Part 12 (1/2)
[237] At least during the time of William Charteys priors.h.i.+p. See Nichols, p. 108.
CHAPTER VII.
_King Alfred an ”amator librorum” and an author._
The latter part of the tenth century was a most memorable period in the annals of monkish bibliomania, and gave birth to one of the brightest scholars that ever shone in the dark days of our Saxon forefathers. King Alfred, in honor of whose talents posterity have gratefully designated the Great, spread a fostering care over the feeble remnant of native literature which the Danes in their cruel depredations had left unmolested. The n.o.ble aspirations of this royal student and patron of learning had been instilled into his mind by the tender care of a fond parent. It was from the pages of a richly illuminated little volume of Saxon poetry, given to him by the queen as a reward for the facility with which he had mastered its contents, that he first derived that intense love of books which never forsook him, though the sterner duties of his after position frequently required his thoughts and energies in another channel. Having made himself acquainted with this little volume, Alfred found a thirst for knowledge grow upon him, and applied his youthful mind to study with the most zealous ardor; but his progress was considerably r.e.t.a.r.ded, because he could not, at that time, find a Grammaticus capable of instructing him,[238] although he searched the kingdom of the West Saxons. Yet he soon acquired the full knowledge of his own language, and the Latin it is said he knew as well, and was able to use with a fluency equal to his native tongue; he could comprehend the meaning of the Greek, although perhaps he was incapable of using it to advantage. He was so pa.s.sionately fond of books, and so devoted to reading, that he constantly carried about him some favorite volume which, as a spare moment occurred, he perused with the avidity of an _h.e.l.luo librorum_. This pleasing anecdote related by a.s.ser[239] is characteristic of his natural perseverance.
When he ascended the throne, he lavished abundant favors upon all who were eminent for their literary acquirements; and displayed in their distribution the utmost liberality and discrimination. a.s.ser, who afterwards became his biographer, was during his life the companion and a.s.sociate of his studies, and it is from his pen we learn that, when an interval occurred inoccupied by his princely duties, Alfred stole into the quietude of his study to seek comfort and instruction from the pages of those choice volumes, which comprised his library. But Alfred was not a mere bookworm, a devourer of knowledge without purpose or without meditation of his own, he thought with a student's soul well and deeply upon what he read, and drew from his books those principles of philanthropy, and those high resolves, which did such honor to the Saxon monarch. He viewed with sorrow the degradation of his country, and the intellectual barrenness of his time; the warmest aspiration of his soul was to diffuse among his people a love for literature and science, to raise them above their Saxon sloth, and lead them to think of loftier matters than war and carnage. To effect this n.o.ble aim, the highest to which the talents of a monarch can be applied, he for a length of time devoted his mind to the translation of Latin authors into the vernacular tongue. In his preface to the Pastoral of Gregory which he translated, he laments the destruction of the old monastic libraries by the Danes. ”I saw,” he writes, ”before alle were spoiled and burnt, how the churches throughout Britain were filled with treasures and books,”[240] which must have presented a striking contrast to the illiterate darkness which he tells us afterwards spread over his dominions, for there were then very few _paucissimi_ who could translate a Latin epistle into the Saxon language.
When Alfred had completed the translation of Gregory's Pastoral, he sent a copy to each of his bishops accompanied with a golden stylus or pen,[241] thus conveying to them the hint that it was their duty to use it in the service of piety and learning. Encouraged by the favorable impression which this work immediately caused, he spared no pains to follow up the good design, but patiently applied himself to the translation of other valuable books which he rendered into as pleasing and expressive a version as the language of those rude times permitted.
Besides these literary labors he also wrote many original volumes, and became a powerful orator, a learned grammarian, an acute philosopher, a profound mathematician, and the prince of Saxon poesy; with these exalted talents he united those of an historian, an architect, and an accomplished musician. A copious list of his productions, the length of which proves the fertility of his pen, will be found in the Biographica Britannica,[242] but names of others not there enumerated may be found in monkish chronicles; of his Manual, which was in existence in the time of William of Malmsbury, not a fragment has been found. The last of his labors was probably an attempt to render the psalms into the common language, and so unfold that portion of the Holy Scriptures to our Saxon ancestors.
Alfred, with the a.s.sistance of the many learned men whom he had called to his court, restored the monasteries and schools of learning which the Danes had desecrated, and it is said founded the university of Oxford, where he built three halls, in the name of the Holy Trinity; for the doctors of divinity, philosophy, and grammar. The controversy which this subject has given rise to among the learned is too long to enter into here, although the matter is one of great interest to the scholar and to the antiquary.
In the year 901, this royal bibliophile, ”the victorious prince, the studious provider for widows, orphanes, and poore people, most perfect in Saxon poetrie, most liberall endowed with wisdome, fort.i.tude, justice, and temperance, departed this life;”[243] and right well did he deserve this eulogy, for as an old chronicle says, he was ”a goode clerke and rote many bokes, and a boke he made in Englysshe, of adventures of kynges and bataylles that had bene wne in the lande; and other bokes of gestes he them wryte, that were of greate wisdome, and of good learnynge, thrugh whych bokes many a man may him amende, that well them rede, and upon them loke. And thys kynge Allured lyeth at Wynchestre.”[244]
FOOTNOTES:
[238] Flor. Vigorn. sub. anno. 871. Brompton's Chron. in Alferi, p.
814.
[239] a.s.ser de Alfredi Gestis., Edit. Camden i. p. 5. William Malmsbury, b. ii. c. iv.
[240] Preface to Pastoral.
[241] Much controversy has arisen as to the precise meaning of this word. _Hearne_ renders this pa.s.sage ”with certain macussus or marks of gold the purest of his coin,” which has led some to suppose gold coinage was known among the Saxons. _William of Malmsbury_ calls it a golden style in which was a maucus of gold. ”In Alfred's Preface it is called an aestel of fifty macuses.”--_V. a.s.ser a Wise_, 86 to 175; but the meaning of that word is uncertain. The stylus properly speaking was a small instrument formerly used for writing on waxen tablets, and made of iron or bone, see _Archaeologia_, vol. ii. p.
75. But waxen tablets were out of use in Alfred's time. The aestel or style was most probably an instrument used by the scribes of the monasteries, if it was not actually a pen. I am more strongly disposed to consider it so by the evidence of an ancient MS.
illumination of Eadwine, a monk of Canterbury, in Trinity Coll.
Camb.; at the end of this MS. the scribe is represented with a _metal pen in his hand_.
[242] Vol. i. pp. 54, 55.
[243] Stowe's Annals, 4to. 1615, p. 105.
[244] Cronycle of Englonde with the Fruyte of Tymes, 4to. 1515.
CHAPTER VIII.
_Benedict Biscop and his book tours.--Bede.--Ceolfrid.--Wilfrid.--Boniface the Saxon Missionary--His love of books.--Egbert of York.--Alcuin.--Whitby Abbey.--Caedmon.--Cla.s.sics in the Library of Withby.--Rievall Library.--Coventry.--Worcester.--Evesham.--Thomas of Marleberg, etc._
The venerable Bede enables us to show that in the early Saxon days the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow possessed considerable collections of books. Benedict Biscop, the most enthusiastic bibliomaniac of the age, founded the monastery of Wearmouth in the year 674, in honor of the ”Most Holy Prince of the Apostles.” His whole soul was in the work, he spared neither pains or expense to obtain artists of well known and reputed talent to decorate the holy edifice; not finding them at home, he journeyed to Gaul in search of them, and returned accompanied by numerous expert and ingenious workmen. Within a year the building was sufficiently advanced to enable the monks to celebrate divine service there. He introduced gla.s.s windows and other ornaments into his church, and furnished it with numerous books of all descriptions, _innumerabilem librorum omnis generis_. Benedict was so pa.s.sionately fond of books that he took five journeys to Rome for the purpose of collecting them. In his third voyage he gathered together a large quant.i.ty on divine erudition; some of these he bought, or received them as presents from his friends, _vel amicorum dono largitos retulit_. When he arrived at Vienne on his way home, he collected others which he had commissioned his friends to purchase for him.[245] After the completion of his monastery he undertook his fourth journey to Rome; he obtained from the Pope many privileges for the abbey, and returned in the year 680, bringing with him many more valuable books; he was accompanied by John the Chantor, who introduced into the English churches the Roman method of singing. He was also a great _amator librorum_, and left many choice ma.n.u.scripts to the monks, which Bede writes ”were still preserved in their library.” It was about this time that Ecgfrid[246] gave Benedict a portion of land on the other side of the river Wire, at a place called Jarrow; and that enterprising and industrious abbot, in the year 684, built a monastery thereon. No sooner was it completed, than he went a fifth time to Rome to search for volumes to gratify his darling pa.s.sion. This was the last, but perhaps the most successful of his foreign tours, for he brought back with him a vast quant.i.ty of sacred volumes and curious pictures.[247] How deeply is it to be regretted that the relation of the travels which Ceolfrid his successor undertook, and which it is said his own pen inscribed, has been lost to us forever. He probably spoke much of Benedict in the volume and recorded his book pilgrimages. How dearly would the bibliomaniac revel over those early annals of his science, could his eye meet those venerable pages--perhaps describing the choice tomes Benedict met with in his Italian tours, and telling us how, and what, and where he gleaned those fine collections; sweet indeed would have been the perusal of that delectable little volume, full of the book experience of a bibliophile in Saxon days, near twelve hundred years ago! But the ravages of time or the fury of the Danes deprived us of this rare gem, and we are alone dependent on Bede for the incidents connected with the life of this great man; we learn from that venerable author that Benedict was seized with the palsy on his return, and that languis.h.i.+ng a few short years, he died in the year 690; but through pain and suffering he often dwelt on the sweet treasures of his library, and his solemn thoughts of death and immortality were intermixed with many a fond bookish recollection. _His most n.o.ble and abundant library which he brought from Rome_ he constantly referred to, and gave strict injunctions that the monks should apply the utmost care to the preservation of that rich and costly treasure, in the collection of which so many perils and anxious years were spent.[248]
We all know the force of example, and are not surprised that the sweet mania which ruled so potently over the mind of Benedict, spread itself around the crowned head of royalty. Perhaps book collecting was beginning to make ”a stir,” and the rich and powerful among the Saxons were regarding strange volumes with a curious eye. Certain it is that Egfride, or aelfride, the proud king of Northumbria,[249] fondly coveted a beautiful copy of the geographer's (_codice mirandi operis_), which Benedict numbered among his treasures; and so eagerly too did he desire its possession, that he gave in exchange a portion of eight hides of land, near the river Fresca, for the volume; and Ceolfrid, Benedict's successor, received it.
How useful must Benedict's library have been in ripening the mind that was to cast a halo of immortality around that old monastery, and to generate a renown which was long to survive the grey walls of that costly fane; for whilst we now fruitlessly search for any vestiges of its former being, we often peruse the living pages of Bede the venerable with pleasure and instruction, and we feel refreshed by the breath of piety and devotion which they unfold; yet it must be owned the superst.i.tion of Rome will sometimes mar a devout prayer and the simplicity of a Christian thought. But all honor to his manes and to his memory! for how much that is admirable in the human character--how much sweet and virtuous humility was hid in him, in the strict retirement of the cloister. The writings of that humble monk outlive the fame of many a proud ecclesiastic or haughty baron of his day; and well they might, for how homely does his pen record the simple annals of that far distant age. Much have the old monks been blamed for their bad Latin and their humble style; but far from upbraiding, I would admire them for it; for is not the inelegance of diction which their unpretending chronicles display, sufficiently compensated by their charming simplicity. As for myself, I have sometimes read them by the blaze of my cheerful hearth, or among the ruins of some old monastic abbey,[250] till in imagination I beheld the events which they attempt to record, and could almost hear the voice of the ”_goode olde monke_” as he relates the deeds of some holy man--in language so natural and idiomatic are they written.
But as we were saying, Bede made ample use of Benedict's library; and the many Latin and Greek books, which he refers to in the course of his writings, were doubtless derived from that source.[251] Ceolfrid, the successor of Benedict, ”a man of great zeal, of acute wisdom, and bold in action,” was a great lover of books, and under his care the libraries of Wearmouth and Jarrow became nearly doubled in extent; of the nature of these additions we are unable to judge, but probably they were not contemptible.[252]
Wilfrid, bishop of Northumbria, was a dear and intimate friend of Biscop's, and was the companion of one of his pilgrimages to Rome. In his early youth he gave visible signs of a heart full of religion and piety, and he sought by a steady perusal of the Holy Scriptures, in the little monastery of Lindesfarne, to garnish his mind with that divine lore with which he shone so brightly in the Saxon church. It was at the court of Ercenbyrht, king of Kent, that he met with Benedict Biscop; and the sympathy which their mutual learning engendered gave rise to a warm and devoted friends.h.i.+p between them. Both inspired with an ardent desire to visit the apostolic see, they set out together for Rome;[253] and it was probably by the ill.u.s.trious example of his fellow student and companion, that Wilfrid imbibed that book-loving pa.s.sion which he afterwards displayed on more than one occasion. On his return from Rome, Alfred of Northumbria bestowed upon him the monastery of Rhypum[254] in the year 661, and endowed it with certain lands. Peter of Blois records, in his life of Wilfrid, that this ”man of G.o.d” gave the monastery a copy of the gospels, a library, and many books of the Old and New Testament, with certain tablets made with marvellous ingenuity, and ornamented with gold and precious stones.[255] Wilfrid did not long remain in the monastery of Ripon, but advanced to higher honors, and took a more active part in the ecclesiastical affairs of the time.[256] But I am not about to pursue his history, or to attempt to show how his hot and imperious temper, or the pride and avarice of his disposition, wrought many grievous animosities in the Saxon church; or how by his prelatical ambition he deservedly lost the friends.h.i.+p of his King and his ecclesiastical honors.[257]