Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

The Work of the Scriptorium.

The words employed at the consecration of the scriptorium are evidence of the spirit in which the devout scholars approached their work: Benedicere digneris, Domine, hoc scriptorium famulorum tuorum, ut quidquid scriptum fuerit, sensu capiant, opere perficiant. (Vouchsafe, O Lord, to bless this work-room of Thy servants, that they may understand and may put in practice all they write.)[82]

Louis IX. took the ground that it was better to transcribe books than to purchase the originals, because in this way the mass of books available for the community was increased. Louis was, however, speaking only of religious literature; he could not believe that the world would be benefited by any distribution of the works of profane writers. Ziegelbauer is in accord with Montalembert and others in giving to the Benedictines of Iceland the credit for the collections made of the Eddas and for the preservation of the principal traditions of the Scandinavian mythology. He also confirms the conclusion arrived at by the Catholic historians generally, that the literary monuments of Greece and Rome which escaped the devastation of the barbarians were saved by the monks and by them alone. He cites, as a few examples from the long list of classics that were thus preserved, five books of the Annals of Tacitus, found at Corbie; the treatise of Lactantius on the Death of Persecutors, preserved at Moissac; the Auluraria of Plautus, and the Commentaries of Servius on Virgil, preserved in Fleury; the Republic of Cicero, found in the library of Fleury in the tenth century, etc.[83]

In confirmation of the statement that the classics were by no means neglected by the earlier monastery collectors, Montalembert cites Alcuin, who enumerated among the books in his library at York the works of Aristotle, Cicero, Pliny, Virgil, Statius, Lucan, and Trogus Pompeïus. A further reference to this library will be found in the chapter on the Monastery Schools. In Alcuin’s correspondence with Charlemagne, he quotes Ovid, Horace, Terence, and Cicero, and acknowledges that in his youth he had been more moved by the tears of Dido than by the Psalms of David.[84] Loup de Ferrières speaks of having borrowed from his friends the treatise De Oratore of Cicero, a Commentary on Terence, the works of Quintilian, Sallust, and Suetonius. He says further that he was occupying himself in correcting the text of the oration of Cicero against Verres, and that of Macrobius.[85] Abbot Didier of Monte Cassino, who later became Pope, succeeding Gregory VII., had transcripts made by his monks of the works of Horace and Seneca, of several treatises of Cicero, and of the Fasti of Ovid.[86] S. Anselm, Abbot of Bec in the time of Gregory VII., recommends to his pupils the careful study of Virgil and of other profane writers, “omitting the licentious passages.” Exceptis his in quibus aliqua turpitudo sonat.[87] It is not clear what method the abbot proposed to have pursued in regard to the selection of the passages to be eliminated. It is hardly probable that at this time there had been prepared, either for the use of the monks or of any other readers, anything in the form of expurgated editions. S. Peter Damian seems to have expressed the true mind of an important group at least of the churchmen of his time, when he referred to the study of pagan writers. He says: “To study poets and philosophers for the purpose of rendering the wit more keen and better fitted to penetrate the mysteries of the Divine Word, is to spoil the Egyptians of their treasures in order to build a tabernacle for God.[88]”

Montalembert is of opinion, from his study of monastic history in France, that, at least during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, classic writers were probably more generally known and more generally appreciated than at the present day. He points out that the very fact of the existence of various ordinances and instructions intended to repress any intemperate devotion to the pagan writers is sufficient evidence of the extent of the interest in or passion for pagan literature. He cites among other rulers of the Church who issued protests or cautions against pagan literature, S. Basil, S. Jerome, S. Gregory, S. Radbert, S. Peter Damian, Lanfranc, etc., etc.[89] In the Customs of Clugni, there is a curious passage prescribing the different signs that were to be used in asking for books during the hours of silence, which indicates at once the frequency of these pagan studies, and also the grade of esteem in which they ought to be held by the faithful monk. The general rule, when asking for any book, was to extend the hand, making motions similar to those of turning over the leaves. In order, however, to indicate a pagan work, a monk was directed to scratch his ear as a dog does, because, says the regulation, unbelievers may well be compared to that animal.[90]

As before indicated, the work of transcribing manuscripts was held under the monastic rules to be a full equivalent of manual labour in the fields. The Rule of S. Ferreol, written in the sixth century, says that, “He who does not turn up the earth with the plough ought to write the parchment with his fingers.”[91] It is quite possible that for men of the Middle Ages, who had little fondness for a sedentary life, work in the scriptorium may have been a more exacting task than work that could be carried on out-of-doors. There were no fires in the cells of the monks, and in many portions of Europe the cold during certain months of the year must, in the long hours of the day and night, have been severe. Montalembert quotes a monk of St. Gall who, on a corner of one of the beautiful manuscripts prepared in that abbey, has left the words: “He who does not know how to write imagines it to be no labour, but although these fingers only hold the pen, the whole body grows weary.” It became, therefore, natural enough to use this kind of labour as a penitential exercise.[92] Othlo, a monk of Tegernsee, who was born in 1013, has left an enumeration of the work of his pen which makes it difficult to understand how years enough had been found for such labour. The list includes nineteen missals, written and illuminated with his own hand, the production of which, he tells us, nearly cost him his eyesight.[93]

Dietrich or Theodoric, the first Abbot of St. Evroul (1050-1057), who was himself a skilled scribe (Ipse manu propria scribendo volumina plura), and who desired to incite his monks to earnest work as writers, related to them the story of a worldly and sinful Brother, who, notwithstanding his frivolities, was a zealous scribe, and who had, in industrious moments, written out an enormous folio volume containing religious instruction. When he died, the devil claimed his soul. The angels, however, brought before the throne of judgment the great book, and for each letter therein written, pardon was given for one sin, and behold, when the count was completed, there was one letter over; and, says Dietrich naïvely, it was a very big book. Thereupon, judgment was given that the soul of the monk should be permitted again to enter his body, in order that he might go through a period of penance on earth.[94]

In the monastery of Wedinghausen, near Arnsberg in Westphalia, there was a skilled and zealous scribe named Richard, an Englishman, who spent many years in adding to the library of the institution. Twenty years after his death, when the rest of his body had crumbled into dust, the right hand, with which this holy work had been accomplished, was found intact, and has since been preserved under the altar as a holy relic.[95]

There has been more or less discussion as to whether in the scriptoria, it was the practice for monks to write at dictation. Knittel[96] takes the ground that the larger portion of the work was done so slowly, and probably with such a different degree of rapidity on the part of the different scribes, that it would have been as impracticable for it to have been prepared under dictation as it would be to do copper engraving under dictation. Ebert,[97] confirming Knittel’s conclusions, points out that when works were needed in haste, it was probably arranged to divide up the sheets to be copied among a number of scribes. He finds evidence of this arrangement of the work in a number of manuscripts, the different portions of which, put together under one cover, are evidently the work of different hands. Wattenbach specifies manuscripts in which not only are the different pages in different script, but the divisions have been written with varying arrangements of space; in some cases the space, which had been left for an interpolated chapter having evidently been wrongly measured, so that the script of such interpolated chapter had to be crowded together instead of having the same spacing as that of the body of the work. Sickel presents examples of the letters of Alcuin which are evidently the work of a number of scribes. Each began his work with a new letter, and where, at the end of the divisions, leaves remained free, other letters were later written in. In the later Middle Ages, however, there is evidence of writing at dictation, and this practice began to obtain more generally as the results of the work of the scribes came to have commercial value. When the work of preparing manuscripts was transferred from the monasteries to the universities, dictation became the rule, and individual copying the exception. West finds evidence that as early as the time of Alcuin, the monks trained by him or in his schools, wrote from dictation. “In the intervals between the hours of prayer and the observance of the round of cloister life, come hours for the copying of books under the presiding direction of Alcuin. The young monks file into the scriptorium and one of them is given the precious parchment volume containing a work of Bede or Isidore or Augustine, or else some portion of the Latin Scriptures, or even a heathen author. He reads slowly and clearly at a measured rate while all the others, seated at their desks, take down his words; thus perhaps a score of copies are made at once. Alcuin’s observant eye watches each in turn and his correcting hand points out the mistakes in orthography and punctuation. The master of Charles the Great, in that true humility that is the charm of his whole behaviour, makes himself the writing-master of his monks, stooping to the drudgery of faithfully and gently correcting many puerile mistakes, and all for the love of studies and for the love of Christ. Under such guidance and deeply impressed by the fact that in the copying of a few books they were saving learning and knowledge from perishing, and thereby offering a service most acceptable to God, the copying in the scriptorium went on in sobriety from day to day. Thus were produced those improved copies of books which mark the beginning of a new age in the conserving and transmission of learning. Alcuin’s anxiety in this regard was not undue, for the few monasteries where books could be accurately transcribed were as necessary for publication in that time as are the great publishing houses to-day.”[98]

Among the monasteries which, as early as the time of Charlemagne, developed special literary activity, was that of S. Wandrille, where the Abbot Gerwold (786-806) instituted one of the earlier schools of the empire. A priest named Harduin took charge of this school. He was said to be in hac arte non mediocriter doctus. It was further stated that, plurima ecclesiæ nostræ proprio sudore conscripta reliquit volumina, id est volumen quatuor evangeliorum Romana litera scriptum.[99] (He had left for one church many books written by the sweat of his brow, that is to say, a volume of the four Evangelists written in the “Roman letter.”) This expression, litera Romana, occurs frequently in the monastery chronicles and appears to indicate the uncial script. The scriptorium of St. Gall, in which was done some of the most elaborate or important of the earlier literary work of the monks, is frequently referred to in the chronicles of the monasteries. Another important scriptorium was that in the monastery of Tournai, which, under the rule of the Abbot Odo, won for itself great fame, so that its manuscripts were sought by the Fathers of the Church far and wide, for the purpose of correcting by them copies with less scholarly authority.[100]

The work of the scribes was not always voluntary; there is evidence that it was not unfrequently imposed as a penance. In a codex from Lorch[101] occur after the words, Jacob scripsit, written in by another hand, the lines: Quandam partem hujus libri non spontanea voluntate, sed coactus, compedibus constrictus sicut oportet vagum atque fugitivum vincire.[102] (Jacob wrote ... a certain portion of this book not of his own free will but under compulsion, bound by fetters, just as a runaway and fugitive has to be bound.)

The aid of the students in the monastery schools was not unfrequently called in. Fromund of Tegernsee wrote under a codex: Cœpi hunc libellum, sed pueri nostri quos docui, meo juvamine perscripserunt.[103] (I began this book, but the students whom I taught, finished transcribing it with my help.)

The monk who was placed in charge of the armarium was called the armarius, and upon him fell the responsibility of providing the writing materials, of dividing the work, and probably also of preserving silence while the work was going on, and of reprimanding the writers of careless or inaccurate script. In some monasteries the armarius must also have been the librarian, and, in fact, as much of the work done in the writing-room was for the filling up of the gaps in the library, it would be natural enough for the librarian to have the planning of it. It was also the librarian, who, being in correspondence with the custodians of the libraries of other monasteries, was best able to judge what work would prove of service in securing new books in exchange for duplicates of those in his own monastery. Upon the librarius or armarius, or both, fell the responsibility of securing the loans of the codices of which copies were to be made. On such loans it was usually necessary to give security in the shape of pledges either of other manuscripts or of property apart from manuscripts.

The scribes were absolved from certain of the routine of the monastery work. They were called into the fields or gardens only at the time of harvest, or in case of special need. They had also the privilege of visiting the kitchen, in order to polish their writing tablets, to melt their wax, and to dry their parchment.[104]

The custom of reading at meals, while a part of the usual monastic routine, was by no means confined to the monasteries. References to the use of books at the tables of the more scholarly noblemen are found as early as the time of Charlemagne. Eginhart records that Charlemagne himself while at supper was accustomed to listen to histories and the deeds of ancient kings. He delighted also in the books of S. Augustine and especially in the Civitate Dei.[105]

In England, after the Norman conquest, there was for a time a cessation of literary work in the Saxon monasteries. The Norman ecclesiastics, however, in taking possession of certain of the older monasteries and instituting also new monasteries of their own, carried on the production of manuscripts with no less zeal. One of the most important centres of literary activity in England was the monastery of St. Albans, where the Abbot Paul secured, about the year 1100, funds for instituting a scriptorium, and induced some wealthy friends to present some valuable codices for the first work of the scribes. As the monks at that time in St. Albans were not themselves skilled in writing, Paul brought scribes from a distance, and, through the liberality of his friends, secured funds by which they were paid daily wages, and were able to work undisturbed. It would appear from this description that some at least among these scribes were not themselves monks.

In the thirteenth century, Matthew Paris compiled his chronicles, the writing in which appears to have been, for the greater part at least, done by his own hand, but at this time, in a large proportion of the literary work carried on in the English monasteries, the transcribing was done by paid scribes. This, however, was much less the case in the Continental monasteries. In Corbie, towards the latter half of the century, there is a record of zealous writing on the part of a certain Brother Nevelo. Nevelo tells us that he had a penance to work off for a grave sin, and that he was allowed to do this by work in the scriptorium.[106] During this century, the monasteries of the Carthusians were particularly active in their literary work, but this work was limited almost entirely to theological and religious undertakings. An exception is presented in the chronicles of the Frisian monk Emo. While Emo was still a school-boy, he gave the hours which his companions employed in play, to mastering penmanship and the art of illuminating. Later, he was, with his brother Addo, a student in the schools in Paris, Orleans, and Oxford, and while in these schools, in addition to their work as students, they gave long hours of labour, extending sometimes through the entire night, to the transcribing of chronicles and to the preparation of copies of the so-called heathen literature.

Emo was the first abbot of the monastery in Wittewierum (1204-1237), and it is recorded that the abbot, while his brothers were sleeping, devoted his nights to the writing and illuminating of the choir books. In this monastery, Emo succeeded in bringing together in the armarium librorum an important collection of manuscripts, and he took pains himself to give instructions to the monks in their work as scribes.

The quaint monastic record entitled the Customs of Clugni was written by Ulrich, a monk of Clugni, some time between the years 1077 and 1093 at the request or under the instructions of William, Abbot of Hirschau. This was the Abbot William extolled by Trithemius as having restored the Order of S. Benedict, which had almost fallen into ruin in Germany. Trithemius speaks of his having founded eight monasteries and restored more than one hundred, and says that next to the reformation wrought by the foundation and influence of Clugni, the work done by Abbot William was the most important recorded in the annals of his Order.

William trained twelve of his monks to be excellent writers, and to these was committed the office of transcribing the Holy Scriptures and the treatises of the Fathers. Besides these, there were in the scriptorium of Hirschau a large number of lesser scribes, who wrought with equal diligence in the transcription of other books. In charge of the scriptorium was placed a monk “well versed in all kinds of knowledge,” whose business it was to assign the task for each scribe and to correct the mistakes of those who wrote negligently. William was Abbot of Hirschau for twenty-two years, and during this time his monks wrote a great many volumes, a large proportion of which were distributed to supply the wants of other and more needy monasteries.

There was often difficulty, particularly in the less wealthy monasteries, in securing the parchment required for their work. It is evident from such account-books as have been preserved, that throughout the whole of Europe, but particularly in the north of the Continent and in England, parchment continued to be a very costly commodity until quite late in the thirteenth century. It was not unnatural that, as a result of this difficulty, the monastic scribes should, when pressed for material, have occasionally utilised some old manuscript by cleaning off the surface, for the purpose of making a transcript of the Scriptures, of some saintly legend, or of any other religious work the writing of which came within the range of their daily duty.

There has been much mourning on the part of the scholars over the supposed value of precious classics which may thus have been destroyed, or of which but scanty fragments have been preserved in the lower stratum of the palimpsest. Robertson is particularly severe upon the ignorant clumsiness of the monks in thus destroying, for the sake of futile legends, so much of the great literature of the world. Among other authors, Robertson quotes in this connection Montfaucon as saying that the greater part of the manuscripts on parchment which he had seen (those of an ancient date excepted), are written on parchment from which some former treatise had been erased. Maitland, who is of opinion that the destruction of ancient literature brought about by the monks has been much overestimated, points out that Robertson has not quoted Montfaucon correctly, the statement of the latter being expressly limited to manuscripts written since the “twelfth century.” It is Maitland’s belief that a large proportion of the palimpsests or doubly written manuscripts which bear date during the twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth centuries, represent, as far as they are monastic at all, not monastery writings placed upon classic texts, but monastery work replacing earlier works of the monastery scriptoria. Partial confirmation of this view is the fact that so large an interest was taken by monks in all parts of Europe in the preservation and transcribing of such classical works as came into their hands. In fact, as previously pointed out, the preservation of any fragments whatsoever of classical literature is due to the intelligent care of the monks. To the world outside of the monastery, the old-time manuscripts were, with hardly an exception, little more than dirty parchments.

It seems probable that a great part of such scraping of old manuscripts as was done was not due to the requirements of the legends or missals, but was perpetrated in order to carry on the worldly business of secular men. An indication of the considerable use of parchment for business purposes, and of instances of what we should to-day call its abuse, is the fact that, as late as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, notaries were forbidden to practise until they had taken an oath to use none but new parchment.[107]

The belief that the transcribing of good books was in itself a protection against the wiles of the evil one, naturally added to the feeling of regard in which the writer held his work, a feeling under the influence of which it became not unusual to add at the close of the manuscript an anathema against any person who should destroy or deface it. A manuscript of St. Gall contains the following:

Auferat hunc librum nullus hinc omne per ævum

Cum Gallo partem quisquis habere cupit.[108]

[Let no one through all ages who wishes to have any part with Gallus (the Saint or the Abbey) remove (or purloin) this book.]

In a Sacramentary of the ninth century given to St. Bénoît-sur-Loire, the donor, having sent the volume as a present from across seas, devotes to destruction like to that which came upon Judas, Ananias, and Caiaphas any person who should remove the book from the monastery.[109] In a manuscript of S. Augustine, now in the Bodleian Library is written: “This book belongs to S. Mary of Robert’s Bridge; whosoever shall steal it or sell it, or in any way alienate it from this house, or mutilate it, let him be anathema maranatha. Amen.” A later owner had found himself sufficiently troubled by this imprecation to write beneath: “I, John, Bishop of Exeter, know not where the aforesaid house is, nor did I steal this book, but acquired it in a lawful way.”[110]

In an exhortation to his monks, delivered in 1486, by John of Trittenheim (or Trithemius), Abbot of Sponheim, the abbot, after rebuking the monks for their sloth and negligence, goes on to say: “I have diminished your labours out of the monastery, lest by working badly you should only add to your sins; and have enjoined on you the manual labour of writing and binding books.... There is, in my opinion, no labour more becoming a monk than the writing of ecclesiastical books, and preparing what is needful for others who write them, for this holy labour will generally admit of being interrupted by prayer and of watching for the food of the soul no less than of the body. Need also urges us to labour diligently in writing books if we desire to have at hand the means of usefully employing ourselves in spiritual studies. For you will recall that all the library of this monastery, which formerly was so fine and complete, had been dissipated, sold, and made away with by the disorderly monks before us, so that when I came here, I found but fourteen volumes. It is true that the industry of the printing art, lately, in our own day, discovered at Mentz, produces many volumes every day; but depressed as we are by poverty, it is impossible for us to buy them all.”[111]

It was certainly the case that, after the invention of printing, there was a time during which manuscripts came to be undervalued, neglected, and even destroyed by wholesale, but Maitland is of opinion that this time had been prepared for by a long period of gradually increasing laxity of discipline and morals in many monastic institutions. This view is borne out by the history of the Reformation, the popular feeling in regard to which was undoubtedly very much furthered by the demoralisation of the monasteries, a demoralisation which naturally carried with it a breaking down of literary interests and pursuits. There had, for some time, been less multiplication, less care, and less use of books, and many a fine collection had mouldered away. According to Martene and Mabillon, the destruction due to the heedlessness of the monks themselves was largely a matter of the later times, that is, of the fifteenth century and the last half of the fourteenth century.

Maitland is of the opinion that in the later portions of the Middle Ages the work of the monastic scribes was more frequently carried on not in a general writing-room, but in separate apartments or cells, which were not usually large enough to contain more than one person. Owing to the fact that writing was the chief and almost only in-doors business of a monk not engaged in religious service, and because of the great quantity of work that was done and the number of cells devoted to it, these small rooms came to be generally referred to as scriptoria, even when not actually used or particularly intended for the purpose of writing. Thus we are told that Arnold, Abbot of Villers in Brabant, from 1240 to 1250, when he resigned his office, occupied a scriptorium (he called it a scriptoriolum or little writing cell), where he lived as a private person in his own apartment.[112] These separate cells were usually colder and in other ways less comfortable than the common scriptorium. Lewis, a monk of Wessobrunn in Bavaria, in an inscription addressed to the reader, in a copy he had prepared of Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel, says: Dum scripsit friguit, et quod cum lumine solis scribere non potuit, perfecit lumine noctis.[113] (He was stiff with cold, while he wrote, and what he could not write by the light of the sun, he completed by the light of night.) There is evidence, however, in some of the better equipped monasteries, of the warming of the cells by hot air from the stove in the calefactory. Martene mentions that when S. Bernard, owing to the illness produced by his early austerities, was compelled by the Bishop of Chalons to retire to a cell, he could not be persuaded to relax the severity of his asceticism so far as to permit the introduction of any fireplace or other means of warming it. His friends, however, contrived, with pious fraud, to heat his cell without his knowledge, by introducing hot air through the stone floor under the bed.[114]

The scriptorium of earlier times was, however, as previously described, an apartment specially set aside as a general workroom and capable of containing many workers, and in which many persons did, in fact, work together, usually under the direction of a librarius or chief scribe, in a very business-like manner, in the transcription of books. Maitland quotes from a document, which is, he states, one of the very few existing specimens of French Visigothic manuscripts in the uncial character, and which dates from the eighth century, the following form of consecration or benediction, entitled (in monastic Latin) Orationem in scriptorio: “Vouchsafe, O Lord, to bless this scriptorium of Thy servants and all that work therein: that whatsoever sacred writings shall be here read or written by them, they may receive with understanding and may bring the same to good effect.”[115] (see also page [61]).

In the more carefully constructed monasteries, the scriptorium was placed to adjoin the calefactory, which simplified the problem of the introduction of hot air.

A further evidence, if such were needed, that the larger literary undertakings were carried on in a scriptorium common room and not in separate cells, is given by the regulation of the general Chapter of the Cistercian Order in 1134, which directs that the same silence should be maintained in the scriptorium as in the cloister: In omnibus scriptoriis ubicunque ex consuetudine monachi scribunt, silentium teneatur sicut in claustro.[116]

Odo, who in 1093 became Abbot of S. Martin at Tournai, writes that he confided the management of the outside work of the monastery to Ralph, the prior. This left the abbot free to devote himself to reading and to supervising the work in his scriptorium. Odo exulted in the number of writers whom the Lord had given to him. “If you had gone into the cloister during the working hours, you would have seen a dozen scribes writing, in perfect silence, at tables constructed for the purpose.” Odo caused to be transcribed all of Jerome’s Commentaries on the Prophets, all the works of S. Gregory, and all the works that he could find of S. Augustine, S. Ambrose, Bishop Isidore, the Venerable Bede, and Anselm, then Abbot of Bec and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. Odo’s successor, Heriman, who gives this account, says with pride that such a library as Odo brought together in S. Martin could hardly be paralleled in any monastery in the country, and that other monasteries were begging for texts from S. Martin’s with which to collate and correct their own copies.[117]

Maitland mentions that certain of the manuscripts written in Odo’s scriptorium, including the fourth volume of the Gregorialis of Alulfus, were (in 1845) in the library of Dr. Todd, of Trinity College, Dublin.[118]

In estimating the extent of book production of the manuscript period, we may very easily place too large a comparative weight on the productive power of the Press. Maitland points out that although the power of multiplication of literary productions was, of course, during the Dark Ages infinitely below that which now exists, and while the entire book production of the two periods may not be compared, yet as regards those books which were considered as the standard works in sacred literature and in the approved secular literature, the difference was not so extreme as may easily be supposed. He enquires, to emphasise his point, what proportion the copies of Augustine’s City of God and of Gregory’s Morals, printed between the years 1700 and 1800, bear to those written between the years 1100 and 1200.[119]

I think, with Maitland, that, according to the evidence on record, for books such as those given above as typical examples, the written production during the century selected would probably have exceeded the number of copies of the same books turned out by the printing-presses during the eighteenth century. We must recall to ourselves that for a term of six or seven centuries, writing was a business, and was also a religious duty; an occupation taken up by choice and pursued with a degree of zeal, persistence, and enthusiasm for which in the present day there is no parallel.

Mabillon speaks of a volume by Othlonus, a monk of S. Emmeram’s at Ratisbon, who was born about the year 1013. In this book, which is entitled De ipsius tentationibus, varia fortuna, et scriptis, the monk gives an account of his literary labours and of the circumstances which led to his writing the various works bearing his name.

“For the same reason, I think proper to add an account of the great knowledge and capacity for writing which was given me by the Lord in my childhood. When as yet a little child, I was sent to school and quickly learned my letters, and I began, long before the usual time of learning and without any order from the master, to learn the art of writing. Undertaking this in a furtive and unusual manner, and without any teacher, I got a habit of holding my pen wrongly, nor were any of my teachers afterwards able to correct me on that point; for I had become too much accustomed to it to be able to change. Those who saw my earlier work unanimously decided that I should never write well. After a short time the facility came to me, and while I was in the monastery of Tegernsee (in Bavaria) I wrote many books.... Being sent to Franconia while I was yet a boy, I worked so hard at writing that before I returned I had nearly lost my sight.... After I became a monk in the monastery of S. Emmeram, I was appointed the schoolmaster. The duties of this office so fully occupied my time, that I was able to do the transcribing in which I was interested only by night and on holidays.... I was, however, able, in addition to writing the books which I had myself composed, and the copies of which I gave away for the edification of those who asked for them, to prepare nineteen missals (ten for the abbots and monks in our own monastery, four for the brethren at Fulda, and five for those in other places), three books of the Gospels, and two with the Epistles and Gospels, which are called Lectionaries; besides which, I wrote four service-books for matins. I wrote in addition a good many books for the brethren at Fulda, for the monks at Hirschfeld and at Amerbach, for the Abbot of Lorsch, for certain friends at Passau, and for other friends in Bohemia, for the monastery of Tegernsee, for the monastery of Pryel, for the monastery of Obermünster and for that of Niedermünster, and for my sister’s son. Moreover, to many others I gave or sent, at different times, sermons, proverbs, and edifying writings.... Afterwards, old age’s infirmity of various kinds hindered me.”[120]

If there were many hundred scribes of the diligence of Othlonus, the mass of literature produced in the scriptorium may very easily have rivalled the later output of the printing-presses. The labours of Othlonus were, if the records are to be trusted, eclipsed by those of the nun Diemude or Diemudis of the monastery of Wessobrunn. An anonymous monk of this monastery, writing in the year 1513, says:

“Diemudis was formerly a most devout nun of this our monastery of Wessobrunn. [Pez states that Diemudis lived in the time of Gregory VII., who became Pope in 1073. She was, therefore, though probably somewhat younger, a contemporary of the monk Othlonus of Ratisbon.] For our monastery was formerly double or divided into two parts; that is to say, of monks and nuns. The place of the monks was where it now is; but that of the nuns, where the parish church now stands. This virgin was most skilful in the art of writing: for though she is not known to have composed any work, yet she wrote with her own hand many volumes in a most beautiful and legible character, both for divine service and for the public library of the monastery. Of these books she has left a list in a certain plenarius.[121] The titles are as follows:

A Missal, with the Gradual and Sequences. Another Missal, with the Gradual and Sequences, given to the Bishop of Trèves. Another Missal, with the Epistles, Gospels, Graduals, and Sequences. Another Missal, with the Epistles and Gospels for the year, the Gradual and Sequences, and the entire service for baptism. A Missal, with Epistles and Gospels. A Book of Offices. Another Book of Offices, with the baptismal service (given to the Bishop of Augsburg). A Book, with the Gospels and Lessons. A Book, with the Gospels. A Book, with the Epistles. A Bible, in two volumes, given for the estate in Pisinberch. A Bible, in three volumes. S. Gregory ad regaredum. S. Gregory on Ezekiel. Sermons and Homilies of certain ancient Doctors, three volumes. Origen on the Old Testament. Origen on the Canticles. Augustine on the Psalms, three volumes. Augustine on the Gospels and on the First Epistle of S. John, two volumes. Augustine, Epistles, to the number of lxxv. Augustine, Treatises. S. Jerome’s Epistles, to the number of clxiv. The Tripartite History of Cassiodorus. The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. S. Augustine, Fifty Sermons. The Life of S. Silvester. Jerome against Vigilantius. Jerome, De Consolatione Mortuorum. The Life of S. Blasius. The Life of John the Almoner, Patriarch of Alexandria early in the seventh century. Paschasius on the Body and Blood of Christ. The Conflict of Lanfranc with Berengarius. The Martyrdom of S. Dionysius. The Life of S. Adrian. S. Jerome, De Hebraicis Quæstionibus. S. Augustine, Confessions. Canons. Glossa per A. B. C. Composita (i. e., a Gloss alphabetically arranged).

These are the volumes written with her own hand by the aforesaid handmaid of God, Diemudis, to the praise of God and of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, the patrons of the monastery.”[122]

The same writer says that Diemudis (whom he calls exaratrix diligentissima) carried on a correspondence by very sweet letters (epistolæ suaves valde) with Herluca, who was for thirty-six years a nun at Eppach, and that the letters were in his time (1513), that is four and a half centuries later, extant in the monastery of Bernried.