"O Lord, let the virtue of thy Holy Spirit descend on these books; let it purify them, bless them, sanctify them. Sweetly enlighten the hearts of those who read them, and impart their true sense to them. Grant us also to be faithful to the precepts emanating from thy light, in accomplishing them by good works, according to thy will"
The same respect for good books is found in an the abbeys of the Benedictines. The very high value the religious communities set on rare works connected with their order, subjected the monks of the abbey of St. Denis to a cruel imposition in 1389. An imposter, such as some who have practised mighty deceptions in our times, a supple Greek named Paul Tagari, passing himself off for the patriarch of Constantinople, obtained thirty thousand crowns of gold from the king of Cyprus, on imparting the royal unction to his majesty, and a magnificent reception from the pope at Avignon, as he held out strong assurances of the return of the Greek schism to the faith. He announced to the simple monks of St. Denis the existence of some manuscripts from the hand of the very patron of their order, Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, who had heard the words of life from the lips of St. Paul himself, when he spoke to the news loving people of Athens on the hill of Mars. Two brothers set out on foot to Marseilles, and, deluded by the knave's representations, journeyed on from that to Rome. The Greek had got their money, but they got nothing by their long journey but the labor and expenses of performing it, and the chagrin of the disappointment.
The monks of Cluni were particular in the illustrating and the binding of their volumes. As a general rule the outsides of the volumes in the abbey libraries were not attractive. The Bernardine houses of Citeaux and Clairvaux affected the plainest style. We may here give an instance of the care taken of the precious volumes, by quoting the library rules of the canons regular: "The armarius (literally, guardian of shelves or presses) should apply labels to the backs, catalogue the volumes, go over them twice or thrice in the year, see that they were not crowded, and that every volume was in its place." In case of a loan he was to record the borrower's address, the title of the volume, and the deposit received, which in all cases should be the registered value of the book. When the book was highly prized, he was not to give it out without the express sanction of the prior or abbot. He had charge of the parchment, the ink, the pens, the bodkins, and the penknives, and he kept an eye on the intern and extern copyists. The writers of funeral billets and of business letters were also under his control. He provided his indoor copiers with a quiet apartment where no one had right of ingress but the abbot, the prior, or the sub-prior. He examined the purity of the texts, the binding, the condition of the volumes. He kept the volumes in daily use, such as the Bibles, the accounts of the passion, the lives of the saints, and the homilies in a place accessible to all, regulated the readings during meal times, and corrected faults committed in reading or chanting, and arranged processions. Our Benedictine librarian had no sinecure.
The Rich Libraries Of the Begging Brothers.
The Dominicans were no less careful of their literary treasures. In a general chapter of the order, held at Saragossa in 1309, it was forbidden to every prior, sub-prior, or officer commissioned by them, to bestow, sell, lend, or pledge any book of which there was but one copy in the respective houses. Whoever was guilty of infraction was to be deprived of his faculties (official to wit) for three years. The theological works should not be sold out of the order. Whoever disobeyed should, till the restitution of the property, fast on bread and water one day in every week. A student was privileged, in cases of urgent necessity, to sell a book, the Bible and the great work of St. Thomas of Aquino excepted.
The English Richard de Bury before mentioned found the Dominicans the most keen-scented and zealous retrievers of rare treasures in bibliography.
"When," said he, "they traverse seas and deserts, when they search the recesses of convents, they never forget me. What beast of chase can escape these keen hunters? What fish so small can wriggle out of their nets?"
He goes on, mentioning how they despatch to him sermons lately preached in Rome, discourses delivered at a Paris university, and adds: