The Literary Monks of England.
In accepting the influence of literary ideals, the Anglo-Saxon monks were much slower and less imaginative than the quicker and more idealistic Celts. The quickening of the intellectual development of the monasteries in England was finally brought about through the influence of Celtic missionaries coming directly from Ireland or from the Irish monasteries of the Scottish region, such as Iona and its associates.
Before the literary work of the English monasteries began, there was already in existence a considerable body of literature, which was the expression of the pre-christian conceptions and ideals of the Anglo-Saxons and their Scandinavian kinsmen. Certain of the most famous of the literary creations of the Anglo-Saxons were probably produced subsequent to the time of the acceptance by the people of Christianity, but these productions continued to represent the imagination and the methods of thought of the pagan ancestry, and to utilise as their themes the old-time legends. These Saxon compositions were almost exclusively in the form of poems, epics, and ballads devoted to accounts of the achievements of heroes (more or less legendary) in their wars with each other, and in their adventures with the gods and with the powers of magic and evil. In these early epics, devoted chiefly to strife, women bear but a small part, and the element of love enters hardly at all.
While it is doubtless the case that the Saxon epics, like the Greek poems of the Homeric period and the compositions of the Celtic bards, were preserved for a number of generations in the memories of the reciters, there are references indicating that the writing of the texts on the parchment began at a comparatively early date after the occupation of England. This would imply the existence of some trained scribes before work was begun in the scriptoria of the Saxon monasteries. Such lay scribes must, however, have been very few indeed, and the task of handing down for posterity the old legendary ballads must have depended chiefly upon the scops, which was the name given to the poets or bards attached to the court of a prince or chieftain. It is, however, not until the acceptance of Christianity by the Saxons that there comes to be any abiding interest in letters. As Jusserand puts it: “These same Anglo-Saxons, whose literature at the time of their invasion consisted of the songs mentioned by Tacitus, carmina antiqua, which they trusted to memory alone, who compiled no books, and who for written monuments had Runic inscriptions graven on utensils or on commemorative stones, now have in their turn monks who compose chronicles and kings who know Latin. Libraries are formed in the monasteries; schools are attached to them; manuscripts are thus copied and illuminated in beautiful caligraphy and in splendid colours. The volutes and knots with which the worshippers of Woden ornamented their fibulæ, their arms, the prows of their ships, are reproduced in purple and azure, the initials of the Gospels. The use made of them is different, the taste remains the same.”
It is undoubtedly the case that the preservation of such fragments of Anglo-Saxon literature as have come down to us, and probably of most of the Scandinavian compositions which were transmitted through the Saxons, was due to the monastery scribes whose copies were in part transcribed from the earlier parchments and in part were taken down from the recitals made in the monasteries by the bards or minstrels. The service was in fact similar to that previously rendered by the Irish monks to Celtic literature, and by the scribes of Gaul and Italy to the writings of classic times.
The identity or kinship of much of the heroic poetry of the Anglo-Saxons with that of the Scandinavians is pointed out by Grein in his Anglo-Saxon Library, and by Vigfusson and York-Powell in their Corpus Poeticum Boreale. The greatest of the old English epics, Beowulf, sometimes called “the Iliad of the Saxons,” was put into written form some time in the eighth century and, like all similar epics, was doubtless the result of the weaving together of a series of ballads of varied dates and origins. The text of the poem has been preserved almost complete in a manuscript, now placed in the Cottonian collection in the British Museum, which dates from the latter part of the tenth century.
It will be understood that, as a matter of convenience in a brief reference of this kind, I am using the term Saxon and Anglo-Saxon in no strict ethnological sense, but simply to designate the Teutonic element of the people of England, an element whose influence is usually considered to have begun with the landing of Hengist and Horsa in 451.
The first of the Anglo-Saxon monks to be ranked as a poet appears to have been the cowherd Cædmon, a vassal of the Abbess Hilda and a monk of Whitby. Caædmon’s songs were sung about 670. He is reported to have put into verse the whole of Genesis and Exodus, and, later, the life of Christ and the Acts of the Apostles, but his work was not limited to the paraphrasing of the Scriptures. A thousand years before the time of Paradise Lost, the Northumbrian monk sang before the Abbess Hilda the Revolt of Satan. Fragments of this poem, discovered by Archbishop Usher, and printed for the first time in 1655, have been preserved, and have since that date been frequently published.[133] Cædmon died in 680, and Milton in 1674. The Abbess Hilda, who was herself a princess of royal family, appears to have had a large interest in furthering the study of literature, not only in the nunnery founded by her, but in a neighbouring monastery which came largely under her influence. In both nunnery and monastery, schools for the children of the district were instituted, which schools were probably the earliest of their class in that portion of Britain.
The Northumbrian poet Cynewulf, whose work was done between the years 760 and 800, may be referred to as a connecting link between the group of national or popular bards and the literary workers of the Church. His earlier years were passed as a wandering minstrel, but later in life he passed through some religious experience and entered a monastery, devoting himself thereafter to religious poetry. His conversion was doubtless the means of preserving (through the scriptorium of his monastery) such of his compositions as have remained, and thus of making a place for his name among the authors of England.
Among the earlier Saxon monks whose educational work was important are to be included S. Wilfred (634-709) and S. Cuthbert (637-687). Wilfred introduced into England the Rule of the Benedictines, and exercised a most important influence in instituting Benedictine monasteries and in bringing these monasteries into relations with the Church of Rome. His life was a stormy one, but notwithstanding the various contentions with the several monarchs who at that time divided between them the territory of England, and in spite of several periods of banishment, he found time to carry on a great work in furthering the intellectual life of his Benedictine monks. It was largely due to him that the Benedictine monasteries accepted almost from the first the responsibility of conducting the schools of the land. These schools achieved so great repute that Anglo-Saxons of high rank were eager to confide their children to Wilfred to be brought up in one of his monastic establishments. At the close of their school training they were to choose between the service of God and that of the King. Wilfred is also to be credited with the establishing within the English monasteries of a course of musical instruction, the teachers of which had largely been trained in the great school of Gregorian music at Canterbury.
Another of the Saxon abbots whose name remains associated with the intellectual life of the monasteries was Benedict Biscop. Montalembert speaks of Biscop as representing science and art in the Church, as Wilfred had stood for the organising of the English Church as a public body, and Cuthbert for the renewal and development of its life. The monasteries of Wearmouth and of Yarrow, founded by Biscop, were endowed with great libraries and became the centres of an active literary life. Biscop made no less than six journeys to Rome in the interest of his monastery work, and, in the seventh century, a journey to Rome from Britain was not an easy experience. His fourth expedition, begun in the year 671, was undertaken partly in the interests of literature and for the purpose of securing books for the education of his monks. He obtained in the Papal capital a rich cargo of books, some of which he had purchased while others were given to him. In Vienne, the ancient capital of Gaul, he secured a further collection. The monastery of Wearmouth, founded in 673, had the benefit of a large portion of the books brought from Italy by the abbot. It was his desire that each monastery for which he was responsible should possess a library, which seemed to him indispensable for the instruction, discipline, and the good organisation of the community. Biscop’s fifth journey was made partly for the purpose of securing pictures, coloured images, and artistic decorations for the chapel of the monastery, but the sixth pilgrimage, made in 685, was again devoted almost entirely to the collection of books.
For the details of the work of Biscop in the organisation of his monasteries and in the supervision of the work in their scriptoria, and concerning his various architectural and artistic undertakings, we are largely indebted to the historian Beda, or Bede. Bede was a pupil of Biscop in the monastery of Yarrow, and it was in this monastery that were written the famous Chronicles. It was the time of comparative peace in the island which preceded the first Danish invasion. The fame of the scholar who produced these chronicles was destined to eclipse that of nearly all the Saxon saints and kings, who were in fact known to posterity principally through the pen of the Venerable Bede. It is to Biscop, however, that should be credited the literary surroundings under which Bede was educated, and it is probable that without the stimulating influence of the books secured by the abbot in his wearisome journeys to Southern Europe, the monk would hardly have had the capacity or the incentive to complete his work.
Coelfried, who later became Abbot of Yarrow, and who, after the death of Biscop, was in charge also of the monastery of Wearmouth, continued the interest of his predecessor in the libraries and in the work done by the scribes in the scriptoria. Among the books brought from Rome by Biscop was a curious work on cosmography, which King Alfred was very anxious to possess. Abbot Coelfried finally consented to let the King have the book in exchange for land sufficient to support eight families. Coelfried had had made in the scriptorium of Wearmouth two complete copies of the Bible according to the version of S. Jerome, the text of which had been brought from Rome. These copies were placed, one in the church of Wearmouth and one in that of Yarrow, and were open for the use not only of the monks, but of any others who might desire to consult them and who might be able to read the script. Montalembert refers to this instance as a refutation of “the stupid calumny” which represents the Church as having in former times interdicted to her children the knowledge of the sacred Scriptures.[134]
When Aldhelm, who became Bishop of Sherborn in the year 705, went to Canterbury to be consecrated by his old friend and companion Berthwold (pariter literis studuerant, pariterque viam religionis triverant—together they had studied literature and together they had followed the path of religion), the Archbishop kept him there many days, taking counsel with him about the affairs of his diocese. Hearing of the arrival during this time of ships at Dover, he went there to inspect their unloading and to see if they had brought anything in his way (si quid forte commodum ecclesiastico usui attulissent nautæ qui e Gallico sinu in Angliam provecti librorum copiam apportassent—to see whether the ships which had arrived from the French coast had brought, with the books which formed a part of their cargoes, any volumes of value for the work of the Church). Among many other books he saw one containing the whole of the Old and New Testaments, which book he bought, and which, according to William of Malmesbury, who in the twelfth century wrote the life of Aldhelm, was at that time still preserved at Sherborn.[135]
The great Bible given by King Offa, in 780, to the church at Worcester is described in the chronicle of Malmesbury as Magnam Bibliam.[136] As before indicated, however, the common name of this time for a collection of the Scriptures was not Biblia but Bibliotheca. In a return of their property which the monks of St. Riquier at Centule made in the year 831, by order of Louis the Débonnaire, we find, among a considerable quantity of books: Bibliotheca integra ubi continentur libri lxxii., in uno volumine (a complete Bible, in which seventy-two books are comprised in one volume), and also Bibliotheca dispersa in voluminibus xiv.[137] (a Bible divided into fourteen volumes).
Fleury says of Olbert, Abbot of Gembloux: Étant abbé, il amassa à Gembloux plus de cent volumes d’auteurs ecclésiastiques, et cinquante d’auteurs profanes, ce qui passoit pour une grande Bibliothèque.[138] Warton, using Fleury for his authority, speaks of the “incredible labour and immense expense” which Olbert had given to the formation of this library. There is, however, no authority in the quotation from Fleury for such a description of the exceptional nature of the labour and of the outlay. On the contrary, Fleury goes on to say that Olbert, who had been sent to reform and restore the monastery, which was in a state of great poverty and disorder, had put the monks to work at writing, in order to keep them from being idle. He himself set an example of industry as a scribe by writing out, with his own hand, the whole of the Old and the New Testament, a work which was completed in the year 1040.[139] Maitland calculates that a scribe must be both expert and industrious to perform in less than ten months the task of transcribing all the books of the Old and the New Testament. He estimates, further, that at the rate at which the law stationers of London paid their writers in his time (1845), such a transcript would cost, for the writing only, between sixty and seventy pounds.[140]
The sterling service rendered by King Alfred to the literary interests of England was important in more ways than one, and while his work does not strictly belong to the record of the English monasteries, it may properly enough be associated with the literary history of the English Church; for the King had been adopted as a spiritual son by Pope Leo IV., and in organising and supervising the work of the Church, he took upon himself a large measure of the responsibilities which later were discharged by the Primate. Alfred ruled over the West Saxons from 871 to 901. His reign was a stormy one, and during a number of years it seemed doubtful whether the existence of the little Saxon Kingdom could be maintained against the assaults of the Danes. There came finally, however, a period of peace when Alfred, with Winchester as his capital, was able to give attention to the organisation of education in his kingdom.
During the long years of invasion and of civil war, the literary interests and culture that had come to the Saxons through the Romans had been in great part swept away. The collections of books had been burned and could not be replaced because the clerics had forgotten their Latin. Alfred complained that at the time of his accession in Winchester he could not find south of the Thames a single Englishman able to translate a letter from Latin into English. “When I considered all this, I remembered also how I saw, before it had all been ravaged and burned, how the churches throughout the whole of England stood filled with treasures and books, and there was also a great multitude of God’s servants, but they had very little knowledge of the books; they could not understand any of them because they were not written in their own language.” Alfred can find but one explanation for the omission of the “good and wise men who were formerly all over England” to leave translations of these books. “They did not think that men could ever be so careless and that learning could so soon decay.” The King recalls, however, that there are still left many who “can read English writing.” “I began therefore among the many and manifold troubles of this Kingdom, to translate into English the book which is called in Latin Pastoralis and in English Shepherd’s Book (Hirdeboc), sometimes word for word and sometimes according to the sense, as I had learned it from Plegmund, my Archbishop, and Asser, my Bishop, and Grimbold my Mass-priest, and John my Mass-priest.”[141] It will be noted in these references of King Alfred, that the collections of books, the loss of which he laments, had been contained in the churches. It was also to the ecclesiastics that he was turning for help in the work of rendering into English the instruction for his people to be found in the few Latin volumes that had been preserved.
Jusserand says that Asser was to Alfred what Alcuin had been to Charlemagne, and that he helped the King, by means of the production of translations and by founding schools, to preserve and to spread learning. King Alfred was, however, not content with using his royal authority and influence for the instituting of schools, but himself gave to work as a translator personal time and labour which must have been spared with difficulty from his duties as a ruler and as a military commander. He chooses for his translations books likely to fill up the greatest gaps in the minds of his countrymen, “some books that are most needful for all men to know”: the Book of Orosius, which is to serve as a hand-book of universal history; the Chronicles of Bede, that will instruct them concerning the history of their own ancestors; the Pastoral Rule of S. Gregory, which will make clear to churchmen their ecclesiastical duties; and the Consolation of Philosophy of Boëthius, recommended as a guide for the lives of both ecclesiastics and laymen. These royal translations are at once placed in the scriptoria of the monasteries and in the writing-rooms of the monastery schools for manifolding, and secure through these channels an immediate and important educational influence.
It is also under the instructions of Alfred that the old national chronicles, written in the Anglo-Saxon tongue, are copied, corrected, and continued. Of these chronicles, seven, more or less complete and differing from each other to some extent, have been preserved. The history of the world presents possibly no other instance of a monarch who devoted himself so steadfastly, with his own personal labour, to the educational and spiritual development of his people.
In the latter portion of the tenth century, S. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury under King Edgar, takes up the task of instructing the clergy and people. Under his influence, new monasteries are endowed, a further series of monastery schools is instituted, and special attention is given in the scriptoria and in the writing-rooms of the schools to the production of copies of translations of pious works. The special literary feature of the work done in Dunstan’s school was the attention given to the production of collections of sermons in the vulgar tongue. A number of these collections has been preserved, an example of which, known as the Blickling Homilies (from Blickling Hall, Norfolk, where the MS. was found) was compiled before 971. The series also included homilies by Ælfric, who was Abbot of Eynsham in 1005, and sermons of Wulfstan, who was Bishop of York in 1002.
The canons of Ælfric were written between the years 950 and 1000. The authorities do not appear to be clear whether these canons were the work of the Archbishop or of a grammarian of the same name, while, according to one theory, the Archbishop and the grammarian were the same person. The canons were addressed to Wulfin, Bishop of Sherborn, and they were written in such a form that the Bishop might communicate them to his clergy as a kind of episcopal charge. The twenty-first canon orders: “Every priest also, before he is ordained, must have the arms belonging to his spiritual work; that is, the holy books, namely, the Psalter, the Book of Epistles, the Book of Gospels, the Missal, the Book of Hymns, the Manual, the Calendar (Computus), the Passional, the Penitential, the Lectionary. These books a priest requires and cannot do without, if he would properly fulfil his office and desires to teach the law to the people belonging to him. And let him carefully see that they are well written.”[142]
The library of the English monastery or priory was under the care of the chantor, who could neither sell, pawn, nor lend books without an equivalent pledge; he might, however, with respect to neighbouring churches or to persons of consideration, relax somewhat the strictness of this rule. In the case of a new foundation, the King sometimes sent letters-patent to the different abbeys requesting them to give copies of theological and religious books in their own collections. In certain instances, the King himself provided such transcripts for the new foundation. In the catalogue of the abbatial libraries of England, prepared by Leland, record is found of only the following classics: Cicero and Aristotle (these two appear in nearly all the catalogues), Terence, Euclid, Quintus Curtius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Julius Frontinus, Apuleius, and Seneca.[143] It is difficult from such a list to arrive at the basis or standard of selection.
Thomas Duffus Hardy gives some interesting information concerning the later literary and historical work done in the monasteries of Britain,[144] and for a portion of the following notes concerning this work I am chiefly indebted to him. The Abbey of St. Albans was founded towards the close of the eighth century, but it was not until the latter part of the eleventh century, or nearly three hundred years later, that the scriptorium was instituted. The organisation of the scriptorium was due to Paul, the fourteenth abbot, who presided over the monastery from 1077 to 1093, and who had the assistance in this work of the Bishop Lanfranc. Paul was by birth a Norman, and was esteemed a man of learning as well as of piety. After the scriptorium had been opened, the abbot placed in it eight Psalters, a Book of Collects, a Book of Epistles, a book containing the Gospels for the year, two Gospels bound in gold and silver and ornamented with gems, and twenty-eight other notable volumes. In addition to these, there was a number of ordinals, costumals, missals, troparies, collectories, and other books for the use of the monks in their devotions. This summary of the first contents of the library is taken by Hardy from the Gesta Abbatum, a chronicle of St. Albans.
The literary interests of Paul were, it appears, continued by a large proportion at least of his successors, and many of these made important contributions to the library. Geoffrey, the sixteenth abbot, gave to the scriptorium a missal bound in gold, and another missal in two volumes, both incomparably illuminated in gold and written in an open and legible script. He also gave a precious illuminated psalter, a book containing the benediction and sacraments, a book of exorcism, and a collectory. (The description is taken from the Gesta.)
Ralph, the seventeenth abbot, was said to have become a lover of books after having heard Wodo of Italy expound the Scriptures. He collected with diligence a large number of valuable manuscripts. Robert de Gorham, who was called the reformer of the liberty of the Church of St. Albans, after becoming prior, gave many books to the scriptorium, more than could be mentioned by the author of the Gesta. Simon, who became abbot in 1166, caused to be created the office of historiographer. Simon had been educated in the abbey, and did not a little to add to its fame as a centre of literature. He repaired and enlarged the scriptorium, and he kept two or three scribes constantly employed in it. The previous literary abbots had for the most part brought from without the books added to the collection, but it was under Simon that the abbey became a place of literary production as well as of literary reproduction. He had an ordinance enacted to the effect that every abbot must support out of his personal funds one adequate scribe. Simon presented to the abbey a considerable group of books that he had himself been collecting before his appointment as abbot, together with a very beautiful copy of the Old and New Testaments.
The next literary abbot was John de Cell, who had been educated in the schools of Paris, and who was profoundly learned in grammar, poetry, and physics. On being elected abbot, he gave over the management of the temporal affairs of the abbey to his prior, Reymond, and devoted himself to religious duties and to study. Reymond himself was a zealous collector, and it was through him that was secured for the library, among many other books, a copy of the Historica Scholastica cum Allegoriis, of Peter Comester. The exertions of these scholarly abbots and priors won for St. Albans a special distinction among the monasteries of Britain, and naturally led to the compilation of the historic annals which gave to the abbey a continued literary fame. Hardy is of opinion that these historic annals date from the administration of Simon, between the years 1166 and 1183.
Richard of Wendover, who succeeded Walter as historiographer, compiled, between the years 1230 and 1236, the Flores Historiarum, one of the most important of the earlier chronicles of England. Hardy points out that it could have been possible to complete so great a work within the term of six years, only on the assumption that Richard found available much material collected by Walter, and it is also probable that other compilations were utilised by Richard for the work bearing his name. It is to be borne in mind that the monastic chronicles were but seldom the production of a single hand, as was the case with the chronicles of Malmesbury and of Beda. The greater number of such chronicles grew up from period to period, fresh material being added in succeeding generations, while in every monastic house in which there were transcribers, fresh local information was interpolated until the tributary streams had grown more important than the original current. In this manner, the monastic annals were at one time a transcript, at another time an abridgment, and at another an original work. “With the chronicler, plagiarism was no crime and no degradation. He epitomised or curtailed or adapted the words of his predecessors in the same path with or without alteration (and usually without acknowledgment), whichever best suited his purpose or that of his monastery. He did not work for himself but at the command of others, and thus it was that a monastery chronicle grew, like a monastery house, at different times, and by the labour of different hands.”
Of the heads that planned such chronicles or of the hands that executed them, or of the exact proportion contributed by the several writers, no satisfactory record has been preserved. The individual is lost in the community.
In the earlier divisions of Wendover’s chronicle, covering the centuries from 231 down to about 1000, Wendover certainly relied, says Hardy, upon some previous compilation. About the year 1014, that narrative, down to the death of Stephen, showed a marked change in style, giving evidence that after this period some other authority had been adopted, while there was also a larger introduction of legendary matter. From the accession of Henry II., in 1235, when the Flores Historiarum ends, Wendover may be said to assume the character of an original author. On the death of Richard, the work of historiographer was taken up by Matthew Paris. His Lives of the Two Offas and his famous Chronicles were produced between the years 1236 and 1259.
In certain of the more literary of the English monasteries, the divine offices were moderated in order to allow time for study, and, under the regulations of some foundations, “lettered” persons were entitled to special exemption from the performance of certain daily services, and from church duty.[145]
At a visitation of the treasury of St. Pauls, made in the year 1295, by Ralph de Baudoke, the Dean (afterwards Bishop of London), there were found twelve copies of the Gospels adorned, some with silver, and others with pearls and gems, and a thirteenth, the case (capsa) containing which was decorated not merely with gilding but with relics.[146] The treasury also contained a number of other divisions of the Scriptures, together with a Commentary of Thomas Aquinas. Maitland says that the use of relics as a decoration was an unusual feature. He goes on to point out that the practice of using for manuscripts a decorated case, caused the case, not infrequently, to be more valuable than the manuscript itself, so that it would be mentioned among the treasures of the church, when the book contained in it was not sufficiently important to be even specified.
The binding of the books which were in general use in the English monasteries for reference was usually in parchment or in plain leather. The use of jewels, gold, or silver for the covers, or for the capsæ, was, with rare exceptions, limited to the special copies retained in the church treasury. William of Malmesbury in the account which he gives of the chapel made at Glastonbury by King Ina, mentions that twenty pounds and sixty marks of gold were used in the preparation of the Coöpertoria Librorum Evangelii.[147]