Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

Cassiodorus and S. Benedict.

—In the literary history of Europe, the part played by Cassiodorus was so important and the service rendered by him was so distinctive, that it seems pertinent for the purposes of this story to present in some detail the record of his life and work. As is indicated by the name by which he is known in history, Cassiodorus was of Greek lineage, his family belonging to the Greek city of Scyllacium in Southern Italy. His full name was Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator. His ancestors had, for several generations, held under the successive rulers of Italy positions of trust and honour, and the family ranked with the patricians. The father of the author and abbot, usually referred to as Cassiodorus the third, was finance minister under Odovacar, and when the Herulian King had been overcome and slain by Theodoric, the minister was skilful enough to make himself necessary to the Gothic conqueror, from whom he received various important posts, and by whom he was finally appointed Prætorian Prefect. The Cassiodorus with whom this study is concerned, known as Cassiodorus the fourth, was born about 479, or three years after the Gothic conquest.[10] He began his official career as early as twenty, and it was while holding, at this age, the position of Consilarius, that he brought himself to the favourable attention of Theodoric by means of an eloquent panegyric spoken in praise of that monarch.

Theodoric appointed him Quæstor, an office which made him the mouth-piece of the sovereign. To the Quæstor belonged the duty of conducting the official correspondence of the Court, of receiving ambassadors, and of replying in fitting harangues to their addresses, so that he was at once foreign secretary and Court orator. He also had the responsibility of giving a final revision to all the laws which received the signature of the King, and of seeing that these were properly worded and did not conflict with previous enactments.[11] Theodoric, who had received what little education he possessed from Greek instructors in Constantinople, was said never to have mastered Latin, and he doubtless found the services of his eloquent and scholarly minister very convenient.

It was the contention of Theodoric that his kingdom represented the natural continuation of the Roman Empire, and that he was himself the legitimate successor of the emperors. He took as his official designation not Rex Italiæ, but Gothorum et Romanorum Rex. This contention was fully upheld by the Quæstor, who felt himself to be the representative at once of the official authority of the new kingdom and of the literary prestige of the old Empire, and who did what was in his power to preserve in Ravenna the classical traditions of old Rome and to make the Court the centre of literary influence and activity. Theodoric and his Goths had accepted the creed of the Arians, but the influence of his minister, who was a Christian of the Athanasian or Trinitarian faith, was sufficient to preserve a spirit of toleration throughout the kingdom. It is to Cassiodorus that is due what was probably the first official utterance of toleration that Europe had known, an utterance that in later European history was to be so largely set at nought: Religionem imperare non possumus, quia nemo cogitur ut credat invitus.[12] [We must not enforce (acceptance of) a creed, since no one can think or can believe against his will.] It is not one of the least of the services of Cassiodorus that he should at this early date, when the bitterness of controversy was active in the Church, have been able to set a standard of wise and Christian toleration. His action had a good effect later in his own monastery and in the monasteries whose work was modelled on that of Viviers. It was only in monastic centres like Viviers and Monte Cassino, where Christian influence and educational work were held to be of more importance than theological issues, that literary activity became possible, and it was only in such monasteries that labour was expended in preserving the writings of “pagan” (that is, of classic) authors.

In 514, Cassiodorus became Consul, a title which, while no longer standing for any authority, was still held to be one of the highest honours, and in 515 he received the title of patrician. In 519, he published, under the title of Chronicon, an abstract of history from the deluge to the year 519. Hodgkin points out that in his record of events of the fifth century, a very large measure of favourable, or rather of partial attention is given to the annals of the Goths. Shortly after the publication of the Chronicon, Cassiodorus began work on his History of the Goths, which was finally completed in twelve books, and the chief purpose of which was to vindicate the claims of the Goths to rank among the historic nations of antiquity, by bringing them into connection with Greece and Rome, and by making the origin of Gothic history Roman. This history of Cassiodorus is known only by tradition, not a single copy of it having been preserved. The system of scribe-work in the monasteries, to which we owe nearly all of the old-world literature that has come down to us, did not prove adequate to preserve the greatest work of its founder. A treatise on the origin of the Goths by a later writer named Jordæus, concerning whom little is known, is avowedly based upon the history of Cassiodorus, and is the principal source of information concerning the character of this history.

At the time of the death of Theodoric, Cassiodorus was holding the important place of Master of the Offices, a post which combined many of the duties that would to-day be discharged by a Home Secretary, a Secretary of War, and a Postmaster-General. Under the regency of Queen Amalasuentha, Cassiodorus received his final official honour in his appointment as Prætorian Prefect. In the collection of letters published under the title of Variæ, Cassiodorus gives accounts of the work done by him in these various official stations, and these letters present vivid and interesting pictures of the methods of the administration of the kingdom, and also throw light upon many of its relations with foreign powers.

Cassiodorus continued to do service as minister for the successors of Amalasuentha, Athalaric, Theodadad, and Witigis, and retired from official responsibility only a few months before the capture of Ravenna by Belisarius, in 540, brought the Ostrogothic monarchy to an end. At the time of the entry of the Greek army, Cassiodorus, now a veteran of sixty years, was in retirement in his monastery in Bruttii (the modern Calabria). It was doubtless because of the absence of Cassiodorus from the capital, that no mention is made of him in the narrative of the campaign written by Procopius the historian, who, as secretary to Belisarius, entered Rome with the latter after the victories over Witigis.

Cassiodorus must have possessed very exceptional adaptability of character, not to say elasticity of conscience, to be able, during a period extending over nearly half a century, to retain the favour of so many of the successive rulers of Italy and apparently to make his services necessary to each one of them. It is certain, however, that Italy benefited largely by the fact that through the various contests and changes of monarchs, it had been possible to preserve a certain continuity of executive policy and of administrative methods. The further fact that the “perpetual” or at least the continuing minister was at once a Greek and a Roman, and not only a statesman but a scholar, and that he had succeeded in preserving through all the devastations of civil wars and of foreign invasions a great collection of classic books and a persistent (even though restricted) interest in classic literature, exercised an enormous influence upon the culture of Europe for centuries to come. The career of Cassiodorus had, as we have seen, been varied and honourable. It was, however, his exceptional fortune to be able to render the most important and the most distinctive service of his life after his life’s work had apparently been completed.

Shortly after his withdrawal to Bruttii, and when, as said, he was already more than sixty years old, he retired to his monastery, Vivaria, and during the thirty-six years of activity that remained for him, he not only completed a number of important literary productions of his own, but he organised the literary work of the monastery scriptorium, which served as a model for that of Monte Cassino, and, through Monte Cassino, for the long series of Benedictine monasteries that came into existence throughout Europe. It was the hand of Cassiodorus which gave the literary impetus to the Benedictine Order, and it was from his magnificent collection of manuscripts, rescued from the ruins of the libraries of Italy, that was supplied material for the pens of thousands of monastic scribes.

After his retirement to Bruttii, Cassiodorus founded a second monastery, known as Mons Castellius, the work of which was planned for a more austere class of hermits than those who had associated themselves together at Vivaria. Of both monasteries he retained the practical control, and, according to Trithemius (whose opinion is accepted by Montalembert) of Vivaria he became abbot.[13] Hodgkin, while himself citing the extract from Trithemius, thinks it possible that Cassiodorus never formally became abbot, but says that the direction and supervision of the work of the two monasteries rested in any case in his hands.[14]

His treatise on the Nature of the Soul (De Anima) was probably completed just before he began his monastic life, and was itself an evidence of the change in the direction of his thoughts and of his ideals. Cassiodorus had now done with politics. As Hodgkin points out, the dream of his life had been to build up an independent Italian State, strong with the strength of the Goths, and wise with the wisdom of the Romans. It is evident that he also felt himself charged with a special responsibility in preserving for later generations the literature and the learning of the classic world. With the destruction of the Gothic kingdom, that dream had been scattered to the winds. The only institutions which retained a continuity of organisation were those belonging to the Church, and it was through the Church that must be preserved for later generations the thought and the scholarship of antiquity. It was with a full understanding of this change in the nature of his responsibilities, that Cassiodorus decided to consecrate his old age to religious labours and to a work even more important than any of his political achievements: the preservation, by the pens of monastic copyists, of the Christian Scriptures, of the writings of the early Fathers, and of the great works of classical antiquity.

Some years before his retirement from Ravenna, Cassiodorus had endeavoured to induce Pope Agapetus (535-536) to found a school of theology and Christian literature at Rome, modelled on the plan of the schools of Alexandria and Nisibis. The confusion consequent on the invasion of Italy by Belisarius had prevented the fulfilment of this scheme. The aged statesman was now, however, planning to accomplish, by means of his two monasteries, a similar educational work.

Hodgkin summarises the aims of earlier monasticism, (aims which were most fully carried out in the monasteries of the East and of Africa,) as follows: In the earlier days of monasticism, men like the hermits of the Thebaïd had thought of little else but mortifying the flesh by vigils and fastings, and withdrew from all human voices in order to enjoy an ecstatic communion with their Maker. The life in common of monks like those of Nitria and Lerinum had chastened some of the extravagances of these lonely enthusiasts, while still keeping in view their main purpose. S. Jerome, in his cell at Bethlehem, had shown what great results might be obtained for the Church of all ages from the patient literary toil of one religious recluse. And finally, S. Benedict, in that Rule of his, which was for centuries to be the code of monastic Christendom, had sanctified work as one of the most effectual preservatives of the bodily and spiritual health of the ascetic.

“It was the glory of Cassiodorus,” says Hodgkin,[15] “that he first and pre-eminently insisted on the expediency of including intellectual labour in the sphere of monastic duties.... This thought [may we not say this divinely suggested thought?] in the mind of Cassiodorus was one of infinite importance to the human race. Here, on the one hand, were the vast armies of monks, whom both the unsettled state of the times and the religious ideas of the age were driving irresistibly into the cloister; and who, when immured there with only theology to occupy their minds, became, as the great cities of the East knew only too well, preachers of discord and mad fanaticism. Here, on the other hand, were the accumulated stores of two thousand years of literature, sacred and profane, the writings of Hebrew prophets, Greek philosophers, Latin rhetoricians, perishing for want of men with leisure to transcribe them. The luxurious Roman noble with his slave amanuenses multiplying copies of his favourite authors for his own and his friends’ libraries, was an almost extinct existence. With every movement of barbarian troops over Italy, whether those barbarians called themselves the men of Witigis or of Justinian, some towns were being sacked, some precious manuscripts were perishing from the world. Cassiodorus perceived that the boundless, the often wearisome leisure of the convent might be profitably spent in arresting this work of denudation, in preserving for future ages the intellectual treasure which must otherwise inevitably have perished. That this was one of the great services rendered by the monasteries to the human race, the most superficial student has learned, but not all who have learned it know that the monks’ first decided impulse in this direction was derived from Cassiodorus.”

The German biographer of Cassiodorus, Franz, uses similar language:

Das Verdienst, zuerst die Pflege der Wissenschaften in den Bereich der Aufgaben des Klosterlichen Lebens aufgenommen zu haben, kann man mit vollem Rechte für Cassiodorus in Anspruch nehmen.[16]

In the account given by Cassiodorus of the scriptorium of his monastery, he describes, with an enthusiasm which ought to have been contagious, the noble work done there by the antiquarius[17]: “He may fill his mind with the Scriptures while copying the sayings of the Lord; with his fingers he gives life to men and arms against the wiles of the devil. As the antiquarius copies the words of Christ, so many wounds does he inflict upon Satan. What he writes in his cell will be scattered far and wide over distant provinces. Man multiplies the words of Heaven, and, if I may dare so to speak, the three fingers of his right hand are made to express the utterances of the Holy Trinity. The fast travelling reed writes down the holy words and thus avenges the malice of the Wicked One, who caused a reed to be used to smite the head of the Saviour.” The passage here quoted refers only to the work of the copyists of the Christian Scriptures. There are other references, however, in the same work to indicate that the activity of the scriptorium was not confined to these, but was also employed on secular literature.[18]

The devotion and application of the monks produced in the course of years a class of scribes whose work in the transcribing and illuminating of manuscripts far surpassed in perfection and beauty the productions of the copyists of classic Rome. In the monasteries north of the Alps the work of the scribes was, for the earlier centuries, devoted principally to the production of copies of missals and other books of devotion and of portions of the Scriptures. In Italy, however, where classical culture never entirely disappeared, attention continued to be given to the transcription of the Latin texts of which any manuscripts had been preserved, and it was these transcripts of the monks of Cassiodorus and S. Benedict that gave the “copy” for the first editions of Cicero, Virgil, and the other classic writers, produced by the earliest printers of Germany and Italy.

Cassiodorus took pains to emphasise the importance of binding the sacred codices in covers worthy of the beauty of their contents, following the example of the householder in the parable, who provided wedding garments for all who came to the supper of his son. One pattern volume had been prepared containing samples of various sorts of covers, from which the scribe might choose that which pleased him best. The abbot had also provided, to help the nightly toil of the scriptorium, mechanical lamps of some ingenious construction which appears to have made them self-trimming and to have insured a continuously sufficient supply of oil. The labour of the scribes was regulated on bright days by sun-dials, and on cloudy days and during the hours of the night by water-clocks.

In order to set an example of literary diligence to his monks, and to be able to sympathise with the difficulties of scribe work, Cassiodorus himself transcribed (probably from the translation of Jerome) the Psalter, the Prophets, and the Epistles. In addition to his labours as a transcriber, Cassiodorus did a large amount of work as an original author and as a compiler. According to the judgment of Migne, Franz, and Hodgkin, the importance of his original writings varied very considerably, and is by no means to be estimated in proportion to their bulk. One of the most considerable of these was his great commentary on the Psalms, in the text of which he was able to discover refutations of all the heresies that had thus far racked the Church, together with the rudiments of all the sciences which had become known to the world. This was followed by a commentary on the Epistles and by a history of the Church, the latter having been undertaken in co-operation with his friend Epiphanius. This history, known as the Historia Tripartita, is said to have had a larger circulation than any other of the author’s works. A fourth work, which gives more of the personality of the writer, was an educational treatise entitled, Institutiones Divinarum et Humanarum Lectionum. In the first part of this treatise, which bore the title of De Institutione Divinarum Litterarum, the author gives an account of the organisation of his scriptorium. In the second division of the treatise, entitled De Artibus ac Disciplinis Liberalium Litterarum, the author states his view of the relative importance of the four liberal arts, Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, and Mathematics, the last named of which he divides into the four “disciplines” of Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. Geometry and Astronomy occupy together one page, Arithmetic and Music each two pages, Grammar two pages, Rhetoric six pages, while to Logic are devoted eighteen pages. The final production of his industrious life was a treatise called De Orthographia, which was completed when its author was ninety-three years old, and which was planned expressly to further the work of the monastic scribes in collecting and correcting the codices of ancient books.

The death of Cassiodorus occurred in 575, in the ninety-sixth year of his age. An inheritor of the traditions of imperial Rome, Cassiodorus had been able, in a career extending over nearly a century, to be of signal service to his country under a series of foreign rulers. He had succeeded, through his personal influence with these rulers, in maintaining for Italy an organisation based on Roman precedents, and in preserving for the society of the capital an interest in the preservation and cultivation of classic literature. When the political institutions of Italy had been shattered and the very existence of civilisation was imperilled, he had transferred his services to the Church, recognising, with the adaptability which was the special characteristic of the man, that with the Church now rested the hopes of any continuity of organised society, of intellectual interest, of civilisation itself. He brought to the Church the advantage of exceptional executive ability and of long official experience, and he also brought a large measure of scholarship and an earnest zeal for literary and educational interests. It is not too much to say that the continuity of the thought and civilisation of the ancient world with that of the Middle Ages was due, more than to any other one man, to the life and labours of Cassiodorus.

S. Benedict.

—The Life of S. Benedict, written by Pope Gregory I. (who was born in 543, the year of the death of the saint), was for centuries one of the most popular books circulated in Europe. The full title is: Vita et Miracula Venerabilis Benedicti conditoris, vel Abbatis Monasterii; quod appellatur arcis Provinciæ Campaniæ. “The Life and Miracles of the Venerable Benedict, Founder and Abbot of the Monastery which is called (of) the Citadel of the Province of Campania.” This biography was, later, translated by Pope Zacharias from the original Latin into Greek.

The great achievement of Benedict was the one literary product of his life, the Regula. It comprises seventy-three short chapters, probably not designed by the author for use beyond the bounds of the communities under his own immediate supervision. It proved to be the thing for which the world of religious and thoughtful men was then longing, a complete code of monastic duty. By a strange parallelism, almost in the very year in which the great Emperor Justinian was codifying the results of seven centuries of Roman secular legislation for the benefit of the judges and the statesmen of the new Europe, Benedict, on his lonely mountain top, was composing his code for the regulation of the daily life of the great civilisers of Europe for seven centuries to come.

The Rule of S. Benedict, Chap. 48. Concerning Daily Manual Labour.—“Idleness is the enemy of the soul: hence brethren ought at certain seasons to occupy themselves with manual labour, and again at certain hours with holy reading. Between Easter and the calends of October let them apply themselves to reading from the fourth hour until the sixth hour.... From the calends of October to the beginning of Lent, let them apply themselves to reading until the second hour. During Lent, let them apply themselves to reading from morning until the end of the third hour, and in these days of Lent, let them receive a book apiece from the library and read it straight through. These books are to be given out at the beginning of Lent.”[19]

This simple regulation, uttered by one the power and extent of whose far-reaching influence have rarely been equalled among men, gave an impulse to study that grew with the growth of the Order, and that secured a continuity of intellectual light and life through the dark ages, the results of which have endured to modern times. “Wherever a Benedictine house arose, or a monastery of any one of the Orders, which were but offshoots from the Benedictine tree, books were multiplied and a library came into existence, small indeed at first, but increasing year by year, till the wealthier houses had gathered together collections of books that would do credit to a modern university.”[20]

It was, of course, the case that the injunction to read, an injunction given at a time when books were very few and monks were becoming many, carried with it an instruction for writing until copies of the books prescribed should have been produced in sufficient numbers to meet the requirements of the readers. The armaria could be filled only through steady and persistent work in the scriptoria, and, as we shall see later, such scribe-work was accepted not only as a part of the “manual labour” prescribed in the Rule, but not infrequently (in the case of the skilled scribes) in lieu of some portion of the routine of religious observance. Benedict would not have his monks limit themselves to spiritual labour, to the action of the soul upon itself. He made external labour, manual or literary, a strict obligation of his Rule. The routine of the monastic day was to include seven hours for manual labour, two hours for reading.[21] In later years, the Benedictine monasteries became centres of instruction, supplying the place, as far as was practicable, of the educational system of the departed empire. As Order after Order was founded, there came to be a steady development of interest in books and an ever increasing care for their safe-keeping. S. Benedict had contented himself with general directions for study; the Cluniacs prescribed the selection of a special officer to take charge of the books, with an annual audit of them and the assignment to each brother of a single volume.

“The followers of the Saint continued in their patient labour, praying, digging, and transcribing. The scriptoria of the Benedictine monastery will multiply copies not only of missals and theological treatises, but of the poems and histories of antiquity. Whatever may have been the religious value or the religious dangers of the monastic life, the historian at least is bound to express his gratitude to these men, without whose life-long toil the great deeds and thoughts of Greece and Rome might have been as completely lost to us as the wars of the buried Lake-dwellers or the thoughts of the Palæolithic man. To take an illustration from S. Benedict’s own beloved Subiaco, the work of his disciples has been like one of the great aqueducts of the valley of the Arno—sometimes carried underground for centuries through the obscurity of unremembered existence, sometimes emerging to the daylight and borne high upon the arcade of noble lives, but equally through all its course, bearing the precious stream of ancient thought from the far off hills of time into the humming and crowded cities of modern civilisation.”[22]