Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

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.