon to find private libraries; and with few exceptions they were ridiculously small. The vast majority of the books were owned in common by monastic or collegiate societies.

Let us bring together the meagre records of three centuries, and some exceptions to the general rule which serve only to show up the general poverty of the land. Henry II, an ardent sportsman, a ruler almost completely immersed in affairs of State, made time for private reading and for working out knotty questions, [9.7] and very probably he had a library to his hand. King John received from the sacristan of Reading a small collection of books of the Bible and severe theology, perhaps as a diplomatic gift, perhaps as a subtle reminder that a little food for the spirit would improve his morals and ameliorate the lot of his subjects. Edward II borrowed at least two books, the Miracles of St. Thomas and the Lives of St. Thomas and St. Anselm, from Christ Church, Canterbury.[9.8] Great Earl

Simon had a Digestum vetus from the same source. Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (d. 1315), had a little hoard of romances, and some other books. Hugh le Despenser the elder enjoyed a "librarie of bookes" (c. 1321), how big or of what character we do not know. Archbishop Meopham (d. 1333) gave some books to Christ Church, Canterbury; and his successor, John Stratford, presented a few to the same house. Lady Elizabeth de Clare, foundress of Clare Hall, bequeathed to her foundation a tiny collection of service books and volumes on canon law (1355). William de Feriby, Archdeacon of Cleveland, left a small theological library (1378). One John Percyhay of Swinton in Rydal (1392), Sir Robert de Roos (1392), John de Clifford, treasurer of York Church (1392), Canon Bragge of York (1396), and Eleanor Bohun, Duchess of Gloucester (1399), all left Bibles; and small collections of books, much alike in character, consisting usually of psalters, books of religious offfices, legends of the saints, Peter of Blois, Nicholas Trivet, the Brut chronicle, books of Decretals, and the Corpus Juris Civilis,—most of it sorry stuff, the last achievements of dogmatism on threadbare subjects. "Among all the church dignitaries whose wills are recorded in Bishop Stafford's register at Exeter (1395-1419), the largest library mentioned is only of fourteen volumes. The sixty testators include a dean, two archdeacons, twenty canons or prebendaries, thirteen rectors, six vicars, and eighteen layfolk, mostly rich people. The whole sixty apparently possessed only two Bibles between them, and only one hundred and thirty-eight books altogether: or, omitting church service-books, only sixty; i.e. exactly one each on an average. Thirteen of the beneficed clergy were altogether bookless, though several of them possessed the baselard or dagger which church councils had forbidden in vain for centuries past; four more had only their breviary. Of the laity fifteen were bookless, while three had service books, one of these being a knight who simply bequeathed them as part of the furniture of his private chapel." [9.9]

A few exceptions there were, as we have said. Not till the fifteenth century do we find that a few books were commonly in the possession of well-to-do and cultivated people; suggesting an advance in culture upon the prevlous age. But before 1400 several book collectors were sharp aberrations from the general rule. Richard de Gravesend, Bishop of London, owned nearly a hundred books, almost all theological, and each worth on an average more than a sovereign a volume, or in all about £1740 of our money. A certain Abbot Thomas of St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, gave to his house over one hundred volumes.[9.10] To the same monastery a certain John of London, probably a pupil of Friar Bacon, left a specialist's library of about eighty books, no fewer than forty-six being on mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. [9.11] Simon Langham, too, bequeathed to Westminister Abbey ninety-one works, some very costly. [9.12] John de Newton, treasurer of York, left a good library, part of which he bequeathed to York Minster and part to Peterhouse (1418). A canon of York, Thomas Greenwood, died worth more than thirty pounds in books alone (1421). And Henry Bowet, Archbishop of York, left a collection of thirty-three volumes, nearly all of great price,—copies de luxe, finely illuminated and embellished, worth on an average a pound a volume (1423).

But Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, is at once the

bibliomaniac's ideal and enigma (1287-1345). All accounts agree in saying he collected a large number of books.

What became of them we do not know. In the Philobiblon, of which he is the reputed author, he expressed his intention of founding a hall at Oxford, and of leaving his books to it. Durham College, however, was not completed until thirty-six years after his death. Among the Durham College documents is a catalogue of the books it owned at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and only the books sent to Oxford in 1315, and as many more are mentioned, so that his large library did not go to the college, but was probably dispersed. [9.13] De Bury, like Cobham, was a heavy debtor, and as he lay dying his servants stole all his moveable goods and left him naked on his bed save for an undershirt which a lackey had thrown over him.[9.14] His executors, as we know, were glad to resell to St. Albans Abbey the books he had bought from the monks there.

De Bury has left us an account of his methods of collecting which throws some light upon the trade in books in his time. "Although from our youth upwards we had always delighted in holding social commune with learned men and lovers of books, yet when we prospered in the world, . . . we obtained ampler facilities for visiting everywhere as we would, and of hunting as it were certain most choice preserves, libraries private as well as public, and of the regular as well as of the secular clergy.... There was afforded to us, in consideration of the royal favour, easy access for the purpose of freely searching the retreats of books. In fact, the fame of our love of them had been soon winged abroad everywhere, and we were reported to burn with such desire for books, and especially old ones,

that it was more easy for any man to gain our favour by means of books than of money. Wherefore, since supported by the goodness of the aforesaid prince of worthy memory, we were able to requite a man well or ill . . . there flowed in, instead of presents and guerdons, and instead of gifts and jewels, soiled tracts and battered codices, gladsome alike to our eye and heart. Then the aumbries of the most famous monasteries were thrown open, cases were unlocked and caskets were undone, and volumes that had slumbered through long ages in their tombs wake up and are astonished, and those that had lain hidden in dark places are bathed in the ray of unwonted light. These long lifeless books, once most dainty, but now become corrupt and loathesome, covered with litters of mice and pierced with the gnawings of the worms, and who were once clothed in purple and fine linen, now Iying in sackcloth and ashes, given up to oblivion, seemed to have become habitations of the moth.... Thus the sacred vessels of learning came into our control and stewardship; some by gift, others by purchase, and some lent to us for a season."[9.15]

If his words are true, monastic and other libraries must have been seriously despoiled to build up his own collection. He was bribed by St. Albans Abbey, and nobody need disbelieve him when he says he got many presents from other houses, for the merit of being open-handed was rewarded with more good mediation and favours than the giver's cause deserved; indeed, De Bury himself seems to have made judicious use of bribes for his own advancement.[9.16] Usually gifts were in jewels or plate, but books were given to men known to love them; as when

Whethamstede presented Humfrey of Gloucester and the Duke of Bedford with books they coveted.

While acting as emissary for his "illustrious prince," de Bury hunts his quarry in the narrow ways of Paris, and captures "inestimable books" by freely opening his purse, the coins of which are, to his mind, "mud and sand" compared with the treasures he gets. He blesses the friars and protects them, and they rout out books from the "universities and high schools of various provinces"; but how, whether rightfully or wrongfully, we do not know. He "does not disdain," he tells us—in truth, he is surely overjoyed—to visit "their libraries and any other repositories of books"; nay, there he finds heaped up amid the utmost poverty the utmost riches of wisdom. He freely employs the booksellers, but the wiles of the collector are as notorious as the wiles of women, and his chief aim is to "captivate the affection of all" who can get him books;—not even forgetting "the rectors of schools and the instructors of rude boys," although we cannot think he gets much from them. If he cannot buy books, he has copies made: about his person are scribes and correctors, illuminators and binders, and generally all who can usefully labour in the service of books; in large numbers—in no small multitude. And by these means he gets together more books than all the other English bishops put together: more than five waggon loads; a veritable hoard, overflowing into the hall of his house, and into his bedroom, where he steps over them to get to his couch. He was a man "of small learning," says Murimuth; "passably literate," writes Chambre; at the best, according to Petrarch, "of ardent temperament, not ignorant of literature, with a natural curiosity for out-of-the-way lore": an antiquarian, not of the lovable kind, but unscrupulous, pedantic, and vain, indulging an inordinate taste for collecting and hoarding books, perhaps to satisfy a

craving for shreds and patches of knowledge, but more likely to earn a reputation as a great clerk.[9.17] For De Bury was something of a humbug; the Philobiblon, if it is his work, reaches the utmost limit of affectation in the love of books.

2. § II

The literature of the later part of the fourteenth century affords us glimpses of other readers who were not merely collectors. The author—or authors—of Piers Plowman seems to have had within his reach a fair library. His reading was carelessly done for the most part, his references are vague and incorrect, and his quotations not always exact. But he was well read in the Scriptures, which he knew far better than any other book. From the Fathers he gathered much, perhaps by means of collections of extracts from their works. He used the Golden Legend, Huon de Meri's allegorical poem of the fight between Jesus and the Antichrist, Peter Comestor's Bible History, Rustebeuf's La Voie de Paradis, Grosseteste's religious allegory of Le Chastel d' Amour, the paraded learning of Vincent of Beauvais in Speculum Historiale, and other works—numerous and small signs of booklore, which are completely overshadowed by his illuminating comprehension of the popular side in the politics of his day. Gower, too, had at his disposal a little library of some account, including the Scriptures, theological writings and ecclesiastical histories, Aristotle, some of the classics, and a good deal of romance in prose and verse

But Chaucer was the ideal book-lover: knowing Dante, Boccaccio, and in some degree "Franceys Petrark, the laureat poete," who "enlumined al Itaille of poetry," Virgil, Cicero, Seneca, Ovid—his favourite author—and Boëthius;

as well as Guido delle Colonne's prose epic of the story of Troy, the poems of Guillaume de Machaut, the Roman de la Rose, and a work on the astrolabe by Messahala.[9.18] We have some excellent pictures of Chaucer's habit of reading. When his day's work is done he goes home and buries himself with his books— In the Parliament of Fowls he tells us that he read books often for instruction and pleasure, and the coming on of night alone would force him to put away his book. He would not have been a true reader had he not developed the habit of reading in bed. So he found solace and delight, as countless thousands have done, in his Ovid. The world of books and of reading is apt to seem stuffy, the favoured home of the moody spirit, a lair to which a dirty and ragged Magliabechi retreats, a palace where a Beckford gloats solitary over his treasures—a world whence we often desire to escape, since we know we can return to it when we will. For if good books shelter us from the realities of life, life itself refreshes the student like cool rain upon the fevered brow. Chaucer was the bright spirit who let his books fill their proper place in his life. In books, he says— Yet books are something much less than life: there is the open air,—the meadows bright with flowers,—the melody of birds,—

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—

Joly Jankin, as the clerk was called,

[Description: CARMELITE IN HIS STUDY]

And having quickly taken measure of the Wife's character, he could not refrain from reading to her stories which seemed to contain a lesson and to point a moral for her. She lost patience, and was "beten for a book, pardee."

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—

"What are you reading?" cries Pandarus. "For Goddes love, what seith it? Tel it us. Is it of love?" Whereupon the niece returns him a saucy answer, and "with that they gonnen laughe," and then she says—

This picture of a little informal reading circle is not to be found in like perfection elsewhere in English medieval literature.[9.25]

4. § IV

By the middle of the fifteenth century book-collecting was a more fashionable pastime. Had it not been so we should have been surprised. From 1365 to 1450 was an age of library building. Oxford University now had its library: in quick succession the colleges of Merton, William of Wykeham, Exeter, University, Durham, Balliol, Peterhouse, Lincoln, All Souls, Magdalen, Queens' (Cambridge), Pembroke (Cambridge), and St. John's (Cambridge) followed the example. Library rooms also had been put up in the cathedrals of Hereford, Exeter, York, Lincoln, Wells, Salisbury, St. Paul's, and Lichfield. Moreover, in London had been established the first public library. Dick Whittington, of famous memory, and William Bury founded it between 1421 and 1426. The civic records tell us that "Upon the petition of John

Coventry, John Carpenter, and William Grove, the executors of Richard Whittington and William Bury, the Custody of the New House, or Library, which they had built, with the Chamber under, was placed at their disposal by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty." [9.26] The foundation is described as "a certen house next unto the sam Chapel apperteynyug, called the library, all waies res'ved for students to resorte unto, wt three chambres under nithe the saide library, which library being covered wt slate is valued together wt the chambres at xiijs. iiijd. yerely.... The sated library is a house appointed by the sated Maior and cominaltie for . . . resorte of all students for their education in Divine Scriptures."[9.27] Stow, writing in 1598, spoke of it as "sometime a fayre and large library, furnished with books.... The armes of Whitington are placed on the one side in the stone worke, and two letters, to wit, W. and B., for William Bury, on the other side." Wealthy citizens came forward with pecuniary aid then as they have ever done. William Chichele, sometime Sheriff, bequeathed "xli to be bestowyed on books notable to be layde in the newe librarye at the gildehall at London for to be memoriall for John Hadle, sumtyme meyre, and for me there while they mowe laste."[9.28] This was in 1425. Eighteen years later one of Whittington's executors, named John Carpenter, made this direction in his will: "If any good or rare books shall be found amongst the said residue of my goods, which, by the discretion of the aforesaid Master William Lichfield and Reginald Pecock, may seem necessary to the common library at Guildhall, for the profit of the students there, and those discoursing to the common people, then I will and bequeath that those books be placed by my executors and chained in that library that the visitors and students thereof may be the sooner admonished to pray for my soul" (1442)[9.29] But this library, like so many others, did not survive the disastrous years of mid-sixteenth century.

It would be singular if this progress in library making were not reflected in the habits of a considerable section of the people. The court and its entourage set the fashion. Henry VI was a lover of books and a collector. His uncle, John, Duke of Bedford, although much occupied with public affairs and mercilessly warring with France, got together a rich library, particularly noteworthy for finely illuminated books: the famous library of the Louvre was a part of his French booty. Of his brother Gloucester we have already spoken. Archbishop Kempe owned a library of theology, canon and civil law, and other books, worth more than £260. He also gave money towards the cost of Gloucester's library at Oxford; as did also Cardinal Beaufort and the Duchess of Gloucester. Sir John Fastolf possessed a small number of books at Caistor (c. 1450). The collection was of some distinction, as the inventory will show: "In the Stewe hous; of Frenche books, the Bible, the Cronycles of France, the Cronicles of Titus Levius, a booke of Jullius Cesar, lez Propretez dez Choses [by Barth Glanville], Petrus de Crescentiis, fiber Almagesti, fiber Geomancie cum iiij aliis Astronomie, fiber de Roy Artour, Romaunce la Rose, Cronicles d'Angleterre, Veges de larte Chevalerie, Instituts of Justien Emperer, Brute in ryme, fiber Etiques, fiber de Sentence Joseph, Problemate Aristotelis, Vice and Vertues, fiber de Cronykes de Grant Bretagne in ryme, Meditacions Saynt Bernard."[9.30] Perhaps this little hoard may be taken

as a fair example of a wealthy gentleman's library in the fifteenth century. A collection perhaps accurately representing the average prelatical library was that of Richard Browne, running to more than thirty books of the common medieval character (1452). A canon residentiary of York named William Duffield had a library of forty volumes, as fine as Archbishop Bowet's collection, and valued at a higher figure (1452). Ralph Dreff, of Broadgates Hall, possessed no fewer than twenty-three volumes, a larger collection than Oxford students usually had. A vicar of Cookfield owned twenty-four books, some of them priced cheaply (1451).

Some collections were pathetically small. A disreputable student of Oxford, John Brette, had among his "bits of things" a book and a pamphlet. Thomas Cooper, scholar of Brasenose Hall, enjoyed the use of six volumes. Another scholar, John Lassehowe, had a like number; and another, Simon Berynton, had fifteen books, worth sixpence (c. 1448)! A rector also had six, one of them Greek; a chaplain was equipped with six medical works; and James Hedyan, bachelor of canon and civil law, could employ his leisure in reading one of his little store of eight volumes. One Elizabeth Sywardby owned eight books, three being costly (1468).

5. § V

More records of the same kind may be obtained from almost any collection of wills and inventories, the number of them increasing towards the end of the manuscript age. How far this change was due to the influence of Italy we do not fully know. Certainly before the end of Henry VI's reign the first impulse of the Italian renascence—the impulse to gather up the materials of a more catholic and

liberal knowledge—had been transmitted to England. Students left our shores to widen their studies in Italy. Public men in England corresponded with Italians, and fall into sympathy with their aims. Occasianally scholars came hither from Italy. Manuel Chrysoloras, one of the leading revivers of Greek studies in Italy, visited England in the service of Manuel Palaeologus, and possibly stayed at Christ Church monastery in 1408.[9.31] Poggio Bracciolini came to this country in 1418-23 at the invitation of Cardinal Beautort: what he did while here we know far too little about, but this visit of Italy's greatest book-collector and discoverer of Latin classical manuscripts cannot have been without some effect upon English students. For Poggio the visit was almost without result. He was in search of manuscripts, but apparently failed to get any with which he was unacquainted. He dismissed our libraries with the sharp criticism that they were full of trash, and described Englishmen as almost devoid of love for letters.[9.32] Æneas Sylvius also came here, and his visit likewise must have borne some fruit (1435).

Much also was accomplished by correspondence. Among those in communication with Italians and acquainted with the course of their studies, were Bishop Bekington, one of the earliest alumni of Wykeham's foundation at Oxford, Adam de Molyneux, the correspondent of Æneas Sylvius, Thomas Chaundler, warden of New College, Archdeacon Bildstone, Archbishop Arundel, the benefactor of Oxford University Library and correspondent of Salutati, Cardinal Beaufort's secretary, and Humfrey of Gloucester. Upon the last-named Italian influence was strong. Among the books he gave to

Oxford were Petrarch, Dante, and Boccaccio, but probably the strongest evidence of this influence would be found in the books he retained for his own use. He sought a rendering of Aristotle's Politics from Bruni; of Cicero's Republic from Decembrio; of certain of Plutarch's Lives from Lapo da Castiglionchio; and had other works translated.[9.33]

But many English students were attracted to visit Italy for the express purpose of sitting under Italian teachers. As early as 1395, one Thomas of England, a brother of the Augustine order, went to Italy and purchased manuscripts, "books of the modern poets," and translations and other early works of Leonardo Bruni. [9.34] Thomas was one

of the first of a number of enlightened Englishmen who journeyed laboriously and in steady procession to Italy, this time not only to Rome, but to the northern towns, then, with Venice, "the common ports of humanity," whither they were attracted by the fame of the bright galaxy of humanists—of Coluccio Salutati, collector of Latin manuscripts, Manuel Chrysoloras, Niccolo de' Niccoli, grubbing Poggio Bracciolini, Pope Nicholas, sometime Cosimo de' Medici's librarian and the founder of the Vatican Library, Giovanni Aurispa, famous collector of Greek manuscripts in the East, the renowned Guarino da Verona, Palla degli Strozzi, would-be founder of a public library, Cosimo de' Medici, whose princely collections are the chiefest treasures of the Laurentian Library, Francesco Filelfo, another importer of Greek books from Constantinople, and Vespasiano, the great bookseller.

Sometimes these pilgrims to Italy were poor men, as were John Free, and the two Oxford men, Norton and Bulkeley, who went thither in 1425-29.[9.35] But as a rule such a journey was only possible for wealthy men. An important pilgrim was Andrew Holes, who represensed England at the Pope's court in Florence. [9.36] In the eyes of Vespasiano, Holes was one of the most cultivated of Englishmen. He appears to have bought too many books to send by land, and so was obliged to wait for a ship to transport them. What became of these books?—did he collect for his own use?—or was he acting merely for Duke Humfrey or the king?—or did he leave them, as it is said, to his Church? Unfortunately these are questions which cannot be answered.

Four other men, Tiptoft, Grey, Free, and Gunthorpe, all of Balliol College, where the influence of Duke Humfrey may fairly be suspected, journeyed to Italy. "Butcher" Tiptoft, an intimate of another enlightened community at Christ Church, visited Guarino, walked Florentine streets arm-in-arm with Vespasiano, thrilled Æneas Sylvius, then Pope, with a Latin oration, and returned to his own country with many books, some of which he intended to give to Oxford University—one of the best deeds of his unhappy and calamitous life.[9.37] While in Italy, William Grey, who sat under Guarino, and made Niccolò Perotti,

well known as a grammarian, free of his princely establishment, was conspicuously industrious in accumulating books. If he could not obtain them in any other way he employed scribes to copy for him, and an artist of Florence to adorn them in a costly manner with miniatures and initials. In nearly six years he collected over two hundred volumes of manuscripts, some as old as the twelfth century; probably the finest library sent to England in that age. No fewer than 152 of his manuscripts are now in the Balliol College library, to which he gave his whole collection in 1478; unfortunately most of the miniatures are destroyed. To his patronage of learning and his book-collecting propensities Grey owed his friendship with Nicholas V, and his bishopric of Ely. Grey was also a good friend to Free or Phreas, a poor student, and aided him in Italy with money for his expenses of living and to obtain Greek manuscripts to translate.[9.38] Free and John Gunthorpe, Dean of Wells, went to Italy together: Free did not live to return, but Gunthorp brought home manuscripts. He gave the bulk of them to Jesus College, where only one or two are left; some have found their way to other Cambridge Colleges. [9.39] Another Oxford scholar, Robert Flemming, was in Italy in 1450: here he became the friend of the great librarian of the Vatican, Platina; and got together a number of manuscripts, afterwards given to Lincoln College.

6. § VI

The intercourse of all these scholars with Italians was carried on before mid-fifteenth century. Their chief interest

was in Latin books, although a large number of Greek manuscripts had been brought to Italy by Angeli da Scarparia, Guarino, Giovanni Aurispa, and Filelfo. After the fall of Constantinople the Greek immigrants introduced books into Italy much more freely. George Hermonymus of Sparta, a Greek teacher and copyist of Greek manuscripts, visited England on a papal mission in 1475, but whether he had any influence on our intellectual pursuits does not appear. [9.40] Certainly, however, English scholars soon appreciated this new literature.

Letters sent to Pope Sixtus in 1484 by the king, refer to the skill of John Shirwood, bishop of Durham, in Latin and Greek. [9.41] Shirwood seems to have collected a respectable library. His Latin books were acquired by Bishop Foxe, and formed the nucleus of the library with which the latter endowed Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Some thirty volumes, a number of them printed, now remain at the College to bring him to mind: among them we find Pliny, Terence, Cicero, Livy, Suetonius, Plutarch, and Horace. Less fortunate has been the fate of his Greek books, which went to the collegiate church of Bishop Auckland. At the end of the fifteenth century this church owned about forty volumes. The only exceptions to its medieval character were Cicero's Letters and Offices, Silius Italicus, and Theodore Gaza's Greek grammar.[9.42] But Leland tells us that Tunstall, who succeeded to the bishopric in 1530, found a store of Shirwood's Greek manuscripts at this church. What became of them we do not know.[9.43]

About this same time a certain Emmanuel of Constantinople seems to have been employed in England as a

copyist. For Archbishop Neville he produced a Greek manuscript containing some sermones judiciales of Demosthenes, and letters of Aeschines, Plato, and Chion (1468).[9.44] Dr. Montague James has shown that this manuscript of Emmanuel is by the same hand as the manuscripts known as the "Ferrar group," which comprises "a Plato and Aristotle now at Durham, two psalters in Cambridge libraries, a psalter and part of a Suidas at Oxford, and the famous Leicester Codex of the Gospels." [9.45] Dr. James believes the Plato and the Aristotle to have been transcribed for Neville by Emmanuel. In 1472 the archbishop's household was broken up, and the "greete klerkys and famous doctors" of his entourage went to Cambridge. Among them, it is conjectured, was Emmanuel, and so it came to pass that three manuscripts in his writing have been at Cambridge; two psalters, as we have said, are there now, land in the beginning of the sixteenth century one of them, with the Leicester Codex, was certainly in the hands of the Grey Friars at Cambridge. This happy fruit of Dr. James' research throws a welcome ray of light on the pursuit of Greek studies in the last quarter of the fifteenth century.[9.46]

In view of all the hard things which have been said of the religious, it is significant to find them taking a leading part in bringing Greek studies to England. We cannot collate all the instances here, but a few may be brought together. Two Benedictines named William of Selling and William Hadley, some time warden of Canterbury College, Oxford, were in Italy studying and buying books for three years after 1464.[9.47] The former became distinguished for his aptitude in learning the ancient tongues, and

consequently won the friendship of Angelo Poliziano. At least two other visits to Italy were made by him; the last being undertaken as an emissary of the king. On these occasions he got together as many Greek and Latin books as he could, and brought them—a large and precious store—to Canterbury.[9.48] For some reason the books were kept in the Prior's lodging instead of in the monastic library, and here they perished through the carelessness of Layton's myrmidons.[9.49] Among the books lost was possibly a copy of Cicero's Republic. Only five manuscripts have been found which can be connected with Selling's library: a fifteenth-century Greek Psalter, a copy of the Psalms in Hebrew and Latin, a Euripides, a Livy, and a magnificent Homer. [9.50] This; Homer we have already referred to in an earlier chapter, when describing the work of Theodore of Tarsus. The signature Θεοδωρος has now been more plausibly explained, "The following note," writes Dr. James, "which I found in Dr. Masters's copy of Stanley's Catalogue, preserved in [Corpus Christi] College Library, suggests another origin for this Homer. I have been unable to identify the document to which reference is made. It should obviously be a letter of an Italian humanist in the Harleian collection.... `Mem.: Humphrey Wanley, Librarian to the late Earl of Oxford, told Mr. Fran: Stanley, son of the author, a little before his death, that in looking over some papers in the papers in the Earl's library, he found a Letter from a learned Italian to his Friend in England, wherein he told him there was then a very stately Homer just transcribed for Theodorus

[Description: A SCRIBE (ST. MARK WRITING HIS GOSPEL) FROM THE BEDFORD HOURS]

Gaza, of whose Illumination he gives him a very particular description, which answer'd so exactly in every part to that here set forth, that he [Wanley] was fully perswaded it was this very Book, and y t the Θεοδωρος at the bottom of 1st page order'd to be placed there by Gaza as his own name, gave occasion to Abp. Parker to imagine it might have belonged to Theodore of Canterbury, which however Hody was of opinion could not be of that age.' Th. Gaza," continues Dr. James, "died in 1478; the suggestion here made is quite compatible with the hypothesis that Sellinge was the means of conveying the Homer to England, and does supply a rather welcome interpretation of the Θεοδωρος inscription." This reasonable hypothesis may be strengthened if we point out that Gaza was in Rome from 1464 to 1472, and Selling visited that city between 1464 and 1467 and again in 1469. Selling may have got the manuscript from Gaza on one of these occasions.

There is evidence of Greek studies at other monasteries, —at Westminster after 1465, when Millyng, an "able graecian," became prior at Reading in 1499 and 1500, and at Glastonbury during the time of Abbot Bere.[9.51]

But Canterbury's share was greatest Selling seems to have taught Greek at Christ Church. In the monastic school there Thomas Linacre was instructed, and probably got the rudiments of Greek from Selling himself. Thence Linacre went to Oxford, where he pursued Greek under Cornelius Vitelli, an Italian visitor acting as prælector in New College.[9.52] In 1485-6 Linacre went with his old master to Italy—his Sancta Mater Studiorum—where Selling seems to have introduced him to Poliziano. Linacre perfected his Greek pursuits under Chalcondylas, and

became acquainted with Aldo Manuzio the famous printer, and Hermolaus Barbarus. A little story is told of his meeting with Hermolaus. He was reading a copy of Plato's Phaedo in the Vatican Library when the great humanist came up to him and said "the youth had no claim, as he had himself, to the title Barbarus, if it were lawful to judge from his choice of a book"—an incident which led to a great friendship between the two. Grocyn and Latimer were with Linacre in Rome. The former was the first to carry on effectively the teaching of Greek begun at Oxford possibly by Vitelli; but he was nevertheless a conservative scholar, well read in the medieval schoolmen, as his library clearly proves. This library is of interest because one hundred and five of the one hundred and twenty-one books in it were printed. The manuscript age is well past, and the costliness of books, the chief obstacle to the dissemination of thought, was soon to give no cause for remark.