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Page 53
``If,'' says de Bury, ``we would have amassed cups of gold and
silver, excellent horses, or no mean sums of money, we could in
those days have laid up abundance of wealth for ourselves. But
we regarded books, not pounds; and valued codices more than
florins, and preferred paltry pamphlets to pampered palfreys. On
tedious embassies and in perilous times, we carried about with
us that fondness for books which many waters could not
extinguish.''
And what books they were in those old days! What tall folios!
What stout quartos! How magnificent were the bindings, wrought
often in silver devices, sometimes in gold, and not infrequently
in silver and gold, with splendid jewels and precious stones to
add their value to that of the precious volume which they
adorned. The works of Justin, Seneca, Martial, Terence, and
Claudian were highly popular with the bibliophiles of early
times; and the writings of Ovid, Tully, Horace, Cato, Aristotle,
Sallust, Hippocrates, Macrobius, Augustine, Bede, Gregory,
Origen, etc. But for the veneration and love for books which the
monks of the mediaeval ages had, what would have been preserved
to us of the classics of the Greeks and the Romans?
The same auspicious fate that prompted those bibliomaniacal monks
to hide away manuscript treasures in the cellars of their
monasteries, inspired Poggio Bracciolini several centuries later
to hunt out and invade those sacred hiding-places, and these
quests were rewarded with finds whose value cannot be
overestimated. All that we have of the histories of Livy come to
us through Poggio's industry as a manuscript-hunter; this same
worthy found and brought away from different monasteries a
perfect copy of Quintilian, a Cicero's oration for Caecina, a
complete Tertullian, a Petronius Arbiter, and fifteen or twenty
other classics almost as valuable as those I have named. From
German monasteries, Poggio's friend, Nicolas of Treves, brought
away twelve comedies of Plautus and a fragment of Aulus Gellius.
Dear as their pagan books were to the monkish collectors, it was
upon their Bibles, their psalters, and their other religious
books that these mediaeval bibliomaniacs expended their choicest
art and their most loving care. St. Cuthbert's ``Gospels,''
preserved in the British Museum, was written by Egfrith, a monk,
circa 720; Aethelwald bound the book in gold and precious stones,
and Bilfrid, a hermit, illuminated it by prefixing to each gospel
a beautiful painting representing one of the Evangelists, and a
tessellated cross, executed in a most elaborate manner. Bilfrid
also illuminated the large capital letters at the beginning of
the gospels. This precious volume was still further enriched by
Aldred of Durham, who interlined it with a Saxon Gloss, or
version of the Latin text of St. Jerome.
``Of the exact pecuniary value of books during the middle ages,''
says Merryweather, ``we have no means of judging. The few
instances that have accidentally been recorded are totally
inadequate to enable us to form an opinion. The extravagant
estimate given by some as to the value of books in those days is
merely conjectural, as it necessarily must be when we remember
that the price was guided by the accuracy of the transcription,
the splendor of the binding (which was often gorgeous to excess),
and by the beauty and richness of the illuminations. Many of the
manuscripts of the middle ages are magnificent in the extreme;
sometimes inscribed in liquid gold on parchment of the richest
purple, and adorned with illuminations of exquisite
workmanship.''
With such a veneration and love for books obtaining in the
cloister and at the fireside, what pathos is revealed to us in
the supplication which invited God's blessing upon the beloved
tomes: ``O Lord, send the virtue of thy Holy Spirit upon these
our books; that cleansing them from all earthly things, by thy
holy blessing, they may mercifully enlighten our hearts and give
us true understanding; and grant that by thy teachings they may
brightly preserve and make full an abundance of good works
according to thy will.''
And what inspiration and cheer does every book-lover find in the
letter which that grand old bibliomaniac, Alcuin, addressed to
Charlemagne: ``I, your Flaccus, according to your admonitions
and good will, administer to some in the house of St. Martin the
sweets of the Holy Scriptures; others I inebriate with the study
of ancient wisdom; and others I fill with the fruits of
grammatical lore. Many I seek to instruct in the order of the
stars which illuminate the glorious vault of heaven, so that they
may be made ornaments to the holy church of God and the court of
your imperial majesty; that the goodness of God and your kindness
may not be altogether unproductive of good. But in doing this I
discover the want of much, especially those exquisite books of
scholastic learning which I possessed in my own country, through
the industry of my good and most devout master, Egbert. I
therefore entreat your Excellence to permit me to send into
Britain some of our youths to procure those books which we so
much desire, and thus transplant into France the flowers of
Britain, that they may fructify and perfume, not only the garden
at York, but also the Paradise of Tours, and that we may say in
the words of the song: `Let my beloved come into his garden and
eat his pleasant fruit;' and to the young: `Eat, O friends;
drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved;' or exhort in the words
of the prophet Isaiah: `Every one that thirsteth to come to the
waters, and ye that have no money, come ye, buy and eat: yea,
come buy wine and milk, without money and without price.' ''
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