Part 19 (1/2)
[199] See Mr Hope's _Notes on the Benedictine Abbey of S. Peter at Gloucester_, in _Records of Gloucester Cathedral_, 1897, p. 23.
[200] See above, p. 93.
[201] _Memorials of S. Edmund's Abbey_, Rolls Series, II. 327. The writer is describing the mischief done by the rioters of 1327: Deinde claustrum ingressi, cistulas, id est caroles, et armariola fregerunt, et libros et omnia in eis inventa similiter asportaverunt. I owe this quotation to Dr James, _On the Abbey of S. Edmund at Bury_, Camb. Ant. Soc. Octav. Publ.
No. XXVIII. p. 158.
[202] _Liber Evesham_, Hen. Bradshaw Soc. 1893, p. 196. Abbat Ombresleye (1367-79) built ”paginam illam claustri contiguam ecclesie ubi carolae fratrum consistunt.”
[203] _Accounts of the Obedientiaries of Abingdon Abbey_, ed. Camden Society, 1892, p. 47. ”Expense circa sedilia claustri” is the heading of an account for wood bought and for carpenter's work. The sum spent was 2.
15_s._ 3_d._
[204] _Arch. Hist. of the Conventual Buildings of the Monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury_. By R. Willis. 8vo, Lond. 1869, p. 45.
[205] MSS. Mus. Brit. MSS. Cotton, Faustina, c. XII., fol. 149. De karulis in claustro habendis hanc consideracionem habere debent quibus committ.i.tur claustri tutela ut videlicet celerarius seu alii fratres qui raro in claustro resident suas karulas in claustro non habeant, set nec aliqui fratres nisi in scribendo vel illuminando aut tantum notando communitati aut et sibimet ipsis proficere sciant.
[206] MSS. Mus. Brit. MSS. Cotton, Faustina, c. XII., fol. 145. ...
precentorem et succentorem quibus committ.i.tur armariorum custodia. Cantor habebit cathedram suam ante armarium in claustro stantem et carulam suam iuxta desuper lapidem inter columpnas. Succentor vero super scannum iuxta armarium carulam et sedem suam habebit, ut hii duo vel saltem unus eorum possint semper esse parati ad respondendum fratribus seruicium petentibus.
[207] _History of the Church of Peterburgh._ By Symon Gunton: fol. 1686, p. 103. The author gives the subjects and legends of nine windows. I owe this quotation to the kindness of Mr Hope.
CHAPTER III.
INCREASE OF MONASTIC COLLECTIONS. S. RIQUIER, BOBBIO, DURHAM, CANTERBURY.
BOOKS KEPT IN OTHER PLACES THAN THE CLOISTER. EXPEDIENTS FOR HOUSING THEM AT DURHAM, CITEAUX, AND ELSEWHERE. SEPARATE LIBRARIES BUILT IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY AT DURHAM, S. ALBANS, CITEAUX, CLAIRVAUX, ETC. GRADUAL EXTENSION OF LIBRARY AT S. GERMAIN DES PReS. LIBRARIES ATTACHED TO CATHEDRALS.
LINCOLN, SALISBURY, WELLS, NOYON, ROUEN, ETC.
In the last chapter I attempted to describe the way in which the Monastic Orders provided for the safe keeping of their books, so long as their collections were not larger than could be accommodated in a press or presses in the cloister, or in the small rooms used by the Cistercians for the same purpose. I have now to carry the investigation a step farther, and to shew how books were treated when a separate library was built.
It must not be supposed that an extensive collection of books was regarded as indispensable in all monastic establishments. In many Houses, partly from lack of funds, partly from an indisposition to study, the books were probably limited to those required for the services and for the daily life of the brethren. In other places, on the contrary, where the fas.h.i.+on of book-collecting had been set from very early days, by some abbat or prior more learned or more active than his fellows; and where brethren in consequence had learnt to take a pride in their books, whether they read them or not, a large collection was got together at a date when even a royal library could be contained in a single chest of very modest dimensions. For instance, when an inventory of the possessions of the Benedictine House of S. Riquier near Abbeville was made at the request of Louis le Debonnaire in 831 A.D., it was found that the library contained 250 volumes; and a note at the end of the catalogue informs us that if the different treatises had been entered separately, the number of entries would have exceeded five hundred, as many books were frequently bound in a single volume. The works in this library are roughly sorted under the headings Divinity, Grammar, History and Geography, Sermons, Service-books[208]. A similar collection existed at S. Gall at the same period[209]. In the next century we find nearly seven hundred ma.n.u.scripts in a Benedictine monastery at Bobbio in north Italy[210]; and nearly six hundred in a House belonging to the same order at Lorsch in Germany[211].
At Durham, also a Benedictine House, a catalogue made early in the twelfth century contains three hundred and sixty-six t.i.tles[212]; but, as at S.
Riquier, the number of works probably exceeded six or seven hundred.
These instances, which I have purposely selected from different parts of Europe, and which could easily have been increased, are sufficient to indicate the rapidity with which books could be, and in fact were acc.u.mulated, when the taste for such collections had once been set. Year by year, slowly yet surely, by purchase, by gift, by bequest, by the zeal of the staff of writers whom the precentor drilled and kept at work, the number grew, till in certain Houses it reached dimensions which must have embarra.s.sed those responsible for its bestowal. At Christ Church, Canterbury, for instance, the catalogue made by Henry de Estria, Prior 1285-1331, enumerates about 1850 ma.n.u.scripts[213].
It must gradually have become impossible to accommodate such collections as these according to the old method, even supposing it was desirable to do so. There were doubtless many duplicates, and ma.n.u.scripts of value requiring special care. Consequently we find that places other than the cloister were used to keep books in. At Durham, for instance, the catalogues made at the end of the fourteenth century enumerate (1) ”the books in the common press at Durham in sundry places in the cloister” (386 volumes)[214]; (2) ”the books in the common press at Durham in the Spendment” (408 volumes)[215]; (3) ”the inner library at Durham called Spendment” (87 volumes)[216]; (4) ”the books for reading in the frater which lie in the press near the entrance to the farmery” (17 volumes)[217]; (5) ”the books in the common press of the novices at Durham in the cloister” (23 volumes)[218]. Of the above catalogues the first obviously deals with the contents of the great ”almeries of wainscot”
which stood in the cloister; the second and third with the books for which no room could be found there, and which in consequence had been transferred to a room on the west side of the cloister, where wages were paid and accounts settled. In the _Rites of Durham_ it is termed the treasure-house or chancery. It was divided into two by a grate of iron, behind which sat the officer who made the payments. The books seem to have been kept partly in the outer half of the room, partly within this grate.
At Citeaux, the parent-house of the Cistercian order, a large and wealthy monastery in Burgundy, the books were still more scattered, as appears from the catalogue[219] drawn up by John de Cirey, abbat at the end of the fifteenth century, now preserved, with 312 of the ma.n.u.scripts enumerated in it, in the public library of Dijon.
This catalogue, written on vellum, in double columns, with initial letters in red and blue alternately, records the t.i.tles of 1200 MSS and printed books; but the number of the latter is not great. It is headed:
Inventory of the books at Citeaux, in the diocese of Chalons, made by us, brother John, abbat of the said House, in the year of our Lord 1480, after we had caused the said books to be set to rights, bound, and covered, at a vast expense, by the labour of two and often three binders, employed continuously during two years[220].
This heading is succeeded by the following statement:
And first of the books now standing (_existencium_) in the library of the dorter, which we have arranged as it is, because the room had been for a long time useless, and formerly served as a tailory and vestry, ... but for two years or nearly so nothing or very little had been put there[221].
A bird's-eye view of Citeaux, dated 1674, preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, shews a small building between the Frater and the Dorter, which M. Viollet-le-Duc, who has reproduced[222] part of it, letters ”staircase to the dorter.” The room in question was probably at the top of this staircase, and the arrangements which I am about to discuss shew beyond all question that the Dorter was at one end of it and the Frater at the other.
There were six bookcases, called benches (_banche_), evidently corresponding to the _sedilia_ or ”seats” mentioned in many English medieval catalogues. The writer takes the bookcases in order, beginning as follows:
De prima banca inferius versus refectorium (13 vols.).