Benedictinism came to England with Augustine (597). The Rule, however, does not seem to have been strictly or consistently observed for a long time. But the studious labours of the monks remained just as important a part of their lives as they would have been had the monasteries closely followed Benedict’s directions. Especially would this be the case in the seventh century, and afterwards, during the time continental monachism was in rivalry with the Celtic missionaries.
§ II
From the first we hear of books in connexion with Canterbury. Gregory the Great gave to Augustine, either just before his English mission, or sent to him soon afterward, nine volumes, which were put in St. Augustine’s monastery—the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul, beyond the walls. Being for church purposes, the books were very beautiful and valuable. There was the Gregorian Bible in two volumes, with some of its leaves coloured rose and purple, which gave a wonderful reflection when held to the light; the Psalter of Augustine; a copy of the Gospels called the Text of St. Mildred, upon which a countryman in Thanet swore falsely and, it is said, lost his sight; as well as another copy of the Gospels; a Psalter, with plain silver images of Christ and the four Evangelists on the cover; two martyrologies, one adorned with a silver figure of Christ, the other enriched with silver-gilt and precious stones; and an Exposition of the Gospels and Epistles, also enriched with gems.[56] Some of these books were kept above the altar. Bede also records the gift by Gregory to Augustine of “many manuscripts,” and his authority is unimpeachable, as he derived his knowledge of Canterbury affairs from written records and information supplied by Albinus, first English abbot of Augustine’s house.[57] This monastery “was thus the mother-school, the mother-university of England, ... at a time when Cambridge was a desolate fen, and Oxford a tangled forest in a wide waste of waters. They remind us that English power and English religion have, as from the very first, so ever since, gone along with knowledge, with learning, and especially with that learning and that knowledge which those old manuscripts give—the knowledge and learning of the Gospel.”[58] Few books would be treasured more carefully and treated with greater reverence by English churchmen and book lovers than these “first books of the English church,” if any of them could be found. They are referred to as existing when William Thorne wrote his chronicle (c. 1397),[59] and Leland tells us he saw and admired them; but after his time nearly all trace of them is lost.[60]
No further hint of books occurs until Theodore became Archbishop more than seventy years later. Theodore, who had been educated both at Tarsus and Athens, where he became a good Greek and Latin scholar, well versed in secular and divine literature, began a school at Canterbury for the study of Greek, and provided it with some Greek books. None of these books has been traced with certainty. Some may have existed in Archbishop Parker’s time. “The Rev. Father Matthew,” says Lambarde, in his Perambulation of Kent, ... “showed me, not long since, the Psalter of David, and sundry homilies in Greek, Homer also, and some other Greek authors, beautifully written on thick paper with the name of this Theodore prefixed in the front, to whose library he reasonably thought (being led thereto by show of great antiquity) that they sometime belonged.” The manuscript of Homer, now in Corpus Christi Library, Cambridge, did not belong to Theodore, but to Prior Selling, of whom we shall hear later. But possibly the famous Graeco-Latin copy of the Acts, now in the Bodleian Library, belonged either to Theodore or to his companion, Hadrian.[61]
