(Holy Columba of Scotland, thy votary Dungal has bestowed upon thee this book, whereby the hearts of the brothers may be gladdened. Do thou who readest it pray that God may be the reward of thy labour.)
In the monastery of St. Père-de-Chartres the Abbot Alveus, who died in 955, presented to S. Peter a book Pro Vita Æterna.[231]
Dietrich Schreiber, a citizen of Halle, who, notwithstanding his name, is said not to have been a scribe, gave, in 1239, for the good of his soul, to the preaching Brothers of Leipzig, a canonistic manuscript, with the condition that either of his sons should have the privilege of redeeming the same for the sum of five marks, in case he might require it in connection with his study of the law.[232] Robert of Lille, who died in 1339, left in his will to his daughters a certain illuminated calendar, with the condition attached that after their death the calendar was to be given to the nuns of Chikessaund.[233]
It is also the case that bequests securing an annual income were occasionally given with the specific purpose of founding or endowing monastery scriptoria and libraries. The Abbot of St. Père-de-Chartres ordered, in 1145, that the tenants or others recognising the authority of the monastery must take up each year for the support of the library the sum of eighty-six solidos.[234]
His successor, Fulbert, instituted a new room for the collection and kept the monks themselves at work, so that in 1367 a catalogue, inscribed in four rolls, gives the titles of 201 volumes.[235]
Also in Evesham, in Worcestershire, England, a statute enacted in 1215 provides that certain tenths coming into the priory should be reserved for the purpose of buying parchment and for the increase of the library. During the following year the amount available for this purpose was five solidos, eighteen deniers.[236]
The account books of the monks of Ely showed that in the year 1300 they purchased five dozen sheets of parchment, four pounds of ink, eight calf-skins, four sheep-skins, five dozen sheets of vellum, and six pairs of book clasps. In the same year they paid six shillings for a Decretal and two shillings for a Speculum Gregor. In 1329, the Precentor received six shillings and seven pence with which he was instructed to go to Balsham to purchase books. In the same year, four shillings were paid for twelve iron chains (used, of course, for fastening the books safely to the reading-desks). Between 1350 and 1356, the purchases appear to have included no less than seventy dozen sheets of parchment and thirty dozen sheets of vellum.[237]
Prince Borwin, of Rostock, in 1240 presented the monastery of Dargun with a hide of land, the proceeds of which were to be used for the repairing and preservation of the books in the library.[238] Adam, treasurer of the Chapter of Rennes, in 1231, presented his library to the abbey of Penfont, with the condition that the books were never to be diverted from the abbey, and that copies were to be lent only against adequate pledges.
In 1345, a library was founded in the House of the German Brothers of Beuggen, near Rheinfelden, through the exertions of Wulfram of Nellenberg. He directed that all books left by deceased Brothers throughout Elsass were to be brought to this library, and the living Brothers were also earnestly urged to present their own books to the same collection.[239]
The great library of the monastery of Admunt was catalogued in 1380 by Brother Peter of Arbonne. The Chapter of S. Pancras, in Leyden, received in 1380, through a bequest of Philip of Leyden, a collection of eighty manuscripts, the catalogue of which has been preserved.[240]