[242] Consult Johannis Rossi Historia Regum Angliæ; edit. Hearne, 1745, 8vo., p. 96. This passage has been faithfully translated by Dr. Henry. But let the lover of knotty points in ancient matters look into Master Henry Bynneman's prettily printed impression (A.D. 1568) of De Antiquitate Cantabrigiensis Academiæ, p. 14—where the antiquity of the University of Cambridge is gravely assigned to the æra of Gurguntius's reign, A.M. 3588!—Nor must we rest satisfied with the ingenious temerity of this author's claims in favour of his beloved Cambridge, until we have patiently examined Thomas Hearne's edition (A.D. 1720) of Thomæ Caii Vindic. Antiquitat. Acad. Oxon.: a work well deserving of a snug place in the antiquary's cabinet.
[243] Edit. 1803, vol. i., p. 14.
Let us pass by that extraordinary scholar, courtier, statesman, and monk—St. Dunstan; by observing only that, as he was even more to Edgar than Wolsey was to Henry VIII.—so, if there had then been the same love of literature and progress in civilization which marked the opening of the sixteenth century, Dunstan would have equalled, if not eclipsed, Wolsey in the magnificence and utility of his institutions. How many volumes of legends he gave to the library of Glastonbury, of which he was once the abbot, or to Canterbury, of which he was afterwards the Archbishop, I cannot take upon me to guess: as I have neither of Hearne's three publications[244] relating to Glastonbury in my humble library.
[244] There is an ample Catalogue Raisonné of these three scarce publications in the first volume of the British Bibliographer. And to supply the deficiency of any extract from them, in this place, take, kind-hearted reader, the following—which I have gleaned from Eadmer's account of St. Dunstan, as incorporated in Wharton's Anglia-Sacra—and which would not have been inserted could I have discovered any thing in the same relating to book-presents to Canterbury cathedral.—"Once on a time, the king went a hunting early on Sunday morning; and requested the Archbishop to postpone the celebration of the mass till he returned. About three hours afterwards, Dunstan went into the cathedral, put on his robes, and waited at the altar in expectation of the king—where, reclining with his arms in a devotional posture, he was absorbed in tears and prayers. A gentle sleep suddenly possessed him; he was snatched up into heaven; and in a vision associated with a company of angels, whose harmonious voices, chaunting Kyrie eleyson, Kyrie eleyson, Kyrie eleyson, burst upon his ravished ears! He afterwards came to himself, and demanded whether or not the king had arrived? Upon being answered in the negative, he betook himself again to his prayers, and, after a short interval, was once more absorbed in celestial extasies, and heard a loud voice from heaven saying—Ite, missa est. He had no sooner returned thanks to God for the same, when the king's clerical attendants cried out that his majesty had arrived, and entreated Dunstan to dispatch the mass. But he, turning from the altar, declared that the mass had been already celebrated; and that no other mass should be performed during that day. Having put off his robes, he enquired of his attendants into the truth of the transaction; who told him what had happened. Then, assuming a magisterial power, he prohibited the king, in future, from hunting on a Sunday; and taught his disciples the Kyrie eleyson, which he had heard in heaven: hence this ejaculation, in many places, now obtains as a part of the mass service." Tom. ii., p. 217. What shall we say to "the amiable and elegant Eadmer" for this valuable piece of biographical information?—"The face of things was so changed by the endeavours of Dunstan, and his master, Ethelwald, that in a short time learning was generally restored, and began to flourish. From this period, the monasteries were the schools and seminaries of almost the whole clergy, both secular and regular." Collier's Eccles. History, vol. ii., p. 19, col. 2. That Glastonbury had many and excellent books, vide Hearne's Antiquities of Glastonbury; pp. lxxiv-vii. At Cambridge there is a catalogue of the MSS. which were in Glastonbury library, A.D. 1248.
We may open the eleventh century with Canute; upon whose political talents this is not the place to expatiate: but of whose bibliomaniacal character the illuminated MS. of The Four Gospels in the Danish tongue—now in the British Museum, and once this monarch's own book—leaves not the shadow of a doubt! From Canute we may proceed to notice that extraordinary literary triumvirate—Ingulph, Lanfranc, and Anselm. No rational man can hesitate about numbering them among the very first rate book-collectors of that age. As to Ingulph, let us only follow him, in his boyhood, in his removal from school to college: let us fancy we see him, with his Quatuor Sermones on a Sunday—and his Cunabula Artis Grammaticæ[245] on a week day—under his arm: making his obeisance to Edgitha, the queen of Edward the Confessor, and introduced by her to William Duke of Normandy! Again, when he was placed, by this latter at the head of the rich abbey of Croyland, let us fancy we see him both adding to, and arranging, its curious library[246]—before he ventured upon writing the history of the said abbey. From Ingulph we go to Lanfranc; who, in his earlier years, gratified his book appetites in the quiet and congenial seclusion of his little favourite abbey in Normandy: where he afterwards opened a school, the celebrity of which was acknowledged throughout Europe. From being a pedagogue, let us trace him in his virtuous career to the primacy of England; and when we read of his studious and unimpeachable behaviour, as head of the see of Canterbury,[247] let us acknowledge that a love of books and of mental cultivation is among the few comforts in this world of which neither craft nor misfortune can deprive us. To Lanfranc succeeded, in book-fame and in professional elevation, his disciple Anselm; who was "lettered and chaste of his childhood," says Trevisa:[248] but who was better suited to the cloister than to the primacy. For, although, like Wulston, Bishop of Worcester, he might have "sung a long mass, and held him apayred with only the offering of Christian men, and was holden a clean mayde, and did no outrage in drink,"[249] yet in his intercourse with William II. and Henry I., he involved himself in ceaseless quarrels; and quitted both his archiepiscopal chair and the country. His memory, however, is consecrated among the fathers of scholastic divinity.
[245] These were the common school books of the period.
[246] Though the abbey of Croyland was burnt only twenty-five years after the conquest, its library then consisted of 900 volumes, of which 300 were very large. The lovers of English history and antiquities are much indebted to Ingulph for his excellent history of the abbey of Croyland, from its foundation, A.D. 664, to A.D. 1091: into which he hath introduced much of the general history of the kingdom, with a variety of curious anecdotes that are no where else to be found. Dr. Henry: book iii., chap. iv., § 1 and 2. But Ingulph merits a more particular eulogium. The editors of that stupendous, and in truth, matchless collection of national history, entitled Recueil des Historiens des Gaules, thus say of him: "Il avoit tout vu en bon connoisseur, et ce qu'il rapporte, il l'écrit en homme lettré, judicieux et vrai:" tom. xi., p. xlij. In case any reader of this note and lover of romance literature should happen to be unacquainted with the French language, I will add, from the same respectable authority, that "The readers of the Round Table History should be informed that there are many minute and curious descriptions in Ingulph which throw considerable light upon the history of Ancient Chivalry." Ibid. See too the animated eulogy upon him, at p. 153, note a, of the same volume. These learned editors have, however, forgotten to notice that the best, and only perfect, edition of Ingulph's History of Croyland Abbey, with the continuation of the same, by Peter de Blois and Edward Abbas, is that which is inserted in the first volume of Gale's Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores Veteres: Oxon, 1684. (3 vols.)
[247] Lanfranc was obliged, against his will, by the express command of Abbot Harlein, to take upon him the archbishopric in the year 1070. He governed that church for nineteen years together, with a great deal of wisdom and authority. His largest work is a commentary upon the Epistles of St. Paul; which is sometimes not very faithfully quoted by Peter Lombard. His treatise in favour of the real presence, in opposition to Birenger, is one of his most remarkable performances. His letters "are short and few, but contain in them things very remarkable." Du Pin's Ecclesiastical History, vol. xi., p. 12, &c., edit. 1699.
[248] Polychronicon, Caxton's edit., sign. 46, rev.
[249] Polychronicon. Caxton's edit., fol. cccvj. rev. Poor Caxton (towards whom the reader will naturally conceive I bear some little affection) is thus dragooned into the list of naughty writers who have ventured to speak mildly (and justly) of Anselm's memory. "They feign in another fable that he (Anselm) tare with his teeth Christ's flesh from his bones, as he hung on the rood, for withholding the lands of certain bishoprics and abbies: Polydorus not being ashamed to rehearse it. Somewhere they call him a red dragon: somewhere a fiery serpent, and a bloody tyrant; for occupying the fruits of their vacant benefices about his princely buildings. Thus rail they of their kings, without either reason or shame, in their legends of abominable lies: Look Eadmerus, Helinandus, Vincentius, Matthew of Westminster, Rudborne, Capgrave, William Caxton, Polydore, and others." This is the language of master Bale, in his Actes of Englyshe Votaryes, pt. ii., sign. I. vij. rev. Tisdale's edit. No wonder Hearne says of the author, "erat immoderata intemperantia."—Bened. Abbas., vol. i., præf. p. xx.