قراءة كتاب The Great Book-Collectors
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Tully of the mighty tongue; here Basil and Fulgentius shine, and Cassiodorus and John of the Golden Mouth.' As Alcuin was returning from book-buying at Rome he met Charles the Great at Parma. The Emperor persuaded the traveller to enter his service, and they succeeded by their joint efforts in producing a wonderful revival of literature. The Emperor had a fine private collection of mss. adorned in the Anglo-Frankish style; and he established a public library, containing the works of the Fathers, 'so that the poorest student might find a place at the banquet of learning.' Alcuin presented to the Emperor's own collection a revised copy of the Vulgate illuminated under his personal supervision.
Towards the end of Alcuin's career he retired to the Abbey of St. Martin at Tours, and there founded his 'Museum,' which was in fact a large establishment for the editing and transcription of books. Here he wrote those delightful letters from which we have already made an extract. To his friend Arno at Salzburg he writes about a little treatise on orthography, which he would have liked to have recited in person. 'Oh that I could turn the sentences into speech, and embrace my brother with a warmth that cannot be sent in a book; but since I cannot come myself I send my rough letters, that they may speak for me instead of the words of my mouth.' To the Emperor he sent a description of his life at Tours: 'In the house of St. Martin I deal out the honey of the Scriptures, and some I excite with the ancient wine of wisdom, and others I fill full with the fruits of grammatical learning.'
Very few book-lovers could be found in England while the country was being ravaged by the Danes. The Northern Abbeys were burned, and their libraries destroyed. The books at York perished, though the Minster was saved; the same fate befell the valuable collections at Croyland and Peterborough. The royal library at Stockholm contains the interesting 'Golden Gospels,' decorated in the same style as the Book of Lindisfarne, and perhaps written at the same place. An inscription of the ninth century shows that it was bought from a crew of pirates by Duke Alfred, a nobleman of Wessex, and was presented by him and his wife Werburga to the Church at Canterbury.
It seems possible that literature was kept alive in our country by King Alfred's affection for the old English songs. We know that he used to recite them himself and would make his children get them by heart. He was not much of a scholar himself, but he had all the learning of Mercia to help him. Archbishop Plegmund and his chaplains were the King's secretaries, 'and night and day, whenever he had time, he commanded these men to read to him.' From France came Provost Grimbald, a scholar and a sweet singer, and Brother John of Corbei, a paragon in all kinds of science. Asser came to the Court from his home in Wales: 'I remained there,' he says, 'for about eight months, and all that time I used to read to him whatever books were at hand; for it was his regular habit by day and night, amidst all his other occupations, either to read to himself or to listen while others read to him.' St. Dunstan was an ardent admirer of the old battle-chaunts and funeral-lays. He was, it need hardly be said, the friend of all kinds of learning. The Saint was an expert scribe and a painter of miniatures; and specimens of his exquisite handiwork may still be seen at Canterbury and in the Bodleian at Oxford. He was the real founder of the Glastonbury library, where before his time only a few books had been presented by missionaries from Ireland. His great work was the establishment of the Benedictines in the place of the regular clergy: and the reform at any rate insured the rise of a number of new monasteries, each with its busy 'scriptorium,' out of which the library would grow. We must say a word in remembrance of Archbishop Ælfric, the author of a great part of our English Chronicle. He was trained at Winchester, where the illuminators, it is said, were 'for a while the foremost in the world.' He enacted that every priest should have at least a psalter and hymn-book and half a dozen of the most important service-books, before he could hope for ordination. His own library, containing many works of great value, was bequeathed to the Abbey of St. Alban's. We end the story of the Anglo-Saxon books with a mention of Leofric, the first Bishop of Exeter, who gave a magnificent donation out of his own library to the Cathedral Church. The catalogue is still extant, and some of the volumes are preserved at Oxford. There were many devotional works of the ordinary kind; there were 'reading-books for winter and summer,' and song-books, and especially 'night-songs'; but the greatest treasure of all was the 'great book of English poetry,' known as the Exeter Book, in which Cynewulf sang of the ruin of the 'purple arch,' and set forth the Exile's Lament and the Traveller's Song.
CHAPTER III.
ENGLAND.
A more austere kind of learning came in with the Norman Conquest. Lanfranc and Anselm introduced at Canterbury a devotion to science, to the doctrines of theology and jurisprudence, and to the new discoveries which Norman travellers were bringing back from the schools at Salerno. Lanfranc imported a large quantity of books from the Continent. He would labour day and night at correcting the work of his scribes; and Anselm, when he succeeded to the See, used often to deprive himself of rest to finish the transcription of a manuscript. Lanfranc, we are told, was especially generous in lending his books: among a set which he sent to St. Alban's we find the names of twenty-eight famous treatises, besides a large number of missals and other service-books, and two 'Books of the Gospels,' bound in silver and gold, and ornamented with valuable jewels.
A historian of our own time has said that England in the twelfth century was the paradise of scholars. Dr. Stubbs imagined a foreign student making a tour through the country and endeavouring to ascertain its proper place in the literary world. He would have seen a huge multitude of books, and 'such a supply of readers and writers' as could not have been found elsewhere, except perhaps in the University of Paris. Canterbury was a great literary centre. At Winchester there was a whole school of historians; at Lincoln he might listen to Walter Map or learn at the feet of St. Hugh. 'Nothing is more curious than the literary activity going on in the monasteries; manuscripts are copied; luxurious editions are recopied and illuminated; there is no lack of generosity in lending or of boldness in borrowing; there is brisk competition and open rivalry.'
The Benedictines were ever the pioneers of learning: the regular clergy were still the friends of their books, and 'delighted in their communion with them,' as the Philobiblon phrased it. We gather from the same source the lamentation of the books in the evil times that followed. The books complain that they are cast from their shelves into dark corners, ragged and shivering, and bereft of the cushions which propped up their sides. 'Our vesture is torn off by violent hands, so that our souls cleave to the ground, and our glory is laid in the dust.' The old-fashioned clergy had been accustomed to treat religious books with reverence, and would copy them out most carefully in the intervals of the canonical hours. The monks used to give even their time of rest to the decoration of the volumes which added a splendour to their monasteries. But now, it is complained, the Regulars even reject their own rule that books are to be asked for every day. They carry bows