Part 12 (1/2)

The e was frequently bordered with red, gold, or soht color, while many beautiful illustrations were inserted by artistic monks Sometimes an initial letter was beautifully eure 39; sometie, of which Figures 39 and 40 are types; and sometimes a colored illustration was painted on a sheet of velluure 44 represents such an illustrated page in an old manuscript Finally, when completed, the lettered and illustrated parchether with a deerskin or pigskin string, bound together between oaken boards and covered with pigskin, properly lettered in gold, fitted with metal corners and clasps (R 57), as shown in Plate 2, and often chained to their bookrack in the library with heavy iron chains as well (See Figure 71 and Plate 2) Still further to protect the voluainst the thief was usually lettered in the volume (R 58)

[Illustration: FIG 39 INITIAL LETTER FROM AN OLD ManusCRIPT This shows the beautiful work done by so” the books they copied This was done in colors by a nun, who pictured her oork in this initial letter L]

Such was the painfully slowbooks before the advent of printing, and in days when skill in copyingthe monks It required from a fewon the size and nature of the work, whereas to-day, with printing-presses, five thousand copies of such a book as this can be printed and bound in a few days

[Illustration: FIG 40 A MONK IN A SCRIPTORIUM (From an illuminated picture in a manuscript in the Royal Library at Brussels) This picture shows the beautiful work done in ”illu”

manuscript books by mediaeval writers Each copy was a work of art This represents a better type of _scriptorium_ than is usually shown]

THE SCRIPTORIUM An important part of the material equipment of many monasteries, in consequence, ca of manuscripts could take place undisturbed In soh it was customary to have a number of small rooure 38, seven small rooms for this purpose are shown built out on one side of the library So a corridor were provided The advantage of the single room in which a nuht or ten copies of a book was to be prepared One ht or ten others carefully printed on the skins before theure 40 shows afroht or ten copies of a book had been prepared and bound the extra copies were sent to neighboring and soe for other books, and soed to read the work (R 55) New s of a library in this way, and churches were supplied with Missals, Psalters, and other books needed for their services

The writing-room, or rooms, came to be a very important place in those ives an interesting description of the _scriptoriulish monk, Alcuin, was Abbot from 796 to 804, and which at the tiAlcuin's labors to secure books to send to other dom, he says:

We can almost reconstruct the scene In the intervals between the hours of prayer and the observance of the round of cloister life, coenius of Alcuin The young iven the precious parchustine, or else some portion of the Latin Scriptures, or even a heathen author He reads slowly and clearly at a measured rate while all the others seated at their desks take down his words, and thus perhaps a score of copies are made at once Alcuin's observant eye watches each in turn, and his correcting hand points out the raphy and punctuation

The master of Charles the Great, in that true humility that is the char-ery of faithfully and gently correcting their many puerile mistakes, and all for the love of studies and the love of Christ

Under such guidance, and deeply i of a few books they were saving learning and knowledge fro a servicein the _scriptorium_ went on in sobriety from day to day Thus were produced those ie in the conserving and transard was not undue, for the few monasteries where books could be accurately transcribed were as necessary for publication in that ti houses to-day [14]

[Illustration: FIG 41 CHARLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE, AND THE IMPORTANT MONASTERIES OF THE TIME Charlene's empire at his death is shaded darker than other parts of the map]

MONASTIC COLLECTION Despite the i and advancing learning, large collections of books were unknown before the Revival of Learning, in the fourteenth century The process of book production in itself was very slow, and h fire, or pillage by new invaders During the early days of wood construction a number of monastic and church libraries were burned by accident In the pillaging of the Danes and Northland and northern France, in the ninth and tenth centuries, a number of important monastic collections there were lost In Italy the Lombards destroyed some collections in their sixth-century invasion, and the Saracens burned so other monasteries, was destroyed by both the Loues of old monastic libraries we know that, even as late as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a library of froues show thatmonastic chronicles, manuals of devotion, co saints, and books of a similar nature (Rs 55, 56) A feere co, or reat subjects of study of the time (R 60) A still smaller number were copies of old classical literary works, and of the utmost value (R 57)

THE CONVENTS AND THEIR SCHOOLS The early part of the Middle Ages also witnessed a re a special developressive spirit as the h station a the German tribes founded convents and developed institutions of much renown This provided a rather superior class of woanizers and directors, and a conventual life continued, throughout the entire Middle Ages, to attract an excellent class of women

This will be understood when it is remembered that a conventual life offered to women of intellectual ability and scholarly tastes the one opportunity for an education and a life of learning The convents, too, were much earlier and muchto take the vows than was the case with the monasteries, and, in consequence, it becaes, just as it is to-day airls to the convent for education and for training in ion Many well-trained women were produced in the convents of Europe in the period from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries

The instruction consisted of reading, writing, and copying Latin, as in the , and needlework

Weaving and spinning had an obvious utilitarian purpose, and needlework, in addition to necessary sewing, was especially useful in the production of altar-cloths and sacred vest ofmade a special appeal to women (R

56), and some of the most beautifully copied and illuminated manuscripts of the mediaeval period are products of their skill [16] Their contribution to music and art, as it influenced the life of the tihest development about the an to decline in importance,

LEARNING IN IRELAND AND BRITAIN As was stated earlier in this chapter, the one part of western Europe where so this period was in Ireland, and in those parts of England which had not been overrun by the Germanic tribes Christian civilization and monastic life had been introduced into Ireland probably as early as 425 AD, and probably by ure 41) Saint Patrick preached Christianity to the Irish, about 440 AD, and during the fifth and sixth centuries churches and monasteries were founded in such numbers over Ireland that the land has been said to have been dotted all over with churches, monasteries, and schools Saint Patrick had been educated in the old Roman schools, probably at Tours when it was still an important Roman provincial city

Other earlythe antipathy to pagan learning of the early Italian church fathers, had carried Greek and Latin languages and learning to Ireland Here it flourished so well, largely due to the island being spared from invasion, that Ireland re after it had virtually disappeared elsewhere in western Christendom So much was this the case, says Sandys, in his _History of Classical Scholarshi+p_, ”that if any one knew Greek it was assumed that he must have come from Ireland”

In 565 AD, Saint Coluious leader, crossed over to what is now southwestern Scotland, founded there the an the conversion of the Picts Saint Augustine landed in Kent in 597, and had begun the conversion of the Angles and Saxons and Jutes who had settled in southeastern Britain, while shortly afterwards the Irish an the conversion of the people of the north of Britain The monastery of Lindisfarne was founded about 635 AD, and soon beca in the north Irish and English monks also crossed in numbers to northern Frankland, and labored for the conversion of the Franks and Saxons

In 664 AD, at a council held at Whitby, the Irish Church in England and the Roion and learning swept over the island In 670, Theodore of Tarsus and the Abbot Hadrian, wholish Church, describes as men ”instructed in secular and divine literature both Greek and Latin” (R 59 a), arrived in England fro pupils in Greek and Latin (R 59 b) Both taught at Canterbury, and raised the cathedral school there to high rank In 674 the monastery at Wearmouth was founded, and in 682 its companion Yarrow

These were endoith books from Rome and Vienne, and soon became famous for the instruction they provided It was at the twin monasteries of Wearmouth and Yarrow that the Venerable Bede (673-735), whose _Ecclesiastical History of England_ gives us our chief picture of education in Britain in his ti student [17] As a result of all these efforts a number of northern monasteries, as well as a few of the cathedral schools, early beca This culture in Ireland and Britain was of aon the Continent at the time, because the classical inheritance there had been less corrupted

THE CATHEDRAL SCHOOL AT YORK One of the schools which early attained faland This had, by the hth century, coe library, and contained most of the important Latin authors and textbooks then known (R 61) In this school, under the _scholasticus_ Aelbert, was trained a youth by the name of Alcuin, born in or near York, about 735 AD In a poeood portrayal of the instruction he received, telling how the learned Aelbert ” and the varied dews of learning,” and sorted out ”youths of conspicuous intelligence” to whoave special attention Alcuin afterward succeeded Aelbert as _scholasticus_, and idely known as a gifted teacher Well aware of the precarious condition of learning amid such a rude and uncouth society, he handed on to his pupils the learning he had received, and i of his own love for it and his anxiety for its preservation and advanceive a new impetus to the develop in Frankland

CHARLEMAGNE AND ALCUIN In 768 there careat Frankish nation one of the uished and capable rulers of all ti personality in any age or land His ancestors had developed a great kingdorandfather who had defeated the Saracens at Tours (p 113) and driven thene easily stands out as one of the greatest figures of all history For five hundred years before and after hiht, force, or executive capacity He is particularly the doe of lawlessness and disorder, he used every effort to civilize and rule as intelligently as possible the great Frankish kingdoed to civilize and Christianize the Saxon tribes of northern Germany, to reduce the Lombards of northern Italy to order, and to extend the boundaries of the Frankish nation At his death, in 814, his kingdom had succeeded to most of the western possessions of the old Ro all of what to-day coe portions of what is noestern Germany and northern Italy, and portions of northern Spain (See Figure 41)

Realizing better than did his bishops and abbots the need for educational facilities for the nobles and clergy, he early turned his attention to securing teachers capable of giving the needed instruction These, though, were scarce and hard to obtain After two unsuccessful efforts to obtain a master scholar to become, as it were, histo his court perhaps the greatest scholar and teacher in all England At Parne met Alcuin, in 781, and invited hi the consent of his archbishop and king, Alcuin accepted, and arrived, with three assistants, at Charlene's court, in 782, to take up the work of educational propaganda in Frankland

[Illustration: PLATE 1 THE CLOISTERS OF A MONASTERY, NEAR FLORENCE, ITALY