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THE DARK AGES; 
 
 A SERIES OF ESSAYS, 
 
 INTENDED TO ILLUSTRATE THE 
 
 STATE OF RELIGION AND LITERATURE 
 
 NINTH, TENTH, ELEVENTH, AND TWELFTH 
 CENTURIES. 
 
 REPRINTED FROM " THE BRITISH MAGAZINE," WITH CORRECTIONS 
 AND SOME ADDITIONS. 
 
 REV. S. R. MAITLAND, F.R.S. & F.S.A. 
 
 //f 
 
 LIBRARIAN TO HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, 
 AND KEEPER OF THE MSS. AT LAMBETH. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON, 
 
 ST. Paul's church yard, 
 
 *" AND WATERLOO PLACE, FALL MALL. 
 
 1844. 
 
S44 
 
 LONDON : 
 GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, 
 
 ST. John's square. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Nearly eight years have elapsed since the first of 
 the following essays was printed ; and they have all 
 been more than five years before the public. I wish 
 the reader to be aware of this, not only because it 
 may account for some references to matters which 
 occurred during the period of their publication, but 
 because it will show that some things which may wear 
 that appearance, are not in reality allusions to more 
 recent occurrences. 
 
 My purpose in these essays, I stated very fully at 
 the outset ; and the collateral objects which I had in 
 view, I mentioned as occasion offered. I need not, 
 therefore, here tell the reader over again what I meant 
 in writing them ; but I do not like that this reprint 
 should issue without a few words of distinct statement 
 as to what I did not mean. It is possible that I may 
 have been misunderstood ; though I think that no one 
 who fairly and candidly reads these essays can imagine 
 that I designed to hold up to imitation what has, 
 since I wrote them, been much talked of as " the 
 mediaeval system." As to some superstitions and 
 heresies, and a thousand puerilities, which seem likely 
 
 a 2 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 to creep into the Church under that name, I do not 
 feel it necessary to say anything. I have never, I hope, 
 written a line which the most ingenious perversion 
 could construe into a recommendation or even a tole- 
 ration of them. But there is one great feature of the 
 mediaeval system of which I feel, and of which I have 
 spoken, very differently, and in terms which may have 
 been, though I can hardly think that they really have 
 been, misunderstood. 
 
 It is quite impossible to touch the subject of 
 MoNASTiciSM without rubbing off some of the dirt 
 which has been heaped upon it. It is impossible to 
 get even a superficial knowledge of the mediaeval 
 history of Europe, without seeing how greatly the 
 world of that period was indebted to the Monastic 
 Orders ; and feeling that, whether they were good or 
 bad in other matters, monasteries were beyond all 
 price in those days of misrule and turbulence, as places 
 where (it may be imperfectly, yet better than else- 
 where) God was worshipped — as a quiet and religious 
 refuge for helpless infancy and old age, a shelter of 
 respectful sympathy for the orphan maiden and the 
 desolate widow — as central points whence agriculture 
 was to spread over bleak hills, and barren downs, and 
 marshy plains, and deal its bread to millions perishing 
 with hunger and its pestilential train — as repositories 
 of the learning which then was, and well-springs for 
 the learning which was to be — as nurseries of art and 
 science, giving the stimulus, the means, and the 
 reward to invention, and aggregating around them 
 every head that could devise, and every hand that 
 could execute — as the nucleus of the city which in 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 after-days of pride should crown its palaces and bul- 
 warks with the towering cross of its cathedral. 
 
 This I think no man can deny. I believe it is true, 
 and I love to think of it. I hope that I see the good 
 hand of God in it, and the visible trace of his mercy 
 that is over all his works. But if it is only a dream, 
 however grateful, I shall be glad to be awakened from 
 it; not indeed by the yelling of illiterate agitators, 
 but by a quiet and sober proof that I have misunder- 
 stood the matter. In the mean time, let me thank- 
 fully believe that thousands of the persons at whom 
 Robertson, and Jortin, and other such very miserable 
 second-hand writers, have sneered at, were men of 
 enlarged minds, purified affections, and holy lives — 
 that they were justly reverenced by men — and, above 
 all, favourably accepted by God, and distinguished by 
 the highest honour which He vouchsafes to those whom 
 He has called into existence, that of being the channels 
 of his love and mercy to their fellow-creatures. 
 
 But admitting all this, does it form any reason why 
 we should endeavour to revive the monastic system in 
 the present day, and in this country ? This is a thing 
 which has been very seriously proposed, and for which 
 much that is specious may be said, without any viola- 
 tion of truth or fairness. But is it a proposition which 
 should be listened to ? Is it, in fact, one that can be 
 carried into effect? Many others have, I suppose, 
 as well as myself, received a circular letter, bearing no 
 name, but supposed to emanate from persons entitled 
 to respect, and headed " Revival of monastic and con- 
 ventual institutions on a plan adapted to the exigen- 
 cies of the reformed Catholic Church in England." 
 
Tl PEEFACE. 
 
 After a brief statement of what are considered as 
 the objects, the means, and the constitution, the writer 
 proceeds to saj, " It is hoped and earnestly requested 
 that the friends of primitive piety, order, and simpli- 
 city, into whose hands this paper may fall, will contri- 
 bute their thoughts and endeavours towards expanding 
 these hints, and devising some method of bringing 
 them to a practical issue." No channel for the con- 
 tribution of thoughts is, however, pointed out : but, for 
 the reason which I have already stated, I wish to say 
 something on the subject ; and I will take the oppor- 
 tunity of offering some which have occurred to me ; 
 and I venture to hope, that, being fully convinced that 
 the suggestion cannot be brought to any good " prac- 
 tical issue," I may be allowed to say so plainly, and 
 without offence. I have no wish to dogmatize on the 
 subject, but, on the other hand, I know not how to 
 speak of it with doubt or hesitation, and therefore 
 wish to say, as decidedly as may be lawful, that 
 the " monastic and conventual system " never can be 
 adapted to meet the present exigencies of the Church 
 of England ; and that any attempt to revive that sys- 
 tem in this time and country can only prove a sad and 
 mischievous failure. 
 
 When I say this, I do not mean to dispute that it 
 would be easy to make a plan and raise money for the 
 building, and even for the endowment, of a monastery, 
 and to settle all the details on paper ; or to deny that 
 a sufficient number of very good men might be found 
 to inhabit it, on such terms as those who might have 
 the settling of the matter would venture to propose. 
 A few such institutions might, we may believe, be 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 founded and carried on for a longer or a shorter period. 
 There is such variety in the minds and feelings of men, 
 that such a scheme (indeed any scheme that had so 
 much of both antiquity and novelty to recommend it) 
 would immediately find supporters enough to keep it 
 up for some little time, and a fresh supply of others to 
 keep it up for some little time longer. 
 
 But even this must be done by ' adaptation,' as will 
 be seen by the heading of the letter which I have 
 quoted ; or according to the language used in the body 
 of that document, the proposal is for the " Revival of 
 the Monastic and Conventual System in a form suited 
 to the genius, character, and exigencies of the Church 
 of England." But really this is (to use plain terms, 
 which I hope will not oflfend, for I know of no others 
 to express my meaning,) mere playing at monkery ; if 
 not quite like children playing at soldiers, yet some- 
 thing not much beyond the customary shew and ser- 
 vice of our rural militia. Anything like real monas- 
 ticism, anything for which the use of such terms as 
 "The Monastic and Conventual System" is not 
 a most unwarrantable and delusive usurpation, any- 
 thing really calculated to produce its advantages, such as 
 they were, or even sucli of them as are wanted or could 
 be desired, in these days — an attempt to revive anything 
 that can fairly be called the Monastic and Conventual 
 System, on a scale of any magnitude and permanence, 
 must, I think, fail, for want of one great thing — that thing 
 on which, by the Divine appointment, it flourished, while 
 it did flourish, as truly as man lives by the air he breathes 
 — namely, that concurrence of men's minds which 
 
Yin PREFACE. 
 
 forming what is called the Spirit of the Age wants, 
 desires, imagines, carries forward its own schemes, irre- 
 sistibly bears down opposition, creates, protects, uses, 
 and then, in its progress, neglects, disowns, and tram- 
 ples down its old institutions, and knows no use in 
 their ruins but to furnish quarries or foundations for 
 new ones. 
 
 It seems to me that we can no more revive the 
 Monastic System than the Feudal System. We can- 
 not recal the days of ancient republicanism, or mediaeval 
 chivalry. The French republic was tragic enough ; but 
 who does not feel, — who, except the lowest and weak- 
 est of the wretches whom it was meant to impose on, 
 did not feel at the time, — that all its archaism was 
 purely farcical ? Why could not the French have what 
 Greece and Rome had had, if they liked? Simply 
 for the same reason that it could not be dealt with 
 as a matter of solemn propriety, if the Duke of Wel- 
 lington should go down to the house in complete 
 armour, or if Julius Caesar should tread the stage in a 
 field-marshal's uniform. And why cannot we have tour- 
 naments as our forefathers had ? Why was the attempt 
 to hold one, a few years ago, so laughed at that the 
 experiment has not been repeated ? Why is that ridi- 
 culous now, which was honourable and almost sacred 
 four hundred years ago? Why may not our nobles 
 amuse themselves as their ancestors did, without being 
 laughed at? I am not expressing any vdsh for the 
 revival of such a pastime ; but merely asking why the 
 attempt to revive it is considered as actually absurd, 
 and whether it is because the thing itself is so very 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 pauch less dignified and worthy of great men, and so 
 very much more ridiculous in itself than a horse-race, a 
 fox-chase, or a steeple-hunt. 
 
 I shall be told that the state of society is so different. 
 I know it. It is just what I am saying. Why it should 
 differ, and differ in that particular way, are questions 
 not so easily answered. Nor is it my present business 
 to attempt any answer to them. It is more to the pur- 
 pose to offer one or two reasons for believing, that the 
 altered state of society renders the revival of monas- 
 ticism altogether impracticable. 
 
 Do what he may, no man can strip himself of the 
 circumstances, and concomitants, which it has pleased 
 God to place around him. He may say, " I will be a 
 monk ;" and he may call himself, and get others to call 
 him by the name ; but if he says, " I will be a monk of 
 the fourth century," or " a monk of the twelfth century,'' 
 we can only assure him that he is mistaken, that the 
 thing is impossible, and that if he is a monk at all now- 
 a-days, it must be of the nineteenth century. I am not 
 speaking of either one of those centuries as better or 
 worse than the others, but only mean that whatever 
 character he may assume, he must take it in his own 
 circumstances. They may be friendly or hostile ; and, 
 as it relates to the case now under consideration, they 
 may be in the Church or in the world ; in Christians or 
 infidels ; in others, whoever and whatever they may be, 
 or in himself, such as he is naturally, or such as he has 
 been made by education and habit : and nothing can 
 be more clear than that any man, whether young or old, 
 whether lay or clerical, a nobleman or tradesman, a 
 soldier or sailor, a peasant or mechanic, a man rich or 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 poor, single or married, who is now living in England, 
 is, both as to externals, and as to the modification of 
 himself, in very different circumstances from those in 
 which he could have been placed, had he lived in the 
 same character and station in the fourth or in the twelfth 
 century. And for the English monk of the nineteenth 
 century, there seem to be some peculiar obstacles. 
 They may exist, and in some degree, more or less, they 
 certainly do exist, in some other parts of Cliristendom, 
 but they are particularly obvious and powerful in this 
 country. 
 
 In the first place, consider how completely, and by 
 what means, the monastic system has been put down in 
 England. There is no need to enter into the matter of 
 motives or proofs. The fact, which is all that we want, 
 is, that popular indignation and hatred of the bitterest 
 kind was excited, and has been studiously kept up, and 
 that for centuries the general notion in this country 
 has been that a monastery naturally, almost necessarily, 
 is a place dedicated to idleness, gluttony, lewdness, 
 hypocrisy, political intrigue, fraud, treachery, and blood; 
 so that, as a matter of course, a nun is to be supposed 
 something as bad as can be, and a monk no better. 
 Now, certainly, no candid man will deny, that before 
 the period of the Reformation, the monastic system in 
 the Western Church had got into a very bad state. 
 Too many monasteries were really societies of dissolute 
 men ; and a vast many more had so far departed from 
 their bounden discipline, that there was nothing to 
 restrain the vicious. That is, the monks lived in 
 them under scarcely, if any, more control from vice 
 than fellows of colleges do now. That under these 
 
PREFACE. Xl 
 
 circumstances, in a dissolute age, a great number of 
 monks became profane and debauched, and a great 
 many more secular and careless of religion, is not to be 
 doubted ; but that there ever was truth in the coarse 
 and filthy abuse heaped upon the monastic order as a 
 body, by some who were forward in the business of the 
 Reformation, is what I suppose never was believed by 
 any one who had a moderate knowledge of facts. The 
 truth perhaps is, and it is such as should satisfy all but 
 the infidel and profane, that if we take any period 
 whatever in the history of Christianity, and compare 
 the morals of the monks and clergy with those of the 
 laity, we shall find that, however bad the former might 
 be, the latter were worse. In fact, it appears to be the 
 testimony of history, that the monks and clergy, whe- 
 ther bad or good in themselves, were in all times and 
 places better than other people. 
 
 Be this as it may, however, the point with which we 
 are concerned is, that this odium, just or unjust, does 
 exist, and would form an obstacle to the revival of 
 monastic institutions in this country. There are, per- 
 haps, some lively young men who would reply, "We 
 should like it all the better. We should enjoy being 
 persecuted, especially as nobody would venture to harm 
 us in life, or limb, or property, to burn us up as the 
 Danes did, or sell us up as Henry VIII. did, or hang 
 us up as Elizabeth did ; and we should go about with 
 shaved crowns and rope-girdles, and people would look 
 at us, and come to hear us intone from our lecterns." 
 Of this, one can only say, that in such hands the matter 
 would soon be laughed out of countenance. But others, 
 who deserve more respectful consideration, may tell us 
 
XU PREFACE. 
 
 that we are not to truckle to the spirit of the age, but 
 to do that which is right. That is plain enough, and I 
 trust that no one will imagine that I am recommending 
 a servile obsequiousness to popular notions and feelings. 
 Of course we are not to shrink from duties, to compro- 
 mise principles, to adopt or renounce doctrines or prac- 
 tices in mere compliment to the irreligious — but there 
 is no need to repeat the string of truisms which are not 
 only obvious to common sense, and instinctively felt by 
 common honesty, but which must be familiar to most 
 readers, as being perpetually in the mouths of those 
 who are conscious that they are proposing or practising 
 what the great body of the Church may deem eccentric 
 or absurd. 
 
 But these truisms are inapplicable to the matter in 
 hand, which involves no fulfilment or breach of any law 
 human or divine. And in such a case it is a matter of 
 wisdom and duty, and, practically speaking, of absolute 
 necessity, to take into account the state of thought and 
 feeling in which the great body of the Church has been 
 brought up and exists. If any man is fully satisfied 
 that there is a divine command, or a human law, by 
 which he is bound to build a monastery and carry on 
 monasticism, let him pursue his convictions, without 
 troubling himself about the consequences. Or if he 
 thinks that though there may have been no command 
 on the subject, yet, having developed itself, monasticism 
 must be an essential and permanent part of the divine 
 dispensation, I should not wish to discuss what appears 
 to me so entirely unreasonable, and so incapable of 
 being even approached in argument without the settle- 
 ment of many previous questions. But those who 
 
PREFACE. XIU 
 
 believe with me that different states of society may 
 render specific institutions, forming no part of the 
 Church, though more or less connected with it, useful 
 at one time, noxious at another, and incapable of exist- 
 ence at a third, I would beg to consider one or two 
 features of the present time, as compared with the 
 middle ages. 
 
 In the first place, as it regards vows of any kind. I do 
 not know whether, among the advocates for the revival 
 of Monasticism, there are any who would maintain them; 
 but in the letter to which I have alluded they are fairly 
 abandoned. In the adapted form there are to be 
 "No vows, but a solemn declaration and engagement 
 of obedience to the Superior, and of compliance with 
 the rules of the Institution during residence." But this 
 seems to be in fact giving up the whole thing. Surely 
 no one who has at all considered the system of Monas- 
 ticism can doubt that the vow of perpetual self-dedica- 
 tion was the very root of the matter. The reserved 
 power of change, even if encumbered with difficulties, 
 would alter the whole thing. The monastic vow 
 necessarily operates in two ways. First, in making all 
 but the most thoughtless careful how they enter upon 
 such a mode of life ; and secondly, by making those 
 who have taken it contented with a condition which 
 they know to be unalterable, and in which, whatever 
 other schemes of life may occur to their imagination as 
 brighter than their own, they remain peacefully and 
 cheerfully, because that very circumstance of perpetual 
 obligation has given it somewhat the character of a 
 divine dispensation. It is very well for political agita- 
 tors, and makers of fancy tales, to tell us of raging 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 monks and pining nuns, gnawing the chains of their 
 spiritual bondage, because they were either in love com- 
 monly so called, or in love with the vanities of the world, 
 — as if such persons, with very few exceptions, would 
 not fairly run away, vow or no vow — but it is no part of 
 human nature to be rendered permanently unhappy by 
 unalterable dispensations. Generally men and women 
 are satisfied with the sex, and the stature, assigned to 
 them, and do not think of making themselves miserable 
 about the circumstances of native country, parentage, 
 or anything else which, they know, cannot be altered. 
 
 But the matter may be illustrated by a case in which 
 a vow of perpetual obligation remains among us in 
 the present day. No one can doubt that it would 
 make a difference scarcely to be imagined if the mar- 
 riage vow, instead of being perpetual and irrevocable, 
 were only a "solemn declaration" that the parties 
 would conduct themselves properly so long as they 
 should see fit to continue man and wife. I do not 
 mean merely that many unhappy marriages would be 
 dissolved, and many unequally-yoked persons set at 
 liberty, for it would certainly operate something far 
 beyond this, and of quite a different nature. Thou- 
 sands who are now living happily together, and who, if 
 they ever thought of such a thing as a separation, 
 would consider it one of the greatest evils that could 
 happen to them, would become unsettled, would be led 
 to speculate, and tempted to experiment ; the possibi- 
 Vdy would be present to their own minds, or perpetually 
 suggested by others; a cross word or an angry look 
 would be followed by divorce, and a state of things 
 would follow, plainly shewing that if the name of mar- 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 riage was retained, its nature was changed, and its 
 chief benefits were lost. I am not saying that the 
 monastic vow was a good thing, or that those who took 
 it did right ; but, that without it the system could not 
 have existed ; and also, that without it neither the sys- 
 tem, nor anything really like it, can be now established. 
 
 But there are, moreover, two particulars in the cha- 
 racter assumed by the vow in question, which are 
 strongly against its revival in the present age. In the 
 early days of monasticism, a person self-devoted by a 
 vow to a life of celibacy was on that account looked up 
 to with respect. But the vow^ which was then in 
 itself a ground of reverence, would in the present day 
 expose any men or women who should be known to 
 have taken it, to the suspicion, or the remouwstrance, or 
 the ridicule, not merely of the frivolous and thought- 
 less, but of nine out of ten of those whom they were 
 brought up to love and honour, and to whom they were 
 bound by every tie of affection and respect. And it 
 must surely make some difference in the working of a 
 system, whether those who adopt it become objects of 
 esteem and veneration, or of contempt and suspicion. 
 There may be those who would answer as before, that 
 persecution from anybody would be delightful ; but, 
 beside other reasons for taking courage, we may comfort 
 ourselves with the hope that they are not sufficiently 
 numerous to fill more than one or two monasteries at 
 the utmost, and that only for a very little while. 
 
 For let us just look at another point — the monastic 
 vow was one of obedience ; and in the proposed adapt- 
 ation there are to be " no vows ; but a solemn decla- 
 ration and engagement of obedience to the Superior, and 
 
XTl . PREFACE. 
 
 of compliance with the rules of the Institution during 
 residence." But what are we to understand by " obe- 
 dience to the Superior" in this revived monastic system? 
 Is it, for instance, to be such as the Rule of St. Bene- 
 dict required ? The reader may see what that was in a 
 following page '. Nothing of that sort, I suppose, can 
 
 * See p. 170. No. 60.— The original of it is " Praeceptis Abbatis in 
 omnibus obedire, etiam si ipse aliter (quod absit) agat memores illud 
 Dominicum praeceptum. Quae dicunt, facite : quae autera faciunt, facere 
 nolite." — Cap. iv. There is, indeed, in this Rule such a plain statement of 
 the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance as would appear per- 
 fectly ridiculous in the present day. What would those who talk most 
 about obedience say to such passages as these : " Primus humilitatis gradus, 
 est obedientia sine mora. Haec convenit his, qui nihil sibi a Christo carius 
 aliquid existimant propter servitium sanctum quod professi sunt, seu 
 propter metum gehennae, vel gloriam vitae aetemae ; mox ut aliquid impe- 
 ratum a majore fuerit, ac si divinitus imperetur, moram pati nesciunt in 
 faciendo." ..." Sed haec ipsa obedientia tunc acceptabilis erit Deo, et dulcis 
 hominibus, si, quod jubetur, non trepide, non tarde, non tepide, aut cum 
 murmure, vel cum responso nolentis efficiatur : quia obedientia quee majo- 
 ribus prcebetur, Deo exhibetur." — Cap. v. And this was to extend, not 
 merely to things specifically mentioned in statutes or acts of parliament, 
 nor yet merely to things reasonable in themselves, but to such things as 
 were grievous and even impossible. The lxviii. chapter is headed " Si 
 fratri impossibilia injungantur; " audit is as follows : " Si cui fratri aliqua 
 forte gravia aut impossibilia injunguntur ; suscipiat quidem jubentis impe- 
 rium, cum omni mansuetudine et obedientia. Quod si omnino virium 
 suarum mensuram viderit pondus oneris excedere; impossibilitatis suae 
 causas ei, qui sibi praeest, patienter et opportune suggerat, non super- 
 biendo aut resistendo vel contradicendo. Quod si post suggestionem 
 suam in sua sententia Prioris imperium perduraverit, sciat junior ita sibi 
 expedire, et ex caritate confidens de adjutorio Dei, obediat." Nor was 
 this obedience to be confined to the Abbot : " Obedientia? bonum non 
 solum Abbati exhibendum est ab omnibus : sed etiam sibi invicem ita obe- 
 diant fratres, scientes se per banc obedientiae viam ituros ad Deum .... Si 
 quis autem Frater pro quavis minima causa ab Abbate, vel a quocumque 
 Priore suo corripiatur quolibet modo ; vel si leviter senserit animum 
 Prioris cujuscumque contra se iratum, vel ccmmotum, quamvis modice; 
 mox sine mora tamdiu prostratus in terra ante pedes ejusjaceat satisfaciens, 
 usque dum benedictione sanetur ilia commotio." — Cap. bcxi. I do not 
 know whether it is proposed to revive anything like this ; but without it 
 how could the monasteries of the dark ages have been what they were ? 
 In fact, what did they become as this spirit of submission, now lost in 
 that of jealous independence, was gradually subsiding ? 
 
PREFACE. XVll 
 
 be intended in this enlightened country ; and I am led 
 by the disputes which I have heard for many years 
 past respecting canonical obedience to our Bishops, to 
 doubt whether the talk of obedience has any real mean- 
 ing. I am afraid that in the present day nothing will 
 give such a Superior power^ except law or money ; and 
 that only the latter will procure for him anything which 
 can properly be called obedience. In the former of these 
 cases, where power is given by law, the obedience will 
 be rendered to the law, and in no sense whatever to the 
 Superior. If he has an Act of Parliament hanging in 
 his cell, constituting and appointing him Ruler over cer- 
 tain persons named in the schedule A annexed, accord- 
 ing to certain regulations set out in schedule B annexed, 
 those certain persons must obey (whether him, or the 
 law, is perhaps of no great consequence) so far as the 
 law goes ; but beyond that the Superior has no power. 
 On the other hand, something further may perhaps be 
 procured for him in the way of obedience, by money. 
 I do not mean what lawyers call *' monies numbered " 
 paid down in pence by the Superior to the monks for 
 capping him, or doing what he bids ; but money's worth, 
 provided by the expense of money. There may be 
 endowments such as will (according to the familiar 
 phrase) make it worth men's while — worth the while of 
 men nursed up in sensitive independence — to put up, 
 at least for a time, with the degradation and annoyance 
 of submission ; or it may give a lift in society, smooth 
 the way to holy orders, or more probably to a sectarian 
 ministry ; or it may hold out various other advantages 
 which it is easy to imagine. But whatever they may 
 be, the obedience thus purchased will be of little value, 
 
 b 
 
XVlll PREFACE. 
 
 and the mode by which it is obtained will considerably 
 qualify the nature of the society. It must, I suppose, 
 consist chiefly of those to whom such advantages are 
 an object ; perhaps entirely, for men of higher motives 
 may not like that sort of constant association, and close 
 fellowship, vvith the sordid and scheming. 
 
 There is, I repeat, a want of power ; a want which it 
 is in the present day impossible to meet by any legiti- 
 mate and reasonable means. How is it attempted in 
 the plan to which I have so repeatedly alluded ? The 
 author of it seems to have been conscious that the 
 Superior would be in rather a helpless predicament, and 
 to have thought that as he could not be magnified, he 
 should be multiplied. I am afraid I shall hardly be 
 believed, when I say that under the head of " Visita- 
 tion," we are told that the proposed monasteries are to 
 be visited, " monthly by the Parochial Minister, quar- 
 terly by the Rural Dean, half-yearly by the Archdeacon, 
 yearly by the Bishop." I fear there would be " many 
 masters." Will the reader be so good as to imagine 
 monasteries in the parish, rural deanery, archdeaconry, 
 and diocese, in which he lives and some three or four 
 others which he may happen to know, to consider the 
 probabilities, and charitably keep them to himself? 
 
 But let us look at the matter on a broader scale. It 
 must be obvious to every one who has reflected on the 
 subject, that the progress of modern society — particu- 
 larly English society — has been most decidedly against 
 the possibility of reviving any institution in which 
 men should live together in common. The way of 
 living in this country has long been receding more and 
 more from anything like coenobitic life ; and has been 
 
PREFACE. XIX 
 
 characterized by an increasing tendency to independ- 
 ence, individualization, and (to use the words in a mild 
 sense) the dissociation, and disconnection of men. It 
 will be remembered that I am not speaking of parties 
 political or religious, or of joint-stock companies, but 
 of the habits of domestic life. How will these prepare 
 men for the Refectory ? There is now no such thing 
 as "the Meeting of Gallants at the Ordinarye," although 
 such common tables " were long the universal resort of 
 gentlemen ^ ;" and indeed of all classes of society in 
 England, as they still are in other countries of Europe. 
 But the most striking illustration is furnished by the 
 principal clubs which have been instituted in London 
 within about twenty years. Most of them have some 
 distinguishing character ; the Athenaeum, for instance, 
 as a literary club, the Carlton a political one, and in 
 some others the name is a sufficient indication, as the 
 United Service, the Junior United Service, the Tra- 
 vellers', the United University, the Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, the Reform. We may in all these cases 
 imagine some degree of sympathy and congruity 
 among the members of each club. At least, we may 
 safely say, what is still more to our purpose, that an 
 immense majority of members have at some time or 
 other been used to eat what are significantly called 
 
 ' I borrow these words from Nares, who places the word Ordinary in 
 his Glossary with some apology on account of its not having quite fallen 
 into actual disuse. Perhaps every year since his book was published has 
 given it a greater right to be included among the " words, phrases, and 
 names" which, as his title page states, "have been thought to require illus- 
 tration." It means, he tells us, "A public dinner, where each person pays 
 his share. The word, in this sense, is certainly not obsolete ; but it is 
 here inserted for the sake of observing, that ordinaries were long the uni- 
 versal resort of gentlemen, particularly in the reign of James I." 
 
 b 2 
 
XX PREFACE. 
 
 "commons," in the hall of a College, or an Inn of 
 Court, or at a Naval or Military mess-table. And yet 
 I am informed that in only one of the institutions which 
 I have mentioned is there any thing in the nature of a 
 table (T hole ; and that in that one it is only a recent 
 experiment, of which it still remains to be seen whe- 
 ther it will succeed, or whether, like similar attempts 
 in other clubs, it must be abandoned. So totally dif- 
 ferent is the usual course of things, that half a dozen 
 gentlemen, it may be, are sitting together until the 
 moment at which each has put down his name to 
 dine on a particular joint ; when it is ready, they go 
 into another room, separate to six different tables, and 
 the ambulatory joint seeks them out in their indepen- 
 dent establishments, while each is not supposed to know 
 of even the existence of the other five. Perhaps it 
 would not be too much to say that, in the clubs which 
 I have named, nearly an hundred thousand dinners (to 
 say nothing of other meals) are annually served ; and 
 to add, that though eaten (as it regards each club) in 
 the same room, and in company, yet nine out of ten 
 are single, not to say solitary, meals '. 
 
 I am not finding fault with this. I shall probably 
 be told that it is much the best way ; that it does not 
 
 ^ I do not know how far it might be right to consider the details of 
 any one of the Institutions which I have named, as forming a ground for 
 precise calculation respecting the others. But nothing of that sort is here 
 required ; and though (as I suspect) the following statement may exhibit 
 proportions in a trifling degree more favourable to my argument, than 
 would be furnished from some of the clubs which I have named, yet I 
 think it will shew the reader that I have not on the whole exaggerated. 
 In the month of June, 1843, the number of dinners served at the Athe- 
 naeum was 1457, of which all but 36 were single. Of the latter, 30 were 
 served to two persons, 5 to three, and 1 to four. 
 
PREFACE. XXI 
 
 arise from any want of good feeling, but that it is 
 found to be, on the whole, much more pleasant, — "you 
 are more independent." I really do not mean to con- 
 tradict this, or to argue about the comparative merits 
 of the present, and any former, system. I am only 
 stating a fact, and that only as an illustration ; but I 
 say that such a fact, or its cause, whatever that may 
 be, is something much in the way of any attempt to 
 revive ccenobitic life. And if the habits in which the 
 present generation have been educated, have drifted 
 them so far away from the refectory, is it worth while 
 to waste a word about the dormitory ? I will, there- 
 fore, here only ask the reader to reflect on these two 
 very important points, and to draw out, for his own 
 consideration, the details respecting them ; unless 
 indeed he should feel that he cannot do that until he 
 knows from what class of society, or whether from all 
 classes indiscriminately, the monks are to be taken ; 
 and on this point I am not at present able to give him 
 any satisfactory information, being extremely puzzled 
 about it myself. 
 
 I hope I have convinced the reader that whether the 
 revival of Monasticism be practicable or impracticable, 
 good or bad, I am no advocate for it ; and having said 
 perhaps more than enough to vindicate myself from 
 the suspicion of any such design in the following 
 Essays, will he indulge me in the further egotism of 
 saying a very few words about the Essays themselves ? 
 They were originally published in the British Maga- 
 zine, between the months of March 1835 and February 
 1838. They were written at the request of my most 
 dear, and honoured, and deeply-lamented friend, the 
 
XXll PREFACE. 
 
 Rev. Hugh James Rose, who was then, as he had been 
 from its beginning, the editor of that work. After 
 receiving the first, he wrote to me that he should 
 " fully rely on a perennial, or, rather, 'permensal supply." 
 I mention this, because, under the impression which 
 it created, I was anxious that, throughout the whole 
 series, whenever a paper appeared, another should be 
 sent in time for the next number. In fact, the first 
 thirteen were printed with no intermission ; and though 
 of course I do not mean that T had each month to 
 begin the collection of materials de novo^ yet the ar- 
 rangement of raw materials is a work which takes some 
 time and trouble, generally more than one expects, and 
 which if it is hurried is likely to be ill-done. Some of 
 the papers were written under disadvantages from want 
 of health and leisure, and all without the help which 
 many books, not within my reach at Gloucester, would 
 have afforded. But chiefly they were written under 
 that great disadvantage of anxiety to furnish a certain 
 quantity, and only a certain quantity, by a given 
 time, and therefore feeling obliged to select, and 
 abridge, and condense, and cut up, and piece toge- 
 ther, and omit, and copy over again hastily, and, in 
 short, do all the things which were likely to present 
 unfavourably, materials which I was sure were inte- 
 resting in themselves. Such circumstances impress an 
 indelible character on a work, which no subsequent 
 labour can remove ; but the reader may view it with 
 more indulgence if he considers it as belonging to 
 essays J written under the disadvantages which I have 
 described, and published in the pages of a monthly 
 periodical A\ork. I need scarcely add that, though 
 
PREFACE. XXiii 
 
 printed much more accurately than I could have ex- 
 pected, such a mode of publishing such materials, of a 
 great part of which I had no opportunity of correcting 
 the press, ensured many typograpliical errors. Some, I 
 fear, must have escaped, but I hope that the greater 
 part are corrected ; and, indeed, I am aware of only the 
 following, 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 208, n. 4, for Lab. read Lib. 
 
 — 337, head-line, <uld "customs." 
 
 — 352, ditto, for clairvaux read citeaux. 
 
 — 354, n. for Mouast. read Nomast. 
 
THE DARK AGrES. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 " I know nothing of those ages which knew nothing." 
 
 I REALLY forget to which of two eminent wits this 
 saying belongs ; but I have often thought that I should 
 have liked to ask him how he came to know so curious 
 and important a fact respecting ages of which he knew 
 nothing. Was it merely by hearsay ? 
 
 Everybody allows, however, that they were dark 
 ages. Certainly ; but what do we mean by darkness ? 
 Is not the term, as it is generally used, comparative ? 
 Suppose I were to say that I am writing " in a little 
 dark room," would you understand me to mean that I 
 could not see the paper before me ? Or, if I should say 
 that I was writing " on a dark day," would you think 
 I meant that the sun had not risen by noon ? Well, 
 then, let me beg you to remember this, when you and 
 I use the term, dark ages. I am sorry to waste time 
 about words ; but it is so important that people should 
 fully understand one another, (and the sooner the 
 better,) that I must just notice another point. Do 
 we always clearly know what we should understand 
 — or, indeed, what we mean to express — when we 
 
 B 
 
2 INTRODUCTION. [nO. I. 
 
 hear or talk of the dark ages? Do we mean ages 
 ■which were dark in themselves, and with respect to 
 those who lived in them? Or, do we mean that they 
 are dark to us, and that it is very difficult for us to 
 form a clear idea of them ? I suppose that we some- 
 times mean one and sometimes the other, and very 
 frequently both — and, in fact, both are true ; but it is 
 better not to confound the two ideas, which are in 
 themselves perfectly distinct. 
 
 Many causes — of some of which I hope to speak 
 hereafter — have concurred to render those ages very 
 dark to us ; but, for the present, I feel it sufficient 
 to remind the reader, that darkness is quite a different 
 thing from shutting the eyes ; and that we have no 
 right to complain that we can see but little until we 
 have used due dilio^ence to see what we can. 
 
 As to the other point — that is, as to the degree 
 of darkness in which those ages were really involved, 
 and as to the mode and degree in which it affected 
 those who lived in them, I must express my belief, 
 that it has been a good deal exaggerated. There is no 
 doubt that those who lived in what are generally called 
 the "middle" or the "dark" ages, knew nothing of 
 many things which are familiar to us, and which we 
 deem essential to our comfort, and almost to our ex- 
 istence; but still I doubt whether, even in this point 
 of view, they were so entirely dark as some would have 
 us suppose. I dare say you have observed, that, in a 
 certain state of twilight, as soon as you have lighted 
 only a taper in your chamber, it seems quite dark out 
 of doors. Yet, perhaps, you have only just come into 
 the house out of that which, if not broad day-light, 
 was nevertheless such good serviceable twilight as that, 
 while you were in it, you never once thought of dark- 
 ness, or of losing your way, or not being able to see 
 what you were about ; yet, I say, as soon as ever you 
 
NO. I.] INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 lighted, were it only a rushlight, in your chamber, all 
 the look-out was darkness. Were you ever so misled 
 as to open the window, and tell the people in the road 
 that they would certainly lose their way, and break 
 their shins — nay, even to condole with, or triumph 
 over, those inevitable consequences of their wandering 
 about in pitch-darkness ? I very much doubt it ; but 
 if it ever did happen, I feel quite confident that, if 
 from being at a loss for an exordium, or for any other 
 reason, you had been obliged to wait with your head out 
 at window until your eyes had recovered from the glare 
 of your own little candle, you would have seen that 
 there was some light abroad — you would have begun to 
 distinguish houses, and highways, and sober people 
 going about their business in a way which shewed that 
 they could see enough for common purposes — and you 
 would have held your tongue and drawn in your head, 
 rather pleased that you had not exposed yourself. 
 
 Certain it is that we are lighted up, and every man 
 who struts about in our gas light can see that it is dark 
 out of doors ; and, to bring him to anything like a 
 right understanding of the case — not to prove to him 
 that it is as light out of doors as in, for I beg the 
 reader not to suspect me of any such folly — to bring 
 him, I say, to a right understanding of the case, he 
 must put his head out, and keep it out for some time. 
 *' What then," says the reader, " are we to do ? Can 
 he mean that one is to wade through all the stuff that 
 was written in the middle ages ?" Certainly not ; for, 
 in the first place, a good deal of it (and, I suspect, 
 much of what would be most interesting) is not known 
 to be in existence. I say known, because who can take 
 upon himself to say what is extant? A good deal has 
 been printed ; and, as to MSS., we know that there 
 are a good many unpublished in the British Museum, 
 the Bodleian, and other libraries of our kingdom ; and 
 
 B 2 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. [nO. I. 
 
 I suppose that everybody who has the privilege of 
 using them, or the King of France's library, and a 
 thousand others, can find out specifically what manu- 
 scripts they contain. Some, I suppose, know what is 
 in the Vatican, and in other of the less open collec- 
 tions; but who knows what may be lurking up and 
 down Christendom? Who knows what was hastily 
 swept together when the libraries of suppressed mo- 
 nasteries, in some of the less frequented parts of 
 Europe, were accumulated in large collections, with- 
 out, perhaps, a full investigation of some of their less 
 obvious and intelligible contents ? Perhaps I under- 
 rate the pains that may have been bestowed on them ; 
 but the idea has been strongly impressed on my mind 
 since I was, some time ago, in the midst of a collection 
 drawn from such sources, in which the manuscripts 
 alone amounted to sixty thousand. I cannot help 
 thinking that a more thorough investigation of such 
 collections may one day bring to light much that is 
 not supposed to exist. But I am running on too fast ; 
 and all that was necessary was to assure the reader 
 that, so far from requiring him to read all the works 
 w^hich were written in those ages, I by no means re- 
 quire him to read one-half of such of them as have 
 been printed since ; but by putting your head into the 
 darkness, good reader, I do mean that you must, in 
 some degree, make yourself acquainted with the origi- 
 nal writers of the period. I have heard of a traveller 
 at an inn, who wished to look out and see if it was day ; 
 and who returned to bed with a very wrong judgment 
 on the matter, owing to his being in the dark himself, 
 whereby he was led to open the glass door of a cup- 
 board, instead of a window ; and I must say, that, in 
 trusting to the representations of some popular writers, 
 YOU will be doing much the same thing. 
 
 This is a strong assertion ; and it is one which I 
 
NO. I.] PURPOSE OF THE WORK. 5 
 
 would not make if I were not fully prepared to defend 
 it by sufficient examples, which I hope to give in sub- 
 sequent papers. And, now I think of it, the reader 
 may, perhaps, desire some account of my plan : and I 
 shall be very glad to take the opportunity of assuring 
 him that I have no plan whatsoever — that I do most 
 absolutely and entirely disclaim everything of the sort — 
 and that I would rather put this very pen into the fire, 
 than undertake to draw out a plan and keep to it in 
 such a matter as this must needs be. I wish this to 
 be understood at the outset, that the reader may not 
 charge me with digressing — a thing to which I am ex- 
 ceedingly prone, whenever restriction makes it practi- 
 cable. For, to say the truth, I have seldom taken 
 much trouble to find any one thing, that I was not re- 
 warded by finding at least two or three which I was 
 not looking for ; and I cannot help digressing myself, 
 and wishing to carry the reader along with me, when 
 anything turns up which interests me, and which I 
 think may amuse or instruct others. 
 
 But while I thus disclaim all plan, let me say, that I 
 do not write without purpose ; and this purpose I wish 
 to be fully understood. It is to furnish some materials 
 towards forming a right judgment of the real state of 
 learning, knowledge, and literature during the dark 
 ages. The period which I have more particularly in 
 view is that extending from a.d. 800 to a.d. 1200 ; and 
 to this period I wish the reader to apply any general 
 statement or remark which I may offer respecting the 
 dark or middle ages. At the same time, I do not con- 
 sider myself as restricted to that precise period, or pre- 
 cluded from adducing proofs or illustrations which may 
 be somewhat more ancient or modern. The subject I 
 have endeavoured to state in terms as comprehensive 
 as possible, by saying, " learning, knowledge, and lite- 
 rature ;" for I did not know how else to include the 
 
6 PURPOSE OF THE WORK. [NO. I. 
 
 variety of miscellaneous matter into which it is my 
 purpose to inquire, or which, having incidentally met 
 with it in such inquiries, has appeared to me worthy of 
 notice. It will not, however, be understood that I am 
 pretending to write a literary history of that period. 
 All that I propose in these papers is, to bring forward 
 some facts illustrative of the points already mentioned. 
 For this reason a great part of the inquiry will of course 
 turn on books ; and I consider nothing relating to them 
 as foreign to my purpose, which includes any notices 
 that may throw light upon their number, value, and 
 materials — the means employed by proprietors, libra- 
 rians, and scribes for their multiplication, correction, 
 embellishment, and preservation — any hints tending to 
 show what books were most in request — any notices of 
 the love of books, or of the sale, loan, or gift of them — 
 of the means employed to qualify or cause people to 
 read them — anything in the shape of catalogues of 
 libraries, or collections of books, during that period. 
 
 This looks so fine now I have put it on paper, that I 
 must again beg the reader to understand that I am as 
 far as possible from pretending to give a full account 
 of these matters ; but I think that by bringing together 
 and offering to notice some hints which lie scattered in 
 various writers of those times, I may — I do not say 
 enable him to form, but — assist him in forming an esti- 
 mate of the learning, knowledge, and literature of the 
 dark ages ; and on this point I will only add, that 
 though he may probably find (and if so, I hope pardon) 
 some errors and mistakes, yet he may rely on my never 
 intentionally copying a reference — that is, whenever I 
 give a reference he will understand (unless the contrary 
 is stated) that I copy immediately from the book to 
 which I refer. Those who have had any practice in 
 verifying quotations will know what I mean, and I 
 believe that they will have found reason to join me in 
 
NO. I.] PURPOSE OF THE WORK. 7 
 
 wishing that all authors, great and small, would do the 
 same. 
 
 It must be obvious to every one who has any ac- 
 quaintance whatever with the subject, that the learn- 
 ing respecting which I inquire was chiefly sacred or 
 ecclesiastical — this, I say, is obvious as a matter of 
 fact ; but I wish it to be distinctly understood, that 
 it is particularly with a view to such learning that I 
 now offer these desultory notices to the public. My 
 object is to inquire what knowledge, and what means 
 of knowledge, the Christian Church actually had during 
 the dark ages, and what was, in fact, the real state of 
 the Church on these points during that period. All 
 which does not directly tend to this is purely incidental, 
 and is admitted with a view to another object in which 
 I feel deeply interested — the promotion of the study of 
 ecclesiastical history. 
 
 There is no difficulty in knowing where to begin, for 
 before we can think of building, we must clear away 
 the rubbish — or, to recur to the figure which I have 
 already used, before we can possibly look out of the 
 window, we must open the shutters ; for, if we only go 
 to " windows that exclude the light," we might as well 
 keep our eyes shut. I feel it necessary to do this, 
 because statements extremely false have been handed 
 about from one popular writer to another, and it is 
 quite impossible to form any correct opinion on the 
 subject without knowing that they are false. At the 
 same time I cannot persuade myself to begin the busi- 
 ness without begging the reader not to consider me as 
 the advocate of ignorance, superstition, and error — not 
 to suppose that I wish to hold up the dark ages as 
 golden ages — not to think that I undervalue the real 
 improvements which have been made in learning and 
 science. I do not want to maintain any such silly 
 paradox ; but I do want to contradict falsehood, and to 
 
8 PURPOSE OF THE WORK. [nO. I. 
 
 bate down exaggeration into at least something like 
 truth. Indeed I cannot help wishing that the reader 
 who has formed his idea of the dark ages only from 
 some modern popular writers — I do not mean those 
 who have written professedly on the subject — could be 
 at once fairly thrown back into the midst of them. I 
 cannot help thinking that he would feel very much as 
 I did the first time that I found myself in a foreign 
 country. A thousand novelties attracted my attention ; 
 many were strange, and some displeasing; and there 
 was more or less that seemed foreign in everything. 
 For this T was prepared ; but I was not prepared for 
 another feeling which very soon, and quite unex- 
 pectedly, sprung up in my mind — " How much is 
 different, and, go where I may, for ever changing! 
 True ; but how much is the same everywhere !" It 
 was almost a surprise to me to find that the sun and 
 moon went on much the same way as at home — that 
 there were roads, and rivers, and fields, and woods, and 
 towns, and cities, and streets, and houses filled with 
 people who might, perhaps, talk some other language, 
 and dress in some other fashion from mine, but who 
 had evidently much the same notions as to the neces- 
 saries of life, and the substantials of society ; and, 
 without losing all my pride, or patriotism, or prejudice, 
 I got a new idea of the unity of nature. I felt that 
 He had " made of one blood all nations of men for to 
 dwell on all the face of the earth" — it brought with it 
 a kind of home-feeling — a sense that, wherever I wan- 
 dered, I was but moving in the hollow of His hand 
 among my own brethren. Well, and these old folks 
 of the dark ages were our grandfathers and grand- 
 mothers ; and, in a good many points, vastly like our- 
 selves, though we may not at first see the resemblance 
 in the few smoky old family pictures which have come 
 down to us ; but had they " not eyes ?" had they " not 
 
NO. II.] Robertson's charles v. 9 
 
 hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions — 
 fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, 
 subject to the same diseases, healed by the same 
 means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and 
 summer" as we are ? " Yes ; but they knew nothing." 
 Well, then, it is strange to think how they could do 
 and say so much as they did without any knowledge. 
 But you do not mean quite nothing — you will allow 
 that they knew the Pater-noster and Credo, and that is 
 something — nay, a good deal, in itself, and the pledge 
 of a great deal more. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 ** Vultis eorum aliqua, quae inter legendum aut animadverterim ipse, aut 
 animadversa ab aliis observaverim proferam in medium ? Faciam sane 
 quam libenter." — Strada. 
 
 I HAVE said, that the state of things during the dark 
 ages has been misrepresented by some popular writers ; 
 and also that, in making that charge, I did not mean 
 to reflect on those who had professedly written on those 
 times. Indeed, as far as I know, the opinions of men 
 in general on the subject are less frequently formed 
 from these writers than from those who, having ob- 
 tained popularity on some other grounds, treat inci- 
 dentally of the subject, or here and there give a passing 
 sneer to the dark ages. Few books have been more 
 popular, or more generally read by thousands who 
 never thought of asking for authorities, than Robert- 
 son's " History of Charles the Fifth ;" and, perhaps, I 
 cannot do better than take some proofs and illustra- 
 tions of what I have said from that work. Some 
 remarks on his statements may not only tend to 
 obviate those prejudices which have been raised by 
 
10 MISREPRESENTATIONS [nO. II. 
 
 him, and by other writers, but may also furnish a sort 
 of introduction which may be required by those who 
 have not given any attention to the subject. 
 
 In his " View of the Progress of Society," prefixed to 
 his History, Robertson says : — 
 
 " Literature, science, taste, were words scarce in use during 
 the ages we are contemplating ; or if they occur at any time, 
 eminence in them is ascribed to persons and productions so 
 contemptible that it appears their true import was little 
 understood. Persons of the highest rank, and in the most 
 eminent stations could not read or w^rite. Many of the 
 clergy did not understand the Breviary which they were 
 obliged daily to recite ; some of them could scarce read it." 
 —(Vol. i. p. 18.) 
 
 On this statement Robertson adds a note, containing 
 " proofs and illustrations ;" but, before I come to it, 
 let me observe by the way, that he is professedly speak- 
 ing of the period " from the seventh to the eleventh cen- 
 tury ;" and, that unless w^e understand him to mean 
 " from the seventh" to quite the end of the " eleventh 
 century," it is not wonderful that the clergy did not 
 understand the " Breviary," or true that they were 
 obliged to recite it ; for it did not exist. The fact 
 is, indeed, unimportant ; because the question is, not 
 whether there was, at that period, a book called the 
 " Breviary," but whether, supposing there were such a 
 book, the clergy could have read it, or any thing else. 
 I notice the matter, however, as one of the proofs which 
 Robertson gives that he was not very familiar with a sub- 
 ject on which he ventured to speak in very broad and 
 general terms, but evidently without scrupulous exact- 
 ness. The note, however, begins in the following 
 manner : — 
 
 " Innumerable proofs of this might be produced. Many 
 charters granted by persons of the highest rank are pre- 
 served, from which it appears that they could not subscribe 
 
NO. II ] IN Robertson's charles v. 11 
 
 their name. It was usual for persons who could not write, 
 to make the sign of the cross in confirmation of a charter. 
 Several of these remain, where kings and persons of great 
 eminence affix signum crucis manu propria pro ignoratione 
 liter arum. Du Cange, voc. Crux, vol. iii. p. 1191. From 
 this is derived the phrase of signing instead of subscribing a 
 paper. In the ninth century, Herbaud Comes Palatii, though 
 supreme judge of the empire by virtue of his office, could not 
 subscribe his name. Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique par 
 deux Benedictins, 4to. torn. ii. p. 422.^' — Note X. p. 232. 
 
 It is extremely difficult to meet broad general asser- 
 tions -which it is, in the nature of things, impossible to 
 disprove ; but we may reasonably call for evidence of 
 their truth, and, if it is not produced, we may be 
 allowed to doubt and to dispute them. If " many 
 charters" are preserved in which " kings and persons of 
 great eminence" avow their ignorance, surely many 
 might be, and, I think, would have been, produced. 
 The ignorance of the dark ages has long been a matter 
 of triumphant retrospect ; and such regal curiosities of 
 literature, or illiterature, would have been highly in- 
 teresting to an enlightened public. Perhaps, indeed, 
 " many" instances have been adduced ; but I do not 
 remember to have seen, or specifically heard of, more 
 than four. One of them is, I believe, less commonly 
 known ; but the other three have been repeatedly 
 paraded in declamations on this subject. 
 
 First — Withred, king of Kent, who reigned from 
 A.D. 671 to A.D. 725, and one of whose charters is sub- 
 scribed "Ego Withredus RexCantiee omnia supra scripta 
 confirmavi, atque a me dictata propria manu signum 
 Sanctai Crucis pro ignorantia litterarum expressi." 
 
 Secondly — Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, in the eighth 
 century, subscribed a charter containing a grant to 
 Atto, abbot of Saltzburg, " quod manu propria, ut 
 potui, characteres chirographi inchoando depinxi coram 
 
12 MISREPRESENTATIONS [nO. II. 
 
 judicibus atque optimatibus meis. Signum manus mese 
 propriae Tassilonis," &c. 
 
 Thirdly — Heribaud, Comte du Palais under Lewis 
 TL, subscribed a charter in a.d. 873, " Signum Heri- 
 baldi Comitis Sacri Palatii, qui ibi fui et propter igno- 
 rantiam litterarum, signum sanctse crucis feci '." 
 
 Fourthly — The authors of the " Nouveau Traite de 
 Diplomatique,'' after arguing against those who con- 
 sidered such ignorance as incredible, say, " L'usage 
 d'avouer pareille ignorance est atteste par tant de traits 
 historiques, que toutes les chicanes de I'esprit humain 
 ne pourront en obscurcir I'eclat. II suffira d'en rappeler 
 quelques uns dans les notes." Tn a note on this 
 passage they exhibit the poor " Roi de Cantorberi," 
 and the " Comte du Palais," already mentioned, and 
 add the case of Gui Guerra, Count of Tuscany, who 
 was reduced to the same necessity, " quia scribere 
 nesciebat." " II seroit superflu," say they, " d'accu- 
 muler un plus grand nombre de faits, pour verifier un 
 usage, dont la certitude est demontree ^." 
 
 To me it appears that three or four instances, occur- 
 ring between the eighth and twelfth centuries, are so far 
 from demonstrating the certainty of a custom, that 
 they do not prove that anything which can properly 
 be called a custom existed ; unless, indeed, these 
 writers meant (as perhaps their language elsewhere 
 might almost incline us to believe) that these instances 
 prove the usage of kings and great men, when they 
 could not write, to state that fact on the face of the 
 instrument. There is, however, no need to pursue this 
 point ; for, of course, I do not mean to deny that there 
 
 ^ These three instances were given by Mabillon (De Re Diplom. p. 163. 
 544.), and were thence transferred to vol. ii. (not iii.) of the Benedictine 
 edition of Du Cange. I write here with reference to the statement of 
 Robertson ; for the reader will observe, that two out of the three cases 
 are earlier than the period which I have specified— that is, a.d. 800—1200. 
 
 2 Tom. ii. p 426. 
 
NO. II.] IN Robertson's Charles v. 13 
 
 was, in those days, a much greater ignorance of writing 
 than in ours, and that men of rank were much more 
 frequently unable to write then than they are now. 
 But when Robertson talks of " innumerable proofs," and 
 tells us that '''"many''' charters are preserved, from which 
 " it appears" that such persons could not sign their 
 names, I feel it right to question his statement. Had 
 he seen the original charters? I very much doubt it. 
 If he had seen them, would it have enabled him to 
 decide the point ? I am sure that it would not ; and I 
 feel this certainty, not only because I do not give him 
 credit for so much research in re diplomatica as that 
 he should bring forward " innumerable proofs" when 
 Mabillon, and Toustain, and Tassin gave only four 
 between them, but from the very nature of the case. 
 The fact that a man's name was subscribed to a docu- 
 ment by another, was, in those days, no proof that he 
 could not have done it himself ; and though, in the 
 present day, we should hardly give any one credit for 
 being able to write if we found that he had only made 
 his mark, yet we must not entirely judge of other ages 
 by our own. 
 
 Mabillon has given and discussed four reasons why 
 charters were frequently signed by proxy: — 1. The 
 inability of the parties to write ; which was, of course, 
 a very common reason, and may well be supposed, upon 
 the great scale, to have been the most frequent. Un- 
 der this head he gives the well known story of Theo- 
 doric, and the three cases first mentioned above. 
 2. Physical inability, arising from blindness, disease, 
 or old age ; as in the case of Eugenius, at the council 
 of Constantinople, in the year 536, who subscribed by 
 the hand of Paul, a deacon of his monastery, wc nn 
 Ivvanivoq lia to yrjpag ^ ; of St. Omer, whose will was 
 
 » Cone. Tom. V. p. 136, 
 
14 MISREPRESENTATIONS [nO. II. 
 
 subscribed — " Haec abocellis feci, et alius manum 
 meam tenens scripsit et subscripsit;" and of some 
 others whom he mentions. 3. An affectation of dig- 
 nity, through which many high official persons chose 
 that their names should be written by the notary. 4. 
 What is most to our purpose, a custom growing out 
 of this, and extending so far as that by the eleventh 
 century it had become almost universal. In imitation 
 of their superiors, almost all persons — all at least who 
 could pretend to any kind of distinction or title — 
 preferred having their names written by the notary, 
 (who could say of them what it might have seemed 
 ostentatious to say of themselves,) and then adding, or 
 sometimes omitting to add, their mark — that is, the 
 sign of the cross made with their own hands. It will 
 be obvious, therefore, that it does not " appear" in all 
 cases, even from the original document, whether the 
 parties could write their names. Indeed, if it did not 
 suppose an almost incredible degree of ignorance, one 
 would be tempted to think that Heribaud's affixing 
 the sign of the cross, " pro ignoratione litterarum," had 
 led Robertson to infer, that all persons who made the 
 sign of the cross on such occasions did it for the same 
 reasons; for he says, it was usual "ybr persons who 
 could not ivrite to make the sign of the cross in confir- 
 mation of a charter." No doubt ; but it was also usual 
 for those who could write. The sign of the cross was, 
 in fact, ^' the confirmation and the signature^" and the 
 
 ^ Take, by way of specimen, the subscription to the will of Hagano, 
 Canon of St. Martin's at Tours, in a.d. 819: — "Hagano diaconus 
 cessionem a me factam sub signum Sanctae Crucis confirmavi." — 
 {Martene, Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum, vol. i. p. 23.) (And here let me 
 say, by the way, that as I hope to make frequent reference to this work, 
 as well as to the "Veterum Scnptorum et Monumentorum Amplissima 
 Collectio," edited by Martene and Durand, I shall be glad to be allowed, 
 for brevity's sake, to refer to the former as " Mart.," and the latter as 
 " M. and D.") A charter, too, of Robert, Abbot of St. Martin's in the 
 same city, and of the year 897, is subscribed " Robertas Comes et inclytae 
 
NO. II.] IN ROBERTSON'S CHARLES V. 15 
 
 subscriber, in thus making the sign of his holy religion, 
 was considered as taking an oath. He was, in fact, 
 said manu jurare ' ; and, for greater solemnity, the 
 cross was sometimes made with the consecrated wine*. 
 The subscriber's adding his name was no essential part 
 of the confirmation, but simply a declaration and noti- 
 fication that the person, whose name was there written, 
 was he who had thus bound himself by his signature. 
 If he was unable, or if he did not choose, to do the 
 writing for himself, it was done for him by the notary. 
 
 I beg the reader not to suppose that I wish to do 
 more than to moderate the extravagance of Robertson's 
 statement, and to show that he made it without suffi- 
 cient grounds. Does he not, in fact, shew this himself 
 when he proceeds to say, 
 
 congregationis S, Martini Abbas, per hoc signum Sanetae Crucis subter 
 firmare studuit " {Mart. i. 56.) Or, to take a subscription belonging to 
 our own country, which may, at the same time, be a specimen of notarial 
 eloquence : — '* Anno Incarnationis Dominicae nongentesimo sexagesirao 
 sexto scripta est hujus privilegii syngrapha, his testibus consentientibus, 
 quorum inferius nomina ordinatim charaxantur ; " and then follow the 
 subscriptions — " Ego, Edgar, divina largiente gratia, Anglorum Basileus, 
 hoc privilegii donum nostro largiens Redemptori locoque ejus sanctissimo, 
 primus omnium regum, monachorum inibi collegium constituens, manu 
 propria signum hagicB crucis imprimens confirmavi — Ego, Dunstan, Doro- 
 bernensis ecclesise archiepiscopus, largifluam benevoli Regis donationem 
 venerans, crucis signaculo corroboravi — Ego, Eadmund, clytos legitiraus 
 praefati filius, crucis signaculum, infantuli florens aetate, propria indidi 
 manu — Ego Edward, eodem rege clyto procreatus, praefatam patris muni- 
 ficentiam crucis signo consolidavi — Ego iELFTHRYXH, legitima praefati regis 
 conjux, raea legatione monachos eodem loco rege annuente constituens, 
 crucem impressi — Ego Eadgifa praedicti regis ava hoc opus egregium 
 crucis thaumate consolidavi ;" and Athelwold, Bishop of Winchester, says, 
 "crucis signaculo benedixi." (Cone. torn. ix. 673.) 
 
 ^ " Comes Tolosanus banc eandem donationem ibi deveniens rogatu 
 nostro corroboravit, firmavit, manuque propria juramt, id est, subscrip- 
 tione crucis." — (Dm Cange in v. Crux.) 
 
 * " Interdum quo solennius ac firmius esset pactum, quod scribebatur, 
 cruces ipsae exarabantur calamo in pretioso Christi sanguine intincto." 
 (Dm Cange, ibid ) See also Odo Aribertus (cited by Baluze in his notes 
 on Agobard, p. 129), who says, " Pace itaque cum sanguine eucharistico 
 separatim per Regem et Comitem firmata et obsignata," &c. 
 
16 MISREPRESENTATIONS [nO. II. 
 
 " So late as the fourteenth century, Du Guesclin, Con- 
 stable of France, the greatest man in the state, and one of 
 the greatest men of his age, could neither read nor ^Tite. 
 St. Palaye Memoires sur Pancienne Chevalerie, t. ii. p. 82." 
 
 Well, then, surely two instances in the eighth century, 
 one in the ninth, and one in the twelfth, of men of 
 rank who could not write — it does not appear, and 
 really does not follow, that they could not read— f otto. 
 too slender a ground for such broad assertions as 
 Robertson has ventured to make respecting the state 
 of letters. 
 
 Having, however, disposed of the laity, he pro- 
 ceeds : — 
 
 " Nor was this ignorance confined to laymen ; the greater 
 part of the clergy was not many degrees superior to them in 
 science. Many dignified ecclesiastics could not subscribe 
 the canons of those councils in which they sat as members. 
 Nouv. Traite de diplom., torn. ii. p. 424.^' 
 
 If the reader turns to the authority cited, he will 
 find some general statements respecting the ignorance 
 of the laitij as to writing, (with no specific instances, 
 however, except those already named,) but no mention 
 of ecclesiastics. It is true, that, in the succeeding 
 pages, the bishops and other ecclesiastical persons are 
 mentioned, and several are named in a note at page 
 426 ; but Robertson should have observed, what is 
 there so plainly stated, " Tous ces ea^emples sont anterieurs 
 au VIP SiecUy I do not say that later instances 
 might not be produced ; but I do not remember to 
 have seen any. He proceeds : — 
 
 " One of the questions appointed by the canons to be put 
 to persons who were candidates for orders was this, ' Whe- 
 ther they could read the Gospels and Epistles, and explain 
 the sense of them, at least literally?^ Regino Prumiensis ap. 
 Bruck. Hist. Philos. v. iii.p. 631." 
 
NO. II.] OF REGINO PRUMIENSIS. 17 
 
 I am sorry to say that I have not the Abbot of 
 Prum's book ; and I must, therefore, answer as well as 
 I can without it ; and perhaps some reader who has it, 
 or who is so happy as to have access to a public library, 
 will be kind enough to give me an extract, or some in- 
 formation as to the specific canon to which Robertson 
 (or rather Brucker) refers. In the mean time I must 
 observe — 
 
 First — That supposing all which Robertson meant to 
 convey to the reader were true, still such a canon 
 would show that, bad as things were, there was some 
 attempt to mend them. Granting that up to about 
 the year 900, when Regino wrote, all bishops, priests, 
 and deacons had been entirely ignorant and illiterate — 
 granting that these very canons were written by those 
 who could not write, for the use of those who could 
 not read, still they would be a standing proof that the 
 heads of the church did, at that time, require even 
 from candidates for orders, what Robertson would lead 
 us to consider as rather an unusual accomplishment in 
 a bishop. 
 
 Secondly — Though T have not Regino's book, I have 
 Brucker's, from whence Robertson professes to borrow 
 the quotation ; but, on turning to it, I find a very im- 
 portant difference. The reader will observe that the 
 question, even as Robertson gives it, is, in fact, whether 
 the candidate could read Latin publicly, and explain 
 the meaning; but, beside this, the inquiry was really 
 essentially different. It was not whether the candi- 
 date had learned to read, nor even whether he could 
 read Latin; but whether he could read Latin well. 
 The words, as quoted by Brucker, are — " Si Evangelium 
 et Epistolam bene legere possit, atque saltim ad literam 
 sensus ejus manifestare. Item, si sermonem S. Atha- 
 nasii de fide S. S. Trinitatis memoriter teneat, et 
 sensum ejus intelligat, et verbis communibus enuntiare 
 
 c 
 
18 STATE OF LEARNING [nO. II. 
 
 sciat." Surely there was no proof of brutal ignorance 
 in inquiring whether a candidate for holy orders could 
 read Latin well in public— -could repeat, understand, 
 and explain the Athanasian Creed, and preach the doc- 
 trine contained in it, in the vernacular tongue. The 
 question did not imply the slightest doubt whether the 
 man could read ; but only directed an inquiry whether 
 he could do that which many a man of the present 
 day, who has chuckled over the ignorance of the dark 
 ages, could not do. 
 
 Thirdly — If my object were merely to answer 
 Robertson, I should think that I had said enough 
 on this point ; but having a farther and more impor- 
 tant design, let me, without at present entering very 
 fully into the subject, give a few extracts from " the 
 canons," and one or two writers of the dark ages, or 
 at least of the period to which Robertson refers. 
 
 Isidore, Archbishop of Seville, who lived until the 
 year 636, in his work on Ecclesiastical Offices, has a 
 chapter of rules for the clergy, in which he says, that 
 they should be " continually occupied in teaching, in. 
 reading, in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs ^;" 
 which seems to imply, at least, that in his time it was 
 no uncommon thing for the clergy to be able to read. 
 
 At the eighth council of Toledo, held in a.d. 653, 
 regret was expressed that persons had been admitted 
 into holy orders who were altogether incompetent to 
 the discharge of clerical duties; and it was expressly 
 provided, that no one should be admitted to any degree 
 of ecclesiastical dignity unless he knew the whole 
 Psalter, the hymns of the church, and the office for 
 baptism ; and that those who had been admitted with- 
 out such necessary knowledge should forthwith set to 
 work to acquire it, or be made to do so by their supe- 
 
 * Bib. Pat. X. 203. 
 
NO. II.] AMONG THE CLERGY. 19 
 
 riors. " For," says the canon, " it is absurd that they 
 who are ignorant of the law of God, and not at least 
 moderately learned, should be promoted to any degree 
 of orders, or ecclesiastical office, in which it is their 
 business to teach simple and lay persons, to whom 
 they ought to be mirrors of life and discipline. Let 
 no one, then, who is unlearned, approach to meddle 
 with the holy mysteries of God ® . . . . none who is 
 blinded by the darkness of ignorance ; but let him only 
 come who is adorned with innocence of life and splen- 
 dour of learning. Otherwise the vengeance of God, 
 and of his church, will hereafter fall on both the 
 ordainers and the ordained ^" 
 
 Whether the council of Nantes, to which the fol- 
 lowing canon belongs, was held in the year 658, or 
 more than two centuries after, has been disputed ; but, 
 either way, it falls within Robertson's period, and is 
 in itself worth notice : — " When a bishop purposes to 
 hold an ordination, all those who are candidates for 
 holy orders are to be cited to the city on the Wednes- 
 day preceding, together with the archpresbyters, who 
 are to present them. And then the bishop is to 
 appoint priests and other prudent men, skilled in the 
 divine law, and conversant with the ecclesiastical 
 sanctions, who shall diligently inquire as to the life, 
 family, country, age, and education of the candidates ; 
 and as to the place where they were educated, whether 
 they have made good progress in learning, {si sint bene 
 literati,) and are instructed in the law of the Lord. 
 Above all things, whether they firmly hold the catholic 
 faith, and are able to set it forth in plain language. 
 Those, however, to whom this is entrusted must take 
 care that they do not depart from the faith, either from 
 favour or for interest, so as to present to the bishop 
 
 ® There is apparently some hiatus in the MSS. ' Cone. vi. 406. 
 
 c2 
 
20 STATE OF LEARNING [nO. II. 
 
 any unworthy or unfit person to receive holy orders; 
 for should they do this, he who has unworthily ap- 
 proached the altar shall be removed from it ; and they 
 who have attempted to sell the gift of the Holy Ghost, 
 being already condemned in the sight of God, shall be 
 deprived of their ecclesiastical dignity. They shall, 
 therefore, be diligently examined during three follow- 
 ing days, and then those who are approved shall be 
 presented to the bishop on the Saturday ^" 
 
 To come to our own country, it was decreed by the 
 sixth canon of the council held at Cliffe, or Cloveshou, 
 near Rochester, in the year 747, " that the bishops 
 shall ordain no man, either of clerks or monks, to 
 the holy degree of priesthood without public inquiry 
 as to his previous life, and his present purity of 
 morals, and knowledge of the faith. For how can 
 he preach to others the whole faith, minister the 
 word of knowledge, and appoint to sinners the mea- 
 sure of penance, unless he first, with studious care, 
 according to the measure of his capacity, takes 
 pains to learn, so that, according to the apostle, 
 he may be able to ' exhort according to sound doc- 
 trine'?" The seventh canon directs, "that bishops, 
 abbots, and abbesses .... shall study and provide, 
 with diligent care, that the custom of continual read- 
 ing may be practised in their societies, and may become 
 more common, to the benefit of souls and the praise of 
 the eternal King. For it is a lamentable thing to say 
 that, in these times, very few are to be found who are 
 carried away by a thoroughly hearty love of holy learn- 
 ing, {qui ex intimo corde sacrcB scienticB rapiantur amove,) 
 and they are scarcely willing to take much pains to 
 learn anything ; but rather from their youth they are 
 occupied with divers vanities, and lusts of vain glory ; 
 
 * Cone. ix. 471. 
 
NO. II.] AMONG THE CLERGY. 21 
 
 and, with wandering minds, they seek after the un- 
 stable things of this world rather than the unchange- 
 able things of holy scripture. Let them, therefore, 
 be compelled ; and let the children in the schools be 
 brought up to the love of sacred learning, that, by these 
 means, well-educated persons may be found for every 
 kind of service in the church of God. Nor let their 
 earthly rulers be so tenacious of their services, as that 
 the house of God should fall into contempt, being 
 destitute of all spiritual ornament ^." 
 
 This brings us to the time of Charlemagne, of whose 
 exertions in the cause of literature I hope to say more 
 hereafter; but, in the mean time, I must just notice 
 his Capitulary of Aix-la-Chapelle, addressed to the 
 ecclesiastical authorities in a.d. 789. He says, " We 
 beseech your piety, that the ministers of God's altar 
 may adorn their ministry by good morals — whether, 
 as canons, by the observance of their order, or, as 
 monks, by the performance of their vow — we entreat 
 that they may maintain a good and laudable life and 
 conversation, a,s our Lord in the gospel commands, 
 ' Let your light so shine before men, that they may see 
 your good works, and glorify your Father which is in 
 heaven;' so that, by their good conversation, many 
 may be drawn to God. And let them collect and keep 
 under their care, {adgregent sibique socient,) not only 
 children of servile condition, but those belonging to 
 persons of better rank; and let there be schools of 
 reading boys. In all monasteries and dioceses, let 
 them learn the Psalms, the musical notes, the chants, 
 the calendar^, and grammar. But let them have 
 
 9 Cone. vi. 1575. 
 
 * " Chants and calendar " is not a very satisfactory translation of " can- 
 tus et compotus." To call the latter (as I have seen it called) " the com- 
 post" would not be very intelligible to the English reader. Still calendar 
 does not express the thing, which was rather that learning, that compotus. 
 
22 STATE OF LEARNING [nO. II. 
 
 catholic books well corrected ; because frequently, 
 when they desire to pray for anything very properly, 
 they ask amiss, by reason of incorrect books. And 
 do not suifer your boys to spoil the books, by either 
 their reading or writing ; and if you want a gospel or 
 a missal to be written, let it be done by men of mature 
 age, with all diligence ^" Again, in the Capitida data 
 Presbyteris, in the year 804, he says, " I would admo- 
 nish you, my brethren and sons, to give attention to 
 these few capitula which follow: — first, that a priest 
 of God should be learned in holy scripture, and rightly 
 believe, and teach to others, the faith of the Trinity, 
 and be able properly to fulfil his office. Secondly, 
 that he should have the whole Psalter by heart. 
 Thirdly, that he should know by heart the Creed and 
 the office for Baptism. Fourthly, that he should be 
 learned in the Canons, and well know his Penitential. 
 Fifthly, that he should know the Chants and the Calen- 
 dar ^" More might be quoted from this source, but 
 perhaps it is not necessary for my present purpose, — 
 which is, to shew that it was pretty commonly taken 
 for granted that a clerk could read. 
 
 But, in case any reader should have thought that I 
 lay undue stress on the word bene, and should suppose 
 (as it is charitable to hope that Robertson did when he 
 left it out), that it was a mere expletive, I will here 
 give an extract from a writer of this period, from which 
 it will appear that the inquiry as to reading well was 
 one actually and particularly made. Rabanus Maurus, 
 
 or computus, which would enable a computista, or artis computatorice magis- 
 ter, to make a calendar, or computoriumj and some of which (enough 
 to shew its nature) the reader may find in the beginning of his Prayer 
 Book. I may however, perhaps, be allowed at present to pass over some 
 words without explanation, of which I hope to speak more fully hereafter. 
 What is implied in knowing the cantus, compotus, grammatica, and 
 penitential, will then more fully appear. 
 2 Capit. Reg. Fr. edit. Baluz., torn. i. 237. ' Ibid. p. 417. 
 
NO. II.] AMONG THE CLERGY. 23 
 
 who was afterwards Archbishop of Mentz, and who 
 wrote his book De Imtitutione Clericorum^ in the 
 year 819, says, "The canons and the decrees of Pope 
 Zosimus have decided, that a clerk proceeding to holy 
 orders shall continue five years among the readers, or 
 exorcists ; and, after that, shall be an acolyte, or sub- 
 deacon, four years. That he shall not be admitted to 
 deacon's orders before he is twenty-five years of age ; 
 and that if, during five years, he ministers irreproach- 
 ably, he may be promoted to priest's orders ; but on no 
 account before he is thirty years of age, even though 
 he should be peculiarly qualified, for our Lord himself 
 did not begin to preach until he had attained that 
 age*." Now, as Rabanus had just before remarked, 
 ^^ Lector es'''' are so called "a legendo ;" and if a man 
 was to fill that office for five years before he became 
 even a subdeacon, we may reasonably suppose that, 
 when he came to be examined for, what the Romish 
 church calls, greater orders, it might be taken for 
 granted that he had learned to read ; but as to reading 
 well, (I hope no offence to modern times,) it certainly 
 was then quite another question, and one to which 
 some attention was paid. " He," says Rabanus, " who 
 would rightly and properly perform the duty of a 
 reader, must be imbued with learning, and conversant 
 with books, and instructed in the meaning of words, 
 and the knowledge of words themselves ; so that he 
 may understand the divisions of sentences, where a 
 clause ends, where the sense is carried on, and where 
 the sentence closes. Being thus prepared, he will 
 obtain such a power of reading as that, by various 
 modes of delivery — now simply narrating, now lament- 
 ing, now angry, now rebuking, exhorting, pitying, 
 inquiring, and the like, according to circumstances — 
 
 ■* Lib. i. c. xiii. ap. Bib. Pat. torn. x. 572. 
 
24 STATE OF LEARNING [nO. II, 
 
 he will affect the understanding and feelings of all his 
 hearers. For there are many things in the scriptures, 
 which, if they are not properly pronounced, give a 
 wrong sense ; as that of the apostle — ' Who shall lay 
 anything to the charge of God's elect ? God who jus- 
 tifieth.' — Now if, instead of pronouncing this properly, 
 it were to be delivered confirmatively, it would create 
 great error. It is, therefore, to be so pronounced as 
 that the first clause may be a percontation, and the 
 second an interrogation. Between a percontation and 
 interrogation, the ancients made this distinction — that 
 the former admitted a variety of answers, while the 
 latter must be replied to by 'yes' or 'no.' It must, 
 therefore, be so read that, after the percontation — 
 'Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect ?' — 
 that which follows be pronounced in an interrogatory 
 manner — 'God that justifieth?' — that there may be a 
 tacit answer, ' no.' And again we have the perconta- 
 tion — 'Who is he that condemneth?' and again we 
 interrogate — ' Christ that died ? or rather that is risen 
 again? who is at the right hand of God? who also 
 maketh intercession for us?' At each of which there 
 is a tacit answer in the negative. But in that passage 
 where he says, ' What shall we then say ? that the 
 Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have 
 attained to righteousness,' unless after the perconta- 
 tion — 'What shall we say then?' — the answer were 
 added — 'that the Gentiles which followed not after 
 righteousness have attained to righteousness,' the con- 
 nexion with what follows would be * destroyed. And 
 there are many other parts which, in like manner, 
 require to be distinguished by the manner of pro- 
 nouncing them. Besides this, a reader ought to 
 understand the force of the accents, that he may know 
 what syllables he is to lengthen ; for there are many 
 words which can only be prevented from conveying a 
 
NO. II.] AMONG THE CLERGY. 25 
 
 wrong meaning by being pronounced with the proper 
 accent. But these things he must learn from the 
 grammarians. Moreover the voice of a reader should 
 be pure and clear, and adapted to every style of speak- 
 ing, full of manly strength, and free from all that is 
 rude or countrified. Not low, nor yet too high ; not 
 broken, not weak, and by no means feminine; not 
 with inflated or gasping articulation, or words mouthed 
 about in his jaws, or echoing through his empty 
 mouth; not harsh from his grinding his teeth; not 
 projected from a wide-open mouth, — but distinctly, 
 equally, mildly pronounced ; so that each letter shall 
 have its proper sound, and each word its proper quan- 
 tity, and that the matter be not spoiled by any affecta- 
 tion ^" 
 
 It is true that Rabanus Maurus has taken the sub- 
 stance of this from Isidore of Seville ^, who wrote more 
 than two hundred years before, though he has im- 
 proved it ; but if it was good, why should it not be 
 repeated? So thought Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, who 
 gave it again in his discourses De Rebus Ecclesias- 
 ticis\ nearly three hundred years after Rabanus 
 wrote — and I cannot help suspecting that if Robertson 
 had gone to the Archbishop of Seville in the seventh 
 century, the Archbishop of Mayence in the ninth, or 
 the Bishop of Chartres in the eleventh, for holy orders, 
 he would have found the examination rather more 
 than he expected. If I have failed to convince the 
 reader of this, by the extracts already given, I shall 
 hope to do so hereafter ; but I think that what has 
 been said must be sufficient to shew that it was not a 
 very uncommon thing, even in the dark ages, for the 
 clergy to be able to read and write. 
 
 » Lib. ii. c. lii. Bib. Pat. x. 6l6. 
 
 « De Eccles. Offic, lib. ii. c. xi.. Bib. Pat. x. 209. 
 
 7 Serm. ii. ap. Bib. Pat x. 774. 
 
26 STATE OF LEARNING [NO. III. 
 
 No. III. 
 
 " nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere 
 
 Edita doctrina sapientum terapla serena ; « 
 
 Despicere iinde queas alios, passimque videre 
 
 Errare, atque viam palanteis quaerere vitae." — Lucretius. 
 
 " Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy 
 law." — Ps. cxix. 
 
 When I began the preceding paper, I had no idea of 
 replying to Robertson's character of the clergy during 
 the dark ages at such length ; and meant only to 
 notice, very briefly, such parts of his statement as are 
 absolutely untrue. I intended, until I should have 
 thus gone through his remarks, to say little or nothing 
 on matters which may be more conveniently, intelli- 
 gibly, and convincingly, discussed after untruths have 
 been exposed, and the prejudices created and fostered 
 by them removed; and also, after a variety of facts 
 have been adduced, which may be referred to for proof 
 or illustration. Perhaps enough has been already said 
 to shew that the clergy of the period to which Robert- 
 son refers were not so universally, or even so entirely, 
 ignorant as might be supposed from his language ; yet, 
 having said so much, and considering that it all tends 
 to the elucidation of our subject in more than one way, 
 I feel desirous (without professing here to enter fully 
 into the matter) to add one or two more extracts, 
 which are not, I think, in themselves uninteresting. 
 
 From the Constitutions of Reculfus, who became 
 Bishop of Soissons in a. d. 879, and who is supposed to 
 have issued these instructions to his clergy ten years 
 afterwards, it appears as if he took it for granted that 
 they could, not only read, but write. The fourth, fifth, 
 and sixth sections are as follows : — " Know, therefore, 
 that this is addressed to you, ' Be ye clean, ye that bear 
 
NO. III.] AMONG THE CLERGY. 27 
 
 the vessels of the LorcP;' which you must not suppose 
 to refer only to the cleansing of the chalice and paten, 
 wherein the body and blood of Christ is consecrated, 
 but also to personal cleanliness and mental purity. 
 For, as St. Gregory says, in treating of the parable of 
 the ten virgins, 'Our vessels are our hearts, wherein 
 we bear about with us all our thoughts ^.' We have, 
 therefore, a frail vessel, that is, our body, which we 
 ought always to keep clean, with the most scrupulous 
 care ; so that, while we offer ' pure offerings,' we also 
 ourselves may be acceptable sacrifices before his holy 
 altar. Also we admonish that each one of you should 
 endeavour to have by heart, truly and correctly, the 
 Psalms, the Discourse on the Catholic Faitb, which 
 begins ' Quicumque vult,' &;c., and the Canon of the 
 Mass, and the Chants, and the Calendar. The office 
 for Baptism, (both for male and female children, and 
 also singular and plural,) as well as the offices for con- 
 secrating fonts, water to be sprinkled in houses, the 
 commendation of the soul, and the prayers at the burial 
 of the dead, you are to have distinctly and correctly 
 written out ; and, by frequent study, you are to qualify 
 yourselves to perform them correctly and unblameably 
 for both men and women. As to the aforesaid office 
 for the baptism of infants, we would that you should 
 write it out in a fourfold manner ; that is to say, the 
 singular masculine and the singular feminine ; the 
 plural masculine and the plural feminine; as we, if 
 Christ permit, will furnish you with a copy. Also we 
 admonish that each one of you should be careful to 
 have a Missal, Lectionary, a Book of the Gospels, a 
 Martyrology, an Antiphonary, Psalter, and a Book of 
 
 ** "Mundamini qui fertis vasa Domini." Isaiah lii. 11. I give the 
 words of our translation; and wish to mention that I do so wherever 
 there is not any material variation. 
 
 » Horn, in Evan. XII., t. ii. p. 357- 
 
28 STATE OF LEARNING [nO. III. 
 
 Forty Homilies of St. Gregory, corrected and pointed 
 by our copies which we use in the holy mother church. 
 And, also, fail not to have as many sacred and eccle- 
 siastical books as you can get ; for from them you shall 
 receive food and condiment for your souls, our Lord 
 himself having declared, ' Man doth not live by bread 
 alone ; but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
 mouth of God.' If, however, any one of you is not 
 able to obtain all the books of the Old Testament, at 
 least let him diligently take pains to transcribe for him- 
 self correctly the first book of the whole sacred history, 
 that is. Genesis ; by reading which he may come to un- 
 derstand the creation of the world '." 
 
 This, as I have observed, seems to imply that the 
 priests in the diocese of Soissons, in the ninth century, 
 could both read and write ; and, indeed, from the six- 
 teenth section, it appears that the secular clergy in that 
 diocese kept schools; and so not only read and wrote 
 themselves, but were the causes of reading and writing 
 in others. But this is anticipating ; for what reader of 
 Robertson is prepared to believe that the schoolmaster 
 was abroad in the ninth century ? I will, therefore, 
 only here add one more extract on this subject, and 
 that shall be from the history of our own country. The 
 Canons of JEAMc, whether we owe them to the arch- 
 bishop or the grammarian, or whether they were one 
 and the same person, were written between the years 
 950 and 1000. They were addressed to Wulfin, Bishop 
 of Sherborn ; and written in such a form as that he 
 might communicate them to his clergy as a kind of 
 episcopal charge. The twenty-first canon orders — 
 " Every priest, also, before he is ordained, must have 
 the arms belonging to his spiritual work; that is, the 
 holy books — namely, the Psalter, the Book of Epistles, 
 and the Book of Gospels, the Missal, the Book of 
 
 ' Cone. ix. p. 418. 
 
NO. III.] AMONG THE CLERGY. 29 
 
 Hymns, the Manual, the Calendar^, the Passional, the 
 Pcenitential, and the Lectionary. These books a priest 
 requires, and cannot do without, if he would properly 
 fulfil his office, and desires to teach the law to the 
 people belonging to him. And let him carefully see 
 that they are well written." 
 
 The passage of Regino, quoted by Robertson — of 
 which, in this long reply, I am afraid the reader has 
 almost lost sight — tempts me to add the twenty-third 
 canon — "The mass priest shall, on Sundays and on 
 mass-days, explain the Gospel in English to the people; 
 and, by the Lord's-prayer and the creed, he shall, as 
 often as he can, stir them up to faith and the main- 
 tenance of Christianity. Let the teacher be warned to 
 avoid that which the prophet has said — ' Canes muti non 
 possunt latrare' — ' Dumb dogs, they cannot bark.' We 
 ought to bark and preach to the laity, lest perchance 
 we should cause them to perish for lack of knowledge. 
 Christ saith in his Gospel of ignorant teachers, ' If the 
 blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch.' Blind is 
 the teacher if he is illiterate, and deceives the laity by his 
 ignorance. Beware of this, as your office requires^" 
 
 ^ The Latin translation in Wilkins's Councils has numerale j that in 
 Labbe's preserves the original Anglo-Saxon gerim; and I translate it 
 calendar, because I have no doubt that it means the compotus, which I 
 have before (somewhat improperly) so translated. It occurs in a " Calen- 
 darium seu Menologium Poeticum," given by Hickes, Thes. Ling. Veit. 
 Sept., torn. i. p. 203, from a MS. in the Cottonian Library, at the 18th 
 line, lanuapiuf jepim, where it is translated " Januarium Calendarii;" 
 and in a note on it, at p. 209, he says, " Sic enim jepim, ut rijm apud 
 veteres calendarium, fastos, ephemerida denotat." Considering the pur- 
 pose for which 1 write, it may be worth while to state that Collier, in his 
 Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 207, gives this canon, thus : — " By the 
 one-and-twentieth, * Every priest, before his ordination, was obhged to be 
 furnish'd with church books, that is, with a Psalter ; a Book of Epistles 
 and Gospels ; a Missale ; a Book of Church Hymns ; a Penitentiale, and a 
 Lectionarie, or Raeding Boc," &c., thus leaving out the Gerim, Manual, 
 and Passional ; a convenient way of quoting. 
 
 ^ Wilkins's Cone, i. 250. 
 
30 MISREPRESENTATIONS [nO. III. 
 
 To proceed, however, with Robertson : — 
 
 " Alfred the Great complained that, from the Humber to 
 the Thames, there was not a priest who understood the 
 liturgy in his mother tongue, or who could translate the 
 easiest piece of Latin ; and that, from the Thames to the sea, 
 the ecclesiastics were still more ignorant. Asserus de rebus 
 gestis Alfredi, ap. Camdeni. Anglica, &c., p. 25. The igno- 
 rance of the clergy is quaintly described by an author of the 
 dark ages. ^ Potius dediti gulae quam Glossae ; potius colligunt 
 libras quam legunt libros ; libentius intuentur Martham 
 quam Marcum; malunt legere in Salmone quam in Solo- 
 mone.' Alanus de art. Praedicat. ap. Lebeuf. Dissert, tom. ii. 
 p. 21."— p. 233. 
 
 I will not here run into what must necessarily be a 
 long discourse about Alfred, and which would anti- 
 cipate what T may more properly say when some facts 
 shall have come under notice which may enable us to 
 form a better judgment of the state of things in Eng- 
 land during the reign of that monarch, as well as before 
 and after it. Here I only observe that, supposing 
 Robertson's statement to be quite correct \ it only 
 shews that the Anglo-Saxons were at that period 
 behind their neighbours on the continent of Europe ; 
 which nobody would think of disputing. Let us, there- 
 fore, with Robertson, leap over about three centuries^ 
 and into Flanders, to see how quaintly *' the ignorance 
 of the clergy" was described by Alanus. Are we to take 
 this as the character of "the clergy" generally in all places 
 during the dark ages? or only of " the clergy" in the time 
 and neighbourhood of Alanus ? And is it by jumping over 
 time and space in this manner, to pick out parts of sen- 
 tences, that we can hope to understand the matter aright? 
 
 * Which, by the way, it is not. Alfred said " very few," which is quite 
 a different thing, if I may trust the Latin translation of Wise, (p. 87,) — 
 " paucissimi ;" and Mr. Sharon Turner's English translation, " very few," 
 in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii. p. 277. 
 
 1 
 
NO. III.] IN Robertson's charles v. 31 
 
 Though, after taking and giving some trouble, I am 
 not at present able to say whether this passage has 
 been correctly and fairly quoted either by or from 
 Lebeuf, yet I feel authorized by what I have seen of 
 Alanus to suspect that he did not speak in these terms 
 of "the clergy" in general. Of this, however, one 
 cannot judge without seeing what is to agree with 
 "dediti;" and, indeed, the whole connexion of the 
 sentence. Yet it matters little : the words may be 
 there ; and whether they are or not, and whether they 
 meant all that Robertson pretends, is of no conse- 
 quence. It is of more importance to observe the taste 
 and the spirit which are manifested in the citation of 
 such ribaldry. I notice it the rather, because I have 
 remarked that so many moderns seem disposed to speak 
 and write with self-satisfied glee of their dark ances- 
 tors ; and to be much amused with the quaint humour 
 which describes and exaggerates their ignorance, bar- 
 barism, and vice. I believe the feeling is natural to 
 man — it was avowed with infernal candour by the 
 heathen whose hacknied lines I have placed at the 
 head of this paper — but it is one which we might 
 expect to find disavowed with abhorrence by every 
 man pretending to be a Christian. That men were 
 wandering in error, and seeking in vain " the way of 
 life," with such guides as Alanus has "quaintly de- 
 scribed," can be no subject of mirth to a Christian 
 mind. Superstition may put on a ridiculous form, and 
 ignorance may commit ludicrous blunders — we may 
 laugh, for, by the law of our nature, we must laugh at 
 some of these things — but to find amusement in the 
 brutal and degraded state of the ministers of religion 
 at any time, and, indeed, I may say of any religion, 
 must, I think, be peculiar to bad men. 
 
 It is, however, very important, and very much to 
 our present purpose, to add a few words on this sub- 
 
32 LEARNING AND MORALS [nO. III. 
 
 ject ; because I apprehend that, for the want of a little 
 consideration, many persons have been led into a mis- 
 taken view of the case. There were in the dark a^es 
 (as well as at other times) two sets of persons, from 
 whose writings it is easy to cull passages describing 
 "the clergy" as less learned and religions than they 
 were bound to be; and each tempted to detail, and 
 perhaps to exaggerate, the vices of ecclesiastics. 
 
 First, there were those who hated the religion which 
 the clergy maintained, and who envied the pro- 
 perty, privileges, and influence which they enjoyed ; 
 and which (whatever the personal character of some of 
 them might be) they generally employed to check the 
 licentiousness of others. Among these there have 
 perhaps always been facetious persons who have con- 
 sidered religion and its ministers as fit subjects for 
 their drollery; and who have delighted to represent 
 the clergy as a vile race of knaves and fools, character- 
 ized only by pride, sensuality, avarice, and ambition, 
 except where all these, and all that was better, was 
 kept under by idiot superstition. Yet, as far as I 
 know, there was but little of this ribaldry during the 
 period of which Robertson writes. He talks of the 
 seventh to the eleventh century ; but for the single 
 instance which he gives, (and I cannot but doubt 
 whether it properly belongs to this class,) he goes to, 
 at least, the middle of the twelfth century. Without 
 entering into the dispute about the precise period, or 
 the identity of Alanus, this is the earliest date that can 
 be assigned to him ; and, in fact, it is to the thirteenth, 
 and yet more to the fourteenth and fifteenth, century 
 that we must go for quaint descriptions of the cor- 
 rupted church. I should like very much to bring for- 
 ward some of these, with the remarks of some modern 
 writers on them ; but I am afraid that, notwithstanding 
 all I have said, such a proceeding really would be a 
 
NO. III.] OF THE CLERGY. 33 
 
 digression ; and, therefore, it may suffice, for the pre- 
 sent, to say that what we know of the incapacity or 
 vices of the clergy or the monks during the period in 
 question, we derive principally from their own confes- 
 sion ; or, at least, from their own statements. 
 
 The second set of writers to whom I have alluded, 
 are those who either under pretence, or with the real 
 object, of producing reformation, have been vigilant to 
 spy out, and forward to publish the vices of churchmen. 
 If there were but few of the former class of writers 
 during the period more immediately under our consi- 
 deration, there were some (I hope to be able to shew 
 ground for believing that there were many) virtuous, 
 pious, and comparatively enlightened persons ^ who 
 belonged to this class; and who, when their lot was 
 cast among ecclesiastics who disgraced their profession 
 by ignorance and vice, did seriously desire (and were 
 joined, or imitated, by others who pretended to desire) 
 a reformation of such evils. But I need not say that 
 the zeal of reformers, whether real or pretended, has 
 often exaggerated the evils which it desired to redress ; 
 sometimes by describing them as greater, and more 
 frequently by representing them as more general, than 
 they really were. 
 
 From both these sets of writers very strong state- 
 ments may be extracted; and the testimony which 
 they apparently give will seem, to the young student of 
 ecclesiastical history, to be confirmed by the proceed- 
 ings of councils, and the tenor of their canons, as well 
 as by a good deal of what he will find in the works of 
 secular historians, even supposing that he does go to 
 
 * I use this qualification in deference to the popular view of the subject ; 
 for I cannot tell why, in things pertaining to the kingdom of God, and on 
 which man can be enlightened only by the word and Spirit of God, they 
 might not be as truly, and even as fully, enlightened as any of mankind 
 before or after their time. 
 
34 MORALS AND LEARNING [nO. IH. 
 
 original sources. He must, however, remember that 
 sin, in some shape or other, is the great staple of his- 
 tory, and the sole object of law ; and he must expect, 
 from both the historian and the legislator, to hear 
 more of one turbulent prelate, or one set of factious or 
 licentious monks, than of a hundred societies, or a 
 thousand scattered clergy, living in the quiet decency 
 suited to their profession. Yet even of such societies, 
 passing through the year, and the century, in orderly 
 obscurity, annals are not wanting — but they are gene- 
 rally written in very shocking Latin — very true. 
 
 However, to illustrate what I have said, let me recur 
 to the canons of iElfric, of which I have already spoken. 
 One might find words in his address to Wulfin, from 
 which it would seem as if he meant to testify, that the 
 wickedness of the clergy was such, as that they had 
 completely destroyed the church. " You ought," he 
 says, " frequently to talk to your clergy, and to rebuke 
 their negligence ; for, by their perverseness, the laws, 
 religion, and learning of the church are almost de- 
 stroyed. Therefore deliver your soul ; and tell them 
 what are the duties of priests and ministers of Christ, 
 lest you likewise perish, being counted as a dumb dog. 
 We have written this epistle which follows in English, 
 as if spoken by you, and you had addressed it to the 
 clergy of your diocese, beginning thus : — ' I myself tell 
 you priests, that I will not put up with your negligence 
 in your ministry ; but, in truth, I will tell you what is 
 the law concerning your order,'" &c. Fuller illustra- 
 tion I hope to give hereafter ^ ; in the mean time I 
 
 " To pursue this point here would lead us into what is, perhaps, a much 
 wider field than some readers may suppose — the subject of church reform 
 in the middle ages. To me it has appeared extremely interesting, and I 
 hope to give some extracts, which may lead us to believe that, bad as 
 things were, there were always some who were trying to mend them. 
 Conceive a bishop of the tenth century writing to two archbishops in such 
 
NO. III.] OF THE CLERGY. 35 
 
 wish to get through Robertson's statement. He goes 
 on to say, — 
 
 " To the obvious causes of such universal ignorance, arising 
 from the state of government and manners, from the seventh 
 to the eleventh century, we may add the scarcity of books, and 
 the difficulty of rendering them more common during that 
 period. The Romans wrote their books either on parchment or 
 
 terms as these : — "Relicto penitus eo qui nos proposuit mundo, relicto 
 omni praeter nomen officio, ipsi ita specialius deservimus ceteris mundo, 
 ut dum ceteri Deo quae Dei, mundo quae mundi sunt contendunt reddere, 
 nos e contra mundo quae Dei, id est omnigenum amorem et cultum; Deo- 
 que quae debuerant mundo reddi, reddamus, id est omnigenum despectum 
 et contemtum, et ut ipsi alligemur arctius, ne quando scilicet, dum ab eo 
 non recognoscimur, despiciamur, relicto ritu, cultu, habitu quoque nostro, 
 ipsius mundi consuetudine atque studiis, amictibus etiam in tantum uti- 
 mur, ut solo, ut ita eloquar, barbirasio et corona, et quod non a nobis ut 
 ab eis ducuntur uxores, qualescumque etiara, quas Domino ore tantum- 
 modo, et hoc rarissime, reddere videmur, laudes, in nuUo alio saecularibus 
 videamur dissimiles ; ita ut de nobis, proh nefas ! dictum prophetiae possit 
 credi quod continent tempora praesentis sevi : ' Et erit sicut populus, sic 
 sacerdos,'" &c. And he presently afterwards relates an anecdote which 
 I must translate, though for the other matter I wished the reader to have 
 the bishop's own words. A certain priest, who saw his bishop playing at 
 dice, shook his head in a scornful manner. The prelate perceiving it, was 
 very angry, (justly enough, says the bishop who relates it, if his anger 
 had been directed against the right person,) and told the priest, that if he 
 did not shew him that what he was doing was forbidden by the canon law, 
 he would immediately send him to gaol. The priest, with an aspect of 
 horror, fell at his feet, and said, " Pardon me, my lord, I am so over- 
 whelmed with fear that I could not repeat even the first verse of the first 
 psalm," (the very alphabet of a priest in those days,) " nor any one decree 
 from the canons ; but I beseech you, most pious prelate, that you would 
 recal to my mind what in my terror I have quite lost." On this the 
 bishop, and the rest of the company, began to laugh and jest; but, the 
 priest being still urgent, the bishop yielded to his entreaties, and repeated 
 a couple of verses : — " Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel 
 of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of 
 the scornful ; but his delight is in the law of the Lord ; and in his law doth 
 he meditate day and night." — " Very right, most holy father," cried the 
 priest, " and then the rest of your time you may play at dice." As to the 
 zealous bishop, however, who relates the story, are we to take his words 
 respecting the state of the church as a plain statement of facts, and set 
 them down as cold-blooded history ? or do the very act and circumstances 
 of his writing them constrain us to receive them with some qualification ? 
 
 D 2 
 
36 MISREPRESENTATIONS [nO. III. 
 
 on paper made of the Egyptian papyrus ; the latter, being the 
 cheapest, was of course the most commonly used. But after 
 the Saracens conquered Egypt, in the seventh century, the 
 communication between that country and the people settled in 
 Italy, or in other parts of Europe, was almost entirely broke 
 off, and the papyrus was no longer in use among them. 
 They were obhged, on that account, to write all their books 
 upon parchment, and as the price of that was high, books 
 became extremely rare, and of great value. We may judge 
 of the scarcity of the materials for writing them from one 
 circumstance. There still remain several manuscripts of the 
 eighth, ninth, and following centuries, wrote on parchment, 
 from which some former writing had been erased, in order to 
 substitute a new composition in its place. In this manner, 
 it is probable, that several works of the ancients perished. 
 A book of Livy, or of Tacitus, might be erased to make room 
 for the legendary tale of a saint, or the superstitious prayers 
 of a missal. Murat. Anti. Ital. v. iii., p. 833. P. de Montfau- 
 con affirms, that the greater part of the manuscripts on 
 parchment which he had seen, those of an ancient date 
 excepted, are written on parchment from which some former 
 treatise had been erased. Mem. de FAcad. des inscript., tom. 
 ix., p. 325. As the want of materials for writing is one rea- 
 son why so many of the works of the ancients have perished, 
 it accounts likewise for the small number of manuscripts, of 
 any kind, previous to the eleventh century, when they began 
 to multiply, from a cause which shall be mentioned. Hist. 
 Liter, de France, tom. vi., p. 6." 
 
 Much of the foregoing, which relates to the mate- 
 rials, value, and scarcity of books during the period in 
 question, would lead us into multifarious discussion ; 
 yet it is so interwoven with the specific statements 
 with which it is my object at present to deal, that I 
 know not how to convince the reader that I am acting 
 fairly, or even to make the matter intelligible to him, 
 except by quoting the whole passage. I do not know 
 whether there ever was a time when readers looked 
 out the passages referred to, or attended to the writer's 
 request that they would, " see," " compare," &c. such- 
 
NO. III.] IN ROBERTSON'S CHARLES V. 37 
 
 and-such things, which for brevity's sake he would not 
 transcribe : but if readers ever did this, I am morally 
 certain that they have long since ceased to do it ; and, 
 therefore, where I feel it necessary that the reader 
 should know what has been said, I dare not content 
 myself with referring even to so common a book as 
 Robertson's. 
 
 As to the specific statements, allow me to say — but 
 perhaps the reader would be offended at my saying all 
 that I might be inclined to say on the subject — it 
 brings us on rather tender ground, and he may think 
 that I am as bad as the monks ; and, besides, one is 
 really ashamed to say, in the nineteenth century, what 
 they might have been allowed to say a thousand years 
 ago. Let me rather suppose some monk of the period 
 to which Robertson refers to rise in defence of his 
 order. He may say what he pleases ; and if he should 
 talk nonsense, the enlightened reader will smile and 
 forgive him. Let him be as absurd and wretched a 
 creature as modern taste can conceive — such as, from 
 his own description, we may suppose the historian Dit- 
 mar to have been ', or the Prior of Grandmont, whose 
 
 " Frequens genuflexio nasum oblicavit, 
 Genibus et manibus callum concreavit." 
 
 Let us suppose such a person brought to light, and 
 blinking in our sunshine, and at length made to under- 
 stand the nature of the charge preferred against him 
 and his brethren. He might, perhaps, answer — " Truly, 
 Dr. Robertson, you are rather hard upon us. To be 
 sure, some part of what you say cannot be denied — a 
 
 ' " Agnosce, lector, proceritatem, et videbis in me parvum homuncio- 
 nera, maxilla deformem leva, et latere eodem, quia hinc olim erupit semper 
 turgescens fistula. Nasus in pueritia fractus ridiculum me facit, idque 
 totum nil questus essem, si interius aliquid splendiscerem." — Ldb. IV. ap. 
 Ldbn. Scr. Bruns. Tom. I. p. 364. 
 
38 MISREPRESENTATIONS [nO. III. 
 
 book of Tacitus or Livy may have been erased to make 
 room for a legend, or a missal — it is, as you say, a per- 
 adventure; but it may have been so; and, if it was, 
 people could do better without books of Tacitus and 
 Livy than without prayer-books. Nay, you who go on 
 to tell us that in those days ' even monasteries of con- 
 siderable note had only one missal,' — you who pro- 
 fess yourself to be a Christian minister, (which many 
 of us were not,) ought to applaud us for spoiling the 
 Egyptians, and serving ourselves of the heathen. Still 
 we may have destroyed a book of Tacitus or Livy, to 
 preserve a legend, or make a missal ; or it may have 
 been the other way. We may have saved the youth of 
 Christendom from some heathen obscenity, and pre- 
 served a valuable treatise of Jerome, Ambrose, or 
 Augustine — or, if these names only provoke a sneer, 
 we may have thus preserved some of those Annals to 
 which you modern historians are indebted (not imme- 
 diately, I fear, in most cases) for M'hatever is true in 
 your works ; and which, in grateful return, some of you 
 love to describe as dull, stupid, barbarous, musty, old 
 records, with which you have condescended to defile 
 yourselves for the public good. But then, as to our 
 substituting the legendary tales of the saints, under 
 favour, doctor, I cannot help thinking, from the way in 
 which you write, that you have not quite a correct idea 
 of the time when what are commonly known to Pro- 
 testants as the legends of the Romish church were 
 principally written. We, who lived between the 
 seventh and eleventh centuries, had comparatively 
 little to do with the matter. We plead guilty to great 
 ignorance, bad Latin, and blunders ; to much nonsense, 
 some lies, and a good deal that was, in fact, legendary ; 
 — but as to what your readers would understand by 
 legendary tales of saints, you must look to a later 
 period, — you must go forward to the times when (as 
 
NO. III.] IN ROBERTSON'S CHARLES V. 39 
 
 that so good inquisitor and bishop, Bernard Guido, 
 says) ' Frater Jacobus de Voragine Lombardus, post- 
 modum Archiepiscopus Januensis, suam conflavit com- 
 pilationem more suo in vitis sanctorum novis, sicut et de 
 aliis Sanctis fecit, prout ibidem patet *.' You must 
 talk to writers of the thirteenth century ; you may go 
 on, and talk to the Council of Trent, and the Congre- 
 gation of the Index, and ask them why they never 
 expurgated the Golden Legend, why they never even 
 weeded out its barbarous blunders, to say nothing of 
 its lies. Yes, to the horrible disgrace of our church, 
 you may ask why they never stretched out the hand 
 of correction, or restriction — never even directed the 
 slightest breath of censure — towards it, and the thou- 
 sand and one lying books that began to be made, and 
 circulated, and devoured, as soon as what you are 
 pleased to call the revival of letters had set men to 
 read the monstrous figments, the foul and scandalous 
 obscenities, of the pagan poets. Then you may go on 
 with Ribadaneira, and a host of moderns, — but do not 
 accuse us, — look for yourself, and see what we did 
 write ; and I am persuaded that, though you may 
 sometimes see a legendary tale of a saint, and some- 
 times a superstitious prayer of a missal, you will find 
 comparatively little for which it would have been so 
 very sinful to scrape a parchment, which might, or 
 might not, contain a book of Tacitus or Livy. 
 
 " Moreover, in case we should not come to any thing 
 like an agreement as to relative value, let me add, 
 that as we are not the people principally concerned in 
 concocting the legends, so we are not the people who 
 were most addicted to scraping parchments. I do not 
 mean to deny that what you say is true as to the letter, 
 and that * there still remain several manuscripts of the 
 
 8 Libellus de Magist. Ord. Praedic. VI. D.& M. 405. 
 
40 MISREPRESENTATIONS [NO. III. 
 
 eighth, ninth, and following centuries,' which have been 
 so treated. There are, I confess, several such speci- 
 mens ; but you know, though you slur over (not to say 
 misrepresent) his words, by saying 'of ancient date,' 
 that Montfaucon expressly limits his statement to 
 manuscripts written since the twelfth century^; and 
 therefore I put it to your own conscience, whether it is 
 not probable that we were more sinned against than 
 sinning, in this matter — whether those who wanted 
 writing materials were likely to prefer parchment which 
 was older than our time, to that which we had used — 
 and whether our works were not more exposed to 
 erasure than those of earlier writers ? I have said that 
 you know this — for I cannot affect to suppose that you 
 did not see the words which you have omitted or 
 altered — but I doubt whether you do know, that a 
 great part of the scraping of manuscripts was not 
 owing to our writing legends or missals, but was 
 effected in order to carry on the ungodly quarrels, or 
 worldly business of secular men ; so that as late as the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries notaries were re- 
 stricted from practising, until they had taken an oath 
 to use none but new parchment." 
 
 ^ Not having it in ray power to verify the citation of Montfaucon, I 
 applied to a learned friend who has access to a public library. He replied, 
 " This reference is wrong — there is nothing, in the volume referred to, by 
 Montfaucon, nor any mention of hira in the page given above. I there- 
 fore looked to the index, where, under Montfaucon's name, I got a 
 reference to a paper of his, vol. vi. p. 592, entitled, ' Dissertation sur la 
 plante appellee Papyrus, sur le papier d'Egypte, sur le papier de coton, et 
 sur celuy dont on se sert aujourd'huy.' In p. 606, is the following pas- 
 sage, which, I presume, gave rise to Robertson's statement. After having 
 mentioned the fact, that 'depuis le xiie Siecle,' ancient writings were 
 erased to make way for books of the church — and thus that Polybius, 
 Dio, Diodorus, &c. were converted into Triodions, Pentecostaries, Homi- 
 lies, &c., he says, 'Apres une exacte recherche, je puis assurer que des 
 livres ecrits sur du parchemin depuis le xii Siecle, j'en ay plus trouve dont 
 on avoit racle I'ancienne ecriture, que d'autres.'" 
 
NO. IV J IN ROBERTSON'S CHARLES V. 41 
 
 I do not mean to make myself responsible for all 
 that a monk under such circumstances might say ; but 
 yet I cannot suppress my opinion, that if any of that 
 fraternity had so addressed Robertson, his most pru- 
 dent and popular course would have been to turn short 
 round on the opposite tack, and to reply — " Ah ! you 
 sensual, ignorant, lazy monks ; you could not read or 
 write — potius dediti guise quam glossse," &c. 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 Bibliothekar. Haben sie des Muratorius seine Werke nicht gelesen ? 
 P. Priszilian. In meinem Leben nicht ; ich kenne sie gar nicht. — 
 
 Die Heiligen. 
 
 I HAVE already observed that there is often great diffi- 
 culty in meeting broad general assertions, even when 
 one is sure that they are untrue ; and I may add that 
 it is as difficult — perhaps it is impossible — to prevent, 
 or remove, the erroneous impressions likely to arise 
 from statements which though really false are mrhally 
 true. My meaning will be illustrated by considering 
 the statement with which Robertson follows those 
 already discussed. 
 
 '^ Many circumstances prove the scarcity of books during 
 these ages. Private persons seldom possessed any books 
 whatever. Even monasteries of considerable note had only 
 one missal. Murat. Antiq. v. ix. p. 789." 
 
 Certainly there needs no proof that books were 
 scarce during the middle ages. No doubt the scarcity, 
 as compared with the plenty, and even surfeit, of the 
 present day, was great indeed. Yet, great as it was, I 
 cannot help suspecting that it has been exaggerated ; 
 and I think we shall find ground to doubt the truth of 
 
42 Robertson's charles v. [no. iv. 
 
 th6 assertion that "private persons seldom possessed 
 any books whatever" — or if, by assigning a lax, and 
 comparative, meaning to " seldom," the statement 
 should be turned into a notorious truth not worth 
 mentioning, we shall see reason for believing that the 
 impression which it was calculated to convey, and pro- 
 bably has conveyed to most readers, is erroneous. 
 
 To come, however, to the specific statement, backed 
 by the authority of Muratori — for my present business 
 is chiefly with it — " even monasteries of considerable 
 note had only one missal." In the first place, will any- 
 body tell me what they wanted with more ? " Monas- 
 teries of considerable note" had but one church, or 
 chapel, and not more inmates than that one building 
 would contain ; and might not mass be said every hour 
 of every day all the year round, out of one missal, as 
 well as if there had been fifty ? " Yes," it may be said, 
 " but one is accustomed to look on monasteries as 
 having been, in some small and comparative degree, 
 places where there was some learning, and some appear- 
 ance at least of religion ; and one is surprised to hear 
 of their being so ill provided with books." I know it — 
 I know that no man who has any tolerable acquaint- 
 ance with history, sacred or secular, can help having 
 some idea — perhaps a very vague and discouraged idea 
 — that, in those ages, the monastery was the refuge of 
 want and weakness, the nursery of art, the depository 
 of learning, and the sanctuary of religion. This, I say, 
 every man who is moderately acquainted with history 
 must know ; even though he should not be aware of the 
 less obvious, but not less certain influence of monastic 
 institutions on agriculture, commerce, and those com- 
 forts and pleasures of social life from which their 
 inmates were themselves excluded. Something like 
 this, I repeat, every tolerably educated man does feel ; 
 but a strange sort of vague contradiction is thrown 
 
NO. IV.] THE ABBOT BONUS. 43 
 
 over it by such foolish statements as that which I have 
 quoted from Robertson. Half the readers of his His- 
 torv of Charles V. do not know what a missal is, or 
 why the monks wanted any, or what they did with that 
 single one which they are admitted to have had ; but 
 yet, from the way in which it is stated, they take it for 
 granted that it was a horrible delinquency in " monas- 
 teries of considerable note," to have only one missal — 
 and if they were so wretchedly off, in what state were 
 the thousands of monasteries which were of inconsider- 
 able note, or of no note at all ? 
 
 But, to say the truth, all this, though not I hope 
 untrue or entirely useless, is not to our present purpose; 
 as the reader will find if he refers to Muratori, or 
 favours me with his attention to a brief statement of 
 the grounds on which Robertson ventured to make his 
 assertion. 
 
 The Abbot Bonus appears to have been bom about 
 the year 990 ; and, though the place of his birth is not 
 certainly known, it seems probable that he was a native 
 of Pisa. At all events we are informed that he became 
 a monk at Nonantula, and that he, and his uncle Peter, 
 came from thence in the year 1018, to Pisa, where they 
 laid the foundation of the monastery of St. Michael, 
 which certainly was afterwards " of considerable note." 
 Bonus presided over it for thirty years ; after which 
 period some dispute or dissension (it does not clearly 
 appear of what nature, but it seems not to have been 
 any quarrel with his monks) caused him to quit his 
 monastery, and set off for Corsica, where some property 
 had been bequeathed to him, and where he proposed to 
 live as a private person. Stopping, however, on his 
 voyage at the island of Gorgona, where there was a 
 monastery, he found the monks greatly distressed by 
 the recent loss of their Abbot. They unanimously called 
 on Bonus to take his place. He resisted for some time ; 
 
44 THE ABBOT BONUS. [nO. IV. 
 
 but overcome by their importunity, he consented ; re- 
 questing only leave to return to Pisa, in order to bid 
 farewell to his old associates, and to exhort them with 
 respect to the choice of a successor. Having obtained 
 permission, and executed his purpose, he returned to 
 Gorgona, and undertook the office of abbot there, which 
 he held until his death, in the year 1070. On quitting 
 the monastery at Pisa, however, he wrote a statement 
 of what he had done in the matter of founding and 
 maintaining it ; and it is to this " Breve Recordation is," 
 printed by Muratori, in the fourth volume (not the 
 ninth, for there are but six) of his Antiquitates ItaliccB 
 medii csvi that Robertson refers '. 
 
 I by no means suppose that the Abbot did, or could 
 foresee what inferences would be drawn from a fact 
 which he relates ; but really, if he had, he could hardly 
 have told his story in terms more adapted to preclude 
 the possibility of such perversion. The monastery " of 
 considerable note" (that is, as the Abbot says, in the 
 pride of his heart many years afterwards, " que nmic est 
 coenobium") was then no monastery at all, but a chapel 
 near Pisa, {capella, que tunc temporis detinebatur a pres- 
 hyt&ris^ which was in a most deplorable and destitute 
 condition, when " Senior Stephanus," I presume the 
 principal authority in Pisa, procured this poor monk 
 to come and perform divine service. Not only does 
 Bonus call it simply a chapel, but he tells us that when 
 he came there he found neither monk nor abbot, nor any 
 decent dwelling place, and in fact nothing but a hut. 
 
 ' It was, I believe, first printed by Mabillon ; then by Grandius, (an 
 abbot of St. Michael's, who, after seven centuries, erected a statue in 
 honour of his predecessor. Bonus); by Muratori, to whom Robertson 
 refers ; and, fourthly, by Mitarelli and Costadoni, in their " Annales 
 Camaldulenses." This latter work contains, I beheve, the fullest account 
 of the abbot, and to it I am indebted for the facts and extracts which I 
 here give. [The " Breve Recordationis" at full length will be found at the 
 end of this pa})er.] 
 
t 
 
 NO. IV.] THE ABBOT BONUS. 45 
 
 {Neque monacJium, neque ahhatem ibidem inveni; et non 
 cdsam neque mansionem sed tantummodo unum tugiirium, 
 ubi cepi habitare cum avunculo meo.) He then proceeds 
 to detail the destitute state of the place as to service- 
 books, vestments, bells, and all the requisites for the 
 performance of divine service ; and, having given a 
 lamentable picture, he breaks out with honest pride — 
 may I not hope with real and pious gratitude ? — " Now 
 hear, and understand, how that place is improved by 
 the help of Almighty God, and by mine, and by that 
 of my monks, and that of the good christians of our 
 city." After five years he set to work on the church, 
 and went to Rome, where he bought columns for it ; 
 and then made a belfry, which he furnished with two 
 bells, but which, fifteen years afterwards, gave place to 
 one much handsomer, containing seven bells, the largest 
 of which weighed twelve hundred pounds. The vest- 
 ments, by the time when the Abbot wrote, had not 
 only increased in number, but some of them were so 
 costly that, as he tells us, the bishop of the diocese 
 might have said mass in them on Easter Sunday, " cum 
 honore" — the single tin cup had been exchanged for 
 four chalices, one of gold and three of silver — the single 
 hut had expanded into a monastery, with all suitable 
 offices and appendages, and a considerable estate in 
 land ; and, what is more to our purpose, instead of the 
 " single missal," the monks of the monastery of St. 
 Michael rejoiced in a library consisting of thirty-four 
 volumes. But this requires more specific notice, for it 
 is the ground of Robertson's statement. 
 
 In describing the destitute state of the chapel as he 
 originally found it, the abbot tells us, " in ipsa ecclesia 
 non inveni aliud nisi unum missale;" and afterwards 
 he repeats, " quando veni in ipsum locum non legebatur 
 in ipsa ecclesia, per totum fere annum, nisi epistole et 
 evangelia quia non habebatur nisi unum missale." 
 
46 THE ABBOT BONUS. [nO. IV. 
 
 Now, the first thing to observe is, that there is no 
 pretence for calling the place a monastery at all at 
 the time when it had only one missal. 
 
 Secondly, that in speaking thus of " one missal," 
 Robertson obviously misunderstands the drift of the 
 Abbot's complaint, which was not that the cha})el had 
 only one missal, but that it had no other service-book 
 btU a missal ; and that, therefore, only that service could 
 be performed which was contained in the missal. Unus, 
 in writers of that period, whether Italian, French, or 
 German, no more implies definite singularity than the 
 corresponding word in either of those languages now 
 does. We alone, I believe, have discarded it, or turned 
 it into "a," and are apt to smile when our foreign 
 friends very naturally say, " Here is one book," &c. 
 
 Thirdly, be it observed, that as soon as this place 
 did become a monastery it began to have books. And 
 this seems to me the more creditable, because, during a 
 great part of the time, the monks were in want of the 
 comforts, and even perhaps of the necessaries, of life ; 
 and what they got was principally obtained by begging. 
 The great and ruling passion of the poor abbot seems 
 to have been to form a monastery, and provide it with 
 every thing needful ; and, as to himself, he tells us, 
 that for the first two years he had only a single shirt, 
 and used to lie in bed while it was washed ; and that 
 during the whole thirty years he was never possessed 
 of two suits of clothes, or a horse. 
 
 As to the books, however, I must give the list in his 
 own words, grammar, and spelling : — 
 
 Sermonum liber unus quem 
 ego scripsi solus cum Priore 
 meo, sicut habetur domui 
 Sancte Marie, valde opti- 
 mus. 
 
 Liber Historiarum unus, ubi 
 1 
 
 continetur quidquid in 
 sancta ecclesia pertinet ad 
 legendum per totum an- 
 num. 
 Textum Evangeliorum unum, 
 valde optime scriptura, cum 
 
NO. IV.] 
 
 THE ABBOT BONUS. 
 
 47 
 
 tabule de argento valde 
 
 bone. 
 Passionarium unum novum, 
 
 ubi sunt omnes passiones 
 
 ecclesiastice. 
 Tractatum super Genesis, 
 
 Sancti Augustini liber 
 
 unus. 
 Dialogorum, liber unus. 
 Moralium Job, liber unus. 
 Summum bonum, liber 
 
 unus. 
 Diadema, liber unus. 
 Paradisi, liber unus. 
 Glossarum, liber unus. 
 Canones, liber unus. 
 
 Sancti Benedict! Regula, liber 
 unus. 
 
 Pastorale, liber unus. 
 
 Antiphonarii VIII. 
 
 Quinque Diurnales. 
 
 Tres Nocturnales. 
 
 Liber Bibliothece * novum 
 quod est comparatum libras 
 decem. 
 
 Missales quinque ; unum mis- 
 sale valde optimum, quod 
 semper in area manebit, 
 valentem solidos C. 
 
 Super Ezechiel, liber unus. 
 
 Libri Psalmorum valde op- 
 timi V. 
 
 Now I am quite aware that this catalogue may draw 
 a smile from those who are conversant with modern 
 collections, but I am not ashamed to say that I honour 
 the man who, under such circumstances, had the spirit, 
 and found the means, to rebuild or enlarge his church, 
 to provide all things necessary for the honourable per- 
 formance of divine service, to annex a monastery, and 
 make a beginning for a school of learning. Let me 
 also (partly to illustrate what I have said in the pre- 
 ceding number, and partly to prepare the way for what 
 I hope more fully to shew,) request the reader to 
 observe the nature of the books in this little list, — 
 are they legendary tales of saints ? mere lies and 
 rubbish ? But more of this, I hope, hereafter. 
 
 2 I hope to give some catalojjues relating to the period with which we 
 are engaged, which will offer a fitter opportunity for saying something 
 of these and other books ; but I am apprehensive that some readers may 
 not know that Bihliotheca was, in those days, the latin, or at least the 
 name, for a Bible. Will the protestant reader give the abbot and his 
 monks any credit for buying it, at so early a period of their monastery, 
 for so great a price ? and, honestly, (but quite between ourselves,) would 
 he have expected to find that book in the list ? 
 
48 POPULAR FALSEHOODS. [XO. IV. 
 
 Having said so much of the Al)bot Bonus, I am 
 anxious to proceed to the account which Robertson 
 gives of the Abbot Lupus ; but I wish first to add a 
 few words respecting the canons and the A])bot Regino. 
 In the second number I stated that I had not got the 
 original work of the Abbot, but since that number 
 was printed, the kindness of a learned friend has fur- 
 nished me with the book, and T am desirous to give 
 the passage as it really stands. Besides, I am induced 
 to recur to the subject because, after I had written the 
 preceding part of this paper, I happened to take up a 
 " History of Switzerland, designed for young persons," 
 published by Harvey and Darton in 1825; which tells 
 the rising generation that, " so small were the qualifi- 
 cations thought requisite for the priesthood before the 
 Reformation, that candidates were admitted to holy 
 orders if they could only read and tolerably understand 
 what they read," p. 237. This, I presume, is taken 
 from Robertson's statement, that " one of the questions 
 appointed to be put to candidates for orders, was this, 
 ' Whether they could read the Gospels and EjMstles, 
 and explain the sense of them, at least, literally.' " It 
 may be said, (and is very likely to be said by anybody 
 who may take the trouble to read such a paper as this,) 
 that though this history of Switzerland costs six shil- 
 lings, it is only a child's book, that they never heard 
 of it, and that it is not worth notice. To this I answer, 
 first, that children's books are not read by children 
 only, and it was not in the hands of a child that I 
 found this book ; and also that, in my opinion, even 
 children should not be set to read lies ; secondly, I 
 confess that I never saw the book until this very day, 
 but I do hold it to be very well worth notice as an 
 instance of the way in which the errors of pojiular 
 writers are copied and disseminated, and dribbled down 
 in minor publications. 
 
NO. IV.] REGINO PRUMIENSIS. 49 
 
 To come, however, to the point, the inquiry does not 
 at all respect candidates for orders, but is one which a 
 bishop is directed to make in all the cures in his dio- 
 cese. I may have to recur to it, but for the present it is 
 enough to say that it is entitled, " Inquisitio de his quae 
 Episcopus vel ejus ministri in suo districtu vel territorio 
 inquirere debeant per vices, pages, atque parroechias 
 suae dioceseos." It suggests ninety-five points of in- 
 quiry; of which the first fifteen relate to the church, 
 its state of repair, and the requisites for the perform- 
 ance of divine service. No. 16 — 73, concern the life 
 and conversation of the priest. No. 74 — 80, respect 
 points on which the priest was to be personally ques- 
 tioned ; that is, as to his parentage, place of birth, by 
 what bishop he was ordained, &;c. No. 81 — 95, relate 
 to his ministry (Posthsec de ministerio sibi commisso 
 inquirendum est) and it is that part of the 83rd and 
 85th which I mark by italics that is quoted by Bruc- 
 ker ^, but I must extract the two which precede : — " Si 
 expositionem symboli atque orationis dominicse juxta 
 traditionem orthodoxorum patrum penes se scriptam 
 habeat, et eam pleniter intellegat, et inde prsedicando 
 populum sibi commissum sedulo instruat. 82. Si ora- 
 tiones Missarum, prsefationem quoque canonis, et eun- 
 dem canonem bene intellegat, et memoriter ac dis- 
 tincte proferre valeat. 83. Si epistolam et evangelium 
 bene legere possit atque saltern ad litteram ejus sensum 
 manifestare. 84. Si psalmorum verba et distinctiones 
 regulariter ex corde cum canticis consuetudinariis pro- 
 nuntiare sciat. 85. Si sermonem Atlianasii Episcopi de 
 fide SanctcB Trinitatis cujus initium est * Quicunque 
 vult salvus esse ' memoriter teneat, et sensum illius inteU 
 
 ^ Of this, indeed, Robertson ought to have been aware, for Brucker 
 
 introduces it as a formula inquisitionis " secundum quam inquirere 
 
 debebat Episcopus per vicos, &c. ... In ea enim inter alia circa presbyteros 
 jubetur inquiri, ' Si ' " &c. 
 
60 LUPUS, ABBOT [NO. IV. 
 
 legat, et verbis comraunihus enuntiare sciat." The re- 
 maining ten questions inquire minutely as to his capa- 
 bility to perform different parts of the service, and 
 the 94th inquires, *' Si habeat quadraginta homilias 
 Gregorii et eos studiose legat atque intellegat." To 
 say nothing of the erroneous application of this docu- 
 ment to the examination of candidates for orders, is it 
 not most extraordinary that it should have been brought 
 forward to prove that the clergy could not read ? 
 
 Let us, however, proceed to another case. Robertson 
 goes on to say, — 
 
 *' Lupus, Abbot of Ferrieres, in a letter to the Pope, a.d. 
 855, beseeches him to lend him a copy of Cicero de Oratore, 
 and Quintilian's Institutions. " For/ says he, * although we 
 have parts of those books, there is no complete copy of them 
 in all France.' Murat. Antiq. v. iii. p. 835." 
 
 The plain matter of fact is, that two monks, named 
 Adulphus and Acaricus, having resolved on a pilgrim- 
 age, the Abbot took the opportunity of sending to 
 Rome what was in fact a letter of introduction as it 
 respected them, a tender of his own humble service to 
 the pope, and a request that his Holiness would lend 
 him some books, in order that he might have them 
 copied for the library of his monastery. From the 
 part of the letter which relates to this latter point *, 
 
 * " Cseterum quia parentes thesaurizare debent filiis, ut doctor gentium 
 manifestat, nosque vobis obsequentissimi filii esse cupimus, commentarios 
 beati Hieronymi in Hieremiam, post sexturn librum usque in finem prae- 
 dicti prophetae per eosdem fratres nobis mitti deposciraus in codice reve- 
 rendse veritatis, vestrae sanctitati, si id obtinuerimus, postquam celeriter 
 exscriptus fuerit sine dubio remittendos. Nam in nostris regionibus 
 nusquam ullus post sextum commentarium potuit inveniri; et optamus 
 in vobis recuperare quicquid parvitati nostrae deesse sentimus. Petimus 
 etiam Tullium de Oratore et xii libros Institutionum Oratoriarum Quinti- 
 liani, qui uno, nee ingenti, volumine continentur: quorum utriusque 
 auctorum partes habemus, verum plenitudinem per vos desideramus 
 obtinere. Pari intentione Donati Commentum in Terentium flagitamus. 
 
NO. IV.] OF FERRIERES. 51 
 
 it appears, in the first place, that Lupus says nothing 
 about " all France ;" though here, I confess, that Robert- 
 son seems to have been misled by Muratori, who, after 
 quoting a part of the letter, says, " Hsec Lupus, in 
 cujus verbis non solum animadvertere possumus codi- 
 cum raritatem, quum supra memoratos universa Gallia 
 suppeditare Lupo non posset, iique in tarn remota re- 
 gione quserendi essent, sed, &c." Lupus, however, only 
 says, of certain works of Cicero and Quintilian, " we 
 have parts, but desire through you to obtain the whole;" 
 and by " we," he obviously meant his own monastery. 
 Why Robertson did not mention that the request in- 
 cluded Donatus on Terence, I do not know ; but what 
 he says of " all France" — though obviously a very 
 exaggerated translation of nostris regionibus, consider- 
 ing the state of things in those days — applies not to 
 the books which Robertson mentions, but to the 
 Commentaries of Jerome on Jeremiah, from the sixth 
 book to the end. 
 
 Now as to the abbot's not having a complete copy 
 of these books of Cicero and Quintilian, and his pre- 
 ferring, as he had so good an opportunity, to borrow 
 a volume of no great bulk which he knew to contain 
 all that he wanted from Rome^ to sending about in his 
 own country, even if that had been equally easy, or 
 even practicable ; and indeed, generally, as to the sort 
 of half-contraband trade which was carried on about 
 the classics by the more learned ecclesiastics of those 
 days — as to this point, which is not uninteresting when 
 viewed in connexion with our subject, T hope to speak 
 more fully elsewhere ; here it is only worth while 
 to notice that, according to the Abbot Lupus, the com- 
 
 Quae auctorum opera si vestra liberalitas nobis largita fuerit, Deo annuente, 
 cum memorato Sancti Hieronymi codice, fideliter onmino restituenda 
 curabimus." — Ep 103, edit. Baluz., p. 155. 
 
 E 2 
 
62 MONKS OF FERRIERES [NO. IV. 
 
 mentaries of Jerome on Jeremiah, from the sixth book 
 to the end, were not to be found "in regionibus nos- 
 tris ;" and whether we interpret this to mean what a 
 modern reader would understand by " all France," or 
 restrict it to more reasonable limits, it was still a very 
 broad assertion. Might not the abbot be mistaken 
 as to the fact? With all due respect for the Abbot 
 of Ferrieres, and on some grounds he deserved not a 
 little, are we bound to believe that he knew of all 
 the books " in regionibus nostris," whatever we may 
 suppose that phrase to mean ? Robertson elsewhere 
 says, — 
 
 "Many proofs occur in history of the little intercourse 
 between nations during the middle ages;" and it is rather 
 a singular coincidence that he states in proof of this, " Even 
 so late as the beginning of the twelfth century, the monks 
 of Ferrieres, in the diocese of Sens, did not know that there 
 was such a city as Toumay in Flanders ; and the monks of 
 St. Martin, of Tournay, were equally unacquainted with the 
 situation of Ferrieres. A transaction in which they were 
 both concerned made it necessary for them to have some 
 intercourse. The mutual interest of both monasteries 
 prompted each to find out the situation of the other. After 
 a long search, which is particularly described, the discovery 
 was made by accident. Herimannus Abbas de Restauratione 
 St. Martini Tomacensis ap. Dach. Spicel. vol. xii., p. 400 \" 
 
 I am induced to make this extract, not only because 
 it states what is, under proper and reasonable limita- 
 tions, an acknowledged truth, and one which it is very 
 necessary to bear in mind, but because it incidentally 
 furnishes another instance of what I hope it is true, as 
 well as charitable, to call the extreme carelessness with 
 which Robertson quoted. No doubt monks situated 
 at places as far distant, and as little connected, as 
 Ferrieres and Tournay were not likely to know much 
 
 ^ See note, [FF.] No. XIX., p. 235. 
 
NO. IV.] AND ST. MARTIN OF TOURNAY. 53 
 
 about each other ; but the view which Robertson gives 
 of the matter is quite erroneous. It would occupy too 
 much space to shew this in detail ; but I must just 
 observe, that so far from its appearing that the monks 
 of Ferrieres did not know that there was such a city 
 as Tournay (which is indeed a supposition altogether 
 absurd, especially as the conversation between the two 
 monks which brought about an understanding and 
 intercourse between the monasteries took place at 
 Courtray, and he of Ferrieres must have passed com- 
 paratively near to Tournay to get there, as anybody 
 may see by the map), it is perfectly clear, from Heri- 
 man's account, that they did know of the existence 
 of Tournay; and that the place which they did not 
 know, and could not find, was a certain monastery of 
 St. Martin, at Tournay. They had in their possession 
 old documents relating to it, but of the place itself 
 they could learn nothing — and why? simply because 
 there was no such place ; it had ceased to exist for 
 some centuries, insomuch that some, perhaps most 
 people, disputed whether it had ever existed at all. 
 The monks of Ferrieres had no " interest " (but rather 
 the contrary) in finding out the place, but they had 
 some curiosity on the subject ; and when one of them 
 accidentally met with a monk, who told him that he 
 belonged to the monastery of St. Martin, at Tournay, 
 he was surprised, and asked him where in the world it 
 was, for they had never been able to find it. It did 
 not appear strange to the monk of Tournay (and it 
 will not seem strange to any reflecting person) that the 
 monks of Ferrieres should not have heard how Master 
 Odo and his clerks had revived this monastery of St. 
 Martin — that is, had settled down on the old founda- 
 tion, (like Bonus and his uncle at Pisa,) and dragged 
 on about twenty years of miserable poverty and obscu- 
 rity, in founding what afterwards became most emi- 
 
 1 
 
54 LITERARY [nO. IV- 
 
 nently a " monastery of considerable note," and there- 
 fore he answered that it was quite a recent foundation ; 
 and he seems not to have known, or not to have cared, 
 about its claim to antiquity, or to have made any far- 
 ther inquiries when the monk of Ferrieres told him 
 that they had documents relating to its former exist- 
 ence. When, however, he returned, and related to his 
 brethren what he had heard, they lost no time in send- 
 ing to Courtray for farther information ; but the monk 
 of Ferrieres was gone, and certainly they did not know 
 how to follow him. How Heriman hunted for the 
 abbot, and found him at the council of Rheims, and 
 how he followed him, by his direction, to Ferrieres, 
 and then found that he had changed his mind as to 
 parting with the documents, or giving information on 
 the subject, from fear, as it seemed, of giving offence 
 to one or more of his neighbours, by setting on foot a 
 claim to property which was supposed to belong to 
 St. Martin's, at Tournay, but which had got into other 
 hands ; these, and many curious and interesting parti- 
 culars, the reader may find in Heriman's own account 
 of the matter to which Robertson refers, but they 
 would be out of place here. 
 
 I quote the statement, as I have already said, not to 
 question so notorious a fact as that intercourse between 
 distant places was comparatively small at that period, 
 and attended with difficulties unknown in these days, 
 but to shew the carelessness with which Robertson 
 quoted, and the inconsistency with which he argued. 
 If the monks of Ferrieres in the twelfth century did 
 not know that there was such a city as Tournay, are 
 we to suppose that an abbot of Ferrieres, more than 
 two centuries and a half before, was competent to say 
 that any given book was not to be found in all France ? 
 Might not a copy of " Jerome's Commentaries on 
 Jeremiah" lurk somewhere in regionibus nostris un- 
 
NO. IV.] INTERCOURSE. 55 
 
 known to Abbot Lupus? I am not playing the scep- 
 tic or the advocate. I feel authorized to throw out this 
 doubt, because I hope to shew, in its proper place, that 
 there actually was, during the life of Abbot Lupus, a 
 copy of that work in the library of the monastery of 
 St. Riquier, near Abbeville, which might contain the 
 portion wanted, and, though I do not at present recol- 
 lect another, yet 1 should be much surprised to find 
 that it was the only one in France. 
 
 My own feelings with regard to this letter of Lupus 
 are much like those expressed by Fleury respecting 
 another of his epistles. After having said, that " Dans 
 un autre lettre il prie un ami de lui apporter les 
 guerres de Catilina et le Jugurtha de Salluste, et les 
 Verrines de Ciceron," he adds, "C'est la curiosite de 
 ces savans abbez, et le travail de leur moines, qui nous 
 ont conserve les livres de la bonne antiquite ecclesias- 
 tique et prophane ^." Indeed, when Robertson had 
 Muratori before him, and adopted that part of his 
 remarks on Lupus which I have already extracted, I 
 wish he had also attended to what Muratori pro- 
 ceeded to say. After remarking on the scarcity of 
 books, in the terms which I have quoted, and on the 
 assurance of the abbot in asking that such treasures 
 should be exposed to the perils of such a journey, 
 Muratori says, " Potius tamen hinc discendum nobis^ 
 quamplurimas iis ipsis monachis habendas esse gratias, 
 quum ferme eorum tantummodo cura, quidquid libro- 
 rum veterum superest, nos habeamus ; et majores qui- 
 dem nostros excusatione dignos, si plura in Jiteris exco- 
 lendis non prsestitere ; nos vero indignos, qui in tanta 
 librorum copia adhuc desides et indocti esse pergi- 
 musV 
 
 « Tom. X. p. 609. 
 
 ' I hope I may be forgiven if there is any vanity mixed with the feel- 
 ings which induce me to retain the note which my dear and partial friend 
 
56 LITERARY INTERCOURSE. [nO. IV. 
 
 the Editor annexed to this paper when it was first printed in the British 
 Magazine for June, 1835 : — ["The following passages from the letters of 
 Gerbert, afterwards created pope in a.d. 998, by the name of Silvester II., 
 may afford |some confirmation and illustration to the very interesting and 
 valuable paper in the text. He was abbot of Bobbio during part of the 
 time when they were written. In his 130th letter, to Rainald, a monk, 
 written long before his elevation, he says, ' I entreat you to render me one 
 service, which you can do without danger or injury to yourself, and which 
 will bind me most closely to you. You know with what zeal I seek for 
 copies of books from all quarters j and you know how many writers there are 
 everywhere, both in the cities and the country parts of Italy. I entreat you 
 then, that, without any other persons knowing it, and at your own cost, 
 transcripts be made for me of M. Manilius de Astrologia, Victorinus de 
 Rhetorica, Demosthenes Ophthalmicus.' (This is explained by another 
 letter.) * I promise you most faithfully that this kind service shall be 
 kept in sacred secresy, and that whatever you lay out I will pay you to the 
 full, according to your accounts, and whenever you require it ' In letter 
 123 he writes to Thietmar of Mayence, for a part of one of the works of 
 Boetius, which was wanting in his copy. In letter 9, to the Abbot Gisel- 
 bert, he writes respecting deficiencies at the end of his MS. of the oration 
 of Cicero, ' Pro Rege Dejotaro,' and at the beginning of a treatise of 
 Demosthenes the philosopher, called * Ophthalmicus.' In letter 8, to the 
 Archbishop of Rheims, he requests that prelate to borrow for him, from 
 Azo, an Abbot, a copy of Caesar In return, he promises to communicate 
 whatever literary treasures he had, especially eight volumes of Boetius on 
 astrology, some very beautiful geometrical figures, and other things not 
 less to be admired. In letter 7, he requests a friend (Airard) to attend to 
 other business of the same kind, — the correction, as it would seem, of a 
 MS. of Pliny, (Plinius emendetur,) and the transcribing MSS. (not named) 
 which were kept at two different places. Again, in letter 44, to Egbert, 
 the Abbot of Tours, he mentions his own diligent study of philosophy, 
 and of the arts of eloquence, and states, that with a view to them, he had 
 been very busy in collecting a library ; that he had been paying, for a long 
 time, transcribers at Rome, and other parts of Italy, in Germany and Bel- 
 gium, and buying copies of authors at great expense, by the aid of friends 
 in his own country. He then goes on to beg the abbot to assist him in 
 the same pursuit in his country ; adding, that he gives a list, at the end of 
 his letter, of the works which he wishes transcribed, (unfortunately lost, 
 or not printed,) and will supply parchment, and other necessary costs, at 
 the abbot's demand. In many other letters he mentions his own works 
 on rhetoric, arithmetic, and his completion of a sphere. But if in the 
 tenth century we find the \.vork of transcribing so common, that there 
 were ^vriters everywhere, in the cities and country places in Italy, and, as 
 it would seem from other letters, no difficulty in finding them elsewhere, 
 if the collection of a library was so great a matter, that many were ready 
 to assist, surely matters were far different from our common notions. — 
 Ed.]" 
 
57 
 
 THE " BREVE RECORD ATIONIS OF THE ABBOT BONUS. 
 
 This document would have been too long for inser- 
 tion in a magazine ; but I hope it is not out of place 
 here; and I cannot resist the temptation to give it 
 entire, not only because it seems to be the fairest way 
 of dealing in the matter, but also because it is really a 
 curious document, both as to facts and style. No 
 translation would do it justice. The good abbot does 
 indeed 
 
 " From settled rules with brave disorder part. 
 And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art." 
 
 The dignified, though unpretending, simplicity with 
 which he breaks his way through the little restraints 
 of grammar, and gratefully uses the first case or tense 
 that comes to hand, will probably be new to most 
 readers, and will, I trust, convince those who are sus- 
 picious, that I am not upholding the pure latinity of 
 the Dark Ages. 
 
 " In nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi Dei eterni. Breve 
 recordationis facio ego Bonus Abbas, qualiter ab initio in- 
 choavi conversari in Ecclesia Sancti Michaelis, que nunc est 
 cenobium. Fecit me venire Senior Stephanus de Nonantulis, 
 cum avunculo meo Petro, et investivit me de ista capella, 
 que tunc temporis detinebatur a presbyteris, et neque mona- 
 chum, neque Abbatem ibidem inveni; et non casara, neque 
 mansionem, sed tantummodo unum tugurium, ubi cepi habi- 
 tare cum avunculo meo. Et operabatur tunc temporis in 
 turre ipsius ecclesiae, et quod habebam, et habere potui dedi 
 in restaurationem ipsius turris ad magistros et ad manuales, 
 et ad quod necesse erat. Et cessavit ipse Stefanus laborare 
 in ecclesia post unum mensem quam ego cepi habitare in 
 ipso loco, et non levavit in altitudinem ipsam turrem nisi 
 tantummodo unum passum super ipsam ecclesiam. Et post 
 
58 ABBOT bonus's [NO. IV. 
 
 hec finitus est annus quod ipsa ecclesia fuit ofFerta ad honorem 
 Dei et Sancti Michaelis, et ad officium Sancti Benedicti, et 
 ad ipsius regulam monachis ibidem in perpetuum conversan- 
 dis. Et hoc vobis notum sit, quia in ipsa ecclesia non inveni 
 aliud nisi unum missale, et unum calicem de stagno, et unum 
 camisum cum amicto, et unam stolam de lino, et unam 
 
 planetulam, que nunc superest ' quia non inveni in 
 
 ipso loco neque squillam, neque campanam, sed tantummodo 
 
 unam tabulam et cum ipsa tabula ipsa ecclesia qua- 
 
 tuor nunc audite et intelligite qualiter melioratus 
 
 est locus ipse cum auxilio Omnipotentis Dei, et meo, et de 
 meis monachis, et de bonis christianis nostre civitatis. Post 
 quinque annos cepi laborare in ipsam turrim quam nunc vi- 
 detis de helemosina bonorum hominum que nobis dabatur, et 
 edificavi in ipsa turre ecclesiam que nunc videtur ab omnibus et 
 perrexi ad Romam per columnas ipsius ecclesiae, et comparavi, 
 et feci eas venire in navim per mare, de nostro pretio ; et post 
 hoc edificavi super ipsam ecclesiam campanilem. Cum au- 
 tem consummatum fuisset ipsum campanilem cum turris 
 et ecclesia, ambulavi per civitatem nostram cum Burello 
 quondam bone memorie, et cum Landulfo parente ipsius et 
 cum tribus aliis religiosis hominibus, et acquisivimus ipsa 
 die centum solidos, quos dedi pro pretio ad magistros, et 
 posui in ipsum campanile duas campanas. Et post quin- 
 decim annos videbatur mihi et fratribus meis ipsum campani- 
 lem parvum et rusticior, et everti eum a fundamentis, et feci 
 fabricare ilium quomodo videtis valde pulchrior, et posui in 
 ipsum campanas septem, quos omnes de helemosinis fecit 
 Domnus Dominicus meus Prior % quem ego enutrivi, et nunc 
 
 * I give the document as I find it, presuming that such marks here and 
 elsewhere indicate an hiatus in the MS. 
 
 ' The authors of the Annales Camaldulenses combat what they suppose 
 to be the mistake of thinking that the Prior cast the bells himself ; but I 
 confess I so understand the Abbot, and am rather jealous of any attempt 
 to rob the Prior of the credit due to him for this work of art. Who else 
 was so likely to be able to do it ? Of an archdeacon of Verona, nearly 
 two hundred years before, we are told: 
 
 " Quicquid auro, vel argento, et metallis ceteris, 
 Quicquid lignis ex diversis, et marmore candido, 
 NuUus unquam sic peritus in tantis operibus ; " 
 
 and plenty of such instances will occur to those who have paid any atten- 
 
NO. IV.] " BREVE RECORD ATIONIS." 59 
 
 est Abbas Monasterii Sancti Zenonis : et omnes facte sunt 
 de helemosinis, que nobis facte sunt, et de missis, quas ego 
 
 et monachi mei decantaverunt Et habent in se ipse 
 
 campane libras metallorura tantas. Una campana major 
 
 est ponderis M.CC alia quingentarum, tertia trecen- 
 
 tarum, quarta ducentarum, quinta centum, sexta et septima 
 quinquagintarum. Quando veni in ipsum locum, non in- 
 veni, sicut superius memoravimus, nisi unum camisum cum 
 planetula et stola sua linea. Nunc autem habemus in 
 istum locum sanctum camisi xiii cum amictis suis. Et tres 
 camisi sunt tam perfecti et optimi ut Episcopus Opizus ^ 
 domui Sancte Marie possit cum honore cantare missas in die 
 Pasche. Et tres planetas, duo de pallio, una valentes solidos 
 centum alia valentes solidos xxx, tertia de castanea, et tres 
 stolas optimas cum manipulis suis, due de purpure, et alia 
 de pallio et tres corporales de pallio valde optimo. Unum 
 corporale de ipsis tribus est de brusco deaurato valente soli- 
 dos XX quem fecit Leo Papa quarto Romanus, et habet in 
 se depicta imago Salvatoris nostri de brusco, et ex una parte 
 imago Sancti Petri Apostoli, et ex alia parte Sancti Johannis 
 Evangeliste, et unum pluviale de purpura, et alium de pallio 
 valde bonum. Quando veni in ipsum locum non legebatur in 
 ipsa ecclesia per totum fere annum nisi epistole et evangelia, 
 quia non habebatur nisi unum missale. Nunc autem scitote 
 quod melioratus est de libris ipsum locum. 
 
 [Here follows the list of books already given at p. 46.] 
 *' Quot sunt insuper totum numeris xxxiv. Quando veni 
 in ipsa ecclesia non inveni nisi unum calicem de stagno. 
 Modo, autem, cum auxilio Domini, habentur ibi calices iiii. 
 Unum de auro, valde bonus, et habet uncias xi. Alius de 
 argento major, et habet libras iii et mediam. Alii duo 
 habentes in se libram unam de argento per unamquemque. 
 
 tion to the subject ; but I notice it because I do not like to pass an oppor- 
 tunity of telling the march-of-intellect gentlemen, how much they are 
 indebted to the monks for even what they are pleased to call " useful 
 knowledge" in contradistinction to that knowledge, which, to be sure, is 
 of no more use to them than Alnwick or Chatsworth is to me. Of the 
 same Archdeacon I read, -' Horologium nocturnum nullus ante viderat," 
 — but I hope to say more of him another time. 
 
 ' He was Bishop of Pisa in a. d. 1044. See Ughelli, Italia Sacra, torn, 
 iii. p. 407. 
 
60 ABBOT bonus's BREVE RECORD. [nO. IV. 
 
 Quando veni in ipsum locum non inveni nisi unum parvam 
 domum, et postquam cepi commorari cum meis monachis, 
 feci levare mansiones ibidem novas, et post decern annos dis- 
 rumpebantur ipse mansiones quas feci, quoniam erant de 
 ligno de mala generatione, hoc est fuere de cerro. Et dejeci 
 ipse mansiones a fundamentis. Et hedificavi alias mansiones 
 de lignis castanietis quas venire feci per mare de Luni. Et 
 non post multum tempus comparavi da Erigo filio Eritii ter- 
 ram, ubi nunc ipsum monasterium consistit, et dedi in ipsa 
 terra libras xlii, et post hec hedificavi ipsam domum a petra 
 et calcina, ubi sunt omnes officines, sicut abbatia habere 
 debet ; et est tam perfecta domus, ut in tota Marcha melior 
 non est, cum columnas, quas de Insula Ilba et de Luni 
 adduci feci. Et hoc sciatis, quia quando veni in ipsum locum 
 non dedit amplius terre Stefanus in ofFersionem in ipsa eccle- 
 sia, nisi stariorum sex in loco Sejo de valde mala, et stariorum 
 XXIIII ad Tramarice et similiter mala. Nunc audite qualiter, 
 adjuvante Domino, amplificatus est locus ipse de bona terra. 
 Habet Monasterium Sancti Michaelis modo DC stariorum 
 de terra. Dedimus nos pretium in ipsa terra, quod nobis 
 Dominus dedit magnam partem, videlicet libras C valde 
 modice minus, et de alie terre cantavimus et promisimus ad 
 ipsos parentes, que in ipsum locum dari fecerunt in manibus 
 nostris, multe misse decantari. Cui mille, cui quingente, cui 
 trecente, cui centum, et adjutorium et consilium habuimus in 
 aliquantulum de nostris senioribus. Et dedit Albertus de 
 Acuto in ipsum locum curtem unam in Corsica, propter 
 amorem et servitium quod fecit Johannes nepoti meo ad pre- 
 dicto Alberto ; et promisi dare predict© Johanni servitium x 
 libr. ut me adjuvaret, et non tulit mihi propter meum amo- 
 rem nisi solid, xx et fecit mihi dare banc curtem, et detinet 
 ipsam curtem, inter montes et colles et planities et agros sis- 
 tariorum innumerabiles. Hoc est malum quod ego feci cum 
 monachis meis per annos xxx in ipsum locum ; et non vobis 
 abscondam verecundiam meam, quoniam quando inchoavi 
 habitare in eodem loco, tam pauper erat locus, in duobus 
 annis non habui nisi unam stamineam per annum, et tempore 
 estatis in meridie, quando dormire pergebam, ipsam stami- 
 neam ad lavandum dabam : et quando surgebam, predicta 
 lota staminea induebar. Et nunquam habui equum, sicut 
 ceteri abbates habent, et etiam viles monachi. Sed si necesse 
 
NO. v.] haimon's homilies. 61 
 
 erat in silva ambulare, aut in aliquo loco, pedibus meis am- 
 bulabam ; et non duplicia vestimenta desideravi, sed quando 
 novum induebar, neque per Pascha neque per Natalem, 
 alium mutavi usque dum scinderetur, quia consideravi pau- 
 pertatem loci, ut cum debito non maneret. Et multa alia 
 
 feci, que commemorare longum est argenteum et 
 
 alium ereum, quando elongavi ecclesiam Sancti Michaelis 
 expendi in ipsa ecclesia solidos mille sine pane, et sine vino, 
 et sine carne, et sine pisces. Omnia ista expensaria in 
 breve habentur scripta." P. 123. 
 
 No. V. 
 
 " Sed quis pejerat hoc ? Non Muratorius hercle 
 Maffejusve, et Averanius, non qui Calepinum 
 Restituit nuper." — L. Sectanus. 
 
 " Scientia fere oinnis exolevit : et ubique locorum non mediocris igno- 
 rantia successit. Quod cum aio, non est mihi animus significandi, 
 Italiam in Lapponiam tum fuisse conversam, literasque adeo sublatas, 
 ut neque legere neque scribere quisquam nosset. Aut delirantis, aut 
 infantissimi plane hominis haec opinio foret." — Muratorius. 
 
 Proceeding with his proofs and illustrations of the 
 extreme darkness of the middle ages, Robertson tells 
 us — 
 
 "The price of books became so high, that persons of a 
 moderate fortune could not afford to purchase them. The 
 Countess of Anjou paid for a copy of the Homilies of Hai- 
 mon. Bishop of Halberstadt, two hundred sheep, five quar- 
 ters of wheat, and the same quantity of rye and millet. 
 Histoire Literaire de France, par des Religieux Benedictins, 
 tom. vii. p. S" 
 
 Of course we are to understand that this was some- 
 where about the market price of a volume of homilies ; 
 and a price arising out of the scarcity of the article, 
 and the consequent difficulty of procuring it ; and, if 
 
62 ROBERTSON OP [nO. V. 
 
 this was the case, it is quite clear that in those days 
 most people must either have made homilies for them- 
 selves, or gone without them. The story is, however, 
 so very good that one would be tempted, at first sight, 
 to suspect it of not being true. Let us see what the 
 price stated by Robertson actually was, for it is fortu- 
 nately given in terms more intelligible — at least in 
 such a way as that we are more likely to come at a 
 true notion of value — than if it had been stated in 
 terms of money. The scribe, it is said, received two 
 hundred sheep, and fifteen quarters (that is, thirty 
 sacks) of grain. It may reasonably be presumed that 
 the sheep were alive, and likely to increase ; that they 
 had wool, which was worth something ; or, at any rate, 
 two hundred skins, which would, of themselves, be a 
 little fortune to a man who lived upon parchment. 
 But waiving all this, and considering the sheep as mere 
 mutton, the scribe would be furnished with almost half 
 a sheep, and more than half a bushel of grain, per 
 week for four years. Was there nobody who would 
 transcribe a few homilies on more reasonable terms? 
 Surely, from that time forth, every man in Anjou, and 
 every where else, who heard of the transaction, set 
 about learning the art of penmanship, which must have 
 been, beyond all comparison, the most lucrative which 
 had ever been practised, and which might fairly vie 
 with alchemy itself. 
 
 Let us, however, look at the authorities. Robertson 
 refers to the Histoire Literaire de France, where the 
 story is thus told : — " Un trait que I'histoire nous a 
 conserve touchant le prix excessif des livres en ce 
 temps la, nous doit faire juger de leur rarete. Encore 
 s'agit-il d'un auteur ecclesiastique, le recueil des 
 homilies d'Haimon d'Halberstadt. Grecie Comtesse 
 d' Anjou, I'acheta deux cents brebis, un muid de fro- 
 ment, un autre de seigle, un troisieme de millet, et un 
 
NO. v.] haimon's homilies. 63 
 
 certain nombre de peaux de martres. II falloit etre 
 riche pour former de nombreuses bibliotheques au 
 meme prix." Perhaps nobody will dispute the infer- 
 ence which these historians draw from the story; but 
 some will be surprised that Robertson omitted the 
 " certain nombre de peaux de martres." This certain 
 (that is, of course, uncertain) number may be supposed 
 to stand for any quantity of rich and costly furs, and 
 increases the price and the wonder greatly ^ 
 
 But let us retrograde another step, and look at the 
 authority to which the authors of the " Histoire Lite- 
 raire" refer. Mabillon, having occasion, in his "Bene- 
 dictine Annals," to mention the Countess Grecia as a 
 subscribing witness to a charter of about the year 1056", 
 by which Geoffry Martel, Count of Anjou, granted 
 certain privileges to the monks of St. Nicholas at 
 Angers, adds, that she was the second wife of that 
 Count, and married to him after his divorce from his 
 first Countess, Agnes of Burgundy. He farther says, 
 that the divorce is mentioned in a letter from a monk 
 to the Abbot Oderic, who had asked him about a cer- 
 tain homilary of Haymo ; and remarks, that though 
 not very important in itself, the monk's letter is worth 
 transcribing, because it shews both the high price of 
 books, and the estimation in which these homilies were 
 
 > It is a happy thing that some failings and vices carry with them to a 
 certain extent, and so far as regards the general mischief which they are 
 calculated to produce, their own antidote or mitigation. Certainly the 
 same carelessness which gives rise to a great part of the mistakes and mis- 
 quotations of popular writers prevents them from making the best of a 
 good story when they have got one. Mr. James Petit Andrews, F.A.S., 
 in his " History of Great Britain connected with the Chronology of 
 Europe" — " an undertaking which had probably been blighted in the bud 
 if he had foreseen the toil that would attend it" — tells us that it was "a 
 large parcel of rich furs," p. 87 ; but unaccountably (unless he suspected 
 a blunder which he did not know how to correct) says nothing of the 
 wheat, rye, and millet. He professes to quote from Henault — that is, I 
 suppose, from the English translation of Henault, in which, if I remember 
 right, the French muid stands untranslated. 
 
64 ROBERTSON OF [nO. V. 
 
 held at that period. He then gives the letter, which is 
 as follows : — 
 
 " To his Lord the Abbot O. brother R. offers his prayers 
 in Christ. Most dear father, I would have you to know that 
 the Countess bought the book of which you have heard, for 
 a great price, of Martin, who is now a bishop. On one 
 occasion she gave him a hundred sheep on account of that 
 book ; at another time, on account of that same book, a modius 
 of wheat, another of rye, and a third of millet. Again, on 
 the same account, a hundred sheep ; at another time, some 
 marten skins. And when she separated herself from the 
 Count he received from her four pounds to buy sheep. But 
 afterwards, when she asked him for the change, he began to 
 complain about the book. She immediately gave up to him 
 what he owed her ^" 
 
 2 Mabillon's words are — " De hoc divortio fit mentio in quadam epis- 
 tola cujusdam monachi ad Odericutn Abbatem qui monachum ilium de 
 homilario Haimonis percontatus fuerat. Hsec epistola, tametsi in speciera 
 non magni momenti, hie referenda videtur, ex qua nirairum intelligitur, 
 quanti tunc temporis constarent libri, quantique hoc homiliarium habere- 
 tur. Sic autem habet ilia Epistola. 
 
 "Domno suo Abbati O., frater R. orationes in Christo. Pater caris- 
 sime, scire vos volumus, quod codicem, de quo audivisti, pretio magno a 
 Martino, qui est modo praesul, Comitissa emit. Una vice libri causa 
 centum oves illi dedit : altera vice causa ipsius libri unum medium fru- 
 menti, et alterura sigalis, et tertium de milio. Iterum hac eadem causa 
 centum oves : altera vice quasdam pelles martirinas. Cumque separavit 
 se a Comite, quatuor libratas, ovium emendi causa, ab ilia accepit. Post- 
 quam autem requisivit denarios, ille conquer! coepit de libro. Ilia statim 
 dimisit illi quod sibi debebat." 
 
 Mabillon proceeds to say — " Martinus ille praesul, capellanus fuerat 
 Gaufridi Comitis et Agnetis, postmodum Episcopus Trecorensis, ut supe- 
 rius vidimus ex quadam charta eorundem quam scripsit Martinus tunc 
 Capellanus, postea Treguerensis Episcopus." Lib. LXI. No. 6. p. 528. 
 
 Mabillon yives no authority, that I see, for the letter, and may therefore 
 be presumed to quote from the original. It will be observed that the letter 
 itself mentions neither homilary nor Haymo. Mabillon says both; I should 
 like to know why he says that the codex contained the homilies of Hay- 
 mon ; for I cannot help thinking that the Codex might be that service- 
 book which was then more properly and strictly, and commonly too, (if 
 not exclusively) called a Homilary; and, if it was a book got up for the 
 church service, in any such way as some which will be described pre- 
 sently, the price is not so remarkable. 
 
NO. v.] haimon's homilies. 65 
 
 On this letter I would observe — 
 
 1. If there is really any reference to the divorce, it 
 seems obvious that it must have been Agnes (who 
 separated herself), and not Grecia (her successor), who 
 purchased the book. I cannot help doubting, however, 
 whether there is any such reference ; though I have so 
 far deferred to Mabillon as to translate separavit se, by 
 *^she separated," and accepit, by '* he received." We 
 learn, from the subscription to another charter, that 
 Martin had been the Count's chaplain ; and, from this 
 letter, that he had ceased to be so ; and I cannot but 
 think that the "separavit se" may mean when he 
 quitted the Count's service. 
 
 2. It is more to the purpose to observe, that this 
 book of homilies was a peculiar volume, which was the 
 subject of particular inquiry. The Abbot was asking 
 about it, and the monk, who knew its history, describes 
 it as the volume which the Countess bought at "a great 
 price." So that what she gave was then considered 
 extraordinary. 
 
 3. The price was paid at different times, and in so 
 strange a manner, that it looks rather as if the chap- 
 lain was some skilful artist who was honoured on 
 account of his talents, and took advantage of them to 
 work on the liberality of his patroness. 
 
 4. As to the quantity of grain — I suffer modius to 
 stand, because, if I were to translate it, I should be 
 inclined to say "one bushel" instead of "five quar- 
 ters," which would, of course, divide Robertson's quan- 
 tity hy forty. I do not mean to say that the English 
 bushel is the exact representative of the modius here 
 spoken of, for what that was precisely I really do not 
 know ; and whoever looks into the subject of weights 
 and measures will perceive that it is not very easy to 
 determine ; but I am inclined to think that I should 
 be giving very good measure. 
 
 F 
 
66 PRICE OF BOOKS [nO. V. 
 
 Now let me appeal to every rational and reflecting 
 person, whether it is from such cases that we can judge 
 of the price of books in general, or of the comparative 
 ease or difficulty of procuring them ? Are we to form 
 our ideas from the sums paid or given by royal and 
 noble patrons and patronesses to artists, whose skill in 
 writing, illuminating, and embellishing manuscripts, 
 enabled them to ask what they pleased, and get what- 
 ever they asked ^ ? 
 
 Suppose, however, that there was no fine writing in 
 the case, it is still very possible that, on other grounds, 
 the book might have been worth twice, or twenty 
 times, as much as the countess gave for it, without 
 proving that books in general were so outrageously 
 scarce and dear. From such cases, indeed, we cannot, 
 as I have already said, prove anything. Will it not be 
 quite as fair for some writer a few centuries hence to 
 bring forward the enormous and absurd prices which 
 have been paid by some modern collectors for single 
 volumes, as an evidence of the price of books in our 
 age ? May he not tell his gaping readers, (at a time, 
 too, when the march of intellect has got past the age 
 of cumbersome and expensive penny magazines, and is 
 revelling in farthing cyclopaedias,) that in the year 
 1812, one of our nobility gave 2260/., and another, 
 1060/. 10^. for a single volume? and that the next 
 
 ^ Look at the state of things in countries which are now similarly cir- 
 cumstanced. " The art of printing," says Morier, " is unknown in Persia, 
 and beautiful writing, therefore, is considered a high accomplishment. It 
 is carefully taught in the schools, and those who excel in it are almost 
 classed with literary men. They are employed to copy books, and some 
 have attained to such eminence in this art, that a few lines written by one 
 of these celebrated penmen are often sold for a considerable sum." {His- 
 tory of Persia, vol. ii., p. 582.) He adds in a note, " I have known seven 
 pounds given for four lines written by Dervish Musjeed, a celebrated pen- 
 man, who has been dead some time, and whose beautiful specimens of 
 writing are now scarce " 
 
NO. v.] IN THE DARK AGES. 67 
 
 year, a Johnson's Dictionary was sold by public auction, 
 to a plebeian purchaser, for 200^. ? A few such facts 
 would quite set up some future Robertson, whose read- 
 ers would never dream that we could get better read- 
 ing, and plenty of it, much cheaper at that very time. 
 The simple fact is, that there has always been such a 
 thing as bibliomania since there have been books in the 
 world ; and no member of the Roxburgh Club has yet 
 equalled the Elector of Bavaria, who gave a town for a 
 single manuscript — unless, indeed, it be argued that it 
 was a more pure, disinterested, and brilliant display of 
 the ruling passion, a more devoted and heroic sacrifice 
 of property and respect, to give 2000/. for an unique 
 specimen of obscene trash, than to part with a German 
 town for a copy of the New Testament. 
 
 Intrinsic value of this description, however, does not 
 enter into the question, though another species of it 
 does, and it is necessary to say a few words about it, 
 which I hope to do presently. In the mean time let 
 me ask, does not Robertson proceed to state in his very 
 next sentence what might, by itself, shew his readers 
 that the transaction which he had just recorded was 
 not peculiarly characteristic of the age in which it 
 occurred ? He goes on to say : — 
 
 "Even so late as the year 1471, when Louis XI. borrowed 
 the works of Rasis, the Arabian physician, from the Faculty 
 of Medicine in Paris, he not only deposited as a pledge a 
 considerable quantity of plate, but was obliged to procure a 
 nobleman to join with him as surety in a deed, binding him- 
 self under a great forfeiture to restore it. Gabr. Naude 
 Addit. a I'histoire de Louys XI. par Comines. edit, de Fres- 
 noy, tom. iv. p. 281. Many curious circumstances with re- 
 spect to the extravagant price of books in the middle ages, are 
 collected by that industrious compiler, to whom I refer such 
 of my readers as deem this small branch of literary history an 
 object of curiosity." 
 
 Might I not add, that " even so late as" two centu- 
 
 F 2 
 
68 COSTLY MATERIALS [NO. V. 
 
 ries after the occurrence mentioned by Robertson, when 
 Selden wished to borrow a MS. from the Bodleian 
 Library, he was required to give a bond for a thousand 
 POUNDS? but does it follow that in that dark age he 
 could not have got as much good reading on easier 
 terms ? 
 
 I have said, however, that there was frequently an 
 intrinsic value in books independent of that which 
 might arise from their subject ; and I mean that which 
 was inseparable from the nature of the costly materials 
 of which they were composed, as well as from the art 
 and labour bestowed in making them. This value was 
 often, I apprehend, much greater than many of Robert- 
 son's readers would imagine; and if they think of a 
 book as nothing but a thing to read, and (looking back 
 to the dark ages) as only a cramp illegible scrawl on 
 dirty parchment, they will form a very erroneous opi- 
 nion on the whole matter. Books, and especially those 
 used in the church service, (of which, by the way, gene- 
 ral readers are most likely to hear, and to which class, 
 I suspect, as I have said, that this Homilary belonged,) 
 were frequently written with great care and pains, illu- 
 minated and gilded with almost incredible industry, 
 bound in, or covered with, plates of gold, silver, or 
 carved ivory, adorned with gems, and even enriched 
 with relics. Missals of a later date than the period 
 with which we are at present concerned were, some 
 years ago, the objects of eager competition among col- 
 lectors, and some of them must always be admired for 
 the exquisite beauty of their embellishments. I am 
 not going to compare the graphic performances of the 
 ninth and tenth centuries with those of the thirteenth 
 and fourteenth ; in this point of view it may suffice to 
 say, that they were the finest specimens of art which 
 those who purchased them had ever seen, and in all 
 matters of taste and fancy this is saying a good deal. 
 
NO. v.] OF ANCIENT BOOKS. 69 
 
 As to the value of books, however, which arose from 
 the costly materials of which they were made, or the 
 labour, industry, and taste, with which they were em- 
 bellished, I hope I shall find a more proper place to 
 speak ; and I feel that for our present purpose it is 
 quite sufficient to make this general reference to it; 
 but there was another species of value attaching to 
 some books in those ages which does not present itself 
 to our minds so obviously or forcibly. The multiplica- 
 tion of books, by printing, has not only rendered them 
 much cheaper by reducing the labour required for the 
 production of a large number of copies, but it has pro- 
 vided that each one of that large number should be a 
 fac-simile of all the rest. He who sees one copy of an 
 edition sees all : that edition is dispersed among those 
 who can best judge of its value ; it receives from their 
 suffrages a certain character ; and from that time forth, 
 if we see the title-page, we know what are the contents 
 or the errors of every other page in the book. Among 
 those who are likely to want it, it is sufficient to men- 
 tion the time and place of its publication, and if we 
 admire the correctness and readableness of our own 
 edition of a father or a classic, we recommend our 
 friends to get it, well knowing that as there is one there 
 are many ; or that, at least, our own copy is not likely 
 to be unique^ or we should infallibly have heard of it 
 from our bookseller. Now, in those days every copy 
 was unique — every one, if I may so speak, stood upon 
 its own individual character ; and the correctness of a 
 particular manuscript was no pledge for even those 
 which were copied immediately from it. In fact, the 
 correctness of every single copy could only be ascer- 
 tained by minute and laborious collation, and by the 
 same sort of tedious and wearisome process which is 
 now required from the editor who, with infinitely more 
 ease and better helps, revises the text of an ancient 
 
 1 
 
70 OFFERING BOOKS [nO. V. 
 
 writer. We may, therefore, naturally suppose that if 
 a manuscript was known to be the work of a good and 
 careful scribe — if it came out of the Scriptorium of 
 some well-respected monastery — if it had passed 
 through learned hands, and had been found, by the 
 scrutiny which it was then necessary to give to each 
 individual copy, to be an accurate work which might 
 be safely trusted as a copy for future transcripts — ^if 
 all this was known and attested, it would form another 
 and a very good reason why a book should fetch an 
 extraordinary price. 
 
 But to return to Robertson — 
 
 " When any person made a present of a book to a church 
 or a monastery, in which were the only libraries during these 
 ages, it was deemed a donative of such value, that he offered 
 it on the altar pro remedio animee stue, in order to obtain the 
 forgiveness of his sins. Murat. vol. iii. p. 836. Hist. Liter, 
 de France, t. vi. p. 6. Nouv. Trait, du Diplomat, par deux 
 Benedictins, 4to. tom. i. p. 481. '' 
 
 Now really if a book was to cost two hundred sheep 
 and fifteen quarters of grain, (to say nothing of the 
 furs and money,) I do not see anything very absurd in 
 its being treated as a donative of value ; at least, I 
 wish that people would make gifts of the same value 
 to churches now-a-days, and I believe they would find 
 that they were not considered quite contemptible. I 
 think I have seen in a parish church a board, (whether 
 gilt or not, I do not remember,) informing the world 
 that Esquire somebody had given " forty shillings a year 
 for ever to the poor of the parish — viz., to the vicar, 
 five shillings," for preaching an annual sermon to com- 
 memorate his bounty, and so forth. 
 
 But let me say a few words, first, as to the autho- 
 rities, and then as to the fact. 
 
 First, then, as to the authorities, which it will be 
 most convenient to notice in an inverted order. In 
 
NO. v.] ON THE ALTAR. 71 
 
 the part of the Nouv. Traite du Diplom. referred to, I 
 cannot find anything to the purpose, and I can only 
 suppose that there is some mistake in the reference. 
 To the Histoire Literaire de France, I have not at 
 present access * ; but the passage of Muratori referred 
 to is as follows : — " Rari ergo quum olim forent, mul- 
 toque sere redimerentur codices MSti., hinc intelligimus 
 cur tanti fieret eorum donatio, ut siquando vel ipsi 
 Romani Pontifices ejusmodi munera sacris templis 
 offerebant, ad eorum gloriam de iis mentio in historia 
 haberetur. Stephanus V. Papa, ut est in ejus vita, 
 torn. iii. p. 272, Rerum Italicar. circiter annum Christi 
 Dccc Lxxxvi., praeter alios libros ibi commemorates ' pro 
 animse suse remedio, contulit ecclesise Sancti Pauli can- 
 tharum exauratam unam (fortasse, cantharum) Lib. 
 Comment. I. ; Prophetarum, Lib. I. ; Gestarum Rerum, 
 Lib. IL'" 
 
 * Since this was published I have referred to the passage, which is as 
 follows : — 
 
 " D'autres ne croioient pas faire aux eglises et aux monasteres de plus 
 excellents dons, que de leur offrir des livres. [How could they get such an 
 idea in the dark ages ?] Et pour mieux marquer le cas qu'ils en faisoient, 
 ils les deposoient ordinairement sur I'Autel, comme une chose sacree. 
 L'usage de les offrir de la sorte devint asse's commun en ce siecle •. On 
 ne trouve des vestiges a la tete d'un recueil manuscrit des Conciles gen^- 
 raux et des Decretales des Papes, ou se lit une inscription qui porte, que 
 ce livre fut offert a I'Autel de Notre-Dame du Puy par Adalard qui en 
 etoit Eveque en 919 ''. S. Maieul, Abbe de Cluny, aiant fait copier le 
 Commentaire de S. Ambroise sur S. Luc, et celui de Raban Maur sur 
 Jeremie, les offrit de meme a son Monastere, en les mettant sur I'Autel de 
 S. Pierre *=. Letald nous apprend la meme chose de Pierre, sfavant 
 Moine de Mici son contemporain, qui y donna divers recueils d'histoire 
 apres les avoir deposes sur I'Autel de S. Etienne le jour du Jeudi saint." 
 
 I give the passage, to shew what it is ; it is not perhaps worth while to 
 add any remark. It will be observed that the second of these authorities 
 (which is in fact to the Itinerar. Burgund.) I had myself noticed, and 
 quoted in the next paragraph with rather a different view. 
 
 • Gall. chr. nov. t. 2. p. 693. *• Mab. opusc. t. 2. p. 22. 
 
 "^ Act. B. t. I. p. 598. n. 3. 
 
72 BOOKS PRESENTED [NO. V. 
 
 Here it will be obvious that the drift of Muratori's 
 remark, which has been misapprehended by Robertson, 
 is, not that the books given to churches were offered 
 on the altar, or that they were offered pro remedio 
 ani?ncB, though the instance which he quotes happens 
 to contain the words "/?ro remedio animcB sucb,'^ to 
 which he undoubtedly attached no importance, as well 
 knowing, and expecting every body to understand, that 
 this was, in all such cases, implied, if not expressed ; 
 but that, when given even by popes, it was thought 
 worth while to record the donation in history, that is, 
 in their lives. Even this remark, however, surprises 
 me as coming from a writer who must have known 
 that the gifts of some of the popes to various churches 
 and monasteries were scrupulously registered, and have 
 been unmercifully detailed by their biographers ; and, 
 indeed, some of the books which occur in such lists 
 might well be considered " donatives " of great value, 
 even by those who could not read. For instance, when 
 Leo III., in the beginning of the ninth century, gave 
 a copy of the Gospels so ornamented with gold and 
 precious stones that it weighed seventeen pounds, four 
 ounces ^ ; or, when Benedict III. gave one to the 
 church of St. Calistus, adorned with gold and silver of 
 nearly the same weight ^. Surely when such books, or 
 even books of less value, were given, it was as natural 
 to record the donation as that of a silver chalice, or a 
 
 * " Hie fecit B. Petro apostolo fautori suo, Evangelia aurea cum gemmis 
 prasinis atque hyacinthinis et albis mirae magnitudinis in circuitu ornata, 
 pensantia librae decern et septera et uncias quatuor." See a list of his 
 donations to various churches, occupying nearly twelve of the large close- 
 printed, double-columned pages of Labbe's Councils, torn. vii. c. 1090. 
 
 ® "Ad laudem et gloriam ipsius Ecclesiae fecit Evangelium argento 
 auroque perfusum unum pensans libras quindecim .... et in ecclesia 
 
 beatse Balbinae Martyris obtulit evangelium ex argento purissimo 
 
 et in titulo beati Cyriaci Martyris obtulit evangelium unum ex argento 
 purissimo ad laudem et gloriam ipsius ecclesiae." — Ibid., torn. viii. p. 230. 
 
NO. v.] TO CHURCHES. 73 
 
 silk vestment. We may also believe that when books — 
 especially such books — were formally presented to 
 churches, they were offered on the altar, though I have 
 met with very few instances of it '' ; and, indeed, with 
 scarcely any charter or deed of gift conveying such 
 things as books at all. The reason is plain — for 
 churches and monasteries not merely (as Robertson 
 observes very truly, if not taken strictly,) had the only 
 libraries, but they were the great and almost the only 
 manufactories of books. Still they might be, and some- 
 times w^ere, presented; and, on such occasions, were 
 likely to be offered on the altar, though neither because 
 they were books, nor because they were peculiarly 
 rare or costly ; but for another reason which is worthy 
 of notice. 
 
 The false view which Robertson gives, and which I 
 wish to expose and remove, arises from appropriating 
 to a particular case what was, in principle, and as far as 
 could be in practice, general and universal. Robertson 
 would have spoken more correctly, though not to his 
 purpose, if, instead of saying, " When any person made 
 a present of a book^^ he had said, " When any person 
 made a present of anything to a church," he offered it 
 on the altar, &c. That he offered it pro remedio animcB 
 
 ^ Mabillon thought it worth while to mention that he found in the 
 library, at Cluny, a copy of St. Ambrose on Luke, at the end of which 
 was written, " Liber oblatus ad Altare S. Petri Cluniensis Coenobii ex veto 
 Domni atque Reverentissimi Maioli Abbatis." And he remarks upon it, 
 " Sic libros offerebant veteres ad altare, et ad sepulcra sanctorum, quemad- 
 modum de Mammone S. Augendi praeposito superius vidimus." In this 
 he refers to a book which he had mentioned as being in the Boherian 
 Library at Dijon ; and of which he had said, " Hie codex voto bonae 
 memoriae Mammonis, ad sepulchrum Sancti Augendi oblatus est regnante 
 Carolo Calvo, uti et Epistoloe Paschales, quae ibidem habentur pluresque 
 alii codices, quos in varias Bibliothecas dispersos deprehendimus." — Iti- 
 nerar. Burgund., pp. 9, 22. That of which such a man as Mabillon thus 
 spoke, could scarcely have been at any period a general and notorious 
 custom in the church. 
 
74 OFFERING [no. V. 
 
 8U(B^ or for the spiritual benefit of some other person, 
 was always understood, though not always expressed^; 
 and that he should offer it on the altar was perfectly 
 natural when we consider to whom the donation was 
 made. We, indeed, commonly say that a man gave 
 books or lands "to the monastery of St. Bertin," or 
 " the monks of St. Martin," or " the canons of Lille," 
 and he might say the same in his deed of gift for 
 brevity's sake ; for, as we have heard often enough, and 
 I pretend not to deny, parchment was expensive in 
 those days. Many charters run in that form — as Hilde- 
 bert. Bishop of Avignon, in 1006, "donamus monachis 
 
 qui in Coenobio S. Andrese et S. Martini modo 
 
 famulantur Deo ^," &c. ; but, in fact, the donation was 
 not made to the church or the monastery — the canons 
 or monks had no property in it, and nothing to do 
 with it, except as servants and stewards to provide for 
 its safe keeping — the gift was to God, and the patron 
 saint; and, therefore, it was laid on the altar erected 
 in honour of both. Nothing could be more natural or 
 reasonable as it respects Him who, though He dwelleth 
 not in temples made with hands, was once pleased to 
 dwell between the cherubim, and who, of all that He 
 has framed for man, or given him skill to fashion, 
 reserves only the altar for Himself, and sets it over 
 against his mercy-seat as the symbol of that glory 
 which He will not give to another. 
 
 Beside this, the superstition of the age supposed the 
 
 * This is not, however, to be understood as having exclusive reference 
 to purgatory. Pommeraye has very well observed — " Le motif plus ordi- 
 naire qu'apportoient dans leurs chartres les bien-faiteurs, etoit afin que 
 I'auuiosne qu'ils faisoient servist au soulagement de leurs araes et de celles 
 de leurs parens et amis : c'etoit aussi quelquefois pour estre associez aux 
 prieres et aux bonnes oeuvres des monasteres, dont les seigneurs et les 
 personnes de piete recherchoient tres soigneusement la participation." — 
 Uisl. de VAbbaye de S. Catharine du mont de Rouen, p. 84. 
 
 9 Dach. Spic, iii. 384. 
 
NO. v.] ON THE ALTAR. 75 
 
 glorified saint to know what was going on in the world ; 
 and to feel a deep interest, and possess a considerable 
 power, in the church militant on earth. I believe that 
 they who thought so were altogether mistaken ; and I 
 lament, and abhor, and am amazed at the superstitions, 
 blasphemies, and idolatries which have grown out of 
 that opinion ; but as to the notion itself, I do not know 
 that it was wicked ; and I almost envy those whose 
 credulous simplicity so realized the communion of 
 saints, and anticipated the period when " the whole 
 family in heaven and earth " shall be gathered together 
 in one. Be this as it may, however, they conceived of 
 the saint as a being still conversant among mortals, — 
 hearing their prayers, assisting them in their need, 
 acknowledging their gifts by intercession and protec- 
 tion, and not unfrequently making his presence known, 
 and even visible, among them — and his altar was natu- 
 rally the place where all business relating to his pro- 
 perty in this world, or his patronage in another, was 
 transacted. 
 
 The form of such deeds of gift naturally varied 
 at different times and in different places; and even 
 according to the taste of individual scribes and nota- 
 ries. I have already said that the gift was sometimes 
 described as made to the monks, — sometimes, but I 
 think comparatively seldom, to the monastery, — more 
 frequently to God, and the patron saint, and the abbot, 
 — as frequently the abbot was omitted, and still more 
 frequently perhaps the saint only was mentioned, and 
 he was sometimes actually addressed as a party to the 
 conveyance ^°. 
 
 " Tt may illustrate what I have here said, and perhaps amuse some 
 readers, if I throw together a few specimens of the different forms taken 
 at random from the various charters, the dates of which are indicated by 
 the numbers in parenthesis — "Dono ad monasterium sancti Bonifacii" 
 ^7^9) — Schannat., Trad. Fuld., p. 8. " Trade ad sanctum Bonifatium et 
 
76 OFFERING [no. V. 
 
 It was very natural that what was thus given to the 
 saint should be offered on his altar, for how else was 
 
 ad monasterium quod dicitur Fulda," (759) — Ibid. "Tradidit Deo et 
 sanctissimo martiri ejus Bonifacio, necnon et venerando Abbati Eggeberto 
 ceterisque fratribus sanctje Fuldensis Ecclesiae," (1058) — Ibid. p. 255. In 
 these cases the trusteeship was fully understood ; but sometimes it was 
 expressed, as by Poncius, Count of Gervaudan and Forez, in a charter to 
 the church of Brioude, (1010.) After saying — "Reddo Creatori omnium 
 Domino Regi Regum, et Domino dominantiura, necnon et cedo gloriosis- 
 simo Martyri Juliano," &c., he describes the property, and adds — " Omni- 
 potenti Deo reddo, Sanctoque Juliano, ut, a die prassenti et deinceps, 
 omnes res suprascriptas sub tuitione ac potestate sanctissimi martyris 
 Juliani, et Canonicorum ibidem Christo militantium, sint omni tempore," 
 &c. — Dach. Spicil. iii. 385. — And an early form from the same Chartulary 
 (945) runs, "totum et ad integrum reddo Creatori omnium Domino, et 
 sub dominatione et potestate libenti animo committo beati Juliani, Canoni- 
 corumque suorum." — Ibid., 373. More frequently, however, as I have 
 said, it was to God and the patron saint, as in the donation of Amalric, to 
 the schools of St. Martin's, at Tours (cir. 843) — " Offero Creatori Deo, 
 necnon Sancto Martino Domino meo gloriosissimo quem toto affectu 
 diligo," &c. — Mart. i. 33 ; or, as Gulfrad, the deacon to the same 
 church (cir. 930) — " Offero, dono, trado atque confirmo Omnipotenti Deo 
 necnon Sancto Martino Confessori suo egregio," &c. — Ibid., 68. Or, the 
 saint only, as, — *' In Dei nomine. Ego Theothart trado in elemosinam 
 meam ad sanctum Bonifatium Mancipia IIII. id est uxorem Altrati cum 
 tribus filiis et cum omni substantia sua" (824) — Schannat., p. 150. Of 
 this, innumerable instances might be given ; but sometimes the matter was 
 put in a still more business-like form by addressing the saint as a party to 
 the conveyance, as — " Domno sancto et apostolico Patri Bonifatio Episcopo 
 ego Adalberdus; constat me nulli cogentis imperio, sed proprio voluntatis 
 arbitrio vobis vendidisse et ita vendidi vineam unam," &c. (754) — Schannat., 
 p. 1. The emperor, in the year 962, began a diploma thus — "Ego Otto 
 Dei gratia Imperator Augustus, una cum Ottone glorioso rege filio nostro, 
 spondemus atque promittimus per hoc pactum confirmationis nostrae tibi 
 beato Petro principi Apostolorum et clavigero regni coelorum, et per te 
 vicario tuo Domno Joanni summo Pontifici," &c. — Cone. ix. 643. Again, 
 in 1014, — "Ego Henricus Dei gratia Imperator Augustus spondeo atque 
 promitto per hoc pactum confirmationis nostrae, tibi beato Petro," &c. — 
 Ibid. 813. Leo IX., about 1050, began a diploma by which he granted a 
 tenth of the oblations made at the altar of St. Peter, to the saint himself — 
 (or, as we should say, set apart that proportion for the repairs of the 
 church,) with the following words, " Beate Petre Apostole, ego Leo Epis- 
 copus servus tuus et omnium servorum Dei, de tuis donis aliquam tibi oifero 
 particulam," &c. — Ibid. 985. In fact, numberless examples of various forms 
 of speech might be given ; and, without them, — at least, without some fami- 
 liarity with the modes of expression which were perpetually used — it is im- 
 
NO. v.] ON THE ALTAR. 77 
 
 the donor to present it? It was, I say, general, not 
 meaning that every trivial donation was there offered, 
 but that, when property of any considerable value was 
 given, this was the common course of proceeding. If 
 that property consisted of moveable chattels, such as 
 money, plate, &c., it was actually placed on the altar ; 
 or, if this could not be conveniently or decently done, 
 they came as near to it as they could. For instance, 
 the rule of St. Benedict directed that when a novice 
 had passed through the prescribed trials, and was to be 
 received, he should present a written petition, con- 
 taining the promise which he had already made ; and 
 that, at the time of his actual reception, he should lay 
 it on the altar — " De qua promissione sua faciat peti- 
 tionem ad nomen sanctorum, quorum reliquiae ibi sunt, et 
 abbatis prsesentis. Quam petitionem manu sua scribat : 
 aut certe si non scit literas, alter ab eo rogatus scribat : 
 et ille novitius signum faciat, et manu sua eam super 
 altare ponat." (c. 58.) It was, in fact, offering himself; 
 and, as he did it, he began the 11 6th verse of the 1 19th 
 Psalm — " Uphold me (suscipe) according unto thy word, 
 that I may live ; and let me not be ashamed of my 
 hope." To this the congregation thrice responded by 
 repeating the verse and adding the Gloria Patri, If a 
 child was to be received, his hand was wrapped in the 
 hanging of the altar, " and thus," says the rule of St. 
 Benedict, " let them offer him." The words are — "Si 
 quis forte de nobilibus offert filium suum Deo in monas- 
 
 possible to form an idea of the real spirit and character of the times. With 
 this view, I venture to add to this long note one or two phrases from the 
 charters of the Abbey of St. Peter, at Condom — "Ego Amalbinus . . . 
 facio chartam de una pecia de vinea ... ad opus sancti Petri." — Dach. 
 Sp., ii. 591- " In alio loco possidet sanctus Petrus aliam vineam " — "in 
 villa quae dicitur Inzlota habet beatus Petrus casalem unum." — Ibid., 
 p. 596. " Quaedara nobilissima foemina .... suprascriptam ecclesiam 
 violenterbeato arripuit Petro." — Ibid., 585. " Molendinura quod construxit 
 familia beati Petri." — Ibid., 596. 
 
 m. 
 
78 OFFERING [no. V. 
 
 terio, si ipse puer minore setate est, parentes ejus faciant 
 petitionem quam supra diximus. Et cum oblatione, 
 ipsam petitionem et manum pueri involvant in paUa 
 altaiis, et sic eum offerant K" (c. 59.) Thus the idea of 
 offering at the altar was kept up ; and, indeed, though 
 I know of no rule for it, nor that it was a usual prac- 
 tice, yet I apprehend that sometimes the matter was 
 carried still farther. The Abbot Heriman (of whom I 
 have already had occasion to speak in connexion with 
 the Abbot Lupus ^) tells us that, in the year 1055, his 
 mother took him and his brothers to the monastery of 
 which he was afterwards abbot — " She went to St. 
 Martin's, and delivered over her sons to God, placing 
 the little one in his cradle upon the altar, amidst the 
 tears of many bystanders." At the same time, she 
 placed on the altar two hundred marks of silver, and 
 gave to the monastery two mills and the rest of her 
 property. 
 
 Thus the offering on the altar was performed, in 
 most cases, as literally as could be ; and even when the 
 property was immoveable, as houses or lands — or im- 
 palpable, as rights of toll or tithe, or market — it was 
 sometimes spoken of as if really laid on the altar. 
 Thus, in a charter of about a. d. 11 20, Hugh de Bel- 
 mont says, " Ego ipse Hugo de.rter(s mantis mece jura- 
 mento firmavi [I quote these words as confirming my 
 statement at p. 15, that he who made the sign of the 
 cross was considered manu jurare\ et insuper ne suc- 
 cessorum aliqua redeat in futurum calumnia, Deo et 
 Sancto Petro, et Fratribus Besuensis ecclesise quicquid 
 est, vel erat, quod meum jus juste aut injuste possede- 
 rat de hoc mercato, totum super altare posui, et ipsum 
 
 * See an "Antiqua Formula" Oblationis Puerorum in Monasteriis," 
 IX. D. & M., p. 158. 
 2 See p. 52, 54. 
 
NO. v.] ON THE ALTAR. 79 
 
 mercatum doiio donavi ^." Gertrude also, \^ith her 
 daughter and son-in-law, "obtulerunt Deo et Sancto 
 Petro Besuensis ecclesise ; super altare in Vetus vineis 
 villa," a moiety of a house, six acres of land, and two 
 serfs named Tetbert and Oltrude^. In such cases, I 
 need not say, the property was not really placed on the 
 altar; but it is probable, and, indeed, almost certain, 
 that either the deed of gift or some other symbol was 
 actually so placed. Du Cange alone supplies an im- 
 mense number and variety of examples ; from which I 
 will extract a few scraps by way of farther illustrating 
 this matter \ Very commonly, especially in cases of 
 land, a turf or a twig, or a bough of a tree, was laid on 
 the altar, (obtulit super altare B. Petri per cespitem — 
 propriis manibus prsedictam oblationem ramo et cespite 
 posuerunt super altare beatissimse Marise.) Sometimes 
 by a knife, (ipsi tres eumdem cultellum super altare 
 Dominicum S. Nicolai portaverunt ;) and very fre- 
 quently, either that it might be preserved from being 
 stolen or from getting into common use by being, in 
 fact, rendered useless, or, perhaps also, that the act 
 might be remembered, the knife was bent before the 
 witnesses, (posuit super altare per cultellum in hujus 
 rei memoriam plicatum — posito super altare praescripti 
 Confessoris cultello incurvato,) and, in some cases, it 
 seems to have been broken, as Fulk, Count of Anjou, 
 in A. D. 1096, in a charter giving a forest, says, "Super 
 altare Sancti Nicolai ipsam chartam pono, et cum cul- 
 tello Roberti Monachi quem ante ipsum altare frango, 
 cum eadem charta donum supradictae forestse concedens 
 pono®." Very commonly a book, either merely be- 
 
 ^ Chron. Besuen. ap. Dach. Spicil., torn. ii. p. 542. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 441. 
 
 * Those examples which are in parenthesis may be found under the 
 word Investitura. 
 
 ^ Brevic. S. Nic. Andeg , p, 30. 
 
80 OFFERING ON THE ALTAR. [xo. V. 
 
 cause books were at hand, or perhaps also because tlie 
 books belonging to the altar might be supposed to give 
 a greater degree of solemnity to the act, (has omnes 
 
 elemosynas cum libro super altare posuerunt 
 
 — cum libro missali eani super altare ibidem obtulerunt 
 — de hoc done revestivit Quirmarhocus et duo filii ejus, 
 Gradelonem Monachum S. Nicholai in ecclesia S. Petri 
 Namnetensis, et osculati sunt eum de bac donatione 
 per fidem, librum quoque quo revestierunt monachum 
 posuerunt pro signo super altare S. Petri.) It was not, 
 however, necessary that it should be one of the service 
 books ; for I find in a charter giving to the church of 
 Beze, already repeatedly mentioned, " quinque homines, 
 tres mares, et duas fceminas," that the donor " propria 
 manu donum roboravit super altare per librum qui 
 vocatur Regula S. Benedicti, coram multis testibus ^" 
 In short, it might be by anything — by a glove, or a gir- 
 dle, or a candlestick, or a purse, or a spoon, or what- 
 ever came to hand, (per wantonem, per wasonem, super 
 altare posui — candelabro pro more illius temporis ( 1 2 
 ssec.) super altare posito — super altare ipsius ecclesise 
 per eleemosynariam [a beautiful name for a purse] 
 meam, lapidem berillum intus habentem, propria manu 
 imposui — donum decimse quam habebat apud Atheiam 
 posuit super altare per cochlear de turibulo — accipiens 
 in manibus particulam marmorei lapidis, quae ibi forte 
 reperta est, venit cum ea ante altare et tenentes omnes 
 
 simul obtulerunt eam super altare.) 
 
 Surely these instances are sufficient to shew the 
 absurdity of making it a wonder that books should be 
 sometimes offered on the altar of churches to which 
 they were presented, as if other things were not so 
 offered, and as if it arose from their great rarity, and 
 the mere circumstance that they were books ; while 
 
 ' II. Dach. Spicil., p. 442. 
 
NO. VI.] THE GOLDSMITH. 81 
 
 the simple fact is, that the church and the cloister 
 were, in all ages, the places where books were kept, 
 and made, and copied, and from whence they were 
 issued to the rest of the world; as, indeed, Robertson 
 had just admitted in terms which would scarcely allow 
 his readers to believe it possible that anybody, out of a 
 church or monastery, should have any book to present. 
 
 No. VI. 
 
 " Assera para, et accipe auream fabulam : fabulas immo, nam me priorum 
 nova admonuit." — Plinius. 
 
 Once upon a time, there was a certain king who took 
 it into his head to have a throne, or a chair, or a sad- 
 dle, of some peculiar pattern, which, as far as I know, 
 has never been described ^ ; but whatever it might be, 
 he could find no artificer who would undertake to exe- 
 cute his conceptions. 
 
 ^ " Sella aurea " — but the learned are not farther agreed than that it 
 was something to sit on. Fleury and Ceillier say, " un siege magnifique ;" 
 and Butler, " a magnificent chair of state." Pommeraye, with more cau- 
 tion, calls it, "un ouvrage ; " and adds in the margin, " Sella aurea, qui 
 se peut entendre, d'une selle de cheval selon I'opinion commun, ou d'un 
 troneroyale selon I'explicationdeM. de Montigni en ses annotations," &c. 
 I am inchned to vote for the saddle, because I think that agrees best with 
 a subsequent part of the story, which seems to imply something more 
 portable, and producible, and concealable, than a throne or a magnificent 
 chair of state. I do not know how much of the saddle was made of gold, 
 for, indeed, I am not very well acquainted with the history and use of 
 such things ; but, without wishing tediously to detain the reader on a 
 subject which I never get upon without extreme reluctance, I must add 
 that Du Cange quotes a passage which mentions, " equos cum sellis 
 aureis," {j,n v. Sella.) That is, indeed, from a period considerably later 
 than the king mentioned in my story ; but I find it mentioned elsewhere 
 that when a rogue, named Winegard, robbed a certain bishop, who was 
 almost a contemporary of the king, of the "ministerium ecclesiasticum 
 aureum," which he used to carry with him on his missionary excursions, 
 " de calice et patena fecit sibi fieri sellam auream." 
 
 G 
 
^' THE GOLDSMITH. [nO. VI. 
 
 Now it SO happened that shortly before this time, a 
 young artist had come to the place where the king 
 held his court. He had been brought up, and for 
 some years employed, by an eminent goldsmith, who 
 was master of the mint in what might then be called 
 another country. I do not find any reason assigned 
 for this migration of the young workman, who perhaps 
 only went (like the mechanics of a great part of Europe 
 even now) on a wanderschaft, to acquire more perfect 
 knowledge of his art. He seems, however, to have left 
 home with a good character, as one who was loved and 
 respected by those among whom he lived, not only for 
 extraordinary skill as a workman, but for the simplicity 
 of his manners, and his strict and regular piety. Whe- 
 ther he owed it to his professional skill, or to his cha- 
 racter, or to some introduction which is not recorded, I 
 do not know ; but in a few days after his arrival at the 
 place where the court was, he was taken under the 
 patronage of the king's treasurer ; under whose protec- 
 tion he set to work at his business, and soon made 
 friends of all around him. The treasurer was naturally 
 consulted by his royal master on the golden project 
 which filled his mind ; and he, as naturally, thought of 
 the young stranger. He conferred with him, and re- 
 ported to the king that he had found an artist who 
 would undertake the business. 
 
 The king was delighted ; and gave an order to the 
 treasurer for an ample quantity of gold, which he 
 faithfully delivered to the goldsmith, who immediately 
 set to work. He wrought with great diligence, and 
 with such ingenuity and honesty that, from the mate- 
 rials which he received for one saddle, he made two. 
 This, though apparently impossible, he was able to do 
 because he not only used the materials very skilfully, 
 but abstained from the common practice of cheating 
 under pretence of waste occasioned by cutting, filing, 
 
NO. VI.] THE GOLDSMITH. 83 
 
 and melting. When he had completed them, he took 
 one of the saddles to the king, who was filled with 
 admiration. He praised the elegance of the work, and 
 ordered a suitable reward to be given to the artist ; 
 who thereupon brought forth the other saddle, and told 
 his majesty that he had thought it better to make up 
 what was over in that manner than to waste it. The 
 king was astonished, and, at first, incredulous ; but, 
 finding that he had really made both saddles from the 
 materials delivered to him for one, he not only praised 
 his skill, but assured him that he should from thence- 
 forth consider him worthy of confidence in greater 
 matters. In fact, this was the first step of his advance- 
 ment at court ; and, from that time forward, he not 
 only rose to the highest eminence in his art, but 
 increased in favour with the king and his nobles. In a 
 word, he seems to have been in much the same circum- 
 stances as those of George Heriot at the court of our 
 James, and to have enjoyed the same personal favour, 
 or perhaps I should say, royal friendship. 
 
 It appears to have been soon after this, and it was 
 probably an occasion of his being appointed to some 
 confidential situation, or employed in some business of 
 state, that he was required to take an oath on the relics 
 of the saints in the presence of his sovereign. " I do 
 not know how it happened," says his friend and biogra- 
 pher, " that I was present at the time ; but it may be 
 naturally supposed that I was likely to be there in the 
 way of my duty, for I was brought up in my childhood 
 at that king's court;" and he proceeds to relate that 
 the goldsmith respectfully, but firmly, refused to comply 
 with the requisition^. His majesty was urgent; and 
 
 "Divinum intuitum verens," says his biographer. I really do not 
 understand it ; or know how far a modern writer may be correct in say- 
 ing that his reluctance arose from the fear of taking what he considered 
 as an unnecessary oath. Indeed I can hardly suppose that to have been 
 
 g2 
 
84 THE GOLDSMITH. [nO. VI. 
 
 the poor goldsmith, seeing no alternative but to disobey 
 either God or the king, (and each was considered a sin 
 in those days,) burst into tears. The king had the good 
 sense to give way — to speak to him in a kind and 
 soothing manner — and to dismiss him with a cheerful 
 countenance, and an assurance that he should feel more 
 confidence in him than if he had sworn all sorts of 
 oaths — " pollicens se plus eum ex hoc jam crediturum 
 quam si multimoda tunc dedisset juramenta." 
 
 Shortly after this, he seems to have entered on a 
 more strictly religious life, which he commenced by a 
 general confession of his sins, and a course of great 
 austerity. " Having arrived," says his biographer, " at 
 the age of full maturity, he desired to manifest himself 
 as a vessel sanctified for the service of God ;" and he 
 adds, that " he began stoutly to resist the striving of 
 the flesh by the fervour of the Spirit," that is, according 
 to the apostle, in labours, in watchings, in fastings, in 
 chastity, in much patience, and in charity unfeigned ; 
 for in opposition to the present desires of the flesh, he 
 set before him the fires of future punishment, and the 
 consideration of the fire of hell kept out the heat of 
 concupiscence. He prayed without ceasing for hea- 
 venly gifts, and offered his supplications to God by day 
 and by night, frequently repeating from the book of 
 Job — " I would seek unto God, and unto God would 
 I commit my cause, which doeth great things and 
 unsearchable ; marvellous things without number .... 
 to set up on high those that be low ; that those which 
 
 the case ; and still less that his reluctance proceeded (as has been sug- 
 gested) from a superstitious dread of meddling with relics. To this, I 
 presume, his business must have accustomed him ; but I notice the mat- 
 ter because I have been led, by other circumstances, to suppose that there 
 have been persons in every age who doubted of the lawfulness of oaths in 
 general ; and it seems not improbable that he may have been one of 
 them. 
 
NO. VI.] THE GOLDSMITH. 85 
 
 mourn may be exalted to safety '." He restricted him- 
 self from fulness of bread that he might gain the bread 
 of heaven. His face, indeed, was pale with fasting, his 
 body dry and withered ; but his mind glowed with ever- 
 increasing love of his heavenly country. The consi- 
 deration of more heavy evils made him bear light 
 afflictions with patience; for, habitually looking forward 
 to the end of his present life, he feared the future sen- 
 tence of God, and his tremendous judgment, knowing 
 that it is written, " Happy is the man that feareth 
 alway," (Pro v. xxviii. 14,) and that of the apostle, 
 " Work out your own salvation with fear and trem- 
 bling." (Philip, ii. 12.) Also that saying of Job, " For 
 I have alway feared God like as the waves swelling 
 over me." (c. xxxi. '23 ^) By night he would lie at the 
 feet of his Lord, smiting his breast with his hands, and 
 watering his cheeks with tears ; and with eyes uplifted 
 and suppressed sighs did he look to Him whom he 
 feared to have offended — and many a time did he 
 repeat, " Against thee only have I sinned " — " have 
 mercy upon me according to thy loving kindness," 
 (Ps. li. 4, 1 ;) and that of Job, " O remember that my 
 life is wind," (viii. 7,) and " let me alone, for my days 
 are vanity," (17 ;) and, being as it were out of himself, 
 he pictured to his own mind that which eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of 
 man, but which God hath prepared for those who love 
 Him." 
 
 Whatever may be my motive for running into this 
 story, it certainly is not to set up the goldsmith as a 
 perfect model of doctrine and practice. If the reader 
 should think him foolish, or pharisaical, or heterodox, 
 
 ' Job V. 8. — Ego deprecabor Dominum, et ad Deum ponam eloquium 
 meum : Qui facit magna et inscrutabilia, et mirabilia absque numero. 
 Qui ponit humiles in sublime, et mcerentes erigit sospitate. 
 
 ^ " Semper enim quasi tumentes super me ductus timui Dominum." 
 
86 THE GOLDSMITH. [nO. VI. 
 
 it is no fault of mine — at least if I succeed in what is 
 really my wish, and faithfully repeat an old story. I 
 do not want to conceal that the goldsmith's religion — 
 for I cannot help thinking that he had some — was 
 mixed with superstition. He had relics hanging up in 
 his chamber, and he saw and smelt, or said (and I really 
 believe thought) that he saw and smelt, a fragrant 
 balsam distilling from them ; and he took this to be an 
 answer to the earnest and fervent prayer which he had 
 poured forth beneath them, that God would vouchsafe 
 to give him some sign that his repentance was accepted. 
 " Remembering his prayer," says his biographer, " and 
 utterly astonished at the goodness of the divine bounty, 
 with deep groaning from his inmost soul, he blessed 
 Christ the faithful rewarder, who hath never forsaken 
 those who have trusted in Him. This, therefore, was 
 the beginning of his goodness, or rather of Almighty 
 God's, from whom all derive power for all things " — 
 hoc ergo fuit initium virtutum ejus, imo omnipotentis 
 Dei, per quem omnes omnia possunt. 
 
 The reader is not, however, to suppose that the artist, 
 and the man of business and active benevolence, was 
 lost in the ascetic. The goldsmith, it is true, came to 
 have a very monkish appearance, and was commonly 
 to be seen in very mean clothes, with a rope for his 
 girdle. His biographer confesses that when he first 
 came to court, he did, indeed, somewhat ruffle it in 
 the bravery of silk, and gold, and gems ; but even then, 
 adds this bosom friend, who was in all his secrets, and 
 who was, as I have said, brought up at the court — who 
 was, in fact, a little scion of nobility, and induced by 
 his admiration of the goldsmith to embrace a religious 
 life, and who, with his brother, became, as he tells us, 
 one heart and one soul with him — even then, says his 
 biographer, his finery concealed a hair shirt. Still, 
 however, though his finery was laid aside, and his dress 
 
NO. VI.] THE GOLDSMITH. 87 
 
 and manners approached to the monastic, he was not 
 less diligent in business than fervent in spirit. He 
 wrought incessantly with his own hands at his trade, 
 with a book open before him, having, it seems, con- 
 structed for this purpose a sort of revolving desk, by 
 means of which he could bring before him a number of 
 books in succession ^ ; and moreover, though a working 
 man, and a reading man, and a man high in office and 
 in court favour, he appears to have been always ready 
 for, and constantly engaged in, works of active bene- 
 volence. 
 
 It is not my present business to enter into all the 
 details of the goldsmith's life ; or to tell how the favour 
 and confidence of his first royal master was continued 
 by his son and successor. I pass over the accounts 
 which his biographer gives of the favours which his 
 sovereign heaped upon him, and which he so freely 
 bestowed in acts of charity, that, if a stranger inquired 
 
 2 " Fabricabat in usum Regis utensilia quamplurima ex auro et gem- 
 mis : sedebat fabricans indefesso, et contra eum * * * * vernaculus ejus 
 .... qui magistri sequens vestigia, et ipse postmodum venerabilem 
 vitam duxit. Sedens ergo * * * * ad opus prcedictum, codicem sibimet 
 proe oculis praeparabat apertum, ut quoquo genere laborans divinum per- 
 ciperet mandatum." His biographer farther says, " Habebat itaque in 
 cubiculo suo multa sanctorum dependentia pignora, necnon et sacros 
 libros in gyro per axem plurimos, quos post psalmodiam et orationem 
 revolvens, et quasi apis prudentissima diversos ex diversis flores legens, 
 in alvearium sui pectoris optima quseque recondebat." I cannot help 
 supposing that this revolving was more than what is usually meant by 
 turning over the leaves of a book, and refers to some contrivance by 
 which he could bring a variety of books within his reach ; though it does 
 not appear to have been so understood by any moderns whose notice of 
 him I have seen. Perhaps I may have some readers to whom it is right 
 to state that, in writers of the middle age, such an expression as " sacros 
 libros," even if it had been " scripturam sacram," would not necessarily 
 imply the Bible. I do not doubt that what we properly call Holy Scrip- 
 ture was meant to be included in this case, and elsewhere in this history ; 
 but without being aware that such phrases were used to designate " reli- 
 gious books" in general, the student of church history would be liable to 
 fall into error. 
 
88 THE GOLDSMITH. [nO. VI. 
 
 for him, (and what stranger came to that city who did 
 not ?) the natural answer was, " Go into such a quar- 
 ter, and where you see a crowd of poor people you will 
 find him." It might be imagined that such lavish 
 bounty was sufficient to exhaust even all the means 
 which could be obtained from an extensive business 
 and from royal munificence ; though the king seldom 
 refused him any request, not so much, I am afraid, 
 from any real zeal for religion as from an hereditary 
 attachment to the goldsmith, and because he knew 
 that in giving him anything he was conferring a bene- 
 fit, not on one, but on many. But, in fact, the gold- 
 smith had other and, I suppose, much greater expenses. 
 One of these arose from what his time and circum- 
 stances rendered a very obvious Christian duty. His 
 mode of performing it might now be considered singu- 
 lar and unwise ; and perhaps, as it was not adopted by 
 some of those who have, in modern times, felt most 
 strongly (or, at least, talked and written most fiercely,) 
 about the abolition of slavery, it may be liable to serious 
 objections, which I do not perceive. To me, a very 
 poor judge in such matters, and perhaps somewhat pre- 
 judiced, it seems that his plan, whatever faults it might 
 have, was the most simple, certain, and expeditious — 
 he put his hand in his pocket, and paid the price of 
 redemption. It was not the grandest way of doing the 
 thing; but he lived in a dark age, when, even if the 
 thing itself could have been successfully carried on, the 
 collateral benefits of philanthropy and political agita- 
 tion were little understood. Right or wrong, however, 
 his biographer tells us that when he heard of a sale of 
 slaves, he set off immediately, and bought as many as 
 twenty or thirty, or even fifty or an hundred at a time. 
 When he had got them, the next business was to carry 
 them before the king, and set them at full liberty with 
 all the forms of law. When they had thus become 
 
NO. vl] the goldsmith. 89 
 
 their own masters, he suggested to them three courses, 
 and helped them to take which they pleased, if they 
 chose to take either. In the first place, if they chose 
 to return home, he was ready to give them all the 
 assistance in his power, — secondly, any who wished to 
 remain with him, he willingly allowed to do so ; and it 
 was rather on the footing of brethren than of servants, 
 — thirdly, if he could persuade them to become monks, 
 he treated them with great respect, honoured them as 
 a class superior to that to which he belonged, supplied 
 them with clothes, and all other necessaries, sent them 
 to different monasteries, and took a great deal of care 
 of them. 
 
 All this was, no doubt, very expensive ; but it was 
 not all. He asked the kino^ to oive him a certain town 
 that he might there build a ladder by which they might 
 both get to heaven. His majesty granted it at once ; 
 and he built a monastery capable of receiving a hun- 
 dred and fifty monks. He spent upon it " all that he 
 had, all that he could get from the king, all that he 
 could honestly come by in any way, and all that the 
 great were willing to give." His biographer says, 
 " You might see waggons heavily laden with vessels of 
 brass and wood for all purposes, bedding, table-linen, a 
 great number of religious books, and, indeed, every 
 thing necessary for the monastery ; in so much that 
 some evil-minded persons were moved to envy*;" and, 
 having himself inspected the place, he speaks in high 
 terms of the order and discipline maintained in it. He 
 
 '' Ipse vero tanta se devotione, tantoque amore eodem loco difFudit, ut 
 quidquid, habere potuisset, ut quidquid Regi auferre, quidquid digne 
 comparare, quidquid etiam gratuito ei a potentibus largitum esset, cuncta 
 prsedicto loco destinaret. Videres plaustra veliere onera copiosa vascula 
 utique usibus necessaria, serea simul et lignea : vestimenta etiam lectuaria 
 ac linteaiaina mensalia, necnon et volumina sacrarum scripturarum quam- 
 plurima, sed et omnia qase erant Monasterii usibus necessaria, in tantum 
 ut pravi quique ingenti ex hoc succenderentur invidia. 
 
90 THE goldsmith's [nO. VI. 
 
 adds, " There is now a great company there, adorned 
 with all the flowers of various graces. There are also 
 many artificers skilled in divers arts, who, being per- 
 fected in the fear of Christ, are always prepared to yield 
 ready obedience. No man there claims anything as 
 his own ; but (as we read in the Acts of the Apostles), 
 all things are, in all respects, common. And the place 
 is so fertile and so beautiful that any body going there, 
 amidst its wide orchards and pleasant gardens, might 
 well exclaim, 'How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, 
 and thy tabernacles, O Israel ! like shady woods, as 
 cedar trees beside the waters, as gardens by the river 
 side.' It is of such that Solomon has said, 'The habi- 
 tations of the righteous shall be blessed^;'" and he 
 goes on to describe how it was surrounded by an 
 enclosure (not, indeed, a stone wall, but a bank, with 
 hedge and ditch — sphserico muro, non quidem lapideo ; 
 sed fossatum sepe munitum), about a mile and a quar- 
 ter in circumference ; and how the excellent river on 
 which it was situated, with all the beauties of wood, 
 water, and precipice, combined (perhaps one should say 
 contrasted) with the enclosure of the monastery, entirely 
 filled with fruit-bearing trees, might almost make the 
 spectator fancy that he saw paradise before him. 
 
 "Yes, the monks took care to make themselves 
 comfortable." No doubt they did ; and I dare say, if 
 the truth were known, the reader does the same ; and 
 I believe that, if he observes the course of things, he 
 will find that no man can rationally seek his own com- 
 fort without promoting the comfort of others. At any 
 rate, I restrain myself with difficulty from expressing a 
 very familiar train of thought, now excited by this peep 
 at the enclosed monastery. Very often it has been 
 awakened ; and I know of nothing in the history of the 
 
 * Prov. iii. 33. 
 
NO. VI.] FOREMAN. 91 
 
 dark ages more admirable and adorable than the visible 
 Providence of God over-ruling not only the better 
 sense and feelings, but even the weakness and whims, 
 the folly, the fanaticism, the sin, of the monks, and 
 actually making their infirmities and vices the means 
 of spreading not only religion, but civilization ; and 
 setting forth in a dark and desolate age, in lands 
 ravaged by fire and sword, among men wild and turbu- 
 lent and cruel — setting forth, in characters of peace 
 and sunshine, the great truth that godliness hath the 
 promise of this life as well as of that to come. I hope, 
 some time or other, to shew this, with no other diflS- 
 culty than what arises from selecting out of the abun- 
 dant materials which are furnished by monastic history. 
 To return, therefore, to the goldsmith ; and it will 
 be a very natural mode of transition if I say a few 
 words of his foreman — at least I suppose him to have 
 held that rank from his being placed first in the list of 
 the goldsmith's workmen, which his biographer gives, 
 and his stating that he used to sit opposite his master 
 at work, as may be seen in a foregoing note. He was 
 a foreigner of good family, who had been brought away 
 from his own country in his childhood, and sold as a 
 slave. Happily for him, he was purchased by the gold- 
 smith, who sent him to this new monastery which he 
 had founded, to be educated, and then took him back, 
 and they worked and read together^. So matters went 
 
 ® " Quem vir sanctus" — that is, the abbot (says the biographer of the 
 foreman) " sicut in mandatis acceperat, cum omni diligentia sub pietatis 
 studio enutrivit, sacris literis enidivit, evangelicis atque apostolicis docu- 
 mentis roboravit ;" and then sent him back to his master, to work at his 
 business. He kept him constantly about his person; and the young 
 captive " alter Elisaeus, Elise felix virtutum ejus heres et successor, Deo 
 donante futurus famulabatur obsequiis. Fabricabant ambo simul inde- 
 fesse apertos prse ocellis semper codices habentes, gerainum inde fructum 
 capientes, ut videlicet manus usibus hominum, mentes vero usibus manci- 
 parentur divinis." 
 
92 THE goldsmith's [no. VI. 
 
 OD, until the goldsmith gave up business; and then 
 what could the foreman do but go back to the scene of 
 his youth, and turn monk ? At least he did so ; and, 
 by direction of his old master, he became a priest also. 
 Whether it was out of respect to their founder, or 
 whether the same qualities which had endeared him to 
 his master won the affection and respect of the abbot 
 and monks, or whether it was commanded by the mild 
 virtues and rigid austerities which had become habitual 
 to him, I cannot tell ; but, in fact, he received so much 
 attention and honour that he did not know what to do 
 with himself in the monastery ^ and seems to have 
 remained there only out of respect for his benefactor; 
 for, as soon as ever he heard of his death, he fairly ran 
 away. Two texts of Scripture seem to have harassed 
 his mind, and made him fear lest in his popularity with 
 men he should lose the favour of God ^ — " Thev that 
 please men ; they are ashamed because God hath 
 despised them " (Ps. liii. 5) ; and the words of the 
 Apostle — "If I yet pleased men T should not be the 
 servant of Christ." (Gal. i. 10.) He wandered alone 
 through desert places until he found a remote, and 
 almost inaccessible, spot among the rocks, which he 
 could only approach on his hands and knees, but which 
 offered the necessary supply of wild fruits and water. 
 " There he lived," says his biographer, " always singing 
 in his heart that of David — ' Oh that I had wings like 
 a dove ; for then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo ! 
 then would I wander afar off, and remain in the wilder- 
 ness^' — 'As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so 
 panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth 
 
 ' Whether they made him abbot I do not know. Who is to decide 
 when Mabillon and the Bollandists disagree ? 
 
 * " Qui hominibus placent confusi sunt quoniam Deus sprevit eos." — 
 Vtdg. 
 
 9 Ps. Iv. 6. 
 
^ NO. VI.] FOREMAN. 93 
 
 for God, for the living God : when shall I come and 
 appear before God ? ' For he was such a man as Jere- 
 miah describes when he says, * It is good for a man that 
 he bear the yoke in his youth. He sitteth alone and 
 keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him';' and 
 elsewhere, ' I sat alone because of thy hand, for thou hast 
 filled me with indignation ^.' " Knowing, however, the 
 dangers of idleness, and the apostolic injunction, that 
 he who would not work should not eat, he employed 
 himself in cultivating the earth ; and soon found far- 
 ther occupation in preaching to the multitudes who 
 came to visit him, and to seek his prayers and instruc- 
 tion. I believe that only one of his sermons is in print. 
 That it is quite original I do not vouch; neither 
 will I take upon me to say that it contains all and 
 omits nothing that it should contain, for that is more 
 than I can say of any sermon that I ever saw or heard ; 
 but I am not writing controversially, and merely wish, 
 on this occasion, to tell the reader, as a matter of fact, 
 what he did say ; and according to the specimen given 
 by his biographer, it was as follows: — "Brethren, hear 
 what T say with attention ; and sedulously meditate on 
 it in your hearts. God the Father, and his Son our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, who gave his precious blood for us, 
 you must love with all your soul, and with all your 
 mind. Keep your hearts clean from wicked and im- 
 pure thoughts ; maintain brotherly love among your- 
 selves, and love not the things that are in the world. 
 Do not think about what you have, but what you are. 
 Do you desire to hear what you are ? The prophet tells 
 you, saying — *A11 flesh is grass; all the goodliness 
 thereof as the flower of the field ^' Consider how short 
 the present life is ; always fearing, have the day of 
 judgment before your eyes. While there is opportu- 
 
 » Lam. iii. 27, 28. ^ Jer. xv. 17. ^ Is. xl. 6. 
 
94 THE goldsmith's [no. VI. 
 
 nity, redeem your sins by alms and good works." Such, 
 says his biographer, were his discourses; and if the 
 reader cannot agree with him in adding, "sermo ejus 
 mellifluus sufficienti sale erat conditus," he may yet 
 join me in hoping that he spoke truly in saying, that 
 "no corrupt or idle discourse at any time proceeded 
 out of his mouth ; never was anything on his lips but 
 Christ, and peace, and mercy." 
 
 As he grew old, his thoughts turned again to the 
 monastery which he had twice left, and he besought 
 the abbot to build a little cell near it in honour of its 
 founder, and to let him live there. The abbot accord- 
 ingly built one, rather more than half a mile from the 
 monastery; and there the old man lived, constantly 
 employed in reading or praying, or some work of Chris- 
 tian duty or benevolence, or some handicraft, until he 
 was ninety-four years old. I do not know that he ever 
 pretended to work miracles. One of his biographers 
 gives them to him by wholesale ; but another account 
 is not only very sparing on that point, but relates an 
 anecdote which has quite an opposite aspect. When 
 a certain woman, who was grievously wounded, went 
 to the gate of the monastery, asking to see him, "he 
 would by no means see her, but sent her back this 
 message : — ' Woman, why do you ask my help ? I am 
 a mortal, and your associate in infirmity ; but, if you 
 believe in Christ, whom I serve, go away and pray to 
 God according to your faith, and you will be healed.' 
 Immediately she went away believing ; and having 
 without delay called on Jesus, returned home healed." 
 
 To proceed, however, with our story. Up to the point 
 at which we digressed from the goldsmith's affairs, our 
 history might have served for master and man; but 
 then a great difference began. When the servant 
 became a monk, the master became a bishop. But I 
 ought to have mentioned several things before this, 
 
 1 
 
NO. VI.] GOD-DAUGHTER. 95 
 
 only I write under a constant dread of being tedious. 
 One hears so much of " wading through " — not thick 
 folios and cubical quartos — but even magazine articles 
 on subjects more popular than mine, that I am always 
 tempted to omit those details which in my own opinion 
 give interest to history, and enable one to understand, 
 and remember, and use it. But for this I should have 
 told of the opposition which the goldsmith and his 
 noble convert and biographer, though both laymen, 
 made to the simony which was too prevalent in their 
 part of the world — how they also opposed heresy, and 
 drove it out of the kingdom without personal injury to 
 the heretics — and how the goldsmith converted a man- 
 sion in the capital, which his royal master had given 
 him, into a convent for three hundred nuns, who lived 
 there under the superintendence of an abbess, who 
 was very appropriately (though, I suppose, accidentally) 
 named Aurea. She was not, I believe, the daughter of 
 the goldsmith, nor do I find or suppose that he had any 
 children ; but he is said to have had a god-daughter ; 
 and were it not for the reasons just mentioned, I should 
 run into a story about her. As it is, even, I cannot 
 help briefly mentioning one or two particulars of her 
 history ; for the truth of which, however, as to matter 
 of fact, I by no means vouch. I quote it for the illus- 
 tration of our subject; MTre it a contemporary and 
 literally true story, it would be worth our attention, or 
 indeed whether it were truth or fiction ; and if it 
 belongs to a later period, (of which, I suppose, there 
 can be no doubt,) it is still more deserving of notice. 
 It is indeed more to our purpose to read the romance, 
 if it be one, of a writer of any period within the limits 
 to which the production in question must belong than 
 to learn the real adventures of a young woman. 
 
 I pass over the account of her noble birth, and her 
 betrothal in her infancy to one of equal rank, and how 
 
96 THE goldsmith's [no. VI. 
 
 at a marriageable age she persuaded him to accompany 
 her to Rome; and how, while he was rambling about 
 to see the rarities of the city, she took the opportunity 
 of throwing herself at the pope's feet, and declaring her 
 determination to become a nun — it is sufficient to say 
 that she did so, and that after returning thanks to God, 
 his holiness addressed her : — " ' Of what nation art 
 thou, and from what country dost thou come, maiden ? 
 And say also, what is thy name, and the creed of thy 
 people ; for I suppose thee to have been born of noble 
 race, and instructed in sacred learning from thine 
 infancy.' Whereupon she, with most serene mind and 
 countenance, and with downcast look, began : — * If 
 you inquire, O father and lord, concerning my nation, 
 I am a * * * * my name is ***** I was born in 
 the district of * * * *, whence I came hither. I was 
 educated by Christian parents ; and, contrary to my 
 own will (and I believe to the will of God), 1 was 
 betrothed to a young man, whom I give up, and turn 
 from, being bound by the love of Christ, through whose 
 guidance and favour I remain free from all pollution in 
 body and mind. I devote myself to Him who created 
 all things ; and that faith of which you inquire, I keep 
 unbroken to Him — which faith, if you really wish to 
 hear it, most excellent father, I will rehearse ; for 
 though I am a barbarian by nation, we, notwithstand- 
 ing, profess that true and holy faith which was brought 
 to us in the end of time from this holy apostolical see 
 and catholic mother church. For truly, when your 
 holiness inquires after our creed, it seems like Christ's 
 asking water from the Samaritan woman, in that while 
 He vouchsafed to lionour her with such a discourse. 
 He covertly insinuated that no nation could exclude 
 any one from the faith. As, therefore, we blush not 
 for our creed, so we are not confounded by reason of 
 our nation ; for David commands that all peoples 
 
NO. VI.] GOD-DAUGHTER. 97 
 
 should clap their hands, and rejoice before God with 
 the voice of praise, &:c. Bat since we are admonished 
 by the apostolical injunction to give a reason concern- 
 ing the hope and charity that is in us to all who ask 
 us, I will no longer delay to set forth before your holi- 
 ness, in few words, the glory of our faith. We believe, 
 then, and confess a chief and unlimited (summum et 
 incircumscriptum) Spirit, without beginning of time 
 or ending, to be the one omnipotent God ; as Moses 
 has said, ' Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one.' 
 There is, I say, one Father, unbegotten ; one Son, his 
 only begotten ; one Holy Spirit, proceeding from both, 
 co-eternal with the Father and the Son ; but that 
 always the Father is God ; the Son, God ; and the 
 Holy Ghost, God ; by whom, through whom, and in 
 whom, are all things, and without whom nothing was 
 made. This tripartite conjunction, and conjunct divi- 
 sion, both excludes unity in the persons, and produces 
 unity notwithstanding the distinction of persons. But 
 while we believe in three persons, we do not believe in 
 three Gods ; but we confess one Godhead in three per- 
 sons. We believe in a Holy Trinity of subsistent per- 
 sons ; but in an unity as to the nature, majesty, and 
 substance of God. We, therefore, divide all that exists 
 into two parts ; and, except only the Trinity, all that 
 has power, action, or motion in heaven, earth, or sea, 
 we believe and confess to be a creature, and God the 
 only Creator. Moreover, we believe that the Son of 
 God was, in the last times, conceived of the Holy 
 Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary, and took upon 
 him the flfesh and soul of human nature. In which 
 flesh we believe and confess that he was crucified and 
 buried, and arose from the dead ; and that in that same 
 flesh, though of another glory, after his resurrection, he 
 ascended into heaven, from whence we expect him to 
 come as the Judge of the quick and the dead. We 
 
 H 
 
98 THE goldsmith's [no. VI. 
 
 also confess an entire and perfect resurrection of our 
 flesh in which we now live and move in this present 
 life ; and that in it we shall either receive the reward 
 of good things for good actions, or sustain punishment 
 for evil actions. Repentance of sins we confess with 
 the fullest faith, and receive as a second grace, accord- 
 ing to what the apostle says to the Corinthians — ' I was 
 minded to come unto you before, that ye might have a 
 second benefit^' {secundam gratiam). This is the trea- 
 sure of our faith, which we keep sealed with the seal of 
 the creed of the church which we received in baptism. 
 Thus before God we believe with our hearts ; thus 
 before all men we confess with our mouths ; that the 
 knowledge of it may give faith to men, and that his 
 image may bear testimony to God.' " 
 
 Such, we are told, was this virgin's confession ; and 
 I have endeavoured to translate it as literally as possi- 
 ble, without addition or diminution. Should any reader 
 observe that she did not say (or, if he pleases, that the 
 more modem lying, forging, legend-maker, does not 
 make her say) any thing about transubstantiation, or 
 purgatory, or prayers for the dead, or worshipping the 
 Virgin Mary, or the saints, or relics, or indeed any of 
 the subjects with which it might have been supposed 
 that a candidate for the veil would have entertained 
 the pope in a " barbarous age" like hers, when " reli- 
 gion lay expiring under a motley and enormous heap of 
 superstitious inventions," I cannot help it. Neither 
 am I concerned to explain to system-makers how it 
 was that the great western-antichrist, instead of open- 
 ing his "mouth, speaking great things" to blaspheme 
 God and his saints, should have given utterance to the 
 prayer which followed her confession — or, rather, the 
 benediction of her veil, and the other habits which she 
 
 * 2 Cor. i. 15. 
 
NO. VI.] GOD-DAUGHTER. 99 
 
 was to assume : — " ' Look down, O Lord, on this thine 
 handmaid, that the purpose of holy virginity which, by 
 thy inspiration, she hath formed, she may, under thy 
 governance, keep. May there be in her, Lord, by 
 the gift of thy Spirit, a prudent modesty, a serious gen- 
 tleness, a chaste freedom. May she be fervent in cha- 
 rity, and love nothing beside Thee {eMra te). May she 
 study so to live as that she may deserve praise without 
 being ambitious of it. In thy fear may she love Thee 
 above all things, and in love may she fear Thee in all 
 things. Be thou, O Lord, her rejoicing ; thou her 
 comfort in sorrow ; thou her counsel in doubt. Be 
 thou her defence against injury ; in poverty, abun- 
 dance ; in fasting, food ; in sickness, medicine. What 
 she has professed, may she keep ; so that she may over- 
 come the old enemy, and purify herself from the defile- 
 ment of sin; that she may be adorned with fruit an 
 hundredfold, with virgin beauty, and the lamps of vir- 
 tues, and may be counted worthy to join the company 
 of the elect virgins.' And when they had all answered 
 ' Amen,' the holy pontiff, kissing the forehead of the 
 holy virgin, * * * * dismissed her in peace." 
 
 As to all these collateral matters, however, I content 
 myself, for the present, with noticing them more briefly 
 than I could wish. This paper is already longer than 
 I expected it to have been, and than it ought to be, 
 considering that it is written in what I hope the reader 
 considers the worst possible style — without any name 
 of person or place, or any date, or a single reference to 
 any authority whatever. If he has fairly got thus far, 
 there is perhaps little use — I wish there may be any 
 courtesy — in telling him that he might have skipped 
 it ; that it is entirely parenthetical, and intended only 
 as an introduction to another paper, in which I hope to 
 explain why I have written it, and to excuse myself 
 for writing it in such a manner. 
 
 h2 
 
100 
 No. VII. 
 
 " Vir bonus est quis ? " — Hor. 
 
 The goldsmith ^ as I have already said, became a 
 bishop. It is not very surprising, and some perhaps 
 vrill say, " Yes, that vras, of course, what he was aiming 
 at." For my own part I should very much doubt it ; 
 at least, if he desired a bishopric, I do not see any rea- 
 son to suppose that he did so fi-om sordid or unworthy 
 motives. The lowest calculation (for the point is dis- 
 puted) makes him more than fifty years of age when he 
 was consecrated — of money he seems to have possessed 
 unlimited command — the love of power, if he had it, 
 (though I really know of nothing to shew that he had,) 
 might have been better gratified at court than in his 
 diocese, which can scarcely be supposed to have con- 
 tained such luxuries as the times afforded, and as he 
 might have enjoyed where he was. There is, more- 
 over, another circumstance to which I cannot help 
 attaching considerable importance, both as it regards 
 
 * Here again I trust that I shall be pardoned if I retain the note which 
 Mr. Rose appended to this paper, at its first publication. " It may be 
 doubted whether any thing will induce many persons in this age to read 
 for themselves. If any thing could, surely the simple statement in this 
 paper ought to have that effect. Here we find not only an individual tra- 
 duced, but, through him, the religious character of a whole age misrepre- 
 sented, and this misrepresentation now generally believed. We find men 
 leaving out what a writer says, and then reproaching him and his age for 
 not saying it. We find Mosheim, Maclaine, Robertson, Jortin, White, 
 mangling, misusing, and (some of them) traducing a writer whose works 
 not one of them, except Mosheim, (if even he,) had ever seen. These 
 things are very serious. We may just as well, or better, not read at all, 
 if we read only second-hand writers, or do not take care that those whom 
 we do trust read for themselves, and report honestly. We, in short, trust 
 a painter who paints that black which is white, and then think we have a 
 dear idea of the object. — Ed." 
 
NO. VII ] ST. ELIGIUS. 101 
 
 this point, and as a mark of his character in general. 
 On the proposal being made, and whatever reluctance 
 he might feel being overcome, he insisted on a delay of 
 two years, and during that period he exercised the office 
 of an ordinary priest. From a consideration of all these 
 circumstances, I am not inclined to believe that he had 
 any flagrant desire to become a bishop, or was influ- 
 enced by any sordid or ambitious motive. 
 
 But, after all, how much there is in a name. No 
 doubt it is correct to say that he became a bishop ; but 
 the real idea would be much better conveyed by saying 
 that he turned missionary ; and, forsaking all that the 
 world had to offer, went to preach the gospel among 
 pagan barbarians. In fact, having received episcopal 
 consecration at the same time as his noble young con- 
 vert, he set off" for his diocese, and began to visit it 
 diligently. At first, we are told, the people, sunk in 
 idolatry, received him with hostility ; but, being gradu- 
 ally softened by his preaching, a great part of them 
 renounced idolatry, and embraced Christianity. 
 
 But from this point what need is there to pursue the 
 details of his history ? The rest is knovni, perhaps, at 
 the antipodes ; at least, from the Ohio to the Ganges, 
 every reader of popular books has been told how he 
 preached". It is really curious to observe by what 
 apparently trifling incidents people become notorious. 
 Comparatively few persons take the trouble to read 
 about Clotaire and Dagobert, and their goldsmith, and 
 his noble convert Dado (or St. Owen), and his foreman 
 Tillo or St. Theau the Saxon, and his god-daughter St. 
 Hunegundis, and the Abbess St. Aurea. But what 
 reader of Robertson's Charles the Fifth, or Mosheim's 
 History, or Jortin's Remarks, or White's Barapton 
 Lectures, or other popular books (to say nothing of 
 living writers), has not heard of St. Eligius or Eloy, 
 Bishop of Noyon? And all because Mosheim — the 
 
102 ROBERTSON AND [nO. VII. 
 
 only one of the writers mentioned who can be sus- 
 pected of knowing anything about him — was pleased 
 to record that he had preached a bad sermon, and to 
 give a specimen of it. This scrap, as Dr. Lingard has 
 truly said, " holds a distinguished place in every invec- 
 tive which has been published against the clergy of 
 former ages ; and the definition of a good Christian has 
 been echoed a thousand times by the credulity of 
 writers and their readers ^." Indeed, the story has 
 been so widely circulated, and, I apprehend, so influen- 
 tial, that on coming to Robertson's statement in the 
 note next to that on which I have been hitherto com- 
 menting, I cannot help wishing and endeavouring to 
 put the matter in a truer light. Though, strictly 
 speaking, it does not immediately relate to that period 
 of which I professedly write, yet this "hack story" 
 should be exposed, because many persons have read it 
 without knowing or attending to its date, and also 
 because many — perhaps most — of those who do know 
 its date, have a general idea that matters, far from 
 improving, grew worse and worse for some centuries. 
 
 « I copy these words from a note signed " Editor," and printed on a 
 cancel in the edition of Mosheim, Lond. 1826, vol. ii. p. 159. When the 
 leaf was changed I do not know, as it is only lately that I met with the 
 copy in which I saw it. I wish I could give the space which the whole 
 note would require ; but the following certificate in favour of Dr. Lingard 
 I cannot persuade myself to omit, not for his sake, but for the reader's : 
 — " We are bound to state, because we have ascertained the point, that he 
 [Dr. Lingard] has quoted the original fairly and correctly, according to 
 the best edition of the Spicilegium. — (Paris, 1723, 3 vols, folio.) We are 
 induced to mention this circumstance because some protestant divines 
 have been so eager to exculpate Dr. Mosheim, that they have accused Dr. 
 Lingard of following a spurious edition, in which various interpolations 
 might have been made by the Romanists to support the credit of the early 
 church. We are aware that papists seem to have a fellow-feeling with 
 their rehgious ancestors, [something, I suppose, connected with what an 
 old document calls " the communion of saints,"] and are frequently hur- 
 ried by their zeal into misrepresentation, sometimes into gross deviations 
 from truth ; but it is certainly ilhberal to suspect them \vithout cause, 
 [which he says there is,] or to condemn them without inquiry." 
 
i 
 
 NO. VII.] ST. ELIGIUS. 103 
 
 It seemed, however, desirable first to give some account 
 of this most unfortunate bishop, and accordingly I did 
 so in the preceding number, in which I ventured to 
 give his story anonymously, because I was afraid that 
 in some, at least, I should excite unconquerable preju- 
 dice if I mentioned a name which has acquired such 
 evil notoriety^. 
 
 But let us now inquire about his preaching. Robert- 
 son had said in his text : — 
 
 " Even the Christian religion, though its precepts are 
 delivered, and its institutions are fixed in Scripture with a 
 precision which should have exempted them from being 
 misinterpreted or corrupted, degenerated during those ages 
 of darkness into an illiberal superstition. The barbarous 
 nations when converted to Christianity changed the object, 
 not the spirit of their rehgious worship. They endeavoured 
 to conciliate the favour of the true God by means not unlike 
 to those which they had employed in order to appease their 
 false deities. Instead of aspiring to sanctity and virtue, 
 which alone can render men acceptable to the great author of 
 order and of excellence, they imagined that they satisfied 
 every obligation of duty by a scrupulous observance of 
 external ceremonies. Religion, according to their conception 
 of it, comprehended nothing else; and the rites, by which 
 they persuaded themselves that they could gain the favour 
 of Heaven, were of such a nature as might have been expected 
 from the rude ideas of the ages which devised and introduced 
 them. They were either so unmeaning as to be altogether 
 unworthy of the Being to whose honour they were conse- 
 crated, or so absiu"d as to be a disgrace to reason and 
 humanity."— (p. 19.) 
 
 A sad picture of religion truly, when it compre- 
 
 " The facts which I have stated respecting St. Eloy are to be found in 
 his Life, written by St. Owen, Archbishop of Rouen, in D'Achery's Spi- 
 cilegium, torn. ii. p. 76. Those which relate to St. Tillo, or Theau, the 
 foreman, and St. Hunegundis, the god-daughter, are in the second volume 
 of Mabillon's A. S., 954. 977. 
 
104 ROBERTSON, MOSHEIM, [nO. VII. 
 
 hended nothing else beside what was either unmeaning^ 
 or so absurd as to disgrace reason and humanity; but 
 it is a note on the word " ceremonies," in the fore- 
 going passage, with which we are at present concerned ; 
 he begins it by saying — 
 
 " All the rehgious maxims and practices of the dark ages 
 are a proof of this. I shall produce one remarkable testimony 
 in confirmation of it, from an author canonized by the church 
 of Rome, S. Eloy or Egidius *, Bishop of Noyon, in the seventh 
 century."— (p. 236.) 
 
 But as he, and everybody else I believe, was indebted 
 to Mosheim, it may be as well at once to give the ori- 
 
 * So it stands in the original edition ; whether it has been corrected 
 in those which have followed I do not know ; nor can I tell whether 
 Robertson (who was not, I imagine, very familiar with either St. Eloy or 
 St. Giles,) thought that he was correcting a mistake by turning Eligius 
 into Egidius ; but I cannot help suspecting Maclaine of some such con- 
 ceit when he turned the S. Piato of Mosheim into St, Plato, as it stands 
 in all editions which I know. Cent. VII. part ii. c. 3, in a note which by 
 itself might settle the character of the " learned and judicious translator," 
 as Robertson calls him. It affords matter highly illustrative not only of 
 his learning and judgment, but of his taste [The note referred to is 
 retained in the new edition of Dr. Murdock, edited by Mr. Soames, since 
 these papers were published, but with some diminution of its low and 
 filthy blackguardism ; but even as it now stands, is such a phrase as 
 " carcass-hunter of saints " proper ? Surely the most bitter puritanism 
 might be satisfied to direct its wrath against those who give undue, or 
 give any, reverence to the relics of God's saints; but is it right to speak 
 thus of the bodies in which the Apostles of Christ shall be raised ? But 
 how singular it is that those who write in this way generally stamp their 
 performances with some plain mark of ignorance. None of the parties to 
 the translation seem to have heard of Father D'Achery, Maclaine takes 
 it as it stands in Mosheim, and speaks of " Dacherius' Spicilegium." Dr. 
 Murdock, I suppose, translated at a venture; but reinforced himself a 
 little from the original, where he found lvcae dacherii, which (without 
 assigning a full equivalent to the Christian name) he put down as " Lu. 
 Dachier." Of course there is no credit in knowing Father D'Achery's 
 works, and no discredit in not knowing them ; but can those who really 
 do not know his name, have qualified themselves (whatever their erudi- 
 tion of other kinds may be) with such knowledge as is needed to write, to 
 translate, or even to edit the Church History of the middle ages ?] 
 
NO. VII.] 
 
 AND ST. ELIGIUS. 
 
 105 
 
 ginal as it stands in his work, placing beside it the pas- 
 sage as it stands in Robertson's work : — 
 
 Mosheim. 
 
 " Bonus Christianus est, qui 
 ad ecclesiamfrequentius venit, 
 et oblationem, quae in altari 
 Deo ofFeratur, exhibet, qui de 
 fructibus suis non gustat, nisi 
 prius Deo aUquid ofFerat, qui 
 quoties sanctae solemnitates 
 adveniunt, ante dies plures 
 castitatem etiam cum propria 
 uxore custodit, ut secura con- 
 scientia ad Domini altare ac- 
 cedere possit, qui postremo 
 symbolum vel orationem Do- 
 minicam memoriter tenet. - 
 — Redimite animas vestras 
 de poena dum habetis in po- 
 testate remedia — oblationes 
 et decimas ecclesiis ofFerte, 
 luminaria Sanctis locis juxta 
 quod habetis exhibete - ad ec- 
 clesiam quoque frequentius 
 convenite, sanctorum patro- 
 
 cinia humiliter expetite 
 
 Quod si observaveritis, securi 
 in die judicii ante tribunal 
 aeterni judicis venientes dice- 
 tis : Da, Domine, quia dedi- 
 mus." p. 269. 
 
 Robertson. 
 
 " He is a good Christian who 
 comes frequently to church ; 
 who presents the oblation 
 which is offered to God upon 
 the altar ; who doth not taste 
 of the fruits of his own indus- 
 try until he has consecrated a 
 part of them to God; who, 
 when the holy festivals shall 
 approach, Hves chastely even 
 with his own wife during 
 several days, that with a safe 
 conscience he may draw near 
 to the altar of God ; and who, 
 in the last place, can repeat 
 the creed and the Lord^s 
 prayer. Redeem, then, your 
 souls from destruction while 
 you have the means in your 
 power J offer presents and 
 tythes to churchmen ; come 
 more frequently to church; 
 humbly implore the patronage 
 of the saints ; for if you ob- 
 serve these things, you may 
 come with security in the day 
 to the tribunal of the eternal 
 Judge, and say, * Give to us, 
 O Lord, for we have given 
 unto thee:" Vol. i. p. 236. 
 
 This, then, according to Robertson, is a "remark- 
 able testimony in confirmation " of his assertion that 
 " all the maxims and practices of the dark ages " are a 
 proof that men " instead of aspiring to sanctity and 
 virtue, .... imagined that they had satisfied every 
 obligation of duty by a scrupulous observance of exter- 
 
106 ST. ELIGIUS. [no. VII. 
 
 nal ceremonies." Let us, then, look at it as it stands. 
 Some of it appears to me quite unobjectionable, and 
 indeed, as far as I can judge, there are only, or (to 
 say the least) chiefly, three points at which protestants 
 would take offence. 
 
 1. " Redeem, then, your souls from destruction while 
 the means are in your power ; offer presents and tithes 
 to churchmen." Pretty advice, truly — it shews the 
 cloven foot at once ; and the sordid, grasping church- 
 man stands out as plain as Robertson, or Jortin, or any 
 modem radical, could wish. I say nothing, however, 
 of Robertson's translating " oblationes et decimas 
 ecclesiis offerte," by " offer 'presents and tithes to church- 
 menr for that (however indicative of the animus) is 
 quite unimportant compared with his connecting the 
 two things in such a way as if Eligius had made the 
 gift of presents and tithes to churchmen the means of 
 redeeming men's souls. Mosheim acts more fairly, for 
 he places two hyphens after the word " remedia," from 
 which his copyists should have learned that something 
 was omitted. In fact, the sentence stands, " Redimite 
 animas vestras de poena dum habetis in potestate 
 remedia ; eleemosynam juxta vires facite," &c., and the 
 reference is evidently to Dan. iv. 24, (our version 27,) 
 " peccata tua eleemosynis redime." 
 
 2. "Humbly implore the patronage of the saints," 
 is certainly an injunction which may properly offend 
 protestants ; but I need not, I presume, say that it is 
 not peculiar to St. Eligius or the dark ages — that the 
 error which it countenances had assumed foul shapes of 
 sin centuries before he was born, and still flourishes in 
 these enlightened days. I am not undertaking to 
 defend all that Eligius said, but only to shew the 
 absurdity of bringing it forward as peculiarly charac- 
 teristic of his preaching, or of his age. That it was not 
 so, will as clearly appear from the next point. 
 
NO. VII.] HIS SERMON. 107 
 
 3. " Give to us, O Lord, for we have given unto 
 Thee." The words " unto Thee," are neither expressed 
 nor implied in the original, but inserted by Robertson 
 without any warrant whatever. The idea, however, 
 and even the mode of expressing it, was not charac- 
 teristic of the age of St. Eligius. Strange as it may 
 seem in these days of high education and profuse lite- 
 rature, it cannot be denied that during the dark ages 
 preachers did sometimes make bold to borrow a homily, 
 or part of one, from their predecessors ; and, in fact, 
 this sermon of St. Eligius (or part of it, including that 
 with which we are at present concerned) had belonged 
 to Csesarius, Bishop of Aries, who died about a hun- 
 dred years before Eligius became a bishop^. He 
 begins a Homily on Almsgiving by saying that a gra- 
 cious and merciful God has provided a variety of ways 
 by which men may be enabled to procure the pardon 
 of their sins — " quibus possumus sine grandi labore ac 
 difRcultate peccata nostra redimere " and he afterwards 
 says, "Let him to whom God has given more than 
 necessaries hasten to redeem his sins with his super- 
 fluity; and let him who has it not in his power to 
 redeem captives, or to feed or clothe the poor, harbour 
 no hatred in his heart against any man ; but let him 
 love, and never cease to pray for them ; certain of the 
 promise, or the mercy of his Lord, with a free con- 
 science he will be able to say, ' Give, Lord, for I have 
 given ; forgive, for I have forgiven \' " 
 
 ^ Caesarius was born in a. d. 469, and became Bishop of Aries in a. d. 
 502, and died a. d. 542. Eligius became Bishop of Noyon, according to 
 the earUest date which I have seen assigned, in a.d. 635 ; {Chron. Elnon. 
 ap. III. Mart. 1392 ;) or, according to the latest, which Cave states to be 
 the most common, in the year 646. He thinks, however, that Le Cointe 
 has proved that the right date is 640 ; and adds, that according to the 
 same authority, Eloy lived until a.d. 659 ; according to the most com- 
 monly received opinion till 665 ; and according to others till 663. 
 
 ' Bib. Pat. ii. 285. 
 
108 ST. ELIGIUS. [no. VII. 
 
 This was the language of Caesarius ; and I adduce it 
 merely to shew the absurdity of bringing forward the 
 words as characteristic of St. Eloy and his age, and in 
 this view it may be worth while to add that the lan- 
 guage of some earlier, and more respected, fathers did 
 not, as far as I can see, very materially differ from it. 
 
 The charge, however, against Eligius is not only, and 
 perhaps not principally, that his doctrine is popishly 
 heretical, but that it is grossly defective ; he is much 
 to blame, we are told, for what he says, but much more 
 to blame for what he does not say. Robertson tells 
 us, " The learned and judicious translator of Dr. Mos- 
 heim's Ecclesiastical History, from one of whose addi- 
 tional notes I have borrowed this passage, subjoins a 
 very proper reflection — ' We see here a lai'ge and ample 
 description of a good Christian, in which there is not 
 the least mention of the love of God, resignation to his 
 will, obedience to his laws, or of justice, benevolence, 
 and charity towards men.' " Jortin says, " As to true 
 religion, here is the sum and substance of it as it is 
 drawn up for us by Eligius, one of the principal saints 
 of that age ; " and, in his table of contents, this scrap 
 is referred to as " Eligius's si/stem of religion.'' White, 
 in the notes to his Bampton Lectures (if they should 
 be called his) tells us that, " no representation can con- 
 vey stronger ideas of the melancholy state of religion in 
 the seventh century than the description of the cha- 
 racter of a good Christian by St. Eligius, or Eloi, 
 Bishop of Noyon ^" 
 
 As to defectiveness, then, let it be observed in the 
 first place, that this scrap is but a very small part — as 
 nearly as I can calculate not a hundredth part — of a 
 very long sermon ; or rather, as one might suppose, 
 from its prolixity and tautology, even if the language 
 
 ' Bampton Lectures, notes, p. 5. 
 
NO. VII.] HIS SERMON. 109 
 
 of St. Eloy's biographer did not suggest it, of several 
 sermons mixed up into one great homily. If it were 
 printed like Bishop Horsley's Sermons, it would, I 
 believe, occupy just about the fifty-six octavo pages 
 which contain the first three of them. Candour would 
 suggest a possibility that the other ninety-nine parts 
 may contain something that may go towards supplying 
 the deficiencies of the scrap. 
 
 But this is not all ; or even what is most important. 
 Mosheim printed the passage in such a way as to shew 
 that there were some omissions, though he did not indi- 
 cate all. In Jortin's translation only one mark of 
 omission is retained ; and that is, between the words 
 "prayer" and "Redeem." In the version given by 
 Robertson, all such indications are removed, and the 
 scrap stands as one continuous passage. White goes a 
 step farther, and prints the Latin text without any 
 break or hint of omission. Let us, therefore, see what 
 is omitted in the part which is professedly quoted ; and 
 as that part is not far advanced in the sermon, it will 
 be best to begin at the beginning. The part actually 
 extracted by Mosheim I mark by italics : — 
 
 " I beseech you, most dear brethren, and admonish you 
 with great humility, that you would listen attentively to those 
 things which I desire to suggest to you for your salvation. 
 For Almighty God knows that I offer them with fervent love 
 towards you, and were I to do otherwise I should undoubt- 
 edly be held to have failed in my duty. Receive, then, what 
 I say, not for my sake, who am of little account, but for your 
 own salvation, willingly ; at least, in such a way that what 
 you receive by the ear you may fulfil in practice, so that I 
 may be counted worthy to rejoice with you in the kingdom 
 of heaven, not only by my obedience, but through your 
 profiting by it. If there is any one of you who is displeased 
 that I persist in preaching to you so frequently, I beg him 
 not to be offended with me, but rather to consider the danger 
 to which I am exposed, and to listen to the fearful threat- 
 
110 ST. ELIGIUS. [no. VII. 
 
 ening which the Lord has addressed to priests by his prophet, 
 — * If thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, 
 that wicked man shall die in his iniquity ; but his blood will 
 I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the 
 wicked of his way to turn from it ; if he do not turn from his 
 way, he shall die in his iniquity ; but thou hast delivered thy 
 soul.' — Ezek. xxxiii. 8. And that, ^ Cry aloud, spare not, 
 and shew my people their sins.' — Is. Iviii. 1. 
 
 "Consider therefore, brethren, that it is my duty inces- 
 santly to stir up your minds to fear the judgment of God, 
 and to desire the heavenly reward, that, together with you, I 
 may be counted worthy to enjoy perpetual peace in the com- 
 pany of angels. I ask you, therefore, always to hold in 
 dread the day of judgment ; and every day to keep before 
 your eyes the day of your death. 
 
 " Consider how far you would be fit to be presented before 
 angels, or what you would receive in return for your deserts, 
 and whether you will be able in that day to shew that the 
 promise of your baptism has been kept unbroken. Remember 
 that you then made a covenant with God, and that you pro- 
 mised in the very sacrament of baptism to renounce the Devil 
 and all his works. Whosoever was able then made this 
 promise in his own person and for himself. If any was 
 unable, his sponsor, that is, he who received him at his bap- 
 tism, made these promises to God for him, and in his name. 
 
 *' Consider, therefore, what a covenant you have made with 
 God, and examine yourselves whether after that promise you 
 have been following that w^icked Devil whom you renounced. 
 For you did renounce the Devil, and all his pomps, and his 
 works; that is, idols, divinations, auguries, thefts, frauds, 
 fornications, drunkenness, and Hes, for these are his works 
 and pomps. On the contrary, you promised to believe in 
 God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, 
 our Lord, conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin 
 Mary ; that he suffered under Pontius Pilate, rose from the 
 dead on the third day, and ascended into heaven ; and then 
 you promised that you would believe also in the Holy Ghost, 
 the holy catholic church, the remission of sins, the resurrec- 
 tion of the body, and the life everlasting. Without all doubt 
 this your covenant and confession which you then made will 
 never be lost sight of by God ; and, therefore, most dearly 
 
NO. vil] his sermon. Ill 
 
 beloved, I warn you that this your confession or promise 
 should always be kept in your own memory, that so your 
 bearing the Christian name, instead of rising in judgment 
 against you, may be for your salvation. For you are made 
 Christians to this end, that you may always do the works of 
 Christ; that is, that you may love chastity, avoid lewdness 
 and drunkenness, maintain humility, and detest pride, because 
 our Lord Christ both shewed humility by example and taught 
 it by words, saying — * Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly 
 in heart ; and ye shall find rest to your souls.' (Matt. xi. 30.) 
 You must also renounce envy, have charity among yourselves, 
 and always think of the future world, and of eternal blessed- 
 ness, and labour rather for the soul than for the body. For 
 the flesh will be only a short time in this world ; whereas the 
 soul, if it does well, will reign for ever in heaven ; but, if it 
 does wickedly, it will burn without mercy in hell. He, in- 
 deed, who thinks only of this life is like the beasts and brute 
 animals. 
 
 " It is not enough, most dearly beloved, for you to have 
 received the name of Christians, if you do not do Christian 
 works. To be called a Christian profits him who always 
 retains in his mind, and fulfils in his actions, the commands 
 of Christ ; that is, who does not commit theft, does not bear 
 false witness, who neither tells lies nor swears falsely, who 
 does not commit adultery, who does not hate anybody, but 
 loves all men as himself, who does not render evil to his 
 enemies, but rather prays for them, who does not stir up 
 strife, but restores peace between those who are at variance. 
 For these precepts Christ himself has deigned to give by his 
 own mouth, in the gospel, saying — * Thou shalt do no mur- 
 der. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. 
 Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not swear 
 falsely nor commit fraud. Honour thy father and thy mother : 
 and. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' (Matt. xix. 
 18, 19.) And also, ^All things whatsoever ye would that 
 men should do to you ; do ye even so to them : for this is 
 the law and the prophets.' (Matt. vii. 12.) 
 
 ^^ And he has given yet greater, but very strong and fruitful 
 (valde fortia atque fructifera) commands, saying — * Love 
 your enemies, do good to them that hate you,' and ^pray 
 for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.' 
 
1 12 ST. ELIGIUS. [no. VII. 
 
 (Matt. V. 44.) Behold, this is a strong commandment, and 
 to men it seems a hard one ; but it has a great reward ; hear 
 what it is — ^That ye may be,' he saith, *the children of your 
 Father which is in heaven.^ Oh, how great grace ! Of our- 
 selves we are not even worthy servants ; and by loving our 
 enemies we become sons of God. Therefore, my brethren, 
 both love your friends in God, and your enemies for God ; 
 for ^ he that loveth his neighbour,' as saith the apostle, * hath 
 fulfilled the law.' (Rom. xiii. 8.) For he who will be a true 
 Christian must needs keep these commandments; because, 
 if he does not keep them, he deceives himself. He, there- 
 fore, is a good Christian who puts faith in no charms or 
 diabolical inventions, but places all his hope in Christ alone ; 
 who receives strangers with joy, even as if it were Christ 
 himself, because he will say — ^ I was a stranger, and ye took 
 me in,' and, * inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
 least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' He, I 
 say, is a good Christian who washes the feet of strangers, and 
 loves them as most dear relations; who, according to his 
 means, gives alms to the poor; who comes frequently to 
 church : who presents the oblation which is offered to God 
 upon the altar ; who doth not taste of his fruits before he hath 
 offered somewhat to God; who has not a false balance or 
 deceitful measures ; who hath not given his money to usury ; 
 who both lives chastely himself, and teaches his sons and his 
 neighbours to live chastely and in the fear of God ; and, as 
 often as the holy festivals occur, lives continently even with his 
 own wife for some days previously, that he may, with safe con- 
 science, draw near to the altar of God ; finally, who can repeat 
 the Creed or the Lord's Prayer, and teaches the same to his 
 sons and servants. He who is such an one, is, without 
 doubt, a true Christian, and Christ also dwelleth in him, 
 who hath said, * I and the Father will come and make our 
 abode with him.' (John xiv. 23.) And, in like manner, he 
 saith, by the prophet, ' I will dwell in them, and walk in 
 them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.' 
 (2 Cor. vi. 16.) 
 
 Behold, brethren, ye have heard what sort of persons are 
 good Christians ; and therefore labour as much as you can, 
 with God's assistance, that the Christian name may not be 
 falsely applied to you ; but, in order that you may be true 
 
NO. VII.] HIS HOMILY. 113 
 
 Christians, always meditate in your hearts on the commands 
 of Christ, and fulfil them in your practice ; redeem your souls 
 from punishment while you have the means in your power ; 
 give alms according to your means, maintain peace and 
 charity, restore harmony among those who are at strife, 
 avoid lying, abhor perjury, bear no false witness, commit no 
 theft, offer oblations and gifts to churches, provide lights for 
 sacred places according to your means, retain in your memory 
 the Creed and the Lord's Prayer, and teach them to your 
 sons. Moreover, teach and chastise those children for whom 
 you are sponsors, that they may always live with the fear of 
 God. Know that you are sponsors for them with God. 
 Come frequently also to church; humbly seek the patronage of 
 the saints ; keep the Lord's day in reverence of the resurrec- 
 tion of Christ, without any servile work ; celebrate the festi- 
 vals of the saints with devout feeling ; love your neighbours 
 as yourselves ; what you would desire to be done to you by 
 others, that do to others ; what you would not have done to 
 you, do to no one ; before all things have charity, for charity 
 covereth a multitude of sins ; be hospitable, humble, casting 
 all your care upon God, for he careth for you ; visit the sick, 
 seek out the captives, receive strangers, feed the hungry, 
 clothe the naked ; set at nought soothsayers and magicians, 
 let your weights and measures be fair, your balance just, 
 your bushel and your pint fair; nor must you claim back 
 more than you gave, nor exact from any one usury for money 
 lent. Which, if you observe, coming with security before the 
 tribunal of the eternal Judge, in the day of Judgment, you may 
 say ' Give, Lord, for we have given ; shew mercy, for we have 
 shewn mercy ; we have fulfilled what thou hast commanded, 
 do thou give what thou hast promised.'" 
 
 I feel that by this extract I do very imperfect justice 
 to the sermon of St. Eloy ; of which, indeed, I might 
 say that it seems to have been written as if he had 
 anticipated all and each of Mosheim's and Maclaine's 
 charges, and intended to furnish a pointed answer to 
 almost every one. I feel it to be most important to 
 our forming a right view of the dark ages, that such 
 false statements respecting the means of instruction 
 
 I 
 
114 ST. ELIGIUS. [no. VII. 
 
 and of grace should be exposed ; but with so wide a 
 field before us, I am unwilling, at present, to give more 
 space than this to one subject, especially as I am 
 anxious to get beyond that part of the subject which con- 
 sists in merely contradicting misstatement ; but I can- 
 not do so until I have offered some remarks on the work 
 of a popular historian whom I have not as yet noticed. 
 
 The passage in Mosheim which gave rise to this 
 paper is still retained without qualification or explana- 
 tion in the " New and literal translation from the 
 original Latin, with copious additional notes, original 
 and selected, by James Murdock, D.D., edited, with 
 additions, by Henry Soames, M.A., rector of Stapleford 
 Tawney, with Thoydon Mount, Essex," and published 
 by Messrs. Longman and others in the year 1841. I 
 am tempted, therefore, to give some further extracts 
 which I made when the paper was written, but which 
 would have occupied too much room in the magazine. 
 But for this I should then have produced proofs and 
 illustrations of my statement, that the sermon seemed 
 as if it had been written to anticipate and refute the 
 charges of Mosheim. 
 
 In this new translation the passage to which the 
 note on St. Eligius is appended, stands as follows : — 
 
 " During this century, true religion lay buried under 
 a senseless mass of superstitions ; and was unable to 
 raise her head. The earlier Christians had worshipped 
 only God, and his Son ; but those called Christians in 
 this age, worshipped the wood of a cross, the images of 
 holy men, and bones of dubious origin. The early 
 Christians placed heaven and hell before the view of 
 men ; these latter depicted a certain fire prepared to 
 bum off the imperfections of the soul. The former 
 taught, that Christ had made expiation for the sins of 
 men, by his death and his blood ; the latter seemed to 
 
NO. VII.] HIS HOMILY. 115 
 
 inculcate, that the gates of heaven would be closed 
 against none who should enrich the clergy or the church 
 with their donations." — Vol. ii. p. 93. 
 
 Now at this distance of time I do not pretend to 
 speak positively respecting the contents of this long 
 rambling discourse, which it is not worth while to search 
 over again minutely, in order to say whether it contains 
 one word about the wood of the cross, or the images of 
 the saints, or the dubious bones. I really believe there 
 is nothing of the kind ; but the extracts which I have 
 by me were, I believe, made to meet the statement 
 that instead of having heaven and hell set before them, 
 the people were told about a certain fire that was " to 
 bum off the imperfections of the soul." The reader 
 will therefore understand that I give them as illustra- 
 tive of the preacher's doctrine (if he can be said to 
 have had any) of purgatory ; though at the same time 
 they may shew us what he taught on some other 
 points ; and lead the reader very reasonably to disbe- 
 lieve the charges made on the other points, all of 
 which could hardly be answered without extracting the 
 greater part of the Homily. 
 
 " Those whom you see to be good, do you imitate ; those 
 whom you see to be bad, chasten and rebuke ; that you may 
 have a double reward. And let him who has hitherto lived 
 free from the aforesaid evils rejoice, and give God thanks, 
 and take care for the future, and persevere with alacrity in 
 good works ; but let him who has hitherto lived in sin, 
 quickly correct himself, and repent with his whole heart 
 before he departs this life ; for if he dies without repentance 
 he will not enter into rest, but will be cast into hell fire (in 
 gehennam ignis), whence he will never get out through all 
 eternity" (unde nunquam exiet in saecula saeculorum). — 
 p. 98 a. 
 
 After addressing magistrates, he says — " Considering these 
 things, brethren, both you who govern and you who are 
 subject, ground yourselves in the fear of God. Retain what 
 
 i2 
 
116 ST. ELIGIUS. [no. VII. 
 
 has been said, do what is commanded, have Christ always in 
 your mind, and his mai'k on your forehead. Know that you 
 have many adversaries who are eager to impede your course; 
 therefore in all places and at all times arm yourselves with 
 the sign of the cross, fortify yourselves with the standard of 
 the cross ; for this alone they fear, this alone they dread, and 
 this is given you as a shield whereby you may quench all the 
 fiery darts of the wicked one. For the mark of Christ is a 
 great thing and the cross of Christ, but it profits those only 
 who keep the precepts of Christ. That it may profit you, 
 therefore, strive to fulfil his precepts with all your might ; 
 and whether you sit or walk, or eat, or go to bed, or get up, 
 always let the mark of Christ guard your forehead, that by 
 the recollection of God it may both protect you while waking 
 and keep you while asleep ; and as often as you wake in the 
 night and sleep flies from your eyes, immediately let the sign 
 of the cross occur to your lips and let your minds be occu- 
 pied in prayers, and revolve the commandments of God in 
 your hearts, lest the enemy should suddenly creep into your 
 stupid breasts, or the eager adversary twist himself into your 
 soul through your foolish carelessness. And when he sug- 
 gests to your sense any evil thought, set before yourself the 
 future judgment of God, the punishment of hell, the pains of 
 Gehenna, the darkness of Tartarus, which the wicked endure. 
 If you do this, the evil thought will immediately vanish, and 
 the power of Christ will not desert you ; for that which the 
 prophet has said is true, ' He that trusteth in the Lord mercy 
 shall compass him about.' " (Ps. xxxii. 10.) — p. 98 b. 
 
 " Redeem yourselves while you live, for after death no one 
 can redeem you '* (quia post mortem nemo vos redimere 
 potest). — p. 99 b. 
 
 "In all these works of goodness which the Lord has com- 
 manded you to perform, he seeks nothing from you but the 
 salvation of your souls, and that you may fear him always 
 and keep his commandments [then after referring to and in 
 great measure repeating the blessing and the curse given by 
 Moses, he proceeds:] These things therefore, brethren, 
 always keep in mind, these words repeat to your sons and 
 your neighbours, remember them when you sit in your 
 houses, and when you walk, neither forget them in your 
 prosperity, but always fear God, and serve him alone, lest his 
 
NO. VII.] HIS HOMILY. 1 17 
 
 fury be kindled against you. Know that he keepeth covenant 
 and mercy towards those who love him and keep his com- 
 mandments, and heals all their sicknesses. Consider that, 
 as the apostle John forewarns, ' it is the last hour,' and there- 
 fore do not now love the world, for it soon passeth away, and 
 all the lust thereof with it. But, do you do the will of God, 
 that you may remain for ever, and may have confidence when 
 he shall appear, and not be confounded at his coming. Let 
 no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, 
 and he that committeth sin is of the devil; and certainly 
 every sin, whether theft, or adultery, or lying, is not com- 
 mitted without diabolical agency. Consider, I beseech you, 
 what a destructive thing it is to do the works of the devil, 
 and to become partaker with him, not in rest, but in the 
 punishment of gehenna. Therefore, whenever you sin, do 
 not wait in mortiferous security until your wounds putrefy, 
 nor add others to them, but immediately by the confession of 
 repentance hasten to obtain a remedy." — p. 100 a. 
 
 " Now, according to his unspeakable mercy, the Lord not 
 only admonishes, but entreats that we would be converted to 
 him. Let us therefore listen to him when he asks, lest if we 
 do not, he should not listen to us when he judges. Let us 
 listen also to the Scripture, which crieth out, 'My son, 
 have pity on thine own soul, pleasing the God'.' What 
 wilt thou answer to this, O human frailty? God entreats 
 thee to pity thyself, and thou wilt not ; how shall he hear 
 thee supplicating in the day of necessity, when thou wilt 
 not hear him entreating for thyself ? If you now neglect these 
 things, brethren, what will you do in the day of judgment, or 
 to what refuge will you fly ? If, I say, you now neglect such 
 exhortations of God, you will not then escape the torments 
 of hell, nor can gold or silver deliver you, nor those riches 
 which you now secrete in corners, and through the pride of 
 which you become negligent of your salvation. For hence, 
 God saith by the prophet, ' I will visit you with evil, and I 
 will cause the arrogancy of the wicked to cease, and will lay 
 low the haughtiness of the terrible.' (Is. xiii. 11.) And again 
 
 ^ " Miserere animae tuae placens Deo." Ecclus. xxx. 24. Our Eng- 
 lish version is, "Love thine own soul, and comfort thy heart; remove 
 sorrow far from thee." v. 23. I give the Douay in the text. 
 
118 ST. ELIGIUS. [no. VII. 
 
 he admonishes, saying, ' Bring it again to mind, O ye trans- 
 gressors; cease to do evil, learn to do well; relieve the 
 oppressed, defend the poor, and the widow, and the orphan ; 
 deal not by oppression with the stranger *.' These things, 
 therefore, brethren, keep in mind. Hasten to observe them 
 with all your might. Fight as those who are separated from 
 the devil. Be joined to God, who has redeemed you. Let 
 the Gentiles be astonished at your conversation, and if they 
 slander you, and even if they mock you for performing the 
 duties of Christianity, let not that trouble you, for they 
 shall give an account to God. Place, therefore, all your 
 hope in the mercy of Christ, and not only abstain from every 
 impure act, but also guard your minds from evil thoughts ; 
 for the Lord God is a righteous judge, and judgeth of evil 
 thoughts.''— p. 101 b. 
 
 "Moreover, that which is threatened by the voice of truth 
 in the gospel : ^ they,' it saith, ' that do iniquity shall be cast 
 into a furnace of fire, where there shall be weeping and 
 gnashing of teeth.' Consider, then, how fierce, how much to 
 be di'eaded that fire is ; and let him who could not now bear 
 to put even one of his fingers in the fire, fear to be tormented 
 there with his whole body for ever" (in saecula). — p. 102, b. 
 
 " But know that the soul when it is separated from the 
 body, is either immediately placed in paradise for its good 
 deserts, or certainly precipitated directly into hell for its 
 sins."— p. 103 b. 
 
 " Love therefore with all your hearts that eternal life 
 which through all ages you shall never bring to an end. 
 Hasten thither, where you shall ever live, and never fear 
 death. For if you love this wretched, fleeting life which you 
 maintain with such labour, — in which by running about and 
 bustling, by the sweat of yoiu* brow, and working yourselves 
 out of breath, you can scarcely pro\4de the necessaries of 
 life, — how much more should you love eternal life in which 
 you shall have no labour at all, where there is always the 
 highest security, secure happiness, happy freedom, free bless- 
 
 * The passage stands, " Redite prsevaricatores ad cor ; quiescite agere 
 perverse, discite benefacere ; succurrite oppresso, defendite pauperem et 
 viduam, et pupillum ; et advenam nolite calumniari " It will be seen that 
 it is made up from Is. xlvi. 8. and i. 16, 1/. and Ezek. xxii. 7. 
 
NO. VII.] HIS HOMILY. 119 
 
 edness ; where shall be fulfilled that which our Lord saith 
 in the gospel, *Men shall be like unto the angels;^ Uke, 
 indeed, not in substance, but in blessedness? And that, 
 
 * then shall the just shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of 
 their Father.' What, think you, will then be the splendour 
 of souls, when the light of bodies shall have the brightness 
 of the sun ? There shall then be no sorrow, no labour, no 
 grief, no death ; but perpetual health shall endure. There 
 no evil shall arise, no misery of the flesh, no sickness, no 
 need of any kind ; there shall be no hunger, no thirst, no 
 cold, no heat, no faintness of fasting, nor any temptation of 
 the enemy ; nor then any will to sin, any possibility of defec- 
 tion ; but there shall be fulness of joy, and exultation in all 
 things ; and men, associated with angels, shall be ever young 
 in freedom from all fleshly infirmity. There, therefore, shall 
 be solid joy, there secure rest, there pleasure infinite; where 
 if it be once attained, there shall be no chance of losing it 
 throughout eternity, in that blessedness in which what is 
 once gained shall be kept for ever. Nothing is there more 
 magnificent than that place, nothing more glorious, nothing 
 more bright, more beautiful, more true, more noble, nothing 
 more pure in excellence, nothing more abundant in fulness. 
 There always peace and the highest rejoicing. There is 
 true and certain happiness. There shall no longer be feared 
 that most fierce enemy who continually desires to destroy 
 souls, nor shall the fiery darts of the devil, or any tempta- 
 tions of the adversary, be any longer dreaded. The cruelty 
 of barbarians shall no more strike terror, nor shall any adver- 
 sity be thenceforth apprehended. There shall be no fear of 
 the sword, of fire, or the savage countenance of the tor- 
 mentor. No one in that glorious place shall want clothing ; 
 for there is there no cold nor heat, nor any change of cH- 
 mate. No one there hungers, none is sad, none is a stranger; 
 but all who shall be counted worthy to attain to that place 
 shall live secure as in their own country. The flesh shall no 
 longer war against the spirit, nor shall any danger be feared, 
 but unspeakable rewards with the angels shall be given by 
 Christ ; and ' What the eye hath not seen,' saith the apostle, 
 
 * nor the ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of 
 man to conceive what God hath prepared for those who love 
 him.' Behold what blessedness he will lose who refuses 
 
120 ST. ELIGIUS. [no. VII. 
 
 now while he hath opportunity to amend himself. Let us 
 therefore, brethren, for whom so great blessedness is pre- 
 pared in heaven, disdain (the Lord being our helper) to be 
 any longer the servants of sin. While, then, there is time, 
 let us hasten to obtain the favour of God, let us despise 
 earthly things, that we may gain those which are heavenly ; 
 let us think of ourselves as pilgrims in this world, that we may 
 the more cheerfully hasten towards heaven ; for all the things 
 which are here seen quickly pass away, and will be gone like 
 a shadow."— p. 103 b. 
 
 After quoting Matt. xxv. of our Lord's advent, he 
 proceeds : — 
 
 " Then when all are looking, he will shew the wounds and 
 the Tioles of the nails in that body undoubtedly the same in 
 which he was wounded for our transgressions ; and address- 
 ing the sinners he will then say — ' I formed thee, O man, 
 with my hands from the dust of the earth, and placed thee 
 amidst the delights of a paradise, which thou didst not 
 deserve ; but thou, despising me and my commands, didst 
 prefer to follow a deceiver; wherefore, being condemned to 
 just punishment, thou wast appointed to the torments of 
 hell. Afterwards, pitying thee, I became incarnate, I dwelt 
 on earth among sinners, I bare scorn and stripes for thee. 
 That I might save thee, I underwent blows and spitting. 
 That I might gain for thee the sweets of paradise, I drank 
 ^dnegar and gall. For thee I was crowned with thorns, 
 fastened to the cross, wounded with the spear. For thee I 
 died, was laid in the grave, and descended into hell. That I 
 might bring thee back to paradise, I went to the gates of 
 hell ; that thou mightest reign in heaven, I penetrated the 
 infernal deep. Acknowledge, then, oh human impiety, how 
 much I have suffered for thee. Behold the wounds which I 
 received for thee, behold the holes of those nails fastened by 
 which I hanged on the cross. I bare thy griefs, that T might 
 heal thee ; I underwent punishment, that I might give thee 
 glory ; I submitted to death, that thou mightest live for ever ; 
 I lay in the sepulchre, that thou mightest reign in heaven. 
 All these things I bare for you ; what more than these things 
 should I have done for you that I have not done ? Tell me 
 now, or shew me, what you have suffered for me, or what 
 
NO. VII.] HIS HOMILY. 121 
 
 good you have done for yourselves. I when I was invisible 
 did, of my own will, become incarnate on your account; 
 though I was impassible, for you I condescended to suffer ; 
 when I was rich, for your sakes I became poor. But you, 
 always despising both my humility and my commandments, 
 have followed the seducer rather than me ; and now behold 
 my justice cannot adjudge to you anything else than what 
 your works deserve to receive. Take, then, what you have 
 chosen; you have despised light, possess darkness; you 
 have loved death, go into perdition ; you have followed the 
 devil, go with him into eternal fire.' What, think you, will 
 then be the grief, what the lamentation, what the sadness, 
 what the distress, when this sentence shall be given against 
 the wicked? For then shall be to the wicked a grievous 
 separation from the sweet company of the saints ; and, being 
 delivered over to the power of demons, they will go in their 
 own bodies with the devil into eternal punishment, and will 
 remain for ever in lamentation and groaning. For being far 
 exiled from the blessed country of Paradise, they will be tor- 
 mented in hell, never again to see light, never to obtain a 
 time of refreshing, never to end their punishment, never to 
 arrive at rest ; but through thousands of thousands of years 
 to be tormented in hell, nor ever, through all eternity, to be 
 deUvered. Where he that torments is never tired, and he 
 that is tormented never dies. For there the fire so consumes 
 that it still reserves ; torments are so inflicted as that they 
 may be for ever renewed. According to the quality of his 
 crimes, however, each one will there suffer the punishments 
 of hell ; and those who are guilty of the like sins will be 
 associated together in punishment. Nothing will be heard 
 there but weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. 
 There will be no consolation, nothing but flames and the ter- 
 rors of punishments, and the wretched ones will burn with- 
 out end in eternal fire through all ages. But the just shall 
 go into life eternal, and without doubt in that very same 
 flesh which they here had, and shall be associated with holy 
 angels in the kingdom of God, appointed to perpetual joys, 
 never again to die, no more to see corruption, but always 
 filled with the joy and sweetness of Christ, they shall shine 
 as the sun in the brightness and glory which God has pre- 
 pared for those who love him. And the more obedient to 
 
122 henry's [no. VIII. 
 
 God any one hath been in this life, so much the larger 
 reward shall he receive ; and the more he hath loved God 
 here, the more nearly shall he then see him. 
 
 " Behold, most dearly beloved, I have foretold you plainly, 
 so that you may understand what things shall happen to 
 every one. No one can now plead ignorance, for life and 
 death are set before you ; the punishments of the wicked and 
 the glory of the just are told you, — now it remains for your 
 choice to take which you please ; for each will surely then 
 possess that which he hath desired and endeavoui'ed after 
 here."— p. 104 b. 
 
 These are not all the passages which might be 
 quoted to the same effect ; but surely they are more 
 than enough, and such in quality as to warrant my 
 saying that they seem as if they had been WTitten pur- 
 posely to anticipate, and refute, the charge that the 
 preachers, of whom St. Eloy is given as a specimen, 
 instead of placing " heaven and hell before the view of 
 men," only " depicted a certain fire prepared to burn 
 off the imperfections of the soul." 
 
 No. VIII. 
 
 " A modern author, who writes the history of ancient times, can have 
 no personal knowledge of the events of which he writes ; and conse- 
 quently he can have no title to the credit and confidence of the public, 
 merely on his own authority. If he does not write romance instead of 
 history, he must have received his information from tradition — from 
 authentic monuments, original records, or the memoirs of more ancient 
 writers — and therefore it is but just to acquaint his readers from whence 
 he actually received it." — Henry. 
 
 In the preceding paper, I expressed my design to go 
 on from Robertson to another popular writer ; and I 
 now beg to call the reader's attention to the historian 
 from whom I have borrowed my motto. In that part 
 
NO. VIII.] HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 123 
 
 of his History of England which treats of the tenth 
 century, Henry compassionately says : — 
 
 " That we may not entertain too contemptible an opinion 
 of our forefathers, who flourished in the benighted ages which 
 we are now examining, it is necessary to pay due attention to 
 their unhappy circumstances. To say nothing of that contempt 
 for letters which they derived from their ancestors, and of the 
 almost incessant wars in which they were engaged, it was 
 difficult, or rather impossible, for any but the clergy, and a 
 very few of the most wealthy among the laity, to obtain the 
 least smattering of learning ; because all the means of acqui- 
 ring it were far beyond their reach. It is impossible to learn 
 to read and wTite even our own native tongue, which is now 
 hardly esteemed a part of learning, without books, masters, 
 and materials for writing ; but in those ages, all these were 
 so extremely scarce and dear, that none but great princes and 
 wealthy prelates could procure them. We have already 
 heard of a large estate given by a king of Northumberland 
 for a single volume ; and the history of the middle ages 
 abounds with examples of that kind. How, then, was it 
 possible for persons of a moderate fortune to procure so 
 much as one book, much less such a number of books 
 as to make their learning to read an accomplishment that 
 would reward their trouble ? It was then as difficult to 
 borrow books as to buy them. It is a sufficient proof of this 
 that the king of France was obliged to deposit a considerable 
 quantity of plate, and to get one of his nobility to join with 
 him in a bond, under a high penalty, to return it, before he 
 could procure the loan of one volume, which may now be 
 purchased for a few shiUings. Materials for writing were 
 also very scarce and dear, which made few persons think of 
 learning that art. This was one reason of the scarcity of 
 books ; and that great estates were often transferred from one 
 owner to another by a mere verbal agreement, and the deli- 
 very of earth and stone, before witnesses, without any written 
 deed. Parchment, in particular, on which all their books 
 were written, was so difficult to be procured, that many 
 of the MSS. of the middle ages, which are still preserved, 
 appears to have been written on parchment from which some 
 former writing had been erased." — Book ii. ch. iv. vol. iv. 
 p. 80. 
 
124 henry's account [no. vhi. 
 
 After what I have said in former papers, it is, I 
 trust, quite unnecessary to make a single remark on all 
 this; which I transcribe and set before the reader, 
 instead of asking him, as I should otherwise have done, 
 to turn back to the statements of Robertson, which I 
 have from time to time quoted, and to see how far, 
 when read off without any explanation, they are calcu- 
 lated to give a true view of things. Henry has, how- 
 ever, one " hack story," of which I must take particular 
 notice ; for, notwithstanding the false impression con- 
 veyed by such absurd matter as that which I have just 
 quoted, there is really more mischief done by the little 
 pointed anecdotes with which some popular writers 
 pretend to prove or to illustrate their sweeping state- 
 ments. These stories are remembered by their readers, 
 and the semblance of particular and detailed truth in 
 one instance, gives sanction and weight to a whole 
 string of false and foolish assertions about the general 
 state of things. Perhaps it might be enough to refer 
 the reader back to the instance of the Abbot Bonus ' ; 
 but instead of that we will have an entirely new story, 
 from Henry. 
 
 Having told us that — 
 
 "All the nations of Europe were involved in such profound 
 darkness during the whole course of the tenth century, that 
 the writers of literary history are at a loss for words to paint 
 the ignorance, stupidity, and barbarism of that age.^' — (Book 
 ii. c. 4. vol. iv. p. 67.) 
 
 and having, in proof of this, referred to " Cave Histor. 
 Literar. p. 571, Brucker Hist. Philosoph. t. 3. p. 632," 
 he adds on the next page — 
 
 " The clergy in this age were almost as illiterate as the 
 laity. Some who filled the highest stations in the chiirch 
 
 • See No. IV. p. 43. 
 
NO. VIII.] OF BISHOP MEINWERC. 125 
 
 could not so much as read ; while others, who pretended to 
 be better scholars, and attempted to perform the public 
 offices, committed the most egregious blunders ; of which 
 the reader will find one example, out of many, quoted below." 
 
 At the foot of the page, we find the following 
 note : — 
 
 "Meinwerc, Bishop of Paderborn, in this century, in 
 reading the public prayers, used to say, — 'Benedic Do- 
 mine regibus et reginis mulis et mulabis [sic] tuis : — ' 
 instead of ' famulis et famulabis ; [sic\ ' which made it a 
 very ludicrous petition.' — Leibniz Coll. Script. Brunswic, 
 t. i. p. 555. 
 
 Very ludicrous indeed — What an odd person Bishop 
 Meinwerc must have been, and what a very strange 
 habit to fall into — but, without attempting to account 
 for it, farther than by saying, " it was his way," may we 
 not draw three inferences from it — first, that if Mein- 
 werc habitually made this blunder, he made a thousand 
 others like it ; secondly, that what he did, all the other 
 bishops did ; thirdly, that if the bishops were so igno- 
 rant, the priests and deacons, to say nothing of the 
 laity, were infinitely worse ? Are not these fair deduc- 
 tions ? 
 
 And yet, to say the truth, when I consider that my 
 inquiry is not whether there were any ignorant, stupid, 
 incompetent persons in the dark ages; but whether 
 there were not some of a different character, I feel 
 inclined to claim, or at least to cross-examine, this wit- 
 ness. I cannot but think that the story, even as it 
 stands, may be fairly made to say something in my 
 favour. If the bishop did make this blunder, it seems 
 that he had, at least, one hearer who knew that it was 
 a blunder, and who thought it worth while to note it 
 down as such ; which, moreover, that hearer would 
 hardly have done if conscious that he was the only 
 person capable of seeing its absurdity. Besides, if this 
 
126 BISHOP MEINWERC. [NO. VIIT. 
 
 is only " one example out of many," there must have 
 been persons in various places equally competent to 
 detect such errors ; and who, like the critic of Pader- 
 born, thought them worth recording. So that, in pro- 
 portion as the recorded blunders of this kind are 
 numerous, we may be led to suspect a thicker and 
 more extensive sprinkle of better-instructed persons. 
 I know not how else to account for the fact that 
 such things were seen and recorded as errors ; unless, 
 indeed, we assume the existence of some one indi- 
 vidual " George Seacoal," whose reading and writing in 
 this dark age came " by nature ; " and suppose him to 
 have circuited about with " the lanthorn " which he 
 had in charge, in order to "comprehend all vagrom 
 men " who broke the bounds of grammar, and who has 
 certainly acted up to the very letter of his instructions, 
 by letting his reading and writing " appear where there 
 is no need of such vanity ; " for what in the world did 
 it matter to Bishop Meinwerc's flock whether he said 
 mulis or famulis, if neither he nor they knew the dif- 
 ference ? 
 
 We cannot, however, well understand this story 
 without paying some attention to the circumstances of 
 the bishop ; and it is quite within the limits — indeed 
 in the very heart — of our subject, to inquire into the 
 proceedings of any prelate who was born in the tenth 
 century, though not (as Henry makes him) a bishop 
 until the eleventh. I might fairly inflict on the reader 
 a long pedigree, and trace up the Bishop of Paderborn 
 to the great Duke Witikind ; but it may suffice for our 
 present purpose to say, that he was born in the reign of 
 the Emperor Otho II., and was his second cousin once 
 removed; Theoderic, the father of the Empress Ma- 
 tilda, the wife of Henry the Fowler, being their com- 
 mon ancestor. His father, Imed, intending that Thie- 
 deric, the elder of his two sons, should succeed him in 
 
 1 
 
NO. VITI.] BISHOP MEINWERC. 127 
 
 his honours and possessions, devoted Meinwerc, at an 
 early age, to the clerical function, and offered him, in 
 his childhood, in the church of St. Stephen, at Halber- 
 stadt. There he received the first rudiments of his 
 education ; but was afterwards removed to Hildesheim, 
 where, among many other schoolfellows, who after- 
 wards took a leading part in the world, he had his third 
 cousin, Henry, Duke of Bavaria, afterwards Emperor, 
 better known under the title of St. Henry ^ 
 
 Otho H. died in a.d. 983, and was succeeded by his 
 son, Otho HI.; who called his kinsman, Meinwerc, to 
 court, and made him his chaplain. In this situation he 
 is said to have been esteemed and respected by all, 
 and particularly beloved by his royal master and cousin, 
 who enriched him with most liberal presents, in proof 
 of his affection — " quod videlicet suam vitam diligeret 
 ut propriam." On the death of that Emperor, in 
 A.D. 1002, among many candidates for the empire, the 
 successful one was Henry of Bavaria, who was related 
 to Meinwerc in precisely the same degree as his 
 predecessor in the empire had been, and who was per- 
 haps bound to him by what is often the closer and 
 
 2 I should have thought that there was such a difference between the 
 ages of Meinwerc and the emperor, as could not have allowed of their 
 being school-fellows. But the author of the life to which Henry refers, so 
 distinctly states not only that it was so, but that it was in the time of 
 Otho the Second, that I do not know how to dispute it, though I cannot 
 reconcile it even with the dates which he gives himself in various parts of 
 his work. He says that Meinwerc went to Hildesheim, " ubi Heinricus 
 filius Ducis Bajoarise Heinrici, cum aliis plurimis, honori et decori ecclesise 
 Christi suo tempore, profuturis, secum theoriae studiis continuam operam 
 dedit .... Acceptus autem de scholis, vixit in prsedicta Halverstadensi 
 Ecclesia sub Praeposito canonical legis, omnibus carus et amabilis, aspectu 
 et colloquio affabilis, actu et eloquio irreprehensibilis. Eo tempore mon- 
 archiam Romani Imperii Otto ejusdem nominis secundus strenue guber- 
 nabat." — p. 519. It is not worth while to discuss the chronology of the 
 matter. If it be a mistake to suppose that the emperor and the bishop 
 were school-fellows, it is beyond all doubt that they were cousins and 
 play-fellows. 
 
128 BISHOP MEINWERC. [nO. VIII. 
 
 stronger tie of school-fellowship. The chaplain became 
 the inseparable companion of his royal master — "de 
 Karo fit Karissimus ; factusque est ei in negotiis pub- 
 licis et privatis comes irremotissimus." 
 
 After some time — that is to say, in the year 1009 — 
 the see of Paderborn became vacant by the death of 
 Rhetarius, who had been bishop for twenty years. 
 Messengers from the church announced the fact to the 
 emperor, who was then at Goslar, and prayed him to 
 appoint a successor. This, however, was not so easy a 
 matter ; for, about nine years before, the city of Pader- 
 born had been burned ; and the noble monastery, con- 
 taining the cathedral, had been all but entirely de- 
 stroyed. Rhetarius had, indeed, done what he could 
 with the pope, and the Emperor Otho III.; and had 
 obtained from them (what was, no doubt, very impor- 
 tant as far as it went) a full confirmation to the church 
 of all the rights and property which it had possessed 
 before the conflagration ; but it does not appear that 
 he got anything from them towards repairing losses. 
 When, however, Henry, his successor, came to the 
 throne of the empire, he made it his study and his 
 business to advance the interests of the church ; and 
 when Rhetarius applied to him, he gave him a forest. 
 When he came at another time to beg for his church, 
 the emperor not having (as the historian says with 
 great simplicity) at the moment any thing which he 
 could conveniently give him (rege autem in promptu 
 quod daret non habente), his chaplain, Meinwerc, gave 
 his royal master a farm, which belonged to himself, 
 which the emperor immediately transferred to the 
 bishop. 
 
 Still, notwithstanding the exertions of Rhetarius, the 
 see remained in a state of wretched poverty as long as 
 he lived ; and it was difficult to know how to fill up 
 the vacancy occasioned by his death. The emperor 
 
NO. VIII.] BISHOP MEINWERC. 129 
 
 having, however, convened such bishops and princes as 
 attended him at Goslar, consulted with them as to the 
 appointment of a bishop who should be most suited to 
 the circumstances of time and place. After long deli- 
 beration, and canvassing the merits of a good many- 
 persons, all agreed that Meinwerc was the fittest man. 
 In coming to this decision, they were avowedly in- 
 fluenced by his rank and wealth ; but it is only justice 
 to him to say, that I find nothing against his moral 
 character, nor even any thing which should authorize 
 me to say that he had not a true zeal for God, though 
 it might not be, in all respects, according to know- 
 ledge. The council, however, were unanimous ; and 
 the emperor (faventibus et congratulantibus omnibus) 
 sent for the chaplain ; and, when he came, smiling with 
 his usual kindness, he held out a glove, and said — 
 " Take this." Meinwerc, who can hardly be supposed 
 to have been quite ignorant of what was going on, and 
 who understood the nature of the symbol, inquired 
 what he was to take. " The see of Paderborn," replied 
 the emperor. The chaplain, with all the freedom of a 
 kinsman and old school-fellow, asked his royal master 
 how he could suppose that he wished for such a 
 bishopric, when he had property enough of his own to 
 endow a better. The emperor, with equal frankness, 
 replied that that was just the very thing that he was 
 thinking of — that his reason for selecting him was that 
 he might take pity on that desolate church, and help it 
 in its need. " Well, then," said Meinwerc, heartily, 
 *' I will take it on those terms ; and then and there — 
 namely, at Goslar, on the next Sunday, being the 
 second Sunday in Lent, and the thirteenth of March, 
 1009, he was consecrated Bishop of Paderborn, by 
 Willigisus, Archbishop of Mentz, and the other bishops 
 who were there. 
 
 "Being therefore," says his biographer, " raised to 
 
 K 
 
130 BISHOP MEINWERC. [nO. VIII. 
 
 the episcopal office, he constantly watched over the 
 flock committed to him ; and, fearing lest he should 
 incur the reproach of the slothful servant, who hid his 
 lord's money in a napkin, he did nothing remissly. As 
 to external duties, in the general government of the 
 clergy and people, he laboured diligently with heart and 
 body in his episcopal superintendence ; and, as to inter- 
 nal labours, he without ceasing made intercession to 
 God for them all, by w^atchings, fastings, and the sacri- 
 fice of prayers." He immediately made over his here- 
 ditary property to the see ; and on the third day after 
 his arrival he pulled down the mean beginnings of a 
 cathedral, which his predecessor had built up, and 
 erected one at great expense, and with singular magni- 
 ficence — sumptu ingenti et magnificentia singulari. His 
 personal attention to the work, and his kindness to the 
 workmen, made the building go on rapidly ; and he did 
 not fail to call upon the emperor, who frequently came 
 to Paderborn, and took great interest in its proceed- 
 ings, for his full share of the expense ; and Henry 
 and his empress, Chunigunda, contributed largely and 
 willingly. 
 
 A circumstance which occurred during one of the 
 emperor's visits tends so much to illustrate the cha- 
 racter of the bishop, and of the times, that I am induced 
 to transcribe it. It quite belongs to our subject ; and, 
 indeed to our immediate purpose, so far as it shews 
 that Meinwerc was rather a severe disciplinarian, and 
 that if he performed the services of the church dis- 
 reputably himself, he did not allow others to do it, 
 or even to run the risque of it, with impunity. There 
 was in those days an eccentric saint — or the church of 
 Rome has made him once since — named Heimrad. 
 He was a native of Swabia, and, as far as I know, a 
 good sort of fanatic ; who, after wandering about, and 
 doing a great many strange things, settled down in a 
 
NO. VIII.] BISHOP MEINWERC. 131 
 
 little cell, or hut, at Hasungen. Previously to this, 
 however, in the course of his rambles, he came to 
 Paderborn, and suddenly made his appearance before 
 the bishop; who being startled at the sight of his 
 sickly countenance and his long figure, rendered ghastly 
 and unsightly by fasting and rags, inquired whence 
 " that devil " had risen. Heimrad having meekly 
 replied that he was not a devil, the bishop inquired if 
 he was a priest ; and learning that he had that day 
 celebrated mass, he immediately ordered that the books 
 which he had used should be produced. Finding that 
 they were written in a slovenly manner, and were of 
 no value (incomptos et neglectos et nullius ponderis 
 aut pretii) he caused them to be immediately put in 
 the fire ; and, by command of the Empress, who sym- 
 pathized with the "just zeal " of the bishop, he farther 
 ordered that the unlucky priest should be flogged. 
 
 After this. Count Dodico, of Warburg, (a person of 
 some consequence in the early history of the see of 
 Paderborn) invited the bishop to keep the feast of St. 
 Andrew, at his castle; and on the very eve of the 
 festival, whom should the bishop see seated opposite to 
 him, at supper, but this identical Heimrad. He was 
 not a little moved, and inquired what could induce a 
 man of his host's respectability to keep such company ; 
 and then, breaking out into severe abuse of the poor 
 solitary, he called him a crazy apostate. Heimrad took 
 it all very quietly, and said not a word; but Count 
 Dodico began to apologize to the bishop, for whom he 
 had a sincere respect, and endeavoured to soothe him 
 by assurances that he had no idea that the recluse was 
 in any way oifensive to him. All his endeavours were, 
 however, in vain, and the bishop was not to be appeased. 
 On the contrary, he declared that as people chose to 
 consider Heimrad as a saint, he would put him to the 
 test; and, in the presence of all the company, he 
 
 K 2 
 
132 BISHOP MEINWERC. [no. VIII. 
 
 ordered that he should sing the Hallelujah at mass the 
 next day, on pain of being flogged. The Count at first 
 attempted to beg him off; but finding that he only 
 added fuel to the flame, he took the recluse apart, as 
 soon as lauds were over, and endeavoured to console 
 him. He besought him to bear this trial as one of 
 those which are appointed for the purification of the 
 saints — to make the attempt, beginning in the name of 
 the Trinity, and trusting in God for the event. Heimrad 
 did not at all like the prospect, and earnestly requested 
 leave to creep away quietly to his cell at Hasungen ; 
 but at length, overcome by the Count's entreaties, he 
 acquiesced. When the time came, another attempt 
 was made to beg him off; but the bishop continuing 
 inexorable, he began, and in fact chanted the whole 
 with such propriety, and in so agreeable a manner, that 
 the company were astonished, and declared that they 
 had never heard sweeter modulation from any man. 
 The bishop, as soon as mass was over, taking Heimrad 
 aside, fell at his feet, and having humbly asked, and 
 quickly obtained, pardon for his conduct towards him, 
 became, from that time forth, his constant and faithful 
 friend. 
 
 But, though I give these anecdotes as characteristic 
 of the bishop and the times, and therefore illustrative 
 of our subject, it will be more immediately to our pre- 
 sent purpose to give one or two which shew the terms 
 on which the bishop stood with the emperor, and some 
 passages which occurred between them. Those terms 
 cannot, perhaps, be more briefly or more clearly ex- 
 plained, than by saying that these two schoolfellows 
 still behaved to each other rather more in the manner 
 of schoolboys than was quite becoming in a bishop and 
 an emperor, as will appear; but first, let me premise 
 that from the time when he became Bishop of Pader- 
 bom, Meinwerc seems to have devoted himself — that 
 
NO. VIII.] BISHOP MEINWERC. 133 
 
 is, his property, his time, his thoughts, words, and 
 deeds, — to the aggrandizement of his see. He was, his 
 biographer tells us, skilful in getting all that was to be 
 had, as well as faithful in taking care of what he had 
 got — " in acquirendis utilis, in conservandis fidelis ^" 
 
 As to the latter point, many stories are recorded 
 which shew that he laboured most energetically in 
 conducting the affairs of his diocese, which he seems to 
 have governed with an extraordinary degree both of 
 severity and kindness, so as to have been, in a peculiar 
 degree, a terror to evil doers, and a praise to those who 
 did well. He superintended, in person, the buildings 
 which the circumstances already mentioned required, 
 until he had got them so far advanced that he could be 
 spared to look after the country estates of the diocese ; 
 and then perpetually visiting them, from time to time, 
 he took care that all things were managed decently and 
 in order, and raised the serfs to a degree of comfort 
 which they had not before enjoyed. Once, riding 
 through one of the farms belonging to the bishopric, he 
 told some of his companions to ride their own, or to 
 turn some loose, horses into some corn, which was 
 being thrashed under cover; saying, that if the serfs 
 were faithful, they would resist them, but if they were 
 unfaithful to the steward, they would rejoice in a mis- 
 chief which would bring loss upon him. The serfs, 
 however, under pretence of paying their obeisance to 
 the bishop, all ran away ; and the horses began to 
 devour and trample on the corn. The bishop imme- 
 
 ^ It might perhaps be said of him, as it was of an abbot of much the 
 same period — " cum esset vir strenuus, et suam rempublicam semper aug- 
 mentare toto anhelaret desiderio." — Mab. A. S. torn. vi. p. 405. Such 
 hints as these contain a good deal, and are a key to a good deal more, and 
 must be borne in mind when we read such notes as I have adverted to in 
 the note, p. 104, about carcass-hunting bishops who wanted " to amass 
 riches." 
 
134 BISHOP MEINWERC. [NO. VIII. 
 
 diately taxed the labourers with their want of faith, 
 had them severely flogged, and then gave them an un- 
 commonly good dinner (ciborum copiis abundantissime 
 reficiens), and a paternal admonition on fidelity to their 
 master ; all which together had so excellent an effect, 
 that when he next visited the place he found himself 
 shut out by their faithful vigilance, and was obliged to 
 make his way into the premises by stealth. Having 
 done so, he heard the woman of the house complaining 
 that the labourers on that farm had nothing but a very 
 spare allowance of meal ; whereupon he ordered that 
 two of the gammons of bacon which the steward was 
 bound to furnish every year should be detained for 
 them. 
 
 ; I should like to gossip on with an account of his 
 visits to other farms, and to tell how he once got into 
 the kitchen of his monastery by himself, and investi- 
 gated the contents of the pots which were boiling at 
 the fire, in order to see that his monks had proper 
 food ; and how, at another time, he went there in a lay 
 habit, to have a little chat on the same subject with 
 the cook, who, in reply to his inquiries, informed him 
 that the living there was very good as concerning the 
 soul, but very poor in respect of the body ; and how — 
 for he seems always to have been on the alert — he 
 went through his diocese in the disguise of a pedlar, in 
 order that he might see for himself how things were 
 going on. I should like, I say, to transcribe some of 
 these anecdotes, for they are really — not like some 
 which we find produced as such — characteristic of the 
 times ; but I am afraid of being tedious ; and whatever 
 might be his care in preserving, it is more to our pur- 
 pose to shew that he was diligent in acquiring. In that 
 matter, he did not spare his imperial schoolfellow. In- 
 deed, there seems to have been an understanding — or, 
 in the language of the schools, they seem to have 
 
NO. VIII.] BISHOP MEINWERC. 135 
 
 " made it fair "—between them, that the bishop should 
 get all he could by force or fraud, and that in return 
 the emperor should love him heartily, growl at him 
 occasionally, and now and then make a fool of him. 
 As to the latter point, however, the emperor seems 
 generally to have had the worst of it in the long run, 
 as will appear from one or two instances. 
 
 Once, when Henry was going to hear mass at the 
 cathedral, he ordered the altar to be decked with the 
 costly apparatus of royalty, and bade his people keep a 
 sharp look-out, lest the bishop should get hold of any- 
 thing, as he was very apt to do. Meinwerc said mass 
 himself, and after the Agnus Dei^ he entered the pulpit, 
 and began to discuss the difference between the imperial 
 and sacerdotal dignity, and the superiority of the latter, 
 affirming that matters of divine right were above human 
 authority, and shewing by the canons that whatsoever 
 was consecrated to the uses of divine service was under 
 the sacerdotal jurisdiction. He therefore put under a 
 bann all the ecclesiastical ornaments and priestly vest- 
 ments which had just been used, and threatened with 
 excommunication any person who should remove them. 
 On another occasion, the emperor sent him, after 
 vespers, his own golden cup, of exquisite workmanship, 
 full of drink *, charging the messenger not to see his 
 face again without the cup. The bishop received the 
 present with many thanks, and got the messenger into 
 a long chat, during which he seems to have forgotten 
 the business which brought him there, and the emperor's 
 charge — at least, somehow or other, he went away 
 without the cup — and the bishop, taking care to have 
 the doors fastened after him, sent immediately for his 
 
 * The laxity with which writers of this age use the word " sicera" sanc- 
 tions the ambiguous expression which I use. If not very elegant, it is 
 better than talking of beer between such parties. 
 
136 BISHOP MEINWERC. [XO. VIII. 
 
 goldsmiths, Brunhard, and his son, Erpho, and, in the 
 course of tlie night, which immediately preceded Christ- 
 mas-day, the cup was converted into a chalice. One of 
 the emperor's chaplains, who officiated as sub-deacon 
 at mass the next day, recognized the cup, and took it 
 to the emperor, who charged the bishop with theft, and 
 told him that God abhorred robbery for burnt offering. 
 Meinwerc replied that he had only robbed the vanity 
 and avarice of Henry, by consecrating their subject to 
 the service of God ; and dared him to take it away. 
 " I will not," said the emperor, " take away that which 
 has been devoted to the service of God; but I will 
 myself humbly offer to him that which is my own pro- 
 perty ; and do you honour the Lord, who vouchsafed as 
 on this night to be born for the salvation of all men, by 
 the performance of your own duties." 
 
 At another time, the emperor had a mantle of mar- 
 vellous beauty, and exquisite workmanship. Meinwerc 
 had often begged it for his church in vain ; and there- 
 fore, on one occasion, when the emperor was intent on 
 some particular business, he fairly snatched it from his 
 person, and made off with it. The emperor charged 
 him with robbery, and threatened to pay him off for it 
 sometime or other. Meinwerc replied that it was 
 much more proper that such a mantle should hang in 
 the temple of God, than on his mortal body, and that 
 he did not care for his threats. They were, however, 
 carried into execution in the following manner: — "The 
 emperor knowing that the bishop, being occupied in 
 a great variety of secular business, was now and then 
 guilty of a barbarism, both in writing and in speaking 
 Latin, with the help of his chaplain effaced the syllable 
 fa from the words famulis and famulobus, which form 
 part of a collect in the service for the defunct, in the 
 missal ; and then called on the bishop to say a mass for 
 the souls of his father and mother. Meinwerc, there- 
 
NO. VIII.] BISHOP MEINWERC. 137 
 
 fore, being unexpectedly called on to perform the ser- 
 vice, and hastening to do it, read on as he found writ- 
 ten, mulis and mulabus, but, perceiving the mistake, he 
 repeated the words correctly. After mass, the emperor 
 said, in a sarcastic manner, to the bishop, ' I asked you 
 to say mass for my father and mother, not for my male 
 and female mules.' But he replied, ' By the mother of 
 our Lord, you have been at your old tricks, and have 
 made a fool of me again ; and now, in no common way, 
 but in the service of our God. This he who is my 
 Judge has declared that he will avenge ; for that which 
 is done to him he will not pass by unpunished.' There- 
 upon, he immediately convened the canons in the chap- 
 ter-house of the cathedral, ordered the emperor's chap- 
 lain, who had been a party to the trick, to be most 
 severely flogged ; and then, having dressed him in new 
 clothes, sent him back to the emperor to tell him what 
 had happened \" 
 
 And here, good reader, you have, I believe, the whole 
 and sole foundation for the notable story of Bishop 
 Meinwerc and his mules. If you have been at church 
 
 * " Sciens autern Iraperator, episcopum saecularibus negotiis multiplici- 
 ter occupatum, tam latinitatis locutione quam in lectione barbarismi vitia 
 non semel incurrere, de missali in quadam coUecta pro defunctis, fa de 
 famuUs, etfamulabus, cum capellano suo delevit, et episcopum pro requie 
 animarum patris sui et matris missam celebrare rogavit. Episcopus igitur 
 ex imprdviso missam celebrare accelerans, ut scriptum reperit mulis et 
 mulabus dixit ; sed errorem recognoscens, repetitis verbis, quod male dixe- 
 rat, correxit. Post missam insultans Imperator Pontifici, ' Ego,' inquit, 
 ' Patri meo et matri, non mulis et mulabus meis missam celebrari rogavi.' 
 At ille, * Per matrem,' ait, ' Domini, tu more solito iterum illusisti mihi, 
 et non quoquo modo, verum in Dei nostri servitio. Cujus ero vindex, en 
 promittit mens judex. Namque sibi factum non pertransibit inultum.' 
 Illico canonicis in capitolium principalis ecclesiae convocatis, capellanum 
 Imperatoris, hujus rei conscium, durissime verberibus castigari jussit, cas- 
 tigatumque novis vestibus indutum ad Imperatorem, nuntiaturum quae 
 facta fuerant, remisit." I suspect that the reply of Meinwerc, from the 
 word " Cujus," &c. is a quotation from some hymn ; though it is printed 
 like prose, and certainly can hardly be called verse. 
 
138 BISHOP MEINWERC. [NO. VIII. 
 
 as often as you should have been in these five yeai-s 
 past, perhaps you have heard King George prayed for 
 by men who were neither stupid nor careless ; but who 
 were oflSciating from a book which had not been cor- 
 rected. I am sure I have heard it within these six 
 months; — but there is no need to apologize for the 
 bishop. 
 
 "Oh! but he ^used to say' this." Well, that is one 
 of those things which, as they admit of only one reply, 
 very commonly receive none at all from civil people. 
 "But it is only 'one example out Qimanyy Perhaps 
 so; but I really do not recollect any story like it, 
 except the notorious mumpsimus, and one which looks 
 almost like another version of what we have just had, 
 and which T know only from its being quoted by 
 Lomeier ^ in connexion with another dark-age anec- 
 dote which is too good to be passed by, and which 
 shews, in dismal colours, the horrible ignorance of the 
 clergy. "A certain bishop, named Otto, is said to 
 have recommended a clerk to another bishop for an 
 ecclesiastical office in these terms — ' Otto Dei gratia, 
 rogat vestram clementiam, ut velith istum clericum condu- 
 cere ad vestrum diaconum.' The words being abbrevi- 
 ated, the clerk, who was directed to read it to the 
 bishop, read thus : — ' Otto Dei gram rogat vestram clam, 
 ut velit istum clincum clancum convertere in vivum diaho- 
 
 ^ De Bibliothecis, cap. viii., de Bibliothecis sub ipsa barbaric, p. 147. 
 [It is a pity not to have as many such good stories as we can, and there- 
 fore I add one which I have met with since I wrote the foregoing para- 
 graph. Bruno, in his account of the Emperor Henry IV., who reigned 
 from A. D. 1056 to a. d. 1106, tells us, that among his other wicked deeds, 
 he appointed to the see of Bamberg (tam rebus exterius divitem, quam 
 sapientibus personis intus venerabilem) an ignoramus, who read out in 
 divine service (coram sapientibus clericis) that the earth, instead of being 
 void, vacua, was a cow, vacca. " Ipse," adds the indignant historian, 
 " nimirum, licet bipes, vacca bruta et omni probitate vacua." — {Saxon. 
 Belli Hist, ap Freh. Ger. Rer. Scr. Tom. I. p. 179; old Ed. p. 105) 
 Surely there must have been sojne critical ears in those days.] 
 
NO. VIII.] BISHOP MEINWERC. 139 
 
 lumy The other story is of a clerk, who turned 
 Sueno, king of Norway, into a mule by the same mis- 
 take as Meinwerc's. As to the truth or falsehood of 
 these statements, I have never inquired ; and I have 
 not, at present, the means of consulting the author to 
 whom Lomeier refers. 
 
 But is it not lamentable that learned men should 
 credit and circulate such stories? I do not mean 
 Henry ^ ; for, notwithstanding what he says, and what 
 I have quoted at the head of this paper, I do not 
 believe that he really took the story from the book to 
 which he refers. I think I know where he picked it 
 up ; and I believe it is more charitable — at least it is 
 imputing what is, of the two, least disgraceful — to 
 suppose that he took the story (notwithstanding his 
 profession quoted as the motto to this paper) from a 
 respectable writer, than to suppose that he made up 
 the falsehood himself from such an original as he refers 
 to, and 1 have just transcribed. He had, as I have 
 stated near the beginning of this paper, almost imme- 
 diately before quoted page 632 of the third volume of 
 Brucker's History of Philosophy, and on the 634th 
 page of that volume, and in the selection entitled 
 "Facies literarum et philosophise sseculo X.," stands 
 this very story of Meinwerc in these terms — " Mein- 
 wercum episcopum Paderbornensem ne recte legere 
 quidem potuisse, et in psalterio legisse : Benedic Da- 
 mine regibus et reginis mulis et mulahus tuis, pro famulis 
 et famulabus tuis." Brucker's reference is, "In ejus 
 vita in Leibniz. Coll. Script. Brunsuic. T. I. p. 555." 
 And, really, if it were in any way possible, I should 
 
 ^ And still less Mr. Andrews, already introduced to the reader as a 
 retailer of such things. He prefaces this story by saying, " The pre- 
 lates set examples of the most gross want of common literature. Mein- 
 hard. Bishop of Panderborn, used to read," &c. Yet he gives no reference 
 but to the original. Does anybody believe that he had seen it ? 
 
140 BISHOP MEINWERC. [nO. VIII. 
 
 believe that Briicker had had some other edition, or 
 some other authority, for the story. He tells us, that 
 it was in the psalter^ and affects to give us the words. 
 Henry seems to have been sensible of the absurdity of 
 this ; and, not knowing what particular part to substi- 
 tute, he says, it was " in the public prayers." I speak 
 thus, because I cannot doubt that he took it from 
 Brucker, though not perhaps immediately; and my 
 belief is strengthened by a trifling circumstance, which 
 is perhaps worth mentioning, because it is desirable to 
 trace error when we can. Who has not heard of 
 Leibnitz ? Thousands have known the philosopher by 
 name or character, who never took the trouble to learn 
 that he was librarian of the Royal and Electoral Library 
 of Brunswick-Luneburg ; and who never had the plea- 
 sure of reading his three folios containing the " Scrip- 
 tores Rerum Brunsvicensium illustrationi inservientes ;" 
 — his name is familiar, but how often have they seen it 
 spelt (by any writer of English, to say the least) with- 
 out a ^? He calls himself, on the title-page of this 
 work, " Leibnitius ;" and I do not remember ever to 
 have seen his name without the t, except in this very 
 volume of Brucker, and in Henry's reference. 
 
 I must, however, notice, that Brucker adds to his 
 account of the matter, "unde vix credi protest quod 
 idem vitse Meinwerci scriptor refert, ^ studiorum multU 
 plicia sub eo fioruisse e^ercitia, et honcB indolis juvenes et 
 pueros strenue fuisse institutos.'"^ Incredible as this 
 might appear to Brucker, it is certainly true that the 
 same authority which tells us that Meinwerc was guilty 
 of occasional barbarisms in writing and speaking Latin, 
 (which implies that he was not unfrequently called on 
 to do both,) was a promoter of education. Indeed, the 
 foolish trick which has given rise to all this discussion, 
 was not such as to have been worth playing, or as was 
 likely to have been even thought of, among perfectly 
 
NO. IX.] THE FEAST OF THE ASS. 141 
 
 illiterate barbarians. What wit or fun could there be 
 in leading a man into a blunder, which nobody could 
 know to be a blunder? The same authority tells us, 
 that the schools of Paderborn, then founded, became 
 more famous in the time of Imadus, who was the 
 nephew and successor of Meinwerc, and brought up by 
 him ; " sub quo in Patherbornensi ecclesia publica flo- 
 ruerunt studia : quando ibi mttsici fuerunt et dialecticiy 
 enituerunt rhetorici, clarique grammatici ; quando ma- 
 gistri artium exercebant trivium, quibus omne studium 
 erat circa quadrivium ; ubi mathematici claruerunt et 
 astronomici, habebantur phi/sici, et geometrici : viguit 
 HoratiuSi magnus et Virgilius, Crispus ac Salustius et 
 Urbanus Statins : Ludusque fuit omnibus insudare ver- 
 sibus, et dictaminibus jocundisque cantibus. Quorum 
 in scriptura et pidura jugis instantia claret multipliciter 
 hodiema experientia; dum studium nobilium clerico- 
 rum usu perpenditur utilium librorum." Make what 
 allowance you like for exaggeration, but let the words 
 have some meaning ; and if you do this you will never 
 be able to make them square with the letter, still less 
 with the spirit, of these absurd stories. 
 
 No. IX. 
 
 LI. Attate ! modo hercle in mentem venit. 
 Nimis vellem habere perticara. LE. Quoi rei ? LI. Qui verberarem 
 Asinos." — Plautus. 
 
 There is one of Robertson's proofs and illustrations, 
 which I intended to notice, but I really forgot it when 
 I passed on to Henry's history of England — a blunder 
 the more stupid, because it is another note immediately 
 following the note respecting St. Eloy ; and I actually 
 
142 THE FEAST OF THE ASS. [NO. IX. 
 
 quoted the text to which it belongs, and in which 
 Robertson tells us, that "the external ceremonies, 
 which then formed the whole of religion, were either 
 so unmeaning as to be altogether unworthy of the 
 Being to whose honour they were consecrated, or so 
 absurd as to be a disgrace to reason and humanity." 
 The note is as follows : — 
 
 " It is no inconsiderable misfortune to the church of Rome, 
 whose doctrine of infallibility renders all such institutions and 
 ceremonies as have been once universally received immutable 
 and everlasting, that she must continue to observe in enUght- 
 ened times those rites which were introduced during the ages 
 of darkness and credulity. What delighted and edified the 
 latter, must disgust and shock the former. Many of these 
 rites appear manifestly to have been introd\iced by a super- 
 stition of the lowest and most illiberal species. Many of 
 them were borrowed, with httle variation, from the religious 
 ceremonies established among the ancient heathens. Some 
 were so ridiculous, that, if every age did not furnish instances 
 of the fascinating influence of superstition, as well as of the 
 whimsical forms which it assumes, it must appear incredible 
 that they should ever be received or tolerated. In several 
 churches of France, they celebrated a festival in commemora- 
 tion of the Virgin Mary's flight into Egypt. It was called 
 the feast of the Ass. A young girl richly dressed, with a 
 child in her arms, was set upon an ass superbly caparisoned. 
 The ass was led to the altar in solemn procession. High 
 mass was said with great pomp. The ass was taught to 
 kneel at proper places ; a hymn no less childish than impious 
 was sung in his praise : And, when the ceremony was ended, 
 the priest, instead of the usual words with which he dismissed 
 the people, brayed three times like an ass ; and the people, 
 instead of their usual response. We bless the Lord, brayed 
 three times in the same manner. Du Cange, voc. Festum. v. 
 iii. p. 424. This ridiculous ceremony was not, like the fes- 
 tival of fools, and some other pageants of those ages, a mere 
 farcical entertainment exhibited in a church, and mingled, as 
 was then the custom, with an imitation of some religious 
 rites ; it was an act of devotion, performed by the ministers 
 of religion, and by the authority of the church. However 
 
NO. IX.] THE FEAST OF THE ASS. 143 
 
 as this practice did not prevail universally in the Catholic 
 church, its absurdity contributed at last to abolish it." — 
 p. 237. 
 
 I copy this note, not so much as a specimen of broad, 
 barefaced falsehood, or gross mistake, such as I have 
 before presented to the reader's notice, — though, as it 
 regards the misrepresentation of facts, it is worth look- 
 ing at, — as for some other reasons, which will, I hope, 
 appear satisfactory. 
 
 First, however, as to the fact, — which it is always 
 well to examine in such cases, — that is, in all " won- 
 derful-if-true " stories, told by persons of whose know- 
 ledge or veracity we have any doubt. The reader is 
 welcome to put this rule in practice with regard to 
 myself, and my communication, for he may naturally 
 be somewhat incredulous when I tell him, that the 
 Feast of the Ass was not " a festival in commemora- 
 tion of the Virgin Mary's flight into Egypt," — that 
 the Virgin Mary had nothing to do with the matter, 
 and, so far as appears, was not even mentioned in it, — 
 and that the Ass from whom the festival derived its 
 name was not that on which she fled into Egypt, (if, 
 indeed, any such ass ever existed,) but the ass of 
 Balaam. Of this whoever pleases may satisfy himself 
 by turning to Du Cange, as cited by Robertson. 
 
 Secondly, as to the fact.— Though Robertson cites 
 Du Cange, it is not for the Feast of the Ass, but for 
 the story about the " young girl richly dressed," &c. ; 
 which (though Robertson has confounded the two 
 things) had nothing whatever to do with the Feast of 
 the Ass, and is not mentioned, or even alluded to, by 
 Du Cange. I do not mean to be hypercritical, or 
 quibbling. There is an account of this folly at the 
 volume and page of the book which we may familiarly 
 call " Du Cange,"— that is, the Benedictine edition of 
 
144 THE FEAST OF THE ASS. [XO. IX. 
 
 Du Gauge's Glossary, which expanded his three folios 
 into ten, — but it is important to observe, that the 
 account of this custom formed no part of the original 
 work ; and that, therefore, the custom itself may be 
 presumed to have been unknown to Du Cange ; and 
 how far any thing of that kind, which was at all gene- 
 ral, or of long standing, was likely to have escaped him, 
 those who are even slightly acquainted with his Glos- 
 sary will be able to judge. 
 
 Thirdly, as to the fact, — Du Cange does give, from 
 the Ordinal of the Cathedral of Rouen, the office (or 
 more properly, the rubric — or, more properly still, the 
 stage-directions of the office) appointed for the Feast 
 of Asses ; which was a sort of interlude performed in 
 some churches at Christmas. I do not know whether 
 it would be possible now to learn what was said or sung 
 by the various characters, as the account of Du Cange 
 contains only the rubric, and the initiatory words of 
 each part; but the dramatis personse appear to have 
 been numerous and miscellaneous ; and I can only 
 account for the total absence of the Virgin Mary, by 
 supposing that it arose from superior respect. There 
 were Jews and Gentiles as the representatives of their 
 several bodies, Moses and Aaron, and the Prophets, 
 Virgilius Maro, Nebuchadnezzar, the Sibyl],&c. Among 
 them, however, was Balaam on his ass ; and this (not, 
 one would think, the most important or striking part 
 of the show) seems to have suited the popular taste, 
 and given the name to the whole performance and 
 festival. I should have supposed, that Nebuchadnezzar's 
 delivering over the three children to his armed men, 
 and their burning them in a furnace made on purpose 
 in the middle of the church, would have been a more 
 imposing part of the spectacle ; but I pretend not to 
 decide in matters of taste, and certainly Balaam's ass 
 
NO. IX.] FEAST OF THE ASS. 145 
 
 appears to have been the favourite K The plan of the 
 piece seems to have been, that each of the persons was 
 called out in his turn to sing or say something suitable 
 to his character ; and among others, " Balaam ornatus 
 sedens super asinam (hinc festo nomen) hahens calcaria, 
 retineat Im-a, et calcarihus percutiat asinam, et quidam 
 juvenis, tenens gladium, ohstet asince. Quidam sid) asina 
 dicat. Cur me calcaribus miseram sic Iseditis ? Hoc dicto 
 Angelus ei dicaU Desine Regis Balac prseceptum perfi- 
 cere. Vocatores Balaun, Balaun, esto vaticinans. Tunc 
 Balaun respondeat, Exibit ex Jacob rutilans," &c. 
 
 I am afraid that some persons give me credit for 
 defending a good deal of nonsense ; and, therefore, let 
 me say at once, that I am not going to defend this. I 
 acknowledge that it was nonsense — nonsense that came 
 very near, if not to actual, profaneness, at least to some- 
 thing like the desecration of holy things. The age, 
 I admit, was dark ; the performers were probably igno- 
 rant ; in short, the reader may say what he pleases of 
 the Feast of Asses, and of all the animals, biped or 
 other, concerned in it, if he will only bear in mind one 
 other fact, — a fact almost incredible, perhaps, to those 
 who do not know how Robertson muddled the chrono- 
 logy of his proofs and illustrations, yet very true, — 
 namely, that, notwithstanding all he had said about the 
 period from the seventh to the eleventh century, and the 
 immediate connexion about heathen converts retaining 
 their barbarous rites — notwithstanding all this, the 
 Ordinal of Rouen, which is Du Gauge's sole authority 
 
 * Indeed, he seems to be always a favourite with the public, and to give 
 the tone and the title wherever he appears. The ass is the only link 
 which unites these two stories, and in each he seems to be put forth as 
 the principal character. So it was, when, in the twelfth century, an order 
 of monks was formed, whose humility (or at least their Rule) did not per- 
 mit them to ride on horseback. The public (I hope to the satisfaction of 
 the humble men) entirely overlooked them, eclipsed as they were by the 
 animals on which they rode, and called it Ordo Asinorum. 
 
 L 
 
146 FEAST OF THE ASS. [XO. IX. 
 
 on the subject, is a MS. of the fifteenth century. How 
 long the Feast of Asses had been celebrated at that 
 time I really do not know; and I shall be obliged to 
 anybody who will tell me^ — nor do I know how long 
 it was suffered to continue — but that it flourished when 
 this MS. was written seems clear ; and to bring it 
 forward as a special and characteristic sin of the dark 
 ages, is too bad. 
 
 Fourthly, as to the fact — Though the Feast of Asses 
 had nothing to do with the flight of the Virgin, yet 
 that latter event was celebrated, it appears, in some 
 churches in the diocese of Beauvais, on the 14th of 
 January, with some of the absurdities mentioned by 
 Robertson. This, at least, is stated by the editors of 
 Du Cange ; who give no account of their authority, or 
 any idea of its date, except that for the " hymn no less 
 childish than impious " which they quote, they say that 
 they have the authority of a MS. five hundred years 
 old ; which of course throws the matter back into the 
 thirteenth century ^. They add, that the same silly cere- 
 mony was performed in the diocese of Autun ; but for 
 this they give no authority at all. Such appears to 
 
 ' The following passage from Warton's History of Poetry has been 
 cited against me : — " Grosthead, bishop of Lincoln in the eleventh century, 
 orders his dean and chapter to abolish the Festum Asinorum cum sit 
 vanitate plenum, et voluptatibus spurcum, which used to be annually cele- 
 brated in Lincoln Cathedral, on the Feast of the Circumcision. Grosstesti 
 Epistol. xxxii. apud Browne's Fascic. p. 331. edit. Lond. 1690. torn ii. 
 Append. And p. 412." Vol. II. p. 367. Beside the general issue that 
 Warton's authority in such matters is not worth a rush, it may be pleaded 
 in this particular case, first, that Bishop Grosteste's letter does not belong 
 to the eleventh, but the thirteenth century ; and, secondly, that it says not 
 a word of the Feast of Asses, but only of the Feast of Fools, which was a 
 totally different matter. I believe that this blunder is corrected in the 
 octavo edition of Warton's History, published in 1840. 
 
 ' Should this meet the eye of any gentleman whose reading in early 
 French has enabled him to judge, from the language, as to the date of the 
 song in question, I should feel much obliged by his referring to it, and 
 communicating his opinion. 
 
NO. IX.] FEAST OF THE ASS. 147 
 
 have been the extent of the custom ; as to its duration 
 I am unable to judge. It may have existed through 
 all the dark ages, but I do not remember to have met 
 with any trace of either custom ; and the fact, that 
 neither Du Cange nor his editors appear to have 
 known of their earlier existence, is ground for a pre- 
 sumption that they did not, in fact, exist before the 
 times which have been mentioned. 
 
 One more observation as to the fact — " The ass was 
 taught to kneel at proper places." I must say, I doubt 
 it. It may not be impossible, but I suspect it is very 
 difficult, to make that class of animals do such a thing. 
 Indeed, I think the reader who turns to Robertson's 
 authority will agree with me in supposing, that he was 
 led to make this statement merely by his misunder- 
 standing the marginal direction annexed to one verse 
 of the hymn, " hie genujlectebatur.^^ 
 
 But having thus observed on the factSy let us now 
 notice the animus and the modus ; — the facts are, as 
 we have seen, absurdly misstated ; but what are we 
 to say of the design, and the manner, of introducing 
 those facts? It is really necessary to say very little 
 on this point, though it is principally for this that 
 the matter is worth noticing at all. Who can help 
 seeing the absurdity of introducing this asinine business 
 by a sober reflection on the practical evils of assuming 
 infallibility, with its attributes of perpetuity and im- 
 mutability ; and then telling us, that what is appa- 
 rently given as an example (for why, else, is it given 
 at all?) never was general, and was, after a while, 
 abandoned. But what is the obvious animus f Why 
 did not Robertson, instead of throwing the whole odium 
 of this nonsense on the church, tell his readers that this 
 ass was patronized by the people — that he was the pet 
 of the laity — and that, with natural and characteristic- 
 obstinacy, and, cheered by the love and sympathy of 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE FEAST OF FOOLS. [nO. IX. 
 
 his lay friends, he kept his ground against the eccle- 
 siastical powers which would have turned him out of 
 the church ? Why did he not add the statement of 
 those from whom he borrowed the story — "Haec abolere 
 censuris ecclesiasticis non semel tentarunt episcopi, sed 
 frustra, altissimis quippe defixa erat radicibus donee 
 supremi Senatus accessit auctoritas, qua tandem hoc 
 festum suppressum est " ? 
 
 Having said thus much of Asses, let us proceed to 
 speak of Fools. Robertson says, just in the way of 
 passing allusion, that the Feast of Asses "was not, 
 like the Festival of Fools, and some other pageants of 
 those ageSf a mere farcical entertainment, exhibited in a 
 church, and mingled, as was then the custom, with an 
 imitation of some religious rites." In saying that these 
 festivals differed, Robertson is right. The Feast of the 
 Ass, and the more ridiculous custom of the girl at 
 Beauvais, which he describes, were, I believe, instituted 
 by Christians in a comparatively late age of the church. 
 From what has been said, at least, it appears that the 
 Feast of Asses flourished in the fifteenth, and the other 
 follies in the thirteenth century, in some part of France. 
 But the Feast of Fools was a more ancient and more 
 widely celebrated festival; which may, perhaps, be 
 more or less traced in all ages of the church, and in all 
 parts of Christendom. Even now, I suppose, there is 
 hardly a parish church in our protestant country which 
 does not annually exhibit some trace or relic of it. 
 Notwithstanding the decrees of Councils, and the 
 homilies of Fathers, the Christmas evergreen, — the 
 viriditas arborum, — which they denounced, still keeps 
 its ground. 
 
 The Feast of Fools (the Festum Fatuorum, or Stulto- 
 rum,) was, in fact, the old heathen festival of the 
 January Calends. Some ingenious persons have em- 
 ployed themselves in shewing that every ceremony and 
 
NO. IX.] THE FEAST OF FOOLS. 149 
 
 observance of the Romish church (that is, every cere- 
 mony and observance which they do not see in their 
 own day, and their own parish church or meeting,) is a 
 genuine pagan rite, adopted from the heathen. Others, 
 with as much facility and truth, prove that every parti- 
 cular is Jewish. I have neither the taste nor the learn- 
 ing required for such an undertaking, and if I had it 
 would be sadly out of place here. The same persons 
 would, I hope, be consistent enough to admit that 
 the people of the dark ages, whatever ceremonies or 
 observances they might introduce, did not borrow either 
 from pagans or Jews — for who knew the classics — who 
 read the bible— in those days ? So it, evidently, is not 
 my present business ; but I wish that some one would 
 give us a true and full account of the insinuation, modi- 
 fication, or extirpation, of gentilisms in the Christian 
 church, at the same time tracing their causes, history, 
 and effects. As to our present business, however, I 
 will pass over all the earlier councils and fathers * ; but 
 as I should wish to give a specimen of the resistance 
 
 ■* The reader who wishes to follow out this subject will find abundant 
 indication of sources by referring to Du Cange in v. Kalendce ; or by 
 looking at Bingham's Antiquities, b. xvi. ch. iv. sect. 17, and b. xx. ch. i. 
 sect. 4. In less than two hours, however, he may become pretty well 
 acquainted with this part of the subject by reading the Homily of Asterius, 
 which is, of all that I know, the thing best worth reading, and which he 
 may find in the Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. xiii. p. 590, of the Paris ed. of 
 ]fi33, or a Latin translation of it in Raynaud's edition of Leo Magnus. 
 Next to this in value (and it may be found in the same edition of Ijeo, 
 and, I believe, in the largest Bib. Pat., but I am sorry to say I have not 
 the means of ascertaining), is the Homily on the Circumcision, by Maxi- 
 mus Taurinensis, at p. 198 of his Homilies; and if the reader has Mabil- 
 lon's Museum Italicum, let him look at tom. i. par. ii. p. 17. The same 
 edition of Leo also contains the sermons of Petrus Chrysologus, the 155th 
 of which is worth reading. These, with the 62nd canon of the council in 
 Trullo, (Lab. Cone. vi. 1169,) will, I think, put the reader in possession of 
 most that is known on the subject. It may seem a good allowance for 
 two hours ; but, in fact, I might have said one, for all the things referred 
 to are very short. 
 
150 ST. ELOY'S sermon on [no. IX. 
 
 made by the church to this pagan folly, I am glad to 
 be able to give at the same time a farther extract (it 
 happens to be the immediate continuation of what I 
 gave at p. 113) from the well-known, or at least much 
 talked-of, sermon of St. Eloy. I have already stated 
 that, about the year 640, he became the bishop of a 
 people, many of whom were newly and scarcely con- 
 verted from heathenism. If I seem to carry on the 
 quotation a few lines farther than the matter for which 
 it is especially quoted, and the immediate subject of 
 this paper may seem to require, those who have read 
 Nos. VI. and VII., and who at all understand my 
 motive, and the drift of these papers, will perceive my 
 reason for doing so. 
 
 "Before all things, however, I declare and testify unto 
 you, that you should observe none of the impious customs of 
 the pagans ; neither sorcerers *, nor diviners, nor soothsayers, 
 nor enchanters ; nor must you presume for any cause, or any 
 sickness, to consult or inquire of them ; for he who commits 
 this sin immediately loses the sacrament of baptism. In hke 
 manner, pay no attention to auguries and sneezings; and, 
 when you are on a journey, do not mind the singing of cer- 
 tain Httle birds. But, whether you are setting out on a jour- 
 ney, or beginning any other work, cross yourself in the name 
 of Christ, and say the Creed and the Lord's Prayer with 
 faith and devotion, and then the enemy can do you no harm. 
 Let no Christian observe the day on which he leaves, or 
 returns, home; for God made all the days. Let none regu- 
 late the beginning of any piece of work by the day, or by 
 the moon. Let none on the Calends of January join in the 
 wicked and ridiculous things, the dressing hke old women. 
 
 * The following note was appended by Mr. Rose to this passage : — " If 
 any one will take the trouble to refer to the writers of the eleventh cen- 
 tury, especially Peter of Blois, he will find a constant condemnation of 
 superstitious usages and customs ; and if he will go back much farther, to 
 Theodore's Pomitentiale, in the seventh century, he will find the same 
 doctrine. — Ed." 
 
NO. IX.] GENTILE SUPERSTITIONS. 151 
 
 or like stags ^ or the fooleries, nor make feasts lasting all 
 night, nor keep up the custom of gifts' and intemperate 
 drinking. Let no Christian believe in paras, nor set amidst 
 their singing, for these are the works of the Devil. Let no 
 one on the Festival of St. John, or on any of the festivals of 
 the saints, join in solstitia, or dances, or leaping, or caraulas^, 
 or diabolical songs. Let none trust in, or presume to invoke, 
 the names of daemons; neither Neptune, nor Orcus, nor 
 Diana, nor Minerva, nor Geniscus, nor any other such fol- 
 lies. Let no one keep Thursday as a holy-day, either in 
 May, or at any other time, (unless it be some saint's day,) or 
 the day of moths and mice, or any day of any kind, but the 
 Lord's Day. Let no Christian place lights at the temples, 
 or the stones, or at fountains, or at trees, or ad cellos, or at 
 places where three ways meet, or presume to make vows. 
 Let none presume to hang amulets on the neck of man or 
 beast ; even though they be made by the clergy, and called 
 holy things, and contain the words of Scripture; for they 
 
 ^ Vetulas aut cervolos. — ^The council of Auxerre (an. 378) had decreed 
 — " Non licet Kalendis Januarii vetula aut cervolo facere." Lab. Con. v. 
 917. Some would read this as vitulas, and suppose it to mean assuming 
 the appearance, or sacrificing, a csdf. But certainly the wearing of female 
 attire by men was one great feature of the festival. Isidore (about the 
 end of the sixth century) says — "Tunc enira miseri homines, et, quod 
 pejus est, etiam fideles, sumentes species monstruosas, in ferarum habitu 
 transformantur ; alii foemineo gestu demutati virilem vultum eflfceminant." 
 De Eccl. Ofic. lib. ii. c. 40. (Bib. Pat. x. 200.) Alcuin, nearly two cen- 
 turies after, has almost the same words ; but it is worth while to remark 
 that he changes transformantur and effaeminant, into transformabant and 
 effoeminabant ; in fact, he says, — " Domino largiente, hsec a fidelibus pro 
 nihilo habentur, licet quantulaecunque simiUtudines, quod absit, adhuc 
 lateant in feris hominibus." De Div. Off. (Ibid. p. 229.) The reader 
 will observe that I put some words of the extract in the text in italics 
 without any note, by which I wish to express that I do not know what 
 they mean. This is not the place to discuss the conjectures of others, or 
 to offer my own. 
 
 7 Strenas.— What Asterius says on this point is worth reading. When 
 he says that children were taught to love money by being permitted to go 
 round from house to house collecting it, in return for nominal presents, 
 one is led to think of Christmas-boxes; which, indeed, as well as new 
 year's gifts, seem to be genuine remains of the custom. 
 
 * I will not here repeat the arguments of those who make this word 
 mean charms or dances, but I cannot help thinking of and mentioning 
 Christinas carols. 
 
152 ST. eloy's sermon on [no. IX. 
 
 are fraught, not with the remedy of Christ, but with the 
 poison of the Devil. Let no one presume to make lustra- 
 tions, nor to enchant herbs, nor to make flocks pass through 
 a hollow tree, or an aperture in the earth ; for by so doing 
 he seems to consecrate them to the Devil. Let no woman 
 presume to hang amber beads on her neck ; or in her weav- 
 ing, or dyeing, or any other kind of work, to invoke Miner\'a, 
 or the other ill-omened persons ; but let her desire the grace 
 of Christ to be present in every work, and confide with her 
 whole heart in the power of his name. If at any time the 
 moon is darkened, let no one presume to make a clamour ; 
 for, at certain times, it is darkened by the command of God. 
 Neither let any one fear to set about any work at the new 
 moon ; for God has made the moon on purpose to mark the 
 times, and to temper the darkness of the nights, not to hin- 
 der anybody's work, nor that it should make any man mad, 
 as foolish persons think, who suppose that those who are 
 possessed by devils suffer from the moon. Let none call the 
 sun or moon ^Lord;' nor swear by them, for they are crea- 
 tures of God ; and, by the command of God, they are sub- 
 servient to the necessities of men. Let no man have his fate 
 or his fortune told, or his nativity, or what is commonly 
 called his horoscope, so as to say that he shall be such as his 
 horoscope shall indicate; for God will have all men to be 
 saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth, and wisely 
 dispenses all things even as he hath appointed before the 
 foundation of the world. Moreover, as often as any sickness 
 occurs, do not seek enchanters, nor diviners, nor sorcerers, 
 nor soothsayers, or make devilish amulets at fountains, or 
 trees, or cross-roads ; but let him who is sick trust only in 
 the mercy of God, and receive the sacrament of the body and 
 blood of Christ with faith and devotion ; and faithfully seek 
 consecrated oil from the church, wherewith he may anoint 
 his body in the name of Christ, and, according to the apostle, 
 ' the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall 
 raise him up;' and he shall receive health not only of body 
 but of mind, and there shall be fulfilled in him that which 
 our Lord promised in the gospel, saying, 'for all things 
 whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.' 
 " Before all things, wherever you may be, whether in the 
 house, or on a journey, or at a feast, let no filthy or lewd 
 
NO. IX ] GENTILE SUPERSTITIONS. 153 
 
 discourse proceed out of your mouths; for, as our Lord 
 declares in the gospel, for every idle word which men shall 
 speak on earth, they shall give account in the day of judg- 
 ment. Forbid also the performance of all diabolical games, 
 and dances, and songs of the heathen. Let no Christian 
 perform them, because by them he becomes a heathen ; for 
 indeed it is not right that from a Christian mouth, which 
 receives the sacraments of Christ, and which ought always to 
 praise God, diabolical songs should proceed. And therefore, 
 brethren, eschew with your whole heart all inventions of the 
 devil, and fly from all the impieties which I have mentioned, 
 with horror. You must shew reverence (venerationem exhi- 
 beatis) to no creature beside God and his saints. Destroy 
 the fountains which they call sacred ; forbid them to make 
 the images of feet which they place at the parting of roads, 
 and if you find them, burn them with fire. Believe that you 
 cannot be saved by any other means than by calling on 
 Christ, and by his cross. For what a thing it is that if those 
 trees, where these miserable men pay their vows, fall down, 
 they will not use them to make their fires. And see how 
 great the folly of the men is, if they pay honour to an insen- 
 sible and dead tree, and despise the commands of Almighty 
 God. Let not any man, then, beheve that the heaven, or 
 the stars, or the earth, or, in short, any creature whatsoever, 
 is to be adored (adorandam) except God; because He, by 
 Himself alone, created and arranged them. The heaven, 
 indeed, is high, the earth great, the sea immense, the stars 
 are beautiful ; but He who made all these things must needs 
 be greater and more beautiful. For if these things which are 
 seen are so incomprehensible — that is, the various produce 
 of the earth, the beauty of the flowers, the diversity of fruits, 
 the different kinds of animals— some on the earth, some in 
 the waters, some in the air— the skill of the bees, the blow- 
 ing of the winds, the showers of the clouds, the noise of 
 thunder, the change of seasons, and the alternation of day 
 and night— all which things the human mind hath never yet 
 been able by any means to comprehend. If therefore these 
 things, which we see, without being able to comprehend 
 them, are such, how ought we to estimate those heavenly 
 things which we have not yet seen ? And what is the Creator 
 of them all, at whose nod all were created, and by whose will 
 
154 GENTILE SUPERSTITIONS. [NO. IX. 
 
 all are governed? Him then, brethren, above all things, 
 fear ; Him in all things adore ; Him beyond all things love ; 
 cling to his mercy, and never lose your confidence in his 
 loving kindness." 
 
 Notwithstanding the statement of Alcuin, which 
 was, I dare say, true, as far as his knowledge went — 
 and his means of knowledge render his authority 
 respectable — we are not to suppose that this heathen- 
 ism was entirely rooted out. If it was so modified as 
 to be lost sight of, and to have become comparatively 
 harmless, in old Christian societies, the accession of 
 barbarous nations, or heathenish communities, from 
 time to time, rendered it necessary to watch against, 
 and denounce it. Whether on this account, or merely 
 to make his Capitulare more complete, Atto (Bishop of 
 Vercelli, as late as a.d. 960) inserted a prohibition 
 against the heathenish celebration of the Calends ^ ; 
 though it is not improbable that this superstition might 
 maintain its ground, in its more barefaced form, up to a 
 later period in Italy than elsewhere. It is curious to 
 observe that Boniface, the apostle of Germany, not 
 long before the time when Alcuin wrote, found his 
 new converts much scandalized by reports which travel- 
 lers brought from Rome, of what went on in the pope's 
 own city, and "hard by the church of St. Peter." In 
 his letter of congratulation to Pope Zachary, he told 
 his Holiness (or rather, "his Paternity" — it is the 
 pope who calls Boniface " your Holiness,") that when 
 the laity and secular persons among the Germans, 
 Bavarians, and Franks, saw these things performed at 
 Rome, it was vain to denounce them as sins, or to 
 attempt to persuade people that they had not eccle- 
 siastical sanction. The pope replied that he considered 
 
 Can. 79, ap. Dach. Spicil. i. 410. 
 
NO. IX.] LIBERT AS DECEMBRICA. 155 
 
 it an abomination, and had (like his predecessor, 
 Gregory) done all that he could to put a stop to it '. 
 
 But I am not writing the history of this folly. The 
 question forces itself upon one — What had this heathen 
 foolery to do with the church, more than any other 
 invention of the world, the flesh, or the devil ? It was 
 "juxta ecclesiam sancti Petri" — "hard by" St. Peter's; 
 but did it get in? Council after council attests that 
 all regular ecclesiastical authority perpetually opposed 
 it ; and, though I know less than I could wish about 
 the particulars, and the time of its intrusion into 
 sacred places, and its admixture with sacred things, yet 
 I believe that it did not become " a farcical entertain- 
 ment, exhibited in a church," during the period with 
 which we are concerned. The only account which I 
 have met with of any participation by the church in 
 this " libertas Decembrica," as it was also called, is that 
 which is given by a writer, who is said to have belonged 
 to the church of Amiens, and to have been living in 
 A.D. 1182 ^ He tells us that there were some churches 
 
 ' The pope's reply is dated 1st of April, 743; but I do not know that 
 the precise date of Boniface's letter can be fixed. Having inquired 
 respecting dispensations, respecting marriage, which some maintained to 
 have been granted by the pope, he adds — " quia carnales homines idiotse, 
 Alamanni, vel Bajuarii, vel Franci, si juxta Romanam urbem aUquid fieri 
 viderint ex his peccatis quae nos prohibemus, licitum et concessum a 
 sacerdotibus esse putant ; et dum nobis improperium deputant, sibi scan- 
 dalum vitae accipiunt. Sicut affirmant se vidisse annis singuhs, in 
 Romana urbe, et juxta ecclesiam Sancti Petri, in die vel nocte quando 
 Kalendse Januarii intrant, paganorum consuetudine chores ducere per 
 plateas," &c. The pope, after expressing his abomination of such pro- 
 ceedings, says — "quia per instigationem diaboh iterum puUulabant, a die 
 qua nos jussit divina dementia (quanquam immeriti existamus) apostoli 
 vicem gerere, illico omnia haec amputavimus. Pari etenim modo volumus 
 tuam sanctitatem populis sibi subditis praedicare atque ad viam aetemae 
 perducere vitae." — Lab. Cone. vi. 1497 — 1500. 
 
 2 His words are — " Sunt nonnuUae ecclesiae, in quibus usitatum est, ut 
 vel etiam Episcopi et Archiepiscopi in coenobiis cum suis ludant subditis, 
 ita ut etiam sese ad lusum pilae demittant ;" and he afterwards says — 
 " quanquam vero magnae ecclesiae ut est Remensis, banc ludendi consue- 
 
156 THE FEAST [NO. IX. 
 
 in which it was customary for the bishops and arch- 
 bishops to join in the Christmas games which went on 
 in the monasteries in their dioceses, and even so far to 
 relax as to play at ball. If I grant that this was " desi- 
 pere," may I not plead that it was " in loco," and that 
 it was not quite so bad as what went on at Rouen and 
 Beauvais in more enlightened times ? 
 
 For when did this festival become the regular Feast 
 of Fools, with the Bishop of Fools, and the Abbot of 
 Fools, and foolery sacred and profane in perfection ? 
 Let us hear Du Cange, to whom Robertson remits 
 us — " Licet, inquam, ab ecclesia non semel proscriptae 
 fuerint, indictis ad banc diem jejuniis et litaniis de 
 quibus suo loco, quibus ese quodammodo expiarentur, 
 et ut ludicrse et impise festivitatis loco vera ac solida 
 succederet ; non potuere tamen tam alte radicatse pror- 
 sus evelli, adeo ut eo'tremis etiam temporibus plus solito 
 vires acceperint^ et non a secular! bus dumtaxat ; sed et 
 ab ipsis episcopis et sacerdotibus legantur usurpatse : 
 [imo, cum ab iis omnino abstinuissent laici, eas obsti- 
 nate retinuisse clericos, atque ab iis solis usurpatas 
 fuisse, testantur theologi Parisienses in Epist. encyclia 
 ann. 1444. 'Quid quaeso fecissent' (Episcopi) 'si solum 
 clerum sicut hodie his observantiis vacantem vidis- 
 sent!'] " The part between brackets is so printed by 
 the editors, to shew that it is their own addition to the 
 statement of Du Cange, who proceeds to say that, in 
 modern times, beside its old title, it came to be called 
 
 tudinem observent, videtur tamen laudabilius esse, non ludere.' — Ap. Du 
 Cange in v. Kalendce. The only writer before the year 1200, mentioned in 
 the continuation of the article by the editors, is Petrus Capuanus, who 
 wrote in a. d. 1198. He is the earliest writer, as far as I have seen, who 
 speaks of this, or any festival, under the title of the Festum Fatuorum. 
 He is bere^said to have testified its existence in the church of Paris, and 
 elsewhere ; but with what rites it was celebrated does not appear. He 
 wrote, as cardinal-legate, to Odo, Bishop of Paris, and to some of the 
 canons, requiring them to put down the custom ; and it appears that they 
 issued an ordinance for that purpose. 
 
NO. IX.] OF FOOLS. 157 
 
 the Feast of Subdeacons ; not because that order of the 
 clergy alone took part in it, but from the ambiguity of 
 the word " Soudiacres id est ad literam Saturi Diaconi, 
 quasi Diacres Saouls" He also refers to the fourth coun- 
 cil of Constantinople, to shew that something like the 
 mock consecration of the Bishop of Fools was performed 
 in the east, in the ninth century, by some of the 
 laity in derision of the clergy ; and that it was forbid- 
 den by the church. This council declares it to be a 
 thing before unheard of; and whether it was thence 
 imported into the west, and, if so, at what time, it 
 might be curious to inquire; but the editors of Du 
 Cange skip at once from the ninth to the fourteenth 
 century. What they quote from the Ceremonial of 
 Viviers, written in a. d. 1365, from the council of 
 Rouen, in a. d. 1445, or the Inventory of York, in 
 A. D. 1350; or even the more scanty references to the 
 council of Paris, in a. d. 1212, or that of Cognac in 
 A. D. 1260, and the Constitutions of our Archbishop 
 Peckam in a. d. 1279, it is not to our present purpose 
 to notice ; but I wish that some of those gentlemen 
 who understand all about the march of intellect would 
 explain, how it happened that these profane follies 
 beofan — if not to exist, at least to flourish and abound 
 — at, and after, and along with, the revival of letters. 
 If not, I may, perhaps, attempt something of the kind ; 
 but, in the meantime, I hope (having, perhaps, said 
 enough about popular misrepresentations for the pre- 
 sent) to go on to some of the points which I proposed 
 to investigate with reference to the earlier — for really, 
 after such a discussion, I do not like to call them the 
 darker — ages of the church. 
 
158 
 
 No. X. 
 
 " Habet unumquodque propositum principes suos. Romani duces imi- 
 tentur Camillos, Fabritios, Regulos, Scipiones. Philosophi proponant 
 sibi Pythagoram, Socratem, Platonem, Aristotelem. Poetae, Homerum, 
 Virgilium, Menandrum, Terentium. Historici, Thucydidem, Sallustium, 
 Herodotum, Livium. Oratores, Lysiam, Gracchos, Demostbenem, et ut 
 ad nostra veniamus, episcopi et presbyteri habeant in exemplum Aposto- 
 lo8 et Apostolicos viros : quorum honorem possidentes, habere nitantur et 
 meritum. Nos autem babeamus propositi nostri principes, Paulos, et 
 Antonios, Julianos, Hilarionem, Macarios." — Hieronymus. 
 
 " The monks were abominably illiterate " — Well, good 
 friend, and if you are not so yourself, be thankful in 
 proportion as you are sure that you are the better for 
 your learning. But suppose it were otherwise — sup- 
 pose you were " abominably illiterate " — would you like 
 me and all other writers in great books and small, in 
 magazines and newspapers, to rail at you and run you 
 down, as a creature not fit to live? If you were too 
 modest to speak in your own behalf, it is likely that 
 some of your friends might suggest such redeeming 
 qualities as would shew that you were not only tolerable, 
 but useful, in the world. " Very true, very true," says 
 the march-of-intellect man, " I dare say he may be a 
 very good Christian, a good subject, a good husband or 
 father or landlord, a person of great integrity and bene- 
 volence, and all very well in his way, but he is abomin- 
 ably illiterate, and I will throw it in his teeth whenever 
 I come within a mile of him." Now surely the com- 
 passion of a mere by-stander would lead him to say, 
 ** Well, suppose he is abominably illiterate, do let him 
 alone ; he makes no pretence to learning." 
 
 But did not the monks pretend to it ? Certainly not. 
 " C'est une illusion de certaine gens, qui ont ecrit dans 
 le siecle precedent que les monasteres n'avoient este 
 d'abord etablis que pour servir d'ecoles et d'academies 
 
NO. X.] MONASTICISM. 159 
 
 publiques, oii Ton faisoit profession d'enseigner les 
 sciences humaines." Very true, Dom Mabillon, and it 
 is very right that you should contradict in plain terms 
 a vulgar error, which, for want of proper discrimination 
 on the part of the public, has been confirmed rather 
 than corrected, by the labours of yourself and Mont- 
 faucon, and other of your brethren in the Benedictine 
 Order. The " Editio Benedictina et Optima," which 
 figures in every bookseller's catalogue, has a tendency 
 to mislead even those who do not take the trouble to 
 inquire who the Benedictines of St. Maur were, or why 
 their editions of books cost three times as much as 
 others. This, by the way, however ; for it is here only 
 necessary to say, that the abuse heaped on monks for 
 being unlearned is altogether unjust and absurd. 
 
 The monastic life, whatever it might have of good or 
 bad, was, T apprehend, that point of rest in which the 
 minds of men settled after they had been driven, partly 
 by fierce persecution, and partly by the natural ten- 
 dency of man towards extremes, into a mode of life 
 purely solitary. Man might have known, at that stage 
 of the world, from experience, as well as from the Word 
 of God, without putting it to a fresh trial, that it was 
 not good for him to be alone ; and that it was as truly, 
 if not as great, a sin to live without man, as without 
 God, in the world — that is, to renounce the second 
 great commandment, under pretence of keeping the 
 first. The eremitical life was contrary to nature, reason, 
 and religion, and seems only to have been permitted in 
 order to the introduction of a system which was, to say 
 the least, more rational— namely, that of societies, not 
 individuals, forsaking the world, and living in seclusion. 
 The solitary ascetic, by his self-constructed, self-im- 
 posed, rule (self in all things, self the boundary of his 
 horizon), was required to renounce the duties, the chari- 
 ties, the sympathies, of life, and to cut himself off from 
 
 1 
 
160 MONASTIC STUDIES. [nO. X. 
 
 all the means of grace which God has given to man in 
 his fellows ; but, in the monastery, the idea was to carry 
 out into some remote place of safety one mind dispersed 
 and diversified in various bodies, guiding many hands 
 and uniting many hearts, and directing, sanctifying, 
 and governing the various gifts of the many members 
 of one body, whose head was Christ. Such was the 
 idea; and when once suggested it spread rapidly. 
 Small companies nestled down in solitude — to study 
 the classics ? — to stimulate the march of intellect ? No 
 such thing — " tota rusticitas, et extra psalmos silentium 
 est. Quocunque te verteris, arator stivara tenens, 
 alleluia decantat. Sudan s messor psalmis se avocat, et 
 curva attondens vitem falce vinitor, aliquid Davidicum 
 canit. Hsec sunt in hac provincia carmina; has, ut 
 vulgo dicitur, amatorise cantiones. Hie pastorum sibilus : 
 haec arma culturge." Solitude, labour, silence, and 
 prayer — these were the elements of monastic life ; and 
 the question was not how the monk might most effect- 
 ively gather and diffuse learning, but — when, indeed, 
 any question came to be raised — whether he might 
 lawfully cultivate learning at all ? 
 
 "Nemo est qui ignoret" — says Dom Joseph Porta; 
 but it is certainly quite a mistake of his, — or, if it was 
 true when he wrote it, it has long since ceased to be 
 so, — for there are plenty of people, who are very far 
 from being abominably illiterate, who nevertheless 
 know nothing whatever about the " Dissidium Litera- 
 rium circa studia monastica," of which he undertook 
 to be the historian. If he had said that most people 
 have heard of De Ranee, of his noble birth, his profli- 
 gate life, his sudden and mysterious conversion, his 
 persevering austerities — of the solitary and silent hor- 
 rors of La Trappe, and of a great deal of picturesque 
 truth so like romance that one can hardly imagine the 
 hero sitting at a wooden table, with a real pen and 
 
NO. X.] DE RANGE AND MABILLON. 161 
 
 ink, writing a book— if Father Porta had said this, we 
 might have assented ; but to tell us that there is 
 nobody who does not know that De Ranee's " Traite 
 de la Saintete et des Devoirs de la Vie Monastique" 
 began the fray between him and Dom Mabillon, is too 
 much, seeing that there are, as I have said, a great 
 many very well-informed persons, who do not know 
 that these two famous men ever had any controversy 
 about monastic studies, or even, perhaps, that there 
 were any such studies to dispute about. 
 
 The work of De Ranee, I am told (for I have never 
 seen it), was professedly written for his own monks, 
 and represented to them that the pursuit of literature 
 was inconsistent with their profession, and that their 
 reading ought to be confined to the Scriptures and 
 a few books of devotion. This seemed like — some 
 thought it was meant to be — an attack on the Bene- 
 dictine monks of St. Maur — for that they were learned 
 every body knew — and they were urged to reply. 
 They, however, remained very quiet ; and it was long 
 before they could be persuaded to take the field. The 
 Benedictine historian whom I have mentioned, and to 
 whom I am indebted, suggests as a reason for this, that 
 the Benedictines really were (and every body knew 
 they were) following the footsteps of their learned pre- 
 decessors in the cultivation of letters, and that they 
 thought it quite sufficient to tell those who talked to 
 them on the subject that the abbot of La Trappe had 
 his own reasons for what he did ' — that he neither had, 
 
 1 " P. Abbati peculiares subesse rationes, cur ita sentiret ;" but I 
 really know not what it means. It looks like an insinuation of ignorance 
 — as if De Ranee undervalued what he did not possess. This cannot, 
 however, be the meaning ; for not only the credit with which he took his 
 theological degrees, but his even premature proficiency in profane litera- 
 ture was notorious. If it points at his early immoralities it is as foolish 
 
 M 
 
162 DE RANGE AND [NO. X. 
 
 nor pretended to have, any thing to do with them — 
 and that it was no business of theirs if he chose to 
 guide his own flock to heaven by some peculiar path 
 which he considered the safest. 
 
 Father Porta is not, perhaps, quite an unprejudiced 
 historian ; and I hope I am not uncharitable in think- 
 ing that he might have added, that although these good 
 fathers of St. Maur were in fact following the steps of 
 their predecessors in the order of St. Benedict : yet, 
 considering that they had had predecessors in that 
 order for nearly twelve hundred years, and that during 
 the lapse of that period many things had altered both 
 in and out of the cloister, they felt it rather awkward 
 to be sharply recalled to the naked letter of their Rule. 
 They were in no haste to meet an opponent of great 
 influence from family, connexion, character, and the 
 singular circumstances of his life — a man, acute, elo- 
 quent, fervid, and fully persuaded that he was main- 
 taining the cause of pure and primitive and spiritual 
 religion, against the incursions of vain, worldly and 
 mischievous pursuits. One might forgive them if they 
 were not eager to fight such a battle, with such an 
 adversary, before an enlightened public, who, whichever 
 side might gain the victory, would be sure to make 
 themselves merry with the battle of the monks. 
 
 Be this as it may, however, a considerable time 
 elapsed — I do not know in what year De Ranee pub- 
 lished his book, and therefore cannot tell whether it 
 was with a view to be specific, or to shew his own 
 classical reading, that Father Porta tells us that more 
 than nine years had passed before the Benedictine reply 
 
 as it is heartless ; and I should doubt whether Dom Joseph Porta had 
 any right to represent it as the language of the Benedictines — at least, of 
 Mabillon. 
 
NO. X.] MABILLON. 163 
 
 came out ; but in fact Dom Mabillon's " Traite des 
 Etudes Monastiques" was published in the year 1691. 
 It was, of course, learned, wise, and modest. It proved 
 that there had been a succession of learned monks 
 from almost the very beginning of monasticism, that 
 they had learned and taught as much as they could, 
 and that, on the general principles of religion, reason, 
 and common sense, they were quite right in so doing ; 
 but, as to the Rule, he did not get on quite so well : 
 because it must be obvious to every one who inquires, 
 that none of the monastic legislators ever contemplated 
 the formation of academies of learning and science. 
 This Mabillon of course knew, and I doubt whether he 
 could have carried on his argument (for I do not 
 believe that he would have done what he considered 
 dishonest) had it not been for a full persuasion of his 
 mind which, though it may not bear to be stated as an 
 argument, peeps out occasionally in a very amusing 
 manner, and gives a colour to the whole line of defence. 
 — "Not study? why, how could they help it?" — or, 
 thrown into a more logical form, " You acknowledge 
 that the monks lived in their monasteries ; but it is 
 impossible for people to live without study ; therefore 
 the monks studied." Some caviller might say that the 
 Rule did not tell them to study ; and the good father 
 would perhaps have smiled and answered that it did 
 not tell them to breathe. 
 
 The work was, however, popular; for who would 
 not wish to be ranged with the admirers and advocates 
 of learning and science? and a second edition was 
 printed the next year after the first. It was quickly 
 translated into Italian by Father Ceppi, an Augustinian 
 monk ^ but was very near getting into the Expurgatory 
 
 2 I learn from Father Ossinger's Bibliotheca Augustiniana, that this 
 Father Ceppi was, " singularis venerator nostri S. Nicolai de Tolentino," 
 
 M 2 
 
164 DE RANGE AND [NO. X. 
 
 Index, not on account of any thing connected with the 
 dispute, but for some things which appeared too libe- 
 ral ; among others, a recommendation of Archbishop 
 Ussher's Annals. Father Ceppi, however, managed to 
 smooth the translation, and soften the Master of the 
 Sacred Palace, and so got the work through. In the 
 year 1702, it was translated into German, and after- 
 wards into Latin, by Father Porta whom I have already 
 mentioned. 
 
 It is not, however, my present business to trace this 
 controversy through the reply of De Ranee, and the 
 rejoinder of Mabillon. I mention it here to shew that, 
 even so recently as little more than a century ago, it 
 was a question sharply contested between men of the 
 highest monastic eminence, whether a monk might 
 lawfully be a learned man. I do this with a view to 
 remove what I believe to be a very common misappre- 
 hension as to the origin and nature of monastic institu- 
 tions. I know, as well as Mabillon did — that is, as to 
 full conviction that it was so, not as to the facts which 
 his almost unbounded learning might have furnished in 
 proof or illustration — that the monks were the most 
 learned men ; and that it pleased God to make monas- 
 tic institutions the means of preserving learning in the 
 world, and I hope to shew this ; but before I do so, I 
 
 and that " ad promovendam devotionem erga. hunc universse Ecclesiae 
 Patronum in lingua Italica typis mandavit, " Maraviglie trecenta ed una 
 operate da Dio per li meriti del Santo Protettore di Santa Chiesa Nicolo 
 di Tolentino. In Roma, 1710." And also another work, with the same 
 design, " II sangue miracoloso del Santo Protettore di Santa Chiesa 
 Nicolo di Tolentino, dedicata all' Eminentissimo, e Reverendissimo Pren- 
 cipe il Signor Cardinale Nicolo Coscia. Romae, 1725, in 8." I acknow- 
 ledge that this has nothing to do with the period under our consideration ; 
 for Ceppi wrote in the eighteenth, and this St. Nicholas (his patron, or 
 patronized) lived in the fojirteenth, century; but may I not be pardoned 
 if, having to say so much of the dull, stupid, legendary, and lying works 
 of the Dark Ages, I attempt to enliven the subject by an occasional refer- 
 ence to the wiser literature of more enlightened times ? 
 
NO. X.] MABILLON. 165 
 
 wish to come to a clear understanding with those vho, 
 instead of thanking the monks for what they did, find 
 sufficient employment in abusing them for not doing 
 what they never undertook to do, and were, in fact, 
 no more bound to do than other people. With this 
 view I am also desirous to say something of the Rule 
 of St. Benedict. " I would not have answered him," 
 said De Ranee to Father Lamy, when the Duchess of 
 Guise, who took a vast interest in the matter, had gone 
 to La Trappe, and got these two fathers face to face, to 
 fight the matter out before her ^ — " I would not have 
 answered him, if he had not carried the matter up to 
 the time of Pachomius." It was too bad ; and I am 
 not going to imitate it by speaking here of any earlier 
 Rule than St. Benedict's. To be sure, even that was 
 born before the dark ages, and has survived them ; but 
 its almost universal adoption in the west, and its incal- 
 culable influence, as being the Rule by which almost 
 all the monasteries of Europe were governed, and by 
 which therefore every individual monk in them had 
 solemnly bound himself, render it a matter of much 
 interest and importance to those who would understand 
 the spirit of monastic institutions, and their real cir- 
 cumstances during the Dark Ages. For our present 
 purpose, it may be sufficient to extract the prologue, 
 and the fourth chapter; the former of which is as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Hear, O my son, the precepts of a master ; and incline 
 
 3 Father Lamy went, because Mabillon could not be persuaded to go ; 
 " Trappam igitur petens ad earn venit. Porro ipsa de illius profectione 
 certior facta, omnia ad ilium belle excipiendum ut parata essent, studuerat, 
 et P. Abbatem opportune admonuerat ; profecto enim constat P. Abbatem 
 duosque ex ejus Fratribus omnem curam, honorem, et studium venienti 
 detuhsse. Post prima mutuae humanitatis officia, regia matrona sedere 
 eos jussit ; hunc quidem, facete inquiens, ischiadici doloris, ilium vero 
 nephritici affectus gratia ; ac deinceps compulit ad instituendum de magna 
 studiorum controversia rautuum sermonem." 
 
166 RULE OF [no. X. 
 
 the ear of thine heart ; and cheerfully receive, and effectually 
 fulfil, the admonition of an affectionate father ; that, by the 
 labour of obedience, thou mayest return to him, from whom 
 thou hast departed by the sloth of disobedience. To thee 
 therefore my discourse is now directed— whosoever, renoun- 
 cing the desires of self, and about to serve as a soldier of the 
 Lord Christ, the true King, dost assume the most powerful 
 and noble arms of obedience. 
 
 " In the first place, you must, with most urgent prayer, 
 entreat that whatsoever good thing you take in hand, may 
 through Him be brought to completion ; that He who hath 
 condescended now to reckon us in the number of his sons, 
 may not be obliged to grieve over our ill conduct. For He is 
 ever to be served by us, with those good things which are 
 his own ; so served by us as that not only He may not, as an 
 angry father, disinherit his sons, — but that He may not, as a 
 Master who is to be feared, be so incensed by our sins, as to 
 deliver over to eternal punishment, as most wicked servants, 
 those who would not follow Him to glory. 
 
 " Let us, however, at length arise ; for the Scripture 
 arouses us, saying, ^ That now it is high time to awake out of 
 sleep ;' and, our eyes being opened to the divine light, let us 
 hear with astonished ears the voice which every day admo- 
 nishes us, ' To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your 
 hearts ;' and again, * He that hath ears to hear, let him hear 
 what the Spirit saith to the churches ;' and what saith He ? 
 ' Come, ye children, hearken unto me : I will teach you the 
 fear of the Lord' — ' Run while ye have the light of life, lest 
 the darkness of death overtake you.' 
 
 "And the Lord, seeking for his workman among the mul- 
 titude of the people, whom He thus addresses, saith again, 
 ^What man is he that desireth life, and will see good days?' 
 And if when you hear this you answer ^ I,' God saith unto 
 you, * If thou wilt have life, keep thy tongue from evil, and 
 thy lips that they speak no guile. Depart from evil, and do 
 good ; seek peace and pursue it.' And when you shall have 
 done this, 'my eyes are upon you, and my ears are towards 
 your prayers ; and before ye call upon me I will say unto 
 you " Here am I."' Most dear brethren, what is sweeter than 
 this voice of the Lord inviting us ? Behold, in his mercy, 
 the Lord points out to us the way of life. 
 
NO. X.] ST. BENEDICT. 167 
 
 " Our loins therefore being girded, and our feet shod with 
 faith and the observance of good works, let us, under the 
 guidance of the gospel, go forth on his ways, that we may be 
 counted worthy to see Him who hath called us, in his king- 
 dom. In the tabernacle of whose kingdom, if we desire to 
 dwell, we can by no means attain our desire, except by run- 
 ning in the way of good works. But let us inquire of the 
 Lord with the Prophet, and say unto Him, * Lord, who shall 
 dwell in thy tabernacle, and who shall rest in thy holy moun- 
 tain?' After this inquiry, Brethren, let us hear the Lord 
 replying, and shewing us the way of his tabernacle, and say- 
 ing, ' He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, 
 and speaketh the truth in his heart ; he that backbiteth not 
 with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh 
 up a reproach against his neighbour.' Who turning away 
 the eyes of his heart from the wicked Devil who tempts him, 
 and from his temptation, hath brought him to nought, and 
 hath taken the young thoughts which he hath bred and 
 dashed them to pieces on Christ *. Who, fearing the Lord, 
 are not puffed up by their good works ; but, who considering 
 that those good things which are in them could not be 
 wrought by themselves, but by the Lord, magnify the Lord 
 who worketh in them, saying with the Prophet, ^ Not unto 
 us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory.' 
 Like as the Apostle Paul reckoned nothing of his preaching, 
 saying, 'By the grace of God I am what I am;' and again 
 he says, ' He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord.' 
 
 " Hence also it is, that our Lord saith in the gospel, ' Who- 
 soever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will 
 Uken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a 
 rock: and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat 
 upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a 
 rock.' While the Lord does all this. He expects every day 
 that we should respond to his holy admonitions, by our 
 actions. Therefore it is, that the days of this life are extended 
 as a respite for the emendation of what is evil ; as the Apostle 
 says, 'Knowest thou not that the long suffering of God 
 leadeth thee to repentance?' For the merciful God hath 
 
 * The allusion is to Psalm cxxxvii. 9. " Filia Babylonis beatus 
 
 qui tenebit ec allidet parvulos tuos ad petrara," 
 
168 RULE OF [no. X. 
 
 said, * I desire not the death of a sinner, but that he should 
 be converted and live.' 
 
 *'When therefore, my brethren, we inquire of the Lord, 
 *who shall abide in thy tabernacle?' we thus hear the rule 
 of habitation ; and if we fulfil the duty of an inhabitant, we 
 shall be heirs of the kingdom of heaven. Therefore our 
 hearts and bodies are to be prepared to go forth to the war- 
 fare of holy obedience to the commandments ; and, because 
 it is impossible to our nature, let us ask the Lord of his grace 
 that He would assist us with his help. And if, flying from 
 the pains of hell, we desire to obtain eternal life, while yet 
 there is opportunity and we are in this body, and space is 
 afforded to fulfil all these things by this life of light, we must 
 now run and labour for that which shall profit us for ever. 
 
 " We must, therefore, institute a school of service to the 
 Lord; in which institution we trust that we shall appoint 
 nothing harsh or burdensome. If, however, anything a little 
 severe should, on reasonable grounds of equity, be enjoined 
 for the correction of vices, and the preservation of charity, do 
 not in sudden alarm fly from the way of safety, which can 
 only be begun by a narrow entrance. In the progress, how- 
 ever, of our conversation and faith, the heart being enlarged 
 with the ineffable sweetness of love, we run the way of God's 
 commandments, so that never departing from his governance, 
 remaining under his teaching in the monastery until death, 
 we through patience are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that 
 we may be counted worthy to be partakers of his kingdom." 
 
 The first chapter of the Rule is on the various kinds 
 of monks — the second, on the qualifications and duties 
 of an abbot — the third, on the duty of the abbot to 
 take counsel with the brethren — and the fourth is 
 headed, " Quae sint instrumenta bonorum operuni.'* 
 This title has given some trouble to commentators ; 
 and the reader may translate it as he pleases. It is 
 not my business to criticise it, especially as the chapter 
 itself is intelligible enough. It contains seventy-two 
 brief injunctions, from whence we may form some 
 general opinion as to what those who bound them- 
 selves by this rule did, and did not, undertake. Most 
 
NO. X.] ST. BENEDICT. 169 
 
 of the other seventy-two chapters of the rule consist of 
 regulations respecting the organization and manage- 
 ment of their society, which would, of course, occupy 
 the most room ; but it seems to me that this one chap- 
 ter should at least qualify the statements of those who 
 profess to have found nothing but a body of heartless 
 forms ^. 
 
 "1. In the first place, to love the Lord God with the whole 
 heart, whole soul, whole strength. 2. Then his neighbour 
 as himself. 3. Then not to kill. 4. Then not to commit 
 adultery. 5. Not to steal. 6. Not to covet. 7. Not to bear 
 false witness. 8. To honour all men. 9. And what any one 
 would not have done to him, let him not do to another. 
 10. To deny himself, that he may follow Christ. 11. To 
 chasten the body. 12. To renounce luxuries. 13. To love 
 fasting. 14. To relieve the poor. 15. To clothe the naked. 
 16. To visit the sick. 17. To bury the dead. 18. To help 
 in tribulation. 19. To console the afflicted. 20. To disen- 
 gage himself from worldly affairs. 21. To set the love of 
 Christ before all other things. 22. Not to give way to anger. 
 23. Not to bear any grudge. 24. Not to harbour deceit in 
 the heart. 25. Not to make false peace. 26. Not to forsake 
 charity. 27. Not to swear, lest haply he perjure himself. 
 28. To utter truth from his heart and his mouth. 29. Not 
 to return evil for evil. 30. Not to do injuries ; and to bear 
 them patiently. 31. To love his enemies. 32. Not to curse 
 again those who curse him ; but rather to bless them. 33. 
 To endure persecutions for righteousness' sake. 34. Not to 
 be proud. 35. Not given to wine. 36. Not gluttonous. 
 37. Not addicted to sleep. 38. Not sluggish. 39. Not 
 given to murmur. 40. Not a slanderer. 41. To commit his 
 hope to God. 42. When he sees any thing good in himself, 
 to attribute it to God, and not to himself. 43. But let him 
 
 ' "About this time the monastic rules of Benedict were estabUshed, 
 which afterwards were received through the western churches. They are 
 full of forms, and breathe little of the spirit of godliness. The very best 
 thing that I can find recorded of the superstitious founder, is the zeal with 
 which he opposed idolatry." — Milner's History of the Church of Christ, 
 Cent. VI., ch. iv. 
 
170 RULE OF ST. BENEDICT. [nO. X. 
 
 always know, that which is evil in his own doing, and impute 
 it to himself. 44. To fear the day of judgment. 45. To 
 dread Hell. 46. To desire eternal life, with all spiritual 
 longing. 47. To have the expectation of death every day 
 before his eyes. 48. To watch over his actions at all times. 
 49. To know certainly that, in all places, the eye of God is 
 upon him. 50. Those evil thoughts which come into his 
 heart immediately to dash to pieces on Christ. 51. And to 
 make them known to his spiritual senior. 52. To keep his 
 lips from evil and wicked discourse. 53. Not to be fond of 
 much talking. 54. Not to speak vain words, or such as pro- 
 voke laughter. 55. Not to love much or violent laughter. 
 56. To give willing attention to the sacred readings. 57. To 
 pray frequently. 58. Every day to confess his past sins to 
 God, in prayer, with tears and groaning ; from thenceforward 
 to reform as to those sins. 59. Not to fulfil the desires of 
 the flesh ; to hate self-will. 60. In all things to obey the 
 commands of the abbot, even though he himself (which God 
 forbid) should do otherwise ; remembering our Lord's com- 
 mand, ^ What they say, do ; but what they do, do ye not.' 
 61. Not to desire to be called a saint before he is one, but 
 first to be one that he may be truly called one. 62. Every 
 day to fulfil the commands of God in action. 63. To love 
 chastity. 64. To hate nobody. 65. To have no jealousy; 
 to indulge no envy. 66. Not to love contention. 67. To 
 avoid self-conceit. 68. To reverence seniors. 69. To love 
 juniors. 70. To pray for enemies, in the love of Christ. 
 71. After a disagreement, to be reconciled before the going 
 down of the sun. 72. And never to despair of the mercy of 
 God." 
 
 I apprehend that these injunctions are better than 
 some readers would have expected to find ; and should 
 it appear that, on the whole, they are defective either 
 as to doctrine, or instruction, let it be remembered that 
 St. Benedict did not intend that his Rule should super- 
 sede the Holy Scriptures. He did not mean to give 
 his disciples the traditions of men instead of the word 
 of God. He told them plainly that the most perfect 
 Rule of life is contained in the Old and New Testa- 
 
NO. XI.] LEARNING OF THE CLERGY. 171 
 
 ment ^ ; and that he expected them to be assiduous in 
 reading the Scriptures, and the works of some of the 
 Fathers, is clear. This species of study, and this only, 
 he enjoined upon them ; and as to their practice in this 
 respect I hope to speak hereafter. In the meantime, 
 I just observe that thus to read (or to be read to, if he 
 could not read) was ail that was required of a monk. 
 
 It may, however, be said, that supposing the monks 
 to have kept to their original state, and to have lived 
 in all things according to their Rules, they might not, 
 perhaps, have been so much to blame for the want of 
 learning, but that, by the times with which we are 
 concerned, most of them were priests, and that the 
 clergy — well, I fully admit that as clergy they were 
 bound to be more learned than other men ; but at pre- 
 sent, as Jerome says, " quod loquor, non de episcopis, 
 non de presbyteris, non de clericis loquor ; sed de 
 monacho ''." I desire, first, to place the question on 
 its right footing, and trust that I shall not be found 
 reluctant to acknowledge that the clergy ought to be 
 the most learned class in the community. In fact, they 
 always were so, and this I hope to show. 
 
 No. XL 
 
 " Alia, ut ante perstrinxi, raonachorum est causa : alia clericorum. Clerici 
 pascuntoves; egopascor." — Hieronymus. 
 
 It will be readily admitted that those who profess to 
 teach others should be more learned than the rest of 
 
 * " Quae enim pagina, aut quis sermo divinse auctoritatis veteris ac novi 
 Testament!, non est rectissima norma vitae humanae." &c. Cap. Ixxiii ; 
 which is entitled " De eo quod non omnis observatio justitiae in hac sit 
 Regula constituta." 
 
 7 Ad Paulin. 
 
172 DARK- AGE VIEW [NO. XI. 
 
 the community. This was, however, the very point of 
 difference between the monks and the clergy — " mona- 
 chus non docentis, sed plangentis habet ofRcium," said 
 Jerome, and a monk, as such, had no business, and did 
 not, in fact, pretend, to teach anything or anybody. 
 This, though strictly applicable only to the original 
 state of things, may be, in some degree, applied to the 
 subsequent condition of monastic institutions, when most 
 of the monks were priests ; because the real and prac- 
 tical difference is between those who live in the world 
 with, and for the sake of, the cure of souls, and those 
 who, either for devotion or for any other reason, live 
 out of the world — in the cell or the cloister ^ 
 
 Notwithstanding — or, perhaps, I ought rather to say, 
 by reason of — this, the monks took the lead in learning. 
 It is not worth while here to enter into all the reasons 
 of this, while there is one that is so obvious — namely, 
 that they led quiet, retired, and regular lives ; and that 
 if they could not be originally, or at all times, said to 
 have more leisure than the secular clergy, their employ- 
 ments and habits were of a nature less unfriendly to 
 study. Instead, therefore, of now entering into this 
 
 ^ That which St. Jerome so pithily expressed, is more diffusely stated 
 by St. Ambrose — " Namque hsec duo in adtentiore christianorum devo- 
 tione prsestantiora esse quis ambigat, clericorum ofEcia, et monachorum 
 instituta ? Ista ad commoditatem et moralitatem disciplina, ilia ad absti- 
 nentiam adsuefacta atque patientiam : haec velut in quodam theatre, ilia in 
 
 secreto : spectator ista, ilia absconditur Haec ergo vita in stadio, 
 
 ilia in spelunca ; haec adversus confusionem saeculi, ilia adversus carnis 
 appetentiam : haec subjiciens, ilia refugiens corporis voluptates : haec gra- 
 tior, ilia tutior : haec seipsam regens, ilia semet ipsam coercens : utraque 
 tamen se abnegans, ut fiat Christi ; quia perfectis dictum est : ' Qui vult 
 post me venire, abnegat seipsum sibi, et tollat crucem suam, et sequatur 
 me.' . . . Haec ergo dimicat, ilia se removet : haec illecebras vincit, ilia 
 refngit : huic mundus triumphatur, illi exsulat : huic mundus crucifigitur, 
 vel ipsa mundo, illi ignoratur : huic plura tentamenta, et ideo major vic- 
 toria; ilU infrequentior lapsus, facilior custodia." — Ep. Ixiii. torn. ii. 
 p. 1039. 
 
NO. XT.] OF PROFANE LEARNING. 173 
 
 matter, let us come at once to a question which must 
 be met if we are to understand each other or the sub- 
 ject, — for I cannot help fearing that I (while speaking 
 of the dark ages) and some, at least, of my readei-s may 
 be thinking of very different things, under the same 
 name — What is learning? or, to put the question in a 
 more limited and less troublesome form — What did 
 the people of the dark ages think on this subject ? It 
 might, I think, be shewn that there were a good many 
 persons in those ages not so destitute of all that is now 
 called learning as some have asserted ; and many with- 
 out much inquiry believe. I might ask, how does it 
 happen that the classics, and the older works on art or 
 science, have been preserved in existence ? and I might, 
 with still greater force (but obviously with intolerable 
 prolixity), appeal to the works of writers of those ages 
 to shew that they knew the meaning of that which, no 
 one can deny, they preserved and multiplied. But this 
 is not to our present purpose ; and the proper answer 
 is, that people in those days were brought up with 
 views respecting profane learning which it is necessary 
 for us to understand before we form our judgment of 
 the men ; and, as I have never seen these views clearly 
 stated, I will take leave to say a few words about 
 them. 
 
 "Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis ? quid Academiee 
 et Ecclesia3 ? quid hsereticis et Christianis ? Nostra 
 institutio de porticu Salomonis est : qui et ipse tradi- 
 derat, Dominum in simplicitate cordis esse quserendum. 
 Viderint qui Stoicum, et Platonicum, et Dialecticum 
 Christianismum protulerunt. Nobis curiositate opus 
 non est post Christum Jesum, nee inquisitione post 
 evangelium. Cum credimus, nihil desideramus ultra 
 credere. Hoc enini prius credimus, non esse, quod 
 ultra credere debemus." These are not the words of a 
 monk of the tenth century, but of a priest of the 
 
174 DARK-AGE VIEW [nO. XI. 
 
 second ; and how far it might have been better or 
 worse if the Christian church had maintained, and 
 acted on, the feeling which they express, this is not 
 the place to discuss. In point of fact, the rigour of 
 the law here laid down was soon softened, — or 
 perhaps I should say that an excuse was soon provided 
 for those who were enamoured of profane learning. 
 They were not to go down to Egypt for help. Un- 
 doubtedly, that was quite clear ; but it was equally 
 clear that they might spoil the Egyptians, and bring 
 that silver and gold which, wherever they may be 
 found, are the Lord's, into the camp of his people. 
 They were not to contract alliances with the heathen. 
 Certainly not ; but if, in the course of war, they should 
 see among the spoil a beautiful captive, it was lawful 
 to bring her home ; and, when her head had been 
 shaved, and her nails pared, to take her to wife. These 
 fancies were, as far as I know, excogitated by Origen, 
 — the man, perhaps, of all others most bound, and best 
 able, to devise some excuse for a practice which the 
 severe and exclusive purity of primitive Christianity 
 had condemned ^ 
 
 ' In his letter to Gregory (torn i. p. 30), he suggests that this might be 
 really intended by the command given to the Israelites to borrow from the 
 Egyptians. As to the captive, after quoting the law (Deut. xxi. 10), he 
 says — " And to say the truth, I also have frequently gone out to battle 
 against my enemies, and there I have seen, among the spoil, a woman 
 beautiful to behold. For whatever we find that is well and rationally said 
 in the works of our enemies, if we read an)1;hing that is said wisely and 
 according to knowledge, we ought to cleanse it, and from that knowledge 
 which they possess to remove and cutoff all that is dead and useless, — for 
 such are all the hair of the head, and the nails of the woman taken out of 
 the spoils of the enemy, — and then at length to make her our ^vife, when 
 she no longer has any of those things which for their infidelity are called 
 dead. Nothing dead on her head or in her hands : so that neither in 
 senses, nor in action, she should have anything that is unclean or dead 
 about her." In Levit. Horn. VII. tom. ii. p. 227. If Origen's plaything 
 were not the Word of God, one might often be amused with his childish 
 fooleries ; but when we consider what mischief has been done to truth by 
 
NO. XI.] OF PROFANE LEARNING. 175 
 
 Whether it was entirely valid or not, however, this 
 was, for more than a thousand years, the standing ex- 
 cuse for those who were conscious (not to say vain) of 
 their heathenish acquirements. Take, for instance — 
 and as a specimen of the feeling at a period with which 
 we are at present more concerned than with that of 
 Tertullian or Origen — a letter and answer which passed 
 between a prior and an abbot in the year 1 1 50 : — 
 
 "To his Lord, the Venerable Abbot of , R. wishes 
 
 health and happiness. Although you desire to have the 
 books of Tidly, I know that you are a Christian and not a 
 Ciceronian. But you go over to the camp of the enemy, not 
 as a deserter, but as a spy. I should, therefore, have sent 
 you the books of Tully which we have De Re Agraria, Phi- 
 
 the way of allegorizing (or, as it is now called, spiritualizing) the Bible, it 
 cannot be looked on without disgust. Of course, the next step is to despise 
 and get rid of the letter of Scripture, as Jerome does most unceremo- 
 niously (not to say blasphemously) in this very case. After telling us that 
 the husks, in the parable of the prodigal son may mean poetry, rhetoric, 
 and the wisdom of this world, he adds — " Hujus sapientiae typus et in 
 Deuteronomio sub mulieris captivae figura describitur : de qua divina vox 
 praecipit : ut si IsraeUtes eam habere voluerit uxorem, calvitium ei facial, 
 ungues prsesecet, et pilos auferat : et cum munda fuerit eflfecta tunc transeat 
 in victoris amplexus. Hsec si secundum Uteram intelligimus nonne ridi- 
 cula sunt ? Itaque et nos hoc facere solemus quando philosophos legi- 
 mus," &c. — Ad Damas. tom. iii. p. 44, M. My object here, however, is 
 only to shew whence certain opinions and feelings of the dark ages were 
 derived. The reader who thinks what I have said insufficient may see 
 the account which Jerome gives, in his epistle to Eustochium, of his being 
 brought before the judgment-seat, and punished as a Ciceronian. The 
 story is too long to be extracted here, and too well known, perhaps, to 
 require it. At all events, it was well known in the dark ages. He intro- 
 duces it by saying — " Quae enim communicatio luci ad tenebras ? qui con- 
 sensus Christo cum Balial? Quid facit cum Psalterio Horatius? cum 
 Evangeliis, Maro? Cum Apostohs, Cicero ? " &c. — tom. i. p. 51, C. To 
 this we may add, the first book of Augustine's Confessions, c. ] 2, and 
 thenceforth. Stronger things than these fathers wrote are not, I believe, 
 to be found in the writings of the dark ages. Some of what Jerome says it 
 would hardly do to produce in the present day — for instance, "At nunc 
 etiam sacerdotes Dei, omissis evangeliis et prophetis, videmus comoedias 
 legere, amatoria Bucolicorum versuum verba canere, tenere Virgihum : et 
 id quod in pueris necessitatis est, crimen in se facere voluptatis," &c. 
 
176 DARK-AGE VIEW [nO. XI. 
 
 lippics and Epistles, but that it is not our custom that any 
 books should be lent to any person wdthout good pledges. 
 Send us, therefore, the Noctes Atticae of Aulus GelUus, and 
 Origen on the Canticles. The books which we have just 
 brought from France, if you wish for any of them, I will 
 send you." 
 
 The Abbot replied — 
 
 " Brother , by the grace of God what he is in the 
 
 Catholic Chiirch, to his friend R., the venerable Prior of 
 H , blessing and life eternal. You have rightly re- 
 minded me, brother, that though I may have the books of 
 Cicero, yet I should remember that I am a Christian ; and as 
 you have written (and as your Seneca says of himself) 1 go 
 over sometimes to the enemies' camp, not as a deserter or 
 traitor, but as a spy, and one who is desirous of spoil, if haply 
 I may take prisoner some Midianitish woman, whom, after 
 her head has been shaved, and her nails have been pared, I 
 may lawfully take to wife. And though I deserve only to be 
 a stranger — or, indeed, an exile — in a far country, neverthe- 
 less I desire rather to be filled with that bread which came 
 down from heaven, than to fill my belly with the husks 
 which the swine do eat. The dishes prepared by Cicero do 
 not form the principal, or the first, course at my table ; but 
 if, at any time, when filled with better food, any thing of his 
 pleases me, I take it as one does the trifles which are set on 
 the table after dinner. For it is even a kind of pleasure to 
 me not to be idle. Nor, indeed (to say nothing of any other 
 reasons) can I bear that that noble genius, those splendid 
 imaginations, such great beauties both of thought and lan- 
 guage, should be lost in oblivion and neglect ; but I want to 
 make into one volume all his works which can be found ; for 
 I have no sympathy with those who, neglecting all hberal 
 studies, are careful only for transitory things ; and who col- 
 lect that they may disperse, and disperse that they may col- 
 lect. They are hke men playing at ball — they catch eagerly, 
 and throw away quickly ; so that they have no moderation 
 either in catching or in throwing away. Although their doc- 
 trine is praised by secular persons of bad character, yet if 
 you love me, you will avoid it as poison, and the death of the 
 soul. I have sent you as pledges for your books, Origen on 
 
 1 
 
NO. XI.] OF PROFANE LEARNING. 177 
 
 the Canticles, and instead of Aulus Gellius, (which I could 
 not have at this time,) a book which is called, in Greek, 
 Strategematon, which is military." 
 
 It must be observed, however, that this excuse would 
 scarcely serve— indeed, strictly speaking, it could not 
 be admitted at all— for reading heathen works of fic- 
 tion. The Midianitish captive might have beauty, and 
 might be loved, if she assumed the form of philosophy 
 or history, art or science. Truth, wherever found, is 
 truth and beauty ; but when the captive appeared in 
 the meretricious form of poetry, and that, too, poetry 
 about false gods— or, more plainly, nonsense about 
 nonentities — or even coarsely, as they would have ex- 
 pressed it, lies about devils— when this was the case, 
 they thought that the less Christians had to do with it 
 the better. Beside this, they thought that Virgil and 
 Horace (to say nothing of some others) spoke of things 
 whereof it is a shame to speak — things which children 
 should not be taught, and which it were better that 
 Christian men should not know. This was their feel- 
 ing and conviction ; and on this they acted. It was 
 not, as modern conceit loves to talk, that they were 
 ignorant that such books existed, or that they were 
 men so destitute of brains and passions as not to 
 admire the language in which the heathen poets de- 
 scribed, and the images in which they personified, 
 ambition, rage, lust, intemperance, and a variety of 
 other things quite contrary to the Rules of St. Benedict 
 and St. Chrodegang. 
 
 I grant that they had not that extravagant and fac- 
 titious admiration for the poets of antiquity, which they 
 probably would have had if they had been brought up 
 to read them before they could understand them, and 
 to admire them as a necessary matter of taste, before 
 they could form any intellectual or moral estimate of 
 them : they thought too that there were worse things 
 
 N 
 
178 DARK- AGE VIEW [nO. XI. 
 
 in the world than false quantities, and preferred run- 
 ning the risque of them to some other risques which 
 they apprehended ^; but yet there are instances enough 
 of the classics (even the poets) being taught in schools, 
 and read by individuals ; and it cannot be doubted that 
 they might have been, and would have been, read by 
 more, but for the prevalence of that feeling which I 
 have described ; and which, notwithstanding these 
 exceptions, was very general. Modern, and, as it is 
 supposed, more enlightened, views of education, have 
 decided that this was all wrong ; but let us not set 
 down what was at most an error of judgment, as mere 
 stupidity and a proof of total barbarism. If the modern 
 ecclesiastic should ever meet with a crop-eared monk 
 of the tenth century, he may, if he pleases, laugh at 
 him for not having read Virgil ; but if he should him- 
 self be led to confess that, though a priest of Christ's 
 
 ^ When our Archbishop Lanfranc was a monk at Bee, but at a time 
 when the most renowned teachers of Latin were coming to him for in- 
 struction — clerici accummt, Ducum fiUi, nominatissimi scholarum latini- 
 tatis magistri — he was one day officiating as reader at table, when the 
 prior corrected, or thought that he corrected, him for a false quantity. " It 
 was," says his biographer, " as if he had said docere with the middle sylla- 
 ble long, as it is ; and he [the prior] would have corrected it, by shorten- 
 ing the middle syllable to docere, which it is not, for that prior was not 
 learned. But the wise man, knowing that obedience was due to Christ 
 rather than to Donatus, gave up the right pronunciation, and said as he 
 was improperly told to say. For he knew that a false quantity was not a 
 capital crime, but that to disobey one who commanded him in God's 
 stead (jubenti ex parte Dei) was no trifling sin." — Mab. A. S. IX. 635. 
 By way of a set-oflF to some things which I have quoted, and a 
 specimen of the exceptions of which I speak, I may add what the 
 biographer of Herluin (who was Abbot of Bee at this time) says of 
 this confluence of learned men. He tells us that the monastery in- 
 creased in a variety of ways, as to fame, revenue, &c. — " Viris litteratis 
 undecumque confluentibus cum omamentis et spoliis quibus spoliaverant 
 iEgyptum, quae cultui tabernaculi postmodum forent accommoda. Poe- 
 tarum quippe figmenta, pbilosophorum scientia et artium liberaliura 
 discipHna, Scripturis sacris intelligendis valde sunt necessaria."— 76irf. 
 364. 
 
NO. XI.] OF PROFANE LEARNING. 179 
 
 catliolic church, and nourished in the languages of 
 Greece and Rome till they were almost as familiar to 
 him as his own, he had never read a single page of 
 Chrysostom or Basil, of Augustine or Jerome, of Am- 
 brose or Hilary — if he should confess this, I am of 
 opinion that the poor monk would cross himself, and 
 make off without looking behind him. 
 
 So different are the feelings of men, and I doubt 
 whether it is possible for any man in the present day 
 to form a complete idea of the state of feeling on this 
 subject which existed for many centuries ; but it is 
 very desirable that it should be understood, and per- 
 haps it may be illustrated by a few extracts from 
 writers of different periods. 
 
 Pope Gregory wrote a letter to Desiderius, a Bishop 
 of Gaul, which begins thus : — " Having received much 
 pleasing information respecting your studies, such joy 
 arose in my heart that I could not on any account 
 think of refusing what you, my brother, requested. 
 But after this I was informed (what I cannot repeat 
 without shame) that you, my brother, teach certain 
 persons grammar*. At this I was so grieved, and con- 
 ceived so strong a disgust, that I exchanged the feel- 
 ings which I have described for groans and sadness; 
 
 * I say, "teach Grammar" though it is a very absurd translation of 
 Grammaticam exponere. The reader who does not require such an ex- 
 planation will, I hope, excuse my saying, for the sake of others, that the 
 "ars grammatica" comprehended something much beyond what the 
 words would now suggest. Indeed, they might, perhaps, be more pro- 
 perly translated " classical," or, what is the same thing, "profane litera- 
 ture." The Grammaticus was, as his name imported, a man of letters— 
 those letters, however, to borrow the words of Augustine, " non quas 
 primi magistri, sed quas docent qui grammatici vocantur." — Confess. L. I. 
 c. xii. How much those who lived in the dark ages knew of such litera- 
 ture, people may dispute ; and therefore, as I know of no other alterna- 
 tive, I prefer using the word " grammar," though incorrect, to the appear- 
 ance of exaggerating their knowledge, until I can show, as I hope to do, 
 that they were not so entirely ignorant of the classics as some have sup- 
 posed. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 DARK-AGE VIEW [nO. XT. 
 
 for it cannot be that the praises of Jupiter and the 
 praises of Christ should proceed from the same mouth. 
 Consider, yourself, how sad and wicked a thing it is 
 (quam grave nefandumque sit) for a bishop to sing 
 what would be unfit for a religious layman ; and 
 although my most dear son, Candidus, the priest, who 
 came afterwards, being strictly examined as to this 
 matter, denied it, and endeavoured to excuse you, yet 
 my mind is not satisfied. For as it is horrible that 
 such a thing should be told of a priest, (execrabile est 
 hoc de sacerdote enarrari,) so should the investigation 
 of its truth or falsehood be strict in proportion. If, 
 therefore, the information which 1 have received shall 
 hereafter be shewn to be false, and it shall appear that 
 you are not studying trifles and secular literature, I 
 shall give thanks to God, who has not suffered your 
 mind to be polluted with the blasphemous praises of 
 the wicked, and we shall then confer, safely and with- 
 out hesitation, on the subject of your requests ^" 
 
 Our countryman, Alcwin, was probably born about 
 the year 735, devoted to the church as soon as he was 
 weaned, and brought up in it. His biographer, who 
 was his contemporary, or within a few years of him, 
 tells us that, when a child, he frequented the daily ser- 
 vices of the church, but was apt to neglect those which 
 were performed in the night. When he was about 
 eleven years old, it happened that a lay-brother who 
 inhabited a cell ® belonging to the monastery, was one 
 
 » Lib. IX. Ep. xlviii. 
 
 6 These cells were little establishments which rose up like offsets round 
 monasteries, and properly consisted of a few (perhaps from two to half-a- 
 dozen) monks placed there by the superiors of the monastery, and living 
 under its rule, either that they might be on the spot for the protection and 
 cultivation of property belonging to the monastery — or because they de- 
 sired to lead a more solitary life than they could do in the monastery, — or 
 because applications for admissions were so numerous, that in order to 
 admit those who applied it was necessary that some of the older monks 
 
NO. XI.] OF PROFANE LEARNING. 181 
 
 day, by some accident, deprived of his usual compa- 
 nions, and petitioned the schoolmaster of the monas- 
 tery that one of the boys might come up and sleep 
 there that night ; being, perhaps, afraid to pass the 
 hours of darkness alone. Alcwin was sent, and they 
 retired to rest ; and when, about cock-crowing, they 
 were waked by the signal for service, the rustic monk 
 only turned in bed, and went to sleep again. Not so 
 Alcwin ; who soon perceived, with horror and astonish- 
 ment, that the room was full of daemons. They sur- 
 rounded the bed of the sleeping rustic, and cried — 
 " You sleep well, brother !" He woke immediately, 
 and they repeated their salutation. " Why," they 
 added, " do you alone lie snoring here, while all your 
 brethren are watching in the church ?" Quid multa ? 
 says the historian ; and indeed every body may guess 
 what ensued — they gave him an awful drubbing, which, 
 we are told, was not only very beneficial to him, but 
 was matter of warning and rejoicing (cautelam et can- 
 ticum) to others. In the meantime, poor Alcwin, as 
 he afterwards related, lay trembling, under the persua- 
 sion that his turn would come next ; and said in his 
 inmost heart — " O Lord Jesus, if thou wilt deliver me 
 from their bloody hands, and afterwards I am negligent 
 of the vigils of thy church and of the service of lauds, 
 and continue to love Virgil more than the melody of 
 the Psalms, then may I undergo such correction ; only 
 I earnestly pray that thou wouldest now deliver me." 
 Alcwin escaped ; but in order to impress it on his 
 memory, his biographer says, he was subjected to some 
 farther alarm. The daemons, having finished the casti- 
 
 should swarm out,— or because those who had given certain property had 
 made it a condition that monks should be settled on the spot. The reader 
 will imagine that, if not so originally (as in most cases it was) the cell 
 generally become a farm ; and often the oratory grew into a church, a 
 monastery, a town, &c. 
 
182 DARK-AGE VIEW [nO. XL 
 
 gation of his companion, looked about them and found 
 the boy, completely covered up in his bed-clothes, 
 panting and almost senseless. " Who is the other that 
 sleeps in the house?" said the chief of the daemons. 
 " The boy, Alcwin, is hidden in that bed," replied the 
 others. Finding that he was discovered, his suppressed 
 grief and horror burst forth in tears and screaming. 
 His persecutors being restrained from executing all 
 that their cruelty would have desired, began to consult 
 together. An unfortunate hiatus in the MS. prevents 
 us from knowing all that they said ; but it appears that 
 they came to a resolution not to beat him, but to turn 
 up the clothes at the bottom of the bed and cut his 
 corns, by way of making him remember his promise ^ 
 Already were the clothes thrown back, when Alcwin 
 jumped up, crossed himself, and sung the twelfth 
 Psalm with all his might : the daemons vanished, and 
 he and his companion set off to the church for safety ^ 
 Some readers will perhaps doubt whether all the 
 monks were in the church during this scene in the 
 cell ; but, without arguing on the dsemonology of the 
 story, I quote it to shew the nature of the sin which 
 lay on the child's conscience, when he thought that he 
 was in the hands of devils. He was, as his biographer 
 had before said, even at that early age, " Virgilii amplius 
 quam Psalmorum amator;" but he received a lesson 
 which he never forgot. Speaking of him in after life, 
 and when he had become celebrated as a teacher, his 
 biographer says — " This man of God had, when he was 
 young, read the books of the ancient philosophers, and 
 the lies of Virgil, which he did not wish now to hear, 
 
 ^ As the passage now stands it is — " Non istum verberibus, quia rudis 
 adhuc est, acris .... pedum tantum, in quibus duritia inest calli, tonsione 
 cultelli castigemus, et eraendationem sponsionis nunc suae confirmabi- 
 mus." 
 
 8 Mab. A. S. O. B. torn. v. p. 140. 
 
NO. XI.] OF PROFANE LEARNING. 183 
 
 or desire that his disciples should read. ' The sacred 
 poets,' said he, ' are sufficient for you, and there is no 
 reason why you should be polluted with the impure 
 eloquence of Virgil's language.' Which precept, old 
 Sigulfus endeavoured secretly to disobey, and for so 
 doing he was afterwards publicly brought to shame. 
 For, calling his sons, Adalbert and Aldric, whom he 
 was then bringing up, he ordered them to read Virgil 
 with him in the most secret manner, forbidding them 
 to let any one know of it, lest it should come to the 
 knowledge of Father Alcwin. Alcwin, however, call- 
 ing him to him in his usual manner, said — ' Where do 
 you come from, Virgiliane ? and why have you begun 
 and designed, contrary to my will and advice, and even 
 without my knowledge, to read Virgil?' Sigulfus, 
 throwing himself at his feet, and having confessed that 
 he had acted most foolishly, humbly did penance ; 
 which satisfaction the indulgent father, after rebuking 
 him, kindly received, admonishing him not to do so any 
 more. The worthy man of God, Aldric, who is still 
 alive, and an abbot, declares that neither he nor Adal- 
 bert had divulged the matter to any one ; but had, all 
 the time, as they were directed, kept it secret from 
 every body ^." 
 
 Passing over about a century, we are told by the 
 biographer of Odo, Abbot of Clugni (who lived until 
 942), that he was so seduced by the love of knowledge, 
 that he was led to employ himself with the vanities of 
 the poets, and resolved to read the works of Virgil 
 regularly through. On the following night, however, 
 he saw in a dream a large vase, of marvellous external 
 beauty, but filled with innumerable serpents, who, 
 springing forth, twined about him, but without doing 
 him any injury. The holy man, waking, and prudently 
 
 ' Mab. A. S. O. B. torn. v. p. 149. 
 
184 DARK-AGE VIEW [nO. XI. 
 
 considering the vision, took the serpents to mean the 
 figments of the poets, and the vase to represent Virgil's 
 book, which was painted outwardly with worldly elo- 
 quence, but internally defiled with the vanity of impure 
 meaning. From thenceforward, renouncing Virgil and 
 his pomps, and keeping the poets out of his chamber, 
 he sought his nourishment from the sacred writings '." 
 
 After another century — that is, about the middle of 
 the eleventh — we find Peter Damian blaming those 
 monks " who go after the common herd of grammarians 
 (grammaticorum valgus), who, leaving spiritual studies, 
 covet to learn the vanities of earthly science ; that is, 
 making light of the Rule of St. Benedict, they love to 
 give themselves up to the Rules of Donatus ^ ;" and, 
 very near the same time, our Archbishop Lanfranc 
 wrote to Domnoaldus — " You have sent me some ques- 
 tions respecting secular literature for solution ; but it 
 is unbecoming the episcopal function to be occupied 
 in such studies. Formerly, I spent the days of my 
 youth in such things ; but on taking the pastoral oflfice 
 I determined to renounce them ^" His contemporary, 
 Geronius, abbot at Centule, was (his biographer tells 
 us) in his youth accustomed to read the heathen poets ; 
 and had nearly fallen into the error of practising what 
 he read *. 
 
 Honorius (about 11 20), or whoever was the author 
 
 ' Mab. ubi sup torn. vii. p. 187. 
 
 2 Ap. Mab. Ibid. Ssec. III. P. I. Praf. No. 42, p. xvii. ^ ibij, 
 * " Sed, ut fieri solet, cum adolescens Grammaticse operam daret, et 
 patulo sensu ipsorutn jam carminum vim perpenderet, animadvertitque 
 inter ea qugedam, quorum oranis intentio hgec est, ut aut expletas luxurias 
 referant, aut quomodo quis explere voluerit, vel explore potuerit re- 
 censeant : et dum talium assidua meditatione poUuitur juvenis mens 
 casta, tum juvenili fervore, tum turpium verborum auditione, maxime 
 vero diaboli instinctu ad hoc ccepit impelli, ut ea faceret quae tantorum 
 Poetarum aestimabat narratione celebrari." — Chron. Centulen, ap. Dock. 
 Spicil. ii. 338. 
 
NO. XI.] OF PROFANE LEARNING. 185 
 
 of the Gemma Animse, says — " It grieves me when I 
 consider in my mind the number of persons who, hav- 
 ing lost their senses, are not ashamed to give their 
 utmost labour to the investigation of the abominable 
 figments of the poets, and the captious arguments of 
 the philosophers, (which are wont inextricably to bind 
 the mind that is drawn away from God in the bonds 
 of vices,) and to be ignorant of the Christian profession, 
 whereby the soul may come to reign everlastingly with 
 God. As it is the height of madness to be anxious to 
 learn the laws of an usurper, and to be ignorant of the 
 edicts of the lawful sovereign. Moreover, how is the 
 soul profited by the strife of Hector, or the argumenta- 
 tion of Plato, or the poems of Virgil, or the elegies of 
 Ovid, who now, with their like, are gnashing their teeth 
 in the prison of the infernal Babylon, under the cruel 
 tyranny of Pluto ? But the wisdom of God puts the 
 brightest honour on him who, investigating the deeds 
 and writings of the apostles, has his mind continually 
 employed on those whom no one doubts to be now 
 reigning in the palace of the heavenly Jerusalem, with 
 the King of Glory \" 
 
 Let me add an extract from the works of a contem- 
 porary, whose name is too well known, and whose 
 words are worth copying, because he was quite a march- 
 of-intellect man. Peter Abelard, after quoting the 
 statements of Jerome, and saying that, from the injunc- 
 tion laid on him, some persons gathered that it was un- 
 lawful to read any secular books, adds, " I conceive, how- 
 ever, that reading in any of the arts is not forbidden to 
 a religious man ; unless it may be that by it his greater 
 usefulness may be hindered ; and we must do in this as 
 we know must be done in some other good things — 
 namely, the less must sometimes be intermitted, or 
 
 s Prol. Bib. Pat. torn. X. p. 1179- 
 
186 DARK-AGE VIEW [nO. XI. 
 
 altogether given up, for the sake of greater. For when 
 there is no falsehood in the doctrine, no impropriety in 
 the language, some utility in the knowledge, who is to 
 be blamed for learning or teaching these things ? un- 
 less because, as I have already said, some greater good 
 be neglected or omitted ; for no man can say that 
 knowledge is, strictly speaking, evil. But how greatly 
 this may be done to our condemnation and confusion 
 every reflecting person may see ; since we are not only 
 told that 'the mouth that belieth slayeth the soul' 
 (Wisd. i. 11), but also that an account will be required 
 of every idle word. If a Christian chooses to read for 
 critical knowledge of phrases and forms of speech, may 
 he not do this sufficiently without studying the figments 
 of the poets and foolish tales ? What kind of phrase- 
 ology, what ornament of language is there, which the 
 phrase of scripture does not supply ? Full as it is of 
 enigmatical allegories, and abounding as it does with 
 mystical language, what elegances of speech are there 
 which may not be learned from the mother tongue, 
 Hebrew ? especially when it appears that the common 
 people of Palestine were so accustomed to parables, 
 that it behoved the Lord Jesus to address them in that 
 way when he preached the Gospel to them. What 
 dainty can be wanting at the spiritual table of the 
 Lord,^ -that is, the Sacred Scripture — wherein, accord- 
 ing to Gregory, both the elephant may swim and the 
 lamb may walk ?" Then, after proceeding to shew that 
 as much, and as good, language as can be wanted, may 
 be had from Jerome, Augustine, Cyprian, and other 
 Christian writers, he says — " Why then do not the 
 bishops and doctors of the Christian religion expel 
 from the city of God, those poets whom Plato forbade 
 to enter into his city of the world * ? " 
 
 « Theol. Christ. Lib. II. Mart. V. p. 1238. 
 
NO. XII.] OF PROFANE LEARNING. 187 
 
 I might go on with extracts of this kind until we 
 should come again to De Ranee ; but I am afraid that 
 the reader may think that I have already cited more 
 testimonies than enough on this point. Should there, 
 however, be any thing like tautology in them, I beg 
 him to remember that my object in bringing them 
 forward is to describe and illustrate a feeling which 
 existed very generally in the Christian church before, 
 and through, and after, the Dark Ages. That there 
 were, even in those days, reading men, I hope to shew ; 
 and that they did not give the first place to classical or 
 scientific learning I allow, though I cannot admit that 
 it was from pure ignorance of the sources of informa- 
 tion ; and the question naturally arises — What did they 
 read ? This inquiry I hope to pursue, and to begin by 
 showing that there were some persons — perhaps a good 
 many — who read the Bible. 
 
 No. XII. 
 
 Omissis igitur et repudiatis nugis theatricis et poeticis, divinarum Scrip- 
 turarum consideratione, et tractatione pascamus animum atque potemus 
 vanae curiositatis fame ac siti fessum et sestuantem, et inanibus phantas- 
 matibus, tanquam pictis epulis, frustra refici satiarique cupientem. — 
 
 AUGUSTIMUS. 
 
 There is no subject in the history of mankind which 
 appears to me more interesting, and more worthy of 
 investigation, than the actual state of the Christian 
 church during the dark ages. It is, as I have already 
 said, with a view to this that I have entered on this 
 series of papers ; and having now, I trust, in some 
 degree, cleared the way, by exposing some popular 
 misstatements, I hope to come more directly to the 
 point. To begin, then, with an inquiry respecting the 
 Christian knowledge, or the means of such knowledge, 
 
188 THE BIBLE [NO. XII. 
 
 which existed in those days ; and to begin this at the 
 beginning — Did they know anything about the 
 
 BlBLfi ? 
 
 I believe that the idea which many persons have of 
 ecclesiastical history may be briefly stated thus : that 
 the Christian church was a small, scattered, and perse- 
 cuted flock, until the time of Constantine ; that then, 
 at once, and as if by magic, the Roman world became 
 Christian; that this Universal Christianity, not being 
 of a very pure, solid, or durable nature, melted down 
 into a filthy mass called Popery, which held its place 
 during the dark ages, until the revival of Pagan litera- 
 ture, and the consequent march of intellect, sharpened 
 men's wits and brought about the Reformation ; when it 
 was discovered that the pope was Antichrist, and that 
 the saints had been in the hands of the little horn pre- 
 dicted by the prophet Daniel for hundreds of years 
 without knowing so awful a fact, or suspecting any- 
 thing of the kind. How much of this is true, and how 
 much false, this is not the place to inquire ; but I feel 
 bound to refer to this opinion, because the necessity of 
 describing the church during the kingdom of the Beast 
 in such a way as scarcely to admit of her visible exist- 
 ence, even when it has not led popular writers on the 
 prophecies to falsify history, has at least prepared their 
 readers to acquiesce without surprise or inquiry in very 
 partial and delusive statements. 
 
 There is another point which I would just notice, 
 because it has given colour to the statements of all the 
 writers, who, from whatever motive, have maintained 
 the entire ignorance of the dark ages, — I mean the 
 complaints made by contemporary writers of the ne- 
 glect of the word of God, as well as of the other sins 
 of those ages. I have before alluded to something like 
 this of a more general nature, and will here only give 
 a single specimen ; and that not so much to prove or 
 
NO. XII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 189 
 
 illustrate what is plain and notorious, as because it is 
 somewhat curious and characteristic in itself, and re- 
 lates to one of the most early versions of the Scripture 
 into the vernacular tonsfue. 
 
 William of Bamberg, as he is commonly called, who 
 was a monk of Fulda, and afterwards abbot of St. 
 Peters by Mersburg (about the year 1070), wrote a 
 translation, or rather a double paraphrase, of the Book 
 of Canticles, in Latin verse and Teutonic prose, to 
 which he prefixed the following preface : — 
 
 "When I look at the studies of our ancestors, whereby 
 they became famous in respect of the Sacred Scriptiu-es, I am 
 forced to lament the depravity of this age, when almost every 
 literary pursuit has ceased, and there is nothing going on but 
 avarice, envy, and strife. For if there are any who, under 
 scholastic discipline, are instructed in grammatical and dia- 
 lectical studies, they think that this is enough for them, and 
 entirely neglect the Holy Scripture ; whereas it is on account 
 of that only that it is lawful for Christians to read heathen 
 books, in order that they may perceive the great difference 
 between light and darkness, truth and error. Others, how- 
 ever, though they are mighty in sacred learning, yet, hiding 
 in the earth the talent committed to them, laugh at those 
 who make mistakes in reading and chanting, though they 
 take no pains to help their infirmity, either by instructing 
 them or correcting their books. I found, in France, that one 
 man, named Lantfrid *, (who had previously been much dis- 
 tinguished in dialectics, but who had then betaken himself to 
 ecclesiastical studies,) had by his own acuteness sharpened 
 the minds of many in the Epistles of St. Paul and the 
 Psalms ; and as many of our countrymen flock to hear him, 
 I hope that, after his example, they also will produce the 
 fruit of their industry in our provinces, to the benefit of 
 many. And as it often happens that through an impulse 
 given by generous steeds the half-bred horse is set a running, . 
 (although I am not ignorant of the dulness of my poor 
 genius, yet hoping to have a merciful God for my helper,) I 
 
 ' That is, our Archbishop Lanfranc. 
 1 
 
190 THE BIBLE [nO. XII. 
 
 also have determined, according to my small means, to offer 
 to the studious reader some little help towards improvement. 
 I have determined, therefore, if God permit, to explain the 
 Song of Songs, whose very name testifies its eminence, both 
 in verse and in the Teutonic language, in such a way, that 
 the text being placed in the middle, these two versions may 
 accompany it down the sides, and thereby whatsoever is 
 sought may be more easily found. I have added nothing of 
 my own, but have compressed all I could find in the various 
 expositions of the fathers ; and, both in the verses and in the 
 Teutonic translation, I have taken more pains about the sense 
 than the words. Sometimes I repeat the same verses; for 
 those things which the Holy Spirit has repeated in the same 
 words, it does not appear improper for me to repeat in the 
 same verses. I have thought it good to distribute the parts 
 to the Bridegroom and the Bride, both in the translation and 
 in the verses, as well as the text, not only that they may 
 have the greater appearance of authority, but that the reader 
 may be gratified by the persons speaking alternately. I do 
 not know whether I am the dupe of a pleasing delusion ; but 
 if not, surely he who rained on Solomon hath also conde- 
 scended to shed some few drops on me. Sometimes on 
 reading what I have written I am as much delighted as if it 
 was the work of an approved author. I offer this little work, 
 as long as I live, to the correction of those who are more 
 learned; if I have done wrong in anything, I shall not be 
 ashamed to receive their admonitions ; and if there is any- 
 thing which they like, I shall not be slow to furnish more *." 
 
 To come, however, to the question, — did people in 
 the dark ages know anything of the Bible ? Certainly 
 it was not as commonly known and as generally in the 
 hands of men as it is now, and has been almost ever 
 
 ^ I. M. 4* X). 501. To this poor monk's own account of his perform- 
 ance, it is only justice to add the testimony of a learned Protestant: — 
 " Paraphrasin Willerami mire commendat Junius, autorem vocat prae- 
 stantis ingenii virum, et rerum theologicarum consultissimum, qui in hac 
 provincia administranda, et vero sensu connubialis carminis eruendo tanta 
 dexteritate est et fide versatus, ut paucos habuerit ex antiquis illis, quos se 
 vidisse et legisse notat, pares; priorem fere neminem." — Cave, Hist. Lit. 
 torn. ii. p. 148. 
 
NO. XII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 191 
 
 since the invention of printing. I beg the reader not 
 to suspect me of wishing to maintain any such absurd 
 opinion; but I do think that there is sufficient evi- 
 dence— (I.) that during that period the scriptures were 
 more accessible to those who could use them; (11.) 
 were in fact more used — and (III.) by a greater num- 
 ber of persons — than some modern writers would lead 
 us to suppose. 
 
 The worst of it is, that the proof must not only be 
 defective — for on what subject connected with that 
 period can it be otherwise? — but that, if by any means 
 fully produced, it must be so voluminous as to be quite 
 inadmissible in a work like the present. It is not by 
 generalizing on particular cases, as has been the fault 
 of some writers whose statements I have noticed, but 
 by accumulating a great number of facts — facts, too, 
 of very different descriptions, and forming totally dis- 
 tinct parts of the proof — that anything like a correct 
 idea can be formed. It is absurd for Robertson to say 
 that monasteries of considerable note had only one 
 missal, because the Abbot Bonus found only one in the 
 ruined chapel at Pisa. It is as absurd in Warton to 
 tell us that " at the beginning of the tenth century 
 books were so scarce in Spain that one and the same 
 copy of the Bible, St. Jerom's Epistles, and some 
 volumes of ecclesiastical offices and martyrologies, ofkn 
 served for different monasteries \" because old Genna- 
 dius, Bishop of Astorga, thought fit, after dividing 
 many other books among four monasteries or orato- 
 tories, which he had founded in his diocese, to give 
 them his Bible and some other books as common pro- 
 perty *. I think it would be quite as fair and as foolish 
 
 ^ Diss. ii. 
 
 * Warton refers to Fleury, L. LIV. c. liv. but adds, " See other in- 
 stances in Hist. Lit. Fr. par del Benedict, vii. 3." To this book I have 
 
192 THE BIBLE [NO. XII. 
 
 for me to say, " In the ninth century the bishops used 
 to write Bibles for their churches with their own 
 hands," because I find that Wicbert, who became 
 bishop of Wildesheim in the year 880, did so. Still 
 such notices are not to be passed over ; and I will offer 
 a few, to which I have no doubt that many more might 
 
 not access at present ; but I shall be much surprised to find that it con- 
 tains other instances sufficient to support this assertion. 
 
 Since I wrote this note I have received a letter from a friend whom I 
 requested to look out the reference, in which he says, "It is curious that 
 you should be again sent back to your old friend, the Homilies of Haimo ; 
 the whole passage is not long, and I shall, therefore, transcribe it. Hist. 
 Lit. torn. vii. p. 3, n. 3. 
 
 " ' HI. A ce defaut presque generale d'inchnation pour les lettres, qui 
 avoit sa source dans le genie de la nation, se reunirent plusieurs autres 
 causes, qui concoururent a entretenir I'ignorance. Le X siecle n'avoit pas 
 ete suffisant pour reparer les pertes de livres qu'avoit souffert la France^ 
 dans les courses precedentes, les pillages, les incendies, des Sarasins, des 
 Normans, des Hongrois, des Bulgares. Quoiqu'on eut travaille a renou- 
 veller ces livres, comme notts I'avons montre, ils etoient encore fort rares, ce 
 qui rendoit les etudes tres-difficiles. D'ailleurs n'y aiant presque que des 
 moines qui s'occupoient a les copier, ils commencerent par ceux qu'ils 
 croioient plus necessaires : la Bible et les livres liturgiques, les ecrits des 
 Peres, les recueils des Canons. Ainsi il se passa du temps, avant qu'ils 
 pussent transcrire les Historiens, les Poetes, les Orateurs. Et le defaut de 
 ces ouvrages contribua beaucoup aux mauvaises Etudes et a la barbaric 
 qui y regnoit. On avoit cependant de cette sorte d'auteurs : mais ils 
 n'etoient pas communes. — {Mab. an. 1. 6l, n. 6.) Un trait que I'histoire 
 a conserve touchant le prix excessif des livres en ce temps-la nous doit 
 faire juger de leur rarete. Encore s'agit-il d'un auteur ecclesiastique, le 
 recueil des Homelies d'Haimon d'Halberstat. Grecie Comtesse d'Anjou,' 
 &c. &c, 
 
 "The rest of the paragraph I think I sent you before ; or, at least, you 
 know its contents. [The reader may find it in No. V. p. 62.] And it 
 appears that there is nothing whatever about one book serving many 
 monasteries ; nay, the inference from the whole passage is the very reverse 
 of the statement for which it is quoted by Warton ; and it relates, not to 
 Spain, but to France. I therefore looked in the index of the volume, in 
 hope that the reference might possibly be misprinted ; but I find nothing 
 at all like the statement in Warton's text." 
 
 I do not wish to lengthen this note by any remarks on this passage, 
 which I adduce as being the authority on which Warton relied ; but I 
 have marked one or two words by italics, which shew what an important 
 bearing it has on the subject in general, and particularly on that part with 
 which we are at present engaged. 
 
NO. XII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 193 
 
 be added if I had access to more books. Though I 
 put them first, I beg the reader not to suppose that I 
 consider them as the most important part of the proof, 
 but only offer them as notices not entirely uninterest- 
 ing in themselves, and as forming a part, though a 
 small one, of the proof required. 
 
 1. In the first place, then, whoever reads the writers 
 — perhaps I should say principally the historians — of 
 those ages will find them not unfrequently speaking of 
 the Bible. I do not mean referring to it as an autho- 
 rity, or quoting its contents, or, if I may so express 
 myself, speaking of it in the abstract (for this is quite 
 another part of the subject), but incidentally mention- 
 ing the existence of Bibles at various times, and in 
 places where they were accessible to very many. I 
 need not repeat that the proof must be defective, not 
 only because we may reasonably suppose that those 
 copies of the Bible which happen to be thus incident- 
 ally mentioned in the comparatively few documents 
 which have come down to us were but a very small 
 part of those which were in existence, but because the 
 instances which I can give are only such as I happen 
 to have met with in circumstances not very favourable 
 to such research. 
 
 When Aldhelm, who became bishop of Schireburn 
 in the year 705, went to Canterbury to be consecrated 
 by his old friend and companion Berthwold (pariter 
 Uteris studuerant, pariterque viam religionis triverant,) 
 the archbishop kept him there many days, taking coun- 
 sel with him about the affairs of his diocese. Hearing 
 of the arrival of ships at Dover, during this time, he 
 went there to inspect their unloading, and to see if 
 they had brought anything in his way, (si quid forte 
 commodum ecclesiastico usui attulissent nautse qui e 
 Gallico sinu in Angliam provecti librorum copiam 
 apportassent.) Among many other books he saw one 
 
194 THE BIBLE [NO. XII. 
 
 containing the whole of the Old and New Testament, 
 which — ^to omit the incidents for the sake of which the 
 fact is recorded, but which are not to our purpose — he 
 at length bought ; and William of Malmesbury, who 
 wrote his life in the twelfth century, tells us that it was 
 still preserved at that place ^. 
 
 In the year 780, King Offa gave to the church at 
 Worcester, among other things, a great Bible — mag- 
 nam Bibliam ®. 
 
 It was probably soon after — for he became bishop of 
 Orleans about or before the year 794 — that Theodulfus 
 made his great Bible, which is still in existence; at 
 least it was so in the days of Father Sirmond, in whose 
 works the reader may find the verses which the bishop 
 prefixed to it, and the preface, which was written in 
 gold ^ 
 
 In the list of books given to his monastery by 
 Ansegisus, who became abbot of Fontanelle in the 
 year 823, we find " Bibliothecam optimam continens 
 vetus et novum Testamentum, cum prsefationibus ac 
 initiis librorum aureis literis decoratis*;" and among 
 those which he gave to the monastery of St. Flavian, 
 " Pandecten a B. Hieronymo ex hebrseo vel graeco 
 eloquio translatum ^" 
 
 * Ang. Sac ii. 21. « Ibid. i. 470. 
 
 " Sinn. Op. torn. ii. p. 763. * Chron. Fontan. ap. Dach. Sp. ii. 280. 
 ^ Ibid. 281. I do not know that this name was ever general, or that it 
 was used by any writer before Alcwin. In the verses which he wrote in 
 the copy which he corrected by order of Charlemagne (and which the 
 reader may find in Baronius, an. 778. No. xxiii.), he says : — 
 "Nomine Pandecten proprio vocitare memento 
 Hoc corpus sacrum, lector, in ore tuo ; 
 Quod nunc a multis constat Bibliotheca dicta 
 Nomine non proprio, ut lingua Pelasga docet." 
 As to the name Bibliotheca, I have already had occasion to mention 
 that it was the common name for a Bible. It seems to have arisen (I 
 know not how properly) from the words of Jerome, who, offering to lend 
 books, says to Florentius, " et quoniam largiente Domino, multis sacrae 
 bibliothecae codicibus abundamus." — Ep. VI. ad Flor. torn. i. p. 19. I. 
 
NO. XII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 195 
 
 In a return of their property which the monks of 
 St. Riquier at Centule made, by order of Lewis the 
 Debonuaire, in the year 831, we find, among a con- 
 siderable quantity of books, " Bibliotheca integra ubi 
 continentur libri Ixxii. in uno volumine ;" and also, 
 "Bibliotheca dispersa in voluminibus 14 \" 
 
 In the year 843 the Normans came up the Loire, 
 and laid waste Nantes, and the surrounding country. 
 After killing the bishop in his cathedral, with many 
 of the clergy, monks, and laity who had sought refuge 
 there, they loaded their vessels with spoil and captives, 
 and proceeded along the Loire to an island, where they 
 began to divide their prey. In doing this, they quar- 
 relled and fought, and many of them were killed. " The 
 captives, however," says the historian, " seeing the 
 storm, all fled into the more inaccessible parts of the 
 island ; but among them there was one who ventured 
 on a very bold stroke (magnae invasionis audax). He 
 took on his back the great Bible, which is preserved 
 to this day [probably in or before the twelfth century] 
 in the great church of Nantes, and ran off to hide him- 
 self, with the rest, in the mines." The Normans having 
 fought till they were tired, those who survived were 
 seized with a panic; in consequence of which they 
 gathered up the spoil, and set sail, without troubling 
 themselves about the captives, who at length got safe 
 back to Nantes, having lost much in silver, and gold, 
 and books, and saving only their Bible, " solummodo 
 Bibliothecam afferentes ^" 
 
 It is somewhat curious that, among the little scraps 
 of history which have come down to us, we find a 
 notice of another Bible in the same year, and very 
 near the same place. In a charter cited by Du Cange, 
 
 1 Chron. Centul. ap. Dach. Sp. ii. 311. 
 * Frag. Hist. Armor, ap. Mart. iii. 830. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 THE BIBLE [NO. XII. 
 
 from the tabulary of the monastery of St. Maur, on the 
 Loire, we find — " Donum autem confirmat Bibliotheca 
 Veteris et Novi Testament! ^ ; " the Bible having been 
 used, I presume, in the conveyance of some property in 
 the way which I have described in No. V. p. 79. In- 
 deed, it seems as if they were in the habit of so using 
 their Bible at that monastery ; for in another charter, 
 bearing date 847, and conveying property to it, we 
 find — " Donum autem hujus rei est haec Bibliotheca 
 Veteris ac Novi Testamenti *." 
 
 In the short interval between the dates of these two 
 charters — that is, in the year 845 — Hamburg was 
 burned, and the Bible which Lewis the Debonnaire 
 had given to Anscharius was, with many other books, 
 destroyed by fire — Bibliothecam quam serenissimus jam 
 memoratus Imperator eidem patri nostro contulerat, 
 optime conscripta, cum plurimis aliis libris igni dis- 
 periit ^ 
 
 Everhard, Count of Friuli, by his will, dated a. d. 867, 
 divided his books among his children, leaving to his 
 eldest son " Bibliothecam nostram ^." This Count, 
 before the time just specified, had founded a monastery 
 at Cisoing (a little to the south between Lille and 
 Tournay) and it appears that a monk named Wulgarius, 
 who states that he had laboured in the monastery ever 
 since its foundation, presented to it several books, 
 among which we find " Bibliothecam 1 ^" 
 
 Wicbert, who became bishop of Hildesheim in the 
 year 880, I have already mentioned as writing a Bible 
 with his own hand. The chronicler who records the 
 fact, and who probably wrote in the twelfth century. 
 
 ^ Du Cange in v. Bibliotheca. 
 
 * Given by Baluze Capit. Reg. Franc, torn. ii. p. 1456. 
 
 * Vita S. Anscharii int. add. ad Lambecii Orig. Hamburg, c. xiv. p. 59. 
 « ^ach. Sp. ii. 877. " Ibid. p. 879. 
 
NO. XII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 197 
 
 says, " Bibliotliecam quae adbuc in monasterio servatur, 
 propria manu elaboravit ^" 
 
 Gennadius, who bequeathed his Bible, as part of a 
 sort of circulating library, to his four monasteries or 
 oratories, I have also already mentioned. He describes 
 it as " Bibliothecam totam ^" 
 
 Olbert, who was abbot of Gembloux until the year 
 1048, wrote out a volume containing the whole of 
 the Old and New Testament ' ;" and the unfortunate 
 
 * Chron. Ep Hildesh. ap. Leib. Sc. Bran. I. 743. 
 
 9 Mab. A. S. vii. p. 36. 
 
 1 This is the person who, under the name of Albert, comes in for a 
 sneer from Warton on the page just referred to of his second Disserta- 
 tion ; "Albert, Abbot of Gemblours, who, with incredible labour and im- 
 mense expense, had collected an hundred volumes on theological, and 
 fifty on profane subjects, imagined he had formed a splendid Ubrary." 
 The "incredible labour and immense expense," and the Abbot's own 
 imagination of the splendour of his library, are, I believe, as purely 
 poetical as anything that Warton ever wrote. Fleury, to whom he 
 refers, says only, "Etant Abbe, il amassa a Gembloux plus de cent 
 volumes d'auteurs ecclesiastiques, et cinquante d'auteurs profanes, 
 ce qui passoit pour une grande bibliotheque." — Lit. LVIII. c. lii. 
 torn. XII. p. 424. The fact, however, is, that he was a monk of Lobbes, 
 who was sent to reform and restore the monastery of Gembloux, which 
 was in a state of great poverty and disorder — exterius ingrueret gravis rei 
 familiaris tenuitas, interius autem horreret grandis irreligiositas — and he 
 did, according to the account of his biographer, in a marvellously short 
 time, restore discipline, build a church, and provide many things needful 
 for the monastery, and among others the 150 volumes of books. As to 
 the " incredible labour," we are expressly told that he set his monks to 
 write, to keep them from being idle ; and as to the " immense expense," 
 his biographer's remark is, that it is wonderful how one man, with such 
 slender means, could do so much as he did. " Non passus enim ut per 
 otium mens aut manus eorum torpesceret, utiliter profectui eorum pro- 
 videt, dum eos per scribendi laborem exercet, et frequenti scripturarum 
 meditatione animos eorum ad meliora promovet. Appellens ergo animum 
 ad construendum pro posse suo bibliothecam, quasi quidam Philadelphus, 
 plenariam vetus et novum Testamentum continentem in uno volumine 
 transcripsit historiam ; et divinse quidem scriptura? plusquam centum con- 
 gessit volumina, saecularis vero disciphnae libros quinquaginta. Mirandum 
 sane hominem unum in tanta tenuitate rerum, tanta potuisse comparare, 
 nisi occurreret animo, timentibus Deum nihil deesse." — Mab A. S. torn, 
 viii. p. 531. The reader will here observe that use of the phrase "divina 
 scriptura," which I have before noticed, and of which it would be easy to 
 
198 THE BIBLE [nO. XII. 
 
 Bonus, who was abbot at Pisa at exactly the same 
 time, gave (as we have already seen) ten pounds for 
 what he describes as a " liber Bibliothece ^" 
 
 Among the books which Thierry, who became the 
 first abbot of the restored monastery of St. Evroul, or 
 Ebrulf, at Ouche, in the diocese of Lisieux, in the year 
 1050, caused to be written for that monastery, we find, 
 " omnes libros veteris et novi Testamenti ^" 
 
 Stephen, who became abbot of Beze, in the year 
 1088, gave the monastery a " Bibliotheca, tam veteris 
 quam novi Testamenti *." 
 
 Wicbert's Bible, twice mentioned already, did not 
 prevent Bruno, who succeeded him in the see of Hil- 
 desheim in the year 1153, from presenting to the 
 library a glossed Bible — " contulit ad ipsum armarium 
 totum Testamentum novum et vetus, utrumque glossa- 
 tum ' " — and this was followed by another glossed Bible, 
 very carefully elaborated, and presented by Berno, who 
 succeeded to the see in the year 1190 — "contulit etiam 
 ecclesiae veteris, ac novi Testamenti libros glossatos, et 
 magno scholasticse diligentiae studio elaborates ®." 
 
 give instances ; one of the most curious is perhaps that in the Burton 
 Annals, (Gale, iii. 264.) King John is represented as saying to the Pope's 
 Nuncio, "unde videre potestis per sacras scripturas quod beatus et glo- 
 riosus rex sanctus Edwardus contulit in tempore suo Sancto Wulstano 
 episcopatum Wigomiae," &c. 
 
 ^ When I mentioned the Abbot's Bible before (No. IV. p. 47), I gave a 
 specimen of his latinity ; and this morsel may give me an opportunity of 
 suggesting to the reader that we are not, in all cases, to take it for granted 
 that there was nobody better able to understand, or to describe a book, 
 than the person who happens to have incidentally noticed its existence, or 
 to have made an inventory of various things, and of books among the rest. 
 For instance, the list of books belonging to the church of St. James and 
 St. Christopher, at Stedeburg, which Leibnitz gives us, (I. 870,) begins 
 with " Liber Genesis Biblia," and contains " Liber in Principio et evan- 
 geUorum secundum Marcum." I do not mention this Bible in the text, 
 because I do not know the date of this list. The more modern it is, the 
 more it is to the purpose of this note. 
 
 3 Mab. A. S. ix. 136. * Chron. Bes. ap. Dach. Sp. ii. 435. 
 
 » Chron. Hildesh. ap. Leib. Sc. Br. i. 747- * Ibid. 749. 
 
NO. XII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 199 
 
 To these instances I doubt not that a little trouble 
 would add many more ; but I am afraid that the 
 reader has already found them tedious, and I will here 
 only add some notice of a correspondence between 
 Geoffry, sub-prior of St. Barbara, in Normandy, and 
 John, the abbot, and Peter, one of the monks, of Bau- 
 gercy, in the diocese of Tours, some time between the 
 dates just specified, and probably about the year 1170. 
 The sub-prior begins one of his letters thus : — 
 
 "To his Venerable Abbot John, Geoffry, the servant of 
 your holiness, wishes that which is the true health. I re- 
 ceived the letters of your affection, which seemed to my 
 heart to be sweetened with the honey of love. I read them 
 eagerly; I now read them again gladly; and, often read over, 
 they still please. Of this only I complain, that you send 
 so few and such short letters to one who loves you, and 
 whom you love, so much. You seldom converse with me, 
 and I should like the conversation to be longer. I should 
 like to hear something from you that might instruct us as to 
 our life and conversation, relieve the weariness of our pil- 
 grimage, and inflame us with the love of our heavenly coun- 
 try. I must also tell you that the excellent Bible (Bibliothe- 
 cam optimam), of which I wrote to you long ago, you may 
 still find at Caen, if you wish it." 
 
 The Abbot in his reply (which I presume was not a 
 speedy one, for he begins it with reproaching the sub- 
 prior that he had been so long silent,) takes no notice 
 of the Bible, unless it be by saying at the close of his 
 letter, " Peter Mangot salutes you ; to whom I wish 
 that you would write, and comfort him in the Lord, 
 and among other things admonish him about buying a 
 Bible." It seems to have been the custom of these 
 two friends to add one, two, or three couplets to their 
 letters, in the way of marginal notes, referring to the 
 subjects on which they were writing. The second of 
 the two couplets on this occasion is as follows : — 
 
 " Ardenti studio sacra perlege dogmata, si vis 
 Dulcis aquae saliente sitim restringere rivo." 
 
200 THE BIBLE [nO. XII. 
 
 This letter produced one from Geoffry to Peter 
 Mangot, who seems to have been a monk of Baiigercy, 
 who had undertaken and obtained permission to build 
 a monastery. 
 
 " To his beloved and friend Peter Mangot, brother Geoffry 
 wishes health and perseverance in the work begun. 
 
 " God has fulfilled your desire, — you have what you so 
 ardently sought. You have got what you asked from me, 
 from the King through me, and from the chapter of Citeaux 
 through the King's letters, and the help of others. These 
 things, indeed, seemed very difficult at first, and, from the 
 circumstances of the case, we were almost in despair ; but 
 God himself looked upon us with an eye of mercy, and with 
 a strong hand made all things plain before our face. Go on, 
 then, with increasing devotion in a work that was first con- 
 ceived with a devout intention, and devoutly begun; and 
 carefully provide all that is necessary for it. Build up a 
 temple to the Lord of living and elect stones, who may 
 receive you into eternal habitations. I give thanks to the 
 grace of God which worketh in you ; I give thanks also to 
 you, who are working together with that grace ; for the grace 
 of God, which without you, wrought in you a good will, now 
 worketh by you." 
 
 He afterwards adds : — 
 
 " A monastery (claustrum) without a library (sine armario) 
 is like a castle (castrum) without an armory (sine armamen- 
 tario). Our library is our armory. Thence it is that we 
 bring forth the sentences of the divine law, like sharp arrows, 
 to attack the enemy. Thence we take the armour of righte- 
 ousness, the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, and the 
 sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. See to it, 
 therefore, that in your armory of defence that which is the 
 great defence of all the other defences is not wanting. That 
 defence is the Holy Bible, wherein is contained the right rule 
 of life and mfanners. There each sex and every age finds 
 what is profitable. There spiritual infancy finds that where- 
 by it may grow, youth that which may strengthen it, age 
 that which may support it, — a blessed hand which ministers 
 to all, whereby all may be saved. If therefore you have 
 taken care to provide the arms for this warfare, you will have 
 
NO. XII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 201 
 
 nothing to do but to say to him, * Take thine arms and thy 
 shield, and arise to my help.' Farewell ! and take care that 
 the Bible, which no monastery should be without, is 
 bought." 
 
 To this letter three couplets are added, of which the 
 third is as follows : — 
 
 " Quamvis multorum multi placeant tibi libri 
 Hanc habeas, sapias, sufficit ipsa tibi '." 
 
 It does not appear (and as our inquiry relates in a 
 great degree to the possibility of obtaining such things 
 in those days, it is worth while to notice the circum- 
 stance,) that this recommendation to procure a Bible 
 had anything to do with the Bibliotheca optima at Caen ; 
 for, in a subsequent letter, the Abbot John requests 
 his friend Geoffry to secure it for him *. 
 
 All the instances which I have given refer to the 
 whole Bible, or, as it is expressed in some of them, the 
 Bibliotheca integra, or Bibliotheca tota ; but I must beg 
 the reader's attention to one circumstance, which is 
 important, if we would understand matters aright. 
 Undoubtedly Bibles were scarce in those days ; but we 
 are not hastily to conclude that wherever there existed 
 no single book called a Bible, the contents of the 
 
 7 The other four lines have nothing to do with our immediate subject, 
 but I hope the reader will forgive my quoting them, as belonging to a 
 writer of the dark ages. From his correspondence, in which the reader 
 who is not fastidious as to style (or, rather, as to latinity,) may find much 
 that is interesting, I hope at some future time to give farther extracts. 
 After 
 
 " Petrus vocaris firmus esto," 
 
 we find these four lines, or, rather, two couplets, which seem to have re- 
 ference to different parts of his letter, and to have been originally uncon- 
 nected with each other, as also with the third couplet quoted above : — 
 " In Christo petra fidei fundamine jacto 
 
 Spe paries surgit, culmina complet amor. 
 Vivit agendo fides ; ubi non est actus amoris, 
 Gignit abortivara spem moribunda fides." 
 « Mart. i. 502. 509- 514. 
 
202 THE BIBLE [nO. XII. 
 
 Bible were unknown. The canon of Scripture was 
 settled, indeed, as it is now; but the several parts of 
 which the Bible consists were considered more in the 
 light of separate and independent books than they are 
 by us. To copy all these books was a great under- 
 taking ; and even when there was no aiFectation of 
 caligraphy or costly ornament, and when we reduce 
 the exaggerated statements about the price of materials 
 to something reasonable, it was not only a laborious 
 but a very expensive matter. Of course, writing and 
 printing are very different things. I do not pretend to 
 speak with accuracy, (for it would require more trouble 
 than the thing is worth,) but I am inclined to suppose 
 that at this day a copy of our English Bible, paid for at 
 the rate at which law-stationers pay their writers for 
 common fair-copy on paper, would cost between sixty 
 and seventy pounds for the writing only ; and farther, 
 that the scribe must be both expert and industrious to 
 perform the task in much less than ten months. It 
 must be remembered, however, that the monasteries 
 contained (most of them some, and many a consider- 
 able number of,) men who were not to be paid by their 
 work or their time, but who were officially devoted to 
 the business. Of this, however, I hope to say more 
 hereafter, and to shew that there was a considerable 
 power of multiplication at work. In the meantime, I 
 mention these circumstances merely as reasons why we 
 should not expect to meet with frequent mention of 
 whole Bibles in the dark ages. Indeed, a scribe must 
 have had some confidence in his own powers and per- 
 severance who should have undertaken to make a tran- 
 script of the whole Bible ; and that (except under 
 particular circumstances) without any adequate motive, 
 supposing him to have practised his art as a means of 
 subsistence. For those who were likely to need and 
 to reward his labours either already possessed some 
 
 1 
 
NO. XIII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 203 
 
 part of the Scriptures, and therefore did not require a 
 transcript of the whole, or, if it was their first attempt 
 to possess any portion, there were but few whose means 
 or patience would render it likely that they should 
 think of acquiring the whole at once. It is obvious, 
 too, that when copies of parts had been multiplied, that 
 very circumstance would lead to the transcription of 
 other parts^ which would comparatively seldom be 
 formed into one volume. We may well imagine that 
 a scribe would prefer undertaking to write a Penta- 
 teuch, or adding the two next books a Heptateuch, or 
 with one more an Octateuch, or a Psalter, or a Textus 
 containing one or more of the Gospels, or a book of 
 Proverbs, or a set of the canonical Epistles, or some 
 one or other of the portions into which the Bible was 
 at that time very commonly divided. Of these I hope 
 to speak hereafter, and only mention their existence 
 now as one reason why we are not to take it for 
 granted, that all persons who did not possess what we 
 call a Bible must have been entirely destitute and 
 ignorant of the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 No. XIII. 
 
 « Sunk in the lowest state of earthly depression, making their pilgrim- 
 age in sackcloth and ashes, pressed by every art and engine of human 
 hostility, by the blind hatred of the half-barbarian kings of feudal Europe, 
 by the fanatical furies of their ignorant people, and, above all, by the 
 great spiritual domination, containing in itself a mass of solid and despotic 
 strength unequalled in the annals of power, vivified and envenomed by a 
 reckless antipathy unknown in the annals of the passions,— what had they 
 [the Scriptures] to do but perish ? " 
 
 Hitherto I have spoken only of whole Bibles ; and I 
 have observed, that it would be unreasonable to expect 
 that we should find notice of any very considerable 
 
204 COPIES OF THE GOSPELS [NO. XIII. 
 
 number during the Dark Ages ; not only because all 
 books were scarce — not only because such notices, and 
 the finding of them, are merely accidental — but because 
 the Bible was comparatively seldom formed into one 
 volume, and more commonly existed in its different 
 parts. To mention all the notices which occur of 
 these parts, and all the proofs which exist, that they 
 must have been numerous, would be both tedious and 
 useless ; but it will tend to illustrate, not only the 
 immediate question before us, but our general subject, 
 if I say a few words of copies of the Gospels ; at least, 
 of some which may be worthy of notice, from their 
 costly decorations, or from the persons by whom they 
 were possessed, or to or by whom they were pre- 
 sented. 
 
 I have already said something on the subject of 
 costly books ; and I only refer to it here in order to 
 correct a mistake. I stated the case of an " Elector of 
 Bavaria, who gave a town for a single manuscript ' ; 
 whereas I should have said, that he offered a town for 
 it ; but that the monks, wisely considering that he 
 could, and suspecting that he would, retake the town 
 whenever he pleased, declined the exchange. The 
 MS. remained in their library in the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century ; and is, for anything that I know, 
 still there ^ 
 
 1 No. V. p. 68. 
 
 ^ I made the statement on the authority (as I thought) of Baring, who 
 mentions the circumstance in his Clavis Diplomatica, 2nd edit. p. 5 ; and 
 the word "obtulit" conveyed to my mind, from its constant use in char- 
 ters, diplomas, and all the documents to which his work has reference, no 
 other idea than that of giving — that is, offering what was not rejected. 
 Whether he meant this, I do not know. He might be mistaken on that 
 point, as well as with regard to its contents ; for it was not a New Testa- 
 ment, but a book of the Gospels, as we learn from a letter dated 3rd Oct. 
 1717, and published by Martene in his second Voyage Litteraire. The 
 writer says, " Le Livre aux Evangiles que je vis dans I'Abbaye de Saint 
 
NO. XIII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 205 
 
 I have before referred to St. Jerome's testimony as 
 to the splendour of some books even in his day ; and I 
 may just mention the present of the Emperor Justin to 
 Pope Hormisda, made between the years 518 and 523, 
 and including a splendid copy of the Gospels — " sub 
 hujus episcopatu multa vasa aurea venerunt de Grsecia, 
 et evangelia cum tabulis aureis, cum gemmis preciosis 
 pensantibus lib. 15." &c.' 
 
 As to the period, however, with which we are par- 
 ticularly engaged, Leo III., who was pope when it 
 began, (having been raised to the pontificate in the 
 year 795,) gave to one church " Evangelium ex auro 
 mundissimo cum gemmis ornatum pensans libras ...*;" 
 and to another (as I have already stated) a copy which 
 seems to have been still more splendid ^ 
 
 When the abbot Angilbert restored the Abbey of 
 St. Riquier, in a. d. 814, he gave to it (beside two 
 hundred other books) a copy of the Gospel, written in 
 letters of gold, with silver plates, marvellously adorned 
 with gold and precious stones ^ 
 
 Ansegisus, who became Abbot of Fontenelle in a. d. 
 823, ordered the four Gospels to be written with gold, 
 on purple vellum, in the Roman letter ; and lived to 
 see the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Luke, and St. 
 John completed ^ 
 
 At the translation of the remains of St. Sebastian 
 and St. Gregory to the monastery of St. Medard, at 
 Soissons, in a. d. 826, Lewis the Debonnaire gave 
 
 Emeram, est encore une rare et tres riche antiquite, c'est un don de 
 TEmpereur Henry IV. On m'a dit que Maximilian, grand-pere du Due 
 de Baviere d'a present, ne sgavoit assez I'admirer, et qu'il en avoit offert 
 sa ville de Stranbingen avec ses dependances ; mais les bons moines, per- 
 suadez que ce Due les leur reprendroit ensuite, quand 11 voudroit, trou- 
 verent eonvenable de refuser un si bel offre."— p. 177- 
 
 3 Cone iv. 1416. " lb. vii. 1083. ' See No. V. p. 72. 
 
 « Mab. Aet. Sanct. O. B. torn. v. p. 110. 
 
 ' Mab. ibid. torn. vi. p. 597- 
 
206 COPIES OF THE GOSPELS [nO. XIII. 
 
 several rich presents ; and, among others, a copy of 
 the Gospels, written in letters of gold, and bound in 
 plates of the same metal, of the utmost purity *. 
 
 Hincmar, who became archbishop of Rheims in the 
 year 845, caused a Gospel to be written for his church 
 in letters of gold and silver, and bound in gold, adorned 
 with gems ^ ; and another, specially for the crypt to 
 which the remains of St. Remigius were translated, 
 bound in the same way (parietibus aureis gemmarum- 
 que nitore distinctis ' ). 
 
 Leo IV., who became pope two years later, gave 
 four catholic books (quatuor catholicos libros) to the 
 church of the Virgin Mary, thirty miles from Rome, 
 (unum Evangeliorum, alium Regnorum, Psalmorum, 
 atque Sermonum ^) of which I do not find that they 
 were peculiarly ornamented ; but he gave to another 
 church a copy bound in silver plates — " codex Evan- 
 geliorum cum tabulis argenteis ^" 
 
 Of the splendid donations of his successor, Benedict 
 III., who became pope in a. d. 855, I have already 
 spoken*; and I may here add, that during his time 
 the Emperor Michael sent as a present to St. Peter's 
 (by the hand of the monk Lazarus, " pictorige artis 
 nimie eruditi") a Gospel, of most pure gold, with 
 divers precious stones ^ 
 
 Everhard, Count of Friuli, whose will of the year 
 861 has been already mentioned, beside his Bible, 
 bequeathed to his children a considerable number of 
 other books ; and among them " a Gospel bound in 
 gold — another in ivory — another in silver — another, 
 which is not particularly described ®. 
 
 A charter of William, Abbot of Dijon, relating to 
 
 ' Ibid. viii. 388. 
 
 9 Flodoardi Hist. Remen. 1. iii. c. v. ap. Sirmondi Op. torn. iv. p. 113. 
 1 lb. c. ix. p. 119. 2 Cone. torn. viii. p. 22. ^ lb. p. 27. 
 
 * No. V. ubi supra. * Cone. viii. 231. ^ II. Dach. Sp. 877. 
 
NO. XIII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 207 
 
 the monastery of Frutari, in Piedmont, (and probably 
 of the year 1014,) mentions, among the presents made 
 to the monks of Dijon, to reconcile them to the with- 
 drawment of the recent foundation from dependence 
 on them, "textum unum auro, gemmis et lapidibus 
 mire ornatum "." 
 
 Just in the same year we find the Emperor Henry II., 
 who has been already mentioned in connexion with 
 Meinwerc, Bishop of Paderborn, making a similar dona- 
 tion to the church of Mersburg ^ ; and a few years 
 afterwards (in 1022), on occasion of his recovery from 
 illness, at the monastery of Monte Casino, he presented 
 to it a copy of the Gospels, covered on one side with 
 the most pure gold, and most precious gems, written 
 in uncial characters, and illuminated with gold ^. Re- 
 turning the same year into Germany, he had an inter- 
 view with Robert, King of France, on the banks of the 
 Meuse, the common boundary of their dominions ; but 
 of all the rich presents offered by that king — presents 
 of gold, and silver, and jewels, beside a hundred horses, 
 completely and sumptuously equipped, and each bear- 
 ing a knight's armour — the emperor accepted only a 
 copy of the Gospels, bound in gold and precious stones, 
 and a reliquary of corresponding workmanship, con- 
 taining (or supposed to contain) a tooth of St. Vin- 
 cent, for himself, and a pair of gold ear-rings for the 
 empress ^ 
 
 The biographer, and almost contemporary, of Anse- 
 gisus, (who was abbot of St. Riquier, near Abbeville, 
 and died in 1045,) informs us that he contributed 
 greatly to the enlargement of the library; and spe- 
 cifies — 
 
 7 Mab. A. S. viii. 308. et Ann. Ben. an. 1003. xxxiv. 
 
 8 Ditmar. ap. i. Leob. 399. ^ Mab. A. S. viii. 400. 
 ' Glab. Rod. ap. Baron, an. 1023. iii. 
 
1208 COPIES OF THE GOSPELS [nO. XIII. 
 
 " Librum Evangelii, Sancti \'itamque Richari 
 Ipsius studio mero argento decoravit. 
 Est et Episto-liber-larum, atque Evangeliorutn, 
 Ipsius argento quem industria nempe paravit -." 
 
 Desiderius, who became abbot of Monte Casino in 
 the year 1058, (and who was afterwards Pope Victor 
 III.,) provided his monastery with many costly books ' ; 
 and the Empress Agnes, who came, as Leo Marsicanus 
 says, like another Queen of Sheba, from the remote 
 parts of Germany, to behold another Solomon, and 
 another temple, made many rich gifts (dona magnifica) 
 to the church, and, among the rest, a copy of the 
 Gospels, with one side (or, if I may so speak, one 
 board) of cast silver, with chased or embossed work, 
 very beautifully gilt *. 
 
 Paul, who became abbot of St. Alban's in the year 
 1077, gave to that church " duos Textus auro et argento 
 et gemmis ornatos ^" 
 
 In the same year, a charter of Hugh, Duke of Bur- 
 gundy, giving the church of Avalon to the monastery 
 of Clugny, (and containing a " descriptio omamenti 
 ipsius ecclesiae,") mentions three copies of the Gospels ; 
 which, I presume, formed a part of the 115 books 
 belonging to it , " Textus unus aureus, et unus argen- 
 teus, aliusque dimidius ^." 
 
 ^ Mab. A. S. viii. 446. 
 
 ^ " Librum quoque Epistolarum ad missam describi faciens, tabulis aurea 
 una, altera vero argentea, decoravit. Codicem etiam Regulae B. Benedicti 
 pulcro nimis opere deintus comtum, a foris argento vestivit ; similiter 
 fecit et de Sacramentoriis altariis uno et altero, et duobus nihilominus 
 Evangeliis et Epistolario uno." Leo Mar. ap. Mab. A. S. ix. 594. After 
 this we read, " Non solum autem in sedificiis, verum etiam in libris de- 
 scribendis operam Desiderius dare permaximam studuit ; " and in what 
 may be called a very respectable catalogue we find, " Evangelium majorem 
 auro et lapidibus pretiosis ornatam, in quo has reliquias posuit : de ligno 
 Domini et de vestimentis Sancti Joannis Evangelistae." — Ibid. p. 609. 
 
 * Chron. Cas. Lab. iii. c. xxx. p. 609, and Mab. A. S. ix. 602. 
 
 * M. Paris, Vit. S. Alb. Abb. tom. i. p. 51. 
 
 * in. Dacb. Spic. p. 412. 
 
NO. XIII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 209 
 
 In a charter of a. d. 1101, concerning the church at 
 Beze, we find a Textum Evangelii, " coopertum de 
 argento," used in the manner already repeatedly re- 
 ferred to, in the conveyance of property ^ 
 
 The author of the history of the monastery of St. 
 Hubert-en-Ardennes (who wrote in 1106) tells us that 
 in his time there was remaining in the monastery a 
 very fine copy of the Gospels, adorned with gold and 
 gems *. 
 
 Ralph, Bishop of Rochester, in 1114, gave a " textum 
 pulchre deauratum" to his church ^ ; but I do not feel 
 certain that in this case the word "textus" means, as 
 it generally does when it stands alone, (and obviously 
 does in the cases referred to,) a copy of one or more of 
 the Gospels. 
 
 There can, however, be no doubt as to the gift of 
 Walter, a successor in that see, who became bishop in 
 1148, and gave "textum Evangeliorum aureum^" 
 
 Perhaps the instances which I have given are more 
 than enough to induce a suspicion that copies of the 
 Gospels, and even such as were of a splendid and 
 costly description, were not unfrequently to be met with 
 even in the Dark Ages ; and yet they are not the 
 notices which most strongly and obviously lead to such 
 an opinion. Some may even consider the fact that a 
 book was given to a church, or a monastery, as imply- 
 
 ^ Chron. Bes. ap II. Dach. Spic. p. 436. 
 
 * " Superest optimus sanctorum Evangeliorum textus auro gemmisque 
 paratus ; superest psalterium auro scriptum per denos psalraos capitalibus 
 litteris distinctum." IV. M. & D. 919, Martene adds, in a note on the 
 word " psalterium," — " Hactenus servatur in Andaginensi monasterio 
 pretiosissimum psalterium auro elegantissime exaratum, non a Ludovico 
 Pio, ut credit auctor, sed a Lothario ipsius filio donatum, ut probant 
 versus qui initio codicis reperiuntur." The verses, and a full account 
 of this psalter, with a copy of the portrait of Lothaire contained in it, he 
 has given in his second Voyage Litteraire, p. 137. 
 
 " Ang. Sac. i. 342. ' Ibid. 345. 
 
 P 
 
210 THE BIBLE [nO. XIII. 
 
 ing that it was not already possessed ; and I will there- 
 fore add one or two instances, which shew that churches 
 not uncommonly (I believe I might say all churches 
 that were at all respectably endowed and appointed) 
 had more than one such book. 
 
 We are not, I apprehend, to suppose that the mo- 
 nastery of Glastonbury had no copy of the Gospels 
 when Brethwold (who had been a monk there, and 
 became bishop of Salisbury perhaps in a. d. 1006,) sent 
 them two^ 
 
 Olbert, already mentioned, (p. 197) as abbot of 
 Gembloux until a. d. 1048, gave to his monastery 
 (beside the Bible which is there mentioned,) one gold 
 and three silver copies of the Gospels, and one silver 
 copy of the Epistles ^ 
 
 Among the furniture of his chapel, bequeathed by 
 King Robert (whose present to the emperor Henry 
 has been noticed at p. 207) to the church of St. Anian, 
 at Orleans, were " deux livres d'Evangiles, garnis d'or, 
 deux d'argent, deux autres petits *." 
 
 John, Bishop of Bath in 1160, implied a bequest of 
 more than one copy to the Abbey church when he 
 left to the blessed apostle St. Peter, and to his servants 
 the monks, (inter alia,) all that he had collected " in 
 ornamentis ecclesiasticis," or, as he proceeded to spe- 
 cify, "in crucibus, in teMibus, in calicibus," &c. ^ I 
 quote this instance because the reader will observe that 
 these costly books were considered as a part of the 
 treasure of the church, rather than merely as books ; 
 and, indeed, the bishop bequeathed them as a distinct 
 legacy from his whole library (plenarium armarium 
 meum), which he also gave to the church. 
 
 For this reason, and not for this only, I will also 
 
 ' GuU. Malm. ap. Gale, torn. iii. 325. ^ Mab. A. S. viii. 530. 
 
 * Fleury, t. xii. p. 491. * Dugd. Mon. i. 186 
 
NO. XIII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 211 
 
 mention another case, although — perhaps I should say 
 because — it is nearly a century more modern than the 
 period with which we are engaged. At a visitation of 
 the treasury of St. Paul's, in the year 1 295, by Ralph 
 de Baudoke, or Baldock, the Dean, (afterwards bishop 
 of London,) it appears that there were found twelve 
 copies of the Gospels, all adorned with silver, some 
 with gilding, pearls and gems ; and another, which pre- 
 sents an unusual feature — "Textus ligneus desuper 
 ornatus platis argenteis deauratis cum subtili triphorio 
 in superiori limbo continens xi capsas cum reliquiis 
 ibidem descriptis ^" I call the decoration of the Gos- 
 pels with relics an unusual feature, because, though I 
 have not intentionally suppressed it, it has appeared in 
 only one of the cases already mentioned ; and, common 
 as the custom might afteywards be, I do not believe 
 that it was so (if indeed it could be said to exist as a 
 custom at all) before the thirteenth century. I know 
 of only one other exception, which belongs to the 
 twelfth century, and will be noticed presently. 
 
 There is another circumstance which throws some 
 light on this point. It may be supposed that great 
 care was taken of these books ; and in fact they were 
 frequently kept in cases as valuable, in respect of orna- 
 ment, as themselves. Often, indeed, I apprehend, the 
 case was the most valuable of the two, and is men- 
 tioned among the treasure of the church when the 
 book which it contained is not noticed, because there 
 was nothing uncommon about it, and no particular cir- 
 
 « Dugd. Monast. iii. 309. 324. Beside the parts of the Scriptures 
 mentioned above, there were six Epistolaria, four Evangelistaria, two 
 Bibles, (one " de bona litera antiqua," and the other " in duobus volumi- 
 nibus nova peroptimae Hterae,") a glossed copy of the Epistles of St. Paul, 
 the same of the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John, two copies of St. Mat- 
 thew and St. Mark, with the commentary of Thomas Aquinas, and the 
 twelve prophets, glossed. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 THE BIBLE [nO. XIH. 
 
 cumstance as to its writer or donor which was thought 
 worthy of record. From some of the notices, however, 
 of these cases or coverings \ we get farther ground for 
 supposing that there were not unfrequently a good 
 many copies of the Gospels in a church or monastery. 
 For instance, in the St. Riquier return, already more 
 than once referred to, beside the Bibles which I have 
 noticed, and besides three other copies of the Gospels 
 and five lectionaries containing the Epistles and Gos- 
 pels, we find, " Evangelium auro Scriptum unum, cum 
 capsa argentea gemmis et lapidibus fabricata. Alife 
 capscB evangeliorum duse ex auro et argento paratae *." 
 A passage, too, in Ado's Chronicle, given by Du Cange, 
 seems to imply that the place to which it refers had 
 several copies, " Viginti capsas evangeliorum ex auro 
 purissimo, gemmario opere cselatas ^ ;" and William of 
 Malmesbury, in the account which he gives of the cha- 
 pel which King Ina made at Glastonbury, tells us that 
 twenty pounds and sixty marks of gold were used in 
 making the " Coopertoria Librorum Evangelii ^" Two 
 
 '' Capsa, or coopertoria — for it is not necessary to speak of the camisitB 
 (chemises) librorum, which I suppose to have been only washable covers to 
 keep the books clean, — or thecce, or, as I have only once found the word 
 used, bibliotheccB. At the dedication of Ripon church. Archbishop Wil- 
 frid (who lived till 711)— 
 
 " quatuor auro 
 
 Scribi Evangelii praecepit in ordine libros, 
 
 Ac thecam e rutilo his condignam condidit auro." 
 
 (Godwin de Praes., 654.) 
 
 Or, as the prose historian who wrote soon afterwards informs us, it was 
 a sort of miracle such as had not been heard of before their times, being 
 written with the purest gold on purple vellum, and contained in a superb 
 case, — *' necnon et bibliothecam librorum eorum omnem de auro purissimo, 
 et gemmis pretiosissimis fabrefactam, compaginare inclusores gemmarum 
 praecepit." — Edd. Steph. ap. Gale, Scr. xv., p. 60. Another name was 
 cavea, as the reader may see in Du Cange, who quotes from Eckhardus, 
 junior, (who wrote about the year 1040,) "fit de auro Petri cavea Evan- 
 gehi," &c. 
 
 « Chron. Cent. ap. Dach. Spic. ii. 310. 'In v. Capsa. 
 
 ' Ap. Gale, Scr. xv. 311. 
 
NO. XIII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 213 
 
 objections which may be made to the evidence arising 
 from these capscB, though they do not seem to me to 
 be of any weight, it may be fair to mention ; — first, 
 we are not certain that the owners had in all cases as 
 many books as they had cases for holding them ; and, 
 secondly, as these capscs were very costly and orna- 
 mental, those who wrote the history of their monas- 
 teries might be tempted to pretend that they had more 
 than they really possessed. If, however, these same 
 monkish chroniclers, in describing their premises, had 
 told us that the abbot's stable contained twelve or 
 twenty stalls, we should be apt to infer, that though 
 some of them might be empty, or the number of the 
 whole exaggerated, it was nevertheless no very uncom- 
 mon thing for an abbot to be pretty well furnished 
 with horses ; and some such inference, confirmed as it 
 is by direct evidence, I think we may fairly draw with 
 regard to books. 
 
 Hitherto I have only spoken of those costly and 
 precious volumes which, as I have already remarked, 
 were considered as belonging to the treasury, rather 
 than to the library, of the church. They were, I 
 apprehend, for the most part, brought out only on 
 festivals, the church being provided with others for 
 daily use. Thus Berward, who became bishop of Hil- 
 desheira in the year 993, and who was (as we learn 
 from his fond old schoolmaster and biographer, Tang- 
 mar,) a man skilful in the arts— if I may use such a 
 word in speaking of such a period, — " fecit et ad 
 solemnem processionem in prsecipuis festis, Evangelia 
 auro et gemmis clarissima ^ ;" and Martin, the monk of 
 Moutier-neuf, at Poitiers, tells us, that on the anni- 
 versary of their founder (Count Geoifry or William, 
 who died in 1086,) they used to perform mass in much 
 
 2 Leib. Scr. Brun. i. 445. Mab. A. S. viii. 184. 
 
214 THE BIBLE [nO. XIII. 
 
 the same way as on festivals ; and he adds, " nee aureus 
 textus deest \" Indeed I need not say that such a 
 style of binding could not have been adopted for books 
 in general, or books in common use. To have bestowed 
 such pains and expense on books for private use, or for 
 any use but that of the church, would have been incon- 
 sistent, perhaps, with the ideas of some strict ascetics, 
 and at any rate it could never have become general *. 
 Others, perhaps, beside Godehard, (the successor of 
 Berward just mentioned, in the see of Hildesheim,) 
 had a fancy to adorn their books (though I apprehend 
 that here we must understand service-books) with 
 small stones of white, or black, or red, or variegated 
 hues, cut and polished after the manner of gems. He 
 used to set the children, and those paupers who were 
 not fit for other work, to collect such pebbles ; and a 
 crippled servant of the monastery, who was glad to do 
 what little he could, was particularly useful in that 
 matter ^ ; but generally, I apprehend, the binding of 
 books was in parchment or plain leather. 
 
 3 Hist. Mon. Novi. ap. Mart. iii. 1218. 
 
 •* Thus the Abbot Esaias, in his Praecepta, " ad fratres qui cum ipso 
 vivebant," and in that part which is particularly addressed " ad fratres 
 juniores," says, " Si librum tibi ipse compegeris, in eo ne elabores exor- 
 nando. Est enim vitium puerile." By the way, in that same section he 
 goes on to give directions as to the mode of receiving strangers, among 
 which he says, " et posteaquam sederit, quomodo se habeat, quaere, et 
 nihil amplius, sed libellum ei aliquem legendum praebe ;" and afterwards 
 " Si peregre proficiscens diverteris apud aliquem, et ille domo egrediatur, 
 et te solum relinquat, oculos tuos ne sustuleris, ut quae ibi sunt, vasa, et 
 supellectilem aspicias. Fenestram, aut arcam, aut librum aperias, cave." — 
 Bib. Pat. torn, iii, c. 887. Ed. 1575. I do not pretend to decide when 
 these precepts were written, which have perhaps nothing to do with the 
 period, or the part, of the world to which my remarks are particularly 
 directed ; but it must have been, I think, at some time and place where 
 books were not extremely rare things, and where one might expect to find 
 them lying about a room. 
 
 5 " Quicquid tamen a pueris fieri vidit, quod vel sedendo vel proreptando 
 agere potuit ; in hoc se voluntaria utilitate studiosus exercuit, nee prorsus 
 aliquod tempue, nisi cum somnum vel cibum caperet, transire sibi patie- 
 
NO. XIII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 215 
 
 " About the year 790," says Warton, " Charle- 
 magne granted an unlimited right of hunting to the 
 abbot and monks of Sithiu for making their gloves and 
 girdles of the skins of the deer they killed, and covers 
 for their books. We may imagine that these religious 
 were more fond of hunting than reading. It is certain 
 that they were obliged to hunt before they could read, 
 and at least it is probable that under these circum- 
 stances they did not manufacture many volumes^." 
 This passage I have read over many times, and I really 
 cannot make any sense of it. Why should Charle- 
 magne's grant induce such suppositions ? Why are we 
 to imagine that these monks loved hunting better than 
 reading? Why must they hunt before they could 
 read ? Why is it probable that they did not " manu- 
 facture" (a strange term for binding a book, and one 
 which looks as if Warton supposed that they were to 
 write on buck-skin) " many volumes under these cir- 
 cumstancest" the chief circumstance being (according to 
 his account) an "unlimited" right to hunt for leather, 
 granted by the sovereign of such extensive dominions ? 
 I cannot help suspecting that there may be a meaning 
 in the passage which I am not acute enough to per- 
 ceive, for to me the grant appears rather to intimate 
 that the monks who obtained such a privilege must 
 have done (or, to say the least, must have been sup- 
 posed to do) a good deal in the way of book-binding. 
 
 batur, quin semper in aliquo utilis esse videretur. Consuetudo namque 
 dilecto nostro pontifici fuit ut puerulos, vel etiam pauperes validiores 
 saepius per plateas, vel per defossas petrarum foveas ageret, qui sibi lapillos 
 minutos quosdam nivei coloris, vel nigri, vel rubri interdum, vel varii, 
 deferrent : quos ipse elimatos, et politos variaque collisione vel confrica- 
 tione in similitudine pretiosorum lapidum redactos, aut in altaribus, aut 
 libris, aut in capsis honeste collocavit. In quo nimirum opere, praedictus 
 ille pauper se privatim exercuit, et caeterorum industriam utiliter praevenit, 
 et pro curiositate tali episcopo penitus complacuit." — Vita Godehardi ap. 
 Leib. Scr. Brun. i. 500. 
 
 ^ Dissert, ii. prefixed to his Hist, of Poetry. 
 
216 THE BIBLE [no. XIII. 
 
 But here, as in too many of the facetious anecdotes 
 of the dark ages, when we turn out the reference we 
 find that the story is false, not only as to the spirit, 
 but the letter. The charter stands, indeed, as Warton 
 tells us, "Mab. de Re Dipl. 611.," but as soon as we 
 look at it, the " unlimited right" becomes sadly circum- 
 scribed ; and as to the jolly abbot and his sporting 
 monks, "paf — all should be gone," like " de great Peol- 
 phan" and his spectre train. The limitation of the 
 grant to the woods belonging to the monastery is 
 express, and is even reduced by the exception of such 
 royal forests as were set apart for the emperor's diver- 
 sion ; and the fun of the religious hunt is entirely 
 spoiled by the fact that the permission is not for the 
 monkSi but for the servants of the monastery, to hunt 
 for the useful purposes specified in the charter ^ That 
 
 ' •' Concessimus Autlando abbati et monachis ex monasterio Sithiu . . . 
 . . . ut ex nostra indulgentia in eorum proprias silvas licentiam haberent 
 eorum homines venationein exercere, unde fratres consolationem habere 
 possint, tain ad volumina librorutn tegenda, quamque et manicias et ad 
 zonas faciendas, salvos forestes nostras, quas ad opus nostrum constitutas 
 habemus." The emperor then goes on to charge all his subjects, to whom 
 the charter is addressed (omnium fidelium nostrorum magnitudini) that 
 they should not presume to oppose the exercise of this privilege by the 
 abbot, his successor, and their men, (abbate, aut successoribus suis, seu 
 hominibus eorum — but nothing of the monks,) " nisi liceat eorum homini- 
 bus ut supra diximus ex nostra indulgentia in eorum proprias silvas vena- 
 tionem exercere." Indeed, who that knew anything of Charlemagne or 
 his laws could expect to find him thus patronizing a company of sporting 
 monks? Let me give two short instances from his Capitularies, one 
 earlier, and the other more recent, than the charter in question : — " Omni- 
 bus servis Dei venationes et silvaticas vagationes cum canibus, et ut acci- 
 pitres et falcones non habeant, interdicimus." This is only a repetition of 
 previous enactments by his predecessors, made probably quite at the 
 beginning of his reign. In 802 we find " Ut episcopi, abbates, presbyteri, 
 diaconi, nuUusque ex omni clero canes ad venandum, aut acceptores, fal- 
 cones, seu sparvarios habere praesumant ; sed pleniter se unusquisque in 
 ordine suo canonice vel regulariter custodiant. Qui autem prsesumpserit, 
 sciat unusquisque honorem suum perdere. Caeteri vero tale exinde dam- 
 num patiantur ut reliqui metum habeant talia sibi usurpare." — Capit. edit. 
 Baluz. torn. i. 191. 369. 
 
NO. XIIl] IN THE DARK AGES. 217 
 
 charter, as far as I see, contains nothing which should 
 lead us to suppose that the monks of Sithiu ever 
 hunted at all, or that " these religious" were inferior 
 to the modern priest who has held them up to scorn, 
 either in the knowledge or the practice of that which 
 their character and station required. 
 
 There is however another point relating to these 
 costly books which must not be omitted. Their extra- 
 ordinary value would of course lead to their being 
 taken great care of — but then it would also render 
 them peculiarly liable to destruction. It is probable 
 that such books were among the "insignia omamenta" 
 of the church of St. Benignus at Dijon, when they 
 were stolen on one of the anniversaries of the patron 
 saint's day in the eleventh century ® ; and the soldiers 
 who plundered Nigel, Bishop of Ely, in the time of 
 King Stephen, thought it worth while to carry off a 
 copy of the Gospels adorned with relics ^ But beside 
 downright and forcible robbery, or even fraudulent 
 abstraction, there were many reasons why these books 
 were liable to be destroyed. Though it does not enter 
 into the design of this paper to refer to the present 
 state, or even the present existence, of such manu- 
 scripts, (and, indeed, I purposely avoid speaking of 
 some, merely because they are known to be now in 
 existence, and therefore belong to another part of the 
 subject,) yet as I have mentioned the Bible presented 
 by Lewis the Debonnaire in the year 826, I may here 
 add that Mabillon tells us that it was still in existence, 
 with silver plates, which had been supplied by the 
 Abbot Ingrannus in the year 1168, to replace the ori- 
 ginal golden ones which had somehow disappeared. 
 
 * " Latronum fraude in ipsius sancti festivitate, occisis custodibus furto 
 fuerunt asportata."— M^a6. A.S. viii. 301. 
 " Ang. Sac. i. 622. 
 
218 THE BIBLE [NO. XIH. 
 
 Of course, various things — charity and need, as well 
 as cupidity, — were likely to produce what was then 
 termed ea^crmtation, and to risk, if not almost to ensure, 
 the destruction of the manuscript itself. Charity, — as 
 when all the valuables (omne ornamentum in auro et 
 argento) belonging to the church of St. Benignus of 
 Dijon were sacrificed to provide relief for the poor in 
 the famine of a. d. 100 P; or when, five years after- 
 wards, Odilo, Abbot of Clugni, having exhausted all 
 other sources, was obliged to apply the sacred vessels 
 to the same object ^ Need, — as when, in order to 
 meet the heavy tax laid by William Rufus to raise 
 money for the purchase of Normandy, Godfrey, Abbot 
 of Malmesbury, {pessimoi'um usus consilio^ quos nomi- 
 nare possem, si peccantium societas crimen alleviare posset 
 magistri, says William the historian,) stripped no less 
 than twelve copies of the Gospels ^ ; or when William 
 de Longchamp, who became bishop of Ely in the 
 year 1190, contributed one hundred and sixty marks 
 towards the redemption of King Richard, and, to raise 
 the money, pawned thirteen copies of the gospels, 
 including one of great value which had belonged to 
 King Edgar*. 
 
 That books thus pawned did not always find their way 
 back may be imagined ; and indeed we are told that 
 three books, adorned with gold and silver and precious 
 stones, were lost to the abbey of Laurisheim about the 
 year 1 1 30, owing to their advocate, Bertolf, having 
 been allowed by the abbot, Diemo, to raise money 
 upon them. Whether these copies of the Gospels ever 
 
 ^ Mab. A. S. torn, viii p. 300. 
 
 ^ " Exhaustis in egentium usus horreis et aerariis, sacra etiam vasa 
 confregerit." — Mab. Ann. an. 1006, torn. iv. 170. 
 
 ' " Die uno xii. textus Evangeliorum, viii. cruces, viii. scrinia argento 
 et auro nudata et excrustata sunt." — Vita Aldh. ap. Ang. Sac. ii. 44. 
 
 * Ang. Sac. i. 633. 
 
NO, XIII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 
 
 219 
 
 ran a risk of having the inside as well as the outside 
 falsified, and a false reading or gem substituted for a 
 true one, I do not know ; but it is certain that a 
 "textus aureus" belonging to the church of Ely was 
 once pledged to the Jews of Cambridge. This, how- 
 ever, belongs rather to the dangers arising from cupi- 
 dity, if we may trust Richard of Ely, who mentions the 
 circumstance in his long list of the depredations com- 
 mitted by Nigel, already mentioned \ This source of 
 danger is indeed obvious enough ; and I will here give 
 only one other instance, which I am unwilling to omit 
 because it refers to a considerable number of copies. 
 The historian who relates the destruction of Hide 
 Abbey, near Winchester, tells us that Henry, who was 
 bishop of that see from a. d. 1129 to 1174, got the 
 monastery into his hands. After it had been burned 
 in the year 1141, the monks got out of the ashes sixty 
 pounds of silver, and fifteen pounds of gold, and various 
 other things, which they brought to the bishop, who 
 subsequently committed the care of the monastery to 
 Hugo Schorchevylene, a monk of Clugni, whom he 
 made abbot. This monk having, by the bishop's direc- 
 tion, dispersed thirty out of the forty monks, laid hands 
 
 * " Item pro parvo textu aureo et pro ansa argentea dedit v. marcas 
 cuidam de Thetford ; et praeterea uno anno abstulit de Sacristaria xxiv. 
 marcas et vi. solidos. Antea vero praedictam crucem et textum similiter pro 
 nummis transposuerat Judaeis apud Cantebrigge, quae gloriosus rex saepe 
 dictus Edgarus ob signum libertatis suae et munificentiae ibi donavit : et ne 
 tanto muniminis titulo frustrarentur, Monachi dederunt cc. marcas per 
 manus Willelmi prioris." — Hist. Elien. ap. Ang. Sac. i. 625. As to the 
 importance of the Jews of Cambridge a few years before this time, see 
 Fuller's History of the University, p. 4, § 11, 12; but in his quotation 
 from Peter of Blois he omits his testimony that a principal object of Gis- 
 lebert's preaching was the refutation of Judaism ; and that, in fact, several 
 Jews were converted by it. " Verbum Dei ad populum praedicans . . . 
 contra Judaicum errorem maxime disputabat . . . cumque nonnuUi incre- 
 duli et adhuc Judaica perfidia caecati ad ejus verba in sinum matris eccle- 
 siae, relicto penitus suo pristino errore, compuncti accurrerunt," &c. — 
 Pet. Bles. ap. Rer. Ang. Scr. torn. i. p. 1 14. 
 
220 THE BIBLE [nO. XIII. 
 
 on the treasures of the church, and stripped ten copies 
 of the Gospels ®. 
 
 It may probably be said, that too many of those who 
 gave and received these costly volumes thought more 
 of the outside than the inside, and even forgot that the 
 rich cover enclosed the more precious Word of God ; 
 — it may have been so, though I hope not always, — 
 but I beg the reader to take care that he does not fall 
 into much the same error. I hope he will not forget 
 that, whether in sackcloth and ashes, in gold or in 
 silver, each of the books which I have here spoken of 
 was the Gospel of Christ. Should he think that, 
 although tiresome for their sameness, these instances 
 are not in fact very numerous, I would repeat that 
 they are only such as have occurred to me, in circum- 
 stances not the most favourable for research ; and I 
 would add, that while I have met with these notices of 
 the Scriptures, and with many others which I hope to 
 bring forward in this argument, I have not found any- 
 thing about the arts and engines of hostility, the blind 
 hatred of half-barbarian kings, the fanatical fury of 
 their subjects, or the reckless antipathy of the popes. 
 I do not recollect any instance in which it is recorded 
 that the Scriptures, or any part of them, were treated 
 with indignity, or with less than profound respect. I 
 know of no case in which they were intentionally de- 
 faced or destroyed, (except, as I have just stated, as to 
 their rich covers,) though I have met with, and hope 
 
 * " Manum in sanctuarium Domini extendens, cruces quinque, scrinia 
 decern, textiis totidem auro argento gemmisque pretiosis omatos, . . . ex- 
 crustavit." — Dug. Mon. i. 210. One cannot suppose that this sort of 
 spoliation was known to the bishop, whose taste for costly ornament was 
 so fully proved. In particular, Giraldus Cambrensis tells us that " Cathe- 
 dralem ecclesiam suam palliis purpureis et olosericis cortinis et aulseis 
 preciosissirais, textis, philateriis, crucibus aureis . . . usque ad regum invi- 
 diam exornavit." — Ang. Sac. torn. ii. p. 421. 
 
 1 
 
NO. XIII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 221 
 
 to produce several instances, in some of which they 
 were the only, and in others almost the only, books 
 which were preserved through the revolutions of the 
 monasteries to which they belonged, and all the ravages 
 of fire, pillage, carelessness, or whatever else had swept 
 away all the others. I know (and in saying this I do 
 not mean anything but to profess my ignorance, for 
 did I suppress such knowledge I might well be charged 
 with gross dishonesty,) of nothing which should lead 
 me to suppose that any human craft or power was 
 exercised to prevent the reading, the multiplication, 
 the diffusion of the Word of God. When, therefore, 
 after having written almost all the foregoing pages, a 
 periodical work fell into my hands containing the pas- 
 sage which stands at the head of this paper, 1 could 
 not resist the temptation to borrow it as a motto. In 
 so using it I mean no offence to the gentleman from 
 whose tercentenary sermon it purports to be an extract, 
 but only to call the attention of the public to the dif- 
 ferent views which are held, and the different state- 
 ments which are made, on a very interesting subject, 
 in the hope that truth may be thereby elicited. 
 
 Whether, however, the Scriptures were exposed to 
 this treatment in the dark ages, or not, I hope to shew 
 as the next step in the argument that there are still in 
 existence many copies which belonged to that period ; 
 and in the meantime to draw the reader's attention to 
 some circumstances which, to my own mind, render it 
 a matter of astonishment that we possess so many. 
 
222 
 
 No. XIV. 
 
 " Still I am not satisfied ; and the stubborn fact of scarcity inclines me 
 to suspect that the pens of the monks were less constantly employed than 
 many would induce us to believe." — Berington. 
 
 Without entering into any question here as to what 
 may, or may not, be properly called scarcity, in regard to 
 ancient manuscripts, let us assume that its existence is 
 a stubborn and undeniable fact ; yet that fact may, 
 perhaps, admit of some explanation. Suppose there 
 are but few manuscripts in existence, it is no proof 
 that but few were written ; and, indeed, I must say, 
 that from what I have been able to learn respecting 
 the real number, of which this surviving scarcity con- 
 sists, and the circumstances under which they have 
 been preserved, I can only wonder that we have so 
 many — or, I am almost tempted to say, that we have 
 any— manuscripts seven or eight hundred years old. 
 It is, however, quite clear, that if we would form any 
 opinion of the state of literature, or means of know- 
 ledge, in the Dark Ages, we must, in some degree, 
 enter into this question, and cannot pass it over with a 
 slight allusion to the ravages of time. It is necessary 
 to our design ; and I am inclined to hope, that a short 
 and superficial sketch, such as the nature of these 
 essays admits, may not be altogether uninteresting. 
 As a great part of my illustrations will be drawn from 
 the reports of some literary travellers, I will first give 
 some notice of them, in order that I may hereafter 
 refer to them with more brevity, and that such of my 
 readers as are not acquainted with the books may 
 understand my references. 
 
 Between the 16th of April and the 10th of June, 
 1682, Dom Mabillon, accompanied by his brother 
 
NO. XIV.] LITERARY TRAVELS. 223 
 
 Benedictine, Michael Germanus, made a journey 
 through Melun, Sens, Auxerre, Dijon, Verdun, Cha- 
 lons sur Saone, and Autun, to Lyons, and returned 
 by way of Moulins. In the course of this excursion 
 they visited Citeaux, Clugni, and many other monas- 
 teries, and overhauled their manuscripts ; the object 
 of their journey being to examine, or to search for, 
 some documents relating to the royal family. How 
 far this was openly avowed, and whether it was known 
 even to the younger of the two travellers, I cannot 
 tell ; but Mabillon's acknowledged supremacy, in all 
 such matters, naturally pointed him out to the minister 
 Colbert as the fittest person to be sent on such an 
 errand. That he executed it with skill and fidelity, 
 and, at the same time, took an opportunity of doing a 
 little business in his own way, of antiquarian research, 
 nobody will doubt. Two years after, he drew up an 
 account of his tour ; and it was subsequently printed 
 under the title of " Iter Burgundicum '." 
 
 The next year, they went, by the same order, through 
 part of Germany, taking the route of Basil, Zurich, 
 Augsburg, Munich, &c. They set out on the 30th of 
 June, and appear to have returned in October. Mabil- 
 lon prefixed an account of this journey to his " Vetera 
 Analecta," under the title of " Iter Germanicum ^" 
 
 In the year 1685, at the suggestion of Le Tellier, 
 Archbishop of Rheims— the brother of the minister 
 who had succeeded Colbert, and the owner of 50,000 
 volumes — Mabillon was sent, at the royal cost, to 
 investigate the libraries of Italy, and to procure books 
 for the king's library. He set out, with the same com- 
 panion as before, on the 1st of April, and returned in 
 the June of the following year. The royal library was 
 
 It. Burg. ' It. Germ. 
 
224 LITERARY TRAVELS. [nO. XIV. 
 
 enriched by the addition of 3000 volumes ; and Mabil- 
 lon pubHshed an account of the journey, in the first 
 volume of his " Museum Italicum," under the title of 
 " Iter Italicum ^" 
 
 Again this father set out in the year 1696, accom- 
 panied by another Benedictine — the well-known Ruin- 
 art; and, between the 20th of August and the 10th of 
 November, they travelled through most of Alsace and 
 Lorraine, conducting themselves, in respect of all libra- 
 ries which they could meet with, in the way which 
 might be expected from them. Ruinart drew up an 
 account of the journey, which he entitled, " Iter Lit- 
 ter arium in Alsatiam et Lotharingiam *." 
 
 When Father Mountfaucon had completed the 
 Benedictine edition of " Athanasius," he became con- 
 vinced that the Greek fathers could not be properly 
 edited without first ransacking the libraries of Italy 
 for manuscripts ; and, therefore, (permissu superiorum,) 
 he and Father Paul Brioys set off for that purpose on 
 the 18th of May, 1698, and did not return until the 
 11th of June, 1701. In the course of the next year 
 he published his " Diarium Italicum ^ ;" which was, I 
 believe, the year after, translated into English. 
 
 The Benedictines of St. Maur — that learned body, 
 to which all the travellers hitherto mentioned belonged 
 — having determined to undertake a new edition of the 
 " Gallia Christiana," resolved to send one of their num- 
 ber to collect what materials he could, for correction 
 and addition, from the various libraries, churches, and 
 monasteries of France. " La resolution," says Dom 
 Edmund Martene, " en fut prise a Mamioutier au 
 chapitre general de 1708, et comme j'etois sur les lieux, 
 et qu'on s9avoit que Dieu m'avoit donne quelque petit 
 
 It. Ital. " It. Alsat. * Diar. It. 
 
NO. XIV.] LITERARY TRAVELS. 225 
 
 talent pour lire les anciennes ecritures, je fus un des 
 premiers sur lesquels on jetta les yeux." Nothing 
 could be more natural, as it respects the Chapter; 
 and, perhaps, as to Martene, though he might sin- 
 cerely feel all that he says of the vastness of the 
 undertaking, nothing more agreeable. He set out 
 accordingly on the 1 1th of June, and travelled until 
 the 23rd of December, when he got back into winter 
 quarters at Marmoutier, just in time to avoid being 
 exposed to a more inclement season than any which 
 the oldest persons living could remember. Being in- 
 formed that he must set out again as soon as Easter 
 was past, he begged to have a companion. This 
 request was granted ; he chose Dom Ursin Durand, 
 and they set forth together on the 4th of April. In 
 short — for I am not writing the history of their travels 
 — that year, and the four which succeeded, (except when 
 they were in winter quarters,) were spent in making 
 various circuits, in the course of which they visited a 
 great part of France ; the whole time, from Martene's 
 first setting out to their joint return on the 16th of 
 Nov. 1713, being five years and a half; or, so far as 
 travelling was practicable, we may perhaps more cor- 
 rectly say, six years. Martene tells us, that they 
 visited about a hundred cathedrals, and at least eight 
 hundred abbeys ; in which they failed not to examine 
 whatever manuscripts they could find. In so doing, 
 they not only fulfilled their commission, as it regarded 
 the " Gallia Christiana," but met with a vast quantity 
 of unpublished matter, of various sorts, which they 
 gave to the world in the year 1717, in five folio 
 volumes, under the title of " Thesaurus Novus Anec- 
 dotorum ;" and it is the work which (having explained 
 myself in No. II. p. 14. n.) I have since frequently 
 quoted, under the brief reference '' MarC In the 
 same year that this large work was brought out, Mar- 
 ti 
 
226 LITERARY TRAVELS. [nO. XIV. 
 
 tene published an account of these six journeys, in 
 one volume, quarto, entitled, "Voyage Litteraire de 
 deux Religieux Benedictins de la Congregation de 
 Saint Maur ;" and it is to this which I now refer ^. 
 
 Having published these collections of his journeys, 
 there was nothing, Dom Martene tells us, which he 
 less expected than to set out again on his travels : yet 
 so it was. A new edition of the ancient historians of 
 France was projected ; and our two travellers were 
 requested to go and look for materials, to render it as 
 full and correct as possible. They accordingly set out 
 on the 30th of May, 1718, from the neighbourhood of 
 Paris ; passed through Soissons, Rheims, Amiens, Brus- 
 sels, Liege, Aix-la-Chapelle, Dusseldorf, and penetrated 
 as far into Germany as Paderborn — returned by Co- 
 logne, Treves, Luxembourg — and got back in January 
 1719. By that time, the scheme of publishing the 
 early historians had been abandoned ; but the travel- 
 lers had accumulated a great quantity of curious mat- 
 ter. Their former labours, and the published fruits of 
 them, had brought them invitations to ransack Ger- 
 many and Spain ; and though they could not accept 
 them, yet literary contributions poured in from those 
 quarters: much, also, that Mabillon had previously 
 collected, but not published, was thrown into the com- 
 mon stock ; and when the work came forth in 1724, 
 the editors felt justified in calling the nine folio 
 volumes, "Veterum Scriptorum et Monumentorum 
 historicorum, dogmaticorum, moralium, amplissima col- 
 lectio." It is the work which I have quoted by the 
 reference " M. 4* D. ;" but at present, our business is 
 with the single quarto volume in which Martene gave 
 an account of this journey. He published it under the 
 
 I. Voy. Lit. 
 
NO. XIV.] DESTRUCTION OF MSS. 
 
 227 
 
 same title as the former; but, for the sake of distinc- 
 tion, I shall refer to it as his second literary tour ^ 
 
 From these sources, it would be easy to shew that 
 there are— or, at least, that there were, a little more 
 than a hundred years ago, which is quite sufficient for 
 the purposes of our inquiry— a good many ancient 
 manuscripts in existence; but for that fact there are 
 better proofs ; and it is not my present object to prove 
 it. I quote these literary tourists, not to shew that 
 manuscripts are numerous, but as incidentally furnish- 
 ing illustrations of the reasons why they are so few, 
 and why we may reasonably wonder that they are not 
 fewer still. It is grievous, for instance, to read such 
 notices as those which both Mabillon and Martene 
 have given of the state of things at Clugni. They 
 found the old catalogue (Mabillon says four, Martene 
 five or six, hundred years old,) written on boards three 
 feet and a half long, and a foot and a half wide, and 
 covered with parchment— grand es tablettes, qu'on 
 ferme comme un livre — but of the books which it con- 
 tained, (ex copiosissimo illo numero,) they could find 
 scarcely one hundred. " On dit," says Martene, that 
 the Huguenots carried them to Geneva ; but be this as 
 it may, they were gone somehow*. Such was the 
 case, also, at Nonantula, where, of all its former riches, 
 (ex multis quos celeberrima olim ilia Abbatia habebat 
 veteres codices,) Mabillon found but two manuscripts ^. 
 At Rebais, Martene says, " II y avoit sans doute autre- 
 fois beaucoup de manuscrits dans I'abbaye, mais apres 
 des revolutions si etranges, a peine y en reste-t-il quel- 
 ques-uns ^ ;" and, at the Abbey of Beaupre, " II y avoit 
 autrefois beaucoup de manuscrits; mais nous n'y en 
 vimes que deux ou trois ^" 
 
 7 II. Voy. Lit. 8 It. Burg. 22 ; I. Voy. Lit. 227. " It. Ital. 202. 
 » I. Voy. Lit P. ii. 73. ^ lb. 166. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 DESTRUCTION OF MSS. [nO. XIV. 
 
 But the fact that the manuscripts were gone in 
 places which had possessed considerable collections, 
 will be sufficiently proved incidentally ; and my wish is 
 rather to call up to the reader's mind those causes 
 which may account for it, by a brief and superficial 
 enumeration of them. 
 
 I. — I hardly know how to arrange these causes ; but, 
 as it is of little consequence, I will first advert to one 
 of the most powerful, but one which, through the dis- 
 tinguishing mercy of God, can hardly be appreciated 
 among us. No man has known anything like war in 
 our country; and even in modern Europe generally, 
 the mode of warfare, the circumstances of places taken 
 by siege or by storm, as to their liability to be burned 
 or utterly destroyed, and the fact that most books are 
 now produced by hundreds or thousands at a time, 
 make so great a difference, that we can scarcely insti- 
 tute a comparison. When, however, the word war is 
 mentioned, it will readily occur to the reader, that 
 among the desolations of fire and sword, manuscripts 
 did not escape destruction ; but I wish to raise a more 
 particular idea of the dangers to which they were ex- 
 posed, and the destruction which they actually suffered 
 from certain wars during and since the period with 
 which we are engaged. 
 
 Think, in the first place, of the ravages of the Danes 
 and Normans in the ninth century ; accounts of their 
 cruel desolations meet us at every turn in monastic 
 history. It may easily be conceived, that at all times, 
 — at least, all early times, — monasteries and churches 
 were likely to form a nucleus, both from their being 
 the places most likely to contain spoil, and from their 
 being (next to those which were regularly fortified) the 
 places of greatest strength. Hence they became pecu- 
 liarly obnoxious to destruction, and particularly to 
 destruction by fire. As to the desolation of monas- 
 
NO. XIV.] BY WAR. 229 
 
 teries by these barbarians, however, the shortest way 
 to give some idea of them would be to copy the article 
 "Normanni," in the index of the third volume of 
 Mabillon's Annals, in which he gives a list of the 
 monasteries of his own order which were pillaged or 
 destroyed. Even that, however, would be too long to 
 insert here ; but it begins, " Normanni, monasteria ab 
 eis incensa, e versa, direpta, — ; Amausense, — ; Aru- 
 lense, — ; Arvernense S. Illidii, — ; Autissiodorense 
 sancti Germani, — ; Bardeneiense, — ," &c. ; and so he 
 goes on through the alphabet, naming between seventy 
 and eighty Benedictine monasteries. It is impossible 
 to doubt, and, indeed, in some cases it may be proved, 
 that there was a great loss of books. When, for in- 
 stance, the Abbey of Peterborough, in Northampton- 
 shire, was burned by the Danes in the year 870, there 
 was a large collection of books destroyed — sanctorum 
 librorum ingens hibliotheca ^ The language of Ingulph 
 may provoke a smile ; and T assure the reader that I do 
 not want to make mountains of mole-hills, or to catch at 
 a word in any writer of the dark ages. But I cannot 
 consent to sneer away the statement to nothing ; and 
 the rather because though it may not be easy to say 
 what the abbot's idea of an " ingens bibliotheca" was, 
 yet, as will presently appear, he uses no such expression 
 in speaking of the library of seven hundred volumes 
 belonging to his own monastery which was burned in 
 his own time — that is, in a. d. 1091. 
 
 Again, " when the black swarm of Hungarians first 
 hung over Europe, about nine hundred years after the 
 Christian sera, they were mistaken by fear and supersti- 
 tion for the Gog and Magog of the Scriptures, — the 
 signs and forerunners of the end of the world *." There 
 
 ^ Ing. ap. Gale. V. Scr. p. 23. 
 
 * As it is a principal part of my design to draw attention to the misre- 
 presentations of popular writers, I cannot help offering a remark or two 
 
230 DESTRUCTION OF MSS. [nO. XIV. 
 
 would be no use in detailing such particulars as are 
 handed down to us ; it is always the same horrid tale 
 
 on the note which Gibhon adds to his words which I here quote (Dec. and 
 Fall, vol. V. p. 548^ : — " A bishop of Wurtzburg submitted this opinion to 
 a reverend abbot ; but he more gravely decided, that Gog and Magog were 
 the spiritual persecutors of the church ; since Gog signifies the roof, the 
 pride of the Heresiarchs, and Magog what comes from the roof, the pro- 
 pagation of their sects. Yet these men once commanded the respect of 
 mankind. Fleury, Hist. Eccles. torn. xi. p. 594, &c." I do not know 
 why Gibbon says " a bishop of Wurtzburg" when Fleury, and D'Achery, 
 the only authority to whom Fleury refers, say Verdun : nor do I know 
 how he learned that " these men " ever commanded the respect of man- 
 kind, for it seems as if there was some doubt who the bishop was — and 
 as to the " reverend abbot," I believe no one pretends to guess who he was, 
 or of what country. Could it be shown, therefore, that these two persons, 
 whoever they might be, held a foolish opinion on a very obscure point, 
 and maintained it by mere nonsense, yet that would not go far towards 
 shewing that the respect of mankind in the tenth century was misplaced, 
 in so far as it was given to bishops and abbots. The document exists, 
 however, merely as "Epistola cujusdam Abbatis Monasterii S. German! 
 ad V. Episcopum Virdunensem de Hungris." Neither the bishop nor the 
 abbot seem to have given any credit to the notion of the Hungarians being 
 (jog and Magog. In writing to the abbot, the bishop appears (for I 
 believe his letter is not extant, and is only known by the answer) to have 
 mentioned that the idea was current in his diocese, and to have desired 
 him to look at the prophecy of Ezekiel, and let him know what he sup- 
 posed to be its meaning. That the bishop did not express or imply any 
 belief in the opinion, may be presumed from the terms in which the abbot 
 (after saying that it was current in his part of the world also) sets it 
 down as mere nonsense — frivolam esse et nihil verum habere — contrasted 
 with the language of deep respect and affection in which he addresses the 
 bishop. But farther — the sarcasm can scarcely be said to touch either of 
 the parties ; for the abbot gives the notion about Gog and Magog being 
 the roof, and the heretics, &c. as the exposition of Jerome, without the 
 expression of any opinion as to its correctness ; unless indeed we may 
 find something like apology in the language of the single sentence of com- 
 ment which he bestows on it — " quae quia a B. Hieronymo exposita sunt, 
 et brevitas epistolae plura de his dicere non permittit." He then goes on 
 to inquire who the Hungarians really were, whence they came, and how it 
 happened that they had not been mentioned in history, considering the 
 extent of the Roman conquests and researches — had they been known 
 under some other name, " sicut solent mutari urbium vel locorum seu 
 fluminum nomina. Nam Tiberis quondam Alhula dicebatur. Unde Vir- 
 gilius • amisit priscum Albula nomen ; ' et Italia prius Saturnia dicebatur ; 
 sicut idem poeta, ' et nomen posuit Saturnia tellus,' " &c. The letter, on 
 the whole, is such as that I cannot but hope that the writer did command 
 
NO. XIV.] BY WAR. 
 
 231 
 
 of barbarous outrage and destruction. I will here only 
 refer to one case, partly out of respect to our friend 
 the Abbot Bonus, who was brought up there, though it 
 was before his time, in the days of Abbot Leopard,*who 
 presided there from the year 899 to 912; and princi- 
 pally because, as I have just said, Mabillon found only 
 two manuscripts at Nonantula \ In the first or third 
 year of Abbot Leopard, after a great battle on the river 
 Brenta, in which many thousands of Christians were 
 slain, the pagans advanced to Nonantula, killed the 
 monks, burned the monastery, with many books 
 (codices multos concremavere), and ravaged the whole 
 place. 
 
 I pass over the irruption of the Saracens into Italy ; 
 but, though it is lamentable to carry on the history of 
 desolation as the work of Christians, yet truth requires 
 me to notice what may be called religious, or, more 
 properly and emphatically, irreligious, wars. Happily 
 the books which I have mentioned as furnishing illus- 
 trations relate chiefly to France, and we will not at 
 present look elsewhere. The Dean and Chapter of 
 St. Theudere, near Vienne, says Martene, *' nous com- 
 blerent d'honnetete, et nous communiquirent, de la 
 meilleure grace du monde, ce qui leur reste d'anciens 
 monumens de la fureur des heretiques. Car ces impies 
 brulerent en 1562. toutes les chartes^" "Nous 
 fumes de la a, Tarbe, ou nous ne trouvames pas grand 
 travail, I'eglise cathedrale et tous les titres ayant ete 
 
 the respect of his age. Whether the wretched infidel who thought fit to 
 sneer at him will command the respect of those who take the trouble to 
 look out his authorities, they who see such a specimen as this may fairly 
 question. Fleury refers to Dae. Spic. xii. 349; in the folio edition it is at 
 torn. iii. 368. 
 
 * Of course I do not mean that they had none in the meantime. I hope 
 under another head to shew that they bad many, of whose fate fire and 
 sword were guiltless. 
 
 '' I. Voy. Lit. 252. 
 
232 DESTRUCTION OF MSS. [nO. XIV. 
 
 brule par les Calvinistes, qui, dans toute le Beam et 
 dans la Bigorre, ont laisse de funestes marques de leur 
 fureur ^" — " Pour I'abbaye de St. Jean [at Thoiiars], 
 elle est beaucoup plus ancienne, mais les ravages qu'y 
 ont fait les Calvinistes le siecle passe, en ont dissipe la 
 plupart des monumens '." Grimberg I must reserve 
 for another purpose, and here only mention that it had 
 been destroyed and its library burned by the Hugue- 
 nots ; and as I do not wish to repeat the same cases, 
 even for the illustration of different points, I here only 
 mention the neighbouring monastery of Dilighen, of 
 which Martene says — "Cette abbaye a eprouve le 
 memo sort que celle de Grimberg. C'est a, dire, qu'elle 
 a ete ruinee par les heretiques. Aujourd'hui on la 
 retablit, et on lui a redonne son premier lustre ;" ex- 
 cept, of course, in one respect, for he adds, "L'eglise 
 
 est fort jolie la bibliotheque assez bonne, mais il 
 
 n'y a que tres-peu de manuscrits qui ne sont pas de con- 
 sequence ^." At another monastery, (near Ferte sous 
 Jouarre, not far from Meaux,) Ruinart says, " Spera- 
 
 bamus nos ibi in archiviis aliquid forte reperturos 
 
 at monasterii chartas a Calvinianis penitus combustas 
 
 fuisse nobis responsum supersunt in bibliotheca 
 
 aliquot codices manuscripti;" and, after specifying a 
 good many works, he adds, " quae non sunt magni 
 moment! ^" Much the same injury had been suffered 
 at the monastery of Fleury, where Mabillon found but 
 a few relics of the vast collection which had been 
 destroyed in the religious wars of the preceding cen- 
 tury ^. The effects of war were, indeed, too frequently 
 visible; but not to tire the reader with repetition, — 
 yet without repetition how can I impress on him the 
 
 ' I.Voy.Lit. P. ii.p, 13. sjb.p. 5. » II. Voy. Lit. 112. • It. Alsat. 415. 
 
 ' "Penes quos quidam adbuc reliqui sunt ex innumera ilia veterum 
 librorum copia, quae superiori saeculo, furente haeresi, direpta est." It. 
 Burg. 30, 
 
NO. XIV.] BY FIRE. 233 
 
 extent of the mischief?— some other notices of the 
 destruction produced by what may be termed general 
 or common warfare shall be thrown into a note, and I 
 will proceed to speak of another cause of destruction ^ 
 
 II. I need not insist on the liability of manuscripts 
 to be destroyed by fire, especially at a time when so 
 many were kept in wooden buildings. Our travellers, 
 however, continually, furnish us with such notices as 
 these, most of which are quite modern. At Rheims, 
 "L'eglise cathedrale et I'archeveche ayant ete brulez 
 dans le douzieme siecle, toutes les archives furent pour 
 lors consumees par le feu*." —At Gemhloux, "Nous 
 passames la matinee a voir ce qui restoit de manuscrits 
 de Tincendie generale du monastere '." — At the monas- 
 tery of the Jacobins at Liege, " II y avoit autrefois une 
 assez bonne bibliotheque ; mais il y a quelques annees 
 que tous les manuscrits perirent dans un incendie, qui 
 consuma entierement le monastere ^" — At Lucelle, 
 "L'incendie qui consuma tout le monastere en 1699 
 nous priva du plaisir d'y voir une tres-riche bibliotheque 
 
 ' Take the following instances— Of the abbey of Brunwillers, Martene 
 Bays, " Comme le monastere a beaucoup souffert par les guerres, et qu'il a 
 ete sujet comme les autres aux revolutions, on ne doit pas etre surpris 
 s'il n'y a plus qu'un manuscrit des lettres de Ciceron." (II. Voy. Lit. 269.) 
 " Le Roi Louis XIV. ayant soAmis Luxembourg a la force invincible de ses 
 armes, I'abbaye de Munster eprouva une seconde fois le sort de la guerre, 
 
 et fut entierement rasee apres tant de revolutions on ne pouvoit pas 
 
 s'attendre a faire des decouvertes dans la bibliotheque. En effet, nous n'y 
 avons trouveque cinqou six manuscrits." (II. Voy. Lit. 302.) St Amoul 
 
 at Metz, " Cette abbaye fut entierement ras^e avec celles de Saint 
 
 Clement, de Saint Symphorien, de Saint Pierre, et de Sainte Marie, au siege 
 de Mets forme par I'empereur Charles-quint." (I. Voy. Lit. P. ii. 112.) At 
 Othmersheim, " Cette abbaye, etant exposee au theatre de la guerre, a perdu 
 ses anciens monumens, et nous n'y trouvaines rien qui dilt nous arreter." 
 (I. Voy. Lit. P. ii, 143.) La Chartreuse, by Liege, "II y avoit autrefois 
 beaucoup de manuscrits; mais le monastere ayant esti entierement reduit 
 en cendres dans les dernieres guerres, ils ont tous este consumez dans les 
 flamraes. II n'y a que les sermons de Jacques de Vitry, en quatre ou cinq 
 volumes, qui ayent e'chappe a I'incendie." (II. Voy. Lit. 183.) 
 
 * I. Voy. Lit. P. ii. 79. ' IL Voy. Lit. 117- * IL Voy. Lit. 182. 
 
234 DESTRUCTION OF MSS. [nO. XIV. 
 
 en manuscrits, que les flammes ont reduit en cendre, 
 avec le religieux qui y etoit entre pour tacher de les 
 sauver \" — " Ce que nous venons de rapporter nous fait 
 voir que les sia; incendies qui sont arrivees a S. Wast, 
 n'ont pas tout consume, et nous font aisement juger 
 des tresors immenses que nous y trouverions, si nous 
 avions tout ce que les flammes nous ont ravi V — 
 The abbey oi Lwoy, "Qui ayant ete entierement brulee 
 il y a environ quarante ans, n'a conserve aucun de ses 
 anciens monumens ^." 
 
 I do not wish to be tedious on this point, but I am 
 irresistibly tempted, first of all, just to allude to the 
 conflagration of the monastery of Teano, near Monte 
 Casino, \\^hieh was burned, as Leo Marsicanus says, 
 " cum omnibus operibus suis," in the year 892, because 
 among those opera it is said that the original copy of 
 the Rule of St. Benedict perished ', and then to give 
 one or two anecdotes respecting what may be called 
 accidental burning of monasteries, as contra-distin- 
 guished from those conflagrations which took place in 
 the wars. I give them not as proofs that such things 
 happened, for that is naturally to be supposed, and is 
 sufficiently attested by history, but as stories illustra- 
 tive both of one particular point and of our general 
 subject. 
 
 Thieto, who was Abbot of St. Gall, in the year 937, 
 was a strict disciplinarian; and this was very sensibly 
 felt, not only by the monks, but by the school-boys. 
 St. Mark's day being a holiday, some of the latter had 
 got into mischief (qusedam errata commiserant) which 
 the monitors (censores scholarum quos circatores voca- 
 bant) reported to the masters. Sentence having been 
 passed on the guilty, one of them was sent to the upper 
 
 7 I. Voy. lit. P. ii. Ml. « II. Voy. Lit. 65. » I. Voy. Lit 36. 
 
 ' Mab. Ann. torn. iii. p. 263. 
 1 
 
NO. XIV.] BY FIRE. 235 
 
 part of the building to fetch rods. By way of antici- 
 patory revenge for his flogging, or as a desperate re- 
 source to avoid one, the boy took a brand from a fire 
 and placed it under the dry wood which was next to 
 the roof. This quickly took fire, and the flames, driven 
 by the wind, soon seized the tower of the church. The 
 monastery was almost entirely burned, and many books 
 were lost (multi libri amissi) though they were in time 
 to save the church bells and furniture. The writer 
 who relates the story, adds, " that from this mischief, 
 the monks of St. Gall took a great dislike to the 
 scholars, and some thought that the school ought to be 
 entirely given up, but he suggests that the loss which 
 the monastery sustained by this occurrence was more 
 than counterbalanced by the credit which it had gained 
 through the scholars whom it had sent forth ^." 
 
 If it had not happened in the same year, I should 
 not have mentioned the burning of the famous monas- 
 tery of Fulda, because I do not know how it happened, 
 and cannot prove that the library was burned ; and 
 where there are cases enough of positive evidence, it is 
 not in general worth while to notice that which is 
 merely presumptive, however strong it may be ; and of 
 this monastery and its library I hope to find a fitter 
 occasion to speak. 
 
 " Towards the evening of that day," says the histo- 
 rian of the monastery of Lawresheim or Lorsch, (a few 
 miles east of Worms) speaking of the 21st of March, in 
 the year 1090, "after that, following the example of 
 the carnal Israel, the people had sat down to eat and 
 to drink, and risen up to play, it happened that, 
 among other games, a disc, set on fire at the edge in 
 the usual way, was whirled in the air by a soldier I 
 
 2 Mab. iii. Ann. 407. 
 
 ^ Inter Ccetera ludorura exercitia discus in extrema marginis ora (ut 
 
236 LOSS OF MSS. [no. XIV. 
 
 Being driven round with great force, and presenting 
 the appearance of a circle of fire, it forms a spectacle 
 which pleases, not only the eye by its appearance, but 
 as an exhibition of strength. This being whirled by 
 some one who did not keep sufficiently fast hold, it 
 flew, by his unintentional cast, on the top of the 
 church. Sticking fast there, between the wooden tiles 
 and the old beams, it set fire to the place. What need 
 of many words? In the first place, the flame seized 
 on the tower, which was made with admirable wood- 
 work *, and in which were the bells, and their ropes 
 being burned they could not be used to give the alarm. 
 It then seized all the upper part of the building, the 
 towers, and the porches. At length the dropping of 
 the melted lead, with which all the roof was covered, 
 rendered it utterly impossible to go in or get anything 
 out. Then was the face of things miserable — so many 
 excellent buildings, of the church as well as of the 
 whole monastery — so many fine ornaments devoured 
 by the sudden ravages of the flames, a few only saved 
 with great exertion and risk, either snatched with the 
 hand or broken away with the axe or hatchet from the 
 very midst of the fire ^" 
 
 I hope to give the reader another story somewhat 
 
 solet) accensus, militari manu per aera vibrabatur; qui acriori impulsu 
 circumactus, orbicularem flammae speciem reddens, tam ostentui virium 
 quam oculis mirantiura, spectaculi gratiam exhibet." I do not quite 
 understand this, but I suppose it must have been some kind of circular 
 wheel or circular frame, whirled by a strong arm, and presenting some 
 such appearance as a Catherine wheel. 
 
 "• " Castellum mirabili dolatura fabrefactum." I do not undertake to 
 decide the precise meaning of dolatnra in this place, and therefore trans- 
 late by general terms only ; but I suppose that we may in fact understand 
 it to refer to those small, neat, wooden tiles (if I may use the expression, 
 as I have done above, in translating tegulas, because the historian tells us 
 that all the roof was covered with lead) which, in some parts of Europe, 
 may still be seen forming the roofs or fronts of houses. 
 
 * Chron. Laur. ap. Freher. p. 81. Edit. 1600. 
 
r 
 
 NO. XIV.] BY FIRE. 237 
 
 similar, and more graphic ; but, though I am not 
 apprehensive of his thinking it tedious, it would extend 
 this paper to an unreasonable length; and therefore, 
 in the meantime, and before I proceed to speak of 
 some other causes, I take the opportunity of briefly 
 adverting to a point which cannot be fairly passed over. 
 It is somewhat anticipating to say so, but the fact is, 
 that there are so many manuscripts of some sorts in 
 existence, that it has been very warmly contended by 
 some learned men that a great part at least must be 
 forgeries, because it is impossible that so many should 
 have survived the perils to which such things have 
 been exposed. On such an occasion as this, I must 
 only just glance at what have been called the Bella 
 diplomatica, and my sole reason for referring to them 
 at present is, to shew that those causes of destruction 
 which I have already specified have been considered 
 by learned men as sufficient to account for (indeed, I 
 may say, to require) a greater scarcity of manuscripts 
 than actually exists. " They say," says Ludewig, " that 
 since all the kingdoms of Europe have carried on so 
 many wars, and Germany in particular has been sub- 
 ject to such intestine commotion, no doubt all ancient 
 documents have thereby perished, which led to the 
 forging of new and supposititious ones. But, as no- 
 body doubts respecting the destruction of manuscripts 
 through these causes, so there were also reasons 
 why they might escape. For soldiers, intent on gold 
 and silver, and other things which they could turn to 
 account, were, as they are now, careless about writings, 
 especially considering the ignorance and contempt of 
 letters which then prevailed among them. To this we 
 may add, that even amidst the outrages of war, the 
 soldiers were restrained by superstition from laying 
 hands on the literary treasures of the bishoprics." He 
 goes on afterwards to speak of fire, and represents his 
 
238 LOSS OF MSS. BY FIRE. [nO. XIV. 
 
 opponents as saying that there is scarcely to be found 
 a city, a monastery, or a habitation of any confraternity 
 of any kind which has not been more than once the 
 subject of a conflagration, in which all its documents 
 have perished. " This, also," he replies, " is most true ; 
 for my own part, I declare that I have never been in 
 any archives in Germany, though 1 have visited them 
 without number, where the keepers have not attributed 
 their deficiencies to fires which had destroyed those 
 very documents which were most important. [He 
 adds in a note, " The keeper at Mayence told the same 
 story in 1705. When I inquired for their documents 
 of earlier date than the period of Frederic I., he an- 
 swered, ' that they had all perished when the castle 
 and the court, which were of wood, were burned.'"] 
 But," he goes on to say, " even in the most tremend- 
 ous fires, the first care is commonly to preserve the 
 public archives from destruction ; nor do I hesitate to 
 commend the prudence of the celebrated Maskowsky, 
 Chancellor of Darmstadt, who, when the castle and 
 principal palace were on fire, proposed and paid a 
 reward to those who, at the risque of their lives, went 
 into the lowest story, which was well arched, and 
 brought the written documents out of the archives, 
 which were thus saved like brands plucked from the 
 burning. The same thing we may reasonably suppose 
 to have been done in older times by prudent 
 keepers ^" 
 
 I did not like to pass over this point without some 
 notice ; but the reader will at once perceive that there 
 is an important difference between the case of which 
 I am speaking and that to which Ludewig refers. 
 Indeed, so far as our subject is concerned, I really have 
 the suffrage bf both parties in this diplomatic war in 
 
 ® Reliq. Manuscript. Pref. p. 84, 85. 
 
NO. XV.] ST. GUTHLAC. 239 
 
 my favour. Those who contend that wars and fires 
 must have destroyed the diplomas, charters, deeds, and 
 other comparatively small and portable manuscripts of 
 the dark ages, will readily grant that books were not 
 likely to escape ; and those who reply, as Ludewig 
 justly does, that such documents would be kept with 
 peculiar care, and saved first, and at all hazards, in case 
 of danger, would not think of extending their argument 
 to such manuscripts as we are concerned with. 
 
 No. XV. 
 
 " Domus sanctificationis nostrae et gloriae nostrae, ubi laudaverunt te 
 patres nostri, facta est in exustionem ignis, et omnia desyderabUia nostra 
 versa sunt in ruinas." — Is. Ixiv. 11. 
 
 Somewhat more than eleven hundred years ago, a 
 young man of noble family quitted the military service, 
 and entered a monastery. By the time that he had 
 been a monk two years he had become acquainted with 
 the lives of the early ascetics; and, like many other 
 monks, at various times, and especially in the earlier 
 centuries of monasticism, he resolved to imitate them. 
 Having discovered a wretched and solitary place, suited 
 to his design, among the fens of Lincolnshire, Guthlac, 
 commending himself to the special patronage of St. 
 Bartholomew, for whom he had peculiar respect, took 
 up his abode there on the festival of that saint, in the 
 year 699. Some years afterwards, Ethelbald, then an 
 exile and a wanderer, came to the hermit, with whom 
 he was wont to consult, and whom he called his father 
 confessor, for advice in his distress, — ut ubi consilium 
 defecit humanum, divinum acquireret, — and received 
 from his lips a prediction that he should come to the 
 throne of Mercia without battle or bloodshed. Ethel- 
 
240 FOUNDATION [nO. XV. 
 
 bald declared that, in that case, he would found a 
 monastery on the spot to the praise of God, and in 
 remembrance of his father Guthlac ; and when the 
 prediction was fulfilled, in a. D. 716, he lost no time in 
 performing his promise. Instead of the wooden oratory 
 of the ascetic, he built a stone church, and founded a 
 monastery, which he endowed with the whole island of 
 Croyland, on which it stood, by a charter, which begins 
 thus: — 
 
 " Ethelbald, by divine dispensation King of the Mercians, 
 to all that hold the catholic faith, everlasting salvation. I 
 give thanks, with great exultation, to the King of all kings, 
 and Creator of all things, who has hitherto with longsuffering 
 sustained me while involved in all crimes, has drawn me with 
 mercy, and raised me up in some degree to the confession of 
 his name. Wherefore it is good for me to cleave unto God, 
 and to put my trust in Him. But what shall I render unto 
 the Lord, for all things which He has given unto me, so that 
 I may be pleasing before Him in the hght of the hving ; 
 since without Him we have nothing, we are nothing, and we 
 can do nothing; For the Author of our salvation, and 
 Giver of all things, accepts with great desire our things 
 which are least, that He may have a cause of returning those 
 which are greatest, and joys that are infinite. Those who 
 follow his teaching by works of mercy, He comforts, saying, 
 'What ye have done unto one of the least of mine, ye have 
 done unto me.^ Hence it is, that when I had been instructed 
 by the advice, and urged by the prayers, of my beloved con- 
 fessor Guthlac, the devout anchoret, I cheerfully acquiesced,'^ 
 &c. 
 
 Kenulph, a monk of Evesham, was appointed the 
 first abbot. Pega, the sister of Guthlac, who had long 
 resided as a solitary some miles from her brother, hav- 
 ing brought to the monastery his psalter, the scourge 
 of St. Bartholomew, and some other relics, went back 
 to her own cell, where she remained two years and 
 three months ; after which she went to Rome, where 
 she spent the rest of her life. Bettelmus, Tatwin, and 
 
I 
 
 NO. XV.] OF CROYLAND ABBEY. 241 
 
 two Other ascetics, who lived in cells by the hermitage 
 of Guthlac, for the sake of his neighbourhood and 
 instruction, were permitted by the abbot to remain in 
 statu quo. 
 
 As T am not writing history, and am bound by no 
 unities, let us skip over rather more than a century, 
 and we shall find this monastery, founded by the piety 
 of a Saxon king, become the sanctuary of more than 
 one of the royal race of Mercia. Etheldritha, daughter 
 of Offa, the betrothed of Ethelbert, king of the East 
 Angles, (who was treacherously murdered by her 
 father,) had retired to a cell in the southern part of 
 the church of Croyland. Thus she was enabled, more 
 than thirty years after her sad betrothal, to offer a 
 sanctuary to a successor of her father, Wichtlaf, king 
 of Mercia, when he fled from Egbert, king of Wessex, 
 in the year 827. The Abbot Siward, who was the 
 only other person privy to his retreat, negotiated for 
 his safety and restoration as a tributary to Egbert; 
 and the grateful, though humbled monarch, never for- 
 got the benefit. Six years afterwards he gave a 
 charter, which begins thus ; — 
 
 "Wichtlaf, by divine dispensation King of the Mercians, 
 to all the worshippers of Christ inhabiting all Mercia, ever- 
 lasting salvation. Far from feeling it any disgrace, I esteem 
 it to be honourable and glorious, to publish and set forth the 
 wonderful works of God. Wherefore, I will openly confess 
 unto the Lord, who dwelleth on high, but hath respect unto 
 the lowly in heaven and on earth, because for a time He was 
 angry with me ; but his anger is turned away, and He hath 
 comforted me. In his anger, humbling the sinner unto the 
 ground, bringing him down even unto the dust ; and again, 
 in his mercy, raising the needy from the dust, and lifting up 
 the poor from the dunghill, that I may sit with princes, and 
 possess the throne of glory. In the day of good things, 
 then, let me not be unmindful of the evil things. * I will 
 make mention of Rahab and Babylon, to them that know 
 
 B 
 
242 CROYLAND ABBEY [nO. XV. 
 
 me/ not Rahab the harlot, but the most holy virgin, my 
 kinswoman, Etheldritha, a recluse at Croyland for the love 
 of her spouse, the Lamb without spot ; who, in the time of 
 my trouble, most carefully hid me in her cell, by the space 
 of four months, from the face of the enemy and the persecu- 
 tor. I will make mention also of Babylon ; not of the tower 
 of confusion, but of the most holy church of Croyland, which 
 is a tower reaching to heaven, — with watchings and prayers, 
 psalms and lessons, disciplines and penances, tears and sobs, 
 alms, and innumerable other acts of devotion and works of 
 piety, offering most powerful violence to the kingdom of 
 heaven on behalf of a sinful world *. Therefore, since the 
 venerable father, the Lord Siward, abbot of Croyland, hath 
 protected me in his tabernacle in the evil day, hiding and 
 saving me from the face of him that troubled me, beside the 
 privileges of my predecessors, kings of Mercia, who have 
 amply enriched the aforesaid monastery with various gifts 
 and immunities, I also offer to the great altar of the said 
 monastery, out of my poverty, a golden chalice, a golden 
 cross, and a table out of my own chapel covered with plates 
 of gold, professing that I will constantly defend the said 
 church to the best of my power." 
 
 Then, after other matter — 
 
 " I also offer to the sacrist of the said monastery, for the 
 service of the most holy altar, the scarlet robe with which I 
 was invested at my coronation, to make a hood or chasuble ; 
 and for the ornament of the most holy church, my golden 
 curtain on which is wrought the taking of Troy, to be hung 
 on the walls on my anniversary, if they shall see fit. I also 
 offer to the refectory of the said monastery, for the use of the 
 president every day in the refectory, my gilded cup which is 
 chased over all the outside with savage vine-dressers fighting 
 
 * The reader will, I trust, understand that I give this introduction, and 
 some other things of the same sort, not for the taste with which Scripture 
 language is used, but as shewing the fact that it was so used, and leading 
 to the inference that it was familiar, or, at least, not unknown. Neither 
 do I offer any voucher for the genuineness of charters, in any case where 
 it may be disputed. It is obvious that a forgery, if made during the period 
 of which I write, would be of more value in my enquiry, than a genuine 
 document of earher date could be. 
 
NO. XV.] BURNT BY THE DANES. 243 
 
 with serpents, which T am wont to call my crucibolus, because 
 the sign of the cross is impressed transversely on the inside 
 of it, with four projecting corners having a like impression; 
 and also the horn of my table, that the elders of the monas- 
 tery may drink out of it on the festivals of the saints, and 
 may sometimes, amidst their benedictions, remember the 
 soul of the donor, Wichtlaf." 
 
 Many other gifts are contained in this charter ; and 
 Wichtlaf, we are told, remained constant in his affec- 
 tion to the monastery as long as he lived, visiting it at 
 least once a year, and always making some rich and 
 valuable present. 
 
 As to the destruction of this monastery by the Danes 
 in A. D. 870, I must not here run into all the details of 
 that horrible event; but one or two facts I wish to 
 mention. News of the enemy's approach was brought 
 by some fugitives, who arrived at the monastery while 
 the monks were performing matins. The Abbot Theo- 
 dore, who had succeeded Siward, resolving to remain at 
 his post with those whose advanced or tender age ren- 
 dered flight or resistance equally impossible, and might 
 perhaps excite compassion, ordered the younger and 
 stronger part of the monks to escape, if possible, into 
 the surrounding marsh, taking with them the reliques, 
 principal jewels, and documents of the monastery. The 
 golden table given by Wichtlaf, the chalices, and all 
 that was metal, were sunk in the well ; but the table 
 was so large that, place it which way they would, it 
 could not be prevented from shewing above water; 
 and at length they drew it out again ; the fires were 
 seen nearer and nearer, and the monks who were to 
 fly with the other still more valuable things, which 
 were already in the boat, pushed off, leaving the abbot 
 to conceal the table as well as he could. He, with the 
 help of two of his old companions, did it so effectually 
 that I believe it has never been found to this day. 
 
 r2 
 
244 THE DANES [nO. XV. 
 
 Certainly it had not been two hundred years after- 
 wards, at which time there seems to have been a tradi- 
 tion that it was buried somewhere outside the church 
 on the north side. After this, they dressed themselves, 
 and assembled in the choir to perform divine service, 
 which they had scarcely finished when the Danes broke 
 in. The abbot was slain upon the altar. The old men 
 and children attempted in vain to fly. They were 
 cauoht, and tortured to make them tell where treasure 
 might be found, and then murdered. All perished but 
 little Turgar, a beautiful child, of ten years old, who 
 kept close to Lethwyn the sub-prior, when he fled into 
 the refectory, and seeing him slain there, besought his 
 persecutors that he might die with him. The younger 
 Count Sidrok was touched — he pulled off the cowl of 
 the little monk, threw a Danish tunic over him, and 
 bade him keep by his side. Under his protection, the 
 child, who alone survived to tell the tragic story, went 
 in and out among the Danes all the while they were 
 at Croyland, went with them to Peterborough, and 
 while accompanying them on their way towards Hunt- 
 ingdon — taking advantage of the moment when Sid- 
 rok's followers, who brought up the rear, were sud- 
 denly called to rescue two carriages laden with spoil, 
 which had sunk in fording a river— he escaped into a 
 wood, and, walking all night, got to Croyland early in 
 the morning. There he found his brethren who had 
 fled, and who, having spent the interval in a wood not 
 far distant, had returned the day before, and were 
 engaged in attempting to extinguish the fire which 
 was still raging in many parts of the monastery. 
 
 How they endeavoured to repair this desolation, and 
 how the exactions of Ceolwlph which followed brought 
 the monastery to such poverty that the abbot was 
 obliged to disband the greater part of the monks, I 
 jieed not here relate. All the chalices but three, all 
 
NO. XV.] AT CROYLAND ABBEY. ' 245 
 
 the silver vessels except Wiclitlafs crucibolus, all their 
 jewels, were coined or sold to satisfy his rapacity ; and 
 the few monks who staid by the abbot were in the 
 deepest poverty. When Athelstan succeeded his 
 father, Alfred the Great, in a. d. 924, this little com- 
 pany of twenty-eight had dwindled down to seven ; and 
 when that monarch was succeeded by his brother Ed- 
 mund, in A. D. 941, the number had decreased to five. 
 Two of these, Brunus and Aio, after losing about the 
 same time King Athelstan and the Abbot Goodric, 
 gave up all hope of the restoration, and even the con- 
 tinued existence of the monastery, and migrated, the 
 former to Winchester, and the latter to Malmesbury. 
 Clarenbald, Swartting, and Turgar (the child of a. d. 
 870, and apparently the youngest of the three,) alone 
 remained. 
 
 In a. d. 946, Edmund was succeeded by his brother 
 Edred. If I had been writing the history of the Anglo- 
 Saxons, I should have had much to say, in the reigns 
 of these sons of Edward, of the old soldier Turketul, 
 who had been chancellor to them all three, and to 
 their father before them, and who was, moreover, their 
 first cousin, being like them a grandson of Alfred the 
 Great. In the second year of his reign, Edmund was 
 threatened with invasion from the north, and Turketul 
 was sent to York. Passing through Croyland on his 
 way, with a great train — for he was not only the king's 
 cousin, but himself lord of sixty manors — the chan- 
 cellor was intercepted by the three old monks, who 
 begged that, as night was approaching, he would be 
 their guest. It is true that they had no suitable 
 means for entertaining such a person, with such a 
 retinue ; and had it not been that in those days tra- 
 vellers of rank knew that they must, and therefore 
 did, in a great measure, provide for themselves, they 
 could never have enterprised such a matter. As it 
 
246 RESTORATION [nO. XV. 
 
 was, how they got through it is past my comprehen- 
 sion. But they did ; they took him to prayers in the 
 little oratory which had been got up in one corner of 
 the ruined church, shewed him their reliques, told him 
 their story, and implored him to intercede with the 
 king for the rebuilding of their church. He was quite 
 taken with the old men — senum curialitatem intimis 
 visceribus amplexatus ; he promised to be their advo- 
 cate with the king, and their benefactor from his pri- 
 vate means ; and, when he went forward in the morn- 
 ing, he ordered his servants to leave provisions suffi- 
 cient for them until his return, with an hundred shil- 
 lings for their expenses. 
 
 The old monks had made a strong impression, and 
 during his whole journey the chancellor could talk of 
 nothing, even to strangers whom he met on the way, or 
 at inns, but the old monks of Croyland. After settling 
 his business at York, he revisited them in his way back 
 to London ; and having passed the night there, and left 
 them twenty pounds, he went on to tell the king, first 
 about the northern business, and then about them. In 
 short, (I assure the reader that I am not making a long 
 story, but, I fear, spoiling one for brevity's sake,) hav- 
 ing obtained the king's orders to do what he saw fit in 
 the matter of restoring the monastery, he astonished 
 his royal master by declaring his intention to turn 
 monk. " The king hearing this, wondered beyond 
 measure, and endeavoured by all means to dissuade 
 him from his purpose, especially as he was now grow- 
 ing old, and, having been bred up in ease, had not been 
 accustomed to the rigour of monastic life. Beside this, 
 as in the most important affairs of state everything 
 depended on his help and counsel, he not unjustly 
 feared that the kingdom would be endangered." The 
 chancellor answered, " My lord the king, God who 
 knows all things is my witness that I have fought for 
 
NO. XV.] OF CROYLAND ABBEY. 247 
 
 my lords your brothers, and for yourself^ with all mv 
 might ; now, for your soul's sake, let your clemency 
 permit that I may at least in my old age fight for my 
 Lord God. As to my counsel and every assistance 
 that my poor means can give, it shall be promptly given 
 to all your affairs as long as there is life in my body ; 
 but your highness must certainly understand that from 
 this time forth I will not handle the weapons of war." 
 The king was grieved, but unwilling to force or to 
 over-persuade his faithful servant, — yet he did after- 
 wards make one desperate effort to retain him ; calling 
 him one day into his private chamber, he fell at his 
 feet, and implored him not to desert him in his distress. 
 Turketul, however, though overcome by the unexpected 
 proceeding of his sovereign, fell down also and besought 
 him to spare him; nor could he be moved from his 
 purpose. They rose, the king consented, and fixed a 
 day for accompanying him to Croyland, in order to its 
 execution. 
 
 In the meantime, the chancellor sent a crier round 
 London to say, that if he was indebted to any one he 
 would be ready at a certain time and place to pay him, 
 or if he had wronged any man, to restore him three- 
 fold. He then gave his sixty manors to the king, 
 reserving only one in ten for the monastery. He also 
 ran down with all possible expedition to pay a hasty 
 visit to his old friends, who were overjoyed to see him — 
 " summa celeritate de Londiniis Croylandium advolans 
 prsefatos tres senes in dicta insula latitantes devotissime 
 visitavit, et supra quam dici potest, aut excogitari, 
 revelato suo sancto proposito, in immensum Isetificavit." 
 He put them in a carriage, and rode them about into 
 every corner of the island, exploring by the help of 
 their memories, and the charter of foundation, the 
 boundary of the possessions of the monastery, which he 
 marked out by stone crosses. The lands had, of 
 
248 RESTORATION [NO. XV. 
 
 course, got into other hands ; but it seems as if in most 
 eases he had little trouble in redeeming them. People 
 were not unwilling to sell him (perhaps even at a 
 moderate price) what they knew did not belong to 
 them ; and, in fact, he appears to have failed in only- 
 two cases. Duke Osbricht had got hold of the lands 
 of Kyrketon, Kymerby, and Croxton ; the original 
 charters had perished ; the lands were not specified in 
 any royal confirmation ; and his offer to re-purchase at 
 a fair price having been twice refused, Turketul was 
 obliged to give them up. The other case was more 
 difficult and delicate — Beovred, king of Mercia, had 
 given the manor of Depyng to his chief baker, Langfer. 
 It had descended to his two daughters, and they now 
 belonged to a class of ladies with whom it is not always 
 easy to deal. They would yield to neither claim nor 
 entreaty, and the chancellor seems to have been too 
 polite to attempt their ejectment by any other means. 
 He patiently hoped that they would change their 
 minds, (so I am resolved to understand his expectation 
 of better times,) but he waited all his life in vain ^ 
 
 The king went to Croyland on the eve of the 
 Assumption in the year 948. Turketul accompanied, 
 or had preceded him. Messengers were sent for the 
 two absent monks, who joyfully returned, and were 
 heartily welcomed, for they were " viri literatissimi, et 
 moribus multum honesti ac religiosi ^. The chancellor 
 
 ^ " QxLse diu in coelibatu permanentes, neque cum Turketulo voluerunt 
 componere, nee juri suo prece vel pretio renuntiare. Expectabat itaque 
 diutius venerabilis pater Turketulus tempora meliora : sed quamdiu vixit, 
 vixerunt et illse in eadem pertinacia." 
 
 ^ It is worth while, as it regards the possibilities of locomotion in those 
 days, to observe that the king arrived at Croyland on Monday the 14th of 
 August. Messengers were (raox), 1 know not exactly how soon, dispatched 
 to Malmesbury and Winchester, and the two monks got to Croyland on 
 "Wednesday the 23rd of the same month. W^e may, in the present day, 
 consider that as ample time for such a journey; but we must remember 
 
NO. XV.] OF CROYLAND ABBEY. 249 
 
 laid aside his lay habit, and received the pastoral staff 
 from the king, and the benediction from the bisliop of 
 the diocese, and thus became Abbot of Croyland. The 
 king took on himself the expense of building, and set 
 about it in earnest. Leaving Egelric (a kinsman of 
 Turketul) to act as clerk of the works, he took the 
 new abbot, with two of his monks, Turgar and Aio, to 
 London, where, in a public council before the arch- 
 bishops, bishops, and nobles of the land, he confirmed 
 to the monastery all its possessions. Many learned 
 men followed Turketul, of whom ten became monks. 
 The others had no notion of doing so, (rigorem reli- 
 gionis abhorrentes,) but only came because they did not 
 know how to do without him, (quia praesentia ejus nullo 
 modo carere poterant.) These, being numerous, he 
 placed in a cell dedicated to St. Pega, on the east side 
 of the monastery. He gave them the allowance of 
 monks, built them a chapel, and appointed for them 
 the same religious services, by day and night, as the 
 monks performed. Many became priests, and after- 
 wards monks, and in the meantime he employed them 
 in school-keeping, and made a point of going at least 
 once every day to inspect the progress of each indivi- 
 dual child ; taking with him a servant who carried figs 
 or raisins, or nuts or walnuts, or more frequently apples 
 and pears, which he distributed as rewards. 
 
 But I am not writing the life of Turketul. He was 
 succeeded in a. d. 975 by his relation Egelric, already 
 
 that the messengers had not merely to go and return a distance of at least 
 120 or 150 miles, but that each had to bring with him a very aged com- 
 panion. We know that Turgar was at this time eighty-eight years of age, 
 and that these travellers were his seniors, for they were among the " for- 
 tiores et adolescentiores " who fled from the Danes, when he was left 
 behind as a child. Yet we may reasonably hope that neither of the old 
 gentlemen was over-fatigued, as we hear nothing of it, and find one of 
 them setting out for London on the Monday after. 
 
250 RESTORATION [NO. XV. 
 
 mentioned. From being one of the clerici Pegelan- 
 denses, he had become a monk, and during the latter 
 years of Turketul he had had the chief management of 
 affairs, for which he was pecuharly quahfied. One 
 point which gained him credit was the management 
 with which he provided a large stock of timber, of 
 which a great part of the monastery was afterwards 
 built. Of it, during the lifetime of Turketul, the nave 
 of the church was built, and the tower was framed 
 with very long beams ; and after he became abbot he 
 erected many very fine buildings — namely, the in- 
 firmary, of very good size, the beams and boards of 
 which were put together with admirable art of car- 
 pentry. A chapel, of like workmanship, with baths 
 and other requisites ; and because they would not have 
 borne a stone roof, they were covered with lead. 
 Then he made the hall of the guests, and two large 
 and very handsome chambers of the same workman- 
 ship. He made also a new brewhouse and bakehouse, 
 all of very beautiful wood-work, (omnia de lignorum 
 pulcherrimo tabulato) a great granary in the same 
 style, and a large stable, the upper chambers for the 
 servants of the abbey, and the under part for the 
 horses ; those of the abbot at one end, and those of the 
 guests at the other. These three buildings, the stable, 
 granary, and bakehouse, formed the west side of the 
 court of the monastery ; on the south was the hall of 
 the guests, and its chambers ; on the east the sutrinum, 
 or place of sewing, or clothes-making, the hall of the 
 converts, with the abbot's chamber, chapel, hall, and 
 kitchen ; and the north side contained the great 
 entrance, and the apartment for receiving the poor. 
 All, except the hall, chamber, and chapel of the abbot, 
 and the apartment for the poor, (which had been built 
 of stone by Turketul,) were built of wood, and roofed 
 with stone. With Egelric's agricultural performances 
 
\ 
 
 NO. XV.] OF CROYLAND ABBEY. 251 
 
 we are not at present engaged, and I write under a 
 most wretched fear of being tedious ; but I must say 
 that they were such that the monastery was enriched 
 beyond measure by the produce of its lands ; population 
 gathered round, and there was soon a town in the 
 marshy desert. It is more to our purpose to observe 
 that Abbot Egelric " caused to be made two great 
 bells, which he named Bartholomew and Bettelmus^ 
 two of middle size, which he called Turketul and Tat- 
 wyn, and two lesser, Pega and Bega. His predecessor 
 had before caused to be made a very large bell, which 
 he named Guthlac^ which was in tune with these bells, 
 and with them made admirable harmony; nor was 
 there such another peal of bells in England \" 
 
 His successor, though he bore the same name, was a 
 man of different disposition — vir magis libris et Uteris 
 sacris deditus, quam in temporalium provisione doctus. 
 It Avas well that he followed, rather than preceded, his 
 namesake; for books and sacred literature are most 
 advantageously studied under cover, and with places 
 and means for physical refection ; and so it is that God 
 employs the various talents and dispositions of men; 
 even so obviously that one would think the hand could 
 never dream of saying to the foot, " I have no need of 
 thee." I beg pardon for this reflection, when I am 
 really studying brevity, but it has been repeatedly 
 
 * The reader is probably aware of the custom of naming bells, and I 
 'believe that the previous history sufficiently explains who all these persons 
 were, except Bega, whom one would naturally suppose to be St. Bees, but 
 I do not feel quite certain that it was so well known a personage, and the 
 point is not worth discussing. The great bell at Gloucester Cathedral has 
 puzzled some antiquaries by its legend, me fecit fieri muncutus nomine 
 PETRI. Without disputing whether muncutus is an allowable poetical licence 
 for m'ontacutius-or whether, if we strain it to monchatus. we have got a 
 word, and if we have, whether that word has any meaning— I beg to say 
 that (however different they may look in Roman type) the tall, narrow 
 black-letter word which some one has carelessly copied muncutus, is in fact 
 conventus. The convent caused the bell to be made " nomine Petri." 
 
252 SECOND BURNING [nO. XV. 
 
 forced on my mind in reading the brief records of 
 whole strings of abbots, priors, &c. Egelric the Second 
 gave to the common library of the monastery (communi 
 bibliothecse claustralium monachorum — I do not know 
 whether that phrase was used to exclude the scholastic 
 " clerici Pegelandenses," already mentioned,) forty great 
 oriofinal volumes of learned writers, and more than a 
 hundred smaller volumes of miscellaneous treatises and 
 histories ; and besides these he made for the choir six 
 graduals, four antiphonaries, and eight missals for the 
 different altars. 
 
 I see that I must fairly skip over about a century, 
 and say at once that Ingulph, to wliom I am indebted 
 for most of the foregoing particulars, was Abbot of 
 Croyland in a. d. 1091. What I have hitherto said, 
 though it seems to me to illustrate many parts of our 
 subject, is given with immediate view to his account of 
 what happened in his own time. Speaking of his 
 beloved patron, Archbishop Lanfranc, who died in a. d. 
 1089, he says — 
 
 " Two years after his death happened that which was my 
 heaviest misfortune, which had been foreshewn by so many 
 prodigies — the total destruction of so great a monastery, so 
 often clearly foretold in very many visions, and other appari- 
 tions — that most fierce conflagration which cruelly devoured 
 so many and such dwelling places of the servants of God. 
 For our plumber, being employed in the tower of the church 
 about the repairs of the roof, and not extinguishing his fire in 
 the evening, but fatally and most foolishly covering it with , 
 ashes, that he might the more readily set to work in the 
 morning, went down to supper ; and when, after supper, all 
 our servants had gone to bed, and were every one of them 
 fast asleep, a strong wind rising from the north, speedily 
 brought on our great calamity. For, entering the tower 
 through the lattice-work, which was open on every side, it 
 first blew away the ashes, and then drove the live coals 
 against the nearest wood-work, where, quickly finding dry 
 materials which were ready to catch, and thus gaining 
 
NO. XV.] OF CKOYLAND ABBEY. 253 
 
 strength, the fire began to seize the more substantial parts. 
 The peasants, who saw for a long while a great light in the 
 belfry, supposed that the clerks of the church or the plumber 
 were finishing some work; but, at length, perceiving the 
 flames burst forth, they came knocking at the gates of the 
 monastery with great clamour. It was just about the dead 
 of the night, and we were all resting in our beds, taking our 
 first and deepest sleep. At length, being awaked by the 
 loud clamour of the people, and hastening to the nearest 
 window, I saw as clearly as if it had been noon-day all the 
 servants of the monastery running towards the church, cry- 
 ing and hallooing. Having put on my slippers, and waked 
 my companions, I hastened down into the cloister, where 
 everything was as brilliant as if it had been lighted up with 
 a thousand tapers. I ran to the door of the church ; and, 
 attempting to enter, I was very nearly caught by the melted 
 bell-metal and boiling lead, which were pouring down. I 
 stepped back, however, in time ; and, looking in, and seeing 
 that the flames had everywhere got the upper hand, I took 
 my course toward the dormitory. The lead from the church 
 dropping on the cloister, and soon making its way through, 
 I was severely burnt in the shoulder, and might have been 
 burnt to death, if I had not quickly leaped into the open area 
 of the cloister; where, seeing that the flames that issued 
 from the tower of the church on every side had seized the 
 nave also, and were pointed towards the dormitory of the 
 monks, in which direction burning materials were continually 
 carried, I cried out to those who were still in deep sleep; 
 and, by raising my voice to the utmost, I was scarcely able, 
 after a long while, to rouse them. They, recognising my 
 voice, and leaping out of bed in great alarm when they heard 
 that the cloister was on fire, rushed through all the windows 
 of the dormitory in their slippers and half-naked, and fell 
 miserably. Many, alas ! were wounded, many bruised and 
 fractured, by the hard fall. 
 
 "The flames, however, continuing to increase, and conti- 
 nually throwing flakes of fire from the church towards the 
 refectory — first the chapter house, then the dormitory, then 
 the refectory itself, and, at the same moment, the cloisters 
 belonging to the infirmary, and the whole of the infirmary, 
 with all the adjoining buildings, were swallowed up at one 
 
254 SECOND BURNING [nO. XV. 
 
 stroke. As all our brethren collected about me in the court, 
 when I saw most of them half-naked, I tried to regain my 
 own chamber that I might distribute the clothes I had there 
 to those who were most in need. But every avenue to the 
 hall was so exceedingly hot, and such a shower of melted 
 lead was falling on every side, that even the boldest of the 
 young men were obliged to keep their distance. Moreover, 
 not yet knowing that our infirmary had been seized by the 
 flames on the other side, I was going round by the north 
 cemetery towards the east end of the church, when I per- 
 ceived that our infirmary was on fire, and that the uncon- 
 querable flames were raging with the utmost violence among 
 the green trees — ash, oak, and willow — which were growing 
 around. Returning, therefore, to the west side, I found my 
 chamber like a furnace, vomiting forth incessant flames from 
 all the windows ; and, going forwards, I beheld, with tearful 
 eyes, that all the contiguous buildings towards the south, 
 (that is to say, the halls of the converts and of the guests,) 
 and all the other buildings that were covered with lead, were 
 on fire. But the tower of the church falling on the south 
 transept, I was so terrified by the crash, that I fell on the 
 ground, half dead, in a fainting fit. I was picked up by my 
 brethren, and carried into the porter's lodge ; but I scarcely 
 recovered the use of my faculties and my customary strength 
 before morning. 
 
 " Day breaking at length, and I having recovered from my 
 fit, the brethren weeping and languid, and some of them 
 miserably M^ounded, and burnt in many parts of their bodies, 
 performed divine service together with mournful voice, and 
 lamentable wailing, in the hall of Grimketul, our corrodiary. 
 Having performed all the hours of divine service, as well for 
 the day as for the night, we went out to take a view of the 
 state of things throughout the whole monaster}', the flames 
 being still unsubdued in many of the offices. It was then 
 that I first perceived that our granary and stable were 
 burned ; the flames being not yet quenched, though their 
 posts had been burned even below the level of the ground. 
 About the third hour of the day, the fire being in great mea- 
 sure got under, we went into the church, and, extinguishing 
 with water the fire which was already subsiding, we perceived 
 in the incinerated choir that all the service books, both anti- 
 
NO. XV.], OF CROYLAND ABBEY. '255 
 
 phonaries and graduals, had perished. On entering the 
 vestry, however, we found all our sacred vestments, the 
 relics of the saints, and some other valuables which were 
 there reposited, untouched by the fire, because the building 
 was covered with a double stone arch. Going up to our 
 archives, we found that, although they were entirely covered 
 by a stone arch \ nevertheless, the fire rushing in through 
 the wooden windows, all our deeds were stuck together, and 
 burnt up by the extreme heat, as if they had been in a glow- 
 ing furnace or oven ; although the cases in which they were 
 kept appeared to be safe and sound. Our most beautiful 
 chirographs, written in the Roman character, and adorned 
 with golden crosses, and most beautiful paintings, and pre- 
 cious materials, which were reposited in that place, were all 
 destroyed. The privileges also of the kings of Mercia, the 
 most ancient and best, in like manner beautifully executed, 
 with golden illuminations, but written in the Saxon charac- 
 ter, were all burned. All our documents of this kind, greater 
 and less, were about four hundred in number ; and, in one 
 moment of a most dismal night, they were destroyed and lost 
 to us by lamentable misfortune. A few years before, I had 
 taken from our archives a good many chirographs, written in 
 the Saxon character, because we had duplicates, and in some 
 
 * Here is an instance of that which I have already noticed — the greater 
 provision which was made for the security of the archives. I have said 
 that when Mal)iIlon was at Nonantula, he found only two MSS. of all its 
 former riches ; hut he found " in archivo diplomata perantiqua Ludovici 
 Lotharii et aliorura." (Jt. Ital. 202.) Of course they had a value far beyond 
 that which an antiquary could discover in them, which would account for 
 peculiar care being taken for their preservation, and for their being 
 actually preserved when books were lost. To this their superior porta- 
 bility would often conduce. We have just seen that the documents of 
 Croyland were carried into safety when it is probable that books were 
 destroyed. Ruinart tells us that when he and Mabillon were at Morbach, 
 something similar had occurred — " Magnam esse ibi diplomatum copiam 
 acceperamus, sed quod ob bellorum tumultus alio asportata essent, ea 
 videre non licuit," {It. Alsat. 468;) but he goes on to say—" Hancjac- 
 turam codicum MSS. bibliothecse abundantia resarcivit, quorum non pauci 
 sub prima regum nostrorum stirpe litteris majusculis aut franco gallicis 
 descripti sunt." He specifies a psalter that was 800, and a copy of St. 
 Paul's Epistles 900 years old, and a New Testament of equal antiquity, " et 
 alii codices optimse notse in quibus sacrae scripturse libri," &c. ; but these 
 were to take the chance of war. 
 
256 SECOND BURNING [no. XV. 
 
 cases triplicates, of them ; and had given them to our Cantor 
 Master Fulmar, to be kept in the cloister, to help the juniors 
 to learn the Saxon character, because that letter had for a 
 long while been despised and neglected by reason of the 
 Normans, and was now known only to a few of the more 
 aged ; that so the younger ones, being instructed to read this 
 character, might be more competent to use the documents of 
 their monastery against their adversaries in their old age. These 
 chirographs, being kept in a certain old chest, which was 
 enclosed by the wall of the church, were the only ones that 
 were saved, and escaped the fire. These are now our chief 
 and principal documents, which were formerly secondary, 
 and put aside, having been long lightly esteemed and looked 
 down upon, because of their barbarous WTiting; according to 
 the saying of Job, — *lhe things that my soul refused to 
 touch are as my sorrowful meat ^' 
 
 " All our library also perished, which contained more than 
 three hundred original volumes, beside smaller volumes, 
 which were more than four hundred. Then, too, we lost 
 that most beautiful and very costly table, wonderfully made 
 with every kind of metal to distinguish the stars and the 
 signs — Saturn was of copper — Jupiter of gold — Mars of 
 iron — the Sun of brass— Mercury of amber — Venus of tin 
 — the Moon of silver. The colure circles, and all the signs 
 of the zodiac, according to their kinds, by the skilful work- 
 manship having their proper images and colours, in various 
 forms and figures, engaged, beyond measure, not only the 
 understanding, but the eyes, of the spectators by the multi- 
 pUcity of precious stones and metals. There was not such 
 another nadir known or talked of in England. The King of 
 France had formerly presented it to Turketul; and he, at 
 his death, had given it to the common library, as well for 
 ornament as to teach the juniors. Now it was consumed, 
 and melted down to nothing, in the devouring fire. 
 
 " Our chapter-house was totally consumed ; our dormitory, 
 and all the beds of the monks which were in it, and the build- 
 ing which adjoined, perished in one conflagration. In like 
 manner our infirmary, with the chapel, the baths, and all the 
 
 * Ch. vi. ver. 7. Quae prius nolebat tangere anima mea, nunc pree 
 angustia cibi inei sunt. 
 
NO. XV.] OF CROYLAND ABBEY. 257 
 
 adjoining offices, were burned. Our refectory and all that it 
 contained (except a few stone cups, and the horn and cruci- 
 bolus of Wichtlaf, king of Mercia, which were kept in stone 
 chests), with the adjoining kitchens, and all the hall and 
 chamber of the converts, with all that was in them, were 
 burnt together. Our cellar, and the very casks full of beer, 
 were destroyed. The halls also of the abbot, and his cham- 
 ber, and the whole court of the monastery, which had been 
 most beautifully surrounded with very elegant buildings 
 through the diligence of my predecessors, — (unhappy I, that 
 my stay there was prolonged to behold such a sight!) — 
 perished in a miserable conflagration, the flames raging on 
 every side with the fury of Greek fire. A few huts of our 
 poor pensioners, and the outhouses of our cattle, and the 
 buildings containing the other animals, being at a greater 
 distance, and covered with stone, were all that were pre- 
 served. For, beside the north transept of the church, from 
 whence the wind rushing forth most powerfully drove the 
 flames towards the south, all the buildings of the monastery, 
 especially those that were roofed with lead, whether built of 
 wood or stone, our chirographs and valuables, books and 
 utensils, bells and their turrets, clothes and provisions, in 
 one moment of time, while I, most unhappy, presided, were 
 lost and consumed. 
 
 "Many signs and many portents prognosticated these 
 fires, and nocturnal visions very often predicted them ; but 
 all these things I understood only after the event. Not only 
 the words of our holy Father Turketul, when he was at the 
 point of death, earnestly admonishing us to take care of our 
 fire, but also those of our blessed father Wulfi-an at Fonta- 
 nelle, in a night vision, commanding me carefully to preserve 
 the fire of the house of the three saints, — that is to say, 
 Guthlac, Neot, and Waldev, — contained most certain admo- 
 nitions. But I understand and confess all these things, 
 unhappily, too late; and I, who for my sins do worthily 
 deserve to pour forth such lamentations and useless tears, 
 am only indulging in vain complaints. 
 
 " But that we may go on, let us return to our sad history. 
 Our great misfortune being quickly made known through the 
 whole vicinity, many of our neighbours, having bowels of 
 mercy for our misery, most kindly looked with an eye of pity 
 
 s 
 
258 CROYLAND ABBEY. [nO. XV. 
 
 on our destitution. For our lord and most holy father Remi- 
 gius, bishop of Lincoln, graciously granted to those who 
 should do to us, or procure for us, any good, forty days of 
 indulgence ; and beside this, he gave us forty marks of silver 
 in money. By his advice and suggestion, also, the venerable 
 canons of the church of Lincoln, and the citizens of that city, 
 who were our neighbours, sent us a hundred marks. Also 
 Richard de Rulos, Lord of Brunne and Depyng, as our faith- 
 ful brother and loving friend in the time of tribulation, then 
 gave us ten quarters of wheat, ten quarters of barley, ten 
 quarters of peas, ten quarters of beans, and ten pounds of 
 silver. This was the contribution of Richard de Rulos to- 
 wards the restoration of our monastery. Also Haco of Mul- 
 ton gave us twelve quarters of corn, and twenty fine flitches 
 of bacon. This was the contribution of the aforesaid Haco. 
 Also Elsinus of Pyncebec gave us a hundred shillings in 
 silver, and ten flitches. Also Ardnotus of Spalding gave us 
 six quarters of corn, and two carcases of beef, and twelve 
 flitches of bacon. And beside these, many other persons 
 made us various gifts, whereby our distress was much re- 
 lieved, whose names may our Lord Jesus Christ write in the 
 book of life, and may He repay them with heavenly glory. 
 But among so many benefactors, Juliana, a poor woman of 
 Weston, of pious memory, must not be forgotten, for she 
 gave us of her poverty, even all her living, — namely, a great 
 quantity of twisted thread, to sew the garments of the bre- 
 thren." 
 
 I pass over the arrangements which the abbot pro- 
 ceeded to make for raising money on the lands of the 
 monastery, and the documents which he has inserted 
 respecting these transactions; but I must add the short 
 paragraph which follows them : — 
 
 " Being therefore mercifully helped by the contributions of 
 so many of Christ^s faithful people, as well our neighbours as 
 persons at a distance, we laboured, in the first place, night and 
 day, to rebuild the house of the Lord, lest their gifts should 
 seem to have been cast away on a barren soil. We put in 
 a new nave to the roof of the church, in place of the old one 
 which had been burnt ; we added also some other append- 
 
NO. XVI.] SCARCITY OF MSS. 259 
 
 ages, such as they were. Moreover, for the old tower of the 
 church, a humble belfry, in which we placed two little bells 
 which Fergus, the brass-worker of St. Botolph's, had lately 
 given us, until better times, when we propose, by the help of 
 the Lord, to renew everything in a better manner, and to 
 raise to the Lord of majesty a worthy temple on surer foun- 
 dations." 
 
 I trust that these details are not without interest in 
 themselves, and they certainly conduce to one very 
 principal object of these papers, which is, not merely to 
 call the reader's attention to the facts of the dark ages, 
 but to the writers who have recorded them. I have 
 perhaps said more than enough of the ravages of fire 
 and sword, and I hope to proceed immediately to the 
 consideration of another cause to which we may ascribe 
 the scarcity of manuscripts. 
 
 No. XVL 
 
 " Ne toga cordylis et paenula desit olivis, 
 
 Aut inopem metuat sordida blatta famem." — Mart. 
 
 There is an appearance, at least, of self-complacency 
 in an author's saying, " the reader remembers," which 
 may provoke a smile, that is more or less deserved, in 
 proportion to the importance of the matter referred to, 
 and its distance as to time and place. If it is a startling 
 fact, or a necessary argument, on the preceding page, 
 it is well enough ; but if it is some slight matter of 
 passing remark, five or ten volumes off, and which the 
 reader cannot be supposed to have seen for a twelve- 
 month, it argues that the writer has a more accurate 
 knowledge of his own works than of human nature. My 
 readers would smile if I were to assume their recollec- 
 tion of what I said about a year and a half ago, on a 
 
 s 2 
 
260 CAUSES OF THE [nO. XVI. 
 
 matter which they may think of very little importance, 
 but of which (it being myself) I may be allowed to 
 form a different estimate. I did, however, in the very 
 first number of these papers, avow myself to be of 
 rather a discursive turn ; and fairly stated that I should 
 be sure to digress, if such a thing were rendered possi- 
 ble by marking out a plan. I have no fear that any 
 one will dispute that I so far spoke the truth. But I 
 also said, that although I had no plan, I had a pur- 
 pose, which I fully stated ; and that I have really been 
 following this by something like a train of argument, 
 may not perhaps be equally obvious. Yet it is really 
 true ; and as I freely forgive the reader who may not 
 perceive it, so I trust that if I am honoured with any 
 reader so attentive as to have kept it in view, he will 
 forgive me if I here very briefly advert to the progress 
 which I consider myself as having made in it, and the 
 course which I hope to pursue. 
 
 As to the knowledge of the Bible in the dark ages, 
 I stated in No. XIT. an opinion that it was, in fact, 
 much greater and more general than some modern 
 writers would lead us to suppose. In order to support 
 this, I began with what I did not consider as the most 
 powerful argument, but yet as having some weight for 
 proof, and some interest in itself, — namely, the inci- 
 dental notices of existing copies of the Scriptures, 
 which are scattered up and down in the histories of 
 that period. In the two following papers I gave many 
 instances; but though, with regard to the notices of 
 parts of the Scriptures, they were so numerous that I 
 restricted myself to those which challenged particular 
 attention by their intrinsic value, or some other pecu- 
 liar circumstance, yet I was afraid that even with this 
 limitation the reader would feel the induction of cases 
 tedious. Beside this, I thought it possible that when 
 I had even unduly trespassed on his patience, he might 
 
NO. XVI.] SCARCITY OF MSS. 261 
 
 say, — " Well, but now I have counted up all the Bibles, 
 and Testaments, and Gospels, and Psalters which you 
 have mentioned, and I know that in my little parish 
 there are, at this moment, twice as many ; and if they 
 were as plentiful then as they are now, surely we should 
 have more proofs of it in existence." I might reply by 
 inquiring, how many of those Bibles in your parish are 
 an hundred, or an hundred and fifty, or two hundred 
 years old? — or, more strictly, by asking, how many 
 of the Bibles which were in the parish two hundred, or 
 one hundred, or fifty years ago, are there now to prove 
 that they ever existed ? 
 
 But the proper answer is, to call attention to the 
 various causes of destruction w^hich have perpetually 
 been at w ork. I wish, if possible, to make the reader 
 partake of the surprise which I unfeignedly feel, that 
 so many manuscripts have survived such fierce and un- 
 relenting persecution. After this I hope to proceed to 
 more direct evidence that the Scriptures were known 
 and read in the dark ages than even that which is 
 afforded by the incidental mention of them. In the 
 meantime, in this digression (not from our subject, but 
 from that particular argument) on the scarcity of 
 manuscripts, I have mentioned, in the first place, the 
 ravages of war and fire ; and I hope that I shall not be 
 thought to have wasted time in giving one or two cases 
 somewhat in detail. There are two reasons for it — 
 first, that a very principal object which I have in 
 view is, to bring to the reader's notice, not merely the 
 facts, but the writers, of the dark ages ; secondly, that 
 it is impossible, without some such consideration of 
 details, to understand and appreciate the few words in 
 which some of our literary travellers occasionally speak. 
 Without some little reflection, and, perhaps, without 
 having our minds particularly called to some such 
 cases, we should hardly form an idea of what they 
 
262 DESTRUCTION OF MSS. [nO. XVI. 
 
 mean to convey by the few words in which they allude 
 to a whole string of desolations. It was said of Corelli 
 that every stroke of his bow was a mouthful ; some- 
 thing like it might be said of single sentences from the 
 pen of Father Martene. For instance — 
 
 " Quoyque le bibliotheque ait ete pilliee en plusieurs 
 occasions, il y reste encore un grand nombre de manu- 
 scrits, presque tous anciens et fort beau '." 
 
 At the collegiate church of Romans in Dauphiny — 
 " Elle a eu le malheur d'etre ruinee sia; fois; — 1. Par 
 les Maures ; 2. Par I'Archeveque Sebon ; 3 et 4. Par 
 le feu ; 5. Par Guigne Dauphin dans le douzieme 
 siecle ; et 6. Par les Calvinistes ^" 
 
 The monastery of La Charite sur Loire, Martene 
 tells us, " was originally built half a league from the 
 place where it now stands, near the ancient town of 
 Seir, which no longer exists. Having been destroyed 
 by the Vandals, it was re-established by King Pepin, 
 who placed Benedictine monks there. They did not 
 continue long, because the place was soon after de- 
 stroyed by the barbarians. Geoffrey of Nevers, Bishop 
 of Auxerre, having rebuilt the church in honour of the 
 Holy Virgin, gave it to Hugnes, Abbot of Clugni, who 
 made it a famous monastery, and the first in conse- 
 quence among those affiliated to his own, and gave the 
 government of it to Girard, his prior, who is considered 
 a saint at Clugni. It is said, that under that illustrious 
 prior there were two hundred monks at La Charite, 
 who were afterwards reduced to a hundred priests and 
 twenty novices ; and successively to ninety, eighty, and 
 at length to sixty. This number remained until the 
 time of Robert de Lenoncour, the first prior who held 
 it in commendam, who reduced them to thirty; and 
 these, after the conflagration of the monastery, which 
 
 ' I. Voy. lit. p. II. p. 214. ■ Ibid. p. 263. 
 
NO. XVI.] BY NEGLIGENCE. 263 
 
 speedily followed, were, if I remember right, still fur- 
 ther reduced to seventeen." Can we wonder that, 
 when Martene goes on to tell us that, through modern 
 restoration, " Le monastere de la Charite se ressent 
 encore aujourd'hui de son ancienne splendeurV' he 
 should, nevertheless, say nothing of the library, and 
 mention only one manuscript ? 
 
 At Sens, too, "L'abbaye de Saint Pierre le Vif 
 ayant ete detruite neuf ou dix fois^ taut par les bar- 
 bares et les ennemis de I'etat que par diverges incen- 
 dies, on est surpris qu'elle subsiste encore aujourd'hui*." 
 This is very true; but one is not surprised to hear 
 nothing whatever of manuscripts there. 
 
 Other instances will, however, come under notice 
 incidentally; and having said, perhaps, more than 
 enough of fire and sword, let me mention another 
 cause, perhaps as mighty, and more constant, which 
 has led to the destruction of manuscripts. 
 
 II. A most effective cause may be found in the neg- 
 ligence of those who have had the care of them. As 
 this infidelity to the trust reposed in him by the 
 Author of every good gift is a sin of which man has 
 been guilty in all times and places, we may very well 
 suppose that a good many manuscripts perished in this 
 way during the dark ages, as they certainly have done 
 since. Yet I think I shall not be considered unfair if 
 I suggest the probability that this cause was less ope- 
 rative then than it was when books became less scarce 
 and valuable. I do not want to take advantage of 
 those exaggerations as to cost and rarity which I have 
 been endeavouring to expose ; nor even of the equally 
 fallacious statements which have been made respecting 
 the care taken, and the precautions used, about single 
 volumes, as if they were the only books on earth. 
 
 » I. Vuy. Lit. p. 37. * Ibid. p. 61. 
 
264 CARE TAKEN OF MSS. [XO. XVI. 
 
 Warton, in that "Second Dissertation" to which I 
 have had occasion more than once to refer, tells us of 
 a bishop who, " in the year 1299, borrows of his cathe- 
 dral convent of St. Swithen, at Winchester, Bibliam 
 bene glossatam, — that is, the Bible with marginal anno- 
 tations, — in two large folio volumes, but gives a bond 
 for due return of the loan, drawn up with great 
 solemnity ^" All this is, I dare say, very true ; and, 
 in the present day, it may sound rather strange ; but 
 does he not tell us that the Bible was a bequest from 
 the bishop's predecessor to the convent ? Ought they 
 to have treated it just as if it had been a novel in a 
 circulating library ? — and could the prelate who bor- 
 rowed it be offended by the care which they took of 
 it? But when Warton goes on to say, — "When a 
 single book was bequeathed to a friend or relation, it 
 was seldom without many restrictions and stipulations," 
 — it is obviously more than he can prove, and more 
 than most people will believe. It is a singular circum- 
 stance that we find another Bible just at the same time 
 bequeathed by the Bishop of Cambray to the Carthu- 
 sians of Macour, near Valenciennes ; the bishop had 
 died in the year 1296, on his way to the Holy Land, 
 and the monks, who received the twelve volumes by 
 the hands of the Count of Hainault, entered into an 
 engagement with him not to lend it without good 
 security ; and, in case of their quitting that part of the 
 country, to return it to him ^ 
 
 Such cases it is worth while to notice, for the legiti- 
 
 * Page cix. 8vo. edit. 
 
 * " Promittimus bona fide, nos Bibliam in duodecim voluminibus, quam 
 de legato prsefati pontificis per manus potentissimi principis domini Johan- 
 nis de Avesnis, Comitis Hannonise, ac suae consortis dominse Philippae 
 Conaitissae nobilissimae habemus, hujusraodi non vendere, dare, vel impig- 
 norare, seu accommodare, nisi bonum correspondens haberemus, quae- 
 cumque necessitas nos impellat," &,c,—Mart. i. 1314. 
 
NO. XVI.] IN THE DARK AGES. 2G5 
 
 mate purpose of shewing that books existed, were 
 valued, and taken care of; and I mention them the 
 more readily because they relate to Bibles. I hope to 
 have occasion to refer to them hereafter, when we 
 shall, perhaps, be led to think that special care was 
 taken of such books. In the meantime, I am only 
 contending that, generally speaking, books were taken 
 care of; and if these instances are more recent than 
 the period with which we are engaged, let us get back 
 into it by noticing the case of a Gratian, presented to 
 the monastery of Clairvaux, by Alanus, Bishop of 
 Auxerre (the disciple of St. Bernard), on condition 
 that it should on no account whatsoever (nulla neces- 
 sitate) be removed from the monastery ^ Martene, 
 who relates the circumstance, and who would not lose 
 the opportunity of saying a word or two on the Bene- 
 dictine side of the question respecting monastic studies, 
 observes that the monks of Clairvaux, even in those 
 days, were evidently no enemies to the study of canon 
 law. But to this I must add a suspicion, that books of 
 canon law were peculiarly apt to get out of their places, 
 and not to find their way back. A curious hint of this 
 is furnished by a statute of Mainerius, Abbot of St. 
 Victor's at Marseilles, in the year 1198. After pre- 
 mising the excellence and benefit of peace and unity, 
 especially among those who are knit together by the 
 love of Christ, and the care which should be taken to 
 prevent or to stop division, he proceeds, — " Whereas 
 all the brethren of our monastery have complained that 
 certain of our predecessors took and carried away at 
 their pleasure, from the library of this church, which 
 hath been furnished by the provident and diligent care 
 of the ancient fathers and abbots, and adorned with 
 books of divers arts, the books of law, which, like the 
 
 7 I. Voy. Lit. p. 103. 
 
266 CARE TAKEN OF MSS. [nO. XVI. 
 
 other books, belong to the library, (having, perhaps, 
 been bequeathed by the devotion of individuals, or 
 having come, in some way or other, to the monastery,) 
 I, Mainerius, by the grace of God, abbot of the said 
 monastery of Marseilles, having consulted with our 
 elders, have determined to pacificate and end those 
 complaints by perpetual peace and concord:" and he 
 then goes on to order, that whatever books shall be 
 bequeathed, or given, or in any way accrue to the 
 monastery, shall be considered as an inalienable and 
 irremovable part of the library ; except only the bre- 
 viaries, which properly belong to the abbot, and the 
 missals for the service of the church ^ 
 
 These cases, however, as well as those cited by 
 Warton, and many othei-s which might be collected, 
 are rather specimens of individual character than any 
 thing else. As to general rules, I have in a former 
 number given a letter from the prior of a monastery to 
 an intimate friend, who wanted to borrow a book, and 
 whose request led him to state the inflexible rule of 
 the monastery not to lend books, without receiving 
 some equivalent volumes as a pledge ; and there can 
 be little doubt that such regulations were very general. 
 " Our books," says Ingulph, who has been sufficiently 
 introduced to the reader in the preceding number, " as 
 well the smaller unbound volumes, as the larger ones 
 which are bound, we altogether forbid, and under an 
 anathema prohibit, to be lent to any far-distant schools, 
 without the leave of the abbot, and his distinct under- 
 standing as to the time when they shall be returned. 
 As to lending lesser books, however, such as Psalters, 
 copies of Donatus, Cato, and the like poetical works, 
 and the singing lesson-books, to children and the rela- 
 tions of the monks, we strictly forbid the cantor, or 
 
 « D. & M. i. 1020. 
 
NO. XVI.] IN THE DARK AGES. 267 
 
 any one who shall act as librarian, under pain of dis- 
 obedience, to allow them to be lent for a longer space 
 of time than one day, without leave of the prior. 
 Should any one hereafter presume so to do, let him 
 remain in disgrace and incapable of oflBce in the 
 monastery for two years ^." It was also perhaps natural 
 that those who had been at the trouble of writing a 
 volume should over-rate the value of their own labours, 
 and use such means as they could to prevent their 
 work from being lost, defaced, or even removed from 
 the scenes in which it had been for many years in the 
 process of elaboration, the only companion of the silent 
 and solitary artist — solitary, though, like Rodulf, who 
 was a monk of St. Wast, or Vedastus, about a thousand 
 years ago, he might fancy that his well-pleased patron- 
 saint was looking on, and balancing the account of sins 
 and letters. A copy of Augustine on the Psalms, 
 which he wrote, is still extant, and contains a portrait 
 of himself, and some lines, part of which I cite, not for 
 their poetical beauty, nor their orthodoxy, but because 
 they express feelings which were, probably, not peculiar 
 to himself; and which, so far as they extended, would 
 form a sufficient guarantee for the multiplication and 
 preservation of books. 
 
 " Cum librum scribo, Vedastus ab sethere summo, 
 Respicit e coelis quot aretur pagina sulcis, 
 Quot folium punctis hinc hinc laceretur acutis, 
 Tuncque favens operi nostro, nostroque labori, 
 Grammata quot sulci, quot sunt quot denique puncti 
 Inquit, in hoc libro, tot crimina jam tibi dono. 
 Hancque potestatem dat Christus habere perennem. 
 Nee labor iste tibi, frater, jam proderit uni, 
 Sed queiscumque velis detur pars magna laborls. 
 Haec merces operis, quam dat scriptoribus ipsis 
 Sanctus Vedastus, pater optimus, atque benignus, 
 Hac mercede librum perscripsi sedulus istum, 
 Quera si quis tollat, tellus huic ima dehiscat, 
 Vivus et infernura petat amplis ignibus atrum. Fiat, fiat "*." 
 
 ' Ing ap. Gale, p. 104, '" II. Voy. Lit. 64. 
 
268 CARE TAKEN OF MSS. [nO. XVI. 
 
 One would almost imagine that this monk, instead 
 of belonging to the Flemish monastery of St. Wast, had 
 been a disciple of Theodoric, Abbot of St. Evroul in 
 Normandy, two hundred years later, — that is, in the 
 middle of the eleventh century. Of this abbot we are 
 told — 
 
 " Ipse manu propria scribendo volumina plura 
 Ecclesise natis, dedit exemplum bonitatis ; " — 
 
 and therein he, no doubt, did well ; but when to 
 example he added exhortation, he seems to have gone 
 too far. I am not praising, or even palliating his con- 
 duct, and I only notice it because it is evident that 
 " the love he bore to learning was in fault ;" and it is a 
 principal part of our business to trace that spirit, even 
 though it be manifested in error. He used, we are 
 told, to lecture his monks against idleness, and " also 
 he was wont to tell them this story : — 
 
 " There was a monk in a certain monastery who was guilty 
 of many transgressions against its rules ; but he was a writer, 
 and being devoted to writing, he of his own accord wrote out 
 an enormous volume of the divine law. After his death, his 
 soul was brought before the tribunal of the just judge for 
 judgment; and when the evil spirits sharply accused him, 
 and brought forward his innumerable crimes, the holy angels, 
 on the other hand, shewed the book which that monk had 
 written in the house of God, and counted up the letters of 
 that enormous volume as a set-off against the like number of 
 sins. At length the letters had a majority of only one, 
 against which, however, the daemons in vain attempted to 
 object any sin. The clemency of the Judge, therefore, 
 spared the monk, and commanded his soul to return to his 
 body, and mercifully granted him space for the reformation 
 of his life. Frequently think of this, most dear brethren ; 
 cleanse your hearts from vain and noxious desires ; con- 
 stantly offer the sacrifice of the works of your hands to the 
 Lord God. Shun idleness, with all your power, as a deadly 
 poison ; for, as our holy father Benedict says, — ' Idleness is 
 the enemy of the soul.' And frequently consider, also, what 
 is said by a certain approved doctor, in the Lives of the 
 Fathers, — that only one devil tempts a monk who is em- 
 
NO. XVI.] IN THE DARK AGES. 269 
 
 ployed in any good occupation, while a thousand devils 
 attack him who is idle, and drive him, when stung with 
 innumerable darts of temptation, to grow weary of his 
 monastery, to desire the injurious pomps of the world, and 
 to make trial of noxious pleasures. And since you cannot 
 support the poor with large alms (for you have no earthly 
 riches) and cannot build large churches, as kings and other 
 great secular persons do, you, who are shut up within the 
 rules of the cloister, and are deprived of all power, should, at 
 least, as Solomon exhorts, ' Keep your hearts with all dili- 
 gence/ and continually use every endeavour to please God. 
 Pray, read, chant, write, and employ yourselves in other 
 things of the same kind, and with them wisely arm your- 
 selves against the temptations of evil spirits ^" 
 
 Those who wrote under the influence of such feelings 
 as an address like this was calculated to produce, might 
 very naturally add to their manuscript something like 
 an anathema against any person who should destroy or 
 deface their labours. Thus the writer of a manuscript 
 in the library of St. Gal — 
 
 ' Odericus Vitalis, quoted by Mab. A. S. ix. 1 37. I cannot mention 
 this old abbot without adding, from the same authority, on the page pre- 
 ceding that just quoted, a few more words respecting his writing himself, 
 and being the cause of writing in others. — " Ipse scriptor erat egregius, et 
 inclita sibi insitae artis monimenta reliquit Uticanis juvenibus. CoUecta- 
 neum enim et Gradale, ac Antiphonarium propria manu in ipso coenobio 
 conscripsit. A sociis etiam suis, qui secum de Gemetico venerant, pre- 
 tiosos divinoe legis codices dulcibus monitis exegit. Nam Roduifus nepos 
 ejus Eptaticum [Heptateuchum] conscripsit, et Missale ubi Missa in con- 
 ventu quotidie canitur. Hugo autem socius ejus expositionem (Gregorii 
 Magni) super Ezechielem et Decalogum, primamque partem Moralium ; 
 Rogerius vero presbyter Paralipomenon, librosque Salomonis, tertiamque 
 partem Moralium. Prsefatus itaque Pater per supradictos, et per alios, 
 quos ad hoc opus flectere poterat, antiquarios, octo annis quibus Uticen- 
 sibus praefuit, omnes libros veteris et novi Testamenti, omnesque libros 
 facundissimi Papse Gregorii Uticensium bibliothecaB procuravit. Ex ejus 
 etiara schola excellentes librarii ; id est Berengarius, qui postea ad episco- 
 patum Venusiae provectus est, Goscelinus et Roduifus, Bernardus, Tur- 
 chetillus, et Richardus, aliique plures processerunt, qui tractatibus Hiero- 
 nymi et Augustini, Ambrosii et Isidori, Eusebii et Orosii, aliorumque doc- 
 torum, bibliothecam sancti Ebrulfi repleverunt, et exemplis suis ad simile 
 studium secuturam juventutem salubriter exhortati sunt." 
 
270 CARE TAKEN OF MSS. [nO. XVI. 
 
 " Auferat hunc librum nullus hinc omne per aevum 
 Cum Gallo partem quisquis habere cupit ^." 
 
 The same terrible imprecations were occasionally an- 
 nexed by the donors or the possessors of books. As in 
 a Sacramentary which Martene found at St. Benoit-sur- 
 Loire, and which he supposed to belong to the ninth 
 century. The donor (whose name appears to have 
 been erased) having sent the volume as a present from 
 beyond seas, fiercely anathematizes all persons who 
 should on any pretence remove it from the monastery 
 without the intention of returning it, devoting them to 
 the like destruction with Judas, Annas, and Caiaphas ^ 
 One may suppose that books containing such awful 
 imprecations were the less likely to be stolen, and the 
 more likely to be returned if they did get astray. 
 Indeed, it was enough to frighten the possessor of a 
 book, however honestly he might have come by it. 
 There is a curious instance of this in a manuscript of 
 some of the works of Augustine and Ambrose in the 
 Bodleian library : — " This book belongs to St. Mary of 
 Robert's Bridge : whosoever shall steal it, or sell it, or 
 in any way alienate it from this house, or mutilate it, 
 let him be anathema-maranatha. Amen." And under- 
 neath there follows, in another hand — " I, John, Bishop 
 of Exeter, know not where the aforesaid house is, nor 
 did I steal this book, but acquired it in a lawful way*." 
 
 2 Canis. Ant. Lect. torn. ii. P. iii. p. 230. 
 
 ' I. Voy. Lit. p. 67. " Ut si quis eum de monasterio aliquo ingenio 
 non redditurus abstraxerit, cum Juda proditore, Anna, et Caipha, por- 
 tionem aeternse damnationis accipiat. Amen, amen. Fiat, fiat." 
 
 ■* " Liber S. Mariae de Ponte Roberti, qui eum abstulerit, aut vendiderit, 
 vel quolibet modo ab hac domo alienaverit, vel quamlibet ejus partem 
 absciderit, sit anathema maranatha. Amen. Aliena manu. Ego, Joannes, 
 Exon Epus, nescio ubi est domus predicta, nee hunc hbrum abstuli, sed 
 modo legitime adquisivi." Wanley (Cat. Lib. Sept. p. 1 52,) adds, " Hie 
 fuit Joannes Grandisonus, Exoniensis Episcopus, qui floruit circa a. d. 
 1327." Robert's Bridge was a Cistercian monastery, founded by Robertus 
 
NO. XVI.] IN THE DARK AGES. 271 
 
 As to our present point, however, it will, I appre- 
 hend, be readily conceded, that more care was taken 
 of manuscripts during the period with which we are 
 engaged than afterwards, — that is to say, more care 
 was taken during what is generally considered as the 
 darkest period than during that which followed ; and 
 though the time when manuscripts came to be under- 
 valued and destroyed by wholesale was that which 
 followed on the invention of printing, yet that time 
 had been prepared for by a long period of gradually 
 increasing laxity of discipline and morals in monastic 
 institutions. There had, I apprehend, long been less 
 multiplication, less care, less use, of books ; and many 
 a fine collection had mouldered away. There is a pas- 
 sage, which it may be worth while to transcribe from 
 one of John of Trittenheim's (or Trithemius) exhorta- 
 tions, delivered to his monks when he was abbot of 
 Spanheim, in the year 1486: — 
 
 "Do you not know," he says, "that our holy lawgiver 
 Benedict says, in the rule, — ' If any one shall do the busi- 
 ness of the convent in a slovenly or negligent manner, let 
 him be punished ; and if he does not amend, let him be sub- 
 jected to regular disciphne?' And in his chapter on the 
 cellarer of the monastery, he says — 'Let him look on the 
 vessels of the monastery, and all its property, as if they were 
 the consecrated vessels of the altar.' In short, I cannot, and, 
 undoubtedly, I should not, refrain from saying in how slo- 
 venly and negligent a way most of you do everything ; as if 
 they either were not observed by God, or as if their sloth did 
 no injury to the affairs of the monastery. Know, my bre- 
 thren, what I give you notice of beforehand, that for all these 
 things, as well as for your other sins, you must give an 
 account to the Lord God. For this reason I have diminished 
 your labours out of the monastery, lest by working badly you 
 
 de Sancto Martino in 1176, a few miles north of Battle, in Sussex, (1 Dug. 
 916,) and consisting at its surrender an. 29 Hen. VIII. of an abbot and 
 eight monks. Burnet, Rec. to Book iii. No. i. vol. i. p. 135. 
 
 1 
 
272 DESTRUCTION OF MSS. [XO. XYI. 
 
 should only add to your sins ; and have enjoined on you the 
 manual labour of writing and binding books. These, and 
 similar occupations, you may carry on with tranquillity of 
 mind and body, within the inclosure of the monastery. I 
 wish that you may diligently perform even these works of 
 your hands for the love of God, lest you eat the bread of 
 idleness. There is, in my opinion, no manual labour more 
 becoming a monk than the writing of ecclesiastical books, 
 and preparing what is needful for others who write them ; 
 for this holy labour will generally admit of being interrupted 
 by prayer, and of watching for the food of the soul no less 
 than of the body. Need, also, urges us to labour diligently 
 in writing books, if we desire to have at hand the means of 
 usefully employing ourselves in spiritual studies. For you 
 see, that all the library of this monastery, which formerly was 
 fine and large, has been so dissipated, sold, and made away 
 with, by the disorderly monks before us, that when I came I 
 found but fourteen volumes. It is true that the industry of 
 the printing art, lately, in our own day, discovered at Mentz, 
 produces many volumes every day ; but it is impossible for 
 us, depressed as we are by poverty, to buy them all." — f. xvi. 
 
 I fear that this was no solitary instance, and that of 
 many places it might be said, as Martene says of the 
 cathedral at Auxerre, that, beside other causes, " La 
 negligence des anciens moines ont dissipe un si grand 
 nombre de manuscrits qu'il n'en reste aujourd'hui que 
 fort pen ^" — though I apprehend that those whom he 
 here called ancient^ should, in our inquiry, be termed 
 modern, monks. But passing over all the revival 
 period, and all the shocking stories of the state in 
 which the manuscripts were found ^ what did INIartene 
 
 * Voy. Lit. 56. 
 
 * Only, as we have noticed Montfaucon's journey into Italy, in the year 
 169s, I must just give his description of the state in which he found the 
 celebrated (said to be autograph) manuscript of St. Mark's gospel ; which, 
 without admitting all its claim, he declares to have as great appearance of 
 antiquity as he recollected to have seen in any manuscript : — " Folia agglu- 
 tinata simul sunt et putrida, ut non facile possint diduci sine fractione ; 
 nam locus perquam humidus, et brevi periturus funditus est codex si istic 
 inaneat." — Diar. It. p. 55. 
 
I 
 
 NO. XVI.] BY NEGLIGENCE. 273 
 
 himself find in the eighteenth century ? Several hints 
 in his literary travels shew us, that many of the manu- 
 scripts which he found were in the hands of persons by 
 no means sensible of their value. At the archives of 
 the cathedral of Narbonne he and his companions 
 found " Un fort beau manuscrit .... dont on ne faisoit 
 pas grand cas : mais I'estime que nous en fismes, re- 
 veilla le soin des chanoines pour le conserver ^" At 
 Albi, — " Beaucoup d'anciens manuscrits que nous trou- 
 vames la plupart en tres mauvais etat. L'estime que 
 nous en fimes fit ouvrir les yeux aux chanoines, qui les 
 meprisoient ; et ils nous promirent d'en avoir plus de 
 soin a I'avenir. La plupart sont de 900, 800, ou 700 
 ans^" At the Abbey of St. Martial at Limoges, — 
 " On y conserve encore pres de deux cens manuscrits, 
 la plupart des saints peres, sur-tout de S. Ambroise, 
 S. Jerome, S. Augustine, S. Gregoire, monumens du 
 travail des saints moines Benedictins qui out autrefois 
 sanctifie cette abbaye, et edifie le pais, mais aujourd'hui 
 fort negligee par les chafioines ^." I beg the reader to 
 understand that I am responsible for the italics, which 
 Martene did not think of putting; but I do it as the 
 shortest way of conveying a hint which I do not feel it 
 fair to suppress. All these stories are of canons, and 
 the author is a monk ; and from that fact I would draw 
 two inferences, — first, that there might be some little 
 prejudice, if not malice, (shall I say colouring? — hardly, 
 I hope, in stories told at the time, to say nothing about 
 character,) in the relation of these facts, and that there- 
 fore we must not overstrain the statements ; secondly, 
 that, although we do not find them recorded, there 
 may, perhaps, have been a similar set of stories respect- 
 ing monks, if we really knew all, and so our present 
 argument would be strengthened. Be this as it may, 
 
 7 1 Voy. Lit. P. ii. p. 62. " Ibid. p. 67. ^ Ibid. p. 69. 
 
 T 
 
274 DESTRUCTION OF MSS. [nO. XVI. 
 
 however, I make the former of these remarks not so 
 much with reference to the cases already mentioned, 
 as to a case which I must give in Martene's own 
 '^ords. I do not know that we can suspect it of being 
 much coloured, but, making every deduction, it is quite 
 awful. The holy chapel at Bourges was originally 
 founded by John, duke of that city, in the year 1405, 
 for thirteen canons, thirteen chaplains, thirteen vicars, 
 and six clerks of the choir, and enjoyed a quasi-episco- 
 pal jurisdiction. " Next to the cathedral," says Mar- 
 tene, " the holy chapel holds the first rank in the city 
 of Bourges ;" and, after telling us that " Le tresor est 
 tres riche," and recounting matters of gold and silver, 
 pearls and precious stones, vases of agate and rock 
 crystal, he goes on to say — 
 
 " There was once a rich library at the holy chapel ; and in 
 order that the books might not be dispersed, the holy pon- 
 tiffs had excommunicated all who should remove them. On 
 this account the cardinal Amboise, legate of the holy see, 
 when he wanted St. Hilary^s commentaries on the Psalms, 
 employed all his authority to obtain them, and was moreover 
 obhged to give the canons absolution from those censures 
 which they would have incurred by lending them. This we 
 learn from the following letter of the cardinal, which I copy 
 from the original." 
 
 In this letter, which Martene gives at length, the 
 cardinal, after referring to his wish to borrow the book, 
 and the difficulty which lay in the way, says — 
 
 "We therefore absolve you from all censures and pains to 
 which you may be exposed by the removal of this book ; and, 
 by the authority with which we are invested and empowered, 
 we declare you to be absolved the said bull, or anything else 
 to the contrary, notwithstanding. Given at Bourges, the 
 3rd of March, 1507." 
 
 What Martene professes to have found, however, at 
 the holy chapel, after the march of intellect had gone 
 
NO. XVI.] BY NEGLIGENCE. 275 
 
 on just two hundred and one years from that time, I 
 must really give in his own words : — 
 
 " Ces buUes n'ont point empeche ces manuscrits d'etre dis- 
 persez dans la suite. II en reste pourtant encore environ 
 cinquante ou soixante, que j'eus la curiosite de voir. Mon- 
 sieur le procureur du chapitre me fit ouvrir le lieu oii ils 
 etoient conservez. Je les trouvai dans un etat pitoyable, 
 parce que le receveur du chapitre, a qui on avoit confie la 
 clef de ce lieu, en avoit fait un pouUalier ; et que comme ils 
 etoient ouverts sur des pupitres, les poules les avoient con- 
 verts d' ordures. Lorsque je commen9ois a les manier, Mon- 
 sieur I'abbe Desosiers, a qui il appartient d'en avoir soin, me 
 vint trouver ; il ne fut pas moins chagrin que moy de les 
 trouver en cet etat, et fit a I'heure meme netoyer la Heu et 
 les livres, et me promet de faire relier ceux qui en auroient 
 besoin. L'un des plus curieux manuscrits de la sainte cha- 
 pelle, est celui qu'on appelle les heures du Due Jean. C'est 
 un pseautier latin avec une version angloise de six ou sept 
 cens ans. Ceux qui me la montrerent, croyoient que c'etoit 
 d'allemand ou de Fhebreu. Mais si-tot que je Pens vu, je 
 connus le caract^re Anglo-Saxon '." 
 
 Oh, the ignorance, the carelessness, the barbarian 
 stupidity of the monks in the dark ages I — how hateful 
 does it look beside this reverent and enlightened watch- 
 fulness of the eighteenth century ! 
 
 ' Voy. Lit. p. 28. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 No. XVII. 
 
 "We have set Dunce in Boccardo, and have utterly banished him 
 
 Oxford for ever, and the second time we came to New College, 
 
 after we had declared their injunctions, we found all the great quadrant- 
 court full of the leaves of Dunce, the winds blowing them into every 
 corner, and there we found one Mr. Greenfeld, of Buckinghamshire, 
 gathering part of the said book-leaves (as he said) therewith to make him 
 scuels, or blaunsheers, to keep the deer within the wood, thereby to have 
 the better cry with his hounds." — Commis. Layton to Sec, Ceomwel, 
 Sept. 1535. 
 
 " Colleges, originally of popish institution, like all contrivances of that 
 masterpiece of human policy, bear upon the great scheme of mastering 
 down the human mind to an acquiescence in the craft." — Christian 
 Examiner, July, 1836. 
 
 If the reader has fairly considered the probable 
 effects of war and fire, aided by the more slow and 
 silent, but incessant operation of time, assisted by damp 
 and all the auxiliaries which he has employed when 
 the negligence of man has left manuscripts at his 
 mercy — if he has reflected that more than six hundred 
 years have elapsed since the close of that period of 
 which we are speaking, during all which time the work 
 of destruction has been going on — if he has at all 
 realized these facts, surely I might confidently appeal 
 to him whether it is very far short of a miracle, that 
 any manuscripts of that or of an earlier period should 
 have survived to the present time ? Whether it is not 
 absurd to talk of scarcity (at least to reason from it to 
 former conditions) while hundreds, nay, thousands, of 
 such manuscripts repose in our libraries? Yet I 
 should be doing great injustice to the subject if I did 
 not mention another cause, which has probably been as 
 operative as either of those already adverted to; if, 
 indeed, I ought not rather to say, more eflficient than all 
 of them put together. I speak, perhaps, with prejudice ; 
 for T certainly feel strongly on this point. Of the 
 
 . 1 
 
NO. XVII.] LOSS OF MSS. 277 
 
 desolations of war and fire, I liave heard tell ; and, 
 should the reader " bid me discourse," I could, I think, 
 persuade him that I have been mercifully brief on the 
 subject ; but I have seen nothing of them — not even 
 the Cottonian Library ; and to the reader, probably, as 
 well as myself, these matters are mere hearsay — 
 " demissa per aurem." But other proofs of destruction, 
 from other sources, are constantly at hand, and I could 
 set them before his eyes. Of all the thousands of 
 manuscripts burned by war or by accident, by Danes, 
 or Hungarians, or housemaids ', the ashes are dis- 
 persed, and no trace remains. Those that were not 
 found by Ambrose of Camaldoli, a mouldering part of 
 general desolation^ — those that were not rescued by 
 Poggio when he drew Quintilian to light from a dark 
 and filthy dungeon^ — those that were not saved by 
 
 ' " Bp. Earle's Latin translation of Hooker's books of Ecclesiastical 
 Polity," says Dr. Smith, in a letter to Hearne, " which was his entertain- 
 ment during part of his exile at Cologne, is utterly destroyed by prodi- 
 gious heedlessness and carelessness ; for it being written in loose papers, 
 only pinned together, and put into a trunk unlocked after his death, and 
 being looked upon as refuse and waste paper, the servants lighted their 
 fire with them, or else put them under their bread and their pies, as often 
 as they had occasion." — Letters of Eminent Persons from the Bodleian, 
 Vol. I. p. 140. 
 
 * Mabillon says of his call at the monastery of Crypta-ferrata, " Festi 
 occasio in causa fuit, ut reliquias librorum videre non potuerimus. Verum 
 Ambrosius Camaldulensis qui ejusdem rei causa olim eo se contulerat, 
 nihil reperit praeter ruinas ingentes parietum et morum, librosque ferme 
 putres atque conscissos." — //. Ital. 87- I presume that the words in italics 
 belong to Ambrose, though Mabillon does not give any reference. He 
 certainly says much the same in one of his letters, " ea tamen quae vidimus 
 ita dissipata et concissa et putrida erant, ut miserabilem omnino faciem 
 
 praeferrent monasterium omne circuivimus, immo non jam monas- 
 
 terium, sed ruinas lacrymabiles lacrimati sumus : sola ferme ecclesia Inte- 
 gra, quae et ipsa fimo plena videbatur. Servat tamen plurima vestigia 
 antiquae dignitatis. Verum ista coram melius e.vplicabimus." — D. Sf M. 
 HI. 544. 
 
 •* " Ibi inter confertissimam librorum copiam, quos longum esset recen- 
 sere, Quintilianum reperimus, adhuc salvum et incolumem, plenum tamen 
 situ, et pulvere refertum. Erant enim in bibliotheca libri illi, non ut eorum 
 
278 LOSS OF MSS. [no. XVII. 
 
 Father Mennitius when he gathered in a "festiva 
 copia" from his Calabrian dependencies, where they 
 were unheeded and perishing* — those, in short, that 
 have not been redeemed by individual exertion to give 
 us some notion of what has been lost, have left no 
 memorial that they ever existed. Those which over- 
 anxiety hid too carefully, may be hidden still ^ ; and 
 
 dignitas postulabat, sed in teterrimo quodam et obscuro carcere, fundo 
 scilicet unius turns, quo ne vita quidem damnati detruderentur." — Ap. It. 
 It al. 211. 
 
 * " Is enim, quia in variis sibi subjectis Calabriae monasteriis codices 
 istos, obsoleto pene Graecse linguoe usu, jacere iutactos neglectosque acce- 
 perat, imminenti jam [that is, in the latter part of the seventeenth century,] 
 exitio subduxit inque Urbem advehi in usum eruditorum curavit." — Diar. 
 Ital. 211. Montfaucon, in the next paragraph, mentions a curious cir- 
 cumstance respecting the destruction of manuscripts. The Archbishop of 
 Rossano told him that his see had formerly possessed a vast number of 
 Greek documents (ingentem diplomatum Grsecorum numerum), as had 
 been stated by Ughelli in his Italia Sacra ; but that one of his predecessors 
 had fairly buried them, to be rid of the trouble occasioned by persons 
 coming to inspect them; "pertsesum adventantium frequentiae, rogan- 
 tiumque ut diplomata proferrentur, sufFodi omnia et in perniciem ire cu- 
 rasse." Can one conceive how Father Montfaucon looked on hearing 
 this ? Perhaps (so far as the two men could look alike) very much as 
 Mabillon did, when, in hunting over the library at Monte Casino for the 
 life of St. Placidus, he found the most ancient of the three lives — itself a 
 MS. of the tenth century — not as book, but as the binding of books — 
 "Primse vitae folia ante annos septingentos descripta ad compingendos 
 alios codices detracta invenimus." — It. Ital. 125. 
 
 * The correspondent of the Baron de Grassier, whom I have al- 
 ready had occasion to quote, and to whom I shall have to refer 
 again presently, says, — " Pendant mon sejour a Wirtzbourg j'ai vA M. 
 Siegler, secretaire du conseil ecclesiastique .... II a encore une collec- 
 tion des chartres le plus anciennes de I'abbaye de Fulde, avec les sceaux 
 des anciens empereurs et rois tres-bien dessinez : mais ce qui va vous sur- 
 prendre, est qu'ayant depuis pen, de la permission de Monsieur le Baron 
 de Hutten, grand doyen de la cathedrale, foiiille sous les toits de cette 
 eglise, il y a trouve un tresor consistant en manuscrits, qui etoient entiere- 
 ment oublies, et que I'on croit y avoir reste cachez depuis la guerre de 
 Suede, si pas plus long-tems. Ces manuscrits, dont je n'ai scu voir que 
 quelques-uns, sont des plus anciens et la plupart ecrits : cum Uteris semi- 
 uncialibus sans interponctions. Entre autres un codex Justiniani que je 
 crois etre du tems de cet empereur." — II. Voy. Lit. 176. Is it improbable 
 that many such cases may have occurred ? Ingulph, for instance, tells us 
 that when his old enemy, Yvd Tailbois, (hostis semper noster implacabilis) 
 
NO. XVII.] BY IGNORANCE, &C. 27i^ 
 
 those that brutal stupidity buried, have perished. 
 What the rats have eaten we know not; what the 
 deep sea has swallowed we cannot tell, and seldom 
 think of. All those are gone without memorial, except 
 such scattered notices as may be gleaned from the sur- 
 vivors. But there are thousands equally destroyed — 
 thousands of murdered wretches not so completely 
 annihilated ; their ghosts do walk the earth — they 
 glide, unseen, into our libraries, our studies, our very 
 hands — they are all about and around us — we even 
 take them up, and lay them down, without knowing of 
 their existence ; unless time and damp (as if to punish, 
 and to mock, us for robbing them of their prey) have 
 loosed their bonds, and set them to confront us. But 
 to speak soberly: — 
 
 IV. To the causes already mentioned, we must add 
 ignorance, cupidity, dishonesty — they may all go toge- 
 ther, for in some cases it may be difficult to say how 
 much should be ascribed to one cause, how much to 
 another. Nor is it very material. When we read, 
 for instance, " II y avoit autrefois un assez bon nombre 
 de manuscrits au Val St. Lambert, mais la plupart ont 
 este vendus ou perdus ^," it is of no great consequence 
 to settle how far any one of these causes preponderated, 
 or how far ignorance (if it had anything to do with the 
 business) was that passive ignorance of whose effects I 
 have already spoken, or that more homely and honest 
 
 tried first to take advantage of what he supposed to be a total loss of docu- 
 ments by the fire at Croyland, and then by a desperate effort to possess 
 himself of those which he found to be in existence, he thought it best to 
 place them in secure concealment — " Ego autem audita tanta hostis nostri 
 malitia, tam contra incendia quam contra talia machinamenta hostilia, 
 assumtas chartas nostras posui sub tam secura custodia, quod vita mea 
 comite nee ignis consumet nee adversarius surripiet. Domino nostro Jesu 
 Christo, ac beato Patrono nostro Sanctissimo Guthlaco propitiantibus et 
 protegentibus servos suos, prout firraiter ego credo." — Ap. Gale. I. 107. 
 " II. Voy. Lit. 195. 
 
280 LOSS OF MSS. [no. XVII. 
 
 ignorance whose desolations we are now to trace. On 
 reading such a notice, one would, indeed, like to know 
 why the manuscripts were sold, and for what purjDose. 
 In the present day we should take it for granted that 
 they were only transplanted into some richer collec- 
 tion ; but there is too much reason to fear that they 
 were sold merely as parchment. In fact, the number 
 of manuscripts for which bookbinders have to answer 
 is beyond all calculation ; and this, too, even in times 
 long since the dark ages. Mabillon found many ma- 
 nuscripts (though happily they were not of peculiar 
 value) in the hands of a bookseller at Besan^on, who 
 had destined them to the use of the binder; and 
 another in the hands of a physician, who had rescued 
 it from the same fate ^ A still more recent and 
 wholesome example is afforded by the author of a 
 letter to the Baron de Grassier, which I have already 
 had occasion to refer to. Writing from Nuremberg in 
 the year 1717, and giving an account of M. Uffenbach, 
 and his collection of books and other valuables, he says, 
 " Parmi les manuscrits il y en a qui lui viennent du 
 pillage de I'abbaye de S. Gal, qu'il a achete au poids 
 seulement, ayant fait expres un voyage a Ausbourg, oii 
 il avoit appris, mais trop tard, qu'on y avoit amene des 
 chariots pleins, qui furent d'abord vendus chez des 
 bateurs d'or et des relieurs de livres, et periront ainsi 
 
 ' It. Germ. 2. He adds this reflection — " Haec fortuna fuisset veterum 
 librorum omnium, nisi Deus aliam mentem in quorumdara studiosorum 
 mentes hoc aevo inspirasset." It is impossible to say how many authors as 
 well as copies may have been lost to posterity through their ravages. Ago- 
 bard had a very narrow escape. Baluze says, in the preface to his edition, 
 " Magnam porro gratiam debemus omnes Massono, ob servatum Agobar- 
 dum. Nam cum is, ut ipse scribit in epistola ad ecclesiam Lugdunensem, 
 Lugduni in vico Mercium libros quaereret, et apud compactorem librorum 
 versaretur ejus rei causa, compactorque ille Agobardi codicem in mem- 
 branis perscriptum veteribus notis dilaniare paratus esset, cultrumque ad 
 earn camificinam manu teneret, vitam illi redemit Massonus ; numerate 
 videlicet pretio libri." 
 
NO. XVII.] BY IGNORANCE AND DISHONESTY. 281 
 
 miserablement ^" Of the gold-beaters I know nothing, 
 but all trades have probably had a share of the plun- 
 der ^, and theirs has, I doubt not, been very considera- 
 ble ; but as to the bookbinders, I repeat that they have 
 to answer for an innumerable quantity of manuscripts. 
 Those who are at all in the habit of looking at such 
 things know how commonly early printed books, whose 
 binding has undergone the analytical operation of 
 damp, or mere old age, disclose the under end-pieces 
 of beautiful and ancient manuscript. They know how 
 freely parchment was used for backs and bands, and 
 fly-leaves, and even for covers. The thing is so com- 
 mon that those who are accustomed to see old books 
 have ceased to notice it ; and to give to others any idea 
 of its frequency, or of the immense consumption of 
 manuscripts occasioned by it, is utterly impossible; 
 especially, considering that the books so bound were 
 principally those published during the first century of 
 printing, and that the volumes themselves are now 
 become comparatively scarce. How the bookbinders 
 of that age came by them is another, and a sad ques- 
 tion ; but that their part of the tragedy was performed 
 in honest ignorance may be believed. 
 
 And what must we say of dishonesty — of another 
 kind of dishonesty from that which has been noticed, 
 and which was only that of monks who sold what they 
 had no right to sell, to purchasers who knew that they 
 
 8 II. Voy. Lit. 175. 
 
 ' " Whole libraries were destroyed, or made waste paper of, or con- 
 sumed for the vilest uses. The splendid and magnificent Abbey of 
 iVlalmesbury, which possessed some of the finest manuscripts in the king- 
 dom, was ransacked, and its treasures either sold or burnt to serve the 
 commonest purposes of life. An antiquary who travelled through that 
 town, many years after the dissolution, relates, that he saw broken win- 
 dows patched up with remnants of the most valuable MSS. on vellum, 
 and that the bakers had not even then consumed the stores they had accu- 
 mulated, in heating their ovens ? " — Lett, of Em. Per. from the Bod. 1. 278. 
 
282 LOSS OF MSS. [no. XVII. 
 
 had no right to buy ? It was bad enough, quite bad 
 enough; but there is another species of dishonesty 
 belonging to the question, to which it is still more dis- 
 gusting to refer, though it must not be overlooked. 
 Think of Sir John Cotton writing to Dr. Smith, " I 
 have written to John Vigures that Betty Hart should 
 let you into the library when you please. As for any- 
 thing of a bond, I desire none. I know you, and con- 
 fide in your worth and honesty ^*'." And again, " As 
 for my library, it is wholly at your use and service. 
 The same liberty which my father gave to the learned 
 Mr. Selden, I give to you. But Mr. Selden was too 
 free in lending out books, which, after his death, were 
 never restored ^" A sad thing it is that such prudence 
 should be necessary, and that such suspicion should 
 have grounds among men of letters ; but it has ever 
 been so. " II est surprenant," says Martene, " que 
 dans une bibliotheque aussi complete que celle d'An- 
 chin, on trouve si pen de 'manuscrits des conciles, et si 
 pen des historiens. II y a apparence que les manu- 
 scrits de ces matieres ont ete enlevez par des curieiw, 
 qui s'en seront rend us maitres par la facilite de quel- 
 ques abbez ^" 
 
 The Jesuits had rather a bad name in this matter ; 
 and the same writer relates an anecdote which (though 
 in this case the Jesuit was a " fort honnete homme") 
 may not be out of place here. He was employed at 
 the Cistercian Abbey of Cambron to teach the young 
 monks philosophy, because the strictness of the abbot's 
 discipline did not permit such exemption from monastic 
 service as would have allowed any of the elder monks 
 to undertake that duty. " We dined with this Jesuit," 
 says Martene, " who appeared to us to be a good sort 
 
 " Letters by Em. Per. from the Bod. Vol. i. p 18. 
 ' Ibid. 23. 2 II. Voy. Lit. 82. 
 
NO. XVII.] BY DISHONESTY. 283 
 
 of man. He was in the library when we were intro- 
 duced ; and, taking up a manuscript, he read these 
 words — 'Liber B. Marise de Camberone, siquis eum 
 abstulerit anathema sit.' On this, the monk who ac- 
 companied us said, with a smile, 'If all who have 
 carried off our manuscripts are excommunicate, there 
 must be a good many Jesuits in that predicament.' 
 ' Vous nous les avez donnez,' replied the Jesuit ; and 
 this," says Martene, " might very well be true ; for I 
 am persuaded that many thefts of manuscripts are 
 charged on these reverend fathers of which they are 
 quite innocent ; and I have found, in certain monaste- 
 ries, manuscripts which have been returned, and also 
 the letters announcing their return, though they still 
 kept the recepisse of those who had borrowed them. 
 Those who found these recepisses did not fail to say, 
 without further examination, that the fathers had kept 
 their manuscripts ^." 
 
 Whether the Jesuits were more or less guilty of 
 stealing books, it is certainly a very bad thing, even 
 when done from conscientious motives, as it seems to 
 have been by Jacob the Jew, whose memoirs Mabillon 
 met with in the Medicean library at Florence ; and 
 who therein confessed that before his conversion he 
 had stolen the books of Christians, carrying oif those 
 which related to either the Old or the New Testament, 
 but committing the works of the fathers to the flames 
 — thus, in his kind and degree, (and perhaps as only 
 one out of many of his nation so employed,) helping 
 forward the work of destruction *. But bad as steal- 
 ing is, there is really something which seems to me to 
 be still worse ; or which we ought perhaps to call the 
 worst form of stealing, only we do not generally con- 
 
 3 II. Voy. Lit. p. 107. ■• It. Ital. 168. 
 
284 MUTILATION [nO. XVII. 
 
 sider it as such, because the mischief eclipses the sin. 
 I mean the mutilation of manuscripts. At Long Pont, 
 says Martene, " nous nous arretames un jour pour voir 
 les manuscrits, qui sont en grand nombre et fort beaux, 
 mais dont plasieurs out ete tronquez par des gens trop 
 hardis, a qui on a permis de les voir trop facilement 
 sans connoitre leur caractere ^" I do not say that this 
 mutilation, too, may not be very conscientious when 
 united with ignorance and blind zeal, as in the case of 
 the Oxford Commissioners, who have furnished my 
 motto ^ ; but what is one to say when learned men do 
 
 « I. Voy. Lit. P. ii. p. 152, 
 
 ® Or by their successors a few years after, who, with as great hatred of 
 poor Dun Scotus, " and all his blind glosses," carried their reform to still 
 greater lengths. " What mad work this Dr. Coxe did in Oxon, while he 
 sat chancellor, by being the chief man that worked a reformation there, I 
 have elsewhere told you," says Anthony Wood, (Ath. Ed. Bliss. 1. 466,) 
 referring to p. 269 of his history, where he gives an account of the visita- 
 tion of the commissioners which took place in 1549- In his account of 
 the following year, he writes to the following effect : — " To return at length 
 to the royal delegates, some of whom even yet remained in Oxford, doing 
 such things as did not at all become those who professed to be learned 
 and Christian men. For the principal ornaments, and at the same time 
 supports, of the University, that is, the libraries filled with innumerable 
 works both native and foreign, they permitted or directed to be despoiled. 
 Hence, a great multitude of MSS. having no mark of superstition about 
 them (unless it were to be found in the red letters on their titles) were 
 adjudged to the flames, or the vilest purposes. Works of scholastic theo- 
 logy were sold off among those exercising the lowest description of arts ; 
 and those which contained circles or diagrams, it was thought good to 
 mutilate or to burn, as containing certain proofs of the magical nature of 
 their contents. As to the public library, I shall speak of it elsewhere ; 
 though those which belonged to single colleges scarcely suffered less. For 
 I find that an immense quantity, almost a waggon-load, of MSS. was car- 
 ried off from Merton College," &c. I wish that I could venture to quote 
 the whole passage — but it is perhaps more to the purpose to give part of 
 what the learned editor of the Athenae has added to Wood's account in 
 the volume above cited.—" Of the various beautiful MSS. in Duke Hum- 
 phrey's library, one specimen only has escaped the ravages of these mon- 
 sters : this is a superb foho of Valerius Maximus, written in the Duke's 
 age, and, probably, purposely for him. The mischief committed at this 
 time can scarcely be conceived. I have seen several fine old chronicles 
 and volumes of miscellaneous hterature mutilated because the illuminations 
 
NO. XVII.] AND THEFT OF MSS. 285 
 
 such things from mere cupidity or idleness ? Only the 
 other day I took up a popular county history, where I 
 met with a note in these words, relating to a work 
 mentioned in the text : — " It is a quarto MS., in the 
 
 Ashmolean Museum, fit for press. Dr. borrowed 
 
 it while compiling his and cut out five 
 
 leaves, which have since been recovered." Well might 
 Cave say, "I hear many persons, indeed, frequently 
 saying that it is hard to obtain admission into libraries 
 — that the golden fleece (which some critics most 
 firmly believe to have been old parchments) was lite- 
 rally guarded by dragons, and that we are doing just 
 the same thing in these days. The wickedness of men 
 has led to all this caution, and the necessity which 
 requires it forms its excuse. Who does not burn 
 with unbounded indignation when he sees that the best 
 books, while their names still stand in the catalogues, 
 are gone from the shelves? Who but must groan 
 when he sees others mutilated, obliterated, erased, and 
 spoiled by every kind of barbarism ' ?" Sad stories 
 might be told on this subject, but where would be the 
 use of telling them ? It may be hoped that to most 
 they would seem incredible. 
 
 Some readers may not, perhaps, be aware that, at no 
 very remote period, it was customary to take the pre- 
 caution of chaining the books to the shelves. A notice 
 on this subject, which I found in a chapter library, I 
 thought worth transcribing. It was written in a copy 
 of Lock on the Epistles (S. 100.) I suppose because 
 that was then one of the newest and most popular 
 books, and therefore most likely to bring the notice 
 
 were supposed by the reforming visitors to represent popes and saints, 
 when they were really intended for the portraits of kings and warriors ; 
 nay, some were absolutely mathematical figures ! ITie malice of these 
 barbarians was only equalled by their ignorance." p. 468. 
 " Scrip. XV. prsef. a. 2. 
 
286 CHAINING BOOKS [nO. XVII. 
 
 under the observation of those whom it might con- 
 cern. 
 
 " ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 " Since, to the great reproach of the nation, and a much 
 greater one of our holy rehgion, the thievish disposition of 
 some that enter into hbraries to learn no good there, hath 
 made it necessary to secure the innocent books, and even 
 the sacred volumes themselves, with chains — which are better 
 deserved by those ill persons, who have too much learning to 
 be hanged, and too little to be honest, care should be taken 
 hereafter, that as additions shall be made to this library — of 
 which there is a hopeful expectation — the chains should nei- 
 ther be longer, nor more clumsy, than the use of them 
 requires, and that the loops, whereby they are fastened to 
 the books, may be rivetted on such a part of the cover, and 
 so smoothly, as not to gall or raze the books, while they are 
 removed from or to their respective places. Till a better 
 way be devised, a pattern is given in the three volumes of 
 the Centur. Magdeburg, lately given and set up. And foras- 
 much as the latter, and much more convenient manner of 
 placing books in libraryes, is to turn their backs outwards, 
 with the titles and other decent ornaments in giltwork, which 
 ought not to be hidden — as in this library, by a contrary 
 position, the beauty of the fairest volumes is — therefore, to 
 prevent this for the future, and to remedy that which is past, 
 if it shall be thought worth the pains, this new method of 
 fixing the chain to the back of the book is recommended, 
 till one more suitable shall be contrived ^" 
 
 As to this difficulty of access, every body must see 
 the reasonableness of it in the very lamentable fact, 
 that it has been so unsuccessful. But there is another 
 point of view in which it is worth our notice ; and it is 
 
 * This advertisement appears to have been written as recently as the 
 year 1711, when the practice had generally gone out of fashion. Martene 
 says of one of the hbraries which he visited in 1718, " La bibliotheque est 
 assez bonne ; tons les livres y sont enchainez selon I'ancien usage, car 
 I'abbaye de S. Jean des Vignes a toiijours ^t^fort attachee k sea premieres 
 pratiques." — II. Voy. Lit. 24. 
 
NO. XVII.] DIFFICULTY OF ACCESS TO MSS. 287 
 
 very principally on this account that I have said so 
 much about it. In the first of these papers I said, 
 " Who can take upon himself to say what is extant?" 
 And I wrote these words under the feeling, that copies 
 (perhaps authors) which are not known to exist may 
 still be in being. It may seem strange that I have 
 said so little of the Vatican, the King of France's 
 Library, the British Museum, and other vast reposito- 
 ries of manuscripts ; but the truth is, that I know very 
 little about them beyond what is known to most per- 
 sons who are likely to take even the slightest interest 
 in the matter ; and what is the use of telling the reader 
 that these and other libraries contain almost innumera- 
 ble manuscripts? He knows it ; and I am rather try- 
 ing to call his attention to the fact, that so recently as 
 when these Benedictines made their tours, there were 
 so great a number dispersed up and down the country, 
 and still, if I may so speak, in situ. One might natu- 
 rally suppose that, so far as these travellers went (how 
 small a part of Europe !) they saw all that could be 
 seen ; and it is therefore necessary to state, that even 
 with their recommendations, and all the facilities which 
 could not be refused to men of their character, travel- 
 ling with their objects, they often found it diflScult, and 
 sometimes impossible, to gain access to what they were 
 looking for. Ignorance, suspicion, jealousy, often pre- 
 vented the archives of cathedrals and monasteries from 
 being freely open to them. Yet we must not ascribe 
 every refusal to so bad a motive. The reader will 
 recollect, that many manuscripts, which might only be 
 curious to the antiquary, as fixing a date, or illustrating 
 a custom, or presenting some singularity of language, 
 or penmanship, might be extremely valuable to the 
 owners as a title-deed. Suppose that, in rummaging 
 the archives, these prying Benedictines had filched 
 away the diploma of Charles the Bald, by which the 
 
288 DIFFICULTY OF ACCESS [XO. XVII. 
 
 abbey had held broad lands for centuries ; or suppose, 
 what is more likely, that in the exercise of their diplo- 
 matic skill they should suspect it of being, if not a 
 forgery, a second edition, made to supply the place of 
 what had really existed ; or suppose, what is still more 
 probable, that in their search they should not be able 
 to find it at all, and be obliged to say so in their new 
 Gallia Christiana. 
 
 I am not insinuating dishonesty; but every body 
 who knows anything of the state of real property, even 
 in our own country, is aware that there is many a good 
 estate, held by its lawful owner, whose title no one has 
 a right to dispute, and which is nevertheless held by 
 him against his will, because he cannot so prove his 
 title as to be able to sell it. Indeed, it was the shrewd 
 remark of an able and experienced lawyer, that the 
 best security which any man could have for an estate 
 of which he was in possession, would be the certainty 
 that there were no title-deeds in existence ^. Owing 
 to this, and the other causes to which I have alluded, 
 our travellers not unfrequently found it no easy matter 
 to enter the archives ; and even when not met by rude- 
 ness, or incivility, they could perceive that the abbot, 
 or canons would gladly have dispensed with their 
 visit \ 
 
 ' The reader will easily imagine something like jealousy between orders, 
 and even individual communities. Something like it, only on a greater 
 scale, might have been specified among the desolations of war, especially 
 when of a civil or revolutionary nature. For instance, in his preface to 
 the catalogue of the Cottonian MSS. Mr. Planta says — "We are informed 
 by Stukeley, that — Bromsall, Esquire, of Blunham, in Bedfordshire, high 
 sheriflF for the county of Bedford in the year 1650, was greatly instrumental 
 in preserving this inestimable treasure during the convulsions of the civil 
 wars, in which all documents of a constitutional and legal nature were 
 industriously sought after, in order to be destroyed." 
 
 • At Verdun the archbishop plainly refused to open his archives ; and 
 the dean and chapter, though they opened theirs at first, shut them the 
 next day, and would not even grant admission to the " mechant reste d'une 
 
NO. XVII.] TO MANUSCRIPTS. 289 
 
 Still, though they did not see all that might have 
 been seen — though their object was not precisely the 
 same as ours, and they did not think of mentioning the 
 
 bonne bibliotheque qu'ils ont vendue." — I. Voy. Lit. P. ii. p. 93. At 
 Strasburg, the personal interference of the Prince of Auvergne (one of the 
 twenty-four noble canons — tons princes ou comtes,) was insufficient 
 (lb. 145); and at Lyons, the strong recommendation of the archbishop 
 was scarcely sufficient (I. Voy. Lit. 238) to get them admitted. At 
 Rosseauville, "nous n'y eumes aucune satisfaction."— L Voy. Lit., p.ii. 177. 
 At St. Trone, they expected better treatment — " Nous ne pumes cependant 
 rien voir, pour des raisons dont il est inutile de rapporter les motifs et le 
 detail." — IL Voy. Lit. 197. At St. Bertin, " La bibliotheque est remplie 
 d'un tres-grand nombre de manuscrits fort anciens ;" they were scarcely 
 permitted to enter, and not allowed to examine. — I. Voy. Lit. p. ii. 184. 
 At the Cistercian abbey of Candelle, the abbot refused, in opposition to his 
 monks ; and Martene was obliged to report in the Gallia Christiana that 
 he had been there to inspect the archives, " sed non licuit per senem 
 abbatem, hominem utique suspiciosum." — lb. 68, G. C, I. c. 56. At 
 St. Martin de Canigoux, it was just the reverse. The prior received them 
 '< assez charitablement, il nous ouvrit meme les archives qui sont entieres ; 
 mais a peine eumes-nous vu quelques-uns des titres, qu'un de ses moines 
 [before described as ' six ou sept moines sauvages '] vint nous les arracher 
 dee mains." — lb. p. 60. Perhaps at such a place there was less to regret, as 
 Martene thought at Brindler, where he was plainly told that he could not 
 see the library. He consoled himself by remarking, that everything " parut 
 fort petit et fort mince dans cette maison ;" except, indeed, the kitchen 
 fire, made of whole trees, and the ten stag-hounds that lay before it. — 
 IL Voy. Lit. 248. At Gigni they were received politely by the abbot, who 
 promised that they should see everything the next day ; by which time he 
 had changed his mind. — I. Voy. Lit. 173, 174. At Lerins the abbot told 
 them that the librarian had gone out for a holiday, and would not be back 
 for a month — " et que ainsi il n'y avoit rien k faire pour nous a Lerins. 
 La charite m'oblige de passer sous silence le reste de notre entretien." — 
 I. Voy. Lit. 273. Sometimes it was managed with more politeness, as at 
 Lobbes, where the abbot was occupied in receiving the Princess of Nassau, 
 and turned them over to the prior, who took them to his garden, and 
 shewed them " beancoup de puerilitez ;" but they could not get a sight of 
 the library. — lb. p. ii. 210. And sometimes, what might be civility, looked 
 very much like suspicion ; as when the chapter of Chalons, after having, 
 with much difficulty, granted their request, appointed four canons, " pl(it6t 
 pour nous obseder que pour nous accompagner, que ne nous permirent 
 pas de rien ecrire." — lb. 90. Nor does Martene fail to acknowledge the 
 politeness of the two abbesses of " I'abbaye du Paraclet, si fameuse par la 
 retraite d'Abaillard et d'Eloi'se ;" and especially that of the younger — *' qui 
 nous fit I'honneur de ne nous pas quitter," while searching the archives. 
 —lb. p. i. 85. 
 
 U 
 
290 BIBLES OF THE DARK AGES [nO. XVII. 
 
 manuscripts of the Scriptures which they met with, 
 unless some accidental circumstance rendered them 
 remarkable, yet it would be easy to specify a hundred 
 copies of the whole, or parts of the Bible, which they 
 happen thus to mention, and which had existed during 
 the dark ages. I spare the reader the details on this 
 subject ; but there is one point which seems to me too 
 curious and interesting to be passed over. I have 
 stated that, at many places, they found no manuscripts ; 
 and perhaps I have said enough to account for it. At 
 other places there were one, or two, or a few only 
 remaining ; and it is worthy of notice, how frequently 
 such relics consisted of Bibles, or parts of the Scrip- 
 tures. It may have been that there were more of 
 them, or it may have been that they were better taken 
 care of; but either way the fact is so much to our 
 purpose, that I must be allowed to specify some of the 
 cases. 
 
 At Ltuveuil "Tlreste dans le bibliotheque quelques 
 manuscrits, dont les principaux sont I'ancien lectionaire 
 de la liturgie Gallicane, ecrit en lettres merovingiennes, 
 un commentaire sur les pseaumes d'environ sept on huit 
 
 cens ans, dont les premiers feuillets sont dechirez 
 
 outre cela on voit dans la sacristie un tres beau texte 
 des evangiles," which had been presented by Gerard, 
 who was abbot in the early part of the eleventh cen- 
 tury \ 
 
 At the priory of >S'^. Lupicin, near Claude in Franche 
 Comte, the only manuscript mentioned is a copy of the 
 Gospels, " un fort beau livre, ecrit en lettres unciales 
 d'argent sur un velin de pourpre ou violet, dont I'ecri- 
 ture n'avoit gueres plus de neuf cens ans '." 
 
 At St. Claude, the only manuscripts which they 
 
 » I. Voy. Lit. 168. Mab. Ann. IV. 237. ^ I. Voy. Lit. 175. 
 
NO. XVII.] STILL IN EXISTENCE. 291 
 
 mention are, " une fort belle Bible, qui a bien huit 
 cens ans d'ecriture, et un manuscrit de S. Eucher*." 
 
 At La Grasse, in Languedoc, the only manuscript 
 mentioned is " un texte des evangiles qu'on pretend 
 avoir ete donne par I'empereur Charlemagne ^" 
 
 At Joiiarre the only MSS. mentioned are "deux 
 textes des evangiles, couverts de lames d'or," one 
 seven, the other eight, hundred years old ®. 
 
 At Hautvilliers, " II n'y reste qu'un texte des evan- 
 giles, ecrit en lettres d'or et d'une beaute charmante, 
 qui est du temps de I'areheveque Ebon';" that is, a.d. 
 816—845. 
 
 At the cathedral at Rheims, " On y voit encore plu- 
 sieurs manuscrits tres-anciens, entr'autres un texte des 
 evangiles, ecrit sur du velin pourpre, et un Bible de 
 I'areheveque HincmarV' the successor of Ebbo. 
 
 At Verdun, though the canons had only the "me- 
 chant reste d'une bonne bibliotheque," yet they had 
 " deux beaux textes des evangiles ; I'un ecrit en let- 
 tres majuscules il y a plus de 900 ans, et 
 
 I'autre d'environ 700 ans ^." 
 
 At Metz, though most of the MSS. belonging to the 
 cathedral had been transferred to the library of M. 
 Colbert, " II en reste neanmoins encore quelques uns 
 qui ne sont pas indifferens. Nous y vimes entr'autres 
 un tres-belle Bible de sept ou huit cens ans ; les grands 
 et les petits prophetes ecrits en lettres Saxone^" 
 
 At Pont a Mousson, in the monastery of St. Mary, 
 only four MSS. are mentioned, of which two were, 
 " belles Bibles manuscrites d'environ 500 ans -." 
 
 At St. Michel only two mentioned, one "un tres 
 beau pseautier, ecrit en Grec ^" 
 
 * I. Voy. Lit. 177. ' lb. P. ii. 55. " lb. 74. ^ lb. 78. 
 
 ' lb. 79. 3 lb. 93. ' lb. 110. 2 iij^ 128. ^ j]^ 129. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 BIBLES OF THE DARK AGES [nO. XVII. 
 
 At St. Riquier, notwithstanding the " belle biblio- 
 theque qui etoit autrefois," there were only two MSS. 
 " qui meritent quelque attention." One " un texte des 
 evangiles, ecrit en lettres d'or sur du velin pourpre, 
 donne a S. Angilbert par I'empereur Charlemagne *." 
 
 At St. Vincent's, at Metz, after repeated fires, " entre 
 le peu de manuscrits qui restent dans la bibliotheque, 
 nous y vinies un tres-beau texte des evangiles ^" 
 
 At St. Medard, at Soissons, " de tous les anciens 
 monumens il ne reste a, S. Medard qu'un ancien texte 
 
 des evangiles, qu'on ne peut trop estimer c'est 
 
 un present que I'empereur Louis le Debonnaire fit au 
 monastere *." 
 
 At St. Jean de Vigores, " On y voit encore quelques 
 manuscrits, que I'injure des tems n'a pas dissipe. Les 
 principaux sont une Bible avec des concordances," and 
 two others ^ 
 
 At St. Vaasfs, at Doiiay, " Nous n'y vimes pour tout 
 manuscrits qu'un pseautier ®." 
 
 " Les difFerentes revolutions arrivees a Stavelo sont 
 cause qu'aujourd'hui on n'y trouve pas un si grand 
 nombre de manuscrits, mais le peu qu'il y en a est bon. 
 On y voit entr'autres une tres belle Bible en deux 
 grands volumes ^." 
 
 At Malmidif " De tous les anciens monumens on a 
 
 * I. Voy. Lit. ii. 175. « Ibid. 112. « II. Voy. Lit. 17. 
 
 ? lb. 24. « lb. 76. 
 
 ® lb. 149. — Its date is given in the following inscription contained in it, 
 which may also give an idea of the pains bestowed on such a work : — 
 " Codices hi ambo quia continuatim et tamen morosius scripti sunt per 
 annos ferme iiii. in omnisua procuratione, hoc est scriptura, illuminatione, 
 ligatura uno eodemque anno perfecti sunt ambo. Licet hie posterior qui 
 est anterior, et ipse est annus ab incarnatione Domini m. xcvii. indictione 
 V. Henrico nil. imperante, Christianorum exercitu super paganos violenter 
 agente. Obberto Leodicensi praesule, Rodulfo Stabulensi abbate, Christo 
 Domino ut semper infinita sseculorum saecula regnante. Amen." 
 
NO. XVII.] STILL IN EXISTENCE. 293 
 
 a peine sauve de I'incendie cinq ou six manuscrits dout 
 les principaux soiit un Bible en deux volumes, et un 
 Joseph '." 
 
 At La Vol Dim, " Nous n'y avons trouve pour tout 
 manuscrit qu'une Bible assez belle ^" 
 
 At Grimberg, '' La bibliotheque ajant ete brulee par 
 les heretiques, tous les manuscrits ont ete consumes 
 par le feu. II n'y reste aujourd'hui que deux Bibles 
 manuscrites, et d'anciens statuts synodaux de I'eglise de 
 Cambray '." 
 
 At St Panifdeon, at Cologne, " II y avoit autrefois 
 plusieurs manuscrits, mais les religieux, qui n'en con- 
 noissoient pas le prix, les ont vendu pour fort peu de 
 chose: il n'y reste qu'une tres-belle Bible, I'histoire 
 ecclesiastique de Pierre le Mangeur et Jean Belet *.'* 
 
 "Comme tous les anciens monumens de I'Abbaye 
 d'Eisterbac ont ete dissipez dans les guerres, nous n'y 
 trouvames de manuscrits qu'une Bible, avec les dia- 
 logues et les homelies de Cesarius ^" 
 
 " Les grandes revolutions arrivees a Epternac n'ont 
 pas tellement ruine les anciens monumens qu'il n'y 
 reste encore plusieurs manuscrits;" and among them 
 (though only three others are mentioned) two extra- 
 ordinary copies of the gospels ^ 
 
 I am quite aware that such details are tedious, but 
 I do not know how I could have made out this part of 
 the argument at all without them. Indeed, the appre- 
 hension of being charged with mere catalogue-making, 
 
 * II. Voy. Lit. 171. ' lb. 199. '^ lb. 112. 
 
 * lb. 264. * lb. 270. 
 
 * Ibid. 297. It would be unpardonable not to notice that one of these 
 MSS. is a copy of the Gospels " ecrit en lettres Saxones, et corrige a ce 
 qu'on pretend sur I'original meme de Saint Jerome ;" not, however, from 
 any chance that this was actually the case, but from the real probability 
 that it belonged to our countryman Willibrod, and was brought thither by 
 him when he came there as a missionary in the seventh century. 
 
294 ORIGIN [no. XVIII. 
 
 has, I fear, led me to state it very imperfectly. I am, 
 however, very anxious to get to other portions of the 
 argument, which may, I hope, be more generally inter- 
 esting, but which I could not venture upon without 
 premising some attempt to shew that a good many 
 copies of the Scriptures did exist in the dark ages ; 
 and that, at all events, it is the most absurd thing in 
 the world to infer their non-existence then, from their 
 being scarce now. I hope to shew not only that they 
 existed, but that they were often in the hands of those 
 who read and valued them. 
 
 No. XVIII. 
 
 " Esse niger monachus si forte velim Cluniaci, 
 Ova fabasque nigras cum sale saepe dabunt. 
 
 Surgere me facient media de nocte, volentem 
 Amplius in calido membra fovere thoro. 
 
 Qnodque magis nollem vellent me psallere sursum, 
 Et geminare meos in diapente tonos." — Brunellus. 
 
 It may perhaps appear from the evidence which has 
 been adduced, that there is good ground for an opinion 
 that copies of the Scriptures were not so exceedingly 
 scarce in the Dark Ages as some persons would lead 
 us to suppose. I have shewn that a good many 
 existed ; and I have stated (and, indeed, given some 
 incidental proofs) that this existence is attested by a 
 considerable number which have survived those ages, 
 and are now in our libraries. It certainly was my 
 intention to have spoken much more fully on the latter 
 of these points, and to have afforded to the reader 
 something like a return of the number of copies of the 
 bible, or of parts of it, which are even now known to 
 exist, and which are believed, on good grounds, to have 
 been written in, or before, the Dark Ages. But I pass 
 
NO. XVIII.] OF CLUGNI. 295 
 
 it over ; and I might claim the reader's gratitude for 
 so doing, on the ground that I have already occupied 
 more space than I intended, or he may have approved, 
 in what may be considered by many as dry details. I 
 might tell him, also, (and very truly,) that though the 
 inquiry would not be without interest, yet it is not 
 very material for my object, which is, as I have stated, 
 to investigate the actual state and means of scriptural 
 knowledge during the Dark Ages. I might add, (and 
 with equal truth,) that, having said more than enough 
 respecting that part of the proof which I introduced by 
 stating, that I considered it as far from being the most 
 important, I am anxious to get to some other parts, 
 which may, I hope, prove more interesting to readers 
 in general, and to some, perhaps, more convincing. 
 All this I might say, but I had rather acknowledge 
 the simple fact, which is, that I am unable, at present, 
 to give anything like a satisfactory statement on the 
 subject. I hoped that before this time I should have 
 received information which I have not yet been able to 
 obtain, and by which I might have rendered what I 
 have had it in my power to glean less imperfect. 
 
 Let us, then, go to another part of the argument. 
 I do not know whether to call it the next, for the parts 
 are so connected, and so intimately dependent on each 
 other, that it is not only impossible to separate them 
 completely, but extremely difficult to decide which 
 should be taken first. Hitherto our inquiries have 
 commonly led us to the monastery in which the books 
 forming our subject were written and reposited ; and it 
 may be natural to inquire next (as it is, indeed, a most 
 important point to learn) how far we have reason to 
 believe that the inmates of the cloister had any know- 
 ledge of the contents of those volumes of which they 
 were confessedly the transcribers and the guardians. 
 It will greatly promote our understanding of this, and 
 
296 ORIGIN [no. XVIII. 
 
 of our subject in general, if we first take a hasty 
 glance at one or two of the monastic institutions of 
 the period ; especially at one, which may be called the 
 child of those times, born and brought up in what is 
 commonly considered as the darkest of the Dark Ages 
 — the century which has been distinguished as the 
 " Saeculum Obscurum." 
 
 As to the pedigree of Count Berno, it is even more 
 obscure than the age in which he lived ; and whether 
 he was, or was not, of Burgundian descent, it does not 
 concern us to inquire. It is clear that he and his 
 cousin, Laifin, founded the monastery of Gigni, in the 
 northern part of the diocese of Lyons, between Lion- 
 le-Saunier and St. Amour, some time, and probably 
 not long, before the year 896. This appears from a 
 letter of Pope Formosus, dated in that year, which also 
 informs us they had endowed it with their property, 
 and that Berno had become the first abbot ^ That it 
 was not completed until long afterwards we may pre- 
 sume from the language of a charter granted by 
 Rodulph, King of Burgundy, eighteen years after- 
 wards ^ In consequence of Berno's application, the 
 
 7 Baluz. Misc. ii. 159. 
 
 * The language of the charter is, " Reverentissimus Abbas adiit nostram 
 magnitudinem petens nos ut quendam locum Gigniacum, quem ipse Abbas 
 et sui confratres tenent vel construunt regulariter, rebus proprietatis nostrse 
 ditaremus." — Bal. ibid. 161. I know that it is not safe, in Latin of this 
 period, to lay much stress on moods and tenses ; but the probability is, 
 that the building was a long business; and even if I misconstrue con- 
 struunt, yet it gives me an opportunity of reminding my readers, that in 
 those ages to which we owe most of our churches, and certainly the best, 
 the building was a gradual process. To this day it is very commonly so 
 in the Romish church ; while our way, generally speaking, is to do all at 
 once. Yet, at a time when so much church building is obviously wanted, 
 and so much actually projected, might it not be worth while to give a 
 moment's consideration to the old way ? Generally speaking, we make 
 the church at once all that it is meant to be; and with a view to this 
 immediate perfection all our estimates are framed. For a given sum, say 
 10,000/., we can have one large church of the plan A, or two small 
 
NO. XVIII.] OF CLUGNI. 297 
 
 king granted to him and his monastery the cell of 
 Beaume, which he and his monks had restored and 
 rebuilt; and he continued to govern Gigni and the 
 dependent cell with strict discipline. This, at least, 
 we may believe, from various circumstances, and espe- 
 cially from one which occurred about the year 909, 
 when two strangers applied for admittance into the 
 fraternity of Beaume. Before they could make the 
 formal request, some of the monks got about them, 
 and drew such a picture of the abbot's severity that 
 one of the strangers would have turned back. Ade- 
 grin, however, was better informed respecting the 
 place, and, moreover, had the sagacity to suspect that 
 those who gave such a horrible account of discipline 
 might be the persons who were most obnoxious to it ; 
 and, encouraged by him, his companion Odo entered ^. 
 
 churches of the plan B ; or if we Uke to have something between the two, 
 we may have the plan C for 7500Z. Well, but suppose we want as large a 
 church as A, and have only half or three quarters of the 10,000Z. ; how 
 much of that plan can we get executed for 5000Z., or 7500/. ? — or, if we 
 want such a church as C, how much of that can we get executed for the 
 full cost of B. ? Can we get a place which, though to the eye of taste and 
 science it may be obviously unfinished, may yet be so far complete as to 
 be a respectable place for the performance of divine worship for a few 
 years, during which the original design may be carried into full execution. 
 It is, humanly speaking, impossible that one generation should build half 
 the churches which are now wanted in this country ; but we are building 
 a good many, and we may hope that each one will be a tree whose seed is 
 in itself, or which will at least have such a principle of vitality as will enable 
 it to grow up to maturity. 
 
 ^ I have already mentioned that our Benedictine travellers visited Gigni, 
 and I cannot help transcribing a few words of what they say respecting 
 both these places : — " Nous arrivames a Beaume comme on sortoit de 
 vepres ; . . . . cette Abbaye est fort ancienne, et recommandable par la 
 retraite de Saint Odon et de Saint Adegrin, qui y ont fait profession de 
 la vie religieuse. La situation est des plus afFreuses qu'on puisse voir ; on 
 n'y arrive que par une gorge serree de deux rochers escarpez d'une 
 hauteur prodigieuse. Le lieu meme ou il est batie est fort etroit, et de 
 tons cotez on ne voit rien que des rochers steriles et elevez a perte de vAe 
 
 Aujourd'hui ce lieu si saint, qui a servi de retraite a tant de 
 
 serviteurs de Dieu, et d'asile a tant de pecheurs convertis, est devenu en 
 
298 ORIGIN [no. XVIII. 
 
 In the next year, the abbot Berno laid the founda- 
 tions of what afterwards became one of the most cele- 
 brated and influential monasteries during, and beyond, 
 the period of the Dark Ages. Under the auspices, 
 and at the expense, of William, Count of Auvergne, 
 commonly called William the Pious, he formed a 
 monastery at Clugni, near Macon, in Burgundy. As 
 to the monasteries which he afterwards founded or 
 superintended, it is not to our purpose to inquire ; for 
 it is only as the founder of Clugni that I here intro- 
 duce him. To that monastery he transferred his resi- 
 dence ; and Odo, who accompanied him, became his 
 successor in the year 927. The fame of this second 
 abbot of Clugni so far eclipsed that of his predecessor 
 that many have erroneously considered him as the 
 founder ; but however probable it may be that he was 
 the man of the most learning, the most expanded mind. 
 
 proye a la noblesse du pais, qui regarde I'abbaye de Beaurae comme une 
 dicharge de leur famille ; et pour y etre religieux, il faut faire preuve de 
 seize lignes de noblesse." After Beaume, they visited Gigni — " Qui etoit 
 autrefois une abbaye illustre, fondee par S. Bemon, et ensuite reduite en 
 Prieure soumis a Cluni. Ce monastere, aussi-bien que celui de Beaume, 
 
 sert de decharge aux families nobles nous primes le chemin de 
 
 S. Claude, et monsieur le Chambrier nous donna un gargon pour nous 
 conduire a une demi lieue de la. Ce bon enfant se mit a nous entretenir 
 de la vie des moines de Gigny, comme ils passoient tout leur temps h 
 se divertir : je n'entre pas dans le detail de ce qu'il nous dit, parce qu'il ne 
 leur est pas fort honorable. Voila la gloire que Dieu retire de ces raaisons 
 de noblesse, et I'edification qui en revient au prochain. Et on appelle un 
 grand bien pour les families de la Province, ce qui est capable de leur 
 attirer la malediction de Dieu." — I. Voy. Lit. I7l, &c. Only imagine that 
 St. Berno could have resumed his place, and that some friendly voice had 
 whispered to these modern religious, as the monks of Beaume did to Odo> 
 when he applied for admission, " Nosti consuetudinem Bernonis Abbatis ? 
 At ille : Nusquam, inquit. Et illi : Heu, heu, si sciretis quam dure scit 
 ille monachum tractare. Correptionem vero suam sequuntur verbera, et 
 rursura quos verberat compedibus ligat, domat carcere, jejuniis affligit : 
 et haec omnia perpessus, nee sic suam potest miser impetrare gratiam." 
 Mab. A. S. vii. 158. Making all due allowance for exaggeration, there 
 must have been something about Abbot Berno which the merry monks of 
 the eighteenth century would not have liked at all. 
 
NO. XVIII.] OF CLUGNI. 299 
 
 and most extensive views, and perhaps of better in- 
 formed, if not more zealous piety, yet it were unjust to 
 deny that what he did was built on the foundation of 
 his predecessor, and that he was probably enabled to 
 do it, not only by the property which had been 
 acquired, or the buildings which had been raised, but 
 by the rigid discipline which had been instituted and 
 maintained. 
 
 Odo, before he came to Beaume, had been school- 
 master and precentor of the cathedral church of St. 
 Martin, at Tours. While in his cradle, his father had 
 devoted him to that saint ; and he had been brought 
 up by Fulk the Good, Count of Anjou, who was him- 
 self one of the canons of that church ^ As he grew 
 up, his father seems to have repented of his oblation to 
 St. Martin, and to have wished to bring up his son to 
 a military life ; and, for that purpose, he placed him in 
 the service of the Count of Auvergne, who has been 
 already mentioned. But military exercises and field 
 sports seem soon to have become wearisome to young 
 
 ' " In monasterio beati Martini apud Turonos collegio fratrum adscrip- 
 tus, Canonicus ibidem esse, et dici, gaudebat. In festis etiam ejusdem 
 Sancti in choro inter psallentes clericos cum veste clerical!, et sub dis- 
 ciplina eorum astabat." The count's pithy letter to Lewis the Fourth of 
 France, who had ridiculed him for this, is well known — " Regi Francorum 
 Comes Andegavorum : Noveritis, Domine, quod Rex illiteratus est asinus 
 coronatus." It is to the credit of Lewis, who, if he was an illiterate king, 
 certainly was not merely an ass with a crown on, that he observed on 
 reading it, " It is true that wisdom, and eloquence, and letters, are espe- 
 cially becoming in kings and counts ; for the more exalted any man is in 
 point of station, the more eminent should he be in respect of morals and 
 learning." The historian adds, that those who laughed at the pious and 
 book -learned count, were constrained to respect the soldier : — " Factum est, 
 ut omnes qui Deo dignum ac htteratum Consulem ac strenuum militem 
 illudendo caput agitabant, postmodum eum in reverentiam haberent, qui 
 licet litteris reguUsque grammaticae artis, Aristotelicis Ciceronianisque 
 ratiocinationibus perspicacius peritissime eruditus esset, inter majores et 
 meliores ac strenuos milites optimus habebatur." — Gesta Cons. Andegav. 
 up. Dach. Spicil. iii. 245. 
 
300 ODO, ABBOT [no. XVIII. 
 
 Odo. An inveterate headache, which, from his seven- 
 teenth to his nineteenth year defied all the medical 
 skill which his parents could procure for him, seems to 
 have at length awakened the father's conscience, and 
 to have reminded him that his suffering son had been 
 devoted to St. Martin ; and superstition suggested that 
 the sickness was judicial, and indicated the anger of 
 the saint. The vow was performed, and, perhaps, 
 without much reluctance by the father; who, though 
 a layman, and tempted for awhile to devote his hand- 
 some and accomplished son to that which was then 
 considered the most noble profession, was himself a 
 learned and a reading man. " My father," said Odo, in 
 reply to the inquiries of the monk to whom we are 
 indebted for his life, " was named Abbo, but he seemed 
 to be a different sort of person, and to have acted dif- 
 ferently, from men of the present day ; for he had by 
 heart the histories of the ancients, and the Novelise of 
 Justinian. At his table there was always the reading 
 of the gospel. If at any time a dispute arose, there 
 was such a general opinion of the soundness of his 
 judgment, that people came to him from all parts to 
 obtain his decision ; and, on this account, he was much 
 respected by everybody, and particularly by the most 
 puissant Count William." Odo seems to have inhe- 
 rited the taste for reading. I have, in a former paper, 
 mentioned how he was deterred from the study of 
 heathen literature ^ but it was only to pursue sacred 
 knowledge — relictis carminibus poetarum, alti edoctus 
 spiritu consilii, ad Evangeliorum Prophetarumque ex- 
 positores se totum convertit — and when he entered at 
 the priory of Beaume he brought with him his private 
 stock of books, amounting to a hundred volumes. He 
 succeeded Berno as Abbot of Clugni in the year 927. 
 
 2 No. XI. p. 183. 
 
NO. xviil] of clugni. 301 
 
 My object is not to write the history of the monastery, 
 or the lives of its abbots ; my reason for mentioning the 
 place at all will soon be obvious ; but I wish first, as 
 briefly as possible, to give the reader some idea of the 
 persons whose names I am obliged to mention, and to 
 state some few circumstances respecting them which 
 have reference to my object. With this view I give 
 the following anecdotes of Odo : — 
 
 " At that time," says his biographer, " when we were 
 crossing the Cottian Alps, with Gerald, Bishop of Riez 
 .... in that same journey there was a feeble old man, 
 who was passing over that part of the Alps at the same 
 time with us. He was carrying a bag full of bread, 
 and garlic, and onions, and leeks, the smell of which 
 herbs I could by no means endure. But the pious 
 father no sooner saw the old man than he made him 
 get on his horse, and undertook to carry the most vile- 
 smelling bag himself; and I, unable to bear such a 
 stink, dropt away from the side of my companion. 
 Having got over the steepest part of the Alps, and 
 beginning to descend, I saw him from a distance yield 
 to the importunity of the old man, and remount his 
 horse ; but even then he did not give back the bag to 
 its owner, but hung it at his saddle bow. I then set 
 forward, passing those who were before me ; and when 
 I got near to him I went hastily, and with a sense of 
 shame, and presently after I had come up with him, he 
 called to me, 'Come here, for there are still some 
 psalms remaining which we have to chaunt ;' and when 
 I told him that I could not bear the stink of that bag, 
 he immediately rebuked me, saying, ' Alack-a-day, 
 what you call stinking the poor man can eat, while 
 you cannot bear to smell it ; the poor man can carry 
 it, and you say you cannot bear to look at it.' But 
 this he said with reference to himself, who was one of 
 the true poor of Christ ; and with these, and the like 
 
30*2 ODO OF CLUGNI. [nO. XVIII. 
 
 sayings, he reproved me, and so cured my sense of 
 smelling, that I was no longer sensible of any ill 
 savour ^." 
 
 I mention this circumstance principally for the sake 
 of noticing the custom of repeating the psalms on a 
 journey, which was by no means a peculiarity of Odo. 
 It might, indeed, in this case, be the office for the 
 canonical hours ; but, independent of this, I believe 
 the custom of repeating the psalms under such circum- 
 stances to have been very frequent. The biographer 
 of Odo tells us, that being obliged to travel about a 
 great deal on diplomatic business (pro pace regum et 
 principum,) as well as for the reformation of monaste- 
 ries, thieves lay in wait for him ; and once a banditti 
 of forty were on the point of attacking him ; but when 
 one of them, who was their leader, named Aimon, saw 
 him, and the monks who were with him, persist in 
 chanting the psalms without interruption, and go on 
 their way thus chanting, he was immediately struck 
 with compunction, and said to his companions, " I do 
 not remember ever to have seen such men as these, 
 and I do not think that such have been seen anywhere 
 else ;" nor could the entreaties of his comrades per- 
 suade him to attack them *. 
 
 3 Mab. A.S. Tom. vu. p. 165. 
 
 * There may, perhaps, appear, to enlightened readers of the present day, 
 something very ridiculous in the perpetual psalm-singing of the monks ; 
 and, in fact, it has been a very common topic of pleasantry. Were it not 
 that the malignity is as disgusting as the absurdity is amusing, one must 
 needs laugh at the motive which Tyndale, the reformer, assigns for the 
 practice : — " Your singing is but roaring, to stretch out your maws (as do 
 your other gestures and rising at midnight) to make the meat sink to the 
 bottom of the stomach, that he may have perfect digestion, and be ready to 
 devour afresh against the next refection." — Expos, on Matt. vii. 15. It 
 does not enter into our present purpose to discuss their motive — the fact 
 that there was one very large portion of the scriptures which they were 
 expected to know by heart, and which they were continually repeating, is 
 obvious and important. 
 
NO. XVIII.] AYMARD AND MAIOLUS. 303 
 
 Odo was succeeded by Aymard, who was an old man 
 at the time of his election ; and who, becoming blind 
 six years afterwards, resigned the office of abbot, in the 
 year 942, in favour of Maiolus, or, in more modern 
 language, St. MayeuL Aymard, however, lived many 
 years after this, and appears to have considered himself 
 as still abbot, and on one occasion to have vindicated 
 his authority in a manner which may be worth noticing, 
 as it gives a lively picture of the discipline and subor- 
 dination kept up in the monastery. 
 
 "From the monks of the venerable monastery of 
 Clugni," says Peter Damian, who visited the place in 
 the year 1062, " I happened to learn two remarkable 
 instances of holy humility, one of which may be ex- 
 tremely edifying to prelates, and the other to subjects. 
 Aymard, who was abbot of that monastery, made 
 Maiolus his substitute ; and sought repose in his old 
 age. While he was living as a private person in the 
 infirmary, he sent one evening for some cheese, which 
 the cellarer, being as usual very busy, not only did not 
 give, but bestowed some uncivil speeches on the mes- 
 senger, complaining that there was such a multitude of 
 abbots, and that he did not know how to manage with 
 so many masters. The old man having heard of this, 
 was not a little offended ; and, being entirely blind, the 
 vexation took the greater hold on his mind ; for blind 
 persons, from the very circumstance of their want of 
 sight, ruminate more deeply in their hearts on what 
 they hear, and it acts as a greater stimulus to resent- 
 ment, because the impression is not weakened by the 
 sight of external objects In the morning, however, he 
 ordered his servant to lead him into the chapter, and 
 being come there, he addressed the abbot to this effect 
 — 'Brother Maiolus, I did not set you above myself 
 that you might persecute me, or rule over me as a 
 buyer does over his slave, but I chose you that you 
 
 1 
 
304 AYMARD AND MAIOLUS. [nO. XVIII. 
 
 might feel for me as a son for a father;' — and, 
 after a good deal to the same purport, being nearly 
 overcome, he added, * Are you, I beg leave to ask, my 
 monk?' and the other replying, 'I am, and I profess 
 that I was never more so than I am at this moment' — 
 * If you are my monk,' said Aymard, ' instantly quit 
 your seat and go to the place which you used to 
 occupy.' Maiolus, on hearing this, immediately rose, 
 and, as he was ordered, took a lower place; and 
 Aymard, as if he had come home again after an 
 absence, took the vacant seat. He stated his charge 
 against the cellarer who had offended him, and while 
 he was prostrate, sharply rebuked him, and then en- 
 joined him such penance as he thought proper. Then, 
 having performed all the duty for which he had resumed 
 that brief authority, he immediately dethroned himself, 
 and ordered Maiolus to resume his seat. He did so 
 without the slightest hesitation ^" 
 
 5 Opusc. 33, c. 7, cited Mab. A. S. Tom. V. p. 233. The Liber 
 Ordinis S. Victoris Parisiensis, cited by Du Cange in v. Infirmaria, says, 
 " In infirmaria tria sunt genera infirmorura. Sunt enim quidam qui lecto 
 prorsus decubant. Sunt alii qui de infirmitate convalescunt, et jam sur- 
 gere et ambulare possunt : sed tamen pro reparatlone virium adhuc in 
 Infirmaria sunt. Sunt alii qui hujusmodi infirmitatem non habent, et 
 tamen in Infirmaria assidue comedunt et jacent ut senes, et coeci, et debiles 
 et hujusmodi." 
 
 Turketul, who has been already mentioned, (No. XV. p. 249.) was 
 Abbot of Croyland at the same time that Maiolus presided at Clugni. In- 
 gulph gives us an interesting account of the classes into which he divided 
 his monks. First, the juniors, who remained in that class during the first 
 twenty-four years after their profession. Secondly, those who had passed 
 through that period, and were for the next sixteen years excused from 
 certain services and severities of monastic discipline, but bore the labour 
 and responsibility of the general management of the monastery — " cum 
 istis magnitudo negotiorum, et providentia consiliorum, ac totius loci soli- 
 citudo specialiter incumbit." Thirdly, those who had passed through both 
 these periods, and had therefore been monks forty years. These were 
 called the seniors, and were for the next ten years entitled to greater indul- 
 gences. Indeed, after the two first years of the ten, they were excused 
 from all ofllicial duties of a secular nature, except in cases of emergency. 
 
NO. XVIII,] MAIOLUS, ABBOT OF CLUGNI. 305 
 
 Maiolus, soon after his entrance into the monastery, 
 had been appointed librarian, and held some other im- 
 
 " He who has attained the fiftieth year of profession," continues Ingulph, 
 " shall be called a Sempecta, and he shall have a good chamber assigned to 
 him by the prior, in the infirmary; and he shall have an attendant or 
 servant specially appointed to wait on him, who shall receive from the 
 abbot an allowance of provision, the same in mode and measure as is 
 allowed for the servant of a knight in the abbot's hall. To the Sempecta 
 the prior shall every day assign a companion, as well for the instruction of 
 the junior, as for the solace of the senior ; and their meals shall be supplied 
 to them from the infirmary kitchen according to the allowance for the sick. 
 As to the Sempecta himself, he may sit or walk, or go in or go out, accord- 
 ing to his own will and pleasure. He may go in and out of the choir, the 
 cloister, the refectory, the dormitory, and the other offices of the monas- 
 tery, with or without a frock, how and when he pleases. Nothing unplea- 
 sant respecting the concerns of the monastery shall be talked of before 
 him. Nobody shall vex him about anything, but in the most perfect peace 
 and quietness of mind, he shall wait for his end." 
 
 There is something in this arrangement, this care " to rock the cradle of 
 declining age," so beautiful that I do not like to suppress it, especially as 
 it throws hght, which some readers may want, on the fact of the old abbot's 
 residence in the infirmary ; but the worst of these long notes is, that they 
 do themselves want notes ; at least I do not like to give this passage with- 
 out two. First, if any reader does not understand what is meant by the 
 word Sempecta, I wish him to know that I am in the same predicament, 
 having never seen any etymology which was at all satisfactory. Secondly, I 
 hesitated a good while before I could bring myself to translate /rocciw by 
 frock, though I believe that to be the right word, and that the garment 
 was so called by the monks of France in the vulgar tongue, merely because 
 (notwithstanding some recent changes in clerical costume) I do not like to 
 suggest the idea of a person so aged, and circumstanced, in a frock coat. 
 As to the garment itself, not having the artist, whom Ingulph calls the 
 " Serviens Cissor de Sartrina," of Croyland, at ray elbow, I am not sure 
 that I could describe it with technical accuracy ; but it may perhaps be 
 enough to say that it was the upper garment, differing only from that com- 
 monly used by the monks from its having no cowl. Another evil of these 
 long notes is, that one gets into a gossiping way, and one story leads to 
 another. I cannot fancy this Sempecta rambling about the monastery at 
 his pleasure without being reminded of an old soldier of my acquaintance, 
 who, after gaining great reputation, but losing his two sons, in the cru- 
 sades, took refuge in a cloister— or, as a monk of the house says : — 
 
 " Ipse post militiae cursum temporalis, 
 Illustratus gratia doni spiritualis. 
 Esse Christi cupiens miles specialis, 
 . In hac domo nionachus factus est claustralis. 
 
306 MAIOLUS, ABBOT [nO. XVIII. 
 
 portant offices ; but, as I am not writing his memoirs, 
 I say nothing of the various transactions in which he 
 was engaged, of the monasteries which he reformed, of 
 the preferment (including the papacy) which he refused 
 — but I will notice one or two things respecting his 
 
 Ultra modum placidus, dulcis et benignus, 
 Ob setatis senium candidus ut cygnus, 
 Blandus et affabilis, ac am?iri dignus. 
 In se Sancti Spiritus possidebat pignus. 
 
 Nam sanctam ecclesiam ssepe frequentabat, 
 Missarum mysteria Isetus auscultabat, 
 Et quas scire poterat laudes personabat, 
 Ac cselestem gloriam mente ruminabat. 
 
 Ejus conversatio dulcis et jocosa, 
 Valde commendabilis et religiosa, 
 Ita cunctis fratribus fuit gratiosa, 
 Quod nee gravis extitit nee fastidiosa." 
 
 We may easily suppose that the old crusader, who had gone to the Holy 
 Land " Equis et divitiis satis sublimatus, et praeclara militum turba sti- 
 patus," and who had himself been employed as an ambassador to the 
 Soldan, had tales of travel and danger which would make him a very accept- 
 able companion in a monastery ; and we may imagine him roaming about 
 it like the old Sempecta — 
 
 " Hie per claustrum quotiens transiens meavit, 
 Hinc et hinc ad monachos caput inclinavit, 
 Et sic nutu capitis eos salutavit, 
 Quos affectu intimo plurimum amavit." 
 
 I am ashamed of the length of this note — but I must add what really 
 relates to our subject. I do not know whether this old gentleman was 
 generally quartered in the infirmary, or whether it was only so when he 
 was ill ; but we are told that, in that case — 
 
 " Ipse nihilominus missas frequentabat 
 Unde Infirmarius ipsum increpabat, 
 Et ut requiesceret eum exorabat. 
 Dicens, ' Franco, remane, vinum tibi dabo 
 Et te bonis epulis pascam et cibabo,' " &c. 
 
 I cite this that the reader may see, by the argument of the Infirmarius, 
 that the young brother who was appointed in turn to spend the day with 
 the Sempecta, was not sent on an unpleasant duty. All was, of course, 
 subject to rule, but there was more licence as to good cheer in the infir- 
 mary than in any other part of the monastery ; and, in fact, sham cegro- 
 tats were among the little tricks against which the superiors in monasteries 
 had to be on their guard. 
 
NO. XVIII.] OF CLUJGNI. 307 
 
 literary character. I have said that Odo (one of his 
 predecessors) had been deterred from the study of pro- 
 fane learning by a dream ; and Maiolus seems, without 
 any such intimation, to have renounced it, so far, at 
 least, as poetry was concerned. It may be a sufficient 
 proof that he was a reading man, if I say that it was 
 his custom to read on. horseback ^ There is certainly 
 
 * "Xdeo lectioni semper erat deditus, ut in itinere positus libellum 
 saepius gestaret in manibus. Itaque in equitando reficiebatur animus 
 legendo." — Mob. A. S. VII. 771. The same thing (and, omitting semper 
 in the same words,) is told of Halimardus, who became Abp. of Lyons 
 in A. D. 1046. Ibid. IX. 35. I do not wish to anticipate what I hope to 
 say of reading-men in the Dark Ages ; but of course one cannot prevent 
 their making their appearance incidentally, from time to time. I cannot, 
 however, mention their equitation without annexing some kind of protest; 
 and, to say the least, an expression of doubt whether they ought to ride on 
 horseback at all without some good reason. This same Abbot Maiolus 
 nearly lost his life by going to sleep on his horse, who happily stopped 
 just in time to save him from being struck by the projecting branch of a 
 tree. Ibid. VII. 384. And Thierry, afterwards Abbot of St. Hubert's, in 
 the forest of Ardennes, (born, 1007,) got into circumstances of still greater 
 peril. While he was a monk at Stavelo he was attending his Abbot Poppo 
 to Liege, and somehow (forte intentus cantico psalmorum, says his biogra- 
 pher,) he suflFered his horse to wander from the company, and follow a by- 
 path, just as they were coming to the Ambleve. Though the river was 
 swelled with the winter's rain, and the foaming torrent was rolling forward 
 stones and uprooted trees, the abbot and the rest of his train passed over 
 the ford in safety; and having arrived at the other side they saw the poor 
 monk, still muffled in his hood, and wholly unconscious of his situation, 
 riding on a lofty wooden bridge, constructed for foot passengers only, and 
 supposed to be altogether impassable for any others, (pons ligneus, in 
 medios quidem agros ab utraque fluminis ripa distentus, in medio autem 
 propter hibernas aquas longe elatus ; sed ita angustus, ut neque equis, 
 neque bobus, neque asinis possit esse aliquo modo pervius.) Thierry, we 
 are told, never once looked about him ; and to this, humanly speaking, he 
 seems to have owed his preservation. He knew nothing of the danger in 
 which he had been placed, until he had descended among his anxious 
 companions, in whose thankfulness and astonishment he heartily joined 
 when they had explained to him the cause of it— mirantibus et praedican- 
 tibus sociis divinse virtutis gratiam in suo facto ipse stupuit. — Ibid. IX. 
 566. A more prudent man was Gerard Bishop of Csannad in Hungary, 
 (cir. A.D. 1048,) who always rode in a carriage, reading his own books — 
 non jumento utebatur sed vehiculo, in quo sedens, hbros quos Sancti Spi- 
 ritus gratia composuerat, relegebat. — Ibid. VIII. 551. 
 
 x2 
 
308 MAIOLUS, ABBOT [nO. XVIII. 
 
 a storj of his falling asleep over the works of Dionysius 
 the Areopagite, a thing which might be forgiven, if for 
 no other reason, to men who never had a night's rest ; 
 especially if, as one of his biographers tells us, he had 
 been preaching; "distributa in monachos substantia 
 verbi Dei, et sermone ad eos habito." 
 
 One other circumstance of his life I must also men- 
 tion. Returning from Rome, he and his companions 
 were set upon in one of the passes of the Alps, and 
 taken prisoners by the Saracens. Of course they were 
 plundered ; and the abbot's biographer tells us that he 
 lost all the books which he had with him except one — 
 cseteros sacros codices cum omnibus quae hie habebat. 
 That one was a book on the Assumption of the Virgin, 
 which he seems to have had in his bosom at the time 
 (vestis sub tegmine) and which escaped the search of 
 the enemy '. The hope of ransom gained him permis- 
 sion to send a monk to Clugni with the following pithy 
 epistle, manu propria conscriptam, — 
 
 " To the lords and brethren of Clugni, the wretched Maiolus, 
 a captive and in chains. 
 
 " The floods of ungodly men have compassed me about ; 
 the snares of death prevented me ^ Send, if you please, 
 the price of ransom for me, and those who were made pri- 
 soners with me.^* 
 
 This letter produced grief and consternation among 
 the brethren ; and the next day a large sum (infiniti 
 ponderis pecunia) which was raised by almost stripping 
 the monastery of whatever could be turned into money, 
 was sent off, and the abbot regained his liberty. More- 
 
 ' Mab. A. S. VII. 779- The learned Benedictine does not lose the 
 opportunity of stating that there had been a controversy in the ninth cen- 
 tury between Hincmar, Abp. of Rheims, and " nostros Corbeienses," in 
 which the latter had maintained that this book was not a genuine work of 
 St. .Jerome. 
 
 s Torrmies Belial, as in the Vulgate and Heb. II. Sara. xxii. 5, 6. 
 
NO. XVIII.] OF CLUGNI. 309 
 
 over, as his biographer tells us, the outrage was re- 
 venged by the Christians, who slew the Saracens, and 
 took great spoil, which they divided among themselves. 
 They considered, however, that the Abbot Maiolus had 
 a right to a share ; because, though absent there could 
 be no doubt that the victory was in some degree owing 
 to his merits ; and therefore (either from a knowledge 
 of his taste, or more probably under the guidance of 
 their own) they assigned to him all the books of which 
 he had been plundered — "propterea sacros codices, 
 quos barbari rapuerant beato viro, sua pro parte mise- 
 runt." 
 
 I wish Brother Syrus, to whom we are indebted for 
 this account, had told us what the books were, espe- 
 cially as it appears from another source that the single 
 book which he mentions as having been saved was not 
 the best which the abbot bad in his travelling library. 
 Glaber Rodulphus incidentally mentions, that while he 
 was in the hands of the Saracens, one of them, who 
 was smoothing a piece of wood, grieved him by putting 
 his foot on the Bible, which, " according to custom, he 
 was in the habit of carrying with him ^." That he was, 
 indeed, with whatever mixture of superstition, in the 
 habit of deferring to the word of God, may be chari- 
 tably hoped from another fact incidentally stated by his 
 biographer — or, if this be thought too much, it will at 
 least shew that he had the word of God at hand, and 
 thought it worth while to appear to consult it. I have 
 already said that he refused the papacy — the Emperor 
 Otho II. and the Empress so strongly urged him to 
 accept it, that he knew not what to do ; for, says his 
 biographer, " he would not leave the little flock which 
 
 9 « 
 
 'Alius quoque Saracenorum eorumdem cultro deplanans ligni castu- 
 lara, posuit incunctanter pedem super viri Dei codicem, bibliothecam sci- 
 licet, quara ex more secum consueverat." — Mab A. S. VII. 756. 
 
310 ODILO, ABBOT [nO. XVIII. 
 
 it had pleased Christ to commit to him ; and desired to 
 live in poverty with Him who descended from the 
 height of heaven, and became poor. But, being pressed 
 by both these great persons, he endeavoured to obtain 
 some delay. Then he betook himself to the refuge of 
 prayer, hoping, through that means, to obtain the 
 divine guidance as to what he should do, and what 
 answer he should make to such powerful importunity. 
 As he rose from prayer, a copy of the epistles happened 
 to catch his eye ; and having opened it, a passage pre- 
 sented itself at the top of the page, which he looked 
 upon as a word of instruction from heaven. What he 
 thus found he began reading to those about him. 
 'Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy 
 and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the 
 rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.' He 
 confessed to his companions that he ought, with all his 
 soul, to practise that which this text of Scripture 
 taught him;" and in fact he did so — he remained 
 Abbot of Clugni as long as he lived. 
 
 In the year 990, when Maiolus had governed the 
 monastery two-and-forty years, Odilo was associated 
 with him, (as Maiolus had been with Aymard,) and in 
 the year 994 he succeeded him. The only points of 
 his history which I will here mention bear a consider- 
 able resemblance to those just mentioned with respect 
 to Maiolus. The monastery of Nantua had been placed 
 under his care ; and once, in going over Mount Jura, 
 in his way to Geneva, he was obliged to cross a river 
 which ran down the side of that mountain. The mule 
 which carried his bed and his books (qui lectulum 
 hominis Dei ferebat simul cum libris) being without a 
 guide, missed the proper ford, and began to get into 
 deep water. All the company ran together, shouting, 
 and the animal, by a strong effort, raised itself, and 
 reached the bank with outstretched neck. A servant 
 
NO. XVril.] OF CLUGNI. 311 
 
 put forth his hand to catch at the bridle, but the mule, 
 misconstruing the action, turned about, swam across 
 the stream, with only its head above water, and, on 
 reaching the opposite bank, was with some difficulty 
 rescued. Brother Jotsald (the contemporary biographer 
 of Odilo) mentions these circumstances on account of 
 the miracle which followed. On opening the package 
 which the mule carried, the cloths, such as napkins, 
 towels, &c. alone were wet, and the bed (I suppose 
 I should say mattrass) and books were dry. Master 
 Peter, who had charge of the abbot's things, and who 
 had been in a dreadful fidget while the mule was in 
 the water, pushed forward, and was the first to tell the 
 abbot what he could not be brought to believe, until, 
 on their arrival at the quarters for the night, he ordered 
 the books to be brought to him. Whether he then 
 supposed that there had been any miracle I do not 
 know ; but all that he is recorded to have said is, " Oh, 
 my dear brethren, you see the wonderful mercy of God 
 to us. Indeed, he has preserved to us unhurt those 
 things which would have been irrecoverably spoiled by 
 being wet, and has suffered those things to become wet 
 which could sustain no injury from it." Whatever 
 view the abbot, or his biographer might take of the 
 matter, the modern reader will perhaps be most dis- 
 posed to find a miracle in the fact that the books were 
 there at all. 
 
 On another occasion, while passing over the same 
 mountains, a horse, who bore a variety of packages, 
 lost his footing, and slipped down the side, until he 
 reached the deep valley, full of sharp rocks. It was 
 with much difficulty that they could get to him ; but 
 when they did, they found him unhurt, and part of his 
 burthen with him ; but the abbot's sacramentary, writ- 
 ten in letters of gold, and some glass vessels with em- 
 bossed work were missing — quae res non parum viri 
 
312 HUGH, ABBOT OF CLUGNI. [nO. XIX. 
 
 Dei msestificavit aiiimum '. It could not, however, be 
 helped, nor could the rain and snow which followed ; 
 but when the abbot arrived in the evening, at a cell 
 belonging to the Abbey of St. Claude, he besought the 
 brethren to institute a search, which they cheerfully 
 undertook to do. Here accounts differ : but (whether 
 on the next day, or two months after, when the snow 
 had thawed and the lost goods were forgotten,) all 
 agree that the book and the glasses were found unin- 
 jured. If he resembled his predecessor in thus carry- 
 ing about books, he resembled him also in refusing — 
 seriously and absolutely — very high preferment when 
 urged upon him by almost irresistible authority. The 
 pope would have made him Archbishop of Lyons, sent 
 him the pall and ring, and peremptorily ordered him to 
 assume the office. He positively refused ; and, not- 
 withstanding the most urgent entreaties and menaces 
 of the pope ^ he continued Abbot of Clugni. 
 
 No. XIX. 
 
 " Sicut tibi notum est, sacra lectio et oratio in nostro ordine sibi invicem 
 succedunt. De lectione itur ad orationem, ab oratione reditur ad lec- 
 tionem ; et sicut vester ordo [Cisterciensis] est activus, quia elegit sibi 
 justum laborem cum Martha; ita noster ordo est contemplativus, quia 
 elegit sibi sanctum otium cum Maria, quae quia elegit sibi Christo teste, 
 partem meliorem, non dubito nostrum ordinem, vestro ordine esse dig- 
 niorem." — Dial. Int. Cluniac. et Cistercien. Mon. 
 
 One might easily say a great deal about Hugh, Abbot 
 of Clugni, for he held the office sixty years ; that is, 
 
 * This was part of his travelling capella, as they called the collection of 
 all things necessary for the performance of divine offices which prelates and 
 ecclesiastics of rank took with them on their journeys. For instance, 
 Ekkehard, junior, (who wrote about 1040,) mentions, in speaking of an 
 Archbishop of Treves, " capellam qua itinerans utebatur cum reliquiis, et 
 libris, et omnibus utensilibus sacris." — Ap. Gold. Scr. Rer. Al. I. p. 15. 
 Many other instances are referred to by Du Cange in v. Capella, No. 3. 
 
 ' See the pope's letter, Dach. Sp. III. 381, and Lab. Cone. IX. 858. 
 
NO. XIX.] ULRIC, A MONK OF CLUGNI. 313 
 
 from A. D. 1049 to 1109, and was engaged in many of 
 the most important transactions of his time ; but of the 
 ten thousand monks who are said to have been under 
 his superintendence, my present business is with one, 
 for whose sake I have given this slight reference to the 
 history of Clugni and its abbots. Let us come to him 
 at once. 
 
 Ulric was born of a noble family at Ratisbon. His 
 father, Bernold, was high in the favour of the Emperor 
 Henry III., and he was himself brought up in the 
 court. His disposition to letters was manifested very 
 early; and his constant attendance on divine service, 
 and the interest which he took in it, (though, in his 
 case, it seems to have been self devotion,) has led his 
 biographer to compare him to the child Samuel'. 
 He became a favourite with the Empress Agnes, 
 whom I have had occasion to mention once before^. 
 That she was the consort of Henry III., and that after 
 his death, in the year 1056, she acted as regent, and 
 had the management of her son, Henry IV., then only 
 five years old, until, six years afterwards, he was taken 
 from her by stratagem, and that she subsequently 
 devoted herself to a religious life, are facts which may 
 be found in most histories of the period ; but as she 
 has thus come in our way, I wish to speak of her some- 
 what more particularly, for there are one or two docu- 
 ments relating to her history which seem to me very 
 interesting. The first is a short letter (or rather a part 
 of one, but, I believe, all that has been published) to 
 
 * " Divinae legis prsecepta, docente eum intrinsecus Spiritu-sancto, in- 
 tentissime legebat, legendo intelligebat, intelligendo conservabat, conser- 
 vando summa mentis alacritate, quantum in ipso fuerat, operibus implere 
 satagebat. In tempio Domini crebro aderat, ac laudes supernae majestati 
 pro modulo suo devote celebrans, in conspectu Domini Sabaoth, velut alter 
 Samuel, simplici mente ministrabat." — Mab. A, S. ix. 777, 778. 
 
 2 No. XIII. p. 208. 
 
314 THE EMPRESS AGNES. [NO. XIX. 
 
 the abbot and monks of Frutari, which strongly, though 
 briefly and unaffectedly, describes the unhappy state of 
 mind under which she pursued that migratory course of 
 devotion, which, though complimented as resembling 
 the journey of the Queen of Sheba, was, in fact, lead- 
 ing her about from shrine to shrine, from one broken 
 cistern to another, ignorant of the rock which followed 
 her: — 
 
 "Agnes, empress and sinner, to the good father Albert, 
 and the brethren assembled in the name of the Lord, at 
 Frutari, offers the service of an handmaid, whose eyes are 
 unto the hands of her mistress. 
 
 "My conscience terrifies me worse than any spectre, or 
 any apparition. Therefore I fly through the places of the 
 saints, seeking where I may hide myself from the face of this 
 terror; and I am not a httle desirous to come to you, whose 
 intercession I have found to be a certain relief. But our 
 ways are in the hand of God, and not left to our own will. 
 In the meantime, I do in spirit kneel at your feet*, &c.'' 
 
 Peter Damian, whom she met with at Rome, and to 
 whom she made a general confession, bears witness to 
 the deep anguish with which she detailed what seemed 
 to him to amount only to vain thoughts and childish 
 levities, for which he knew not how to assign any 
 penance. What she gained from him I know not ; 
 but I am inclined to hope and believe that her troubled 
 spirit was afterwards under the instruction of one who 
 was, in some degree, qualified to lead her feet into the 
 way of peace. I form this opinion of John, who was 
 Abbot of Fescamp, in Normandy, for fifty years, from a 
 few scraps which have been published from his neg- 
 lected, and almost unknown, manuscripts*. One is 
 
 3 Mab. Anal. I. 164. 
 
 * He was a native of Ravenna, and had been a monk of St. Benignus, 
 at Dijon ; and his biographer, a contemporary monk of that society, after 
 celebrating his erudition, his knowledge of medicine, and other good 
 
NO. XIX.] JOHN, ABBOT OF FESCAMP. 315 
 
 entitled " Thanksgivings for the Benefits of the Divine 
 Mercy." But it seems rather to have been a prayer, 
 composed when he entered on the office of abbot. The 
 marks of omission I give as I find them, without know- 
 ing whether they indicate that the MS. was imperfect 
 or illegible, or that the transcriber intentionally omitted 
 the intervenino; words : — 
 
 "Christ God, my hope I pray, entreat, and 
 
 beseech thee, that thou wouldst perfect in me that work of 
 thy mercy which thou hast begun. For I, the lowest of thy 
 servants, not forgetting those benefits of thy compassion 
 which thou hast granted to me, a sinner, do give thee thanks, 
 that through thy mere mercy thou hast freed me, unworthy 
 as I am, from the bonds of original sin, by the water of sacred 
 
 baptism, and by the renewing of the Holy Ghost 
 
 Thou shepherd and ruler of all, Christ God, who, for no 
 worthiness of mine, but only by the condescension of thy 
 mercy, hast called my littleness to this pastoral office, for 
 thine own sake, and for the sake of thy holy name, fit me for 
 this service, that I may govern thy house wisely, and may be 
 enabled to feed thy flock according to thy will in all things. 
 Grant, for the honour of thy name, that, with much fruit of 
 
 this brotherly society, I may attain to thy glory I 
 
 know, and am assured, that thou canst produce good and 
 great increase of thy flock by me, Uttle and weak as I am ; 
 for I am but a child, and a little man of no strength, having 
 none of the qualities which should be required, or which are 
 worthy of such an ofiice. Despairing, then, of my own 
 littleness, I breathe only in thy mercy. But though thou 
 art great in the things which are great, yet thou dost still 
 more gloriously work out great things by those which are 
 least. Surely thy praise will be the sweeter, and, after the 
 manner of men, more full, if by me, little as I am, thou shalt 
 
 qualities, tells us that, on account of his being a very little man, he was 
 called Johannelinus, or Johnny — "ab exilitate Joannelinus diminutivo 
 nomine est dictus; sed humilitatis, sapientiae, discretionis et ceterarum 
 virtutum tanta in eo refulsit gratia, ut, sicut sanctus refert Gregorius in 
 libro Dialogorum de Constantio Presbytero, ita in hoc mirum esset intuen- 
 tibus, in tam parvo corpora gratia Dei tanta dona exuberare." — A'p. Mab. 
 ibid. 167. 
 
316 ' JOHN, ABBOT [nO. XIX. 
 
 condescend to Avork out great things for thy flock 
 
 Give to me a full sufficiency of heavenly and of earthly 
 things, that I may have wherewithal to feed and to maintain 
 thy flock, both in soul and body, and without hesitation to 
 receive those who shall come in thy name ; and, at the same 
 time, to regulate the places committed to my charge, and to 
 provide, in a fit and becoming manner, for the peace and 
 
 welfare of the brethren Two things I beg of thee ; 
 
 one of them, do not, for thy mercy^s sake, refuse me. I 
 beseech thee, by all thy compassions, give me thy heavenly 
 consolation in my many troubles ; for that most heavy burden 
 which is placed upon my weak shoulders I cannot bear, and 
 
 I am afraid to put down I give thee thanks, O 
 
 Lord, who hast separated me from the company of this vain 
 world, and hast brought me into thy holy service," &c. 
 
 From this little abbot the empress sought instruc- 
 tion ; and he wrote a book for her use. It exists only, 
 I believe, in manuscript ; but the preface, which has 
 been published, is as follows : — 
 
 " Long since, imperial lady, you were pleased to signify 
 your desire that I should collect from the sacred writings 
 some short and plain discourses, from which you might learn, 
 according to your order, and without wearisome labour, a 
 rule of good life ; for every rank, age, and sex, has its own 
 peculiar instruction for conduct in the sacred books ; so that 
 each one, walking rightly in the vocation in which he is 
 called, may arrive at the kingdom in which there are many 
 mansions. At length, after the decease of your late consort, 
 of revered memory, the most illustrious and wise Emperor 
 Henry, you cordially embraced the praiseworthy design of 
 active widowhood; and though rank, wealth, and youth, 
 might have prompted you to a second marriage, yet you did 
 not incline your heart to the words of men speaking falsehood 
 for truth; but you rose up and stood firmly on your feet, 
 with your loins girded, so that, in contempt of carnal and 
 worldly allurements, you might serve the Lord Christ in 
 chastity, and set to other matrons an example worthy of 
 imitation ; namely, that being provoked by your continuance 
 to better things, they may maintain their fidelity to their 
 deceased husbands, and through the heavenly sacrifice, and 
 
 1 
 
NO. XIX.] OF FESCAMP. 317 
 
 by constant works of mercy, seek from the Lord the remis- 
 sion of their sins. How decent and becoming is it for a 
 Christian woman, who cannot claim the higher reward of 
 virginity, to study to live thenceforth chastely and soberly, 
 so that, by God's help, she may be called, and may really be, 
 the wife of one husband. If I mistake not, the propriety of 
 maintaining this glorious excellence of single wedlock is 
 taught us by the single rib taken from the side of man for 
 the formation of woman '. , 
 
 *' As soon as I knew the pious desires of your heart, I set 
 to work, and quickly culled some passages from the works of 
 the Fathers, that wherever you are you may have with you 
 some veracious documents, which may more fully point out 
 the way in which a faithful widow ought to walk in righteous- 
 ness and piety. Moreover, I added another discourse, on 
 the life and conversation of virgins, for the instruction of the 
 nuns who are collected in your monastery. And having 
 found you to be much given to works of mercy, I did not 
 hesitate to write this; namely, that, without all doubt, the 
 proper objects of eleemosynary gifts are not ecclesiastics, who 
 are already possessed of large property, but widows, orphans, 
 sick persons, foreigners, and specially those who are truly the 
 poor of Christ. In doing all this, through all my labours, 
 my value for you has prevented my feeling it any trouble. 
 
 " Be dumb, ye dogs of Scylla ; I shall go on, turning a 
 deaf ear to the noisy rage of your abuse. I understand that, 
 in your little cabals, (in conventiculis vestris) something hke 
 this drops from your canine jaws — * While you profess to be 
 a monk, and silence is the peculiar characteristic of monastic 
 life, what have you to do with women ? Whence have you 
 such authority, that you should sit in the seat of the learned, 
 and teach even women with yoiu- written scraps ?' Be silent, 
 wretched men. You say this because you are blind leaders 
 of the blind. ' Bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors V 
 and diligently consider the filthy condition in which you are 
 
 •^ Ad legem semel nubendi dirigam. Ipsa origo humani generis patro- 
 cinatur, constans quid Deus ab initio constituent, in formam posteritatis 
 recensendum. Nam quum hominem figurasset, eique parem necessariam 
 prospexisset, unam de costis ejus mutuatus, unam illi foeminam finxit, &c. 
 — Tertull. Exhort, ad Castit. Cap. V. 
 
 * Is. xlvi. 8. Redite praevaricatores ad cor. 
 
318 JOHN, ABBOT [nO. XIX. 
 
 lying. I wish that your wicked mind may repent, and may 
 study, in some degree, to imitate the pious works of good 
 women. Is not this woman worthy to be had in all reverence, 
 who has preferred the love of Christ to riches and honours ? 
 Therefore it was, that while she was the mistress of kingdoms^ 
 she humbled herself and became the servant of the poor. I 
 say nothing of her having traversed almost all Italy, most 
 devoutly visiting the relics of the saints, and offering to them 
 precious gifts, and giving great alms in the cities and towns, 
 and in all places which she visited to pay her devotions ; and 
 because the narrow limits of a letter will not permit me to 
 dwell longer on her praise, I will also pass over the fact, 
 that on her return into France she has, in like manner, com- 
 forted the poor and the churches of God with a Hberal hand ; 
 as it is written, ' She hath dispersed, she hath given to the 
 poor, her righteousness remaineth for ever.' 
 
 "But setting aside these persons, who blow on the earth, 
 and raise a dust to blind their own eyes, lest they should see 
 themselves, I return to you, venerable handmaid of Christ, 
 that my discourse, which I began for your instruction, as if I 
 had been present conversing with you, may, by the help of 
 God, be carried forward to the completion of that design. 
 Therefore, though I should have thought that those little com- 
 pilations, made according to my poor ability, might have 
 sufficed for your safety; yet since I understand, through 
 some friends, that you wish and require that I should also 
 copy for you what I have published on Divine Contempla- 
 tion, and the Love of Christ, and concerning that heavenly 
 Jerusalem which is the mother of all the faithful, I confess 
 that my heart does greatly rejoice, and magnifies, in you, God, 
 the giver of all good things. For were it not that, under the 
 leading of Christ, you had risen to higher things, going from 
 strength to strength, you never could have had the power to 
 ask such a thing. Who will not admire to see a soul so 
 fervent, which, still drinking the streams of sweet waters, 
 ceases not to thirst? Very foolish and very obstinate is he 
 who despises the prayers of such a woman, and does not 
 accede to her most proper requests- As to myself, revered 
 mother, here I am quite ready, according to the degree of 
 knowledge which God has given me, cheerfully and joyfully 
 to fulfil your wishes in all things. I would He may be a 
 
NO. XIX.] OF FESCAMP. 319 
 
 spark of fire within me, which may add somewhat to my 
 mind, warmed by its influence. 
 
 " Receive, therefore, O excellent soul, noble example of 
 holy widowhood, accept, with a watchful mind, this little 
 work, which you desired, and which, by the grace of Christ, 
 I have compiled, which you will find to consist chiefly of 
 sweet words of heavenly contemplation. These are to be 
 reverently read, and meditated on with due fear, lest coming 
 to them in a cold and undevout frame of mind, you be judged 
 guilty of rashness. From this you will understand that this 
 book is chiefly intended for the use of those who do not 
 suffer their minds to be darkened with carnal desires and 
 worldly lusts ; and when these things are read with tears and 
 great devotion, then the meek reader tastes, with the palate 
 of his heart, the inward sweetness which is hid in them. If 
 it be thus, or rather, since it is thus, let not the proud and 
 fastidious mind presume to meddle with the secret and sub- 
 lime words of the divine oracles, lest it fall into error ; for 
 with blind eyes it cannot behold the light. Hence it comes 
 that many rush, through heresy, into the abyss of eternal 
 damnation, drawing down others along with them to death ; 
 because the mysteries of holy scripture, which are rooted in 
 heaven, are not fully intelligible even to any of the perfect in 
 this world. Only they who, being wise with the wisdom of 
 God, bring forth the fruit of profound humility, understand 
 so much as the Holy Spirit condescends to reveal to them. 
 Therefore read these things often, and especially when you 
 feel your mind to be under the influence of heavenly desire ; 
 for right it is that you, whose practice in active life is so 
 good, should take the wings of contemplation, and, soaring 
 upwards, should drink of the fountain of celestial sweetness, 
 saying with the prophet, ' With thee is the fountain of life, 
 and in thy light we shall see light : my soul hath thirsted for 
 God, the living fountain. Lord, I have loved the beauty of 
 thy house, and the place of the habitation of thy glory :' and 
 what we find in the song of love, where the soul which loves 
 God only addresses Christ her beloved, saying, *Thy name 
 is as ointment poured forth ; therefore do the virgins love 
 thee. Draw me, we will run after thee. (i. 3.) My beloved 
 is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the hlies. Until 
 the day break, and the shadows flee away.^ (ii. 16.) 
 
320 JOHN, ABBOT [nO. XIX. 
 
 *^ With regard to this matter, however, it must be known, 
 that that chief and unchangeable being, who is God, can by 
 no means be seen by mortal eyes in this land of the dying, 
 nor has been ever seen by any mortal, since the time when 
 our first parent was driven out from the beauty of paradise 
 into this state of trouble. Hence it is that the contemplative 
 life begins here ; but it is perfected only there, where God is 
 seen face to face. For the meek and simple mind, when it is 
 raised into contemplation, and, overcoming the hinderances 
 of the flesh, penetrates into the things of heaven, is not per- 
 mitted to remain long thus above itself, but is drawn back to 
 inferior things by the burthen of the flesh. Yet, though it 
 is quickly recalled to itself, struck back by the infinite 
 splendor of the heavenly light, still it gains great strength 
 even from this one thing — that it is enabled to obtain some 
 foretaste of the divine sweetness ; for being presently fired 
 wdth great love, and being raised by it, it perceives the 
 impossibility of seeing what it ardently loves, yet could not 
 so ardently love if it did not catch some glimpse of it. There 
 are some persons, less instructed, who conceive of God as 
 like an image, because, being unhappily scattered abroad 
 amidst the things of the world, they are incapable of the 
 intellectual contemplation of that wonderful arid unbounded 
 light. To such, what is the eye of contemplation but a snare 
 of perdition ? Persons of this description are to be warned 
 that they content themselves with the exercises of active life, 
 without presuming to ascend the mount of contemplation; 
 for as it is written, ' The carnal mind receiveth not the things 
 of the Spirit of God ;' and, ' to be carnally minded, is death.' 
 For the human mind, unless it repels the desire of external 
 things, does not penetrate those which are internal ; because 
 the more clearly it discerns invisible things, the more per- 
 fectly it despises the things which are seen. Therefore, 
 although God is in his nature invisible and incomprehen- 
 sible, yet by the purified and holy mind, which seeks only 
 the things that are above, he is, even here, seen without 
 sight, heard without sound, received without motion, touched, 
 though immaterial, present, though not circumscribed by 
 place. 
 
 " Having premised these necessary things, T beseech you, 
 dear lady, that if you find any persons who wish to have this 
 
NO. XIX.] OF FESCAMP. 321 
 
 book, you would admonish them to copy it carefully, and to 
 read it over several times after they have written it, so that 
 they may not suffer any thing to be added, omitted, or 
 altered. We say this because of the carelessness of book- 
 writers, who not only corrupt the truth, but add lie to he. 
 May God be with you, and may his hand strengthen yovi, 
 that, becoming like the living creature with wings and eyes, 
 you may every day make progress in both modes of life — 
 now with Martha actively serving Christ in his members, 
 now with Mary sitting in contemplation at the feet of the 
 Lord, and intently listening to the words of his mouth — so 
 that, by well doing and pure contemplation, you may arrive 
 at that beatific vision in which the Son speaketh openly of 
 the Father. And to this, for his mercy and his goodness 
 sake, may he vouchsafe to lead his servants and his hand- 
 maids — He who descended to these things that are below, 
 that we might rise to those which are above, who stooped 
 that he might raise us, who became weak that he might 
 make us strong, who took our life that he might give us his — 
 for He, the only begotten, is co-eternal with the Father, who 
 liveth and reigneth with him in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 
 God throughout all ages. Amen. 
 
 " I, John, the lowest of the servants of Christ, and the 
 brethren who are with me, salute you in Christ ; O blessed 
 lady, pious mother of the poor, and noble ornament of widow- 
 hood, farewell. 
 
 " May the Omnipotent Trinity ever keep you in its will ^" 
 
 Digression ? this is anything in the world but a 
 digression. I am telling a plain story in the most 
 straightforward way imaginable. To be sure, the story, 
 as far as I have yet got, might have been comprised in 
 three words, " Udalricus monachus Cluniacensis ;" or, 
 I might have said, " At Clugni there was a monk named 
 Ulric" — for this is, I admit, all the progress which we 
 have yet made in the story, without having even ex- 
 plained how he came there ; but then my readers 
 would have slipped over it at once ; and, as it respects 
 
 7 Mab. ubi sup p. 133. 
 
322 ULRIC, A MONK [NO. XIX. 
 
 too many, I might quite as well have been more brief 
 still, and (giving letters instead of words to represent 
 what were, in fact, unknown quantities) I might have 
 said, " at x there was a y named zV This would have 
 conveyed to many persons, whose knowledge on other 
 subjects is accurate and extensive, nearly as much in- 
 formation as to the where, the what, and the who. 
 Yet it is most particularly this which I wish to be 
 understood ; and, therefore, as to the first, I have very 
 slightly traced Clugni up to the time in question ; I 
 have endeavoured, by the way, to give some idea of 
 what it was to be a monk there, and now we are 
 arrived at the who — who was Ulric ? and how can I 
 answer the question without saying something of his 
 royal patroness? and what would be the use of only 
 saying that Ulric was the favourite of the Empress 
 Agnes, when not one man in a hundred has taken the 
 pains to satisfy himself of her existence, and fewer still 
 have formed any opinion whether she was likely to 
 patronize a young courtier for his virtues or for his 
 vices ? And how could I speak of her without saying 
 something about the little abbot, even supposing that 
 I had no wish to bring him in, or to give the reader 
 an incidental peep at the mysticism (1 use the word 
 with reverence) of the dark ages? — a subject which 
 seems to me most interesting and instructive, of which 
 I have hitherto said nothing, and of which I believe 
 little, if anything, ever has been said in our language. 
 But, without any such collateral view, it was quite 
 necessary to mention the little Abbot John ; and, 
 indeed, I had it in my mind to have said something 
 about his correspondence with William the Conqueror ; 
 only then I thought some persons would really charge 
 me with digression — especially those for whose sake I 
 thought of doing it, and who might not be aware that 
 I only went out of my way in order to hook the matter 
 
NO. XIX.] OF CLUGNI. 323 
 
 over one of the very few pegs which the minds of 
 people in general present, on which to hang the occur- 
 rences of the dark ages. 
 
 So I say nothing of it ; but go straight on with 
 Ulric, who was (though not yet) a monk of Clugni. I 
 wish I knew more of his uncle, who was Bishop of 
 Frisingen ; but all that I find is, that (led, I presume, 
 by the disposition of the youth which has been de- 
 scribed) he invited him to come to him, ordained him, 
 and at length made him Prior of the Canons. While 
 he held this station, he was accompanying the Emperor 
 on a journey into Lombardy, with a view to proceed 
 into Italy, when he learned that the body of which he 
 was a member were in great distress, through a famine 
 which extended over several districts. He obtained 
 reluctant permission from the Emperor, and returned 
 in haste, mortgaged his hereditary possessions, and 
 relieved the distress of others beside his own brethren. 
 After this, he determined on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. 
 *' The anxieties and labours which he underwent by the 
 way," says his biographer, " namely, in the badness of 
 the roads, by perils from men and by sea, I pass over 
 briefly, lest the prolixity of my narrative should tire 
 the reader. But this I ought by no means to omit, 
 that every day, before he mounted his horse, he repeated 
 the Psalms." On his return he found that his uncle 
 was dead, and that the see of Frisingen, as well as his 
 own priorate, was filled by a successor. He had, as has 
 been already stated, mortgaged his .private property, 
 and he was therefore somewhat at a loss for a mainte- 
 nance. The prior of the canons of Ratisbon, however, 
 who was his relation, kindly took him in until he could 
 redeem his estates. Having at length effected this, his 
 first idea was to found a monastery ; but the circum- 
 stances of the times, and the irreligion of the bishops 
 (says his monkish biographer), prevented his fulfilling 
 
 y2 
 
324 ULRIC, A MONK [nO. XIX. 
 
 that design, and he therefore determined to devote 
 himself, and all that he had, to the Lord, and to 
 embrace the monastic life. He began, therefore, to 
 distribute his goods to the poor, among whom he very 
 justly numbered the nuns of a convent near Ratisbon, 
 whose finances were so low that they were obliged to 
 be content with an allowance of half a pound of bread 
 (part white and part black) per day. He gave them 
 land enough to provide them with a pound of white 
 bread per day, and also to enable them to maintain 
 seven poor persons. Having thus disposed of all his 
 property, except so much as was necessary for the 
 effecting his purpose, he resolved to enter into a mo- 
 nastery. He was unwilling to go alone, and persuaded 
 Gerald, a scholar of Ratisbon, to accompany him ; and 
 having formed this resolution, they first made a pil- 
 grimage to Rome, and then, having heard a high cha- 
 racter of Clugni (cujus religionem longe lateque prsedi- 
 cari audierant) they determined to go thither. There 
 they were received by the Abbot Hugo, who, as I 
 have already said, had obtained that office in the year 
 1049. 
 
 We may dismiss Gerald at once by saying that he 
 afterwards became Bishop of Ostia. As to Ulric, I 
 need not repeat all that his biographer tells us of his 
 mild, humble, and affectionate disposition; he loved, 
 and was beloved by, all, but especially shewed his con- 
 stant care and kindness to the novices. Considering 
 them as persons peculiarly in want of instruction and 
 consolation, he sent for them and taught them with 
 assiduous benevolence. Indeed he seems to have had 
 not only a talent, but a taste, for this sort of teaching, 
 which led him into a practice somewhat out of the 
 common way, and which gave offence to some of his 
 brethren. He used to write "sweet and salubrious" 
 letters of advice, and to send them privately to abbots 
 
NO. XIX.] OF CLUGNI. 325 
 
 and monks, confirming the moral and religious, and 
 recalling those who had erred from the way of truth. 
 Some of the monks made a formal complaint, but the 
 "abbas discretissimus" seems to have thought that 
 there was no great harm in the matter ; and, in fact, 
 the next thing of which we read shews that his confi- 
 dence in Ulric was undiminished — perhaps increased — 
 by what transpired during the inquiry. Ulric was sent 
 to take the superintendence of a nunnery which the 
 abbot had founded at Marcigni. While there, owing 
 to his long vigils and his continual writing, (per scri- 
 bendi laborem continuum,) he suffered from pain in his 
 head. To relieve this, he washed his head with worm- 
 wood, and on one occasion he managed so to get a 
 fragment into his eye that he could not get it out. 
 Having suffered from it for six months, he returned to 
 Clugni, and begged leave to resign his charge. 
 
 Shortly after this, Lutold, the rich and powerful lord 
 of the castle of Rumelingen, and his wife, having no 
 children, signified their intention of devoting their pro- 
 perty to the service of God, and offered it on the altar 
 of St. Peter and St. Paul, at Clugni. On his request 
 that some of the brethren might be sent with him to 
 found a monastery, Ulric and another were deputed for 
 that purpose. They chose a site ; but, winter coming 
 on, they were obliged to defer the building until the 
 spring ; and in the meantime, declining the society of 
 the laymen among whom they were cast, they retired 
 to a cave about two miles off, where they proposed to 
 live in solitude. In this they were disappointed ; for 
 Ulric having preached to some few strangers who came 
 to look at them from curiosity, the numbers increased, 
 and he was soon surrounded by multitudes of the rude 
 natives. Christians only in name, to whom he had an 
 opportunity of making known the gospel. 
 
 After the winter, they set to work, and were cor- 
 
326 ULRIC, A MONK [nO. XIX. 
 
 dially assisted by all the neighbourhood, except two 
 priests, who were afraid that they should lose their fees 
 by the erection of this monastery, and who therefore 
 did all they could to set the people against the monks 
 and their design. One of these priests told his congre- 
 gation, in the course of a sermon, that a certain poison- 
 ous herb was springing up in that part of the country, 
 which, if it came to bear fruit, would fill the whole 
 land with its poison. The simple people were horror- 
 struck, and inquired if there were no marks by which 
 they might distinguish, and no means by which they 
 might eradicate, such a perilous plant; and the 
 preacher enlightened them by saying, " Those monks 
 coming into these parts from the monastery of Clugni, 
 full of deceit, avarice, and envy, expose you to great 
 danger ; for if they get a footing among you, and cause 
 the hurtful seeds of their preaching to grow up in your 
 hearts, whatever good work may have been wrought in 
 you by my care will soon be destroyed, and you will 
 bring forth no fruit of virtue. Having, therefore, 
 prayed to God that his divine goodness would vouch- 
 safe to remove them from you, earnestly pray also that 
 their deceitful doctrine and feigned sanctity may not 
 deceive your senses, and (which God forbid) draw you 
 aside from the way of salvation." Some of his hearers 
 implicitly followed his directions, and forthwith began 
 to pray, but the more prudent hesitated. Soon after, 
 the priest was benighted, and fairly lost his way, and 
 saw no alternative but to ask for shelter from the 
 monks, who were perfectly aware of his feelings and 
 practices against them. Between hope and fear, he 
 resolved to try the experiment. Ulric went out to 
 meet him, received him cheerfully, and, according to 
 monastic rule, first led him to prayers, then embraced 
 him, and gave him the kiss of peace, talked kindly with 
 him, and shewed him all hospitality. The next day, 
 
NO. XIX.] OF CLUGNI. 327 
 
 after having been kindly dismissed, the priest's con- 
 science smote him, and on the succeeding Sunday he 
 frankly told his congregation that he had been to blame 
 in abusing the monks, and instead of telling them as 
 before, to pray against Ulric and his companion, he 
 besought them to pray that God would pardon the sin 
 which he had committed in defaming them. Sincere 
 friendship ensued, and the priest and his parishioners 
 set to work with all their heart to help the monks 
 build the monastery. 
 
 I mention these circumstances because they throw 
 light on our general subject ; but it would be tedious 
 to particularize all that Ulric did in this way. He was 
 evidently considered a peculiarly fit person to be em- 
 ployed in founding cells and monasteries, and bringing 
 them into order, being, as his biographer says, " in 
 omni norma coenobialis vitae ad unguem edoctus." Yet, 
 with all his engagement in active business, Ulric was a 
 reading, thinking, praying man ; and his biographer 
 recounts the circle of his principal employments as 
 prayer, reading, teaching, copying, and composing. It 
 is enough here to say, that he founded the monastery 
 of La Celle, and presided over it from its foundation 
 until his death. He had long lost the sight of one eye, 
 and two years before his death he became totally blind. 
 During that period he devoted himself, with less avo- 
 cation, to prayer, psalmody, and listening to sacred 
 reading ; and he died, at an advanced age, in the year 
 1093. 
 
 Ulric was a monk of Clugni — that is all which I 
 wish the reader to take with him, and we will at once 
 change the scene for the Black Forest, in the diocese 
 of Spier. At the same time that Hugo was Abbot of 
 Clugni, and was extending its fame and dependencies 
 by the ministry of Ulric, the monastery of Hirschau 
 was governed by the Abbot William. He was a Bava- 
 
328 WILLIAM, ABBOT [nO. XIX. 
 
 rian by birth, and bom of honest parents, who offered 
 him in his childhood at the monastery of St. Emme- 
 ram, in Ratisbon, where he was educated, and made 
 great proficiency both in sacred and profane learning — 
 tam in divinis scripturis, quam in sseculari philosophia 
 doctissimus evasit. "No one," adds Trithemius, the 
 historian of his monastery, " ever saw him idle, no one 
 engaged in frivolous pursuits ; he was always devoted 
 to prayer and reading, or some manual occupation 
 which his obedience required. He became very learned 
 in all sorts of knowledge, and in a short time made 
 such progress in what are called the liberal arts, that 
 he got beyond his teachers. In philosophy he became 
 a most acute disputant ; in music he was unusually 
 learned, and composed many and various chants in 
 honour of the saints. How skilful he was in astro- 
 nomy, mathematics, and arithmetic, his works testify : 
 on these subjects he bestowed much pains ®." I need 
 not add to this all that we are told of his virtues as an 
 abbot, or of his fame, honour, and extended influence. 
 
 Still less need I recount the miracles which he is 
 said to have performed, or even notice any but one, 
 which Trithemius himself, though he records the others, 
 declares to be the greatest. Indeed, I see no reason 
 to suppose that the abbot ever pretended to any such 
 power as some of his admirers seem to have supposed 
 that he must have possessed; but Trithemius, after 
 mentioning some wonderful things ascribed to him, 
 while for the sake of brevity he omitted others, adds — 
 " But of all his miracles I consider this to have been 
 the greatest — that, in the midst of a perverse nation, 
 he shone forth as a most excellent man ; and in so dan- 
 gerous a time of discord between the church and the 
 state, he maintained an unspotted course in the paths 
 
 ^ Chron. Hirsaug. Tom. I. p. 221, sub an. 1070. 
 
NO. XIX.] OF HIRSCHAU. 329 
 
 of righteousness." He goes on to say that the Abbot 
 William restored the order of St. Benedict, which had 
 almost fallen into ruin in Germany ; and that he was, 
 either by himself or his agents, the means of founding 
 eight monasteries, and restoring more than an hundred ; 
 so that, next to the reformation wrought by the found- 
 ation and influence of Clugni, his work of reform was 
 the most important which was to be found in the 
 annals of his order. The monks of his own monastery 
 (whom, notwithstanding that he was continually send- 
 ing them out to the monasteries which he founded or 
 restored, he contrived to keep up to the number of an 
 hundred and fifty) " were perpetually employed, either 
 in the performance of divine service, or in prayer, medi- 
 tation, and sacred reading. Those who appeared less 
 fit to be employed in sacred things were appointed to 
 perform such manual labours as were necessary, so that 
 none of their time might pass in idleness. The holy 
 father, knowing, moreover, what he had learned by 
 laudable experience, that sacred reading is the neces- 
 sary food of the mind, made twelve of his monks very 
 excellent writers, to whom he committed the office of 
 transcribing the holy scriptures and the treatises of the 
 fathers. Beside these, there were an indefinite number 
 of other scribes, who wrought with equal diligence in 
 the transcription of other books. Over them was a 
 monk well versed in all kinds of knowledge, whose 
 business it was to appoint some good work as a task 
 for each, and to correct the mistakes of those who 
 wrote negligently. In the course of time" [for William 
 was abbot two and twenty years] " the monks wrote a 
 great many volumes ; but a very small part remained 
 at Hirschau ; for the holy father, who was always more 
 anxious to win and to profit souls than about all things 
 else in the world, whenever he sent forth any of the 
 monks to other monasteries to reform them, cheerfully. 
 
330 WILLIAM, ABBOT [NO. XIX. 
 
 and of his own free will, gave them books, and whatever 
 else they thought necessary; and forasmuch as the 
 monasteries which he reformed were many, a very 
 small part of the great multitude of books which he 
 caused to be transcribed remained at Hirschau. Oh, 
 every way praiseworthy man, who preferred souls re- 
 deemed by the blood of Christ to the advantage of 
 transitory gain, and consulted the benefit of others 
 instead of seeking the perishable riches of the world ! 
 Truly this is a virtue to be found in few — that abbots 
 should strip their own monasteries, either of ornaments 
 or books, to supply the wants of others ^." 
 
 The Abbot William himself may now tell that part 
 of his history for the sake of which I have introduced 
 him : — 
 
 "After that I, brother William, had been called, by the 
 providence of God and the election of the brethren of 
 Hirschau, to the government of that place, I appointed for 
 them, in the first instance, those customs of monastic life 
 which I had learned from my childhood in the monastery of 
 St. Emmeram ; but as, through the gradual negligence of 
 monastic rigour which succeeded, there seemed to be in 
 many things a degeneracy from that high tone of life and 
 conversation which it imparts, I resolved that, wherever, 
 either by seeing or hearing, or by reading sacred books, I 
 should meet with things tending to improve the conversation 
 of the brethren, I would collect them together, as living 
 stones for the erection of a spiritual building. And while I 
 commended this my resolution with earnest and constant 
 prayer to Him * who fulfils the desire of his faithful in good 
 things '",' through the wonderful and merciful providence of 
 God, that venerable man, worthy to be had in remembrance 
 by all good men, Bernard, Abbot of Marseilles, having 
 executed his office as apostolical legate, came to us, and, 
 owing to the difficulty of prosecuting his journey as he 
 
 9 Trith. ubi sup. 227. 
 
 " Qui replet in bonis desiderium fidelium suorutn. — Vvlg. Ps. cii, 5. 
 
NO. XIX.] OF HIRSCHAU. .331 
 
 desired, stayed with us nearly a year. After he had parti- 
 cularly examined the mode of life pursued by our monks, 
 and the state of our monastery, he one day, in the course of 
 conversation on other matters relating to a spiritual life, thus 
 addressed me : — * I see, my dearest brother, that this place is 
 remarkably adapted to monastic life, and the monks appear 
 to be animated with a most ardent desire to lead a life of 
 holiness and righteousness; but I should like to know by 
 whom you have been chiefly guided as to your regulations, 
 and from what monastery in particular you have derived 
 those customs which are traditional }' I replied : — ^ It is our 
 desire, as far as we can, to imitate all the religious men of 
 our order ; but if, in any point where we have erred, you will 
 condescend to bring us back into the right way, you may 
 rest assured that we shall be most prompt to follow wherever 
 your good coimsel may lead us.' — 'Your manner of life,* 
 said he, ' as far as my poor judgment goes, seems to be such 
 as must be acceptable to God, and admirable in the eyes 
 of all wise men ; but even if it were more glorious, and (if I 
 may so speak) were shining forth with apostolic signs and 
 powers, yet, to those who are simply looking for the perfec- 
 tion of monastic life, it would be rendered more graceful and 
 acceptable if it were assimilated to regularly constituted 
 monasteries in dress, tonsure, and other customs. And, if 
 you ask my opinion, among all the monasteries of Cisalpine 
 Gaul I should most particularly recommend you to select 
 Clugni, where, both by the authority of the most perfect 
 monks, and the lapse of a great length of time, the monastic 
 life has grown up to such a degree of strength and splendor, 
 that if there are still any traces of holiness to be seen in 
 other monasteries, there can be no doubt that these little 
 streams have flowed from thence as from a living and inex- 
 haustible spring.' In these and similar admonitions he was, 
 as we say, spurring the free horse ; and having finished the 
 diplomatic business for which he had come, he returned 
 home. By the way, he visited Clugni, and most particularly 
 commended us to the abbot, so as to predispose him to shew 
 us all kindness, in case we should apply to him. About the 
 same time, Ulric, a senior monk of Clugni, who was, through 
 the providence of God, sent into Germany on some business 
 relating to his monastery, stayed some time with us ; and as 
 
 1 
 
332 ULRIC ON THE [nO. XX. 
 
 we had formerly been on the most intimate terms, and he 
 had had long experience in the discipline of Clugni, I asked 
 him to write out their customs for our benefit. He consented, 
 promised, and, according to his promise, he wrote two books 
 concerning those customs for us. Afterwards, considering 
 that many things were wanting in those books for a full 
 knowledge of the customs, I first sent two of our monks, 
 then two more, and afterwards a third couple, to Clugni, 
 who so thoroughly investigated all the most obscure things 
 of that order, that their teachers, in whose hearing they 
 recited what they had written on the customs, affirmed that 
 there had never been any scholars in that spiritual school 
 who had more fully or more truly understood the nature of 
 their institution ^." 
 
 No. XX. 
 
 " The abbots took the scriptures from their monks, lest some should 
 ever bark against the abbots' living, and set up such long service and 
 singing, to weary them withal, that they should have no leisure to read in 
 the scripture but with their lips, and made them good cheer to fill their 
 bellies, and to stop their mouths."— Tyndalb's Pkactice of Prelates. 
 
 When Ulric (who, the reader may recollect, was a 
 monk of Clugni) had written his book, he sent it to the 
 Abbot William, at whose request, and for whose bene- 
 fit, he had composed it. With it he sent a letter, some 
 part of which is so much to our purpose that I must 
 make an extract : — 
 
 *'To the most reverend lord, and most pious father, 
 Wilham, Abbot of Hirschau, and to the holy company of 
 monks under his government, brother Ulric, a monk, such 
 as he is, wishes health in the Lord, and his most speedy 
 blessing here and hereafter. 
 
 '* The daily remembrance of yourself, and of your monas- 
 
 Mab. Anal. p. 1 54. 
 
NO. XX.] CUSTOMS OF CLUGNI. 333 
 
 tery, dearest father, has really become so habitual to me 
 that now, through the mere force of habit, as well as of 
 affection, it would be impossible for any day to pass over 
 without it. Sometimes, too, I have the very agreeable and 
 grateful recollection of your promise that you would be on 
 your guard against the disposition of some secular persons 
 who, caring very little for aught but the things of this world, 
 when they have got a house, as I may say, full of sons and 
 daughters— or if any of their children should be halt, or 
 maimed, or deaf, or blind, or deformed, or leprous, or with 
 anything about him that may render him less acceptable to 
 the world, they are wonderfully anxious to devote him to the 
 service of God, and make a monk of him ; though it is 
 obviously not for God's sake, but only that they may rid 
 themselves of the burden of educating and maintaining such 
 children, or be able to do more for their others. To say 
 nothing, therefore, of those who do not want bodily health 
 and sound limbs, what evils have we known to arise from 
 those who can only be called half-men, or, at least, only half- 
 alive ? Were it expedient, it would be easy to name one who 
 was induced to adopt the habit of sanctity by no other holi- 
 ness than the reproach of scurvy ; and another who, had it 
 not been that his foot, [something wanting in the manu- 
 script,] both of whom, as you can testify, set no very good 
 example. How much less, then, can we expect from those 
 who are in good health, wherever they are collected together 
 in such number, and with such influence, that the regulation 
 of the monastery is in their hands ? Truly, everybody may- 
 know what sort of life and conversation, and what degree of 
 regular discipline, is maintained, if he does but know that 
 monks of this description are at the head of affairs. In fact, 
 it is a thing obvious and notorious, that if any strict disci- 
 pline, in this our spiritual warfare, is to be maintained among 
 the pollutions of our time, it can be only where those who 
 have renounced the world, and embraced the monastic life, 
 not in the age of caprice and levity, or by command of their 
 parents, but of their own free will, at mature age, and in 
 single obedience to the command of Christ, are predominant 
 in number and authority. 
 
 "Your prudence duly weighing this — although you were 
 yourself brought up in a monastery, (for it does sometimes 
 
334 ULRIC ON THE [nO. XX. 
 
 happen that the lily will spring up among thorns,) and being 
 careful for nothing so much as to take all measures of caution, 
 and such as might conduce to the solid estabhshment of 
 religion, you have made a law in your monastery which com- 
 pels the secular persons whom I have mentioned to seek 
 some other nest wherein to deposit their abortive and dis- 
 inherited young ones. By God's providence, they will no 
 longer be able to carry on their practice of laying (as the 
 prophet speaks) cockatrice eggs, and that which * shall be 
 hatched into a basilisk ',' and giving them in charge to pious 
 men, devoted to the service of God, pei-verting their office 
 into that of serving-maids and nurses. Others may form what 
 opinion they please on the subject ; but, for my own part, I 
 am certain that you have struck at the root of that evil by 
 which all those monasteries have been ruined which have 
 fallen either in France or Germany. * * * * 
 You will observe, that, in what I have written, I have repre- 
 sented us as talking together ; for, if you recollect, we did 
 converse a great deal on the subject. And if I should seem 
 to have added anything, yet even this your mouth and your 
 tongue hath spoken, for not only my tongue, but my whole 
 self, is yours ; not to say that Christ hath bound us to each 
 other in the unity of the Spirit, in one body, that is the 
 church — under one head, that is Himself. Yet, since per- 
 sonally I am inconsiderable and obscure, barbarous in name, 
 and rude in style, it has appeared to me that it would be 
 unbecoming to mention such a name as mine, or to follow 
 the usual course of prefixing a preface. Nevertheless, as this 
 compilation, such as it is, consists of three parts, I have begun 
 each of them with some sentences which may pass for a sort 
 of prooemium, chiefly on your account, and that of our other 
 brethren, whose good example, having seen it, I could not 
 willingly pass over in silence." 
 
 Ulric's book is still in existence^; and though we 
 may easily imagine that, when the Abbot William 
 came to act upon the written descriptions of rites and 
 ceremonies and customs, (minute and even prolix as 
 those descriptions may appear to us,) doubts would 
 
 ' Is. Jix. 5. 2 j)ach. Spicil. I. 641. 
 
NO. XX.] CUSTOMS OF CLUGNI. 335 
 
 frequently arise, yet the work is one of the most valu- 
 able and useful relics which time has spared, for giving 
 us an insight into the real nature of monastic life, in 
 the tenth and eleventh centuries. Its actual composi- 
 tion appears to have taken place between the years 
 1077 and 1093, but it must be recollected that it was 
 not so much intended as an account of new inventions, 
 as of long-established customs. In fact, it consisted of 
 the reminiscences of an old man, and had reference to 
 regulations most of which were probably as old as the 
 monastery of Clugni itself The brief prooemium pre- 
 fixed to the first book is as follows : — 
 
 " Our senior lord abbot once sent me into Germany, on 
 what business it is not worth while to state ; what is to the 
 present purpose is, that on that occasion I took the opportu- 
 nity of visiting that venerable man the Lord Abbot William, 
 whose monastery is situated in the Black Forest, in the dio- 
 cese of Spier. This father having been known, and very 
 much attached, to me from a child, received me joyfully ; and 
 when I would have gone further, hke another Cleophas, he 
 made me stay some days longer with him. During this 
 period, I had a great deal of discourse with him, (indeed, so 
 far as he could manage, it was continual,) respecting the cus- 
 toms of our monastery ; a subject which he introduced by 
 saying, ' Your monastery, my dearest brother, through God's 
 mercy, has acquired a great character for religion in our 
 parts ; and we are inclined to think that, among all those of 
 which we have any knowledge, there is none which can com- 
 pare with it in rule and discipline. You will do us a great 
 favour if you will make us acquainted with the customs and 
 regulations of your predecessors. For even if we do not 
 ourselves practise them, it may tend to our edification, in 
 humility, to know that your life and conversation is such as 
 our infirmity is unable or unwilling to attain to.' I replied, 
 ' I am going to eat your bread, and it were unreasonable that 
 I should hesitate to fulfil your wishes. At the same time, 
 one who has only lived in our monastery as almost a barba- 
 rian unto them in respect of language, and not brought up 
 there from childhood, cannot be expected to have such a per- 
 
336 ULRIC ON THE [XO. XX. 
 
 feet knowledge on all points as if he had been a native of the 
 country, and educated in those customs from infancy. You 
 must not, therefore, be surprised if I do not know much, 
 who, during almost the first thirty years of my life, cared but 
 little for aught but the things of this world. What I do 
 know, however, I shall willingly tell : what, then, will you 
 put as your first question ?' " 
 
 The first chapter, which is entitled Qumnodo Testa- 
 mentum legatur utrumque, then begins in the following 
 manner : — 
 
 ^'Question. — I hear that your lessons in the winter and on 
 common nights are very long; will you be pleased to state at 
 once the manner in which the Old and New Testament is 
 read, both in summer and winter? 
 
 "Answer. — To begin with the most ancient of all the books, 
 that is, the Octateuch — this book, according to general cus- 
 tom, and as it is in other churches, is appointed to be read in 
 Septuagesima. On the Sunday itself there are but short 
 lessons; except, that, for the first, the whole of that pro- 
 logue, Desiderii mei *, is read. During the following nights, 
 the lessons are so much increased, that in one week the whole 
 book of Genesis is read through in the church only. On 
 Sexagesima, Exodus is begun, and, together with the other 
 books which are read, it also is read, both in the church and 
 in the refectory ; so that where the lesson finished one day 
 shall be the beginning of the lesson for the next ; and the 
 whole Octateuch is read through, if not before, by the begin- 
 ning of Lent. Lessons are, however, taken from it for the 
 Sundays in Lent ; but on the other nights during that 
 period, St. Augustine's exposition of the Psalms, and espe- 
 cially of the Songs of Degrees, is read ; and as the nights 
 then grow shorter and shorter, so do the lessons. Care 
 must, however, be taken that they are not so abbreviated as 
 not to allow sufficient time for the brother who goes the 
 round, both within and without the choir, with his dark 
 lantern*, to see if any one has gone to sleep during the 
 
 ^ That isj St. Jerome's. 
 
 ■* Perhaps it is not quite correct to call it a " dark " lantern ; but I sup- 
 pose it to have been a light so enclosed as to shine only in one direction, 
 
NO. XX.] OF CLUGNI. 337 
 
 lesson. In the passion of our Lord, the prophet Jeremiah 
 is read; and, as before, the prologue forms the first lesson. 
 It is, however, read in the church only, and so as that before 
 Holy Thursday it is finished as far as Lamentations. In 
 Easter week, the Acts of the Apostles are read ; and for 
 one week only; during which, from the shortness of the 
 nights, it is impossible that much should be read. After this, 
 for two w^eeks, the Revelation, and the canonical epistles, 
 until Ascension Day. Then the Acts of the Apostles are 
 again appointed, and are again read, (as if they had not been 
 read before,) from the beginning, until Pentecost. These 
 same books, however, are not the less read regularly and 
 throughout in the refectory; where, also, are read, in their 
 appointed seasons, the books of Kings, of Solomon, of Job, 
 of Tobit, Judith, Esther, Ezra, and the Maccabees, which 
 are all read only in the refectory, and not at all in the church; 
 except the short extracts which may be made from any of 
 them for the Sundays. From the calends of November, the 
 lessons for common nights are doubled. The prophet Ezekiel 
 is appointed to be read in the church only; and is cus- 
 tomarily finished before the feast of St. Martin ; and although 
 we celebrate the octaves of that feast with singing, and with 
 other solemnities, yet the prophetical lessons are not changed, 
 nor, indeed, are they on other octaves, unless they would 
 make twelve lessons. Then the prophet Daniel and the 
 twelve minor prophets, which would not hold out if we did 
 not add, after the last of them, from the homilies of the 
 
 or through a single aperture, so that it might be thrown on any particular 
 object. Ulric's words in this place are, " qui circam facit cum absconsa ;" 
 but in the 8th chapter of his second book, entitled, " Quomodo laternam 
 ligneam portare debet ad Nocturnos," he gives a further account of the 
 matter. Describing what ought to be the conduct of a monk, under 
 various circumstances, he says, " If, however, during the lessons, he who 
 carries round the wooden lantern should come to him, and, supposing him 
 to be asleep, should throw the light on his face, let him, if awake, bow 
 reverently. But, if he was asleep, and the lantern shall have been placed 
 before him, as soon as he is waked he must take it up, and first examine 
 the right side of the choir ; and then, returning through the middle, do 
 the same in the outer choir, and lastly, the left side. Should he find any 
 one asleep, he must throw the light in his eyes three times ; if, on the 
 third time, he does not wake, he must place the lantern before him, that 
 when he is awaked he may take it up, and carry it in like manner." 
 
 Z 
 
338 CUSTOMS OF CLUGNI. [NO. XX. 
 
 blessed Pope Gregory on Ezekiel. In Advent, Isaiah the 
 prophet is appointed ; and when I inquired about this, and 
 wished to learn in how many nights it ought, in strictness, to 
 be read through, I could not learn from anybody, and I can 
 only say what I recollect to have heard and seen. When I 
 was there, it was sometimes read through in six common 
 nights. After this, follow the Epistles of Pope Leo on the 
 Incarnation of our Lord ; and other discourses of the holy 
 fathers, and chiefly of St. Augustine. The epistles are ap- 
 pointed for that Sunday which first occurs after Innocents' 
 Day, provided that day is neither the Circumcision nor the 
 Anniversary of the Lord Odilo. And here, again, I must 
 say as I did of the prophet ; for different persons think dif- 
 ferently ; and I must again state what I saw. Such an epistle 
 as that to the Romans was read through in two common 
 nights ; .and when one of the monks who portioned out the 
 lessons had made them shorter, he was prohibited by our 
 seniors in chapter. If, however, it should happen that the 
 epistles were finished before Septuagesima, they read John 
 Chrysostom's Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 Now, you see, I have in some fashion gone round the circle 
 of the year ; and let us, if you please, proceed to something 
 else." 
 
 The Abbot William then proceeds to elicit a very 
 minute, and (to say the truth) prolix, account of the 
 psalmody at Clugni, which it would be useless to 
 extract, because that matter may be settled in a very 
 few words, so far as is necessary for our purpose. A 
 monk was expected to know the Psalter by heart. 
 Martene, in his commentary on the rule of St. Bene- 
 dict, quotes and acquiesces in the observation that 
 the words *' legantur" and " dicantur" had been used 
 advisedly, and with a design to intimate that the les- 
 sons were to be read from a book, but the psalms were 
 to be said or sung by memory. He also quotes, from 
 several of the ancient rules, proofs that means of 
 instruction were used, which render it probable that 
 this was practicable, and was required. From Pacho- 
 
NO. XX.] MONASTIC PSALMODY. 339 
 
 mius, " He who will renounce the world .... must 
 remain a few days outside the gate, and shall be taught 
 the Lord's Prayer, and as many psalms as he can 
 learn;" and again, "There shall be nobody whatever 
 (omnino nullus) in the monastery who will not learn to 
 read, and get by heart some part of the scriptures ; at 
 the least (quod minimum est) the New Testament and 
 Psalter." St. Basil, " If any one who is in good health 
 shall neglect to oflfer prayers, and to commit the psalms 
 to memory, making sinful excuses, let him be separated 
 from the society of the others, or let him fast for a 
 week." St. Ferreol, " No one who claims the name of 
 a monk can be allowed to be ignorant of letters. 
 Moreover, he must know all the psalms by heart." 
 He gives several instances which it is not worth while 
 to quote, but one incidental proof which he produces is 
 curious ; because, though I really believe that it is to 
 his purpose, yet it might appear, at first sight, to wear 
 a contrary aspect. Referring to the catalogue of the 
 library of the monastery of St. Riquier, which I have 
 more than once had occasion to notice, he observes that 
 in this monastery, where there were at least three hun- 
 dred monks and one hundred boys, there were but 
 seven psalters. As to the number of psalms which 
 were daily repeated by the monks of Clugni, it may be 
 sufficient, instead of the more particular account of 
 Ulric, to give the statement of the biographer of Abbot 
 Odo, whom I have had repeated occasion to quote. 
 He tells us that, in his time, they had, in compassion 
 to infirmity of weak brethren, (propter pusillanimorum 
 animos) abbreviated the daily course by taking away 
 fourteen psalms from the original number of a hundred 
 and thirty-eighth 
 
 * Mab. A. S. vii. 159. I have said something before, and it would be 
 easy to say a good deal, about repeating the Psalms. Ulric himself, as I 
 
 z 2 
 
340 MONASTIC PSALMODY. [nO. XX. 
 
 There is another point referred to in the extract from 
 Ulric, of which it may be right to take some notice. 
 
 have stated, spent the extremity of his old age in psalmody, as well as in 
 prayer and hearing sacred reading ; and I am tempted to add another case 
 of an old monk, not because I believe the thing to have been at all sin- 
 gular, but through some circumstances connected with the man. When 
 Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, was travelling in France, in or soon after the 
 year 1195, an old monk at Clairvaux, so well known as St. Bernard's 
 monastery, sent to say that, if he could make it convenient to give him a 
 call, he should be glad to see him, for he had long desired it. I rather 
 think that they were old friends : but I cannot take upon me to say. 
 However, the biographer of the Bishop of Lincoln records that he did 
 go to see this old monk, " who, being of a great age, had resigned his 
 pastoral charge, only retaining (by the pope's order) the insignia of his 
 former rank, [the author of the article in the Gallia Christiana, iv. 128, to 
 whom I am indebted for the extract, here inserts, in a parenthesis, that he 
 had learned elsewhere that this monk had also a reserved pension of 
 thirteen pounds,] devoted himself, in that monastery, to holy contempla- 
 tion." He adds, that on the bishop's inquiring what part of the scripture 
 was the subject of his meditation, he replied, that meditation on the 
 Psalms had come to engross all his thoughts — " Psalmorum meditatio 
 sola jam penitus totum sibi me vindicavit." I do not know why he 
 retired to Clairvaux, unless it was from respect to the memory of St. Ber- 
 nard, for whom he seems to have had a peculiar veneration. He was the 
 spokesman when, between forty and fifty years after the canonization of 
 Bernard, the monks of Clairvaux wished to have a collect and prayers 
 drawn up by the pope for the commemoration of the good abbot. Inno- 
 cent HL granted the request, and sent the prayers to our old monk with a 
 letter, in which he said, " Petisti namque rogatus a fratribus ut ad honorem 
 Bernardi primi Clarevallensis Abbatis, quem apostolica sedes sanctorum 
 adscripserat catalogo venerandum, nos ipsi collectam et alias orationes ore 
 proprio dictaremus turn propter auctoritatem dictantis, turn propter stylum 
 dictaminis, cum majori devotione dicendas, Et ecce sicut potuimus," 
 &c. — Ldb. V. Ep. 60. It is not, however, by anything which he did after 
 he got to Clairvaux that this old monk is known to the world. Those who 
 have read the very interesting papers on the history of Thomas a Becket 
 in the British Magazine, may remember John, Bishop of Poitiers, the 
 friend of the Archbishop, of John of Salisbury, and Stephen of Tour- 
 nay. But neither is it for anything that he did in that office that he is 
 particularly known, nor is it under that name that he has been, and con- 
 tinues to be, held up to the horror and execration of Christians, for his 
 malicious fierceness against the true doctrine of Christ, and as one of the 
 members of antichrist, " who could neither abide that the scriptures should 
 be declared by any other, nor would they take the pains to declare them 
 themselves ;" in short, he was the very man who excommunicated Peter 
 Waldo — that is, if (as is commonly said) Peter Waldo was excommu- 
 nicated by Jean aux Bellemains, Archbishop of Lyons. 
 
NO. XX.] READING AT MEALS. 341 
 
 He speaks of some books of scripture which were read 
 in the refectory, as contradistinguished from others 
 which were read only in divine service. This custom 
 of reading at meals was not exclusively monastic, and 
 is too important a feature, in a view of the literature of 
 the Dark Ages, to be passed over without some notice. 
 Eginhart tells us that Charlemagne, while at supper, 
 heard either some diverting story or a reader. Histo- 
 ries and the deeds of ancient kinoes were read to him. 
 He delighted, also, in the books of Saint Augustine, 
 and especially in those which he entitled, "Z)<? Civitate 
 Deir I have before referred to the custom, in the 
 case of a person of less distinction ; and if it existed 
 among the laity, we shall not wonder to find it among 
 the clergy. As to bishops, it was directed (I do not 
 mean to say, as a new thing,) by the second Council of 
 Rheims, in the year 813. The seventeenth canon 
 directs, " That bishops and abbots shall not allow low 
 buffooneries to be acted in their presence, but shall 
 have the poor and needy at their table, and that sacred 
 reading shall be heard there ^" — lectio divina ibi per- 
 sonet. The same thing was enjoined, also, by the 
 Council of Pavia, held about the year 850, and I think 
 that the reader who wishes to form an idea of that 
 period will not be displeased to see the three first 
 canons of that council : — 
 
 "I. The holy synod has decreed that the domestic and 
 private life of a bishop ought to be above all scandal and 
 suspicion, so that we may (according to the apostle) provide 
 things honest, not only before God, but before all men. It 
 is meet, therefore, that in the chamber of the bishop, and for 
 all more private service, priests and clerks of sound judgment 
 should be in attendance ; who, while their bishop is engaged 
 in watching, praying, and searching the scriptures, may con- 
 
 •^ Cone. vii. 1256. 
 
342 READING AT MEALS. [XO. XX. 
 
 stantly wait on him, and be witnesses, imitators, and (to the 
 glory of God) setters forth, of his holy conversation. 
 
 " II. We decree that bishops shall perform mass, not only 
 on Sundays, and on the principal festivals, but that, when 
 possible, they shall attend the daily sacrifice. Nor shall they 
 think it beneath them to offer private prayers, first for them- 
 selves, then for their brethren of the priesthood, for kings, 
 for all the rulers of the church of God, for those who have 
 particularly commended themselves to their prayers, and 
 especially for the poor ; and to offer the sacrifice of the altar 
 (hostias offerre) to God with that pious compunction, and 
 deep feeling of holy devotion, which belongs to more private 
 ministration, that the priest himself may become a living 
 offering, and a sacrifice to God of a broken spirit. 
 
 "III. It is our pleasure that a bishop should be content 
 with moderate entertainments, and should not urge his guests 
 to eat and drink ; but should rather at all times shew himself 
 a pattern of sobriety. At his table let there be no indecent 
 subjects of discourse; and let no ridiculous exhibitions, no 
 nonsense of silly stories, no foolish talking of the unwise, no 
 buffoon tricks, be admitted. Let the stranger, the poor, the 
 infirm, be there, who, blessing Christ, may receive a blessing 
 from the sacerdotal table. Let there be sacred reading ; let 
 viva voce exhortation follow, that the guests may rejoice in 
 having been refreshed, not only with temporal food, but with 
 the nourishment of spiritual discourse, that God may be 
 glorified in all things through Jesus Christ our Lord ^" 
 
 With regard to monks, however, — at least the 
 monks of the order of St. Benedict, of whom we are 
 speaking ^ — it was a part of their rule which they were 
 not at liberty to dispense with. The thirty-seventh 
 chapter, "De Hebdomadario Lectore," describes the 
 manner in which the reader for the week should per- 
 
 ' Cone. viii. 61. 
 
 * For brevity's sake, I say nothing here of canons, or nuns, or of the 
 various other rules beside that of St. Benedict. If the reader wishes to 
 see how general the custom was, and how frequently the injunction was 
 reiterated, let him look at the " Codex Regularum," or those parts to which 
 Martene refers in his comment on this chapter of the rule of St. Benedict. 
 
NO. XXI.] PETER THE VENERABLE. 343 
 
 form his office, expressly requires that there should be 
 reading at all their meals, and directs that the reader's 
 voice, and his only, should be heard on such occasions, 
 unless the abbot, or other president authority, should 
 choose to offer any brief remark for general edification. 
 It also orders that the brethren shall not read in turn, 
 but such only as may edify the hearers. 
 
 Hitherto I have spoken only of what may be termed 
 public and, with some modifications according to time 
 and place, general means, afforded to the inmates of mo- 
 nasteries for obtaining some knowledge of the word of 
 God. I have said nothing of the means or encourage- 
 ments for private study, but have simply referred to 
 such as were used in the community for the benefit of 
 all. Will it be seriously contended that these men 
 were peculiarly ignorant of the scriptures ? — that spe- 
 cial means were taken to prevent them from knowing 
 the revealed will of God ? " Yes," replies the zealous 
 anti-papist, " but that was all a trick of the pope — the 
 abbots actually set them to this continual reading of 
 the Bible with their lips, to prevent their having lei- 
 sure to read it in any other way." 
 
 Well, that was certainly a very deep trick of the 
 pope; but I expect to shew, by a distinct species of 
 evidence, that it did not succeed with all the poor 
 simple monks on whom he tried it. 
 
 No. XXI. 
 
 " It may be proper just to mention Peter, abbot of Clugny, sumamed 
 the Venerable. That so ignorant and so trifling a writer should have been 
 honoured with a title so magnificent, is one of the strongest marks of the 
 low state of religious knowledge in general at that time." — Milner. 
 
 It may be proper ; — but really, when I sent the pre- 
 ceding paper to the press, I had no idea of saying any- 
 
344 PETER, ABBOT OF CLUGNI. [nO. XXI. 
 
 thing about the abbot Peter. On the contrary, having 
 been led to say so much more than I at first intended 
 about Clugni, I resolved to get away from that subject, 
 for the present, at least, fearing that my readers would 
 be tired of the very name. 
 
 I hope, indeed, that they are aware of my expecta- 
 tion that they may find matter of argument in extracts 
 and anecdotes not less easily, and perhaps more plea- 
 santly, than in systematic arrangements of rules and 
 customs ; yet, for all that, I resolved to be somewhat 
 more methodical in offering a few remarks on what 
 may be called the private reading of the monks, as 
 distinguished from the public reading in the church 
 and refectory. I did not think this necessary in order 
 to rebut the suggestion contained in the motto of the 
 preceding paper, that the monks were kept reading the 
 bible over and over in public, that they might have no 
 opportunity for reading it in private, or for meditating 
 on its contents ; but I thought it was a very important 
 part of our subject, and that we had fairly arrived at it. 
 In the former part of this supposition, I am sure that I 
 was right ; in the latter, it appears that I was wrong, — 
 for, no sooner had I drawn out a regular skeleton — I. 
 What books did the monks read ? II. How did they 
 get them, that is, under what restrictions were they 
 allowed to have the books of the monastery for private 
 use? III. What time had they for private reading? 
 IV. In what places did they read ? — No sooner, I say, 
 had I made out this skeleton from Martene's book, 
 " De Antiquis Monachorum Ritibus," and set to work 
 very methodically to treat first of the first, than I was 
 turned back by my references to Clugni, and found 
 myself involved in a correspondence of Peter the 
 Venerable. It gave a somewhat different direction to 
 my thoughts, and led me to reflect whether (consider- 
 ing the object of these papers) I ought to say so much 
 
NO. XXI.] PONTIUS, ABBOT OF CLUGNI. 345 
 
 about Clugni, without one word of that abbot who is 
 perhaps the only one known, even by name, to many 
 readers of ecclesiastical history, and who is known to 
 many of them only by the sneer of a writer who does 
 not pretend to have seen a line of his works. I say, 
 " considering the design of these papers," for that is, 
 very principally, to meet the general deductions and 
 broad statements which ignorance, infidelity, prejudice, 
 and party, have all, in their turns, and to their mutual 
 edification, drawn from mistaken words, misunderstood 
 or purposely distorted facts, and even mere falsehoods, 
 for which tiresome investigation can hardly find a sha- 
 dow of foundation. 
 
 The reader may perhaps remember — though, under 
 a full persuasion that he does not, I will repeat it 
 — that the Abbot Hugh, whose history I deserted at 
 p. 312 to follow that of his monk, Ulric, presided over 
 the monastery of Clugni for sixty years. In a. d. 1 109, 
 he was succeeded by Pontius de Melgueil, whom it is 
 necessary to mention, not only as a connecting link, 
 but for other reasons which will appear. He was the 
 son of the Count of Melgueil, and is said to have been 
 a godson of Pope Paschal II., and to have been edu- 
 cated at Clugni by his order ^ The same writer who 
 tells us this, goes on to inform us that Pontius " was, 
 from his childhood, docile, affable, and steadfast in vir- 
 tues ; of middle stature, and pale-faced." Perhaps his 
 noble birth, his relation to the pope, and these popular 
 qualities, may account for his having been elected, at a 
 very early age, to succeed an abbot, during the latter 
 part of whose very long reign it seems probable that 
 some degree of laxity had crept into the monastery. 
 
 ^ Odericus Vitalis says—" Consulis Merguliensis filius Regum et Impe- 
 ratorum consanguinitate proximus, Paschalis (II,) filiolus, cujus imperio 
 inter Cluniacenses educatus est."— Hist. L. xii. ap. Gal. Chr. IV. 1134. 
 
346 PONTIUS, ABBOT OF CLUGNI. [nO. XXI. 
 
 The fact, however, of his youth at the time of his elec- 
 tion, is certain, and it is just to him to state it ; though 
 Peter the Venerable, to whom we are indebted for 
 most of what we know about Pontius, allows that, for 
 some years, he conducted himself with considerable 
 moderation and propriety — " satis modeste ac sobrie." 
 
 But somehow, (and I really do not know how,) he 
 became involved in disputes with his monks, and, in 
 process of time, (" multis ac diversis casibus vel causis," 
 Peter says, and it was not necessary, when he wrote, to 
 explain,) he contrived, on some ground or other, to 
 quarrel with them all. The dissension, which had been 
 growing for ten years, and which had been kept as quiet 
 and as private as it could be, at length broke out into 
 a public rupture. Pontius hastened to Rome, and 
 begged the pope to allow him to resign his charge. 
 Calixtus would not hear of such a thing ; but Pontius 
 was resolute, and prevailed. He then set out for Jeru- 
 salem, with a professed intention (if we may credit a 
 succeeding pope, under a vow) to spend the remainder 
 of his days there ^ Calixtus informed the monks of 
 Clugni of their abbot's resignation, and directed them 
 to choose another ; on which they selected Hugh, 
 prior of Marcigni, a nunnery in the diocese of Autun, 
 already mentioned in the history of Ulric ^ He held 
 the office only a few months ; and on his death, a large 
 assembly, consisting of several bishops and abbots, and 
 a great multitude of monks (multus monachorum 
 populus) chose Petrus Mauricius de Monte-Buxerio, 
 or Pierre Maurice de Montboissier, or, as he has since 
 been generally and justly called, Peter the Venerable, 
 to succeed him. 
 
 ^ Honorius says — " Se perpetuo Jerosolymis victurum voto adstrinxe- 
 rat."— Gal. Chr. I. 1136. 
 3 See p. 325. 
 
NO. XXI.] PETER THE VENERABLE. 347 
 
 He was of a noble family iu Auvergne, and was one 
 of several brothers who filled important stations in the 
 church. Heraclius was archbishop of Lyons ; Pontius, 
 abbot of Vezelai ; Jordanus, abbot of La Chaise-Dieu ; 
 Armannus, prior of Clugni, and afterwards abbot of 
 Manlieu. Peter himself was offered by his parents, in 
 bis childhood, at the priory of Soucilanges, or Sauxil- 
 langes, (belonging to Clugni, and about thirty miles 
 S.E. of Clermont in Auvergne,) and, during the abbacy 
 of Pontius at Clugni, he was first prior of Vezelai, and 
 then of Domaine, a considerable cell, dependent on that 
 monastery, but in the diocese of Grenoble *. It was in 
 this character, and when he was about thirty years of 
 age, that he attended the election at Clugni, on the 
 22nd August, 1 1 22 ; when, as I have already stated, 
 he was chosen abbot, and received the benediction 
 from the archbishop of Besan9on on the same day. 
 
 It may well be supposed, that a house divided against 
 itself for ten years had not prospered ; and Peter found 
 it in a sad state at his accession. In a document writ- 
 ten long after, he says — 
 
 "When I was raised to the office, twenty- six years ago, I 
 found a large monastery, religious and famous, but very 
 poor; with great expenses, and, comparatively speaking, 
 scarcely any revenue whatever. There were three hundred 
 
 * " Qualis fuerit infaniia, quantaque assiduitas legendi seu discendi, 
 postea rei probavit eventus. Nam ad tantam scientiae plenitudinem, Dei 
 gratia, in brevi evectus est, quod in ipsa juventutis adolescentia in Vizilia- 
 censi raonasterio seniorum doctor et custos ordinis constitutus est. Quod 
 cum strenue et religiose tenuisset, et novellam plantationem secundum 
 formam religionis sacri eloquii imbre ad plenum irrigasset, promotus est in 
 Priorem de Domina, in quo non est oblitus scientiam et disciplinam, sed 
 magis et magis in Deum proficiens, inannisjuvenilibus assidue meditaba- 
 tur, quod postea in senectute deyotus impleret. Lectioni et orationi vacabat, 
 et ita sapientiae splendore fulgebat, ut amabilis omnibus videretur. Suavis 
 eloquio, decorus aspectu, sermone admirabilis, facundia insuperabilis, 
 benignitate singularis, misericordiae visceribus affluens, universis compatie- 
 batur." — Vita, auctore Rudolfo Mon. ejus Discip. ap. D. & M. vi. 1189. 
 
348 PETER THE VENERABLE, [nO. XXI. 
 
 monks, or more, and the monastery was not able, from its 
 own resources, to provide for more than one hundred. A 
 crowd of guests, and always an infinite number of poor ^." 
 
 By his judicious measures, however, he soon put 
 thino-s in a train for amendment. Old quarrels sub- 
 sided, and Peace sat quietly waiting for Plenty, when, 
 all at once, with unexpected violence, she was driven 
 from the place. Pontius, it would seem, got tired of 
 living at Jerusalem. He returned to Italy, and set up 
 a little monastery near Ravenna ; but this did not suc- 
 ceed, or was perhaps only intended as a temporary 
 residence; and he soon quitted it, and returned to 
 France. 
 
 "Having at length," says the Abbot Peter, "gained in- 
 formation that I was from home, (for I was absent in Aquita- 
 nia Secunda, on the business of Clugni ",) pretending that he 
 would not come to Clugni, he, nevertheless, by degrees, came 
 nearer and nearer. Having been joined by some deserters 
 from thence, and being supported by the arms of the rabble 
 whom he had collected, he came suddenly to the gates of 
 Clugni. These being forced, and the venerable old Prior 
 Bernard, and the monks, put to flight in all directions, he 
 entered the monastery with that mixed multitude of armed 
 men, even women rushing in along with the rest. Imme- 
 diately on his entrance, he took possession of everything, and 
 those whom he found there he compelled, by threats and tor- 
 ments, to swear fidehty to him. Such as refused, he turned 
 out, or subjected to severe imprisonment. He instantly laid 
 hands on the sacred things. He seized golden crosses, golden 
 tablets ', golden candlesticks, golden censers, and all the other 
 vessels, many in number and of great weight. He also took 
 the most holy chalices, and did not spare the gold and silver 
 reliquaries and shrines, containing the bones of many saints 
 
 * Baluz. Miscel. torn. V. p. 443. 
 
 * This is not a very precise statement, as that district includes the dio- 
 ceses of Bourdeaux, Agen, Angouleme, Saintonge, Poitiers, and Perigeux. 
 
 ' That is, what we should call the " boards " of books. See what is 
 said of " excrustation," in No. XIII. p. 217, 218. 
 
NO. XXI.] ABBOT OF CLUGNI. 349 
 
 and martyrs. These and the like he melted down into a vast 
 sum of money, with which he invited the knights of the neigh- 
 bourhood, and all the robbers who were greedy of gain, to 
 the war. Protected by them, he invaded the towns and vil- 
 lages round the monastery; and, endeavouring, in a barbarous 
 manner, to subdue the religious places, [that is, the dependent 
 cells and priories,] he laid waste all that he could with fire 
 and sword. He abstained from no species of warfare ; plunder 
 and slaughter, by soldiers hired with consecrated gold, raged 
 everywhere. 
 
 " In this manner, all the summer, from the very beginning 
 of Lent to the beginning of October, was passed, without any 
 respite, of even a few days, from these calamities. During 
 this time, Bernard the prior, already mentioned, and the 
 noble, religious, and great men, were out of Clugni, wherever 
 they could find places more secure ; and there they defended 
 themselves, as well as they could, against the attacks of such 
 enemies. Thus, by the inscrutable, but just judgment of 
 God, Satan, being loosed for a time, raged in that holy and 
 most famous house of Clugni ; but, according to the book of 
 the blessed Job, ^He that made him, made his sword to 
 approach unto him*;" and soon put a happy termination to 
 such great evils. 
 
 "The venerable Pope Calixtus, already mentioned, had 
 departed this life, and had been succeeded by Honorius, who 
 was not his inferior. Hearing of such disorder in so great a 
 monastery, and having sent the Lord Cardinal Peter, as his 
 legate a latere, with whom was joined Hubald, archbishop of 
 Lyons, he condemned Pontius and all the Pontians (as they 
 were then called) with a terrible anathema; but having 
 shortly after appointed a day for both parties to appear before 
 him, for the hearing and decision of that important cause, he 
 cited them by his apostolical letters. 
 
 "All our side obeyed immediately ; and, among innumera- 
 ble priors of monasteries, that one on whose account I insert 
 these particulars, the venerable Prior Matthew was present. 
 Pontius, although against his will, was there also with his 
 party, and was cited to the trial on the day appointed. As, 
 
 " Job xl. 9. 
 
350 PETER THE VENERABLE, [nO. XXI. 
 
 however, he could not be a party in any suit, nor be canoni- 
 cally subjected to any judgment, while excommunicate, he was 
 ordered first to make satisfaction, and, by so doing, to free 
 himself from the bond with which he had been legally bound. 
 Messengers were sent by the pope, who, in the name of him 
 who sent them, ordered him to make satisfaction for such 
 enormities. This he refused to do; and affirmed that he 
 could not be bound by the anathema of any man living. He 
 would acknowledge that power to belong to St. Peter in 
 heaven, and to him only. The Lord Pope, being still more in- 
 censed by such an answer, and all the city being in an uproar, 
 there was an universal outcry that he was not only an excom- 
 municate person, but a schismatic. And because, as has 
 been said, he could not be admitted to trial until the excom- 
 munication was taken off, the Lord Pope, by his messengers, 
 desired an answer from those who had come with him, whe- 
 ther they were willing to make the satisfaction which he had 
 refused ? They immediately replied that they were prepared 
 to submit to his authority. They all, therefore, entered the 
 palace barefoot ; and, publicly confessing themselves guilty, 
 were immediately absolved ; and, being absolved, they were 
 admitted to trial, and left nothing unsaid that could be said 
 for themselves, or for him on whose behalf they appeared. 
 On the other side, the venerable Matthew acted as spokes- 
 man for the party, and went through the whole business with 
 great wisdom. 
 
 " The pope having heard both sides, instantly rose ; and, 
 being accompanied by the whole court of Rome, retired to 
 consider the matter in private. He staid a long while ; but, 
 returning with them all, after some hours, he resumed his 
 seat, and commanded the bishop of Porto to pronounce the 
 sentence which had been agreed on. He, as he was directed, 
 pronounced the sentence ; and to give his very words : — 
 * The holy Roman and apostolic church,' said he, ^ deposes 
 for ever from all ecclesiastical honour and function, Pontius 
 the usurper, the sacrilegious person, the schismatic, the 
 excommunicate ; and has restored to the present abbot 
 (from whom they have been unjustly taken away) Clugni, 
 its monks, and all things pertaining to the said monastery.^ 
 This sentence having been given, the divided parties were 
 united, and the body of Clugni being healed, as it were in 
 
 1 
 
NO. XXI.] ABBOT OF CLUGNI. 351 
 
 one moment, this great and protracted storm of evils was 
 appeased ^" 
 
 Pontius remained at Rome, where he did not long 
 survive the papal condemnation ; and Peter, returning 
 to Clugni, pursued his quiet plans of reform in peace, 
 until circumstances arose which, in a view of the dark 
 ages, with reference to ecclesiastical history, would claim 
 our attention, even if they had not been the immediate 
 occasion of Peter's being exhibited as an ignorant per- 
 son, the respect entertained for whom is of itself evi- 
 dence of the irreligion of the age ; but, to understand 
 it, we must look back a little. 
 
 3 Bib. Clun. 552. I have said that this is Peter's account ; and perhaps 
 we must make some allowance for feeling ; other accounts, too general to 
 give any satisfaction, lead us to hope that there were some redeeming 
 qualities about Pontius. At all events, it is quite to our purpose to give a 
 short extract from the Chronicle of Clugni, which may tend to shew that, 
 if he was not himself as much under" the influence of the word of God as 
 he should have been, he yet took some pains to preserve the letter of 
 scripture : — " Albert was a monk of St. Hugh, worthy of an honoured 
 memory by those who are fond of copying books, or making them for 
 themselves. For his glory in that volume [^hiatus in MSJ] is to be found 
 at the entrance of the library of Clugni, which he wrote with the help of 
 Peter, the librarian, also called the rector of the choir, or chanter. For it 
 is that volume of the bible, great, wonderful, and precious for the writing, 
 and the correctness, and also for the binding, adorned with beryl stones, 
 whose eulogy or commendation is written in the same volume, in manner 
 following : — ' This book was written by a certain monk of Clugni, pre- 
 viously of Treves, named Albert, by the order and at the expense of the 
 Lord Pontius, the venerable abbot. Peter being also at that time libra- 
 rian, and providing, according to his office, all things necessary, with joy 
 and diligence. But the father of the aforesaid monk, named Andrew, 
 came with him to Clugni, and both, (that is, the father and son,) through 
 the Holy Spirit's assistance and illumination, received the monastic habit 
 from the holy father Hugh. But the father died long since, at Clugni. 
 Moreover, the aforesaid monk, associating with himself a certain religious 
 brother, named Opizo, read through this book twice, with great dihgence, 
 that he might improve it on the authority of other books, and twice he 
 corrected it. Therefore the brother Albert, a sinner, prostrating himself 
 at the feet of the seniors of Clugni, humbly entreats that they would 
 obtain from God, for himself and his father, the pardon of their sins. 
 Amen.' " — Chron. Clun. ap. Biblioth. Clun. p. 1645. 
 
352 ORIGIN OF CLAIRVAUX. [nO. XXI. 
 
 While Peter was a child, a monk, named Robert, 
 who was prior of the Benedictine monastery of Mou- 
 tier-la-Celle, close to Troyes'", became abbot of St. 
 Michael's at Tonnere, in the diocese of Langres. That 
 this monastery required some reform, there is reason to 
 believe; and that Robert's ideas of discipline and 
 monastic austerity were unusually strict, is certain. 
 He could not manage the monks, who led him a sad 
 life ; and he was tempted to listen to the invitation of 
 some recluses in the desert of Colan, to whom his 
 austerities seem to have recommended him, and who 
 vnshed him to come and take the government of them. 
 The prior of St. Michael's, however, and some of the 
 elder monks, were unwilling to lose him ; and, to please 
 them, he agreed to stay there, and to confine himself 
 to epistolary correspondence with the hermits. But it 
 would not do : after a while, the conduct of the greater 
 part of the monks (that is, I believe, their insubordina- 
 tion and refusal to submit to certain strict regulations, 
 for I do not see any charge of immoral conduct, and in 
 writing on such a subject it is necessary to say so,) 
 
 w Or perhaps it would be more correct to say, in the suburb of Troyes. 
 The reader will find most of the places mentioned in this paper in the 
 little map (or skeleton of a map, or, more properly still, index to a map) 
 which is annexed. It is copied, as to scale and the site of places, from 
 the map of France published by the Society for Promoting Useful Know- 
 ledge ; but instead of roads, rivers, and departments, I have marked the 
 boundaries of dioceses. These are reduced (without any pretence of 
 minute accuracy) from the Gallia Christiana, and from that work, and 
 M. Bonne's map of France, in the Abbe Grenet's Atlas Portatif, some 
 places are inserted. Whether Coulanges is the ancient Colan, and Ricey le 
 Haut, the ancient Haul, I do not pretend to determine ; but it seems to me 
 so probable, that I have put them in. Perhaps I need not say that the 
 suffragan sees are united to their metropolitans by a dotted line. [My 
 principal reason for giving this little sketch was to furnish a specimen of a 
 sort of map which would, I believe, be very useful to readers of ecclesias- 
 tical history. I cannot help thinking that any body who would even 
 reduce and republish the maps already given in various Sacras would be 
 doing such readers a very great service.] 
 
JJtC Walker M. 
 
NO. XXI.] MONASTERY OF CITEAUX. 353 
 
 drove him away. Why he did not then go to the her- 
 mits, I do not know ; but, in fact, he returned to the 
 monastery where he had been brought up, and of 
 which, as I have said, he had been prior. From thence 
 he was soon sent to take charge of the monastery of 
 St. Aigulph, at Provins, which was dependent on Mou- 
 tier-la-Celle. 
 
 The solitaries of Colan, however, did not choose that 
 he should escape them so. I do not find that they said 
 anything to him, but they applied to the pope, and got an 
 order directed to the abbot of Moutier-la-Celle, direct- 
 ing him to give up Robert to them, on the ground that 
 they had elected him as their superior ; and in this he 
 appears to have very cheerfully acquiesced. He accom- 
 panied his new subjects to their desert; but, finding 
 it to be a very unhealthy place, he transplanted them 
 to the forest of Molesme. There they built cells with 
 the branches of trees, and an oratory, dedicated to the 
 Holy Trinity, and for some time went on very well. 
 But it seems that some of their rich neighbours, who 
 admired their zeal and self-denial, destroyed, or at least 
 diminished, both those virtues, by the presents which 
 they heaped upon them ; and the monks of Molesme, 
 when they became comparatively rich, were as hard to 
 govern as those of Tonnere. At all events, Robert 
 could not keep them up to what he considered the 
 proper standard in ascetic life, and he fairly ran away 
 from them to some recluses in a solitude called Haut. 
 These seem to have been simple, industrious men, who 
 lived by the labour of their hands, in great harmony, 
 and they considered Robert such an acquisition, that 
 they chose him for their abbot. 
 
 But the monks of Molesme did not choose to part 
 with him now any more than they had done before ; 
 and having succeeded so well on the former occasion, 
 they again applied to the pope (and this time to the 
 
 Aa 
 
354 ORIGIN OF THE [NO. XXI. 
 
 bishop of Langres also) to order him back. Their 
 request was granted, and he returned ; but there is too 
 much reason to fear that their anxiety to regain him 
 arose chiefly from secular motives, and indeed it may 
 be well imagined that both their character and revenue 
 suffered from its being known that they had driven 
 him away. Things, therefore, soon became as bad as 
 before. The greater part of the monks were ungovern- 
 able ; but there were some who felt conscientiously 
 distressed by the consideration that they were not living 
 in conformity with the rule of their order, which they 
 daily heard read in their chapter, and which they had 
 bound themselves to obey. They conferred among 
 themselves on the best means of remedying the evil, 
 and relieving their consciences; but the matter soon 
 transpired, and the other monks took the alarm, and 
 opposed them with all their might. Under these cir- 
 cumstances, they thought it would be best to retire, 
 and seek for some place where they might serve God 
 according to their consciences, without such disturb- 
 ances. They asked the abbot's permission ; and he not 
 only granted it, but expressed his willingness to accom- 
 pany them. In order to do this with perfect regularity, 
 be took six of them with him to Lyons, that he might 
 explain the matter to the archbishop, (who was also 
 legate of the Holy See,) and obtain his sanction. He 
 stated his wish to institute an exact practice of the 
 rule of St. Benedict, such as he had found himself 
 unable to produce at Molesme, which he desired per- 
 mission to quit ; and he obtained from the archbishop 
 letters patent, approving his design, and counselling 
 him to persevere in his holy resolution \ Returning 
 
 1 The Archbishop says — " Vos in nostra praesentia adstitisse, 
 
 ac Regulae Beatissimi Benedicti, quatn illic hucusque tepide ac negligenter 
 in eodem monasterio tenueratis, arctius deinceps atque perfectius inhserere 
 velle professes fuisse," &c.— Exord. c. ii. ap. Monast. 
 
NO. XXI.] MONASTERY OF CITEAUX. 355 
 
 to Molesme, he selected those monks who were most 
 zealous for exact discipline, and with them, to the 
 number of twenty, he set out to form a new settle- 
 ment. He fixed (I know not why) on a desert spot in 
 the diocese of Chalons-sur-Saone, about five leagues 
 south of Dijon; and there, on Palm-Sunday, in the 
 year 1098, being St. Benedict's day, and the 2nd of 
 March, he and his companions settled down in that 
 place, and so laid the foundation of that Monastery, 
 and of that Order, from whence were to issue unnum- 
 bered popes, cardinals, and prelates, to say nothing of 
 more than three thousand afiiliated monasteries. 
 
 But when Robert had thus founded what he named 
 the New Monastery, afterwards called the monastery 
 of Citeaux, he could not stay there ; and whether he 
 should be called the first Cistercian abbot is a point 
 which has been disputed, and in which writers vary. 
 However, it is certain that, before he had been long 
 there, he was reclaimed by his old subjects at Molesme, 
 who made a fresh application to the pope, and were 
 again successful. They seem to have felt that there 
 was no living with him, nor without him ; and they set 
 off to Rome, where Urban II. was then holding a coun- 
 cil. By great clamour and vehement importunity, as 
 the pope says, they prevailed on him to restore their 
 abbot ; and he wrote a letter to the archbishop of 
 Lyons desiring him to manage the business ^ Robert 
 accordingly returned to Molesme, where he presided 
 during the rest of his life; and Alberic became ab- 
 bot of Citeaux. He framed some regulations for the 
 
 ^ The pope begins his letter by saying, " MoUsmensium fratrura mag- 
 num in Concilio clamorem accessimus, abbatis sui reditum vehementius 
 postulantium. Dicebant enira reUgionem in suo choro eversam, seque 
 pro abbatis illius absentia odio apud principes et ceteros vicinos haberi." — 
 Ep. XX. Cone. X. 444. 
 
 Aa2 
 
356 PROGRESS OF THE [nO. XXI. 
 
 government of the monastery, which are still extant, and 
 which partake of the austere character which he (as well 
 as Robert) had endeavoured to give to monasticism at 
 Molesme. After he had governed for nine years and 
 a half, he was, in the year 1109, succeeded by our 
 countryman, Stephen Harding, who was also one of the 
 original settlers ^ 
 
 In fact, they had not gained a single recruit, and so 
 many of their number had died, during the first fifteen 
 years from the foundation, that there was some appre- 
 hension that the community would become extinct, 
 when, all at once, it received an accession of more than 
 its original number. In 1113, St. Bernard, who was 
 then but twenty-two years of age, brought with him 
 thirty companions, and seems to have had the power of 
 making men fall in love with that rigorous and austere 
 mode of life which, though hitherto persevered in by 
 its originators, had been so repulsive to all others. 
 Citeaux revived, — it flourished, — it sent forth its 
 branches, and before it was fifty years old it numbered 
 more than five hundred affiliated abbeys. It is not 
 necessary to give a detailed account of all and each of 
 them ; but it would be uncourteous not to name the 
 " quatre premieres filles." Stephen Harding, who ap- 
 pears to have had ideas of centralization which would 
 not have disgraced a more enlightened age, and who 
 seems almost as if he had anticipated the extensive 
 increase of the order, published what he denominated a 
 " Charta Caritatis." It is a brief set of regulations, 
 chiefly designed to promote uniformity in the under- 
 standing and practice of the rule of St. Benedict in the 
 
 ^ I do not like to mention him without saying that the great Bible, in 
 six volumes, which he caused to be written, and which, by the help of 
 learned Jews, he collated with Hebrew MSS., was at Citeaux, httle more 
 than a hundred years ago, and is, I presume, still in existence. — See I. 
 Voy. Lit. 221 ; Gal. Chr. iv. 984. 
 
NO. XXI.] MONASTERY OF CITEAUX. 357 
 
 Cistercian monasteries, and to guide the mutual con- 
 nexion, dependence, and intercourse between them*. 
 To the " quatuor primi abbates" of the order is given 
 the honour of being the visitors of the chief monastery 
 of Citeaux, and of governing it during vacancies. 
 These four filiations were, first, Ferte sur Grone, in 
 1113; secondly, Pontigny, in the year following; 
 thirdly, Clairvaux, in 1115 ; and, fourthly, in the same 
 year, Morimond. 
 
 There is no need to enter into details about it — no 
 necessity to trace Cistercian history from St. Michael's 
 at Tonnere to La Trappe ^ in order to shew that the 
 spirit of the order was austere and ascetic. No doubt 
 it was originally, in its conception and first spirit, a 
 plan of reform ; and if it was not meant particularly 
 and pointedly to reflect on Clugni and its connexions, 
 yet it can hardly be wondered at that jealousies arose. 
 I hope that I do them no injustice by the suggestion, — 
 but really I have often wondered why these monks of 
 Molesme should travel a distance of, I suppose, at least 
 
 * See Paris, Nomast. Cist. 65. 
 
 ' Of course I mean La Trappe in the days of De Ranc^, for the monas- 
 tery was one of the earliest afHUations of Citeaux. That reformer had, I 
 believe, no idea of going beyond what he considered (and, I believe, 
 rightly) as required by the Cistercian order. Perhaps he mistook in that 
 point in which he diifered from Robert. He desired to reform the Cister- 
 cian order, and might have had better success if, instead of setting about 
 it under that name, he had founded a new order, as Robert did. Fuller is 
 not a writer whom I would quote as an authority about " the several 
 orders of monks and nuns," but a remark made by him in his attempt 
 "confusedly to shovel up these vermin," contains much truth and much 
 history : — " As mercers, when their old stuffes begin to tire in sale, refresh 
 them with new names to make them more vendible ; so when the Bene- 
 dictines waxed stale in the world, the same order was set forth in a new 
 edition, corrected and amended, under the names, first, of Cluniacks — 
 these were Benedictines sifted through a finer search, with some addi- 
 tionals invented and imposed upon thera by Odo, abbot of Clugni, in 
 
 Burgundy, who lived. Anno Domini 913 Secondly, Cistercians, so 
 
 called from one Robert, living in Cistercium, in Burgundy aforesaid ; he the 
 second time refined the drossie Benedictines," &c. — Ch. Hist. B. vi. p. 266. 
 
358 CITEAUX [no. XXI. 
 
 seventy or eighty miles, to set themselves down in a 
 swampy thicket ^ so bad that, after a short time, they 
 were obliged to remove a quarter of a league, unless it 
 was that all that distance brought them almost as much 
 nearer to Clugni. Surely, whatever nicety of taste 
 they might have in such matters, they might have been 
 accommodated with a suitable wilderness nearer home. 
 If that was really all they wanted, surely they must 
 have seen "quod petis est hie" inscribed in characters 
 not to be overlooked or mistaken, on some part or 
 other of almost every league which they travelled. 
 I do not dispute, either, that Alberic might dream that 
 the Virgin Mary directed that his monks should wear 
 white garments ; but it leads me to suspect that he 
 might have been thinking on the matter when he was 
 awake ; though even then, perhaps, it was not because 
 the monks of Clugni wore black ones. Nor do I take 
 upon me to say that he was thinking of the fine chan- 
 delier, composed of brass, gold, and silver, which hung 
 from the roof of the church at Clugni, when he gave 
 special directions that the Cistercians should have none 
 but iron candlesticks in their churches ; nor, indeed, 
 that he meant to be personal in the minute directions 
 which he gave respecting various little matters, wherein 
 grounds of accusation against the monks of Clugni 
 were afterwards found ; but it seems impossible not to 
 believe that there was, from the first, something like a 
 design on the part of the Cistercians to reform (not to 
 say rival, or humble) the monks of Clugni. 
 
 Be this as it may, jealousies did arise : the Cistercians 
 murmured that the Cluniacs were lax, and the Cluni- 
 acs hinted that the Cistercians were upstart pharisees ; 
 
 ^ " Qui locus in Episcopatu Cabilonensi situs, et prse nemoris, spina- 
 rumque tunc temporis opacitate accessui hominum insolitus, a solis feris 
 inhabitabatur." — Exord. c. iii. ap. Nomast. Cisterc. 
 
NO. XXI.] AND CLUGNI. 359 
 
 and ill the course of a few years these feelings had 
 become strong, undisguised, and even noisy. Look for 
 a moment at the real state of things: — during that 
 period, Bernard, at the age of four-and-twenty, in the 
 ardour of youthful zeal, and in the practice of austeri- 
 ties which he lived to regret and condemn, had set out 
 in the government of one of the first offsets of a severe 
 Order, even younger than himself; while Pontius, pro- 
 bably not much his senior, was at the head of a monas- 
 tery nearly two hundred years old, where, perhaps, the 
 protracted abbacy of his predecessor, or the mere lapse 
 of time, had produced some relaxation, and where, 
 during his dissensions with his monks, every kind and 
 every consequence of misrule might naturally be ex- 
 pected. By the time that Bernard had been ten years 
 at Clairvaux, (that is, in the year 1125, just when 
 Peter was settling down quietly at Clugni, after the 
 irruption of Pontius,) William, abbot of St. Thierry's, 
 near Rheims, one of Bernard's dearest and most inti- 
 mate friends, and himself a Cluniac, urged him to pub- 
 lish some statement on the subject ; letting people 
 know authentically what he had, and what he had not, 
 said about it, and what charges the Cistercians really 
 did mean to bring against their Cluniac brethren. Ber- 
 nard accordingly put forth what is called his Apology, 
 but what is, in fact, a vehement attack on the monks 
 of Clugni. 
 
 That this work contains much important truth and 
 much fervent eloquence, and that it was dictated by a 
 true zeal for the glory of God and the welfare of his 
 church, Bernard's enemies will scarcely venture to 
 deny ; but that it was vehement beyond the occasion, 
 that his zeal for God was not merely intemperate, but 
 misguided (as such intemperate zeal too frequently is) 
 into something too much like judging another man's 
 servant, even his friends must admit. The tone is like 
 
360 CITEAUX [no. XXI. 
 
 that which we expect from a man who would think it 
 wrong to write in anger, but who tells us (and very 
 sincerely) " I am not at all angry, but I certainly do 
 feel very much hurt." In fact, this is so apparent, and 
 this tone in an aggressor, who might rather have been 
 expected to write with feelings of quiet self-compla- 
 cency, is so singular, that I cannot help noticing a cir- 
 cumstance which, if it does not entirely excuse, may 
 perhaps account for, some appearance of personal feel- 
 ing in the matter. A young cousin of St. Bernard, 
 named Robert, for whom he seems to have had a most 
 tender and paternal affection, had accompanied or 
 followed him to Citeaux, during the time that Pontius 
 governed the abbey of Clugni. This latter monastery 
 claimed him, on the ground that his parents had pro- 
 mised (not, St. Bernard contends, offered) him there in 
 his infancy; and the prior of Clugni came to Citeaux, 
 and persuaded the youth to quit the place, and come 
 to the monastery for which he had been originally des- 
 tined. Their claim to him was affirmed by the pope ; 
 but it was done on an ex-parte statement, if we may place 
 entire reliance on St. Bernard's account of the matter, 
 in a letter which he wrote to his cousin, with the hope 
 of moving him to a voluntary return. This letter is a 
 singular composition of wrath and tenderness; of re- 
 buke to the youth, whom he treats as a prodigal gone 
 to indulge in riotous living, and of self-reproach for the 
 harsh enforcement of austerities such as he might have 
 known that a lad, brought up in the softness of secular 
 life, could not bear. And as to the prior of Clugni 
 (raagnus quidam prior, ab ipso principe priorum : foris 
 quidem apparens in vestimentis ovium, intrinsecus 
 autem lupus rapax,) and his monastery, they are treated 
 with all the bitterness of bereaved affection. But it 
 was in vain ; as long as Pontius remained abbot of 
 Clugni, Robert was not to be regained. When, how- 
 
NO. XXI.] AND CLUGNI. 361 
 
 ever, Peter succeeded him, he gratified his friend Ber- 
 nard by restoring his young kinsman, who expiated, we 
 may hope, a comparatively short absence by sixty-seven 
 years of submission to the Cistercian order. 
 
 That Bernard had forgotten all about this when he 
 wrote his Apology — that he did not naturally feel 
 bound to follow up and support the charges which he 
 had made in that letter — and that he did not bring to 
 the work some of the feelings which had been so 
 strongly excited, is more than can be believed ; and, as 
 I have already said, the Apology is, in fact, a vehement 
 invective. It would exceed the bounds of this paper 
 even to mention the charges which he makes ; but, as 
 people in the present day form the most gross ideas on 
 the least hint of irregularity in a monastery, I must just 
 say, that he charges them with nothing which in the 
 common and gross sense of the terra we should call 
 immorality, nothing more nearly approaching to it than 
 such a degree of luxury in eating, and drinking, and 
 dress, and in the ornament of their buildings, as he 
 considered inconsistent with strict monastic life. It is 
 as Benedictine monks, it is for their Benedictine irregu- 
 larities, and for departures from the Rule which they 
 professed, (that is, however, we must recollect, for per- 
 jury,) that Bernard attacks them. In fact, Milner, or 
 more properly the writer from whom he borrowed, is in 
 some sort a voucher for this ; for, from Peter's reply, he 
 characterizes the matters in dispute as " frivolous punc- 
 tilios and insignificant ceremonies." His testimony as 
 to the merits of the case may be admitted, though he 
 happened to mistake between the plaintiff and de- 
 fendant ; for it is obvious that Bernard, if either, was 
 the trifler, and that Peter was only replying to his 
 charges; that Bernard was the person insisting on 
 punctilios, and that Peter was in some cases repelling 
 charges of perjury, and in others asserting his Christian 
 
362 milner's account of [no. xxi. 
 
 liberty, and claiming a right to modify such small 
 matters according to his discretion. This is, I say, 
 obvious ; and if it should not immediately appear so to 
 any reader, I hope to make it plain ; for the conten- 
 tion and correspondence of two such persons, and so 
 situated, as Bernard and Peter, is quite worthy of fur- 
 ther discussion. 
 
 In the meantime, it may be right to explain how the 
 historian from whom I have borrowed my motto came 
 to entertain the opinion which is there expressed. He 
 was too much in the habit of forming his opinion of 
 authors from the brief accounts and extracts which he 
 found in the English translation of Dupin's Bibliotheque 
 des Auteurs Ecclesiastiques \ to which work he very 
 honestly refers us on the present occasion. TJw works 
 of Peter he does not profess to have seen. As printed in 
 the Bibliotheca Cluniacensis they extend from col. 621 
 to col. 1 376, — that is to say, they occupy about 377 
 folio pages, which are not, I believe, defrauded of their 
 full measure by a single note. Dupin's account of the 
 life and writings of Peter, in this English translation, 
 
 ^ I do not know how far this translation is faithful, not being much 
 acquainted either with it or with the original work ; and I shall be 
 very much obliged to any one who can communicate the history of this 
 version. I have seen two or three persons named as translators, but, I 
 suspect, incorrectly. The tenth volume, with which we are at present 
 concerned, is, as far as I see, anonymous ; and so is the ninth : but the 
 eighth is dedicated to the Bishop of London, by WilUam Jones, in terms 
 which distinctly imply that he was the translator. Some of his notes look 
 as if he might be the person whom Watt mentions as the author of a 
 " Poem on the Rise, Progress, and present State of the New Reformation. 
 Lond. 1691, fol." Whoever he was, I cannot help suspecting, from the 
 little which I have seen, that he was not very familiar with ecclesiastical 
 matters and language. In this present article he tells us that Peter wrote 
 " Several pieces of prose," which he certainly did ; and perhaps without 
 being aware of it. But the translator (for the mistake can hardly be 
 Dupin's) does not seem to have known that a prose was something in 
 verse— especially as he goes on to say that Peter wrote " a discourse in 
 prose on the Virgin Mary." 
 
NO. XXI.] PETER THE VENERABLE. 363 
 
 does not fill quite seven folio pages, not so large, but, 
 owing to a smaller type, containing rather more than 
 an equal number of the others. Of these seven pages, 
 a large, though I do not know that we should say a 
 disproportionate, share is given to an abstract of the 
 letter which Peter wrote in reply to Bernard's Apology. 
 Dupin naturally thought this letter one of the most 
 curious among nearly two hundred of Peter's which are 
 extant ; and the abstract which he gave of it, including 
 the translator's addition, occupies exactly two pages out 
 of the seven. Yet, long as it is, this is a very brief 
 abstract of Peter's long letter, and, compared with it, 
 little more than a table of contents, stating the points 
 in dispute. Immediately after it, comes what would 
 be called a note, if it were not inserted in the text 
 in manner and form following : — 
 
 l^° [And now upon this whole Debate or Controversie 
 between the Monks of Cisteaux and those of Cluny, we 
 cannot forbear making this one Remark, that, according 
 to our old course English Proverb, here has been a great 
 Cry, but little Wool ; a great noise and clamour about the 
 Externals, but scarce one Word said, Pro, or Con, about 
 the Internals, of Religion ; which sufficiently shews, that 
 when Men are once wedded to any party in Religion, their 
 greatest Heats happen about the Circumstantials of Reli- 
 gion to which that Party adheres, and that they have little 
 or no Concern for the Fundamentals of the truly Catholic 
 and Christian ChurchJ] 
 
 Mr. William Jones, in all probability, knew no- 
 thing whatever about the matter but what he found in 
 Dupin, and did not consider that Peter was replying to 
 the particulars of a charge of perjury, urged with great 
 heat by a man whose character and station made it 
 necessary that every such charge should be fairly met 
 and discussed. He only thought, perhaps, that the 
 bookseller who employed him wanted to have Dupin's 
 work "turned out" of French into English, as he tells 
 
564 MILNER ON PETER OF CLUGNI. [nO. XXL 
 
 US that Peter the Venerable " procured the Alcoran to 
 be turned out of Arabick into Latin;" and having 
 learned and taught his readers in the foregoing chapter 
 that St. Bernard " touches the heart with his move- 
 ments," he perhaps expected to produce the same 
 effect in the present case ; or, more probably, only took 
 the opportunity of shewing his zealous protestantism. 
 
 The passage, however, inviting attention by the indi- 
 cating hand and the brackets, and by being printed almost 
 entirely in italics, probably caught Milner's eye as he 
 turned over Dupin, just as its reprint here may arrest 
 the attention of some one carelessly turning over the 
 leaves of this book ; and it is, most likely, to this effu- 
 sion of Mr. William Jones that Peter owes the notice 
 which he received from the historian. It is evidently 
 on this suggestion, and almost in the language, of this 
 absurd and ignorant translator, that Milner says, " He 
 takes large pains to vindicate the manners and customs 
 of his monastery against objections ; and in doing this 
 he is so verbose and circumstantial, that he may seem 
 to have placed the essence of Christianity in frivolous 
 punctilios and insignificant ceremonies ^" It is not 
 wonderful that, in the practice of these sortes Dupini- 
 ancB, Milner sometimes formed wrong opinions respect- 
 ing the character and writings of authors of whose 
 history and works he knew nothing. But, surely, if 
 the matter is to be decided by a casual dip, it should at 
 least be made in the author's own works ; and who will 
 venture to say that Peter would have been pilloried as 
 an ignorant and trifling writer, if Milner had happened 
 to open on col. 865, and to have read in one of his 
 epistles, "Libri, et maxime Augustiniani, ut nosti, 
 apud nos auro preciosiores sunt" ? 
 
 » Cent. XII. Chap. viii. See Dupin, vol. X. p. 82 of the EngUsh Trans- 
 lation. Lond. 1698. fol. 
 
365 
 
 No. XXII. 
 
 " It is most deeply to be lamented that your lordship should not have 
 thought proper to acquaint yourself with some of the most general and 
 notorious provisions of our collegiate statutes, before you hazarded against 
 those bodies a charge which, under whatever name it is disguised, cannot 
 
 be less than perjury Is your lordship aware that, for the most 
 
 part, these trivial matters are expressly placed by the statutes themselves 
 at the discretion of the governing body ; that if they are absurd and im- 
 practicable (palpably absurd, and wholly impracticable — for very little 
 licence indeed is to be granted in our notions of absurdity,) there is a dis- 
 pensation in the very nature of the oath ; sometimes in the law of the 
 land, always in the law of interpretation prescribed by the founders them- 
 selves ? " — Sewell. 
 
 I HOPE I shall not be understood to insinuate, that 
 Bernard had no more information respecting matters 
 which he wished to mend, than what is considered in 
 the present day quite sufficient for a zealous reformer. 
 But really, after I had selected and translated what I 
 am about to lay before the reader, I took up the letter 
 from which I have made free to borrow a motto, and 
 there seemed to be such a resemblance between the 
 circumstances which called it forth, and those which 
 led to Peter's defence, — such a similarity in the charge, 
 the manner of making it, and the mode of meeting it, 
 — that the abbot might have written, and almost did 
 write, the very words which I have quoted. Indeed, I 
 am afraid that I shall hardly be believed when I say, 
 that I took the motto because it seemed so applicable 
 to the extracts which I had already made, and did not 
 select or modify them to suit the motto. 
 
 Before, however, I call the reader's attention to the 
 dispute between Bernard and Peter, (or rather between 
 their respective " Orders" — for I must use that word, 
 though in some degree by anticipation,) it may be 
 necessary to remind him, that the two men hold very 
 
366 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX [nO. XXII. 
 
 different places in history from those which they 
 actually occupied among their contemporaries. They 
 were of nearly the same age. Bernard wa§ born in 
 A. D. 1091 ; and Peter, perhaps three years, or more 
 probably only one year, after. They were both of 
 noble family, and had received the best education 
 which the times afforded. So far they were alike; 
 and so they were as to some points of personal charac- 
 ter, which it is not to our present purpose to discuss. 
 But as to oflficial station they differed widely. 
 
 Clugni, the " Caput Ordinis," had long been the 
 most important monastery in the world. I have 
 already said that the abbot Hugh was supposed to 
 have under his government ten thousand monks ; and 
 of these Peter found three hundred at Clugni on his 
 accession in A. D. 1122; and a general chapter, which 
 he held ten years after, was attended by two hundred 
 affiliated priors. I have not such accurate information 
 as would enable me to say whether those from Mount 
 Tabor, or the valley of Jehosaphat, or Constantinople, 
 were there ; for I am not sure whether they were then 
 affiliated ; but the Order had spread far and wide, and 
 its abbots had long been men of the highest station 
 and most eminent influence in all matters, both eccle- 
 siastical and secular. 
 
 The dependencies of Citeaux, of course, bore no 
 comparison. Clairvaux was, indeed, its most important 
 filiation, and had, even when Bernard wrote his Apology, 
 in 1125, put forth some shoots, but nobody then knew 
 that it was to be (either by adoption or foundation) the 
 parent of eight hundred monasteries. It had only 
 three ', new, of course, and, I apprehend, poor, and at 
 
 * They were — Trois Fontaines, in the diocese of Chalons, founded in 
 1118 ; Fontenay in the diocese of Autun, founded in the same year ; and 
 Foigny, in the diocese of Laon, founded in 1121 ; but, in fact, the church 
 was only dedicated in November, 1 124. 
 
 1 
 
i 
 
 NO. XXII.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 367 
 
 no great distance from the parent monastery, which 
 had scarcely risen into wealth or importance of any 
 kind, except what it derived from the personal charac- 
 ter, the uncommon abilities, and the singularly influen- 
 tial qualities of Bernard himself. No man, I think, 
 can read his history and writings without feeling that 
 he was one of those few men who seem as if they could 
 carry all the rest with them wherever they please, if 
 they could only once get them within the sphere of 
 their personal influence. I have said that Peter could 
 not have been attacked by any one whom he would 
 have been more imperatively called on to answer fully , 
 and perhaps I may add, on the other side, that there 
 was no one whom, under all the circumstances, it 
 required more boldness to attack than the abbot of 
 Clugni. Not that we are to regard it as a personal 
 attack. Bernard, as I have already stated, had written 
 a most severe and impassioned letter concerning the 
 abduction of his cousin Robert, while Pontius was 
 abbot of Clugni ; and when (six years after) he wrote 
 his Apology, it does not appear that he knew much of 
 Peter, and it seems pretty clear that they had never 
 met. Indeed, Bernard was particularly anxious to dis- 
 claim anything like personal feeling, or hostility to the 
 Order ; and though his Apology is certainly sharp 
 enough, yet it is evident that one object was to dis- 
 claim feelings and opinions which, being avowed by 
 others of his Order, had been, or might very naturally 
 be, attributed to him. In what may be considered as 
 the introduction, he says — 
 
 " Who ever heard me openly attacking, or privately whis- 
 pering against, that Order ? What man belonging to it did 
 I ever see without pleasure, receive without honour, speak to 
 without reverence, admonish without humility ? I said, and 
 I still say, that their mode of life is indeed holy, honest, 
 adorned with charity, distinguished by prudence, instituted 
 
368 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX [nO. XXII. 
 
 by the fathers, foreordained by the Holy Spirit, and greatly 
 conducive to the good of souls. Do I either despise or con- 
 demn that of which I speak in such terms ? I remember to 
 have been, on some occasions, received as a guest in monas- 
 teries of that Order. May the Lord reward his servants for 
 the even superabundant kindness which they shewed me in 
 my illness, and the respect, beyond my deserts, with which 
 they honoured me. I commended myself to their prayers, T 
 was present at their collations ; frequently I discoursed with 
 many of them on the scriptures, and on the salvation of 
 souls, both publicly in their chapters, and privately in their 
 chambers. 
 
 "Whom did I ever, either publicly or privately, dissuade 
 from entering that Order, or sohcit to enter ours? Have I 
 not rather repressed many who wished to come, and even 
 driven away those who did come and knock for entrance? 
 Did I not send back brother Nicholas to St. Nicholas's, and 
 two monks to your monastery, as you can bear witness ? 
 Moreover, were there not two abbots of that Order (whose 
 names I will not mention, but you know them very well, and 
 you know that they are my intimate friends '',) who wished to 
 migrate to another Order (which you also know), and who, 
 while they were actually deliberating upon it, were prevented 
 by my advice, and persuaded not to quit their posts ? Why 
 then should I be thought, or said, to condemn an Order in 
 the service of which I persuade my friends to remain, to 
 which I restore its monks when they come to me, and whose 
 prayers for myself I anxiously solicit and devoutly receive ? 
 
 " Or is it because I am myself of a different Order that I 
 am suspected ? Why, on the same grounds, all of you who 
 differ from us may be said to reflect on us. Then those who 
 Uve in celibacy, and those who are married, may be said to 
 condemn each other, because each forms a part of the church, 
 subject to its own laws. The monks too, and the regular 
 clergy, may be said to reflect on each other, because they are 
 distinguished from each other by peculiar observances. In- 
 deed, we may suspect that Noah, Daniel, and Job, could not 
 
 ' One of them being the abbot William himself. The monastery of 
 St. Nicholas here mentioned was that of St. Nicholas aux Bois, in the 
 diocese of Laon. Simon, its abbot, was the brother of William. 
 
NO. XXII.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 369 
 
 bear to live together in that one kingdom, because we know 
 that they have not reached it by precisely the same path of 
 righteousness. We must suppose, also, that either Martha or 
 Mary displeased our Saviour, whom both were trying to 
 please by modes of service so different. On this principle, 
 too, one cannot conceive of anything like peace or concord in 
 the whole church, which is distinguished by so many and 
 such different Orders, like the queen of whom we read in the 
 Psalm, * clothed round about with varieties*.' For what 
 secure tranquillity, what safe state, can be found in it, if each 
 man, choosing some one Order, either despises all the others 
 or suspects that they despise him ? especially when it is 
 impossible for one man to belong to all the Orders, or for 
 one Order to contain all the men. 
 
 " I am not so dull as not to know Joseph's coat — not his 
 who saved Egypt — but his who saved the world; and that, 
 not from bodily hunger, but from the death of both soul and 
 body. Every one knows that it is a coat of many colours, 
 that is, diversified with beautiful variety. But it shews, too, 
 the stain of blood— not indeed of a kid, the type of sin, but 
 of the lamb, the figure of innocence ; that is. His own, and 
 not another's. He is truly that most meek Lamb who was 
 dumb, not indeed before the shearer, but the slaughterer; 
 who did no sin, but took away the sins of the world. They 
 sent, too, those who should say to Jacob, ^ We have found 
 this; see whether it is thy son's coat or not.' And see thou, 
 O Lord, whether this is the coat of thy beloved Son. Acknow- 
 ledge, O Father Almighty, that coat of many colours which 
 thou madest for Christ thy Son, giving some apostles, some 
 prophets, some evangelists, others pastors and teachers, and 
 those other things which thou hast beautifully appointed for 
 his singular ornament, for the perfecting of the saints, coming 
 to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness 
 of Christ. Vouchsafe, also, O God, to acknowledge the 
 purple of that most precious blood with which it is stained, 
 and, in that purple, the illustrious sign, the most glorious 
 
 3 Tlie Vulgate reads, " Circuraaraicta varietatibus." Ps. xliv. 15. Kng. 
 Version (xlv, 14.) " In raiment of needlework." Here and elsewhere I 
 give the Douay version as the only way of rendering the reference intelli- 
 gible. 
 
 B b 
 
370 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX [nO. XXII. 
 
 token of obedience. ^ Wherefore,' saith he, ^ art thou red in 
 thine apparel ?' and he answers, ' I have trodden the wine- 
 press alone, and of the people there was none with me.' 
 
 "Therefore, since he hath become obedient unto the 
 Father, even unto the wine-press of the cross which he trod 
 alone, (for it was his own right arm that helped him,) accord- 
 ing as it is written in another place, ^ I am alone until I 
 pass*;' now, therefore, exalt Him, O God, and give unto 
 Him a name that is above every name, that at the name of 
 Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things 
 in earth, and things under the earth ; — let him ascend up on 
 high, lead captivity captive, and give gifts to men. What 
 gifts ? Let him leave to his spouse the church that coat of 
 many colours, but ^ without seam, woven from the top 
 throughout!' Of many colours, from the various distinc- 
 tions of the many Orders which compose it ; but without 
 seam, by reason of the indivisible unity of indissoluble 
 charity. * Who,' saith he, ^ shall separate me from the love 
 of Christ ?' Hear how it is of many colours : — ' There are,' 
 he says, ' diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit ; and there 
 are diversities of operations, but the same Lord;' and then, 
 having enumerated various gifts, as it were the colours of the 
 garment, to shew that it is a coat of many colours, he adds, 
 in order to shew that it is without seam, and woven from the 
 top throughout, — * But all these worketh that one and the 
 self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.' 
 For * the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the 
 Holy Spirit which is given to us.' Let it not then be divided; 
 but let the church obtain it whole and entire, by her here- 
 ditary right ; for of this it is written, — ' the queen stood on 
 thy right hand in clothing of gold, surrounded with variety \' 
 Therefore it is that different persons receive different gifts — 
 one thus, and another thus — whether monks of Clugni or of 
 Citeaux, or canons, or even faithful laymen, in short, every 
 Order, every tongue, each sex, every age and condition, in 
 every place, through all time, from the first man to the last. 
 For it is on this account too that it is described as a long 
 
 '' " Singulariter sum ego donee transeam " Ps. cxl. 10. In our version, 
 
 Whilst that I withal escape." Ps. cxli. 10. 
 
 » " Id vestitu deaurato circumdata varietate," v. 10. 
 
NO. XXII.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 371 
 
 garment % because it reacheth unto the end, (as the prophet 
 saith, ' there is no one that can hide himself from its heat/) 
 suited to him for whom it was made, of whom another scrip- 
 ture testifieth that he ' reacheth therefore from end to end 
 mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly ^' 
 
 " Let us all therefore unite under one garment, and out of 
 all let one be made. Of all, I say, one — for though made 
 up of many, and those differing, my dove, my perfect one, is 
 but one * ; that is, not I alone, nor you without me, nor he 
 without either of us ; but we are all, and at the same time, 
 ONE, if we are but careful to maintain the unity of the Spirit 
 in the bond of peace. It is not, I say, exclusively our Order, 
 or exclusively yours, which constitutes that one, but yours 
 and ours together — unless (which God forbid) envying one 
 another, and provoking one another, we bite one another, and 
 are consumed one of another, and so make it impossible for 
 the apostle to present us as a chaste virgin to Christ, that one 
 husband to whom he espouses us. Yet that one saith in the 
 canticle, * He set in order charity in me ' ;' that, although 
 one in charity, it might be diverse in ordination. What then? 
 I am a Cistercian — do I therefore condemn those of Clugni ? 
 God forbid ; but I love, I praise, I magnify them. * Why, 
 then,' you will say, ^ do you not take upon you that Order, if 
 you so praise it?' Hear — because the apostle says, 'Let 
 every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called ^".' 
 And if you ask why I did not originally choose it, if I knew 
 it to be such as I have stated, I answer, because the apostle 
 again says, ' All things are lawful for me, but all things are 
 not expedient.' Not, that is, that the Order is not holy and 
 just, but that I was carnal, sold under sin ; and I felt that my 
 soul was so diseased as to require more powerful medicine. 
 Now, for different disorders, different medicines are proper ; 
 and for more powerful disorders stronger medicines. Suppose 
 two men to have quartan and tertian ague ; he who has the 
 quartan recommends for the tertian, water, pears, and all 
 
 ^ "Nudaverunt eum tunica talari et polymita." — Gen. xxxvii. 23. 
 ^ Wisd. viii. 1. ** ('ant. vi. 8. Douay. 
 
 9 " Ordinavit in me caritatem." Cant. ii. 4. We translate *• His banner 
 over me was love." 
 i" 1 Cor. vi. 10. 
 
 Bb2 
 
372 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX [nO. XXII. 
 
 sorts of cold things, while he abstains from them himself, 
 and takes wine and other warm things as more suitable for 
 him. Who, I ask, can properly blame him? If the other 
 should say to him, * Why do not you drink the water which 
 you so praise ?' — would he not rightly answer, ' I prescribe it 
 faithfully in your case, and abstain from it beneficially in my 
 own.' But suppose it be asked, ^ Why, as I praise all the 
 Orders, I do not keep them all?' — for I do praise and love 
 all the Orders, wherever they live piously and righteously in 
 the church. I do hold one in practice, the others in charity 
 — and charity will be a means (I speak confidently) that I 
 shall not lose the fruit of those whose customs I do not 
 adopt. I will say something further — do you take care of 
 yourself; for it may happen that you may have laboured in 
 vain, but that my love to your good works should be vain is 
 impossible. Oh ! how great confidence may we have in 
 charity : one man works without charity, while another with 
 charity does nothing but look on ; the one loses his labour, 
 the other's charity never faileth." 
 
 Bernard proceeds to rebuke, with great asperity, 
 those members of his own Order who brought railing 
 accusations against the monks of Clugni ; and then 
 goes on to point out what he considered wrong or 
 defective in the customs of that monastery. This he 
 does, it must be admitted, not so much in the style of 
 brotherly expostulation, as of passionate invective. I 
 should like to give the whole of this Apology, and, 
 indeed, (if I may so speak) all the pleadings of the case, 
 of which this Apology formed the declaration ; but 
 though they appear to me to be most curious and 
 valuable documents, throwing great light on the period, 
 and especially on our subject, yet I do not know that 
 others might think them equally interesting ; and, 
 moreoveis as Peter himself quietly observes, in one of 
 his letters: — "Additur difficultati studium brevitatis, 
 qua MODERNi nescio qua innata segnicie delectantur." 
 Were I, however, to transcribe the whole of Bernard's 
 work, I do not think that it would give the reader so 
 
NO. XXII.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 373 
 
 clear an idea of the matters in dispute as may be con- 
 veyed by extracting the brief statement of them with 
 which Peter introduces his reply. This, though it is in 
 the form of a letter to Bernard, professes not so much 
 to be an answer to his Apology, as to the charges com- 
 monly brought by the Cistercians. 
 
 "Some of your monks, however, object to ours in this 
 manner: — You, say they, do not keep the Rule which you 
 have professed to follow, as may be seen by your works. On 
 the contrary, your feet have turned aside into unknown paths, 
 and devious tracks of all sorts. For, having made laws for 
 yourselves, according to your own liking, you call them most 
 sacred. You renounce the precepts of the fathers for your 
 traditions; and, what seems monstrous, you act in one and 
 the same matter both as masters and disciples. Moreover, 
 to increase your sin and the Divine displeasure, you bind 
 yourselves by a vow before God and his saints, and, trans- 
 gressing it, you shew yourselves, without all doubt, guilty of 
 breaking a vow. You promise to fight in the heavenly camp 
 under the rule of St. Benedict, and to maintain a perpetual 
 obedience to his regulations. This is your promise — let us 
 see whether your manner of life corresponds to it. 
 
 " And that we may take up these points in regular order, 
 how do you keep the Rule as fo the admission of novices, 
 when it directs that they shall not be received until after a 
 year, during which their spirits shall be tried whether they 
 are of God \ and you receive them without hesitation, and (if 
 we may so speak) the very moment that they apply ? Whence 
 it happens that, having been carelessly received, they live 
 still more carelessly after their reception ; and because when 
 they came they did not understand what they were coming 
 to, when they are associated with the rest they know not 
 what to do ; and, not having been previously trained in the 
 stadium, when they come to the real conflict they fly instead 
 of fighting, or if they fight with a bravery which should 
 ensure conquest, their inexpertness renders them an easy 
 prey to the enemy. 
 
 ' " Noviter veniens quis ad conversionem, non ei facilis tribiiatur in- 
 gressus : set! sicut ait apostolus ' probate spiritus,' ** &c. Cap. Iviii. 
 
374 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX [nO. XXII. 
 
 " By what authority, also, do you defend the use of leather 
 garments, and of skins of various sorts, when that Rule con- 
 tains nothing about any such things ? 
 
 *' It commands, also, that those who are sent abroad shall 
 receive breeches from the wardrobe, and shall replace them 
 there on their return, not allowing any one but those who are 
 so circumstanced to wear them ''. 
 
 "As to your bed furniture, judge for yourselves whether 
 you follow the master, while you certainly put both under 
 and over you more things, and different things than those 
 prescribed by the Rule \ 
 
 " In that Rule, so often mentioned already, you read that 
 all the monks should be satisfied with two dressed dishes ; or 
 that, if there be means for providing a third, it shall be of 
 fruit, or pulse*; whether you adhere to this, is known to 
 yourselves. 
 
 "It commands that monks who are transgressors and 
 apostates from their profession, — that is, those who with- 
 draw their necks from the yoke of the Rule, run away from 
 monasteries and return to secular life — shall, if they express 
 their repentance and desire to return, be received to the 
 third time * ; and that if after that they repeat the offence, 
 they shall not be again received. You, however, set at nought 
 this regulation, as you do the others, and receive them as 
 often as they choose to come, contrary to the command of 
 the Rule. 
 
 " What shall we say of the regular fasts which you have so 
 set aside, and so changed according to your own will and 
 pleasure, that you scarcely retain some small remains of 
 them — and those, perhaps, more from shame towards man 
 than from the fear of God ? For whereas the monks are 
 commanded to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, from Whit- 
 suntide to the 13th of September, they should fast till the 
 ninth hour, unless they have work to do in the fields, or the 
 heat of the weather should be very oppressive. And whereas 
 it is also enjoined, that from the 13th of September to Ash- 
 Wednesday they should always take their meal at the ninth 
 hour®, you, on the contrary, throughout the summer, make 
 
 » Cap. iv. 3 Ibid. * Cap. xxxix. ' Cap. xxix. * Cap. xli. 
 
NO. XXII.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 375 
 
 all the days of the week alike, and keep the prescribed fast 
 by eating twice every day, and the remainder of the time, by 
 keeping or neglecting the fast at your pleasure. Instead of 
 submitting yourselves to the Rule, you make the Rule submit 
 to you. 
 
 "Manual labour, which the holy fathers, the hermits, 
 always used — whereby even the apostles provided the means 
 of sustenance for themselves and others — concerning which, 
 while visiting the sin of the first man with this punishment, 
 God said, ^ in the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread' 
 — of which, also, David, ' Thou shalt eat the labours of thy 
 hands ; blessed art thou, and it shall be well with thee ;' you 
 have so renounced, that not even all these authorities have 
 power to make you labour, nor can the obedience which you 
 promised to render to God, according to the Rule, prevail to 
 draw from your bosom, and set to work, hands that have 
 become delicate through idleness. 
 
 " You know that it is there also commanded, that on the 
 arrival or departure of guests, Christ, who is received in 
 them, is to be worshipped by the monks, with bowing of the 
 head, or the prostration of the whole body on the ground. 
 Neither are you ignorant that it is there commanded — ' The 
 abbot shall pour water on the hands of the guests ; the abbot 
 and the whole congregation shall wash the feet of all the 
 guests ^;' but you, despisers of your vow, do not care to keep 
 it even in that small matter. 
 
 " The abbot is directed to keep an inventory of the imple- 
 ments and various things belonging to the monastery * ; but 
 either through negligence he does not care, or through pride 
 he does not condescend, to do it. 
 
 " Moreover, whereas it is commanded that those who are 
 not able to attend the church to join in divine worship, shall 
 bow their knees with godly fear in the place where they may 
 happen to be'; you (according to your custom, following 
 your own rule and despising the common one) neglect this, 
 though there is nothing very burdensome in it ; and, making 
 some devices of your own, you put contempt on this little 
 commandment, just as you do on those which are greater. 
 
 " Also, it commands that the abbot shall always take his 
 
 ' Cap. liii. * Cap. xxxii. ^ Cap. 1. 
 
376 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX [nO. XXII. 
 
 meals with the guests and strangers *, that so he may always 
 have Christ as his guest, who declares that he will say, ' I 
 was a stranger, and ye took me in/ This so great benefit, 
 and one so easily obtained, you despise, as if you thought it 
 of no value. 
 
 "It is commanded that wheresoever the brethren meet 
 each other, the younger shall ask a blessing of the elder ^ ; 
 and this, also, is not done among you. 
 
 " It is commanded that a wise old man shall be put at the 
 gate of the monastery % which is not done. 
 
 " It is directed that the porter shall answer, ' Deo gratias,' 
 or give his blessing to every one who shall knock or call ; and 
 this is not observed. 
 
 " This, however — this, I say, opposed to all reason and au- 
 thority, how do you defend — that those who have already made 
 profession of steadfastness, and conversion, and obedience, in 
 one place, should again, in another place, repeat the vow of 
 steadfastness, conversion, and obedience ; and you compel 
 them to make void their former faith ; so that you thus 
 environ those who give way to you with such inevitable 
 peril, that, turn which way they will, they cannot escape sin. 
 For if they will keep the first vow, they are guilty as to the 
 second ; if they keep the second, they are entangled by the 
 first. Nor do they alone suffer ; but the same chain will 
 bind yourselves, perhaps even more severely; for deceivers 
 ought to suffer a greater punishment than those who are 
 deceived. 
 
 " But, besides, give, if you can, any excuse for this — that, 
 contrary to your Rule, so often mentioned, [yours, certainly, 
 — ycmrs, either to save or condemn you,) you receive, indif- 
 ferently, monks of another, and of a known monastery, 
 without permission of their own abbots, or letters of recom- 
 mendation ; and thus you do to others what you would not 
 have done to yourselves *. In this, also, you shew a want of 
 regard to brotherly love, nor do you love your neighbours as 
 yourselves, according to the divine precept, which says, ' This 
 is my commandment, that ye love one another.' 
 
 "Beside all this, there is one thing which you pertina- 
 ciously maintain, which every one must plainly see to be 
 
 ' Cap. Ivi. ■-' Cap. Ixiii. ^ Cap. Ixvi. '' Cap. Ixi. 
 
NO. XXII.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 377 
 
 unjust, and contrary to the decrees of the church, and such 
 as might lead all persons justly to condemn you. Contrary 
 to the custom of the whole world, you refuse to have any 
 bishop of your own. How absurd this is, even the ignorant 
 must see. For whence are you to get chrism ? whence holy 
 orders ? whence the consecration of churches, and the bene- 
 diction of burial places ? whence, in short, all things which, 
 in order to canonical performance, require the presence or 
 direction of a bishop ? Certainly in these points you break 
 the Rule, not only of monks, but of all Christians. 
 
 " On what ground do you hold parish churches, firstfruits, 
 and tithes, when, according to the canons, all these things 
 pertain not to monks, but to clerks ? That is, they are granted 
 to those whose office it is to baptize, and to preach, and to 
 perform whatever else belongs to the cure of souls, in order 
 that they may not be necessarily involved in secular business ; 
 but that, as they labour in the church, they may live by the 
 church, as the Lord saith, '^The labourer is worthy of his 
 hire.' But why do you usurp these things, while it is not 
 your place to do any of the duties which we have mentioned? 
 and while you do not perform that labour, why do you take 
 the wages thereof? 
 
 " But what will you say concerning those secular posses- 
 sions which you hold after the manner of secular persons, 
 from whom, in this particular, you seem not to differ at all. 
 For towns, villages, and peasants, servants and handmaids, 
 and, what is worse, the proceeds of tolls and taxes, and almost 
 all revenues of that kind, you receive indifferently, hold them 
 unlawfully, and when they are attacked, you do not scruple 
 to use all means to defend them. Hence it is that, contrary 
 to the laws of monastic order, ecclesiastics carry on secular 
 causes, monks turn advocates, accuse and are accused, become 
 witnesses, (contrary to the apostle's injunction,) are present 
 at trials, and, under pretext of maintaining their rights, they 
 do, in heart, return into Egypt. After having left Sodom, 
 they turn to behold its conflagration. Having put their hand to 
 the plough, they look back, and therefore cannot be fit for the 
 kingdom of heaven. In all these things we have very clearly 
 shewn that you are transgressors of your profession, and of 
 your vow ; for if it is certain that your Rule has commanded 
 these things, and that you have made a vow to keep it — if it 
 
378 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX [nO. XXII. 
 
 shall appear that you have not hitherto done this — it is clear, 
 as we have said, that you are guilty of breaking your vow. 
 But we observe all these things as they are commanded ; and 
 keep, without exception, whatsoever is in the Rule which we 
 promised to God that we would keep. 
 
 " To these things our monks reply — Oh, oh ! a new race 
 of pharisees has risen up in the world, who separating them- 
 selves from others, and setting up themselves before all, say 
 what the prophet foretold that they would say, * Touch me 
 not, for I am clean.' But to answer first to that which you 
 have put last — say, you true observers of the Rule, how is it 
 that you boast of keeping it? when, as your very words 
 shew, you do not even keep that short paragraph in which it 
 is said that a monk is not only to declare with his lips, but 
 to feel in his inmost heart, that he is the least, and meanest 
 of men * ? Is this to believe and to declare yourselves infe- 
 rior, when you disparage the deeds of others and extol your 
 own, despise others and magnify yourselves, while the scrip- 
 ture directs — * when ye shall have done all those things which 
 are commanded you, say. We are unprofitable servants?' 
 'In thy sight,' says the prophet, 'shall no man living be 
 justified;' and Isaiah, 'All our righteousnesses are as filthy 
 rags.' " 
 
 Having thus briefly stated the charges, the abbot 
 proceeds to answer them in detail, and at considerable 
 length ; but one or two extracts will enable the reader 
 to judge of the style and spirit of his reply, and how far 
 it was just (even supposing that he had not written 
 anything but that single letter to Bernard) to charac- 
 terize him as an ignorant and trifling writer, who 
 " may seem to have placed the essence of Christianity 
 in frivolous punctilios and insignificant ceremonies." 
 
 " It is objected to us that, on every arrival or departure of 
 guests, both the abbot and the whole congregation do not 
 prostrate themselves on the ground, or bow all their heads in 
 the sight of all the guests, that the abbot does not pour water 
 on the hands of the guests, and that he, as well as the whole 
 
 * In cap. vii. 
 
NO. XXII.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 379 
 
 congregation, does not wash all their feet. It is affirmed by 
 the objectors, that the salvation of monks depends on their 
 keeping these things to the letter ; but, oh ! men, like chil- 
 dren running after butterflies, fighting, yet beating not us but 
 the air, making frivolous objections, not following the path 
 of discretion, the mother of virtues, and therefore turning 
 aside from the right way; tell us, we beseech you, is the 
 congregation of Clugni or any other congregation to be 
 adjudged to have broken its vow, and therefore to be de- 
 prived of eternal salvation, unless, with its abbot, it bows or 
 prostrates itself before all guests who come and go ? Shall 
 it be consigned to perdition if it does not wash the hands and 
 feet of all the guests ? If it be so, either the whole body of 
 monks must be at all times in the house appropriated to 
 guests, or the guests must be lodged in the cloister and in 
 the apartments of the monks ; for it is quite impossible that 
 the injunction should be literally fulfilled unless they actually 
 live together. For the continual coming and going of visi- 
 tors will require the constant attendance of those who are to 
 wait upon them. 
 
 " Hence it will happen that those whom you wish to be 
 monks can no longer be so, but, always living with secular 
 persons, will lose both the name and the true life of monks ; 
 and while they are labouring unwisely to keep this part of 
 the law, they must give up all the rest of it, without even 
 attaining what they aim at. Thus, plainly thus, it will hap- 
 pen — this will be the consequence — monks must live with 
 clerks, soldiers, peasants, clients, players, and men of various 
 conditions, and even (for they are not shut out from hospi- 
 tality) with women ; and these peculiar persons, these who 
 are dead to the world, these to whom even the free use of the 
 common air is not allowed, are to be again mixed up in pro- 
 miscuous intercourse with mankind, from whom they have 
 separated. Undoubtedly the number of visitors is almost 
 always so great that if we must bow and prostrate ourselves 
 before them all, and if we must wash the hands and feet of 
 all, it will be necessary, as I have said, that all the monks 
 should be with them from the rising of the sun to its setting, 
 and spend the whole day in genuflections and in washing 
 hands and feet, and very often they would not be able to go 
 through the business in the day. Let them, then, give up 
 
 1 
 
380 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX [nO. XXII. 
 
 all divine service ; let them give up all the other parts of the 
 Rule ; let them give up even their meals ; let them not trou- 
 ble themselves about prime, or tierce, or sext, or nones, or 
 vespers, or complin, or the celebration of mass; let them 
 give up all these things for the washing of hands and feet, 
 and either let the church be silent, or let some other persons 
 be found to do the duty of the monks. Does not this appear 
 very ridiculous ? Would not even the most stupid protest 
 against such a proceeding? Would not even the brute 
 beasts cry out against it ? We do, however, what we can ; 
 and on every day in the year we do wash the hands and the 
 feet of three strangers, and offer them bread and wine, the 
 abbot taking his turn, and none except those who are dis- 
 abled by sickness being excepted. 
 
 *' Thus we fulfil what we can of the Rule, and do not, for 
 the sake of this, break the other parts of it ; for it behoves 
 us, as our Lord saith, to do these things and not to leave the 
 others undone. And though, as I have shewn, reason itself, 
 even without our adding anything, exclaims against your 
 objection, and completely makes an end of it, yet it behoves 
 us to recur to what we before stated, and from thence to 
 shew that we fully keep the Rule. St. Benedict says, ' Let 
 the abbot so temper and dispose all things as that souls may 
 be saved.' He said ' all things,' and excepted nothing. If, 
 therefore, the abbot is allowed, for the good of souls, to tem- 
 per and dispose all things, it is lawful for him so to temper 
 these things that have been mentioned as that the guests 
 shall want nothing that is necessary, but shall be received 
 and provided for with respect, brotherly love, and diligence ; 
 while, at the same time, the church of God shall not be 
 defrauded of its proper services, and no part, even the least, 
 of regular observance shall be intermitted." 
 
 I think this will appear to most readers to be a sen- 
 sible and sufficient reply to the charge. His defence 
 on another point certainly seems less satisfactory if we 
 look at the strict letter of the Rule ; but it is perhaps 
 on that account the more to our purpose. It shews 
 the abbot contending not for punctilios, but for such a 
 discretionary dispensing power as might indeed have 
 
NO. XXII.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 381 
 
 been loDg used in his monastery, but has perhaps 
 scarcely ever obtained in any other, where the Rule of 
 St. Benedict was professed. The passage is, moreover, 
 very characteristic of the man. 
 
 " You say that the Rule directs that we should place a 
 wise old man at the gate of the monastery, and that we omit 
 to do so. But we reply — supposing us to have a porter who 
 is a wise man, though he does not happen to be an old one, 
 are we to be condemned as breakers of the Rule, and on that 
 account deserving of hell ? Suppose we should not be able 
 to find old age and wisdom in the same person ? Is he on 
 this account— because he is not both old in years and wise 
 in conduct — incapable of acting as porter? What says the 
 scripture? — ^Wisdom is the grey hair unto men, and an 
 unspotted life is old age^' Beside this — unless he answers, 
 * Deo gratias,^ to all who knock or call, or bawls out a bene- 
 diction, even though he should perform all the offices of kind- 
 ness to those who come, yet, according to you, it profiteth 
 nothing ; and not even the whole Rule, kept most strictly in 
 all other points, can suffice to save us, unless the aforesaid 
 porter cries out with a loud voice, ' Deo gratias.' Let reason 
 consider this, let truth consider, let the lovers of truth con- 
 sider, and, without our saying a word, let them tell us what 
 they think. But why are we to place a porter at our gate, 
 when we have no gate ? For our gates are not shut by day ; 
 but, always standing open, they admit all comers, without 
 respect of persons. No one is obliged to knock or call, 
 because he finds, not only the outer gates, but the entrance 
 to the hospitium open; and, seating himself there, he sees 
 that every necessary preparation has been made for his recep- 
 tion. Lest, however, the monks should be kept out of their 
 own houses, we cause a wise and honest servant to remain, 
 and to lie at hand; who, at noon, or at those times when all 
 the gates of the monastery are by custom closed, may answer 
 to those who knock or call, not so much by the clamour of 
 his voice, as by the performance of his duty. Then, cer- 
 tainly, thus doing, we are not breakers, but, according to our 
 power, keepers of our Rule.^' 
 
 * Wisd. iv. 9. 
 
382 EPISTOLARY CORRESPONDENCE [NO. XXIII. 
 
 These extracts will not, I trust, be found uninterest- 
 ing by the reader. I give them not only as a matter 
 of justice to Peter, but as directly bearing on our sub- 
 ject. 
 
 No. XXIII. 
 
 " Pontic Clarevallensi successit Petrus, cujus meminit Trithemius, libro 
 de scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis, floruitque hoc duodecimo seculo. Is unus 
 eorum est qui Romanam tyrannidem animadvertit et accusavit." 
 
 Cat. Test. Verit. 
 
 In the preceding paper I have exhibited Bernard and 
 Peter, not, indeed, as enemies — for, to the credit of 
 both parties, there does not seem to have existed any- 
 thing that could be called enmity between them, even 
 in the height of their dispute — yet in something like a 
 hostile position towards each other. It is but justice 
 to shew them as friends; and happily we have the 
 means of doing this from some of the letters which 
 passed between them. 
 
 It may perhaps be remembered, that I was led to 
 speak of Peter by getting unexpectedly involved in his 
 correspondence ; and, in truth, it was with an intention 
 of producing some extracts from his letters that I 
 brought him forward. I meant to have prefaced those 
 extracts by some remarks on the value of the epistolary 
 correspondence of the dark ages ; but in this point I 
 have been very agreeably anticipated by an able and 
 extended discussion and illustration of the subject. I 
 take it for granted, that all who may trouble them- 
 selves to read what I write will be acquainted with the 
 article to which I refer \ and I will therefore here only 
 
 * In the recent number of the Quarterly Review. [That is, " recent," 
 in July, 1837.] 
 
NO. XXIII.] OF THE DARK AGES. 383 
 
 offer one remark on the subject. I am so fully con- 
 vinced of the value and importance of the immense 
 number of middle-age letters which are still in exist- 
 ence, and of their not having been yet made to yield 
 anything like all the very interesting materials which 
 they contain for history, that it has appeared to me 
 most desirable to obtain something like a chronological 
 arrangement of them. The full value of such a thing 
 cannot be estimated until it is done ; but even a slight 
 acquaintance with comparatively few of them is suffi- 
 cient to persuade me that, when brought together by 
 the chronology which we have, one of the first effects 
 would be a correction of that chronology in almost 
 innumerable instances. 
 
 Beside this, letters passing at a certain time between 
 A and B, with more or less reference to the events of 
 the period, being thus placed beside those which passed 
 at the same time between C and D, and half-a-dozen 
 other couples of correspondents in different places, who 
 had never heard of A and B, or of each other, — these 
 letters having no common tie as to their writers, their 
 locality, or their professed subjects, and now suffered 
 to lie in a wide dispersion, would, if collected and 
 arranged in order of time, be found to dove-tail in an 
 infinite variety of circumstances, and thus throw light 
 on facts and motives, fix dates, identify persons, explain 
 contradictions, — in a word, illustrate history in every 
 way, and that, perhaps, to a greater degree than we can 
 at present imagine, or could by any other means per- 
 form. 
 
 " I wolde wyshe," says Bale, " som learned Inglish- 
 man (as there are now most excellent fresh wyttes) to 
 set forth the Inglish Chronycles in their right shape, as 
 certein other landes hath done afore them al affections 
 set a-part. I cannot think a more necessary thing to 
 be laboured to the honour of God, Bewty of the 
 
384 REPUBLICATION OF [nO. XX III. 
 
 Realme, Erudicion of the people, and eommoditie of 
 other landes, next the sacred scriptures of the Byble, 
 than that worke wold be ^" 
 
 Of the truth of this I am very fully convinced ; and 
 I cannot but wish to see something effected on a larger 
 scale. T have long, and often, and earnestly thought, 
 how good a thing it would be, if the chronicles which 
 we possess, and many of which have been edited, either 
 separately or in various larger or smaller collections, 
 with much learning, industry, and critical skill, — which, 
 nevertheless, lie so wide that one can scarcely hope to 
 see them all, or even any considerable proportion of 
 them, anywhere but in a public library, — which, even 
 when found, require him who would collect, and com- 
 pare, and weigh their testimony on any point, to cover 
 something less than an acre with outspread folios, and 
 wander to and fro among them, carrying about colla- 
 tions in his head, till his patience and his shoes are 
 very considerably worn in the business, — which, on this 
 very account, have never yet, I believe, been fairly 
 placed side by side, so as to shew the full extent of 
 reiteration, concordance, and discrepancy, and to reflect 
 on each other that light which obscure, and even unin- 
 telligible passages, often do throw on each other ; if, 
 I say, we had these, which are, in fact, not only the 
 sources of history, but all, and more than all, the reed 
 history which we have, brought into something like 
 what theological writers call a " Harmony," with the 
 letters chronologically arranged, as I have already sug- 
 gested, by way of a running commentary, I really 
 believe that we might very easily know more of history 
 than anybody has ever known yet. 
 
 It would, to be sure, be rather a large work, but a 
 very noble one ; and then, if people liked to write what 
 
 2 Brief Chron. of Sir J. Oldcastle, liar. Misc. ii. 237. 
 
NO. XXIII.] THE SOURCES OF HISTORY. 385 
 
 is commonly called History, they would know where to 
 find materials on their own terms, (that is, without 
 trouble,) or, if they still preferred, as too many have 
 done, making it out of their own heads, others would 
 know where to find an antidote to their misrepresenta- 
 tions. I do not think that Bale has stated the matter 
 too strongly, and I really doubt whether any competent 
 man could be better employed (I do not mean merely 
 for the cause of literature, or general truth, but spe- 
 cially for the cause of Christ's church on earth,) than in 
 thus arranging and editing the records, and in parti- 
 cular the letters, of the dark ages; and, as to these 
 latter, I heartily wish that the writer who has shewn 
 such a sense of their value, and such a capability for 
 the work, would undertake it. 
 
 It is very pleasant to run on imagining the supply of 
 desiderata ; but perhaps some sedate reader may have 
 already asked, " What would be the expense of such 
 an undertaking ?" T am sure I do not know ; but I 
 am inclined to think that those who have not turned 
 their attention to the subject would be surprised to see 
 in how small a compass all that may be called original 
 histories, or sources of history, would lie. Still I 
 acknowledge that it would be rather a large work ; 
 and if it be asked, " Who will buy it ? " I feel some 
 hesitation about an answer. I have no such certainty 
 to fall back upon as George Stevens's projector had, 
 when he proposed to pay off the national debt by bot- 
 tling the river Thames, and selling it as Spa-water : 
 " But you say, ' Who'll buy it ? '—Who'll buy it ? why, 
 the Waterman's Company 7mist buy it, or what will 
 they do with their boats ? " There is no chartered 
 company on the stream of history. Any speculator 
 may launch his barge or his wherry ; he may take in 
 whatever company he can get for Richmond, but there 
 is nothing beyond their own sagacity to prevent their 
 
 c c 
 
386 REPUBLICATION OF HISTORIANS. [nO. XXIII. 
 
 being floated down the stream, and floundered out on 
 the Isle of Dogs, and there left to make the best of 
 their bargain ; and truly (if I may trust the popular 
 opinion) when they have got upon their legs, and settled 
 to their own satisfaction whether the Tower is Somer- 
 set-house or Greenwich Hospital, they may feel thank- 
 ful that matters have been no worse, — that they were 
 not run down by some dashing steam-boat or cross- 
 headed lighter, and that they are where they are, to 
 comfort themselves with the reflection that, for all the 
 really useful purposes of air, and exercise, and pastime, 
 it does just as well as if they had gone where they 
 thought they were going. This, however, by the way ; 
 — it being only a little reflection suggested by the 
 sudden (and to myself very unexpected) mention of the 
 Waterman's Company ; — it is my hope and belief that 
 a work which would be obviously for the whole world, 
 and which must maintain an undiminished value as long 
 as the world lasts, would meet with support. I do not 
 say that any particular individual or body must buy it; 
 but I cannot help very thankfully expressing my con- 
 viction tbat something like a mtist is growing up among 
 the more educated classes, who (one sees proof of it 
 every day) are prying into the original sources of his- 
 tory, both secular and ecclesiastical, and who, if such a 
 scheme were proposed by capable men, would feel that 
 they must support it ^ 
 
 ^ I believe that at the time when this suggestion was made, the English 
 Historical Society was just being formed, though I was not aware of that 
 fact. Since then the Camden, the Irish Archaeological, and the iElfric 
 have been added. I might perhaps fairly add the Anglo-Catholic and the 
 Parker Societies ; both formed exclusively for the reprinting old books, 
 and both (the latter one more directly and in a greater degree) tending to 
 illustrate the history of the Church by giving us the works of contem- 
 porary writers. Are not these new Societies sufficient (without saying 
 anything of what has been done by the government or by private indi- 
 viduals) to warrant my suggestion that a spirit of investigation was 
 arising ? 
 
NO. XXIII.] BERNARD AND PETER. 387 
 
 But as to Bernard and Peter ; there are two pas- 
 sages in this letter of Peter which I must add to those 
 already given. 
 
 " After this, you adduce some very strange and unheard-of 
 charges, — insomuch that we hesitate to answer, through mere 
 astonishment. You blame us, and say that we are just like 
 secular persons, because we have castles, towns, peasants, 
 servants, and handmaids, and (worse still) revenues arising 
 from tolls ; and we accept property of almost every such kind 
 without distinction, hold it unlawfully, and defend it by all 
 sorts of means against those who attack it. You add, that 
 on this account, laying aside our monastic character, we 
 assume that of lawyers, accuse and are accused, produce wit- 
 nesses from our own body, are concerned (contrary to the 
 apostle's injunction) in judicial proceedings, and cannot 
 therefore be fit for the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 " It would be proper for you who make these charges to 
 substantiate them by some written authority, to which we 
 must yield, and not let them rest on your bare assertion, by 
 which we are not greatly moved. For thus the law requires, 
 that he who accuses any one should prove his charge, since 
 the burthen of proof always lies on the accuser. Neverthe- 
 less, we will here act contrary to this judicial method ; and, 
 sparing you, whom we know to be unable to prove your case, 
 we will prove our own in the following manner : — 
 
 " We know, indeed, that * the earth is the Lord's, and the 
 fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein;' but, 
 beside this, we read elsewhere in the same Psalms, *The 
 heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's ; but the earth hath 
 he given to the children of men.' It is plain, then, that both 
 the heaven and the earth are the Lord's ; but that he has 
 given the earth unto men for a time, that, if they use it well, 
 they may, after the earth, attain unto heaven*, and that 
 
 * " Post terram mererentur et coelum, et quae sua erant ex potestate, 
 hominum fierent ex ipsius benignitate." I believe that I give the true 
 sense of the author, that is, the true sense of mereor — as commonly used 
 by writers of the dark ages — which is (as I think I could shew by a good 
 many examples, which some criticisms that I have seen have led me to 
 notice, but which it would be out of place here to transcribe,) to arrive at, 
 
 cc2 
 
388 PETER THE VENERABLE's [NO. XXIII. 
 
 what was his by sovereign power, may become man's through 
 his benignity. By which most merciful benignity and most 
 benign mercy, though he ' hath poised with three fingers 
 the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, 
 and the hills in a balance *, he nevertheless accepts that 
 same earth, and those earthly gifts, from those same men to 
 whom he had given them, and (if I may so speak) allows the 
 kingdom of heaven to be bought at his own expense. Nor 
 does he thence seek profit for himself, but the salvation of 
 man, and esteems that his own gain. Hence it is, that, while 
 he orders that meat should be given to the hungry, and drink 
 to the thirsty, he previously creates bread in the com, wine 
 in the grape, and loads the trees with fruit, and the animals 
 with offspring. The very water, for a cup of which given to 
 the needy he has declared that a reward is laid up, he makes 
 to rise from springs, and flow through all the rivers. And, 
 in a word, all the things with regard to which he rewards the 
 goodwill of those who give them, he does himself, first of all, 
 give to those givers. Hence the church of God, grounding 
 its right as well on the Old Testament as on the New, 
 receives all things that are offered, not to her, but to God, as 
 his representative ; and thence charitably maintains those of 
 her members who are in want, and have no property of their 
 own in the world ; as clerks, and monks, or paupers, or 
 whomsoever she knows to suffer the need of such things. 
 Monks, therefore, (for at present we speak of them only) 
 receive all the offerings of the faithful, whether in moveable 
 or immoveable property ; and repay the donors by a perpe- 
 tual course of prayer, fasting, and good works. But as it is 
 respecting the acceptance of immoveable property that we 
 are now called in question, I will at present answer to that 
 point, 
 
 or obtain, or come to the possession of, some honour or benefit, without 
 reference to personal desert, or what a protestant would understand to be 
 referred to in the popish doctrine of merit. Indeed, whoever understands 
 Peter as affirming that none but those who have merited heaven shall 
 obtain it, must understand that none do obtain the earth until they have 
 previously merited it. And this is, in fact, true, according to his use of 
 the word, and his meaning. 
 
 * Douay vers. Isa. xl. 12, "Appendit tribus digitis molem terrje." — 
 Vulg. 
 
NO. XXIII.] DEFENCE OF CLUGNI. 389 
 
 "In the first place, then, we plead our Rule. For, in 
 treating of the reception of novices, it says — ' If he has any 
 property, (res si quas habet,) let him either first give it to 
 the poor, or, by a solemn act of donation, confer it on the 
 monastery *.' By saying, * if he has any property,' it excepts 
 nothing ; but if it excepts nothing, it does not except any 
 landed property, or town, or peasants, or sei-vants, or hand- 
 maids, or anything of that kind. But clearly nothing is 
 excepted, and therefore it is obvious that these things which 
 we have mentioned are not excepted. And what I have 
 before quoted from St. Gregory agrees with the command of 
 our Rule ; wherein he forbids that any bishop or secular per- 
 son should presume, in any way, or on any occasion, either 
 by fraud or force, to take from the revenues, or property, or 
 muniments of monasteries, or of cells, or towns belonging to 
 them. For, by forbidding that any one should take away any 
 of these things, or presume to employ fraud or force against 
 them, he most evidently shews that monks might lawfully 
 possess revenues, property, cells, and towns ; as he would, by 
 no means, have forbidden that they should be disturbed in 
 the possession of those things, if he had known that they 
 held them unlawfully. And, since the revenues arising from 
 land are of different kinds, and property is of various descrip- 
 tions, and since there cannot be towns without inhabitants, 
 (that is, men and women, of different conditions,) and the 
 words of Gregory contain no exception with regard to them, 
 it is plainly shewn that monks may rightly possess all sorts 
 of revenues, without any exception, — any kind of property, 
 any towns ; and, by a parity of reasoning, any inhabitants of 
 the different conditions, that is, fi'ee or servile. 
 
 " But you will, perhaps, object, that without the help of 
 all these things, monks ought to provide what is needful for 
 them, by agriculture, and the labom- of their own hands. 
 I think, however, that no one can fail to see how indecent 
 and impossible this would be ; and, in the first place, I shall 
 shew that it is impossible. How are a languid set of men, 
 confined to a vegetable diet, that imparts scarcely any phy- 
 sical strength, and, in fact, hardly keeps them alive, and who 
 are, on that account, in a state of gi'eat debility, to endure 
 
 * Cap. Iviii. 
 
390 PETER THE VENERABLE'S [nO. XXIII. 
 
 agricultural labours, which are found most oppressive by 
 hinds and peasants, and to do the hard work of ploughmen, 
 exposed sometimes to scorching heat, sometimes to rain, 
 snow, and intense cold ? And how are they who, by religious 
 fasting, commonly diminish even their poor weakly food, to 
 bear such hard and continual labour ? And if, as to bodily 
 strength, they could bear all this, why should they do it, 
 when, without the help of others, they can obtain suflScient 
 food and clothing ? 
 
 " Having shewn that it is impossible, I will shew that it 
 would be indecent. Does it not appear indecent — yes, most 
 indecent — that monks, who are directed always to keep in the 
 cloister, devoting themselves most intensely to silence, prayer, 
 reading, and meditation, and the other precepts of the rule and 
 services of the church, should throw up all these things for 
 vulgar and rustic labour ? that those who, like the fine linen 
 of the tabernacle, should adorn its interior by their value and 
 their fine texture, (that is, by the subtle contemplation of 
 heavenly things) should like hair-cloth on the outside, have 
 to bear the wind and rain, and all the storms, — that is, too 
 great occupation in worldly affairs drawing them away from 
 internal things ? 
 
 " And since this, as I have said, is proved to be both inde- 
 cent and impossible, you must of necessity allow monks 
 some other means of maintaining their order above absolute 
 want; and indeed, if you refuse your permission, we shall 
 nevertheless, relying on the authority of the saint, continue 
 our practice. You have just heard that St. Gregory allowed 
 these things to monks ; now observe that he gave them ; for 
 thus we read in his life : — ^ When Gregory came to have the 
 full power of disposing of his property, he built six monas- 
 teries in Sicily, and stocked them with a sufficient number of 
 monks, to whom he gave as much landed property as might 
 provide a daily maintenance to those who were there serving 
 God.^ And of St. Maur we read : — ' The next day St. Maur 
 went to see and take possession of the royal estate which the 
 king had given to the monastery.' And again — ' At the same 
 time, Lothaire, coming to Angers, sent word to the man of 
 God that he wished to come to the monastery. And when 
 the man of God returned an answer that he might come, he 
 set out with a few attendants. And when he had come there. 
 
NO. XXIII.] DEFENCE OF CLUGNI. 391 
 
 he gave to that place an estate belonging to the royal pro- 
 perty, called Blazon ; and there, also, by royal authority, he 
 gave the town called Longus-campus.^ We find, too, that 
 almost all the things which you think that monks ought not 
 to have, were possessed by St. Columban and many other 
 holy monks, whose merits God attested by many and great 
 miracles, and whom the church solemnly commemorates. 
 
 '^And now, to add another argument to what we have 
 premised — who will not think it more right, more expedient, 
 more useful, that every one of those various things which 
 have been specified should be in the hands of those whom 
 the Order which they have assumed, and the monastic vow 
 which they have made, bind to a lawful use and possession of 
 them, than of those who, through negligence, and being 
 under the influence of less strict obligation, not merely 
 despise the trouble of good management, but also from an 
 undue love of the things themselves, and by ill management 
 of them, bring on their own destruction? For as we see 
 commonly, and in almost every case, as long as they are held 
 by secular persons, they are dealt with in a secular manner ; 
 but when the property in them is transferred to the reUgious 
 (if they are such, not in name only, but in fact,) then by the 
 religious they will be religiously dealt with. And, for in- 
 stance, let me specify some things : — Suppose a castle is 
 given to monks, it immediately ceases to be a castle, and 
 becomes an oratory ; nor does any one after that fight against 
 corporeal enemies, in a corporeal army, but is employed in 
 repelling spiritual enemies, by spiritual weapons. And thus 
 it comes to pass, that what was before fighting for the devil, 
 now begins to fight for Christ ; and what was before a den of 
 thieves, is made a house of prayer. 
 
 " The same argument may be used as to peasants, ser- 
 vants, and handmaids ; and by it we may most excellently 
 prove that monks have a legitimate right to possess them. 
 For everybody sees how secular masters rule over their pea- 
 sants, servants, and handmaids; for they are not satisfied 
 with their accustomed and due service, but always unmerci- 
 fully claim their persons with their property, and their pro- 
 perty with their persons. Hence it is, that, beside the 
 accustomed payments, they three or four times in the year. 
 
392 PETER THE VENERABLE'S [nO. XXIIT. 
 
 or as often as they please, spoil them of theh* goods ; they 
 oppress them with innumerable claims of service; they lay 
 upon them grievous and insupportable burthens. Hence 
 they force many to leave their native soil and fly to 
 foreign parts, and (what is worse) their very persons, 
 which Christ hath redeemed with so rich a price — even 
 his own blood — they are not afraid to sell for one so mean, 
 that is, for money. Now, monks, though they may have 
 such possessions, do not possess them in the same way, but 
 very differently; for they employ only the lawful and due 
 services of the peasants to procure the conveniences of life. 
 They harass them with no exactions, they impose no into- 
 lerable burthens, and if they see them in want, they main- 
 tain them at their own expense. They have servants and 
 handmaids, not as servants and handmaids, but as brothers 
 and sisters; and, receiving from them reasonable service 
 according to their ability, take care in return that they shall 
 suffer no want or injury ; so that they are (to use the words 
 of the apostle) as having nothing, yet possessing all things. 
 By the authorities and arguments which I have adduced, 
 therefore, it is, I think, clear, even to the blind, that monks 
 may not only la^^'fully possess such things, but even more 
 lawfully than laymen. 
 
 " And why are we to be prohibited from receiving the pro- 
 ceeds of tolls, when it is acknowledged that the princes of 
 this world hold them lawfully ? Or, is it thought unlawful 
 for them to possess what the apostle directs their subjects to 
 pay to them — ^tribute to whom tribute, custom to whom 
 custom' ? Truly we consider that to be lawful which is done 
 all over the world without reproof from the church of God, 
 which passes by no unrighteousness : nobody is excommuni- 
 cated, nobody is even called in question for it. And since, 
 without the contradiction of any one, they receive them as 
 they do their other rights, why may they not, in like manner, 
 give them to churches and monasteries of God? Why 
 may not monks rightly receive these from them as well as 
 other things? If you object that St. Matthew, being called 
 by the Lord from the receipt of custom, did not afterwards 
 return to it, as an unrighteous calling, while Peter and the 
 other apostles, who were fishermen, after being in like man- 
 
NO. XXIII.] DEFENCE OF CLUGNI. 393 
 
 ner called, were found afterwards fishing, whereby they 
 proved the lawfulness of that occupation, we reply that this 
 does not in any way help your argument, or weaken ours, for 
 we are not defending violent exactions, such as Matthew 
 relinquished, but just, customary, payments, which the 
 church receives." 
 
 There are several reasons, which will, I hope, be 
 apparent, for my quoting this passage ; but one of them 
 is so important that I cannot help distinctly calling 
 attention to it. It gives us a glimpse of one of those 
 features of the dark ages which are the least known, 
 and by many most reluctantly acknowledged. It goes to 
 shew that, at the darkest periods, the Christian church 
 was the source and spring of civilization, the dispenser 
 of what little comfort and security there was in the 
 things of this world, and the quiet scriptural asserter of 
 the rights of man. Whether, strictly speaking, the 
 monks of the order of St. Benedict had a right to dis- 
 pense with manual labour, I very much doubt, notwith- 
 standing the abbot Peter's defence of them, which T 
 quote principally to shew that he was not quite the 
 person that he has been represented to be ; but it was, 
 and we ought gratefully to acknowledge that it is, a 
 most happy thing for the world that they did not con- 
 fine themselves to the possession of such small estates 
 as they could cultivate with their own hands. 
 
 Without at present entering into a subject which is 
 extremely interesting, and for the illustration of which 
 materials are very abundant, I may just observe that 
 the extraordinary benefit which they conferred on 
 society by colonizing waste places — places chosen he- 
 cause they were waste and solitary, and such as could 
 be reclaimed only by the incessant labour of those who 
 were willing to work hard and live hard — lands often 
 given because they were not worth keeping — lands 
 
394 ECCLESIASTICAL LANDLORDS [nO. XXIII. 
 
 which, for a long while, left their cultivators half 
 starved, and dependent on the charity of those who 
 admired what we must too often call a fanatical zeal, 
 even the extraordinary benefit, I say, which they con- 
 ferred on mankind by thus clearing and cultivating, was 
 small in comparison with the advantages derived from 
 them by society, after they had become large pro- 
 prietors, landlords with more benevolence, and farmers 
 with more intelligence and capital, than any others. 
 
 One thing, however, is worthy of notice, as shewing 
 that one eccentricity (I do not like to call it a fault, or 
 even a folly, though it seems likely to be punished as 
 a sin,) of the church is not peculiar to modern times, 
 but at least as old as the beginning of the twelfth cen- 
 tury, — namely, that these ecclesiastical landlords did 
 not make so much of their property as they might 
 have done, or as would have been made of it by the 
 unprincipled and tyrannical laymen by whom they were 
 surrounded, and too frequently robbed. I think we 
 may infer, from Peter's way of alluding to their mode 
 of dealing with their tenants, and those serfs over 
 whom the law gave them so great a power, that though, 
 in one sense, very careful of their property, they were 
 not careful, or had not the wisdom, to make the most 
 of it. I do not remember to have seen it assigned as 
 a reason for taking away their property, but then (as 
 philosophical historians say) we must consider the spirit 
 of the age. The conservative power which offered the 
 only opposition to brute force in those days was an odd 
 compound of elements. Beside some codes of laws, 
 more or less comprehensive, and extending, with more 
 or less influence, over larger or smaller districts, they 
 had the Bible, and what was, or came to be, the Canon 
 law, and the testimony of history, a great deal of super- 
 stition, perhaps some religion, and certainly some (if 
 
NO. XXIII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 395 
 
 but little) common sense and conscience, all and each 
 of which would have been separately outraged by such 
 a pretext ; and they were so blended together, that 
 barefaced and comparatively honest spoliation found it 
 necessary to cut the knot with brute force. It was not 
 merely that fire and sword did the work more speedily 
 and effectually, but men really had not learned how to 
 meet the spirit of the age, as (could it be revived) it 
 would now be met. People had not then learned that 
 " the lands of the church, destined for the support of 
 public servants, exhibited none of the characters of 
 property. They were inalienable, because it would 
 have been not less absurd for the priesthood to have 
 exercised such authority over these lands, than it would 
 be for seamen to claim the property of a fleet which 
 they manned, or soldiers that of a fortress they gar- 
 risoned ^" This is a recent discovery; and indeed the 
 illustration would not have held good in the dark ages, 
 when soldiers and sailors received pay. 
 
 I must, however, add another extract from this letter 
 of Peter's, concerning his Rule, not merely to shew that 
 he did not place all his religion in the punctilios and 
 Pharisaical observance of it, but as throwing light on the 
 state and spirit of monastic institutions in his time, as 
 well as the opinions of men concerning them. 
 
 '' You have said, * St. Benedict framed his Rule either with 
 or without charity. But that he framed it without charity 
 none of you will dare to affirm, and therefore you do not 
 deny that he framed it with charity. Now, since the Rule 
 was framed by charity, it was not meant to be altered ; and if 
 
 7 I extract this from a paper in the Congregational Magazine for June, 
 [1837] p. 363, entitled, "Are the Lands occupied by the Church of Eng- 
 land the Property of its Members ? " As this has, I believe, ever since its 
 commencement, been considered as the organ of the most educated part of 
 the orthodox dissenters, the discussion of such a subject in its pages is 
 worth notice on many accounts. 
 
396 PETER THE VENERABLE [NO. XXIII. 
 
 not to be altered, then to be kept. Therefore you either act 
 injuriously towai'ds the saint by changing it, or you keep it 
 by entire obedience.' And to this we reply — ' It is clear 
 that the Rule was framed by charity, but it is not clear that 
 on that account it is unalterable ; nay, from its having been 
 framed by charity, it follows that it may be altered. And to 
 make this evident, let us inquire into what is the office of 
 charity. And what is the office of charity ? The one and 
 single office of charity is to seek the salvation of men by all 
 means. Our Lord himself, the apostles, all the saints, cry 
 aloud that this is its office. All holy scripture, as I have 
 already repeatedly said, testifies that whatsoever it commands 
 is just ; and (what is a still greater argument) the Lord has 
 declared that on it hang all the law and the prophets. This 
 the apostle calls the fulfilling of the law, and the end of the 
 commandment. Of this St. Augustine says, ^ If this one 
 thing be wanting, all things are vain ; if this only be present, 
 all are complete.' Of this, too, he says elsewhere, ' But the 
 whole fruit is charity, without which, whatever else a man 
 may have, he is nothing.' And in another place, * Have 
 charity, and do what ye will.' And therefore, to promote 
 the salvation of men, it doth what it will ; and if it be lawful 
 for it to do as it will, it was lawful for it to make a law, and 
 lawful also to change it. Nor can it be said that any injury 
 is done to the saint, for it is not altered by another ; but by 
 that which, being shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit 
 given to him, used him as an instrument for the composition 
 of that Rule. And since it envieth not, is not puffed up, 
 doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, those 
 who are filled therewith know nothing of such things ; and, 
 being without envy, inflation, and ambition, they know not 
 how to take offence. No injury, then, is done to the saint, 
 for it made his Rule according to the circumstances of that 
 time, and when it saw it would be useful so to do, altered 
 what it had itself made, retaining whatever it seemed proper 
 to retain. And as it would be absurd to say that an injury 
 was done to a notary, if he who dictated any document to 
 him should choose afterwai'ds, for some reason known per- 
 haps to himself only, either by his own or another's hand, to 
 alter what he had written, so it would be to say that St. 
 Benedict is injuriously treated, if Charity either by him, if 
 
NO. XXIII.] AN ANTIPAPAL WITNESS. 397 
 
 she had so pleased, or by any other whom she shall see fit to 
 employ, should, on sufficient grounds, alter all or any of the 
 things which she originally wrote by him." 
 
 Surely such language is sufficient to clear the abbot 
 of Clugni from the charge brought against him ; is it 
 not (to say the least) going as far as any honest friend 
 of expediency would venture to go ? But though, from 
 finding that other matter, which I did not like to pass 
 over, has. taken up more room than I expected, I have 
 hitherto said nothing of the more agreeable part of his 
 correspondence with Bernard and others, yet I hope to 
 shew, not merely for his sake, but for the illustration of 
 his age, that he truly deserved his title of " Venerable," 
 by the promotion of religion and learning. 
 
 I suppose that when I wrote this paper, I did not 
 recollect (for I had been obliged to do so much with 
 the book for other purposes, that I think I must have 
 seen it) that Peter the Venerable, who appears in Mil- 
 ner's Church History as " so ignorant and so trifling a 
 writer," that he seems " to have placed the essence of 
 Christianity in frivolous punctilios and insignificant 
 ceremonies," had previously figured, and was, of course, 
 still figuring in the Catalogus Testium Veritatis of Fla- 
 cius lUyricus, as one of the witnesses against the Romish 
 Antichrist. The passage which I have now given as a 
 motto to this paper is from the enlarged folio edition 
 of that work published in 1608. In the original 
 octavo edition of 1556, the passage stands, "Petrus 
 Cluniacensis, abbas, floruit ante 400, et paulo amplius 
 annos. In ejus epistolis qusedam ab instituto nostro 
 haudquaquam aliena invenio, quae adscribam," &c. As 
 one object of these papers is to shew how Church His- 
 tory has been written, it may not be useless to say a 
 few words on this matter. 
 
398 PETER THE VENERABLE [nO. XXIII. 
 
 Of the dispute between Bernard and Peter, which 
 has occupied so many of these pages, Illyricus professes 
 to have known but little. "There was indeed," he 
 says, " in the time of this man, a very great contention 
 between the Cluniacs and the Cistercians, during the 
 life of a certain abbot of theirs, Bernard, concerning 
 some, I know not what, tithes, of which the Cistercians 
 wished to deprive the Clugniacs. I do not know much 
 about the controversy, and it is of very little conse- 
 quence for our purpose to understand it thoroughly." 
 This candid admission of ignorance is not retained by 
 M. Simon Goulart, the editor of the folio edition, but 
 I believe that he gives all the extracts from Peter's 
 works which were in the first edition, as well as a good 
 many more. 
 
 I will beg the reader's attention to one extract, 
 which, with its comment, appears in both editions ; and 
 for the sake of that I will set before him the whole of 
 Peter's letter, for it is not very long. I will mark by 
 brackets that part which is extracted by Illyricus. 
 
 " To the supreme Pontiff, and our special Father, the Lord 
 Pope Eugeniv^, Brother Peter the lowly Abbot of the 
 brethren of Clugny, sends devout obedience with sincere 
 affection, 
 
 " I am troublesome, no doubt, in writing to you so often ; 
 but I am afraid that continual apologies for it would only 
 make me still more troublesome. What shall I do then ? 
 If I am silent, I shall injure myself and many others ; and if 
 I speak I shall be, as I have said, tiresome. But of these 
 alternatives I will choose the latter. I had rather (saving 
 the reverence due to your paternal character) appear loqua- 
 cious or officious in your eyes than remain silent respecting 
 many things which ought not to be concealed from you. 
 What I am about to speak of is not, indeed, my own busi- 
 ness ; yet how is it quite alien from me, if it is in anywise 
 yam's? But it is your business to hear the causes of the 
 whole church of God that is on its pilgrimage in this vale of 
 
NO. XXIII.] AN ANTIPAPAL WITNESS. 399 
 
 tears, when heard to discuss them, and when discussed to 
 decide with apostolical judgment. And although your high 
 office is appointed ^ over * the nations, and over kingdoms to 
 root up, and to pull down, and to waste and to destroy and 
 to build and to plant, yet as you are not God, nor Jeremiah the 
 Prophet to whom this was addressed, you may be led into 
 error. You may be deceived by those who seek their own 
 and not the things which are Jesus Christ's. That this may 
 not happen it is the duty of every faithful son to communi- 
 cate to his father what he knows, and you perhaps do not 
 know ; and to take all such measures as are in his power to 
 prevent those of whom it is written 'the poison of asps is 
 under their lips' from infecting your purity with their poi- 
 son. For it is no small gift of God to be dehvered from 
 such ; especially when the well-known Psalm says ' O Lord, 
 deliver my soul from wicked lips and a deceitful tongue '.' 
 But how is this — perhaps I am again running on too much, 
 still guilty of the very fault for which I have just apologised. 
 I restrain my pen therefore ; and when I wish, and think I 
 ought, to say a great deal, I will briefly state the point at 
 which this introduction aims. For there is one point in 
 particular, though it is not the only one. This I will now 
 state, and reserve the others for their proper time. 
 
 " How much I have loved, and do love, the regulations of 
 the Carthusian Order and system, how I reverence, how I 
 embrace them, many know ; but I more, God most of all. 
 For if my own soul does not deceive me, if my conscience 
 bears witness to me of the truth, if in fact the divine word is 
 true, which says, ' No man knoweth the things of a man save 
 the spirit of a man that is in him,' I confess that for now nearly 
 thirty years, that is, even from before the time when I became 
 Abbot, I have loved the Order, revered the sincerity, embraced 
 the truth of the Carthusians, more than almost all other mor- 
 tals. [I thought, and I do not believe I was wrong, that their's 
 was the best of all the Latin systems ; and that they were not 
 of those who strain at the gnat and swallow the camel ; that 
 is, who make void the commandment of God for the tradi- 
 tions of men ; and, tithing mint, and anise, and cummin, and 
 
 '^ This is, I believe, the true rendering of " Et hcet persona vestra con- 
 stituta sit." ' Ps. cxx. 2. 
 
400 PETER THE VENERABLE [nO. XXIII, 
 
 (according to one evangelist) every herb, neglect the weightier 
 matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. For they do 
 not consider the kingdom of God as consisting principally in 
 meats and drinks, in garments, in labours, and the like, 
 though these wisely-managed may do that kingdom of 
 God, good service ; but in that godliness of which the 
 apostle says, ' Bodily exercise is profitable to little, but 
 godliness is profitable to all things, having promise of 
 the Ufe that now is, and of that which is to come'.'] — 
 Those truly holy men feast at the table of wisdom, they 
 are entertained at the banquet of the true Solomon, not in 
 superstitions, not in hypocrisy, not in vanities, not in the 
 leaven of mahce and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread 
 of sincerity and truth. They are great therefore, to be loved, 
 to be embraced. And what shall I say ? Against my will I 
 state what I feel ; forced by conviction, I say what I would 
 not. I seem as if I were touching the ark of God, and as 
 Uzzah of old, when the oxen were unruly, upholding it 
 with a presumptuous hand. But I am not presumptuous ; I 
 am not, as concerning this matter, worthy of death as he 
 was ; for I am secured by His words who has said, ' If thine 
 eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light.' I will 
 speak therefore without more delay. May the father grant a 
 favourable ear to the words of his son ; and not suspect 
 them of concealing any thing crafty or deceitful; for as I 
 remember, in a letter I lately addressed to your highness 
 {sublimit ati vestra), I said I would as soon die as tell you a 
 falsehood *. In the matter of the Grenoble election which is 
 
 * The passage enclosed in these brackets is that quoted by Illj ricus ; 
 and the remark which he appends is curious, coming as it does from one 
 of the most fiercely zealous, not to say ferocious, of the protestant party 
 in the sixteenth century. " Whence it may be understood that even then 
 there were some monks who made the whole of religion consist in a super- 
 stitious observation of days, meats, garments, and gestures ; but that this 
 father and others of a sounder description, were very far from holding that 
 opinion." — ex quibus licet cognoscere jam turn quosdam monachos in super- 
 stitiosa dierum, ciborum, vestium ac gestuum observatione pietatis summam 
 constituisse : sed hune patrem, aliosque saniores longissime ab ea opinione 
 fuisse. 
 
 ^ This refers to a letter in defence of the Archbishop of Vienne, in 
 which he had said, " Novit Pater, ut credo, filii cor : novit si recordatur. 
 
NO. XXIII.] TO POPE EUGENIUS III. 401 
 
 still agitated, it seems to me that a sudden whirlwind has 
 destroyed the serene day of the Carthusian Order ; and a 
 little cloud, that has risen up I know not whence, has 
 obscured the hitherto crystalline splendour. It is divided 
 against itself, and the holy congregation, which up to this 
 time has been more remarkably than others, one in Christ, is 
 by this business engaged in intestine feud. Hence Char- 
 treuse, Excubiae, Durbonum, hence Portae, Majorevum, Sylva, 
 Alverium *, and if there be any other places belonging to that 
 sacred order, stand as diverse walls ; and one party, as well 
 as the other, profess according to the Prophet to go up ' for 
 the house of Israel to stand in battle for the day of the Lord.^ 
 One party says, that the person elected ought not to be a 
 bishop; and puts forth certain reasons which it is not my 
 place to repeat. On the contrary others say — * What is that 
 to you ? It is a rule of the Carthusian Order to give inform- 
 ation of anything wrong which it may happen to know, to 
 those whom it concerns ; but not to be litigious. Their part 
 is to state what they think in simplicity, but not to get into 
 palaces to gossip. It does not belong to our wild solitude 
 that we should be attending courts of justice ; it is not the 
 business of those who are dead to the world to be plaintiffs 
 and defendants in public business. Our simplicity has 
 nothing to do with worldly craft ; nor is it becoming that we 
 who, while we were in the world, chose the desert, should 
 now return from the desert to the world. But if it is not 
 becoming to return even when drawn thither, is it becoming 
 to thrust ourselves into courts of justice of our own free will, 
 every body opposing, every body protesting against it ? ' This 
 is the cause, not indeed of open quarrel, but of secret grudge 
 among the holy men ; which would be better known to our 
 Father if I could speak, as well as write to your majesty 
 [majestati vestrat). For there are some things which I do not 
 like to commit to writing ; but them, as I did not think fit 
 
 quae ei Antisiodori, vel apud Barum secreto suggessi ; quod pene idem 
 esset, quantum in libro conscientiae meae legere poteram, vobis mentiri 
 quod mori."— Lib. VJ. Ep. x. Bib, Clun. col. 903. 
 
 ^ I suppose the Pope knew what all these places were ; but as I do not 
 (except Chartreuse itself, and that I suppose Portae to mean Portes Char- 
 treuses some leagues to the n.n.w. of that place) I do not attempt a trans- 
 lation. 
 
 Dd 
 
402 SECRETARY NICHOLAS. [nO. XXIV. 
 
 to write them, I have placed in the mouth of our beloved 
 brother and your son Arnald, that they may be imparted 
 to you." 
 
 Is it not really strange that at a distance of seven 
 hundred years one should be occupied in refuting two 
 such opposite statements, against a man well known 
 in his day, and whose works are still extant and 
 accessible to all moderately-educated persons? Was 
 the person who was thus writing to the Pope a heart- 
 less formalist, or a witness against the Romish Anti- 
 christ? Or was he neither ? and what was he? 
 
 No. XXIV. 
 
 " Scriptores recta linea 
 Veraces scribant literas, 
 Distinctiones proprias 
 Usque in finem compleant." 
 
 Petrus Damiani. 
 
 Considering that he appears to have felt no reluct- 
 ance to speak on the subject, I wish that the Secretary 
 Nicholas had given us a fuller account of himself; and, 
 indeed, that I had the means of referring to all that 
 he actually did write. He was, I imagine, a very 
 extraordinary person ; and, at all events, he had very 
 peculiar opportunities of gaining, not only all the learn- 
 ing which was to be had in the twelfth century, but a 
 vast deal of information which would be most curious 
 and interesting. In a letter to Henry, Count of Cham- 
 pagne, written about the year 1170, he says, "From 
 my youth I have pleased great men, and the chief 
 princes of this world. But to you in particular, by 
 right of dominion, I owe all that I am, and, by duty 
 
NO. XXIV.] PETRUS CELLENSIS. 403 
 
 of friendship, all that I can \ And a wise man has 
 said, 
 
 ' Principibus placuisse viris non ultima laus est '.' " 
 
 Indeed, this seems to have been the case in an extra- 
 ordinary degree ; for though strong feeling and ardent 
 expression are very striking features in the letters of 
 the Dark Ages, yet I know of no man whose corre- 
 spondents seem to have loved him with more ardent 
 affection. One of those friends was Peter, Abbot of 
 Moutier-la-Celle, by Troyes, (a monastery which I have 
 already had occasion to mention at p. 352,) who has from 
 that circumstance retained the name of " Cellensis," 
 though he afterwards succeeded our countryman John 
 of Salisbury as Bishop of Chartres, and a specimen may 
 be taken from one of his letters : — 
 
 " Whenever you write, your letters are composed with an 
 admirable relish to meet my eager appetite. So that (to say 
 the truth to a true friend) it seems as if it might almost be 
 said of them as a peculiar characteristic, ' They that eat me, 
 shall yet hunger ; and they that drink me, shall yet thirst.' 
 (Ecclus. xxiv. 29.) I, however, unskilful as I am as to style 
 
 ' So Mabillon understands him to mean by "Tibi singulariter, ex 
 dominio naturae debeo quicquid sum, et ex ofiicio amicitise quicquid pos- 
 sum." 
 
 2 Baluz. Misc. ii. 236. It may seem odd to find Nicholas quoting 
 Horace under such a respectful title, especially if we consider that, 
 according to the customs of Clugny, under which he was brought up, he 
 could never have asked for his works without a most significant, though 
 somewhat comic, expression of contempt for the author. To preserve 
 silence, the monks communicated by signs, by which they were taught to 
 express almost everything which they could wish to say. Of course, 
 there was a sign for " a book." " Pro generali signo libri, extende manum 
 et move sicut folium libri moveri solet." This general sign being made, 
 another was added to distinguish the sort of book wanted ; and there were 
 distinct signs for the Missal, the Gospels, the Epistolary, the Psalter, the 
 Rule, and so on ; but to distinguish a book written by a heathen, the 
 monk was to scratch his ear like a dog. " Pro signo libri saecularis, quem 
 aliquis paganus fecit, prsemisso generali signo libri, adde ut aurem tangas 
 digito sicut canis cum pede pruriens solet, quia nee immerito infideles tali 
 animanti comparantur." — Mart, de Antiq. Mon. Rit. 885. 
 
 Dd'2 
 
404 Nicholas's scriptoriolum. [no. xxiv. 
 
 in answering, know how to return your affection. I know 
 whom I ought to love, and why, and how much, and how 
 long. Whom, if not the servant of God; if not him who 
 loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity; if not, in short, 
 him who abideth in God, and God in him? Why, if not 
 because he is a fellow servant, and a brother, and one for 
 whom Christ suffered ? How much, if not as much as the 
 Son of God hath loved me, as much as myself, as much as 
 the hand loves the eye ? How long, if not until death, if not 
 through all ages, through all eternity, and beyond it ? This 
 is the common feeling of those who seek not their own, but 
 the things of Jesus Christ ; and who being filled with charity 
 and love, lie down or feed at noon in the chambers, or in the 
 gardens of spices \" 
 
 This was Peter's j)hrase for living in a monastery ; 
 but it is more to our purpose to state how Nicholas 
 lived in his, and particularly to transcribe his sketch of 
 what he calls his Scriptoriolum^ or little writing-cell, a 
 retired apartment, shut in and concealed on every side 
 by the various parts of the monastery : — 
 
 " Its door opens into the apartment of the novices, where 
 commonly a great number of persons, distinguished by rank 
 as well as by literature, put on the new man in newness of 
 
 life On the right, the cloister of the monks runs off, 
 
 in which the more advanced part of the community walk . . . 
 . . . There, under the strictest discipline, they individually 
 open the books of divine eloquence, not that they may 
 winnow forth the treasures of knowledge, but that they may 
 elicit love, compunction, and devotion. From the left pro- 
 jects the infirmary, and the place of exercise (deambula- 
 torium) for the sick, where their bodies, wearied and weakened 
 by the severities of the rule, are refreshed with better food ; 
 until, being cured, or at least in better health, they may 
 rejoin the congregation, who labour and pray, who do 
 violence to the kingdom of heaven, and take it by force. 
 And do not suppose that my little tenement is to be despised ; 
 for it is a place to be desired, and pleasant to look upon, and 
 
 ^ Ep, Lib. iv. ep. iii. ap. Sirmondi Op. iii. 734. 
 
NO. XXIV.] MONASTIC SCRIPTORIA. 405 
 
 comfortable for retirement. It is filled with most choice and 
 divine books, at the delightful view of which I feel contempt 
 for the vanity of this world, considering that, ^ vanity of vani- 
 ties, all is vanity,' and that nothing is more vain than vanity 
 itself. This place is assigned to me for reading, and writing, 
 and composing, and meditating, and praying, and adoring 
 the Lord of majesty." 
 
 It was not as a common scribe or writing monk that 
 Nicholas occupied this apartment, but because he was 
 my lord abbot's secretary, and conducted his extensive 
 and important correspondence, of which I hope to say 
 more presently ; but in the mean time I am irresistibly 
 led to say something about the scriptoria of monasteries 
 in the Dark Ages. 
 
 I am inclined to suppose, that at a period somewhat 
 later than that to which I generally refer, the writing 
 performed in monasteries was carried on in small apart- 
 ments or cells, which could not (perhaps at all, or at 
 any rate without inconvenience,) contain more than 
 one person ; and that, owing to such a use being so 
 generally made of them, — that is, owing to the great 
 quantity of writing, the number of hands engaged in 
 it, and the places occupied by it, — owing, in short, to 
 its being the chief and almost only in-doors business of 
 a monk out of church, — cells, or small rooms, or even 
 larger apartments, which had no other particular name 
 or use, were commonly called scriptoria, even when not 
 actually used, or particularly intended, for the purpose 
 of writing. Thus we are told that Arnold, Abbot of 
 Villers, in Brabant, from a. d. 1240 to 1250, when he 
 resigned his office, occupied a scriptmnum, where he 
 lived as a private person in his own apartment. 
 
 In fact, it seems to have been a custom, principally 
 and perhaps exclusively in the Cistercian order, to grant 
 such cells as a privilege to certain monks for their 
 
406 MONASTIC [no. XXIV. 
 
 private study or amusement *. Jacobus, a successor of 
 Arnold, who became abbot in the year 1276, made 
 scriptoria round the calefactory, and his immediate suc- 
 cessor added two, adjoining the house of the sacrist \ 
 The former was the better place, undoubtedly ; as the 
 scribes probably obtained some benefit from the apart- 
 ment, which was heated on purpose that the monks 
 might go there to warm themselves. Many a scribe 
 has, I dare say, felt what Lewis, a monk of Wessobrunn 
 in Bavaria, records as his own experience during his 
 sedentary and protracted labours. In an inscription 
 appended to a copy of Jerome's commentary on Daniel, 
 among other grounds on which he claims the sympathy 
 and the prayers of the reader, he says — 
 
 " Dum scripsit friguit, et quod cum lumine solis 
 Scribere non potuit, perfecit lumine noctis "." 
 
 I do not take upon me to say that these cells were 
 warmed by hot air from the stove in the calefactory, 
 though that is not so completely a modern invention 
 as some people may think. The monks in the Dark 
 Ages were not quite incapable of conceiving and exe- 
 cuting such an idea ; and it is not going out of our 
 way to mention a proof, which has a moral beauty, far 
 more valuable than its evidence respecting their know- 
 ledge and ingenuity. When Bernard, owing to the 
 illness produced by his early austerities, was compelled 
 by the Bishop of Chalons to retire to a cell, he could 
 not be persuaded so far to relax the severity of his 
 asceticism as to allow any fire, or even fire-place, in it. 
 His friends, with pious fraud, (if there ever was such a 
 
 * " Monachi quibus ad studendum vel recreandum scriptoria conce- 
 duntur, in ipsis scriptoriis non maneant illis horis quibus monachi in 
 claustro residere tenentur, &c." — Stat, selecta Cap. Gen. Ord. Cisterc. 
 A.D. 1278, ap. Mart. iv. 1462. 
 
 * Mart. iii. 1298. 
 
 « Fez, Thes. Anec. Noviss. Diss. Isag. in tom. i. p. 20. 
 
NO. XXIV.] SCRIPTORIA. 407 
 
 thing,) contrived to heat his apartment without his 
 knowing it, by introducing hot air through the stone 
 floor under his bed ^ 
 
 But the Scriptorium of earher times was obviously 
 an apartment capable of containing many persons ; and 
 in which many persons did, in fact, work together, in 
 a very business-like manner, at the transcription of 
 books. The first of these points is implied in a very 
 curious document, which is one of the very few extant 
 specimens of French Wisigothic MS. in uncial charac- 
 ters, and belongs to the eighth century. It is a short 
 form of consecration, or benediction, barbarously enti- 
 tled, " Orationem in Scripturio," and is to the follow- 
 ing effect — " Vouchsafe, O Lord, to bless this scripto- 
 rium of thy servants, and all that dwell therein ; that 
 whatsoever sacred writings shall be here read or writ- 
 ten by them, they may receive with understanding, 
 and bring the same to good effect, through our Lord," 
 &c.» 
 
 That the scriptorium was larger than a mere cell, is 
 also obvious from an anecdote of the ninth century, 
 which is very well worth transcribing on many accounts, 
 though I confess that it has been brought to my mind 
 on this occasion by what has just been said of the scrip- 
 torium and calefactory in juxtaposition. Ekkehard, 
 junior, the historian of the monastery of St. Gall, who 
 MTote in the earlier half of the eleventh century, after 
 a chapter concerning Solomon, who had been abbot in 
 the latter part of the ninth century, — another chapter 
 respecting Magister Iso, a monk of the same monas- 
 
 7 Voy. Lit. p. 99. 
 
 * Nouv. Tr. de Diplom. iii. 190. See also Du Cange in v. Scriptorium, 
 and the supplement in v. Scripturium j why the authors of the latter 
 should say that it is given by the two former " ipsismet verbis " I do not 
 know. I here follow Du Gauge's text, '* opere perficiant," instead of the 
 other, " ore percipiant." 
 
408 NOTKER, TUTILO, [nO. XXIV. 
 
 tery, and a " doctor norainatissimus," who had that 
 Solomon, together with Notker, Tutilo, Ratpert, and 
 some others, for his pupils, — and further telling us how 
 the latter three of the pupils just named somewhat 
 grudged at the more indulgent treatment which Solo- 
 mon received from their master, (' delicatius quasi cano- 
 nicum educaverat,' — a monkish hit) and how this old 
 grudge had led to some unpleasant collisions after Solo- 
 mon had risen to be Bishop of Constance, while his 
 three schoolfellows remained still mere monks of 
 St. Gall's, he proceeds : — 
 
 " These having been thoroughly instructed in divine things 
 by Iso, became (as I have said) scholars of Marcellus ; who, 
 being equally versed in sacred and secular learning, taught 
 them the seven liberal arts, but especially music, which being 
 more natural than the rest, and though more difficult in the 
 learning yet more pleasant in the use, they made such pro- 
 gress therein as may be seen by their respective works, of 
 which I have already said something. But these three, 
 though of one heart, were yet, as sometimes happens, very 
 different persons. 
 
 " Notker was weak in body, not in mind ; and in speech, 
 not in spirit, a stammerer. In spiritual things firm, in adver- 
 sity patient, mild to all, a severe disciplinarian, timorous in 
 any sudden alarm, except of demons, whom he used to 
 combat manfully. In ornamenting, reading, and composing, 
 assiduous ; and, briefly to comprehend all his sacred endow- 
 ments, he was a vessel of the Holy Spirit not less eminently 
 than any one of his time. 
 
 "But Tutilo was very diflferent. He was a good and 
 useful man ; as to his arms and all his limbs, such as Fabius 
 teaches us to choose for a wrestler. He was eloquent, with 
 a fine voice, skilful in carving, and a painter. A musician, 
 like his companions ; but in all kinds of stringed and wind 
 instruments (for in a place appointed by the abbot he taught 
 the children of the nobihty to play on stringed instruments,) 
 he excelled every body. In building and in his other arts he 
 was eminent. He was, by nature, powerful, and ready at 
 singing in either language ; cheerful, whether in jest or in 
 
NO. XXIV.] RATPERT, AND SINDOLF. 409 
 
 earnest; so that Charles [the Gross] once cursed him for 
 making a monk of such a person. But, with all this, what is 
 of more consequence, he was powerful in the choir, and in 
 secret given to tears, very skilful in making verses and 
 melodies. Chaste as a disciple of Marcellus, who shut his 
 eyes against women. 
 
 " Ratpert was, however, something between the two whom 
 I have mentioned. He had been the schoolmaster from his 
 youth, a straightforward, kind teacher, very strict in disci- 
 pline, more rarely than any of his brethren putting his foot 
 out of the cloister, and making one pair of shoes last a twelve- 
 month. He said that going out was destruction; and fre- 
 quently admonished Tutilo, who was given to travelling, to 
 mind what he was about. Fully occupied in the schools, he 
 commonly neglected the services and mass ; ^ for,^ said he, 
 ' we hear good masses while we are teaching how they should 
 be performed.' And although he used to say that impunity 
 was the greatest disgrace of a monastery, yet he never came 
 to the chapter unless he was sent for ; because, as he observed, 
 that most painful office of reproving and punishing was laid 
 upon him. 
 
 "Such being three of the senators of our republic, they 
 were, as happens to all learned and useful men, exposed to 
 the detraction and backbiting of the idle and frivolous ; and 
 chiefly the holy Notker (as I may truly call him,) because he 
 took less pains to contradict it. Tutilo and Ratpert, indeed, 
 who dealt more harshly with such persons, and did not take 
 injuries so patiently, were less frequently attacked; but 
 Notker, who was the meekest of men, learned by his own 
 experience to know what such injuries were ; of which I 
 wish to introduce one, that you may learn by a single in- 
 stance how far Satan presumes in such things. 
 
 "There was a monk named Sindolf who was the Refec- 
 torarius^ ; but at length, with feigned obsequiousness (his 
 only merit) telling lies of the brethren, Solomon made him 
 clerk of the works (decanus operariorum). While he was 
 refectorary, however, he made himself as annoying as he 
 dared, particularly to Notker. Solomon, however, being 
 
 " That is, it was his duty to superintend the refectory, and see that all 
 things belonging to it were properly provided and taken care of. 
 
410 NOTKER, TUTILO, [nO. XXIV. 
 
 much occupied, and unable to attend to everything, when it 
 sometimes happened that the food of the brethren was defi- 
 cient or bad, many exclaimed against the injustice; and it 
 appeared that, among others, the three whom I have men- 
 tioned had said something. 
 
 " Sindolf, who was always making mischief, knowing the 
 cause and origin of the old grudge on the part of these com- 
 panions, got the ear of Solomon, as if he was going to inform 
 him of something in which his honour was concerned ; and 
 he, though he knew that nothing is more mischievous to 
 bishops than listening to the whispers of their inferiors, 
 inquired what news he had to communicate. On this Sindolf 
 falsely told him that those three were always talking against 
 him, and that the day before they had said such things as 
 must be intolerable to God. He believed these tales, and 
 bore mahce against those who thought no ill, and at length 
 he shewed it. They, however, not being able to learn from 
 him what was the ground of offence, guessed that they had 
 been brought into it by some trick of Sindolf. The matter 
 being at length discussed among the brethren, when they, 
 with the concurrent testimony of all the rest, proved that 
 they had said nothing against the bishop, every one called for 
 justice against the false informer; but as the bishop would 
 not give him up, they silently acquiesced. 
 
 " It was the invariable custom of these three, by permission 
 of the prior, to meet in the night in the interval before lauds * 
 in the scriptorium, and to discourse together on such scrip- 
 tural subjects as were most suited to such an hour. Sindolf, 
 knowing the time and the fact of these conversations, went 
 out one night and came privily to the glass window against 
 which Tutilo was sitting, and, applying his ear to it, listened 
 to catch something M'hich he might carry in a perverted form 
 to the bishop. Tutilo, who had become aware of it, and who 
 was a sturdy man, with full confidence in the strength of his 
 arms, spoke to his companions in Latin, that Sindolf, who 
 did not understand that language, might not know what he 
 said. ' There he is,' said he, ' and he has put his ear to the 
 window ; but do you, Notker, who are timorous, go out into 
 
 1 As to the mode of spending that interval required by the rule of 
 St. Benedict, see JMartene in cap. viii. p. 249. 
 
NO. XXIV.] RATPERT, AND SINDOLF. 411 
 
 the church ; and you, my Ratpert, catch up the whip of the 
 brethren which hangs in the calefactory ^, and run out ; for 
 when I know that you have got near to him, I will open the 
 window as suddenly as possible, catch him by the hair, drag 
 in his head, and hold it tight ; but do you, my friend, be 
 strong and of a good courage, and lay the whip on him with 
 all your might, and take vengeance for God on him.' 
 
 Ratpert, who was always most alert in matters of disci- 
 pline, went softly, and catching up the whip ran quickly out, 
 and came down with all his might like a hailstorm on the 
 back of Sindolf, whose head was dragged in at the window. 
 He, however, struggling with his arms and legs, contrived to 
 get and to keep hold of the whip ; on which Ratpert, catch- 
 ing up a stick which he saw at hand, laid on him most lustily. 
 When he found it vain to beg for mercy, ^ I must,' said he, 
 ' cry out ;' and he roared vociferously. Part of the monks, 
 astounded at hearing such a voice, at such an unwonted time, 
 came running with lights, and asking what was the matter. 
 Tutilo kept crying out that he had caught the devil, and 
 begging them to bring a light, that he might more clearly 
 see whose shape he had assumed ; and turning the head of 
 his reluctant prisoner to and fro, that the spectators might 
 the better judge, he asked with affected ignorance whether it 
 could be Sindolf? All declaring that it certainly was, and 
 begging that he would let him go, he released him, saying, 
 ^Wretch that I am, that I should have laid hands on the 
 intimate and confidant of the bishop !' Ratpert, however, 
 having stepped aside on the coming up of the monks, pri- 
 vately withdrew, and the sufferer could not find out who had 
 beaten him ^" 
 
 I do not undertake to defend all Tutilo's proceedings 
 in this affair ; especially his going on to persuade the 
 monks that the flagellator, who had performed so stre- 
 nuously, and then suddenly vanished, must have been 
 an angel. Notker, it will be observed, had nothing to 
 
 ^ Here called Pyrale. He afterwards says that it was adjoining to the 
 scriptorium, " proximum pyrali scriptorium," cap. xi. p. 52. 
 
 3 Ekkehardus Jun. de Casib. Mon. S. Galli. ap. Gold. Scr. Rer. Alem. 
 i. 24. et Ekkardus Minimus in vita Notkeri, ibid. 226. 
 
 ■e 
 
412 NOTKER'S greek epistles. [no. XXIV. 
 
 do with the business, and Ratpert was merely executive 
 in the way of liis calling ; but, without canvassing the 
 matter too strictly, I am content to feel as a Swedish 
 clergyman did, when a friend of mine, who happened to 
 have been present at the service in his church, remon- 
 strated against what appeared to him to be a prayer 
 that ships might be wrecked on their coa^t. The good 
 priest assured him, that it was no such thing, and that 
 they were not such wretches as to harbour any wish of 
 the kind ; but only prayed, that if ships were to be 
 wrecked, they might have the benefit of it. In like 
 manner, though I doubt the lawfulness of wishing that 
 any Christian man should either give or take such a 
 beating as Sindolf received, yet if somebody was to 
 have it, I am glad that it fell to his share ; and that not 
 so much for his dirty tricks which have been just men- 
 tioned, as for a villany which I unaccountably omitted 
 to notice in a former paper, where it would have been 
 more in place. I had him (that is, a memorandum of 
 him,) literally pinned down to my desk much longer 
 than Tutilo held him at the window, but somehow he 
 escaped. What do you think he did ? Why, when 
 Notker, with great labour and pains (multis sudoribus), 
 had made a fair copy of the Canonical Epistles in 
 Greek — having borrowed them for that purpose from 
 Luitward, Bishop of Vercelli — "behold, Sindolf, now 
 (as I have said) a great man, and of much consequence 
 in the place, [for it was in consideration of the beating 
 that the bishop preferred him to be the decanus opera- 
 riorum,'] lighting by chance on that delicately written 
 book, carried it off, and having cut out all the leaves, 
 tore and spoiled them, as is to be seen at this day, and 
 then folded them up, and put them where he found 
 them V What do you think of that ? Would a second 
 
 * Ekk. Jun. ubi sup. p. 29. 
 
NO. XXIV.] THE SCRIPTORIUM. 413 
 
 edition of Ratpert's performance have been half enouo-U 
 for such a villany ? 
 
 The scriptorium where these three friends used to 
 meet was obviously something very different from what 
 we now call a cell, or what is now sometimes described 
 or shewn as a writing-place of the old times. And 1 
 doubt not, that the twelve expert scribes, to whom, as 
 I have already said \ the Abbot of Hirschau committed 
 the work of transcribing the Holy Scriptures and the 
 writings of the fathers, as well as the indefinite number 
 of inferior scribes, worked in company. Indeed, if we 
 were always to understand that the scribe was sitting 
 alone, it would be difficult to comprehend the direction 
 of the general chapter of the Cistercian Order held in 
 A. D. 11.34, directing that the same silence should be 
 maintained in the scriptorium as in the cloister ^ 
 
 The same thing appears from the Abbot Heriman's 
 account of the restoration of the monastery of St. Mar- 
 tin at Tournay. He was himself the third abbot, and 
 he tells us that his predecessor, Odo, who was the first, 
 and entered on that office about the year 1093, shewed 
 himself no good manager in temporal things, and was 
 glad to confide the management of them to Ralph the 
 Prior, who shewed peculiar talent and zeal in such 
 matters : — 
 
 " In which the abbot greatly rejoiced, and used to thank 
 God, who had given him a man that had relieved him from 
 the anxiety and bustle of worldly affairs. For, committing 
 to him the whole charge of the external affairs of our monas- 
 tery, he gave himself up so entirely to the duties of a monk, 
 and to silence, that frequently he did not go out of the 
 monastery for a month together, but, being devoted to read- 
 
 * No. XIX. p. 329. 
 
 ^ " In omnibus scripioriis iibicunque ex consuetudine Monachi scri- 
 bunt, silentium teneatur sicut in Claustro." — Cap. Ixxxvii. ap. Noniast. 
 Cisterc. 272. 
 
414 ALULFUS'S GREGORIALIS. [nO. XXIV. 
 
 ing, he took the utmost pains to promote the writing of 
 books. He used, in fact, to exult in the number of writers 
 which the Lord had given him ; for if you had gone into the 
 cloister, you might in general have seen a dozen young 
 monks sitting on chairs in perfect silence, writing at tables 
 carefully and artificially constructed. All Jerome's * Com- 
 mentaries on the Prophets,' all the works of St. Gregory, and 
 everything that he could find of St. Augustine, Ambrose, 
 Isidore, Bede, and the Lord Anselm, then Abbot of Bee, and 
 afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, he caused to be dili- 
 gently transcribed. So that you would scarcely have found 
 such a library at any monastery in that part of the country, 
 and everybody was begging for our copies to correct their 
 own. Our monastery was at that time in great reputation, 
 and in a high state of discipline ; for in the whole province 
 of Rheims there were at that period only three monasteries 
 which followed the customs of Clugni — namely, Anchin, 
 Afflighem, and our own. The monastery of Clugni at that 
 time excelled all others belonging to the kingdom of the 
 Francs in monastic order ; for the rigour of the Cistercians 
 had not then sprung up, and the Lord Norbert had not as 
 yet been heard of." 
 
 I do not wish unnecessarily to multiply instances or 
 
 7 Herimanni Narratio Rest. Abb. S. Martini Torn. § 79. ap. Dach. 
 Spicileg ii. 913. One of the original companions of Odo was Godfrey, 
 who was, says Heriman, " a very skilful scribe, and left many manuscripts 
 in our church — namely, the Morals of St. Gregory on Job in six volumes, 
 an excellent history, which, beginning at the Proverbs, contains the pro- 
 phets, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles, a missal from which each 
 mass is every day performed in the convent, a copy of the gospels, Augus- 
 tine on the City of God, and his Enchiridion, and many other books 
 which may be easily distinguished as his by the handwriting," § 76, p. 912. 
 One of the first who joined Odo was Alulfus, who was, during forty- 
 seven years afterwards, the armarius or librarian of the convent. " He 
 frequently read over all the works of St Gregory ; and, in imitation of 
 Paterius, extracting all the passages of the Old and New Testament which 
 he had expounded, he made three volumes, to which he added a fourth, con- 
 sisting of miscellaneous and very useful sentences, and entitled the whole 
 work Gregorialis." § 38. It may interest the reader to know, that seve- 
 ral MSS. of this period, and this monastery, and in all probability the 
 identical works written in Odo's scriptorium, and in particular the fourth 
 volume (apparently the autograph) of Alulfus's Gregorialis, are now the 
 property of my learned friend Dr. Todd, of Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
NO. XXIV.] HAND-WRITING AND THE PRESS. 415 
 
 illustrations which must possess a sameness of character 
 that may render them tedious ; but there is one idea 
 which I am very desirous to impress on the reader, as 
 applying generally to the whole subject. 
 
 We are, on the one hand, familiar with the press ; 
 used to see its rapid multiplication, and filled with the 
 idea of its almost unlimited powers — we are, on the 
 other, but little accustomed to read any large mass of 
 manuscript, or to write continuously anything which 
 could be called a book — we can, moreover, set the 
 press in motion so easily, and so cheaply, that even a 
 third-rate shopkeeper who is advertising simply because 
 he has nothing to do, would not think of writing a 
 hundred circular letters — the question, how much an 
 expert scribe could write in a given time is so seldom 
 presented to our thoughts, that we feel scarcely able to 
 give any opinion — we almost lose sight of the fact, that 
 all the books which are printed have been written (and, 
 if worth printing, more than once written) by their 
 authors — we hardly realize the idea which our words 
 express when we say that an author "wrote" such and 
 such works, which were afterwards published in so 
 many volumes folio — anc^ further, though it would not 
 call for the reading, the thinking, the correcting, the 
 rewriting, or any of the intellectual labour which not 
 only produced the most fatigue, but took up the most 
 time, yet would not you feel rather unwilling to under- 
 take such a job as merely writing out a copy of Arch- 
 bishop Ussher's works, or Lord Bacon's ? 
 
 Thus, I think, we are apt to be led into error when 
 we think we are comparing the respective powers of 
 hand-writing and the press. Not perhaps into theo- 
 retical error, for, without forming anything like a theory, 
 we may say at once that the things are not to be com- 
 pared at all; seeing that the power of multiplication 
 by the press exceeds that of the slower process of hand- 
 
416 HAND-WRITING AND THE PIIESS. [nO. XXIV. 
 
 writing out of all proportion. But we arc liable to 
 practical error, because we are apt not to consider the 
 different degree in which those powers are put out. 
 The press does a great deal, and it might do a great 
 deal more. It could easily as far outdo its present self, 
 as it now outdoes manuscription ; but it has never 
 been, and most likely never will be, called on to do 
 this ; and the probability (almost certainty) is, that in 
 proportion as it ajDproximates to anything like it, the 
 works which it produces will have less and less con- 
 nexion with learning. I believe that the history of 
 printing will bear me out in this; and we come, I 
 think, fairly to the idea that, although the power of 
 multiplication at work in the Dark Ages was infinitely 
 below that which now exists, and even the whole actual 
 produce of the two periods not to be compared, yet, as 
 it regfards those books which were considered as the 
 standard works in sacred and secular literature, the 
 difference was not so extreme as may have been sup- 
 posed. Perhaps I may illustrate my meaning by 
 asking what proportion the copies of Gregory's 
 " Morals," or Augustine's " City of God," printed 
 between the years 1700 and 1800, bear to those 
 written between the years 1100 and 1200. 
 
 But, as I have said, we have perhaps a very imper- 
 fect idea of what may be done by the labour of an indi- 
 vidual. We must think of writing as a business ; as 
 one generally taken up by choice, and very commonly 
 pursued with a degree of zeal and indefatigable perse- 
 verance, which in the present day seems almost incre- 
 dible. We find notices on the subject, which appear 
 to me very interesting; and the point is so important 
 to our getting a clear idea of the matter which is now 
 in hand, that I will mention two. 
 
 Othlonus, a monk of St. Emmeram's, at Ratisbon, 
 was born about the year 1013; and in his book, "De 
 
NO. XXIV.] OTHLONUS, A WRITER. 417 
 
 ipsius tentationibus, varia fortuna, et scriptis," he has 
 given us an account of his literary labours, and of the 
 circumstances which led to his writing the various 
 works of his which we possess. Of his original com- 
 positions, however, it is not to our present purpose to 
 speak ; but, after enumerating a good many, and say- 
 ing, " As the Lord commanded the Dsemoniac in the 
 gospel to go to his own house, and shew how great 
 things God had done for him, I also would relate how 
 great benefits God has vouchsafed to me," he goes 
 on — 
 
 " For the same reason I think it proper to add an account 
 of the great knowledge and capacity for writing which was 
 given me by the Lord in my childhood. When as yet a 
 little child, I was sent to school, and quickly learned my 
 letters ; and I began, long before the usual time of learning, 
 and without any order from the master, to learn the art of 
 writing. But in a furtive and unusual manner, and without 
 any teacher, I attempted to learn that art. From this circum- 
 stance I got a habit of holding my pen in a wrong manner ; 
 nor were any of my teachers afterwards able to correct me 
 in that point ; for I had become too much accustomed to it 
 to be capable of altering. Many who saw this unanimously 
 decided that I should never write well ; but, by the grace of 
 God, it turned out otherwise, as is known to many persons. 
 For, even in my childhood, and at the time w^hen, together 
 with the other boys, the tablet was put into my hands, that I 
 might learn to write, it appeared that I had some notion of 
 writing, to the no small surprise of those who saw it. Then, 
 after a short time, I began to write so well, and was so fond 
 of it, that in the place where I learned, that is, in the monas- 
 tery of Tegernsee, [in Bavaria, almost in a line between 
 Munich and Innspruck,] I wrote many books. And being 
 sent into Franconia Mhile I was yet a boy, I worked so hard 
 at writing while I was there, that before I returned I had 
 nearly lost my sight. This I resolved to mention, in the 
 hope that I may excite some others to a similar love of 
 labour ; and that, by recounting to others the grace of God 
 which has granted to me such benefits, I may lead them to 
 
 E e 
 
418 OTHLONUS, A WRITER. [NO. XXIV. 
 
 magnify that grace of God with me. And the better to do 
 this, I think it proper to relate how I laboured in writing 
 afterwards, when I had returned from Franconia, for I was 
 there when the Emperor Henry died, and Conrad came to 
 the throne [in the year 1024] . 
 
 "Then, after I came to be a monk in the monaster)^ of 
 St. Emmeram, I was soon induced, by the request of some 
 of them, again to occupy myself so much in writing that I 
 seldom got any interval of rest, except on festivals, and at 
 such times as work could not be performed. In the mean- 
 time, there came more work upon me ; for, as they saw that 
 I was generally reading, or writing, or composing, they made 
 me the schoolmaster. By all which things 1 was, through 
 God's grace, so fully occupied, that 1 frequently could not 
 allow my body the necessary rest. And when I had a mind 
 to compose anything, I very commonly could not find time 
 for it, except on holydays, or by night, being tied down to 
 the business of teaching the boys, and the transcribing which 
 I had been persuaded to undertake. Therefore, beside the 
 books which I composed myself, which I wrote to give away 
 for the edification of those who asked for them, and of others 
 to whom I gave them unasked, I wrote nineteen missals — 
 ten for the abbots and monks in our own monastery, four for 
 the brethren at Fulda, five for those in other places ; three 
 books of the Gospels, and two with the Epistles and Gospels, 
 which are called Lectionaries ; beside which I wrote four 
 service books for matins. Afterwards, old age and infirmity 
 of various kinds hindered me ; especially the tedious inter- 
 ruption which lasted for a very long time through various 
 anxieties, and the grief which was caused by the destruction 
 of our monastery ; but to Him who is the Author of all good, 
 and who alone governs all things, and who has vouchsafed 
 to give many things to me unworthy, be praise eternal, be 
 honour everlasting. 
 
 " I think it right also to relate, as far as I am able to recol- 
 lect, how many books I have given to different monasteries 
 and friends ; and first I would mention the monks at Fulda, 
 because, as I worked a great deal in their monastery, \\Titing 
 many books which I sent to our monastery, so in ours I 
 wrote out some books which they had not ; and, if I remem- 
 ber right, I sent them seven. To the monks of Hirschfeld, 
 
NO. XXIV.] DIEMUDIS, A WRITER. 419 
 
 two books ; and when I returned from those parts and came 
 to Amarbach, I gave one to the abbot of that place. After- 
 wards, being under obligation to brother William, I gave him 
 four books, among which there was a very valuable missal. 
 To the abbot of Lorsch, one book ; to certain friends dwell- 
 ing in Bohemia, four books; to a friend at Passau, one 
 book ; to the monastery of Tegernsee, two books ; to the 
 monastery of Pryel, near us, one volume, in which were 
 three books. And also I gave one book, and various epistles, 
 to my sister's son, who was living there. To the monastery 
 of Obermunster I gave three books ; and to that of Nider- 
 munster, one book. Moreover, to many others I gave or 
 sent, at different times, sermons, proverbs, and edifying 
 writings ^" 
 
 One would like to know what books they were which 
 Othlonus thus multiplied ; but this is perhaps now im- 
 possible. With regard to another case, however, which 
 I have particular pleasure in producing, we are in no 
 doubt. An anonymous monk of Wessobrunn, a place 
 already mentioned and also in Bavaria, has preserved 
 an account of a nun whose labours quite eclipse those 
 of Othlonus. The historian, who seems to have begun 
 his work in the year 1513, says — 
 
 "Diemudis was formerly a most devout nun of this our 
 monastery of Wessobrunn. For our monastery was formerly 
 double, or divided into two parts, — that is to say, of monks 
 and nuns. The place of the monks was where it now is ; 
 but that of the nuns where the parish church now stands. 
 This virgin was most skilful in the art of writing. For 
 though she is not known to have composed any work, yet 
 she wrote with her own hand many volumes in a most beau- 
 tiful and legible character, both for divine service and for the 
 public hbrary of the monastery, which are enumerated in a 
 list written by herself in a certain plenarius '. For in that 
 
 Mab. Anal. iv. 448, (fol. ed. 11 9.) Conf. B. Pez in Diss. 
 Tom. iii. Thes. Anecd. Noviss. p. x. 
 
 9 The writer probably means (as this term frequently does) a missal 
 containing, beside its proper contents, the Epistles and Gospels; but the 
 word is used so variously, that it is impossible to feel certain. 
 
 Ee2 
 
420 DIEMUDUS, A NUN [nO. XXIV. 
 
 list the following books pertaining to divine sei-vice are enu- 
 merated : — 
 
 A Missal, with the Gradual and Sequences. 
 
 Another Missal, with Gradual and Sequences, which was 
 
 given to the Bishop of Treves. 
 Another Missal, with the Epistles, Gospels, Gradual and 
 
 Sequences. 
 Another Missal, with the Epistles and Gospels for the 
 
 whole year; and the Gradual and Sequences, and the 
 
 entire service for Baptism. 
 A Missal, with Epistles and Gospels. 
 A Book of Offices. 
 Another Book of Offices, with the Baptismal Service, which 
 
 was given to the Bishop of Augsburgh. 
 A Book with the Gospels and Lessons. 
 A Book with the Gospels. 
 A Book with the Epistles. 
 
 These books she wrote, as I have said, for the use and orna- 
 ment of divine service. With the following she adorned our 
 library, of which only those that are marked thus § still 
 remain there \ For the others, either through the burning 
 of the monastery, (which is said to have happened twice,) or 
 by the negligence and sloth of subsequent monks, have 
 perished and are lost ; for the list already mentioned specifies 
 the following books belonging to the library : — 
 
 A Bible, in two volumes, which was given for the estate in 
 
 Pisinberch. 
 A Bible, in three volumes. 
 
 The Morals of St. Gregory, [that is, his Commentary on 
 Job,] in six volumes, the first and third of which are 
 lost. 
 St. Gregory ad Regaredum '. 
 St. Gregory on Ezechiel, and some other things, in one 
 
 volume. 
 Sermons and Homilies of Ancient Doctors, three volumes. 
 
 ' I translate as it stands ; but I do not see that any books in the list are 
 so marked, or in any way distinguished from the others. 
 
 2 I do not know what this means ; but I am not so familiar with Gre- 
 gory's works as Alulfus was. I do not recollect that any of them are 
 addressed to any one so named. 
 
NO. XXIV.] OF WESSOBRUNN, A WRITER. 421 
 
 Origen on the Old Testament. 
 
 on the Canticles. 
 
 Augustine on the Psalms, iii. volumes. 
 
 on the Gospel, and the First Epistle of St. 
 
 John, ii. volumes ; the first missing. 
 
 Epistles, to the number of Ixxv. 
 
 Treatises, *De verbis Domini,' *De Sermone 
 
 Domini in Monte,' ' De opere Monachorum,' and ' De 
 Agone Christiano,' 'De Adorando,' ' De Professione 
 Viduitatis,' * De Bono Conjugali,' * De Virginitate.' 
 St. Jerome's Epistles, to the number of clxiv. 
 The Tripartite History of Cassiodorus, [that is, the com- 
 pendium of ecclesiastical history which he made, in the 
 sixth century, from Epiphanius's Latin Version of 
 Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret.] 
 Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History. 
 
 St. Augustine, Fifty Sermons ; The Life of St. Silvester ; 
 Jerome against Vigilantius, and ' De Consolatione Mor- 
 tuorum ;' The Life of St. Blaise ; The Life of St. John 
 the Almoner [Patriarch of Alexandria early in the 
 seventh century. I presume, from the way in which 
 they are put together, that these formed only one 
 volume, as also the following: — ] 
 Paschasius on the Body and Blood of Christ ; The Con- 
 flict of Lanfranc with Berengarius ; The Martyrdom of 
 St. Dionysius ; The Life of St. Adrian, pope, &c. 
 St. Jerome * De Hebraicis Quaestionibus,' and many other 
 
 works by him and by other writers. 
 St. Augustine's Confessions. 
 Canons. 
 
 The Gloss, alphabetically arranged, [I suppose this is 
 meant by * Glossa per A. B. C. composita.'] 
 These are the volumes written with her own hand by the 
 aforesaid handmaid of God, Diemudis, to the praise of God 
 and of the holy apostles, Peter and Paul, the patrons of this 
 monastery. But at what period she lived I could never dis- 
 cover, since, in all the books, (we charitably hope from hu- 
 mility,) she omitted to mention her name and the time when 
 she finished *." 
 
 •* Pez Diss. Isagog. in Tom. i. Thesaur. Anecd. Novias. p. xx. 
 
422 DIEMUDIS, A WRITER. [nO. XXIV. 
 
 That, however, which her anonymous biographer 
 could not discover, Pez learned from a MS. account of 
 the Abbots of Wessobrunn, which he found in the 
 neighbouring monastery of Tegernsee. The author of 
 it states that Diemudis lived in the time of Gregory 
 VII., (who became pope in a. d. 1073,) and therefore, 
 though probably somewhat younger, she was contem- 
 porary with the monk of Ratisbon, whose labours I 
 have just mentioned. The same writer says, that 
 Diemudis carried on a correspondence by very sweet 
 letters (epistolae suaves valde) with Herluca, who was 
 for thirty-six years a nun at Eppach, a mile (I suppose 
 a German one) from Wessobrunn ; and that the letters 
 were then extant in the monastery of Bernried. Pez, 
 however, who went there to look for them, could 
 obtain no information. Without giving any improper 
 sanction to the popish doctrine of transferred merit, 
 may we not allow this indefatigable " exaratrix" (as 
 her biographer calls her) to make up, in some degree, 
 for the deficiency of her pious founder, who has been a 
 standing jest among writers on the Dark Ages, because 
 he could not write his name * ? 
 
 But readers will ask questions ; or, at least, writers 
 cannot help imagining it, especially when they feel 
 that they are at all discursive. Somebody may say, 
 " What has this to do with the Secretary Nicholas ?" 
 To which I answer — If the reader can imagine him out 
 of, and without reference to, a scriptorium, well and 
 good — it is more than I can do ; and believing such 
 powers of abstraction to be very rare, I have thought 
 it right, in introducing him, to say a few words on that 
 subject. Again, it may be asked, " What had Nicholas 
 to do with Bernard's letters to Peter the Venerable ?" 
 To do with them ? why everything : he wrote them ; 
 
 ■* Of Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, see No. II. p. 11. 
 
NO. XXV.] BERNARD AND PETER. 423 
 
 he carried them ; he was the depository of the " ver- 
 bum secretum" which accompanied them, and which 
 correspondents frequently sent by the trusty messenger 
 before post-offices came into fashion ; he was the con- 
 necting link between the abbots, the bosom friend of 
 both ; in short, he was a person worth knowing, and I 
 hope to make him better known. 
 
 No. XXV. 
 
 " Amantium irae amoris integratio est." — Lat. Guam. 
 
 *' Is it thus that you think fit to joke ?" says Bernard 
 to his friend Peter of Clugny, who, notwithstanding his 
 title of " Venerable," and his being scarcely known in 
 the present day except as a monk of the dark ages 
 (that is, in the minds of many, a mere vegetation of 
 overfed stupidity), was certainly a very facetious 
 person — 
 
 " Is it thus that you think fit to joke ? It is all very pro- 
 per, and very friendly, provided only that it is not meant to 
 take me in. Do not wonder at my saying this ; for the very 
 circumstance of your sudden and unexpected condescension 
 makes me suspect it. It is not long ago that I wrote to 
 salute your greatness with all due reverence, and you did not 
 answer me a word. Not long before, also, I had written to 
 you from Rome, and then too I did not get a single syllable. 
 Do you wonder that on your recent return from Spain I did 
 not intrude my nonsense upon you ? At any rate, if it is a 
 fault merely not to have written, whatever may have been 
 the cause, surely some blame attaches to unwillingness, not 
 to say contemptuous neglect, in answering. Observe what 
 I might say on the score of justice (as you put me on that) 
 were it not that I desire rather to meet returning kindness, 
 than to retard it either by useless excuses or recrimination. 
 But I have said this, that I may not keep shut up in my 
 mind any thing which I have not fairly spoken out; for that 
 
424 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, [nO. XXV. 
 
 is inconsistent with true friendship. As to the rest, since 
 charity beUeveth all things, let everj'^ remnant of suspicion 
 be removed. I rejoice that you have again warmed to the 
 remembrance of former friendship, and even to the recalling 
 of your friend, injured as he is. I come gladly as soon as I 
 am called, happy that I am called, and have quite forgotten 
 all my wrongs. Here am I, that used to be, and am, the 
 servant of yoiir holiness '. I am thankful that I am excel- 
 lently well situated, being, as you are pleased to write, an 
 actual inmate of yourself (intimus vobis factus), for if, as you 
 charge me, I should become cold, I shall undoubtedly soon 
 grow warm again, thus cherished by your bowels of charity. 
 **And now as to what you were pleased to write — I 
 received it with outstretched hands, I read it eagerly, I love 
 to reperuse it, and, after often reading over, it still delights 
 me. I confess, I love the humour of it. For it is delightful 
 in its mirth, and serious in its gravity. I know not how it 
 is that, in the midst of your jocularity, you do somehow 
 manage your discourse so judiciously, that the humour has 
 
 ° The difficulty of translating letters of this period is much increased 
 by the titles ; which, though common at that time, can now scarcely be 
 put into English without some appearance of burlesque, not to say deri- 
 sion. This is the case with " your holiness," which some protestants 
 know only as a title of the Pope, and suppose to belong exclusively to 
 him. The thing, however, was common, and sufficient specimens might 
 be furnished from the correspondence of Bernard and Peter alone to shew 
 that it was so. GeofiFry of Chalons writes to Peter, " rescribat humilitati 
 meae Sanctitas vestra." {Bibl. Clun. 781.) How is one to translate such 
 terms as " humilitas mea," " prudentia," or " beatitudo vestra," &c. ? I 
 must really request the reader's instruction, or his indulgence, in what 
 follows in this paper, and on all similar occasions. The title of Sanctitas 
 is also given to Peter by Sugerius, Abbot of St. Denys. (lb. 961.) But 
 perhaps what may appear the most singular instance is Peter's thus 
 addressing the unfortunate Heloise — " Gavisus sum et hoc non parum, 
 legens Sanctitatis vestrae literas." (lb. 920.) As to the Pope's exclusive 
 right, we may say the same of his being " Vicar of Christ." Jacobus de 
 Vitriaco (who wrote early in the thirteenth century) says, " Ipsa terra 
 Jerosolymitana patriarcham habet, qui et fidei peritus, et Christianorum 
 pater, et Vicariiis Jesu Christi." Hist. Orient, ap. Mart. iii. 277- Solomon, 
 too. Bishop of Constance, at an earlier period, (whom I hope the reader 
 will always remember as the patron of the abominable Sindolf,) addressed 
 Bishop Dado, " Discrete Antistes, venerande Vicarie Christi." Bib. Pat. 
 Supp. ii. 825. 
 
NO. XXV.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 425 
 
 not the appearance of levity, and yet the dignity which you 
 preserve does not diminish the freedom of your humour. In 
 fact that dignity is kept up in such a way that one might 
 fairly apply to you what was said by the holy man ; " If I 
 laughed on them they believed it not." [Job xxix. 24.] 
 
 One would like to see Peter's letter to which the 
 foregoing was an answer, (or part of an answer, for I 
 am afraid of tiring the patience of my readers by giving 
 whole letters, except when they are very important or 
 very brief,) but I believe that it is not known to be 
 extant. The simple fact, however, seems to be, that 
 Peter had felt, and expressed, though in a playful man- 
 ner, some sense of neglect, owing to his not having 
 beard from Bernard since his return from Spain ; and 
 some amantium ircB had certainly ensued. My object, 
 however, is not so much here to enter into the personal 
 history of these abbots, as to give the reader (as far as 
 I know how to do it by translation, which those who 
 have tried it will know to be very difficult, and at the 
 best very inadequate) some idea of their correspond- 
 ence, many years after the dispute about their respect- 
 ive Orders in which we have seen them engaged in the 
 characters of plaintiff and defendant. Peter begins his 
 reply by saying — 
 
 " Your shrewd hoUness will perhaps wonder that I have 
 been so long in answering such a sweet and pleasant letter of 
 a friend, to which I ought cheerfully and quickly to have 
 replied; and wall, I am afraid, impute it to sloth or contempt. 
 Far be both — both are far — from me; for I scarcely ever 
 received anything in the nature of a letter with more plea- 
 sure, or read it with more interest. The delay has been 
 partly caused by the messenger ; who, coming to Clugny, 
 and not finding me there, (though I was not very far oflf^ 
 being only at Marcigni,) neither brought on nor forwarded 
 your letter, but left it at Clugny. And that I may not even 
 appear to be finding fault with a good man, I must say that 
 I believe him to have been called away by business, or 
 
426 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, [NO. XXV. 
 
 deterred from attempting to reach me by the extreme seve- 
 rity of the winter. I was myself detained there both by 
 snow and business for a month, and scarcely got home by 
 the beginning of Lent. At length I got your letter from the 
 Sub-Prior, to whom it had been entrusted. Immediately 
 my mind was drawn out, and glowing as it was before with 
 affection to you, when so much more enflamed by the breath 
 of your bosom through that letter, it could no longer har- 
 bour any feeling of coldness or lukewarmness. Drawn out, 
 I say, and so drawn out that I did what I never remember to 
 have done, except in reverence to the Holy Scriptures — as 
 soon as I had read your letter, I kissed it. And that I might, 
 according to my custom, excite as many as I could towards 
 you (for all at that time I could not) what I had read to my- 
 self, I read over again to those around me ; and endeavoured 
 as much as possible to excite in them a greater kindness for 
 you. Then immediately I laid it up with the gold and silver 
 which, according to the custom delivered to me by my fathers, 
 I carry about with me for the purpose of charity ^ And not 
 incongruously ; for your regard, your affection, is precious to 
 me beyond all gold and silver. 
 
 " I determined to write what was in my mind the very 
 next day, but I was kept silent by my daily — nay, my con- 
 tinual taskmaster ', who made me do other things. My most 
 severe tyrant, whom I could not resist, commanded silence, 
 and multifarious care about an infinite number of matters 
 kept me silent not one, but many days. Sometimes fifteen 
 days, sometimes a whole month, sometimes several months, 
 during all which I was trying to write, passed over ; but the 
 tyrant already mentioned did not permit. At length I broke 
 this tiresome chain ; and, though with difficulty, I have over- 
 come the burdensome yoke and sceptre of the exactor by 
 
 * That is, he put it in his eleemosynaria, or almonaria, or, in plain terms, 
 his purse, which, in those days, and with regard to such matters, answered 
 the purpose of what we call a pocket. See a story of Simon de Montfort 
 during the Albigensian crusade, " qui ad hanc vocem protulit hteras de 
 sua almoneria dicens," &c. ; and afterwards, "reposuit literas in bursa 
 diligenter." Gul. de Pod. Laur. § xxi. 
 
 '^ There seems to be here, and in what follows about his taskmaster, 
 some allusion to the contents of the letter which had produced that to 
 which Peter was now replying. 
 
NO. XXV.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 427 
 
 writing clandestinely and at intervals. And lest I should 
 seem to say too much in excuse of my slowness in replying, 
 you have forced it upon me by saying, * It is not long ago 
 that I wrote to salute your greatness* with all due reverence, 
 and you did not answer me a single word. Not long before, 
 also, I had written to you from Rome, and then, too, I did 
 not get a syllable. Do you wonder that on your return from 
 Spain I did not intrude my nonsense upon you ? At any 
 rate, if it is a fault merely not to have written, whatever may 
 have been the cause, surely some blame attaches to unwill- 
 ingness, not to say contemptuous neglect in answering.' 
 This is what you say. Now what do I say ? Plainly this — 
 I say that I could by no means have denied the fault which 
 you impute, if I had disdained to reply to such a friend 
 when he had written first. For I confess that I ought to 
 have written to one who had first written to me ; but, as far 
 as I can remember, while you were staying at Rome I wrote 
 first, and you replied. To be sure, I might have rejoined ; 
 but your full answer, so completely satisfactory as to what I 
 had written, made me silent. Now if this be the case, the 
 fault with which I am charged seems to turn from me, and 
 look towards you. For you have been trying to convict the 
 blameless, and to load the shoulders of an innocent brother 
 with a burden which does not belong to him — not to say, 
 which does belong to yourself. As to my having done the 
 same thing on another occasion, I do not know how to an- 
 swer, for I cannot recollect the circumstances. If I could, 
 there should certainly be either a fair excuse, or a humble 
 apology. 
 
 " But you add, ' Observe what I might say on the score of 
 justice ;' and I say, for the reasons just stated, it appears 
 that justice is on my side, for 1 am not convicted of any 
 fault. Now if I were not merciful, I might call myself (as 
 you call yourself) an injured friend, and justly require that 
 the injury should be punished. But, according to my cus- 
 tom, I spare you, and forgive you even unasked. I, as you 
 have said, remember no injuries. For this also pertains to 
 
 * The text of Bernard's letter, as it stands in this copy of Peter's, is 
 coronam instead of magnitudinem. 
 
 1 
 
4*28 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, [nO. XXV. 
 
 what follows', for as I am anxiously endeavouring, not in 
 jest, but in earnest, to exclude the well-known jealousy from 
 many hearts, (and wish to excite you also to exclude it,) I 
 would first exercise indulgence to all, and what I labour to 
 make others do, I would first do myself. 
 
 "But perhaps you will say again, 'Is it thus that you 
 think fit to joke ?' Yes, I do think it fit, with you. Cer- 
 tainly, with you, though not with others. For with them, if 
 I were to pass the bounds of seriousness, I should be afraid 
 of incurring the charge of levity ; but with you I am under 
 no apprehension about levity, but follow after charity lest 
 that should slip away. Therefore it is always delightful to 
 me to talk to you, and to keep up by pleasant discourse the 
 honied sweetness of charity between us. For I take all pos- 
 sible pains not to be of the number of those brethren who 
 hated Joseph in their heart, and could not speak peaceably 
 to him." 
 
 If a soft answer turneth away wrath, we may hope 
 that this reply from Peter produced the effect. There 
 was, indeed, such a fervour in the whole character and 
 style of Bernard that those who knew him personally 
 must have been aware that, in matters of feeling at 
 least, he was liable to be drawn into saying rather 
 more than would bear the cool examination of after- 
 thought, or the strict anatomy of malice. Yet perhaps 
 another of his letters to Peter may lead us to doubt 
 whether he is really responsible for every expression 
 which may be found among his epistles. He says — 
 
 " I wish I could send you my mind just as I send you this 
 letter. You would, I am sure, read most clearly what the 
 finger of God has written on my heart, has impressed on my 
 marrow, of love to you. What then ? Do I begin again to 
 commend myself to you? Far be it from me. Long since 
 
 ' That is, I presume, to the sequel of the letter, which relates to the 
 differences existing between the orders, and was written to promote peace 
 between them. 
 
NO. XXV.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 429 
 
 has my mind been agglutinated to yours, and equal affection 
 makes equal souls in unequal persons. Else what could my 
 lowliness have done with your eminence, if condescension 
 had not bowed your dignity ? Ever since, both have been 
 mingled, both my lowliness and your eminence, so that I 
 cannot be humble without you, nor you exalted without me. 
 I say this because my Nicholas (yes, and yours too) being 
 vastly moved in spirit himself, has moved me ; affirming that 
 he saw a letter from me addressed to you, which contained 
 some unkind expressions. Believe one who loves you, that 
 there neither rose in my heart, nor issued from my lips, any- 
 thing which could offend the ears of your blessedness. The 
 fault is owing to the multitude of business ; so that my 
 scribes do not well remember what I tell them. They 
 sharpen their style too much ; and it is out of my power to 
 look over what I have ordered to be written. Spare me this 
 time ; for however it may go with others, I will see yours, 
 and will trust no eyes or ears but my own. Other matters 
 this common son of ours will more clearly and fully tell you 
 by word of mouth. You will hear as myself, him who loves 
 you not in word nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth. 
 Salute for me that holy multitude of yours, and entreat them 
 to pray for their servant/' 
 
 Peter, as I have elsewhere stated, was liable to be 
 rather prolix whenever he took his pen in hand. He 
 seems to have eyed with a calm, quiet, somewhat 
 admiring look, that impatient love of brevity and con- 
 densation, and knocking off matters in a verbum sat 
 manner, which had made such progress in his modern 
 days. I have no doubt that he was a man of business, 
 and got through a great deal, in a very clear-headed 
 way ; and he could write very short letters. But when 
 his feelings were moved, they were apt to overflow, and 
 cover a great deal of parchment. They were touched 
 by this letter of Bernard, which produced a reply five 
 times as long as itself; so that brevity, or rather mode- 
 ration, admits of only an extract in this place. After 
 discoursinir on the titles of " Most Reverend," of 
 
430 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, [NO. XXV. 
 
 " Father," and of " Friend," by all of which Bernard 
 had addressed him in the superscription of his letter, 
 Peter adds — 
 
 " But what shall I say of what follows ? * I wish/ you 
 say, ^ that I could send you my mind, just as I send you 
 this letter:' and immediately after, ^ you would, I am sure, 
 read most clearly what the finger of God has written on my 
 heart, has impressed on my marrow, of love to you/ Truly 
 these words (if I may say it without irreverence to the greater 
 sacramental mystery to which the passage applies) are like 
 ointment on the head, which descended from the head of 
 Aaron to the skirt of his garment — truly this is the dew of 
 Hermon, which descended on Mount Zion — truly, also, thus 
 do the mountains drop sweetness, and the hills flow with 
 milk and honey. Do not wonder that I scrutinize, and lay 
 hold on your words. For I know that they proceed not 
 from a common mouth; but from his who knows not to 
 speak but from a pure heart, and good conscience, and love 
 unfeigned. I know this, I say, and the world knows, as well 
 as I, that you are not of the number of those who, according 
 to the Psalm, have spoken vain things, every one to his 
 neighbour; that you are not one of those who have spoken 
 with deceitful lips and a double heart. Therefore, whenever 
 your holiness is pleased to write to me, I receive, and read, 
 and embrace, your letters, not carelessly, or negligently, but 
 studiously and with affection. For who would not read with 
 interest, who would not embrace with deep affection, what 
 I have already quoted, and what follows — ' Long since has 
 my mind been agglutinated to yours, and equal affection 
 makes equal souls in unequal persons. Else what could my 
 lowliness have done with your eminence, if condescension 
 had not bowed your dignity ? Ever since both have been 
 mingled, both my lowliness and your eminence, so that I 
 cannot be humble without you, nor you exalted without me^? 
 Are words like these to be negligently read ? Ought they 
 not to fix the eye of him who reads them, to ravish the heart, 
 to unite the soul ? You, my dearest friend, who have written 
 these things, may think of them as you please ; but for my 
 part, I cannot take them otherwise than simply according to 
 the letter — than as the declarations of such, so true, so holy 
 
NO. XXV.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 431 
 
 a man. Nor, as you have yourself said, do I begin again to 
 commend myself to you. While we were young men we 
 began to love one another in Christ ; and now that we are 
 old ones, or not far from it, shall we call in question a love 
 so sacred, and of so long standing? God forbid; believe 
 one who loves you (to borrow your words) that no such thing 
 ever arose in my mind, or issued from my lips, as any kind 
 of doubt about any thing which you had ever seriously said. 
 What you wrote, therefore, in this letter, I received, I keep, 
 I preserve. It would be easier to rob me of a thousand 
 talents of gold, than that these things should be torn from 
 my heart by anything that could happen— but enough of 
 this. 
 
 " As to the rest, what your prudence conceives might have 
 offended me was this : — As to the affair of a certain English 
 abbot (which you know very well), your letter contained 
 these words: ^As if, say they, judgment were subverted, and 
 justice had perished from the world, and there were none 
 who would deliver the needy from the hand of him that is 
 stronger than he, the poor and the destitute from them that 
 spoil him.' But, if you will believe me, you may rest assured 
 that I was only moved by them, as the prophet (though I 
 am not a prophet) says that he was. * But I, as a deaf man, 
 heard not ; and as a dumb man, not opening his mouth ; and 
 I became as a man that heareth not, and that hath no re- 
 proofs in his mouth.' [Psalm xxxvii.] Indeed, I was not 
 offended by them. But, even if I had been, you have made 
 full amends, by saying, ' the fault is owing to the multitude 
 of business ; so that my scribes do not well remember what 
 I tell them. They sharpen their style too much, and it is 
 out of my power to look over what I have ordered to be writ- 
 ten. Spare me this time, for however it may go with others, 
 I will see yours, and will trust no eyes or ears but my own.' 
 I do spare you, then. Even in matters of serious offence 
 (I say it with humility), 1 do not find it difficult to forgive 
 one who seeks forgiveness, or grant a pardon to one who 
 asks it. And if in serious things it is no hardship to for- 
 give, how much less, how nothing, is it in trifles ? 
 
 *' As to the will of Baro, the Sub-deacon of Rome, which 
 he is said to have made at the time of his death, in favour of 
 your monastery of Clairvaux and of Citeaux, respecting pro- 
 
432 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, [NO. XXV. 
 
 perty which he had deposited with us, some persons, who 
 say that he enjoined them so to do, have written to me. 
 I wish you, however, to know, that according to the testi- 
 mony of some whom I believe to be credible witnesses, you 
 are more indebted in this case to the Abbot of Clugny's good 
 will than to the testament of Baro. I knew, indeed, for I am 
 not so unacquainted with divine and human laws as to be 
 ignorant, that a will or a legacy for pious uses, or a trust 
 causa mortis, is to be judged according to posteriority ; but 
 I read elsewhere that nothing is so agreeable to natural law 
 as that the will of a proprietor, desiring to transfer his pro- 
 perty to another, should take effect. I say this, therefore, 
 because (as the aforesaid witnesses confess) whatever he had 
 deposited at Clugny, he had given the whole of to Clugny, 
 unless he should himself resume it in his lifetime. I have 
 not, however, chosen to insist on this right ; but what, from 
 their testimony, I believe to be my own, 1 have given up to 
 you and yours. As to the Grenoble election [of a bishop to 
 succeed Hugh, translated to the Archbishopric of Vienne] 
 which our Carthusians are opposing, I have carefully depo- 
 sited my opinion in the mouth of my most dear, and your 
 faithful, Nicholas, in order that he may inform you. Hear 
 him, and what he repeats to you as having been said by me, 
 believe without the least hesitation. If I have forgotten 
 anything which I ought to have said, when I recollect it, I 
 will mention it to my most dearly-beloved in Christ. In 
 fine, I most earnestly ask and entreat you (what I have 
 already asked by some persons of your Order) that in this so 
 great assembly of holy men as has met together at Citeaux, 
 you will remember me as one belonging to yourself, and will 
 strongly commend me and the whole body of the Cluniac 
 congregation to their prayers." 
 
 With this letter to Bernard, or, I am inclined to 
 think, more probably before this was answered, witli 
 another letter on the old and difficult subject of the 
 differences between their respective orders, Peter sent 
 one to the Secretary, in which he says ; — 
 
 " As I love you with unfeigned affection, I cannot long 
 together forget you. I loved you when you were of our 
 
NO. XXV.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 433 
 
 colour, [a black monk of Clugny,] and now having, as re- 
 gards myself, changed only your colour, pby becoming a 
 white monk at Clairvaux,] and not your heart, I love you 
 not the less. I had rather that you belonged to me than to 
 anybody else ; but since wherever you are you are God's, so 
 I still consider you mine. Make a due return, and love him 
 who truly loves you ; for as not the whole world with all its 
 powers could alter those feelings in me, so let nothing draw 
 you away from the like affection. You know that it was not 
 to gain any temporal advantage, you know that no other 
 cause moved me to love you, but only what was amiable in 
 yourself. But you ask, what was that? Because I knew, 
 or believed you to be learned, able, and, what is more, reli- 
 gious, though only in time, and not from eternity'. But 
 enough of this ; to come to the point — I am writing a letter 
 to my lord of Clairvaux which I want you to present to him. 
 Read it to him carefully and studiously, and exhort him as 
 much as you can, that what I have written with a view to 
 charity may be brought to good effect. Urge him, for he 
 must be urged on account of the shortness of the interval, 
 that in the next feast of All Saints he may do what I wish, 
 and if he finds persons objecting he may bring them over to 
 my (and, I think I may call it, his) view. The King's bro- 
 ther [Henry, brother of Lewis the young, then a monk of 
 Clairvaux] whom I sincerely love, Galcher the Cellarer, our 
 Garner, Fromund the warden of the guests, and the other 
 brethren whom you know better than I do, salute affection- 
 ately on my behalf." 
 
 To this, Bernard, by the hand of the Secretary 
 Nicholas, replied — 
 
 " I saw your letter only for a moment, but with no little 
 interest; I was occupied with so much business, as you, 
 most loving father, know, or may know. However, I tore 
 
 ^ " Quia te literatum, quia strenuum, quia quod plus est, religiosum : 
 licet ex tempore non ab seterno esse aut cognovi, aut sestimavi." I give 
 this as it stands and as it is pointed in the Bib. Clun. p. 901, but I confess 
 that 1 do not understand it, and can only conjecture that it may refer to 
 some dispute which might exist between them, as to what is now called 
 Calvinistic doctrine. 
 
 Ff 
 
434 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, [nO. XXV. 
 
 myself away, and escaped from the solicitations of everybody, 
 and shut myself up with that Nicholas whom your soul 
 loveth. I read over again and again the sweetness that 
 flowed from your letter. It was redolent of your affection, 
 and it moved mine. I grieved that I was not able to answer 
 according to my feelings ; because the evil of the day, which 
 was great, called me away. For a vast multitude, out of 
 almost every nation under heaven, had assembled. It was 
 my place to answer every one ; because, for my sins, I was 
 born into the world that I might be confounded with many 
 and multifarious anxieties. In the meantime, I write this 
 scrap to him who is my own soul, but when I can get time 
 I will dictate a letter more accurately, and which shall more 
 clearly express the feelings of one who loves you. As to the 
 will of Baro, which you sent to us, in truth we give you 
 credit for it, for we receive it not as a debt, but as a gift. I 
 am glad to know the truth concerning the Grenoble busi- 
 ness. I would have you to know, too, that my heart was 
 much moved by the words of our common son, which he 
 brought to me from you. I am not disturbed by it, but pre- 
 pared to do what you wish wherever I can. You, as a most 
 special lord and father, and most dear friend, and your monks 
 both alive and dead, are remembered at Citeaux. The Bishop 
 of Beauvais elect, [that is, the King's brother Henry, just 
 mentioned] as one of your own, which indeed he is, salutes 
 you. I your Nicholas salute you for ever and beyond it, 
 and the household that cleaves to your body and spirit." 
 
 PETER TO BERNARD. 
 
 " If it were allowed, if the providence of God did not pre- 
 vent it, if a man's way were in his own power, I had rather, 
 most dearly beloved, cleave to your blessed self with an in- 
 dissoluble union, than be a prince or a king anywhere else. 
 And why ? Ought I not to prefer, before all earthly king- 
 doms, your society, which is delightful not only to men, but 
 to the angels themselves ? I should not be wrong were I to 
 call you their fellow citizen, though through God's mercy 
 hope has not passed into reality. If indeed it were given 
 me to be with you here till your last breath, perhaps it would 
 be granted to me to be with you for ever. Whither should I 
 run but after you, drawn by the odour of your ointments ? 
 
NO. XXV.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 435 
 
 [Cant. i. 3.] But as this is not granted constantly, I would 
 it were frequently ; and since even that is not the case, I 
 wish I could at least have frequent messengers from you. 
 And since that very seldom happens, I desire that your holi- 
 ness will, as soon as possible, visit one who loves you until 
 the Christmas week, by your Nicholas, in whom it appears 
 to me that your spirit in a great measure reposes, while mine 
 does so altogether. I shall see you, holy brother, in him, 
 and hear you, by him ; and some things which I wish to 
 communicate privately to your wisdom, I shall send by him. 
 To your holy soul, and to the holy ones serving Almighty 
 God under your government, I commend myself, and ours, 
 with all possible energy and devotion.^' 
 
 PETKR TO NICHOLAS. 
 
 " If you are mine, as I call you — if I do not deceive my- 
 self — although you are a man under authority, yet I com- 
 mand, and absolutely will, that you come here. I have for a 
 long time deferred issuing this command, though I had most 
 fully resolved in my own mind to do it, not from dissimula- 
 lation, but because I waited for a fit opportunity. For I am 
 always, as you know, moving about, not knowing how long 1 
 may have to stay in any particular place, or when, or whither, 
 I may get away from it. But now, as an accident which I 
 have met with will compel me to remain at Clugny, at least 
 until Christmas, you must come, and make no excuse ; for 
 perhaps, if you delay, you may not find me there, for I know 
 not how long. When you come, I will explain to you why 
 I am so urgent. I have written to your Lord Abbot another 
 letter, more in the nature of a command than a request, to 
 send you to me. The History of Alexander the Great, our 
 Augustine against Julian (if the correction of your own by it 
 is completed), and any other good things which you may 
 have, bring with you." 
 
 BERNARD TO PETER. 
 
 " What are you about, my good man ? you laud a sinner 
 and beatify a miserable creature. You must add a prayer, 
 that I may not be led into temptation. For I shall be led 
 into it, if, feeling complacency in such compliments, I begin 
 not to know myself. How happy now might I be, if words 
 
 Ff2 
 
436 NICHOLAS THE SECRETARY, [nO. XXV. 
 
 could make me happy. Happy nevertheless I shall call my- 
 self, but in your regard, not in my own praises. Happy that 
 I am loved by, and that I love, you. Though indeed this 
 morsel, sweet as it is to me, must be a little modified. Do 
 you wonder why ? It is because I do not see what claim I 
 have to such affection, especially from such a man. You 
 know, however, that to desire to be more beloved than one 
 deserves is unjust. I would that I might be enabled to imi- 
 tate as well as to admire, that mark of humility. I would 
 that I might enjoy your holy and desired presence, I do not 
 say always, or even often, but at least once a year. I think 
 I should never return empty. I should not, I say, look in 
 vain at a pattern of discipline, a mirror of holiness. And (that 
 which, I confess, I have as yet but too little learned of Christ) 
 I should not quite in vain have before my eyes your example 
 of meekness and lowHness of heart. But if I go on to do to 
 you what I have complained of your doing to me, though I 
 may speak the truth, yet I shall act contrary to the word of 
 truth, which commands us not to do to others what we would 
 not that they should do to us. Therefore let me now reply 
 to the Uttle request with which you concluded your letter. 
 He whom you order to be sent to you is not at present with 
 me, but with the Bishop of Auxerre, and so ill, that he could 
 not, without great inconvenience, come either to me or to 
 you.'' 
 
 I have no doubt that the reason assigned by Bernard 
 for not sending the Secretary was true and sufficient ; 
 but we may perhaps find ground to doubt whether it 
 was the only reason. It is, however, corroborated by a 
 letter of Nicholas, which begins thus : — 
 
 *^ ' Shew me, O thou whom my soul loveth' — when shall I 
 come and appear before thy face, when shall I see thee, 
 ^ when wilt thou comfort me' ? Comfort me, I say, for ' com- 
 fort i^ hidden from mine eyes' until I see your desired and 
 desirable presence ; and my soul is sorrowful even unto thee. 
 To be sure, wherever I go, the most delightful remembrance 
 of you follows me ; but in proportion as that recollection is 
 sweet, so is absence the more grievous. Far be it from me 
 to receive comfort from that specious, but false sentiment. 
 
NO. XXV.] AND PETER OF CLUGNI. 437 
 
 which tells us that those are more really present who are so 
 to the mind, than those who are before our eyes, and that 
 there is more in the union of hearts than of persons. As if, 
 indeed, the look and speech had not something of living 
 pleasure, which the absent cannot give. But I think this 
 was said rather from system than from feeling, by that splen- 
 dour of Roman eloquence with whom eloquence was born 
 and brought to light — that is, TuUy, of whom it was said, 
 that what he had framed in thought he enforced in action, 
 followed up with art, transferring with the utmost ease his 
 heart to his tongue. What am I about? I have wandered 
 from my business, and am guilty not only of a digression but 
 a transgression. Who will make up to me for not having seen 
 together those two great lights ^, and that too in the firma- 
 ment of heaven, namely, in that place which the Lord hath 
 chosen from among all the places of the earth to set his name 
 there ? I am angry with my occupations through which it 
 occurred, not that I was unwilling, but unable, and that I 
 did not even know of it. It was caused by the business of 
 your brother, my Lord Abbot of Vezelai, in which, by your 
 command, I had to fight with beasts that man might not 
 prevail," &c. 
 
 It is quite clear that Nicholas was as anxious to go 
 to Clugny as Peter was to get him there. His letter 
 is too long to admit of my here inserting the whole, 
 and it may be sufficient to say that he begged Peter to 
 write again to his Abbot, to the Prior, and to Galcher 
 the Cellarer (for he was involved in the business of each 
 — horum enim omnium negotiis intricatus et implicatus 
 sum), and promised to bring Alexander the Great, Au- 
 gustine, and any other good thing which he could lay 
 his hands on. " I know," he says, " that my Lord Abbot 
 told you not to send for me without necessity, and he 
 said the same thing to me ; but there is necessity, the 
 greatest necessity, to see you, however busy I may be. 
 What need of many words? Order me to come." 
 
 ^ Alluding, I apprehend, to a recent visit of Bernard to Clugny. 
 
438 PETER OF CLUGNI, [XO. XXV. 
 
 Peter wrote as he was desired to all the parties ; and 
 his letter to Bernard is characteristic and worth tran- 
 scribing: — 
 
 " If it be lawful to complain of a friend, and of such a 
 friend, I do complain ; and I say what was once said to a 
 certain person, ' Father, if thy friend had bid thee do some 
 great thing, surely thou shouldst have done it;' how much 
 more then when, first by writing, and then by word of mouth, 
 he bade, entreated, with familiar boldness ordered — 'Send 
 your Nicholas to Clugny'? I do not deny that the thing 
 itself is great; but it is no great journey. What if you had 
 only once written to me, * send me' this, or that person, or 
 ever so many? What should I — I say, what should I do, 
 but what I am wont to do ? I am in the habit not only of 
 granting your requests, but of obeying your orders. But 
 you want to know my reason. Is it not reason enough, to 
 see a person whom one loves ? He is yours indeed, but he 
 is very dear to me, and are you not pleased with my liking 
 what belongs to you ? Does it not please you that one whom 
 I believe you love more than many who belong to you, should 
 be still more dear to me ? And what greater proof of true 
 friendship is there than to love what my friend loves ? I love 
 him for his own sake, and for yours too. For your sake, 
 because he is attached to you; for his own sake, because 
 ever since the time of the Lord Bishop of Troyes he deserved 
 it on many grounds. Hitherto I have made him no recom- 
 pence for all these things, except that I have always sincerely 
 loved him in the Lord. While others make a practice of 
 repaying one service or benefit by another, would it not seem 
 beyond all measure ungrateful in me to deny to one who 
 loves me such kindness as costs nothing? Is it strange if, 
 in order to prove to him that this kindness does not wholly 
 evaporate in written representations of words, I desire at 
 least once a year to see him, to talk with him, to delight 
 myself in the Lord with him concerning those writings both 
 sacred and philosophical, of which he is full to the brim ? If 
 it is not idle to converse of God, of divine things, of those 
 which are most profitable to the soul, then Nicholas's visit is 
 not an idle one. If the cultivation of personal regard for you 
 in our own hearts, if the commendation of your order to all 
 
NO. XXV.] AND THE SECRETARY NICHOLAS. 439 
 
 men, if at length to unite your whole body to our congrega- 
 tion with the cement of charity, is idle, then Nicholas's visit 
 is an idle one. His heart is always inditing some good mat- 
 ter of you and yours ; he seeks the good of his people ; he 
 prays for the peace of Jerusalem. These are the ridiculous, 
 vain, frivolous occasions of Nicholas with us. Why, then, 
 my dearest friend, cannot he be granted to me for a month, 
 when I, from mere affection, gave up to you Peter and 
 Robert your kinsmen, and Garner, and others, not for a 
 month, but for ever? How many abbots, how many monks, 
 have I granted to other, not to say strange, monasteries, 
 (aliis, ne dicam alienis, ecclesiis) under the influence of your 
 letters and counsels ? Nor do I repent of having yielded to 
 my friend, to whom 1 am prepared to yield a great deal 
 more. But it is right that he should make a return j it is 
 right that, to one who is always giving up to him, he should 
 yield something. This thing is more profitable to your con- 
 gregation than to us; for there is no person, unless it be 
 yourself, venerable man, there is, I say, no person through 
 whose advocacy they could more persuasively plead their 
 cause, and no hook with which they could more effectively 
 fish in the sea or in the river of Clugny. 
 
 "But I remember that when your holiness was at Clugny 
 lately, you said, *What do you want with Nicholas?' I 
 answered, * It is of no consequence, no great matter.' But 
 I confess to you, dearest friend — if I sinned, forgive me — 
 they were rather the words of wounded feeling than of truth. 
 Truly I was then deceitful. I know not how it happened, 
 for it is not often the case with me, that I used deceitful lan- 
 guage. I had one thing in my heart, and another on my 
 tongue. This is what my mind tacitly suggested, *Why 
 should you repeat your wishes so often ? Perhaps, as you 
 have been denied your request twice before, you may now be 
 denied a third time. You have asked, and have not been 
 listened to; why should you go on entreating?' I felt 
 inclined to answer, as the man born blind did to the Phari- 
 sees, ^I have told you already, and you have heard; why 
 would you hear it again?' I was inclined to answer thus, 
 but 1 did not like to do it. Now, you see, I confess. Let 
 my confession avail me— let it avail me that I have not 
 covered the truth with a veil of falsehood — let it avail me 
 
440 THE SECRETARY NICHOLAS. [NO. XXVI. 
 
 that, as it is said all is naked among friends, so I have 
 stripped before my friend what was disguised in my bosom. 
 Let it, I say, avail me— but for what? That you should take 
 anything for my sake out of your barns ? or anything out of 
 your cellars ? that you should diminish your treasures of 
 gold and silver, if you had them ? What then ? That you 
 should send Nicholas; and not only now, but whenever I 
 shall send for him. For I will take care, as far as possible, 
 not to ask anything that can be reasonably denied, or which 
 may in any way annoy you, not to say myself. Let it be, 
 then, let it be, as I wish, that Nicholas may spend next 
 Easter with us, and, according to his custom, pour out your 
 heart to me, and mine on his return to you." 
 
 No. XXVI. 
 
 " I can only say, in the praise of Peter, that his manners were gentle, 
 his temper very mild and humane, and that he had what in common lan- 
 guage is concisely called a good heart." — Milner. 
 
 We must not, however, lose sight of books in this cor- 
 respondence, for so did not even the Secretary Nicho- 
 las, who was so much occupied by it : in addition to all 
 his business, as the abbot's amanuensis, he had what 
 Mabillon calls a "librorum commercium" with various 
 persons. Thus, in his thirty-fourth letter, addressed to 
 Amedeus, Bishop of Lausanne, he says, " I send you 
 the book of Master Anselm, well pointed, if I mistake 
 not, and corrected." By another letter, it appears that 
 he used to lend books on condition that a copy should 
 be returned with the volume lent. When Peter of 
 Celle had borrowed two volumes of St. Bernard's 
 works, he wrote to him, " Make haste and quickly copy 
 these, and send them to me ; and, according to my 
 bargain, cause a copy to be made for me. And both 
 those which I have sent to you, and the copies, as I 
 
NO. XXVI.] " COMMERCIUM LIBRORUM." 441 
 
 have said, send to me, and take care that I do not lose 
 a single tittle." Writing to the Dean of Troyes, he 
 says, " Send me the Epistles of the Bishop of Le Mans, 
 for I want to copy them ;'' and, indeed, he seems to 
 have had a constant eye to the acquisition and multi- 
 plication of books. When Philip, prior of the cathe- 
 dral church of Cologne, and the emperor's chancellor, 
 was going to Jerusalem, he put in for his " noble 
 library," which he had so wonderfully and incomparably 
 collected, assuring him that his poor brethren would 
 pray for his prosperous voyage \ 
 
 But, to say the truth of the Secretary Nicholas — and 
 I suppose it ought to be said of him, as well as of other 
 people, and it may as well be said in plain terms, 
 though I am sorry to be obliged to use them — he was 
 a great rogue. Enjoying, as he did, the most affec- 
 tionate confidence of these two good abbots, and pro- 
 fessing the greatest attachment to them, and the high- 
 est reverence for those things which they held most 
 sacred, he was a hypocrite, a cheat, and a thief. I am 
 afraid that I do not exaggerate the fact, and that he 
 might be called with peculiar propriety "graphicum 
 furem." But then how far the inconsiderate and con- 
 fiding kindness of his patrons conduced to spoil a 
 
 ' As to this "commercium librorum," (see before, pp. 54, 55, 56,) it 
 would be easy to multiply illustrations and examples. One oflfers itself 
 immediately in a letter of the abbot Peter to Guigo, prior of Chartreuse, in 
 which he tells him that, according to his direction, he had sent him the 
 lives of those saints, Nazianzen and Chrysostom, and Ambrose against 
 Symmachus. That he had not sent Hilary's work on the Psalms, because 
 he found the same fault in their copy as was in the prior's, but that if, 
 knowing that, he still wished for it, he would send it. That they had 
 not got Prosper against Cassian, but he had sent into Aquitaine for it, and 
 would, if needful, send again. He begs him to send the greater volume 
 of St. Augustine, containing the letters which passed between him and 
 St. Jerome, because a great part of their copy, while lying at one of their 
 cells, had been eaten by a bear (casu comedit ursus). — Lib. I. Ep. x.xiv. 
 Bib. Clun. 653. 
 
442 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX'S [nO. XXVI. 
 
 clever, conceited, ambitious young man, is more than I 
 can pretend to say. Certain it is, however, that when 
 Peter was writing of Nicholas, in the affectionate terms 
 which I have quoted in the preceding number, or, at 
 the utmost, very soon after, Bernard had begun to 
 suspect him of duplicity and fraud. In a letter to the 
 Pope, principally about the Archbishop of Rheims, Ber- 
 nard says, " We have been in peril by false brethren, 
 and many forged letters, under counterfeits of our seals, 
 have gone forth into the hands of many. And (what 
 I am more afraid of) it is said that the deception has 
 extended to you. Thus compelled, I have laid aside 
 that seal, and use the new one which you see, contain- 
 ing both a figure of me and my name. The other 
 seal, therefore, you will not receive as coming from me, 
 except in the matter of the Bishop of Clermont, to 
 whom I gave a letter sealed with the other seal, because 
 I had not then got this one ^" 
 
 In another letter to the pope, of the same year, Ber- 
 nard speaks more plainly — "That Nicholas has gone 
 forth from us, because he was not of us ; and he has 
 gone out, too, leaving very dirty footmarks behind him. 
 And I had seen through the man a long time, but I 
 waited in the expectation that either God would con- 
 vert him, or that he, like Judas, would betray himself: 
 and that has happened. Beside books, money, and a 
 good deal of gold, there were found upon him when he 
 went away ; three seals — his own, the prior's, and one 
 of mine, and that not the old, but the new one which 
 1 had been lately forced, by his tricks and rogueries, to 
 alter. This is what, I remember, I wrote to you about, 
 without mentioning any name, only saying that we 
 were in peril by false brethren. Who can say to how 
 many persons he has written just what he pleased, in 
 
 » Ep. 284. Tom i. p. 275. 
 
NO. XXVI.] SECRETARY NICHOLAS. 443 
 
 my name, but without my knowledge ? I would that 
 your court may be thoroughly purified from the defile- 
 ment of his falsehoods. I would that the innocence of 
 those about me may be able to clear itself with those 
 whom he has deceived and prejudiced by his most im- 
 pudent lies. It has been partly proved, and he has 
 partly confessed, that he more than once wrote to you 
 in this fraudulent manner. As to his vile tricks, with 
 which the country is filled, so that we are a byeword 
 to everybody, I feel it unnecessary to pollute my own 
 lips or your ears. If he comes to you, (for he boasts of 
 doing so, and is confident on the strength of his having 
 friends in the court,) remember Arnold of Brescia, for 
 a greater than Arnold is here. No man is more 
 worthy of perpetual imprisonment — nothing could be 
 more just to him than the imposition of perpetual 
 silence ^" 
 
 Whether Nicholas ever made any such appeal as he 
 threatened does not appear ; but if he did, it certainly 
 was not followed by the consequences which Bernard 
 suggests, for he was living many years after as a monk 
 in his old monastery of Montier Ramey, as appears by 
 a letter which we have from him to William, Arch- 
 bishop of Rheims, who did not attain that dignity till 
 the year 1176*. 
 
 But let us (as Bernard did) abruptly dismiss Nicho- 
 las, and look at the Abbot of Clugni's own notary, 
 
 ^ Ep. ccxcviii. The Cistercians were more cautious at a later period. 
 Among the Statuta Selecta of the General Chapter of that Order, 
 in A.D. 1223, we find the following: — "Abbas de Ponte-Obran, qui 
 literas quas non inspexit sigillavit, tribus diebus sit in levi culpa, uno 
 eorum in pane et aqua : et monachus qui ei litteras obtulit, eadem poena 
 puniatur, etin Capitulo vapulet." — No. xxiii. ap. Mart. IV. 1337. 
 
 * The reader will, I believe, find most of the particulars relating to 
 Nicholas, for which I have not otherwise accounted, in Mabillon's dis- 
 course, " De Nicolao sancti Bernardi Notario," prefixed to the third tome 
 of his edition of St. Bernard's works. Vol. i. 712. 
 
444 PETER OF CLUGNI [nO. XXVI. 
 
 Peter of Poictiers, who was afterwards grand prior of 
 Clugni, and who seems to have shared, and better 
 deserved, the affectionate kindness of Peter the Vene- 
 rable. I was originally led to mention this abbot by a 
 reference to one of his letters bearing on the question 
 of monastic studies, and shewing his opinion as to what 
 monks ought to read. In what sort of books his own 
 " commerce" lay, may in some degree appear from what 
 I have just given in a note ; and his doctrine on the 
 subject will appear from the following letter ; though, 
 not having Martene's book at hand, I am not sure 
 whether it is that to which he refers : — 
 
 "To his beloved son Master Peter, Brother Peter the 
 humble Abbot of Clugni wishes the seeing eye and 
 the hearing ear : 
 
 " Pitying you, my most beloved son, labouring as you are 
 in acquiring the knowledge of secular literature, and bur- 
 thened with the heavy load of profane studies, and foreseeing 
 no reward for your labour, no relief for your burthen, I grieve 
 to think that you are spending your time in vain. For, if 
 the single and definite object of the true philosopher is to 
 learn wherein real blessedness consists, and having learned 
 that, to attain to it, so that instead of being miserable he 
 may be blessed, — and if that is not worthy to be called bless- 
 edness in which any good thing is wanting, but that the 
 summum bonum is a blessed eternity, — who will dare to say 
 that he is a philosopher who, by all his labours, is not 
 advancing to eternal blessedness, but to eternal misery ? 
 The wise men of antiquity laboiu'ed in a search after this 
 blessedness, and set to work vigorously to bring to light what 
 was hidden in profound depths, as it were from the very 
 bowels of the earth. Hence the invention of arts, hence the 
 multiplied perplexities of argumentation, hence the innume- 
 rable dissensions of sects disputing with each other ; some 
 of which placed happiness in sensual pleasures, others in the 
 capabilities of the soul, others thought it was to be sought 
 in something above man, others with some other opinion 
 opposed them all. 
 
NO. XXVI.] TO PETER OF POICTIERS. 445 
 
 " Seeing that these erred, and that they were seeking 
 among things below for those which are hidden above, and 
 that mortals in this world were straying in the confusion 
 of falsehood, Truth, looking from heaven, and compassion- 
 ating their misery, arose from the earth ; and having taken the 
 likeness of sinful flesh, in order to render Himself visible to 
 such creatures. He cried to those labouring under these and 
 the like evils, ^Come unto me, all ye that labour and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest ; take my yoke upon 
 you.' And, because he saw that they were tied and bound 
 by deep ignorance of truth, assuming the character of a 
 teacher, he added, ' Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly, 
 and ye shall find rest to your souls.' And, in his sermon on 
 the mount, he plainly taught not only where true blessed- 
 ness is to be found, but also the means by which it is to be 
 obtained ; and at once put down the curious trifling of those 
 who are searching after happiness, saying, * Blessed are the 
 poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' 
 
 " See now, without the study of Plato, without the dis- 
 putations of the Academy, without the subtleties of Aristotle, 
 without the teaching of philosophers, the place and the way 
 of happiness are discovered. Let human presumption, then, 
 be silent, now that the divine Master has been heard. Let 
 Falsehood hold its peace, for Truth teaches. Let man quit 
 the teacher's chair, for the God-man sits down to teach — 
 ' Blessed,' saith he, ^ are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the 
 kingdom of heaven.' Why is it then, my most dearly beloved, 
 that you run from school to school? Why are you labouring 
 to teach and to be taught ? Why is it that you are seeking, 
 through thousands of words and multiphed labours, what 
 you might, if you pleased, obtain in plain language, and with 
 little labour ? Why, vainly studious, are you reciting with 
 the comedians, lamenting with the tragedians, trifling with 
 the metricians, deceiving with the poets, and deceived with 
 the philosophers ? Why is it that you are now taking so 
 much trouble about what is not philosophy, but should rather 
 (if I may do it without offence) be called foolishness. I say, 
 foolishness ; for this is the declaration of the true philoso- 
 plier — ' Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world ?' 
 Run, then, my son, to that blessedness of the kingdom of 
 heaven which is proposed to you by the heavenly Master, as 
 
446 PETER OF CLUGNI [nO. XXVI. 
 
 the one single fruit of all philosophy, and which you cannot 
 obtain except by true poverty of spirit. For, as I have 
 already said, the true Master, presiding in the school of the 
 whole world, and overthrowing the seats of the false teachers, 
 has declared him that is poor in spirit to be blessed, because 
 for him is laid up the highest blessedness, that is, the king- 
 dom of heaven. 
 
 " Enter the way of poverty, which leads to the blessed- 
 ness of the kingdom of heaven. Enter, I say, the way of 
 poverty, not so much of the body as of the soul; not so 
 much of possessions as of humility; not so much of the 
 flesh as of the mind. You will then be the true philoso- 
 pher of Christ, when he shall have made the wisdom of the 
 world foolishness in you. For, according to the same apostle, 
 if you will be wise, become a fool, that you may be wise. 
 And do not glory in your knowledge of the vain talk of logic, 
 or the curious trifling of physics, or in knowing anything else 
 but Jesus Christ and him crucified. If, through his gift, you 
 attain to this, there will be joy over you among the angels of 
 God, who rejoice over every sinner who repents, and there 
 will be much joy among the saints, for when one member 
 rejoices, all the members rejoice with it. And to me it will 
 be a joy beyond everything : for I will receive you as an only 
 son, — I will nourish you with the milk of piety, — I will 
 cherish you in the bosom of love, — I will bring you up 
 among the little ones of Christ; among the multitude of 
 recruits I will arm you with heavenly weapons, and, as far as 
 I can, will animate you to the spiritual warfare, and will fight 
 by your side against the enemy. We shall have help from 
 above, that as fellow-soldiers in the heavenly camp we may 
 conquer the enemy, and, conquering, may be crowned ; and, 
 truly philosophizing, may arrive at the true object of philoso- 
 phy — eternal blessedness." 
 
 How these promises were performed by the kind and 
 warm-hearted abbot, and how affectionately he was 
 attached to this son, we may learn from a letter which 
 he wrote to him when he had permitted him to go and 
 reside elsewhere, (I presume at some cell belonging to 
 Clugni,) and missed him so much that he repented of 
 the leave which he had given. It is long, but some 
 
NO. XXVr.] TO PETER OF POICTIERS. 447 
 
 part is so characteristic of the writer, and otherwise so 
 illustrative of our subject, that I must give an extract. 
 After saying a good deal about the elevated situation of 
 his retirement, and reminding him of the purposes for 
 which Moses ascended the mount, and our Lord went 
 up into the mountain, the abbot adds — 
 
 " Since then, most dear son, in going up into a mountain, 
 and in solitary retirement, you do, according to the grace 
 given you, imitate the Lord and his servant, see that you do 
 as far as you can imitate them in other things ; that, as I have 
 met your good desires by providing for you the peace of soli- 
 tude, so you may procure some alleviation of my labours by 
 your prayers. For to that affection with which, as you know, 
 I embrace you in the love of Christ with my whole soul, you 
 owe, not only your prayers, but (as St. Paul said to Philemon) 
 your own self also. What, indeed, do you not owe to me, 
 you whom I have loved almost beyond any other? What 
 do you not owe to me, who never thought more even of my- 
 self than of you ? And it is no wonder that you have gained 
 this place in my regard, when it was hardly possible for me 
 to make any adequate return for your life and conversation. 
 For, to say nothing of your other virtues, where or at what 
 price shall I ever be able to procure anybody so assimilated 
 and conformed to my own ways ? If I wanted to investigate 
 any of the deep things of holy scripture, I always found you 
 most ready and prepared. If I wanted to look out anything 
 in profane literature, (for the sake of that which is sacred,) 
 I found you prompt and shrewd. If our talk happened to 
 be (as our most familiar talk most frequently was) on the 
 contempt of the world and the love of heavenly things, your 
 words seemed so separate from earthly things, and so full of 
 immortahty, that you appeared to be saying to me, 'That 
 my mouth speak not the works of men '.* And me, coming 
 from worldly occupations, and, as it were, frozen up with the 
 cold of the north wind, they thawed as with the warmth of 
 the southern breeze, in such a way, and so melted me by the 
 heat of their breath into divine love, that even to them the 
 
 Ps. xvi. i.—Douay. 
 
448 PETER OF CLUGNI [nO. XXVI. 
 
 words of the Psalmist might be applied — ^Send forth thy 
 word, and thou shalt melt them ; his breath hath blown, and 
 the waters shall flow®;' — and I may sing with the spouse in 
 the Canticles, ' My soul melted as my beloved spake ^' All 
 things were wearisome to me, I felt everything a burden, I 
 was groaning like one bowed down under a heavy load of 
 punishment. I was like those of whom we read in Job, 
 ' Behold, the giants groan under the waters ^' I had no rest, 
 no relief from anybody, until my very necessity suggested to 
 me to go to you. But as soon as I could get a little leisure 
 with you, and have, if only a little, conversation, I rose up 
 again with renewed powers, and more alacrity, to my labours, 
 like one strengthened with much meat, and you had per- 
 formed that divine injunction, ' If thou shalt see thy neigh- 
 bour's ass fallen in the way, thou shalt not pass by, but thou 
 shalt help with him '.' By your care, undoubtedly, like the 
 cable of an anchor, (as Gregory says) I was prevented from 
 being driven out to sea by contrary winds, and, though much 
 tossed, kept into the shore. 
 
 " Have you forgotten these frequent and earnest conver- 
 sations? Have you forgotten my tears and lamentations 
 over my personal dangers ? Have you lost all recollection 
 of the frequent repulses with which you met my desire to 
 fly from all earthly things and devote myself entirely to 
 God ? Oh, how often, when the door was shut, and every 
 mortal excluded, and He alone who is always in the 
 midst of those who think or speak of Him was witness, 
 have we held awful discourse on the blindness of the human 
 heart and its hardness ; on the snares of various sins ; on 
 the different kinds of crafts of demons; of the depths of 
 God's judgments, and *how terrible in counsels over the 
 children of men ',' that on whom he will he hath mercy, and 
 whom he will he hardeneth, and that man knows not whether 
 
 * Ps. cxlvii. " He shall send forth his word, and shall melt them : his 
 Spirit shall blow, and waters shall flow." — Douay. 
 
 ' Cant. V. 6. " My soul melted as he spake." — Douay. 
 
 ^ Job xxvi. 5. 
 
 ^ Exod. xxiii. 5. •' If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lie under- 
 neath his burden, thou shalt not pass by, but shalt lift him up with the 
 same." — Douay. 
 
 * Ps. Ixv. 3. — Douay. 
 
NO. XXVI.] TO PETER OF POICTIERS. 449 
 
 he is counted worthy of love or hatred ; of our uncertain and 
 fearful calling ; of the scheme of man's salvation wrought 
 out by the incarnation and passion of the Son of God ; of 
 the tremendous day of the final judgment, of the incompre- 
 hensible severity of the divine trial whereby he punishes the 
 wicked everlastingly, and the unspeakable mercy wherewith 
 he gives eternal rewards to the good. 
 
 " Conversation on these and similar subjects, when the noise 
 of the world was shut out, formed a sort of hermitage for me 
 in the midst of men, and was like the tabernacle of the Lord, 
 to which (like Moses fi-om the stones of the Jews) I fled for 
 refuge from the tumult of the world. Tired with the litiga- 
 tion of men and the arguments of law-suits, here I rested. 
 Worried about the petty cares of domestic management, and 
 worn out with various dissensions, here I was refreshed. 
 Annoyed by the irruption of those who spoiled us, by the 
 slaughter of our people, by the devastation of various places, 
 here I put off my sadness. The spots contracted from the 
 filth of the world, I here washed away, and purged out the 
 old leaven which is opposed to the unleavened bread of sin- 
 cerity and truth. And, what need of many words ? Truly, 
 according to Isaiah, this tabernacle was to me ' a shadow in 
 the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for 
 a covert from storm and from rain.' 
 
 " Nor was this only here at home, but wherever I went. 
 You were my companion. This, as we travelled together 
 through various parts, neither the scorching sun, nor the 
 freezing north-wind, nor the tempest, nor the cloudy day, 
 nor the muddy earth, nor the steep moimtains, nor the deep 
 valleys, could deprive us of. Everywhere, when the waves 
 of the great sea were a little still, this secret place remained 
 to us. I had you so unanimous in all things, I was so sure 
 that what I found in my own mind was in yours also, that 
 in you, almost alone and without exception, I found that 
 friendship which is truly defined as identity of will ; so that 
 nothing could possibly please me which was displeasing to 
 you, nor displease me if agreeable to you, — according to what 
 we read, that a certain person once said, there were not two 
 souls to two bodies, but one soul seemed to inhabit both. 
 But if such affection could exist among those who knew not 
 Grod, as that, without confounding the substance and only 
 
450 PETER OF CLUGNI [nO. XXVT. 
 
 uniting the will they could express such an idea as this, what 
 wonder is it if the love of God, which is shed abroad in 
 men's hearts by the Holy Spirit, hath united us in Him 
 who maketh of both one, and who said to his Father, of his 
 disciples, ' that they may be one, as we are.' 
 
 " But it is time to begin complaining, that I may bring 
 forth that wherewith I have so long travailed. For you, 
 you, I say, have offended against this love ; you have severed 
 this divine miion ; you have rescinded this heavenly contract, 
 when, as a friend, your friend ; as an intimate, your intimate ; 
 and (to come to the language of authority) as a subject, your 
 superior ; as a disciple, your master ; as a monk, your abbot ; 
 not to say as a servant, your lord, has been deserted by you. 
 But if I were to call you a servant, should I go too far ? for 
 the Rule prescribes that a monk shall submit to his superior 
 with all obedience. If with all, then with servile ; but with 
 all, therefore with servile : so that you are my ser\ ant. I 
 complain then of my servant's flying from his master, seek- 
 ing out a liu-king place, refusing to follow him, being unwill- 
 ing to serve him." 
 
 But there are two more folio pages of this letter, and, 
 instead of pursuing it, it seems more to our purpose to 
 extract part of another to a monk named Gilbert, of 
 whom I am sorry that I know little more than that he 
 seems to have adopted a very secluded (if not abso- 
 lutely solitary) life in some remote cell, and to have 
 written to the Abbot of Clugni for advice and instruc- 
 tion. If I pass over what Peter replied in the way of 
 general advice, or with respect to the peculiar tempta- 
 tions of his circumstances, and what he says of the 
 employment of his time in prayer and meditation, it is 
 not because I think it uninteresting, or less scriptural 
 or sensible than what he might have written if he had 
 been reserved to our enlightened age. But, in fact, the 
 letter fills nearly five folio pages, and one must select ; 
 and the reader will remember that my present subject 
 relates more directly and immediately to the know- 
 ledge, than to the piety, of the Dark Ages. Having 
 
NO. XXVI.] TO GILBERT THE RECLUSE. 451 
 
 spoken of prayer and meditation, he adds, referring to 
 the latter — 
 
 '^ But since she [for he has compared her to a handmaid, 
 whose mistress is prayer] is wholly spiritual, she requires 
 the support of something else, and something inferior, and 
 let her have the help of sacred reading. Refreshed with this, 
 and having shut her book, she reflects upon what she has 
 read, and after long reflection, ministers as a handmaid to 
 prayer. For as the fire, when the fat is cast into it, from 
 receiving that rich food, breaks forth in greater flames, so 
 the fervour of prayer, enriched by the fatness of meditation 
 and reading, rises to the greatest heat of divine love. These 
 are the dainties of the king's sons. This is the table pre- 
 pared by the mother. Wisdom, to which, crying in the 
 streets, she invites the little, not the great ones, saying, ' If 
 any be a little one, let him come to me ;' and again, * Come, 
 eat ye my bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled ^' 
 This bread no man eats who is not fasting from all the food 
 of man. This wine, unless he abstains from all other drink, 
 he cannot drink. For, according to St. Gregory, he who 
 feeds on sensual pleasures shall be counted xmworthy of those 
 feasts of eternal dainties. 
 
 " But I know, my most dearly beloved, that these things 
 are difficult of attainment ; and that it is not easy for every- 
 body to pass his life in these pursuits only. Let these three 
 things, therefore, [that is, prayer, meditation, and reading] 
 be followed by manual labour ; that when the mind is 
 fatigued with spiritual things, and, being cast down by the 
 weight of the flesh, falls from the highest to the lowest 
 things, let it be turned, not to the vain conversation of men, 
 but to a blessed exercise of the body. Trees cannot be 
 planted, fields cannot be watered, and no agricultural work 
 can be carried on, consistently with perpetual seclusion ; but, 
 what is more useful, instead of the plough, you may take in 
 hand the pen, and instead of marking the fields with furrows, 
 you may score page after page with sacred letters, and the 
 word of God may be sown in the parchment, which, when 
 the harvest is ripe, that is, when the books are completed, 
 
 - Prov. ix. 4, 5. — Douay. 
 
452 GILBERT THE RECLUSE. [nO. XXVL 
 
 may fill hungry readers with abundant fruits, and so heavenly 
 bread may dispel the deadly famine of the soul. Thus 
 plainly, thus you may become a silent preacher of the divine 
 word; and while you hold your tongue, your hand will sound 
 aloud with uplifted voice in the ears of many people. You 
 will be shut up in your hiding-place, while in your books you 
 traverse sea and land. Like the watchman from the high- 
 place, you will cry aloud by the mouth of the reader in the 
 public assembUes of the church, and whisper the same 
 things to the silent servants of God in the recess of the 
 cloister and the corner of the house. Profession will have 
 made you a hermit, — devotion, an evangelist ; so that what 
 you could not do yourself, you may do by your labours. Be 
 encouraged to this work by considering the great reward that 
 will accrue to you on account of all whom you may help by 
 this praiseworthy course. For all who, by reading your 
 books, have conquered pride, subdued luxury, despised ava- 
 rice, restrained wrath, have abstained from or repented of 
 any sins, will help to fill the barns of your eternal harvest, as 
 handfuls gleaned by the sweat of your brow. And while, for 
 the most part, the works of men end with their lives, and 
 cease when they do, you will not die even when you are 
 dead ; and even ceasing to live, you will not cease to do 
 good, while by your works you are recalling the dead to life. 
 And the gain of your good works in the sight of God will be 
 extended even after your death, as long as (if I may so speak) 
 the life of your books endures. 
 
 '^ If, however, from its injuring your sight, or fi-om head- 
 ache, or fi*om its wearisome sameness, you cannot, or will not, 
 be content with this one manual employment, make a variety 
 by other handyworks. Make combs for combing and clean- 
 ing the heads of the brethren ; with skilfiil hand and well- 
 instructed foot, turn needle-cases, hollow out vessels for wine, 
 such as they call Justitice, or others hke them, or try to put 
 them together. And if there are any marshy places near, 
 weave mats (an ancient monastic employment) on which you 
 may always, or frequently sleep, may bedew with daily or 
 frequent tears, and wear out with frequent genuflexion before 
 God ; or, as St. Jerome says, weave little baskets with flags, 
 or make them of wicker. Filling up all the time of your 
 blessed life with these and similar works of holy purpose. 
 
NO. XXVI.] PETER THE VENERABLE. 453 
 
 you will leave no room for your adversaries to intrude into 
 your heart, or into your cell ; but that, when God hath filled 
 all with his virtues, there shall be no room for the devil, none 
 for sloth, none for the other vices." 
 
 I cannot help hoping and believing that a reader (if 
 I am so happy as to have such an one) who has can- 
 didly considered the extracts which I have given from 
 the letters of Peter the Venerable will have formed a 
 less despicable opinion of him than he would have done 
 had he merely known him by the brief and ignorant 
 sneer of Milner. Whatever might be right or wrong 
 in Peter's religion, he certainly was not a heartless 
 formalist, absorbed in frivolous punctilios. 
 
 But I hope, too, that the reader has not been misled 
 to think (and that I am not helping the delusion by 
 what I have just said) that I am taking, and giving 
 him, all this trouble merely with a view to defend an 
 individual from such silly censure. If that were my 
 object, I should not wonder if I might be able to shew 
 a probability that Peter was a man, if not of more cri- 
 tical knowledge, yet not deficient in secular learning, 
 and certainly of more extensive reading, and real know- 
 ledge of the history of the church to which he be- 
 longed, than the historian who has held him up, not 
 merely to scorn, but as a sort of proof and specimen of 
 the barbarism of his age. If I were his panegyrist 
 I should claim some respect for the literary enterprise 
 (even from those who would not give it to the Chris- 
 tian zeal) of the man who gave to the west a transla- 
 tion of the Alcoran ^ I should express my belief that 
 
 ^ In a letter to St. Bernard, from which I have already quoted, he says — 
 " Misi et novam translationem nostram contra pessimam nequam Mahu- 
 met haeresim disputantem, quae dum nuper in Hispaniis morarer meo 
 studio de lingua Arabica versa est in Latinam. Feci autem earn transferri 
 a perito utriusque linguae viro, Magistro Petro Toletano. Sed quia lingua 
 Latina non adeo ei familiaris vel nota erat ut Arabica, dedi ei coadjutorem 
 doctum virum dilectum filium, et fratrem Petrum notarium nostrum, reve- 
 
454 PETER THE VERERABLE. [nO. XXVI. 
 
 his Treatise against the Jews is not much less wise and 
 scriptural than what many persons have written since, 
 and would even write in the present day on the same 
 subject; but on that point, or any other relating to 
 rabbinical polemics, I should not like to speak positively, 
 without consulting my very excellent and learned 
 friend, Dr. M'Caul ; and of his poetry (as of some other 
 good men's) I should say nothing, because I find that 
 compliments to their sense, and piety, and good inten- 
 tion, are not generally acceptable to poets. 
 
 But I am not the biographer or the eulogist of the 
 abbot Peter ; and I say so much about him just for two 
 reasons, — first, to shew the reader, and to beg him very 
 seriously to consider, how history, and history even of 
 the most sacred character, is too often written. If 
 there is any subject which should make the historian's 
 hand tremble, even while he guides the pen of truth, it 
 is the church of Christ, which he has purchased with 
 his blood, which is, by his dispensation, militant here 
 on earth, dispersed through this naughty world, and 
 every page of whose history is rendered obscure by the 
 craft and assaults of the devil, the weakness and the 
 wickedness of the flesh, the friendship and the enmity 
 of the world, the sins of bad men, the infirmities, the 
 follies, the fancies, of good ones, and by the divine ordi- 
 nance that it shall ever be a body consisting of many 
 members, often, perhaps always, incapable not merely 
 
 rentise vestrse, ut 8estimo,bene cognitum. Qui verba Latina impolite vel con- 
 fuse plenimque ab eo prolatapoliens et ordinans : epistolarn, immo libellum, 
 multis, ut credo propter ignotarum rerum notitiam perutilem futurum per- 
 fecit. Fuit autem in transferendo haec mea intentio, ut morem ilium 
 Patrum sequerer, quo nullam unquam suorum temporum vel levissimam, 
 ut sic dicam, hseresim silendo praeterirent : quin ei totis fidei viribus resis- 
 terent, et scriptis ac disputationibus esse detestandam ac damnabilem 
 demonstrarent," &c. — Lib. IV. Ep. xvii. Bib. Clun. 843. I wonder how 
 many people at this time, between Hyde-park-corner and Whitechapel 
 church, know more of the Alcoran than Peter and his secretary did. 
 
NO. XXVII.] SCRIPTURE KNOWLEDGE. 455 
 
 of executing, but of appreciating, the office of each 
 other. Whatever else may have contributed to perpe- 
 tuate and increase this obscurity, it has, I fear, done 
 little in comparison with presumptuous ignorance. 
 
 But, in the second place, I think the reader will per- 
 ceive that the abbot Peter was not a solitary being who 
 had some knowledge of the scriptures, while everybody 
 else was ignorant. I do believe that it was uncommon 
 in extent, and that his secretary Peter meant, if not 
 quite all that his words might be made to say, yet 
 something very strong, when he talked of the abbot's 
 having the scriptures always ready — " utrumque Testa- 
 mentum memoriter retinendo ^ ; but that it was not so 
 uncommon in kind as some persons have supposed the 
 reader has probably been led to suspect ; perhaps he 
 has anticipated, and wondered that I have not noticed, 
 an argument which is one of the most obvious and the 
 most powerful, and to which I hope to proceed. 
 
 No. XXVII. 
 
 " Deinde etiam certis horis, certse lectioni vacandum est. Fortuita enim 
 et varia lectio, et quasi casu reperta, non aedificat, sed reddit animum 
 instabilem j et leviter admissa levius recedit a memoria. Sed certis inge- 
 niis immorandum est, et assuefaciendus est animus. Quo enim spiritu 
 scripturae factae sunt, eo spiritu legi desiderant : ipso etiam intelligendse 
 sunt. Nunquam ingredieris in sensum Pauli, donee usu bonae intentionis 
 in lectione ejus, et studio assiduae meditationis, spiritum ejus imbiberis. 
 Numquam intelliges David, donee ipsa experientia ipsos psalmorum affec- 
 tus indueris. Sicque de reliquis. Et in omni scriptura tantum distat 
 studium a lectione, quantum amicitia ab hospitio, socialis afiectio a fortuita 
 salutatione." — Guilielmus Remen. 
 
 If the Scriptures were as little known in the Dark 
 Ages as some writers would have us believe, it would 
 
 * Bib. Clun.6l9. 
 
456 SCRIPTURE KNOWLEDGE [nO. XXVII. 
 
 be hard to account for one very common feature in the 
 biography of ecclesiastics of ;that period, written by 
 those who were quite, or almost, their contemporaries, 
 and who therefore, according to the popular notion, 
 participated, and gloried, in the same ignorance and 
 hatred of the word of God. Treating the history of 
 those times as it has been too often treated, we may, 
 indeed, whenever we meet with anything opposed to 
 our previous opinion, set it down at once as an exagge- 
 ration, or falsehood, or some absurd fruit of incon- 
 ceivable ignorance and stupidity. But in a great many 
 cases this will not help ; and at the same time will not 
 prevent the statement from being of great value ; for I 
 need scarcely say that we may often learn nearly as 
 much from falsehood as from truth, though the inform- 
 ation may be very different in kind from that which 
 it was the writer's intention to convey. 
 
 It is, for instance, obvious, that if a contemporary 
 biographer describes the subject of his memoir as pull- 
 ing down an old wooden church and building a stone 
 one, so much to the satisfaction of the patron saint 
 that he came himself in the night, and set up three 
 great bells in addition to the three little ones of the old 
 church — if, I say, we are told this, all or any part of it 
 may be untrue, and the untruth may arise from the in- 
 tention or mistake of the writer ; but at least we attain 
 a high probability that there were wooden churches and 
 stone churches in his days, and that both might have bells. 
 Indeed we are apt to suppose, that what a legend writer 
 (I use the word in its popular sense, for a writer of 
 something little better than romance) tells us of his 
 saint is somewhat adapted to the taste and knowledge 
 of those for whom he wrote, and that, even while we 
 disbelieve his facts, we may gather from him some idea 
 of the opinions and feelings of society in his time. Per- 
 haps we arfe ^ven liable to carry this too far ; but when 
 
NO. XXVII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 457 
 
 we do, the fault more commonly lies in building on 
 single instances, or generalizing from a few particular 
 cases, than in the original principle and ground of 
 judgment. That ground is solid, and by these remarks 
 I do not mean to throw suspicion on the statements of 
 which I am about to avail myself, but only to remind 
 the reader that for our present purpose it really matters 
 but little, if at all, whether the biographers of the Dark 
 Ages whom I have occasion to quote were scrupulously 
 correct or not. As to the fact, I dare say that a 
 great deal of their biography was affected by passion 
 and prejudice, some intended to deceive and some 
 written in error, — some, in short, as bad in every 
 variety of way as anything in our days, — but I really 
 believe that a great part of it is more simple, and 
 therefore more credible ; except on those points respect- 
 ing which the writer was, from the superstition of the 
 time, more likely to be deceived himself. 
 
 Be this as it may, it is certain that a very common 
 subject of eulogium on the ecclesiastics of those times 
 is that they were much devoted to the study of the 
 scriptures, and possessed a great knowledge of them. 
 Several instances of this have occurred already inciden- 
 tally ; and I will here add a few others. 
 
 The biographer of St. Luidger, bishop of Munster, 
 who died in the year 809, tells us that he was well 
 instructed in the sacred writings ; and did not neglect 
 to lecture his disciples daily ; and whatever he found 
 to be enjoined in the holy books, he studied to prac- 
 tise and teach \ I have already, I believe more than 
 once, cautioned the reader that even such terms as 
 
 * " Erat sanctus Lutgerus in Scripturis sacris non mediocriter eruditus, 
 sicut in libro ab eo composite .... probatur . . . Discipulis etiam suis mane 
 diebus singulis tradere per se lectiones non neglexit, et quicquid in sacris 
 codicibus faciendum invenit, illud instantissime studuit observare et do- 
 cere."— LeiA. Sc. Br. I. 93. See also Mab. Act. SS. V. 27. 
 
458" READERS OF THE BIBLE [NO. XXVII. 
 
 scriptures sacrce in writers of the Dark Ages do not 
 always mean the Bible; but it may be well to repeat it 
 here, and when the expression is ambiguous he will 
 judge for himself, whether it is used with that laxity 
 by which it sometimes includes the writings of the 
 fathers, and ecclesiastical historians. It may probably 
 do so here; but I should not mention St. Luidger 
 where doubtful instances are not worth quoting, if I 
 really doubted the fact in his case, and also (to say the 
 trutli) if it were not for a little anecdote which his 
 biographer records, and which it is to our general pur- 
 pose to mention. We may perhaps assume that this 
 pupil of Alcuin (who after spending three years and a 
 half with him at York, returned " habens copiam libro- 
 rum ") was not unacquainted with the scriptures, espe- 
 cially as his master's eminence in such learning is 
 recorded ^ ; but hj^B biographer tells us that — 
 
 " Ks> soon as he could walk and talk he began to collect 
 the rind and bark of trees, such as we use for lights, and 
 everything of that sort which he could find. And while the 
 other children were playing he used to make himself httle 
 books of what he had gathered. And when he could get any 
 fluid, he imitated those who write, and used to carry them to 
 his nurse to take care of, as if they were useful books. And 
 when anybody said to him, ' What have you been doing 
 to-day?' he would say that he had been all day making 
 books, or writing, or reading. And when he was further 
 asked 'Who taught you?' he would answer 'God taught 
 
 ® " Qui erat in omni latitudine scripturarum supra caeteros modernorum 
 temporum exercitatus," says the monk of St. Gall. Canis. Led. Ant. 
 torn. ii. P. iii. p. 57. I give this, which is a testimony to his general learn- 
 ing, merely for the phraseology which illustrates what I have just said. 
 Of Alcuin's biblical learning and labours I have, I think, spoken in a 
 former number ; but they are notorious, and the reader wiU perceive that 
 my object is rather to shew, by scattered and incidental notices, the pro- 
 bability that there were many biblical students among the comparatively 
 obscure. 
 
NO. XXVII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 459 
 
 me.' He was in fact meditating in his tender age what he 
 afterwards devotedly performed ^" 
 
 One could imagine him accepting little Hannah 
 More's invitation, and accompanying her in her antici- 
 patory journies ^. But the reason why this puerile cir- 
 cumstance is worth mentioning is, that it indicates a 
 state of things in which the child was familiar with 
 books, and reading and writing. If he had not seen it 
 practised, he would have no more thought of writing 
 than Philip Quarl's monkey did before his master canie 
 to the island. 
 
 Of St. Dunstan, who became archbishop of Canter- 
 bury in the year 961, his biographer tells us that he 
 used to spend such leisure as he could retrieve from 
 public affairs in religious exercises, and among other 
 things in reading the divine writings (divinas scriptu- 
 ras) and correcting the copies of them ^. 
 
 Of Maiolus, abbot of Clugni, who died in the year 
 994, I have already spoken — ut speculi fieri solet 
 inspectione, ita se interius divina considerabat lectione, 
 &c.> 
 
 Of Lambert, abbot of the monastery of Lobbes, 
 about the year 1094, his biographer tells us that " of 
 his love of the word of God and his knowledge of the 
 scriptures ; to the study and comparison of which 
 •whenever opportunity was afforded, he gave himself 
 wholly . . . there is much which might be worthy of 
 mention ^" 
 
 7 Leibn. Scr. Brun. i. 87. 
 
 8 " Among the characteristic sports of Hannah's childhood, which their 
 mother was fond of recording, we are told, that she was wont to make a 
 carriage of a chair and then to call her sisters to ride with her to London 
 to see bishops and booksellers ; an intercourse which we shall hereafter shew 
 to have been realised."— Eofier/s'* Memoirs of Hannah More, vol. I. p. 14, 
 
 » Mab. Act. SS. vii. 663. ' See p, 307. 
 
 ■ Dach. Spic. ii. 753. 
 
460 READERS OF THE BIBLE [nO. XXVII. 
 
 Anselm, bishop of Lucca, who died in the year ] 086, 
 according to his contemporary biographer, " Knew 
 almost all the holy scriptures by heart ; and, as soon 
 as he was asked, would tell what each and all the holy 
 expositors thought on any particular point *." 
 
 I think that I have referred to what William of 
 Malmesbury, who lived within fifty years of the time, 
 says of Wulstan bishop of Worcester's custom of 
 repeating the whole psalter on his journies, to keep 
 his attendant clerks from such vain talk as is the com- 
 mon snare of travellers ; but I will here add his testi- 
 mony, that "lying, standing, walking, sitting, he had 
 always a psalm on his lips, always Christ in his heart *." 
 
 Hariulf abbot of Aldemburg, and Lisiard bishop of 
 Soissons, contemporaries and biographers of Arnold 
 bishop of Soissons, who died in the year 1087, tells us, 
 that he did not speak a single word to any creature 
 during three years and a half which he spent in con- 
 stant reading of the word of God and meditation 
 upon it'. 
 
 The contemporary biographer of Thierry abbot of 
 St. Hubert in the Ardennes says, that he was so assi- 
 duous in reading the holy scriptures that he knew 
 them by heart, and could quickly resolve even the 
 most difficult, and obscure, questions respecting them ^. 
 
 3 Mab. Act. SS. ix. 480. 
 
 ■* William of Malmesbury says : — " Ascenso animali, continue psalte- 
 rium incipere nee pausam nisi ad finem facere .... si via protelaretur ad 
 sufficientiam horarum repetebatur psalterium. Adequitabant clerici et 
 monachi, vel seriem versuum excepturi, vel amminiculaturi memoria?, si 
 quando videretur titubare, hoc ideo ut dediscerent inanes fabulas, quae 
 potissimum se viantibus ingerunt" — and he afterwards adds, "jaceret, 
 staret, ambularet, sederet, semper in ore psalmus, semper in corde Chris- 
 tus." — Mab. A. SS. ix. 834, who refers to Ang. Sac. ii. 240. 
 
 ° " Tribus igitur annis et mensibus sex, nullum raortalibus locutus est 
 verbum, continuo strictus silentio, et delectatus in caelesti contemplatione 
 atque assidua verbi Dei meditatione, quam solus legens ex divinorum 
 copia librorum ubertim hauriebat." — Mab. A. SS. ix. 514. 
 
 * " In lectione sanctarum scripturarum ita erat assiduus, ut eas memo- 
 
NO. XXVII.] IN THE DARK AGES. 461 
 
 Of Wolphelm, abbot of Brunwillers near Cologne, 
 who lived until the year 1091, his disciple says, that 
 he so profited in the reading of the scriptures that 
 M'hat he once read he never forgot. This may perhaps 
 be meant to refer to more general theological reading; 
 but he adds, " It is also worth while to mention that 
 this man of the Lord caused the whole of the Old and 
 New Testament to be read through every year. The 
 four gospels, however, as they could not be read at the 
 same time, and in the same order, as the other books, 
 he appointed to be read at four periods of the year, by 
 four deacons, in the four sides of the cloisters ^" 
 
 I suppose it would not be difficult to give enough 
 examples to tire the reader, if I liave not done it 
 already; but I will here add only that of Aufridus, 
 a man of high rank and military education, because his 
 anonymous biographer tells us, that while a layman his 
 table-talk was always seasoned with references to the 
 holy scriptures. I mention this because he was a lay- 
 man, while the others of wbom I have spoken were 
 ecclesiastics. Of course instances among the laity are 
 less frequently met with, for two very obvious reasons. 
 In the first place, the ecclesiastics were the reading 
 men, and the writing men, and it is therefore likely 
 not only that there should be more matter of this sort 
 
 riter teneret, et earum qusestiones quamvis difficillimas et obscuras, cito 
 evolveret,"— ifcfaft. A. SS. ix. 565. 
 
 ^ Operae pretium est, illud etiam non reticere quod singulis annis vir 
 Domini, Novi ac Veteris Testamenti paginas ex integro faciebat legendo 
 revolvi : quatuor vero evangeliorum libros quoniam non eo loco, vel ordine, 
 quo reliquos, competebat expleri, statuit quatuor temporibus recurrenti- 
 bus anni in quatuor plagis claustri singulos a singulis diaconibus recitari." 
 He also gives these verses of Wolphelm : — 
 
 Late diffusus sit ecclesiasticus usus. 
 
 Se testamentis exercet Omnipotentis. 
 
 lit legat haec ambo, sed et omni compleat anno 
 
 Sicut in hebdomada psalmorum clauditur ordo. 
 
 Mab. A. SS ix. 686. 
 
462 AUFRIDUS, BISHOP OF UTRECHT. [NO. XXVII. 
 
 to record of them than of the laity, but that, as the 
 reading men and writing men thus formed one class, 
 they should know and care more about each other's 
 personal and individual characters, and therefore more 
 facts (not only in quantity, but in proportion) should 
 be recorded. Secondly, these laymen who had particu- 
 lar knowledge of the scriptures, and of ecclesiastical 
 books, were very likely to become ecclesiastics, and to 
 be principally known in that character. I have men- 
 tioned St. Eloy the goldsmith ; and perhaps some 
 others ; and so this Aufridus, after having been a sol- 
 dier of rank, became, in the year 994 or 995, bishop of 
 Utrecht ^ Others too there were, many of whom, 
 though equally learned and diligent, did not rise to 
 such high station ; and I will run the risque of speci- 
 fying one, partly because he was a man not much 
 known out of his own circle, and who as far as I know 
 never wrote anything ; partly, because he lived in the 
 very darkest period, for though there may be some 
 difficulty in fixing the minutiae of his chronology, it 
 appears that he was an old man in the year 973 ; and 
 partly also because his affectionate disciple and bio- 
 grapher has mentioned several particulars which illus- 
 trate not only his personal history, but the times to 
 which he belonged. 
 
 The monastery of St. Gorgonius at Gorze, originally 
 founded by Chrodegang bishop of Metz, was a few 
 miles to the south-west of that city. Its abbot, John, 
 whom I desire to introduce to the notice of the reader, 
 was born, most probably in the early part of the tenth 
 century, at Vendiere, of parents who were, to say the 
 least, in very respectable circumstances. His father, 
 
 * " Quicquid vero in jugi et quotidiana confabulatione loquebatur, hoc 
 divinarum scripturarum exemplis blan>le leniterque condiebat." — Mab. 
 A. SS. viii. 78. 
 
NO. XXVII.] JOHN, ABBOT OF GORZE. 463 
 
 at a somewhat advanced age, married a young woman 
 of good family, by whom he had this son and two other 
 children. John was sent to school at Metz, and also 
 spent some time at the monastery of St. Michael on 
 the Moselle, where Hildebold a grammarian, one of 
 the disciples of Remigius the most learned master of 
 that age, kept school. From his learning, however, as 
 he afterwards frequently said, whether it was through 
 carelessness, or, as it seemed more probable, from a 
 sort of pride, he gained very little, though his father 
 paid very liberally for his instruction. Soon after- 
 wards, while he was quite a youth, his father died, and 
 his mother, who was much younger, marrying again, 
 the care of his brothers and all the family devolved 
 upon him. How he excelled in the knowledge of busi- 
 ness, and in domestic economy, how prudent he was 
 and what ability he shewed, his biographer thought it 
 needless to state particularly, and contented himself 
 with referring his readers to many persons who were 
 then living for testimony. 
 
 It is still less our business than it was his biographer's 
 to trace the future abbot of Gorze through all these 
 circumstances, and it may be enough to state that, 
 having by these pursuits lost what little learning he 
 had gained at school, he went to read with Bemer, a 
 deacon at Toul, who was much celebrated for both 
 piety and learning. With him he studied the elements 
 of grammar and read the first part of Donatus ^ ; but 
 
 ' A very fashionable work in those days, but since so neglected that the 
 name has puzzled the modern editor of an ancient chronicle, who takes 
 some trouble in conjecturing who the Donati given by somebody to a 
 monastery could be. He had heard of Oblati who oflFered themselves, or 
 were offered by their parents while children, but as to Donati they were a 
 class of whom he had not heard, any more than he had of the book in 
 which grammar was at that time commonly studied. It has found its 
 way several times into the foregoing pages. See p. 178. n., 184, 266, and 
 probably elsewhere. 
 
464 JOHN, ABBOT [nO. XXVII. 
 
 he was quickly satisfied, or dissatisfied with these stu- 
 dies, and devoted himself entirely to sacred literature, 
 in which he soon made extraordinary progress. For 
 brevity's sake I pass over all the intermediate steps 
 between this, and his being called to the nunnery of 
 St. Peter, at Metz, to take his turn there as officiating 
 priest. His biographer says, 
 
 " In the company of nuns, belonging to that place (which 
 still through the mercy of God continues to prosper) there 
 was one named Geisa, distinguished from the rest by her man- 
 ners and conversation. She was still quite a girl, and her 
 aunt (she was named Fredeburg) who was herself one of the 
 nuns, was bringing her up under her own particular care. 
 This Geisa, therefore, who was daily making progress in the 
 strictness of holy conversation, amongst the other ornaments 
 of her sacred purpose, also wore hair cloth under all her gar- 
 ments. John, who scarcely knew, if indeed he knew at all, 
 of the existence of any such practice, while he was one day, 
 I know not where, talking familiarly with her as he used to 
 do with the others, got an indistinct view through her hnen 
 which was very thin, of the hair cloth which was next the 
 skin on the damsel's neck. Having put his hand upon it to 
 find out what it was, and discovering by its asperity, he was 
 struck with amazement and trembled all over. On his 
 enquiring what this kind of dress could mean, she was shy 
 and blushed ; and after remaining silent for sometime she 
 replied, * Do you not know that we ought not to live for this 
 world, or to serve it? Those things to which I see most 
 people devoted appear to me to be altogether vain and the 
 ruin of souls ; a contrary disposition of mind makes me soli- 
 citous only concerning my own personal danger/ When, in 
 the language of holy zeal, she had replied to him more than 
 this, John was moved, and sighed deeply ; ' Woe is me,' said 
 he, ^miserable and most sluggish, who have so long dragged 
 on a life, not merely fruitless but even wdcked. I, a man, 
 ought to take the lead of the weaker sex in virtue ; but, to 
 my great disgrace and shame, I not only do not follow them 
 who are already on the way but, slothful and altogether 
 cleaving to the earth, I make no progress whatever and 
 do not in any degree imitate them.' 
 
NO. XXVII.] OF GORZE. 465 
 
 "Being therefore greatly stimulated by them, and more 
 inflamed than he had ever been before by any example of 
 virtue, he deliberated with a fixed mind on a plan for a more 
 perfect life. He therefore immediately began with these 
 handmaidens of God, a course of divine reading with all his 
 might. Having first read through the whole of the Old and 
 New Testament, he committed to memory (accurately, so 
 that no one could have done it better) all the lessons which 
 are appointed for certain times in the divine service in the 
 church, which are contained in the book called 'Comes ;^ the 
 prayers and whatever is appointed for particular occasions in 
 the Sacramentary ; the rules for the computation of times, 
 which he had for the most part previously read over with the 
 aforesaid Berner the deacon. The canonical laws, that is to 
 say, the decrees of councils, the judgments for penitents, the 
 mode of all ecclesiastical proceedings, and beside all these, 
 the secular laws he treasured up in his mind (if 1 may so 
 speak) word for word. Of homilies, sermons, and divers 
 treatises on the epistles and gospels, as well as of whatever is 
 memorable in the lives of the saints, he acquired such a 
 knowledge, that whenever he subsequently had occasion to 
 refer to them he would repeat them in the vernacular tongue 
 straight forward from the beginning to the end as if the book 
 had been before him, and he was actually reading from it. 
 About the same time he laboured hard at the ecclesiastical 
 music, without being ashamed or despairing ; although some 
 were inclined to laugh at him for enterprising what seemed 
 unsuitable to his age. Nevertheless the perseverance of 
 good desire, though with much labour, was completely suc- 
 cessful. Thus were the leisure intervals of his sacred duties 
 with the aforesaid handmaidens of God employed '." 
 
 We shall not surely be told that such stories as 
 these are either fictions or very singular cases — or even 
 that they are to any important extent coloured and 
 exaggerated. It would be easy to multiply them, and 
 not easy to escape the inference that a familiar know- 
 ledge of the word of God, was jmssessed and valued 
 
 » Mab. A.SS. vii. 370. 
 
 Hh 
 
466 ADDITIONAL PROOF 
 
 by many in those ages, which have been represented 
 not merely as without light, but as so fiercely in love 
 with darkness that they were positively hostile to the 
 scriptures, and not only virtually destroyed them and 
 made them void by their wicked doctrines and prac- 
 tices, but actually hated and destroyed the very letter 
 of the Bible. There is, however, as I said before, (for 
 the reader may perceive that I have been led into what 
 is not a digression, but certainly a parenthetical paper 
 which I did not think of when I wrote the preceding) 
 an obvious and powerful argument — perhaps it would 
 have been more correct to have said a plain and con- 
 vincing fact — which I have not hitherto noticed, and 
 which I hope to state and to illustrate. 
 
 Circumstances which would have rendered it diffi- 
 cult, if not impossible, for me to carry on this series of 
 papers, as I had intended, are sufficiently known to my 
 friends, and are not of a nature to interest the public. 
 I meant, indeed, to have taken up some other points 
 among the great variety which are intimately connected 
 with the subject, and for which I had collected mate- 
 rials. These I may, perhaps, some day use ; but beside 
 that they would have required a good deal of time and 
 trouble for their arrangement, they would have in- 
 creased this volume to a very inconvenient size. I do 
 not, however, like* that this reprint should be issued 
 without a few words to explain an allusion which I 
 have once or twice made in the foregoing pages to an 
 argument in proof of the scriptural knowledge existing 
 in the Dark Ages, which had not been stated ; which, 
 in fact, I have not stated at all ; but which is, I believe, 
 altogether unanswerable. 
 
 I could not but suppose while I was writing these 
 
OF SCRIPTURAL KNOWLEDGE. 467 
 
 papers that some readers would anticipate me, and 
 wonder why I did not at once appeal to what was so 
 obvious to every one possessing even a superficial 
 knowledge of the subject. I might perhaps have done 
 so if my only object had been to give in as few words 
 as possible, a decisive proof that the Bible was better 
 known in the Dark Ages than some writers would have 
 us believe. But it was my wish, not only to state the 
 proofs which exist, but to state them in such a manner 
 as that they might be most intelligible and useful. 
 I am not without hope that the contents of the pre- 
 ceding pages, beside having communicated to some 
 readers information on several collateral subjects, and 
 many incidental proofs and illustrations respecting that 
 which is the main one, will have rendered some, who 
 would otherwise have been unprepared, capable of 
 appreciating that which is, when properly understood, 
 the strongest proof of all. The proof lies in a simple 
 fact, and the fact is before our eyes ; but to those who 
 have never looked at the writers of the period, and 
 have imbibed all their ideas of the Dark Ages from 
 modern declamation, there is too much reason to 
 apprehend that without considerable preparation it 
 must seem unintelligible or incredible. 
 
 I am not such an enthusiast as to suppose that a 
 series of papers in a magazine, desultory and superficial 
 as I sincerely acknowledge these to be, can do much 
 to stop the perpetual repetition of falsehood long esta- 
 blished, widely circulated, and maintained with all the 
 tenacity of party prejudice. If I were, the occurrences 
 of almost every day would, I hope, teach me wisdom. 
 While these sheets have been going through the press 
 they have brought me a specimen quite worthy of 
 Robertson, and so much to our present purpose that 
 I cannot help noticing it. Even since the foregoing 
 paragraph was written, a proof sheet has come from the 
 
 Hh2 
 
468 ADDITIONAL PROOF 
 
 printing-office, wrapped in a waste quarter of a sheet of 
 a book which I do not know that I have seen, but the 
 name of which I have often heard, and which I have 
 reason to believe has been somewhat popular of late. 
 The head-line of the page before me is 
 
 The University. D'AUBIGNE'S REFORMATION. )?rZ7" 
 Luther 8 piety. I he Bible. 
 
 Among the contents of the page thus headed, and in 
 the column under " Discovery. The Bible," we find 
 the following passage relating to Lutber : — 
 
 " The young student passed at the university library every 
 moment he could snatch from his academic duties. Books 
 were still rare, and it was a high privilege in his eyes to be 
 enabled to profit by the treasures collected in that vast col- 
 lection. One day (he had then been studying two years at 
 Erfurth, and was twenty years of age) he opened one after 
 another several books in the library, in order to become 
 acquainted with their authors. A volume he opens in its 
 turn arrests his attention. He has seen nothing like it to 
 this moment. He reads the title — it is a Bible ! a rare book, 
 unknown in those days ' §. His interest is excited to a high 
 degree ; he is overcome with wonder at finding more in the 
 volume than those fragments of the Gospels and Epistles, 
 which the Church had selected to be read in the temples 
 every Sunday throughout the year. Till then, he had sup- 
 posed these constituted the entire word of God ; and now 
 behold, how many pages, how many chapters, how many 
 books, of which he had not before had a notion." 
 
 Is it not odd that Luther had not by some chance or 
 other heard of the Psalms ? — but there is no use in 
 
 * On this word is a reference to a note in German at the foot of the 
 page, which the Enghsh reader (and for such I presume the translation is 
 made) will, of course, suppose to he a voucher for the fact that the Bible 
 was unknown in those days ; but which is, in fact, neither more nor less 
 than the following ; — 
 
 § Auf eln Zeyt, wie er die BUcher fein nach einander besieht . . kommt 
 er iiber die lateinische Biblia . . (Mathes. 3 ) 
 
OF SCRIPTURAL KNOWLEDGE. 469 
 
 criticising such nonsense I Such it must appear to 
 every moderately informed reader, but he will not 
 appreciate its absurdity until he is informed that on 
 the same page this precious historian has informed his 
 readers that in the course of the two preceding years 
 Luther had "applied himself to learn the philosophy 
 of the middle ages in the writings of Occam, Scot, 
 Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas," — of course none 
 
 ^ After I had written this I was curious to see how Milner (in this case, 
 the Dean) had stated the matter ; and I was surprised to find the following 
 passage, with the capitals as 1 here give it; — 
 
 " In the second year after Luther had entered into the monastery, he 
 accidentally met with a Latin Bible in the hbrary. It proved to him a 
 treasure. Then he first discovered, that there were moke scripture-pas- 
 sages extant than those which were read to the people : for the scriptures 
 were at that time very little known in the world." — Vol. IV. p. 324. 
 Really one hardly knows how to meet such statements, but will the reader 
 be so good as to remember that we are not now talking of the Dark Ages, 
 but of a period when the press had been half a century in operation ; 
 and will he give a moment's reflection to the following statement, which I 
 believe to be correct, and which cannot, I think, be so far inaccurate as to 
 affect the argument. To say nothing of parts of the Bible, or of books 
 whose place is uncertain, we know of at least twenty diflferent editions of the 
 whole Latin Bible printed in Germany only before Luther was born. These 
 had issued from Augsburg, Strasburg, Cologne, Ulm, Mentz (two), Basil 
 (four), Nuremberg (ten), and were dispersed through Germany, I repeat, 
 before Luther was born ; and I may add that before that event there was 
 a printing press at work in this very town of Erfurt, where, more than 
 twenty years after, he is said to have made his ' discovery.' Some may ask 
 what was the Pope about all this time ? Truly one would think he must 
 have been oflT his guard ; but as to these German performances, he might 
 have found employment nearer home if he had looked for it. Before 
 Luther was born the Bible had been printed in Rome, and the printers had 
 had the assurance to memorialise his Holiness, praying that he would help 
 them oflf with some copies. It had been printed too at Naples, Florence, 
 and Placenza, and Venice alone had furnished eleven editions. No doubt 
 we should be within the truth if we were to say that beside the multitude 
 of manuscript copies, not yet fallen into disuse, the press had issued fifty 
 different editions of the whole Latin Bible ; to say nothing of Psalters, 
 New Testaments, or other parts. And yet, more than twenty years after, 
 we find a young man who had received " a very liberal education," who 
 " had made great proficiency in his studies at Magdeburg, Eisenach, and 
 Erfurt," and who, nevertheless, did not know what a Bible was, simply 
 because " the Bible was unknown in thoae days." 
 
470 ADDITIONAL PROOF 
 
 t 
 
 of those poor creatures knew anything about the 
 Bible. 
 
 The fact, however, to which I have so repeatedly 
 alluded is simply this — the writings of the dark ages 
 are, if I may use the expression, made of the Scriptures. 
 I do not merely mean that the writers constantly 
 quoted the Scriptures, and appealed to them as autho- 
 rities on all occasions, as other writers have done since 
 their day — though they did this, and it is a strong 
 proof of their familiarity with them — but I mean that 
 they thought and spoke and wrote the thoughts and 
 words and phrases of the Bible, and that they did this 
 constantly and habitually as the natural mode of ex- 
 pressing themselves. They did it, too, not exclusively 
 in theological or ecclesiastical matters, but in histories, 
 biographies, familiar letters, legal instruments, and 
 documents of every description. I do not know that I 
 can fully express my meaning, but perhaps I may ren- 
 der it more clear if I repeat that I do not so much 
 refer to direct quotations of Scripture, as to the fact 
 that their ideas seem to have fallen so naturally into 
 the words of Scripture, that they were constantly refer- 
 ring to them in a way of passing allusion, which is now 
 very puzzling to those who are unacquainted with the 
 phraseology of the Vulgate, and forms one of the 
 greatest impediments in the way of many who wish 
 to read their works. It is a difficulty which no dic- 
 tionary or glossary will reach. What the reader wants, 
 and the only thing that will help him, is a concordance 
 of the Vulgate, in which to look out such words as 
 seem to be used in a strange and unintelligible way. 
 Without seeing them in their original context there is 
 little chance of discovering their meaning — but then is 
 it not clear that the passage was present to the mind 
 of the writer, and that he expected it to be so to those 
 of his readers ? How could it be otherwise ? 
 
OF SCRIPTURAL KNOWLEDGE. 471 
 
 It will, I hope, be understood that I am not setting 
 forth all these writers, or all those for whom they 
 wrote, as persons having a very full and clear understand- 
 ing of the Bible, who had imbibed its spirit, steadfastly 
 believed its doctrines, and punctually obeyed its pre- 
 cepts. I would as soon answer for all Cromwell's lambs. 
 
 I grant too that scriptural quotations and allusions 
 were often made in the worst possible taste, and some- 
 times with the grossest absurdity. The specimen which 
 I have given at p. 242, will I trust prevent my being 
 suspected of any wish to deny or conceal this. What 
 could be more unlucky than the allusion to Rahab and 
 Babylon ? What but inveterate habit could have 
 seduced any man into such absurdity? But among 
 the extracts which I have given the reader will easily 
 find more creditable illustrations of my meaning ; and 
 if he suspects them of having been partially selected, 
 or thinks (as he justly may) that they are not of them- 
 selves sufficient to constitute a full proof — for how can 
 the matter, from its very nature, be proved by extracts 
 however numerous and varied ? — let him take the first 
 half dozen vi^riters of the period which he can lay his 
 hands on, and resolve on making out the sense of half 
 a dozen pages in each, and I have no doubt that he 
 will find enough to make him suspect that further 
 enquiry would prove the truth of what I have been 
 stating. In the meanwhile I beg him to remember, 
 that not having distinctly stated this fact in the fore- 
 going papers, I have not there brought forward such 
 extracts as I should have given in proof and illustra- 
 tion. One therefore, and I freely confess that it is 
 rather a singular one, I will here give, and beside its 
 bearing on the precise point under discussion, it may carry 
 with it some ground for reflection on several questions 
 of some interest — what was the feeling of the period ? 
 what could, and did, an archbishop preach before 
 
472 BARDO, ARCHBISHOP 
 
 an Emperor, in the Dark Ages? and how was it 
 received ? 
 
 Bardo was born in or about the year 981 at Opers- 
 hoven in Weteravia, or, as it would have been described 
 in more modern times, in the upper circle of the Rhine. 
 At his baptism one of his godfathers gave him a helmet, 
 a lamb, and a psalter. His biographer (who appears 
 to have been almost, or quite, his contemporary) tells 
 us that the first of these three things prefigured the 
 arms which he should successfully use in his spiritual 
 warfare, the second his patience which was remark- 
 able even from his earliest years, and the third the 
 great profit which he would receive by the study of 
 Psalmody. As soon as he was weaned his parents (et in 
 divina sapientes, et in humana prudentes) sent him, 
 with his psalter, to an old woman named Benedicta to 
 learn his letters. She became fond of the child, and 
 while he lay in her bosom she taught him all she knew 
 herself. Thus in a short time, and as in play, he had 
 learned to repeat all his psalter. He never forgot her 
 affection and services ; and, when he was an archbishop, 
 he became, as his biographer expresses it, a nurse to his 
 old nurse, and liberally provided for her. 
 
 When he had learned his Psalter, his parents sent 
 him to school at the famous monastery of Fulda, then 
 governed by Abbot Archanbald, where he made great 
 progress. But though, through fear of the school- 
 master, he worked at secular learning, his mind was 
 engrossed by the Psalter, the hymns of the church *, the 
 Gospels, and the like. In short, he became a monk at 
 Fulda ; and gained the high character of being an useful, 
 peaceable, and peace-making member of the society, 
 
 * " In ecclesiastica tamen simplicitate toto mentis versabatur tenore in 
 psalterio, Ambrosiano, Evangeliis, et talibus ceteris." As to the Ambro- 
 sianum, see Martene on the Rule of St Benedict, ch. ix. p. 266. 
 
OF MENTZ. 473 
 
 loved and respected by all his brethren, as one who 
 learned by reading and taught by practice. His bio- 
 grapher assigns to him, even at this early period of his 
 life, the gift of prophecy, and adduces the following 
 proofs. One of his favourite books was St. Gregory's 
 on the Pastoral office ; and he was always reading it. 
 Some of his friends, one day, asked him the reason of 
 this. " Oh ! " replied he, " when some foolish king 
 comes here, and finds nobody who will consent to be an 
 archbishop, he may perhaps make me one, and I must 
 be prepared for it ;" — on which they all laughed. His 
 biographer gives Bardo credit for a foreknowledge of 
 that which he affected to say in jest ; but knowing as 
 we do, and as Bardo did, the extreme probability that 
 the Emperor should look to Fulda for an archbishop, 
 we are not bound to suppose anything very wonderful. 
 We must, however, I think, at the same time, acknow- 
 ledge, that if the young monk had any suspicion of 
 what really befel him more than twenty years after- 
 wards, there was nothing discreditable in the way in 
 which he was actuated by it. 
 
 So things went on. His influence increased and he 
 became Dean ; and when, in process of time, the abbot 
 founded a small off-set, which he called the New 
 Monastery in honour of St. Andrew, Bardo was sent 
 to preside over it. While he held this office the 
 Emperor Conrad came to Fulda. The Abbot Richard, 
 among other things, took him to see the New Monas- 
 tery, and Bardo came forth to meet his majesty with 
 prompt duty and reverence. After prayers, when they 
 had quitted the church, the emperor inquired minutely 
 about the place, what were the services, who were the 
 monks, who the father, — and when he heard Bardo's 
 name, and found that he was a person who had long 
 been well known to him by reputation, he was seized 
 with sudden joy, repeatedly saluted, embraced, and 
 
474 BARDO, ARCHBISHOP 
 
 kissed him, and assured him that, on the first occa- 
 sion that might offer, he should feel bound to promote 
 him. 
 
 The biographer ingenuously tells us that this pro- 
 mise was the more easily to be accounted for, from the 
 fact that Bardo was related to the empress ; and adds 
 that he did not omit, so far as he was able, to make a 
 proper offering to the imperial dignity, for he gave the 
 emperor a Kliotetra ^ of workmanship worthy of royalty, 
 which, by leave of his abbot, he had prepared for the 
 occasion of the imperial visit. Not long after the 
 emperor sent for him to court, and received him with 
 great respect. He introduced him to his friends, say- 
 ing, " Have you heard of Bardo of Fulda ?" " A great 
 deal," said they. " What ?" asked the emperor. ' They 
 rephed, " All that is good." " If you have," said the 
 emperor, " believe it, for it is all true. If this is not 
 a man whom we may praise with truth, we know not 
 who is ;" and proceeding to speak of the civilities which 
 he had received from the pious father, he brought him 
 into favour with them all. 
 
 It was not very long before Bardo was the abbot of 
 two monasteries ; and in process of time the arch- 
 bishopric of Mentz became vacant. It would have 
 been the natural course of things, or rather it would 
 have been according to the course of alternate proceed- 
 ing, that the Abbot of Fulda should have succeeded to 
 it ; but he was passed over. In this he appears to have 
 acquiesced, whether simply on the ground of a dream 
 which he is reported to have had, may perhaps be ques- 
 tioned. But it was so in fact, and the clergy and laity 
 of the diocese, few of whom perhaps knew as much 
 
 5 Mabillon follows Father Papebroche in supposing this to mean a 
 faldstool. He adds " Vide Glossarium Cangianum ; " but that does not 
 help much. 
 
OF MENTZ. 475 
 
 about Bardo as tlie reader and I do, seem to have been 
 quite at a loss to know by whom the archiepiscopal 
 chair was to be filled. 
 
 It was the month of June, and the feast of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul drew near. On the eve of that festival, 
 it was whispered that the appointment would be made 
 next day. As soon as it was light the emperor and 
 empress entered the church. After prayers offered for 
 divine direction in the business, they came forth ; and, 
 a multitude being assembled, they sat down to consult 
 on the matter. Much murmur there was in the crowd ; 
 among the assembled prelates also each one was sug- 
 gesting this or that person on account of somp virtue 
 or qualification, except indeed those who knew the 
 mind of the emperor, and they waited for him to 
 declare it. When, however, the day had made some 
 progress and nothing had been decided, silence was 
 made, and the emperor said, "Fathers and brethren, 
 we announce to you that which we have heard and 
 proved. I know a man of illustrious virtue, perfect 
 holiness, singular talent, a vessel of chastity, a son of 
 wisdom, one that has his body in subjection, eminent in 
 charity, poor to this world, rich unto God, to whom our 
 authority, if there be any weight in human judgment, 
 inclines." 
 
 This speech of the emperor all the great men re- 
 peated to those around them ; but still as no name 
 had been mentioned they were asking one another who 
 was meant. Having made this favourable impression 
 on their minds, the emperor called for Bardo by his 
 name and said, " Father !" at the same time beckon- 
 ing him to draw near. How did he look then ? How 
 constant in mind, how unchanged in countenance, how 
 firm in step. As he came near all the courtiers point- 
 ing him out to one another said, " This, this is he ;'* 
 and all turned their eyes upon him, and their ears to 
 
 1 
 
476 BARDO, ARCHBISHOP 
 
 the emperor. When he stood before the throne the 
 emperor said, " We know the privilege of Fulda, and 
 do not infringe the law of our predecessors ; but there 
 are those who know the reason why we do not pro- 
 mote the Abbot, and we appoint you, one of that house, 
 to be prelate according to the will of the pious." I do 
 not know whether Bardo or any of his friends thought 
 of a young monk who had once said something saucy 
 about Gregory's Treatise on the Pastoral Office; but 
 that was an old story, for he was about fifty years old 
 when he was consecrated on the 29th of June in the 
 year of our Lord 1031. 
 
 He went straightway to his see, and set to work 
 zealously ; but the emperor keeping the ensuing Feast 
 of the Nativity at Goslar, he attended him there. On 
 Christmas day he, as his rank required, performed 
 mass, and delivered a sermon which seems to have 
 been so brief and simple that it disappointed his au- 
 dience ^. Indeed, his biographer tells us, " there were 
 some there who seized the occasion to vomit forth the 
 gall of their malice, murmuring that such a rustic little 
 man should have been made the prelate of so great a 
 see, but in fact jealous because he was a monk. The 
 emperor also was sorry that he had so highly extolled 
 him in public, and repented that he had raised him to 
 that most celebrated archbishoprick. So in that day 
 some were heard saying, ' He is a monk, he might be 
 good for something in his own little monastery, but he 
 is not fit to sit in that seat.' And, whoever had a 
 fling at him, * Mo' [i. e. the first syllable of 'mona- 
 
 ® " Sermonem declamavit verbis non pluribus (quam ordinabatur) ad 
 vesperam." In a note on the words in the parenthesis Mabillon says, " Et 
 hsec quoque supplevit Papebrochius ob codicis legendi difficultatem." I 
 suppose this means that he did not make more of a sermon on this great 
 occasion, than might have been expected at vespers. But I do not pretend 
 to understand it. 
 
OF MENTZ. 477 
 
 chus'] was at the tip of his tongue, so that it was easy 
 to see where the chief offence lay. The emperor ate 
 scarcely any dinner, and took no thought of delicacies, 
 for he was hurt by the biting sarcasms of the prelate's 
 enemies." 
 
 " The next day came, and Dioderich, bishop of Metz, 
 performing mass, poured forth all his learning with 
 lavish prodigality. All extolled him saying, ' This is 
 a bishop.' The holy man [Bardo] however, who was 
 not ignorant that ' a fool uttereth all his mind : but a 
 wise man keepeth it in till afterwards ^' and who was 
 neither elated by favour nor depressed by the carping 
 of envy, took it patiently, having made up his mind 
 what course to pursue. 
 
 " The third day arrived, and a message was sent to 
 the pious father to know who should perform mass. 
 He intimated that he meant, by the divine assistance, 
 to do it himself. His friends craftily endeavoured to 
 divert him from his purpose, recommending him to 
 order somebody else to do it on account of the fatigue ; 
 but, in truth, being ashamed of the sermon which he 
 had delivered two days before. But he thinking within 
 himself ' my glory will I not give to another,' said hum- 
 bly, ' Every one shall bear his own burthen ^ ;' and 
 when they talked of the trouble, he said, ' Which 
 is best, for me to take trouble in doing what ought 
 to be done, or to give way to negligence ?' And so 
 
 ' Prov. xxix. 11. 
 
 * My object in relating this history leads me to call the reader's atten- 
 tion to this writer's use of scripture phraseology.' He has just told us 
 what the Archbishop knew when the Bishop of Metz preached, and now 
 he tells us what he thought when asked to appoint somebody else to say 
 mass. If there is in the latter of these anything approaching to profane- 
 ness, it must be remembered that the blame is with the writer, who pro- 
 bably used the words as those most naturally suggested, and not on 
 Bardo. What he knew, or thought, he would perhaps have expressed 
 better ; and what he said was quite unobjectionable. 
 
478 BARDO, ARCHBISHOP 
 
 being prepared, he went, with the fear of God, to the 
 altar." 
 
 On this occasion he delivered a sermon which I 
 should be glad to give entire ; but even in the smaller 
 type used in this volume for extracts, I apprehend that 
 it would occupy nearly fourteen pages. It is therefore 
 out of the question. 
 
 And what is the sermon about? Thus stimulated, 
 how did the archbishop endeavour to regain his ground, 
 and please his noble, and critical, and now prejudiced 
 audience ? Was his sermon a highflown invocation of 
 all the saints in the calendar? Not a word of any 
 saint but those mentioned in the Bible, and not a word 
 of invoking them. Was it a discourse on transubstan- 
 tiation, purgatory, pilgrimages, penances, relics, images, 
 indulgences ? I do not think there is an allusion to 
 one of those subjects. Was it a string of fulsome com- 
 pliments to his imperial patron ? It does not recognize 
 the fact of his presence. Was it something in the 
 " good-christian" way, about tithes and " presents to 
 churchmen ? " No hint of the kind that I see. Was 
 it a catena from the fathers, or a cento from the clas- 
 sics, to shew his learning? No uninspired writer is 
 named, no book is quoted but the Bible. 
 
 What, then, was it ? The reader will not perhaps be 
 much forwarder for being told that his text was, " Prse 
 fulgore in conspectu ejus nubes transierunt," Ps. xvii. 13, 
 which the Douay version renders " At the brightness 
 that was before him the clouds passed." Our transla- 
 tion (which makes it Ps. xviii. 12.) has "At the bright- 
 ness that was before him his thick clouds passed." But 
 the subject of the sermon was the pre-eminent and 
 excellent glory of Him whose Advent in the flesh they 
 were celebrating — the Brightness of the Sun of Righte- 
 ousness which at once, as it were, gives and eclipses all 
 the radiance of those clouds which shine with borrowed 
 
OF MENTZ. 479 
 
 lustre, and which, brought into comparison with him, 
 are as notliing. Should the notion that the clouds 
 represent saints appear fanciful, it would be easy to 
 justify the archbishop, so far as that can be done by 
 patristic authority ^ ; but my object is not to defend his 
 choice of a text, but to shew how he treated it ; and 
 that principally as it regards the knowledge of the 
 Scriptures which he displayed '. 
 
 The archbishop began his sermon by a reference to 
 St. John, and to the fact that it was his day ; and after 
 stating that the Evangelist would explain the language 
 of the Psalmist, and having entered at some length into 
 an enquiry respecting his character and authority, he 
 proceeded thus ; — 
 
 "After that this great steward of the Lord has received 
 the treasure wherewith to make gain— not I think in three, 
 or in five, or even in ten, — but, as I believe, a thousand 
 talents ' committed to him — generous to his fellow servants, 
 he immediately gives forth a grand doctrine. In the beginning 
 was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 
 was God. The same was in the beginning mth God^. And 
 after he had added somewhat respecting this divine Bright- 
 
 ' I think St. Jerome makes the clouds in this text to be the prophets 
 who ' passed ' over from the Jews to the Gentiles as the coming of Christ ; 
 but it is sufficient to mention Origen's eighth homily on Jeremiah. 
 
 ^ In doing this, however, I am conscious that the preacher will be pre- 
 sented to the reader under a twofold disadvantage. First, Father Pape- 
 broche, as I have mentioned in a preceding note, seems to have found it 
 rather difficult to read the manuscript ; and I have no doubt that in some 
 places the text is corrupt, and does not do justice to the author. Secondly, 
 as the point, and application, of a passage of Scripture would sometimes 
 be greatly diminished, if not entirely lost, by giving our translation, and 
 as, with very little exception, it supplies a literal translation of the texts 
 as quoted in the sermon, I have given most of the passages from the 
 Douay version. These will seem strange and unnatural to those who are 
 accustomed only to our version, but perhaps the variations which they 
 perceive may tend to illustrate what I have said respecting the necessity of 
 being familiar with the language of the Vulgate, before we can appreciate 
 the scriptural knowledge of these writers. 
 
 2 Mat. XXV. 15. ^ John i. 1. 
 
480 BARDO, ARCHBISHOP 
 
 ness, that he might declare its greatness by a similitude, 
 he presently introduced a great cloudy or rather light, which 
 in comparison with this Brightness he declared to be no light ; 
 for, saith he. There was a man sent from God, whose name was 
 John*, and then he adds, He was not lights It is indeed 
 written of John, He was a burning and a shining light * ; but 
 John the Evangelist says, He was not lighf. And if he, 
 than whom non£ born of woman was greater % was not light, 
 then is none born of woman who was less than he ; for if 
 the greater is not, much less is the lesser. John has ex- 
 plained the meaning of the Psalmist, who said, ^At the 
 brightness that was before him the clouds passed.' What 
 is this Brightness? the evangelist says that when Jesus 
 transfigured Himself in the mountain his face did shine as the 
 sun '. Here is the Brightness ; and of the clouds Isaiah says. 
 Who are these that fly as clouds ' ? The assemblies of the 
 saints, says he, shine as clouds ; yea, more than clouds, as it 
 is written they shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their 
 father ^ They shine ; one in chastity, another in simplicity, 
 another in poverty of spirit, another as a peacemaker so as 
 to deserve to be called a son of God^ , another is crowned in 
 blood, another clothed in the white garments of virginity, 
 another meek so that he will hurt no one, another wise so 
 as to teach the ignorant, and to conclude generally, each one 
 specially shines with some particular virtue. But whatsoever 
 the measure of this may be, at the same time, the whole is 
 in God. For that Brightness, Light of light, God of God, 
 God the Son of God the Father — that Brightness, I say, of 
 which John saith that He was the true light, which enlighten- 
 eth every man that cometh into this world* — the sower of all 
 virtues, the giver of all piety, the author of all holiness. He 
 himself had as a whole that which He imparted to each. 
 What he disseminated in parts abounded as a whole in Him. 
 Whatever be the goodness of any one, he cannot be com- 
 pared with Him who did no sin, neither was guile found in his 
 mouth^. There is no man that sinneth nof, not even an 
 infant of one night, if its life be on the earth. For the 
 
 * John i. 6. "• Ibid. 8. « Ibid. v. 35. ' Ibid. i. 8. 
 
 8 Matt. xi. 11. 9 Ibid. xvii. 2. ' Is, Ix. 8. - Matt, xiii 43. 
 
 3 Ibid. V. 9. " John i. 9- "1 Pet. ii. 22. « 1 Kings viii. 46. 
 
OF MENTZ. 481 
 
 heavens are not clean in his sight \ how much more shall men 
 who dwell in houses of clay, who have an earthly foundation, 
 be consumed as with the moth * ? Of whatsoever splendour 
 and holiness the elect may be, they cannot be compared with 
 that divine Brightness, for in comparison of Him they are as 
 nothing. They are sanctified, it is He that sanctifieth. 
 They are luminous. He illuminates. They partake. He 
 imparts. Whatever they are He is also ; but they are not 
 all that He is. Whence it is well said in the book of Job, 
 both the innocent and the wicked he consumeth^. That He 
 should consume the wicked is plain enough, but his con- 
 suming the innocent, though it may seem doubtful, is equally 
 true. He consumes the innocent because He converts him 
 into Himself, because he who is innocent is innocent in. 
 God, that none may presume on his merits, but he that glo- 
 rieth let him glory in the Lord\ Or thus. He consumes the 
 innocent because by comparison with Himself He brings him 
 to nothing ; whence it is written, Shall man be justified in 
 comparison of God, or shall a man be more pure than his 
 Maker^ ? (factore suo purior erit vir) and the Psalmist says. 
 In thy sight no man living shall be justified^ (non justifica- 
 bitur in conspectu tuo omnis vivens). * Living,' he says, — 
 for whether he is a ^man' (vir), or whether he is 'living' 
 (vivens), he shall not be justified. For he that is illustrious, 
 in virtue shall not be compared. He does not say no man 
 (omnis homo) shall be justified in his sight, but no 'vivens,' 
 for by that word he draws no limit ; but he would only have 
 been superfluously stating what nobody doubted if he had 
 said that no man (homo) should be justified in his sight. 
 But he has plainly defined his meaning, by saying 'living' 
 (omnis vivens). Living, he saith, simple, innocent, chaste,, 
 meek, modest, poor in spirit, humble, or alive in any holi- 
 ness, shall not be likened. Why? — because. Who in the 
 clouds can be compared to the Lord : or who among the sons of 
 God shall be like to God ? God, who is glorified in the assem- 
 bly of the saints, great and terrible above all them that are 
 about Him \ Who, he saith, in the clouds can be compared 
 to the Lord ? None. 
 
 Job XV, 15. s Ibid. iv. 19- ' Ibid. ix. 22. ' 2 Cor. x. 15. 
 
 - Job iv. 17- ^ Ps. cxlii. 2. ■• Ibid. lx.xxviii. 
 
 I i 
 
482 BARDO, ARCHBISHOP 
 
 " Behold the clouds, but at the Brightness that was before 
 Him they have passed away; that is, the illumined clouds could 
 not equal the illuminating brightness. Take away that which 
 enlightens, and what is enlightened becomes obscure. Take 
 away the sun, and the clouds are in darkness. Restore the 
 sun, and the clouds are in their beauty. Take away what is 
 divine, and what is human is nothing. Add what is divine, 
 and what is human is great. Nor let us be staggered at that 
 which is written, for both He that sanctifieth, and they who 
 are sanctified, are all of one'^; for it is one thing to be so 
 adoptively, and another to be so substantially. For many 
 are called *sons of God,' as it is said of the peacemakers. 
 Blessed are the peace-makers : for they shall be called the 
 children of God'^ ; and many also 'gods,' as it is said, 1 
 have said : You are gods, and all of you the sons of the most 
 High'', But this adoptively, and not substantively. There 
 is but One who is the Son of God substantively, many 
 adoptively ; neither one adoptively nor many substantively. 
 The adoptive indeed partake with the substantive, but the 
 substantive imparts to the adoptive ; neither does he partake 
 nor do they impart ; but they partake and He imparts. This 
 is the Apostle's meaning, though he might seem to be stating 
 something contrary, when he says. Thou hast loved justice, 
 and hated iniquity: therefore, God, thy God, hath anointed 
 thee with the oil of gladness above thy feUows ^ He saith 
 ' above thy fellows,' (prae participibus tuis) which sounds as 
 if he meant that God was a partaker, and took a part, which 
 is altogether contrary to truth ; for, according to the Apostle, 
 In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporally '. 
 But let us attend to the first part that we may fully under- 
 stand what follows; for he saith, '^Thou hast loved justice,' 
 and presently after ' God hath anointed thee with the oil of 
 gladness above thy fellows,' and the prophet. With my holy 
 oil I have anointed him, the enemy shall have no advantage over 
 him^ ; for since the Son of God loved justice, by his gift 
 others loved it also, and were partakers of Him who loved. 
 But He was anointed above all, because the enemy hath no 
 advantage over Him. 
 
 Heb. ii. 11. » Matt. v. 9. ' Ps. Ixxxi. 6. 
 
 Heb. i. 9. » Col. ii. 9. * Ps. Ixxxviii. 21. 23. 
 
OF MENTZ. 483 
 
 "Or, if you will rather have it that in his assumed 
 human nature He is a partaker (as the Apostle says. He is 
 not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, Behold I and my 
 children, ivhom God hath given me ' ; and again. Because the 
 children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself in like 
 manner hath been partaker of the same^), we must recur 
 to the same point, that in him dwelleth all the fulness of 
 the Godhead corporally * ; but as to them, to one is given by 
 the Spirit the word of wisdom : to another the word of know- 
 ledge, to another the discerning of spirits, to another the grace 
 of healing % to another something else ; and it is divided unto 
 each according to His will, and thus they partake, and He 
 imparts. And therefore though it is said of the saints. You 
 are the lights of the world ®, it is but by participation, and 
 not substantially, for they partake from Him who is the true 
 light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world '. 
 For although it is written of John the Baptist, He was a 
 burning and a shining light, this too is only adoptively, and 
 not substantively; whence it is that the Evangelist has in 
 some degree exposed the weakness of John, when he intro- 
 duces our Lord speaking of him, and adding. And you were 
 willing for a time to rejoice in his light. They ' were willing,' 
 He says ; but He is silent as to whether they did it or not, 
 that He might after a sort suggest by his silence that they 
 would have rejoiced, but were not able ; for he was a light 
 burning, but not kindling; shining, but not enlightening. 
 And this cloud, so great and luminous, has passed away 
 before the divine Brightness, because it could not be com- 
 pared unto it. For he himself said, / am not worthy to loose 
 the latchet of his shoes *. 
 
 " Great clouds, and magnificently radiant, there have been 
 from the beginning of the world; but, how great soever, 
 they have passed away before the divine Brightness. For I 
 say nothing here of the difference between that which is from 
 eternity, and that which is limited by time," &c. 
 
 The preacher then proceeded to speak of the ineffa- 
 ble glory of God, and the mystery of the Trinity in 
 
 2 Heb. ii. 11. 13. ^ Ibid. ii. 14. •• Col. ii. 9. * 1 Cor. xii. 8, 10. 
 * Matt. V. 14. '^ John i. 9. * Mark i. 7- 
 
 Ii2 
 
484 BARDO, ARCHBISHOP 
 
 Unity, and the essential Deity of Christ ; after whicli 
 he continued thus; — 
 
 " Saying nothing, I repeat, of Him whom no clouds how 
 radiant soever with hght can approach, this we will endea- 
 vour to teach. He of whom it is written, There is no beauty 
 in him, nor comeliness : and we have seen him, and there was 
 no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him : despised, and 
 the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with 
 infirmity : and his look was as it were hidden and despised, 
 whereupon we esteemed him not, how it is that He is also 
 that Brightness, and that before Him the clouds have passed 
 away ? First among the first are angels, archangels, thrones, 
 dominions, principalities, powers, virtues, ardent cherubim, 
 burning seraphim — great clouds — always in light, always of 
 light, always with light — yet not themselves light, or if light 
 not unlimited, not incomprehensible. Of those it is written. 
 He that maketh his angels, spirits, and his ministers, a flame of 
 fire '. Of that Brightness it is written. Who being the bright- 
 ness of his glory, and the figure of his substance. They are 
 made ; He is substantive. They innumerable ; He is one. 
 They great ; He greater ; as it is written. Upholding all things 
 by the word of his power '. Upholding by the word of His 
 power all things ; angels as well as others." 
 
 After discoursing on the superiority of the glorified 
 Redeemer over the angels, the preacher went on ; — 
 
 " But why do we depress the angehc dignity by that inef- 
 fable majesty? let us make the comparison with Him in 
 whom there was no beauty nor comeliness. The Apostle 
 saith, Again when He bringeth in the first begotten into the 
 world He saith: And let all the angels of God adore him. Who 
 is that first begotten ? Is it He of whom it is said that God 
 spared not even his own Son ^ ? Surely it is He. Surely He 
 hath borne our infirmities, and carried our sorrows : the chas- 
 tisement of our peace was upon him \ Surely He was reputed 
 with the wicked*, and yet of Him it is said. And let all the angels 
 of God adore Him. Where now, I pray you, is that cloud ? 
 From the brightness that is before Him it has passed away. 
 
 " Heb. i. 7. ' Ibid. 2 ^^ yjij 32. 3 i^ jjii^ 4^ 5 * ij^i,] 12. 
 
OF MENTZ. 485 
 
 *' Now let us ascend, my brethren, let us mind the things 
 that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of 
 God^, and let us say in words plain, and full of the Holy 
 Spirit, (for no man can say, the Lord Jesus, but by the Holy 
 Ghost ;) that this is that Brightness, proceeding from the true 
 sun of the Father's majesty, and enlightening every man 
 that Cometh into the world, of whom the Psalmist said, He 
 shall continue with the sun, and before the moon ^. He says He 
 shall continue with the sun ; for none other is there found 
 that hath not past away at the brightness that is before 
 Him, for at the brightness that is before Him the clouds 
 pass. The sun continues with the sun ; and shall continue 
 with the sun ; for it is said. He shall come down like rain upon 
 the fleece \ That He might shew that He had so chosen a 
 mother of the earth, as not to quit his Father in heaven, he 
 first says, ' He shall continue with the sun,' and then adds, 
 in his days shall justice spring up '. In his days, in his saints ; 
 that they may be not only clouds, but days, of which days 
 He may be the sun, that there may be none among the sons 
 of God like unto him '. This is our God, and there shall no 
 other be accounted of in comparison of him. He found out all 
 the way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to 
 Israel his beloved. Afterwards he was seen upon earth, and 
 conversed with men\ Of whom the Father's voice said. 
 This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased \ And the 
 Apostle to the Ephesians, Who hath predestinated us unto the 
 adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto himself; accord- 
 ing to the purpose of his will : unto the praise of the glory of 
 his grace, in which he hath graced us in his beloved Son\ 
 
 " Let us say Jesus ; for there is no other name under heaven 
 given to men, whereby we must be saved \ In tlie name of 
 Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on 
 earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should con- 
 fess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the 
 Father \ Therefore from the brightness that is before Him 
 the clouds have passed. They have passed, — the clouds 
 have not been found; all the sons of God in his pre- 
 
 5 Col. iii. 1,2. " Ps. Ixxi. 5. ^ ibid. 6. " Ibid. 7- 
 
 9 Fs. Ixxxviii. 7. ' Baruch iii. 36. " Matt. iii. 17. 
 
 3 Epties. i. 5. " Acts iv. 12. . * Phil. ii. 11. 
 
486 BARDO, ARCHBISHOP 
 
 sence, when brought into comparison with his Brightness, 
 before his Deity, for in the name of Jesus every knee of those 
 in heaven, in earth and under the earth is bowed. This is 
 that bread of angels which man eat ® ; who saith Himself, / am 
 the living bread which came dovm from heaven'' ; of whom 
 John says. He that cometh from heaven is above all *. How 
 great is He, Lord in heaven, on earth a servant, as it is 
 written. He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant^. In 
 heaven the Creator, on earth created, as it is written. Drop 
 doivn deiv, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the 
 just : let the earth be opened, and bud forth a Saviour : and 
 let Justice spring up together ' ; and immediately, / the Lord 
 have created him ^. Who is like unto thee among the strong, 
 Lord? who is like to thee, glorious in holiness, terrible and 
 praiseworthy, doing wonders '. Hast not thou struck the proud 
 one, and wounded the dragon ? hast not thou dried up the sea, 
 the water of the mighty deep, who madest the depth of the sea 
 a way, that the delivered might pass over*? They that hope 
 in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings as 
 eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and 
 not faint. Whither shall they run ? To thy holy habitation % 
 which thy hands, O Lord, have established *, taken up on thine 
 outspread tvings ', that they may be carried in thy strength *. 
 
 " When he had said this, the holy Bishop groaned within 
 himself; and his eyes filling with tears, and despising his 
 earthly habitation, he exclaimed : ' For what have I in 
 heaven ? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth ' ? and 
 again. But it is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my 
 hope in the Lord God : that I may declare all thy praises, in the 
 gates of the daughter of Sion^. Dearly beloved, he resumed, 
 we are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what 
 we shall be. We know, that, when he shall appear, we shall 
 be like to him : because we shall see him as he is ^ We shall 
 see Him. Whom? That divine Brightness, or that true 
 Sun of which it is written. Unto you that fear my name the 
 Sun of justice shall arise ^, and we shall shine as the sun in his 
 
 « Ps. Ixxvii. 25. 
 
 " John vi. 51. 
 
 8 Ibid. iii. 31. 
 
 9 Phil. ii. 7. 
 
 ^ Isaiah xlv. 8. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
 3 Ex. XV. 11. 
 
 * Isa. li. 9. 
 
 5 Ex. XV. 13. 
 
 ^ lb. XV. 17. 
 
 ' lb. xix. 4. 
 
 « lb. XV. 13. 
 
 5 Ps. Ixxii. 25. 
 
 1 Ibid. 28. 
 
 2 1 John iii. 2. 
 
 3 Mai. iv. 2. 
 
OF MENTZ. 437 
 
 kingdom * — his, of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is 
 named \ this Sun having risen upon all who have increased 
 even to perfect day ® from the beginning of the world. Our 
 Fathers, who were worthy to be called Stars, have given light ; 
 they were called and they said, Here we are : and with cheer- 
 fulness they have shined forth to him that made them ^ None is 
 found who in anything excelled Him who for our sake was 
 made man, so as among the glorious to excel Him in glory, 
 or among the lowly in humihation. 
 
 " Of Abel indeed it is written that because of his innocence 
 after he had been slain his blood cried from the earth to hea- 
 ven \ A wonderful thing, that the silent blood of one thus 
 silent should cry out ; but what saith the Apostle of Jesus ? 
 You are come to Jesus the Mediator of the New Testament, and 
 to the sprinkling of blood which speaketh better than that of 
 Ahel\ 
 
 " NoE was a just and perfect man in his generations, he walked 
 with God ' ; to whom God after the deluge was abated," &c. 
 
 The preacher then went on with the history of 
 Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Samuel, 
 Solomon, Elijah, and Elisha; and having said some- 
 thing of each of these, in a style which may be ima- 
 gined from the foregoing extracts, he asked — " But 
 why should I enlarge? Those clouds are great, but 
 from the Brightness that was before Him they have 
 passed away ;" and thus proceeded : — 
 
 " There is also another way of explaining this saying. You 
 know the sun, you know its rays, you know the clouds. The 
 clouds which are at a distance, opposite to the sun's rays, 
 shine as long as they are thus before the sun, and as they 
 approach nearer, so much the more brightly do they shine ; 
 but if the sun and the clouds come to be in the very same 
 place, so that where the sun is above, there the clouds are 
 below, they are neither called clouds, nor are they so in fact, 
 but all the brightness is ascribed to the sun. What shall 
 
 » Matt. xiii. 43. '' Ephes. iii. 15. " Prov. iv. 18. " Baruch iii. 34. 
 « Gen. i. 10. " Heb. xii. 22. 24. * Gen. vi. 9. 
 
488 BARDO, ARCHBISHOP 
 
 we call this, my brethren, but in some sort a type of the 
 kingdom of heaven ? What do the clouds (so called from 
 nubilo, i. e. from obscurity) represent, but the human race, 
 beclouded with the night of sin ? What does the splendour 
 of the sun represent, but the light of the divine Brightness ? 
 What the rays, but the illuminating works of Christ ? The 
 clouds then, in their own nature obscure, shine when breathed 
 x)n by the rays of the sun, because human littleness shines 
 when illuminated by the works of Christ. The nearer it 
 approaches to the true Sun, so much the brighter will it be; 
 and powers which by its own nature it had not, it receives 
 by the illumination of Christ the true Sun ; but if it shall 
 attain to that same point of divine operation, which is per- 
 fectly to give up the world and with sedulous contemplation 
 to look only to the divine will, and, with the Apostle, to say. 
 But our conversation is in heaven " ; then it partakes in the 
 name of Deity, so that it ought to be called, not man, but 
 even God. Whence our Lord, in the gospel, when He had 
 prayed for his disciples, said. Not for them only do I pray, but 
 for them also who through their word shall believe in me ; that 
 they all may be on£, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee : 
 that they also may be one in u^ \ Not only that they may be 
 called one in us, which is great, but that they may be one 
 in us, which is greatest. That they may be, he says, one in 
 us, that is, that these clouds following me, the sun, may, in 
 my brightness, lose the nature of clouds, and be sun." 
 
 These extracts may give the reader some idea of the 
 sermon, and whatever a severe criticism might find to 
 say respecting the taste or the truth of some of the 
 applications, I feel that I may confidently ask, whether 
 it does not imply a greater familiarity with the Scrip- 
 tures in both the preacher and the hearers, than most 
 people would give them credit for ? When it is consi- 
 dered how small a part I have given, and that the 
 whole is characterized by the same biblical phrase- 
 ^^'^SYy it really does appear to me surprising how any 
 
 * Phil. iii. 20. ^ John xvii. 20. 
 
OF MENTZ. 489 
 
 man could, on such notice, put together such a string 
 of texts, at a period when concordances, common- 
 place books, and other ' pulpit assistants ' had not been 
 invented. Yet where is there ground for any suspicion 
 of fraud ? I am almost ashamed to say such a thing of 
 Mabillon, who has printed the Sermon*; but still, as 
 many good protestants know nothing of him, or only 
 know that he was a papist, I must ask what he could 
 get by misrepresenting the matter, and printing a long 
 sermon by a canonized saint of the eleventh century, 
 based on the Scriptures only, and containing nothing in 
 favour of any one of those things which protestants 
 justly consider as the corruptions of popery ? Still less 
 can we imagine fraud on the part of a contemporary 
 biographer ; or, if we can, it is obviously a greater 
 wonder that some anonymous monk should have forofed 
 a sermon of such a description, than that it should 
 have been actually made by a prelate who had some 
 reputation for talent, piety, and learning. There is only 
 one other supposition, namely, that it was forged by 
 some person or persons unknown between the supposed 
 time of the biographer and that at whicii the manu- 
 script containing it was discovered by Father Pape- 
 broche ; and of the three suppositions this is perhaps 
 the most improbable, not to say, absurd. 
 
 But what did the audience think of the sermon? 
 Was the unhappy preacher really casting pearls before 
 swine, in thus profusely quoting a book the very exist- 
 ence of which was unknown to them ? Surely, if they 
 knew nothing of the Bible, they must have wondered 
 what he was talking about, and what he was driving 
 at ; and have sorely repented that they had expressed 
 discontent with his former brief performance. Surely 
 if the emperor participated in " the blind hatred of 
 
 * Act. SS. Ord. Ben. Sac. VI. P. ii. p. 14. 
 
490 BARDO, ARCHBISHOP OF MENTZ. 
 
 the half barbarian kings of feudal Europe," and the 
 audience in " the fanatical furies of their ignorant peo- 
 ple \" by which we are told that the Scriptures were so 
 cruelly and hatefully oppressed, such a preacher was 
 likely to be torn in pieces. But nothing of the sort 
 appears to have happened. The people certainly were 
 astonished, and it is said that all of them agreed, in the 
 strangest notion imaginable — namely, that the preacher 
 was a highly fit man to be Pope. " But," says his 
 biographer, " his detractors were covered with shame ;" 
 and when the company sat down to table the emperor 
 said, with a cheerful countenance, " ' I must keep the 
 feast of the Nativity to day, for the company of those 
 who were tearing us to pieces is silent in confusion.' 
 And then again, as if his great joy made him talk non- 
 sense (ex nimia Isetitia quasi desipiens), ' Where,' said 
 he, 'are our detractors?' and he ordered that water 
 should be poured on the bishop's hands first of all. 
 But the bishop, who had exhibited no sadness two days 
 before, made no shew of joy on this day. As he was 
 then silent respecting those who blamed him, so he 
 was now of those who praised him ; which rendering 
 him more and more an object of admiration, from that 
 time forth he became very great." He was indeed for 
 twenty years in that high office ; whether he went on 
 preaching the Bible, whether nobody but himself under- 
 stood his sermons, and whether he was the only person 
 who preached in that way, are matters worthy of 
 enquiry. 
 
 * See page 203. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abbo, father of OdUo, Abbot of Clugni, 
 300 
 
 Abelard, Peter,on profane learning, 186 
 
 Absconsa, what, 336, n. 
 
 Adegrin entered the monastery at 
 Beaume, 297 
 
 ^Ifric, canons of, 28, 34 
 
 Agnes, the Empress, widow of Henry 
 III. her visit and gifts to the mo- 
 nastery of Monte Casino, 208 ; 
 some particulars respecting her, 313 
 
 ■ , Countess of Burgundy, 63 
 
 Agobard, his works preserved by Mas- 
 son, 280 
 
 Agriculture, monastic, 393 
 
 Aigulph, St, at Provins, monastery of, 
 353 
 
 Alanus, on the state of the clergy, 30 
 
 Alberic, Abbot of Citeaux, 355 
 
 Albi, state of MSS. there, 273 
 
 Alcoran, translated by Peter the Vene- 
 rable, 453 
 
 Alcuin, his verses on the bible, 194; a 
 lesson which he learned while a child, 
 180 ; St. Luidger his pupil, 457 
 
 Aldhelm, Bp. of Schirebum, buying a 
 bible, 193 
 
 Alfred the Great, 30 
 
 Altar, offering donations on, 70 ; by a 
 copy of the gospels, 209 
 
 Alulfus, monk of St. Martin's at Tour- 
 nay, his Gregorialis, 414, n. 
 
 Ambrose of Camaldoli, MSS. disco- 
 vered by him, 277 
 
 Angilbert, Abbot, gift of books to St. 
 Riquiers, 205 
 
 Anscharius, the bible given to him by 
 Lewis the Debonnaire desti-oyed by 
 fire, 196 
 
 Ansegisus, Abbot of Fontauelle, gave 
 a Bible to his monastery and another 
 to St. Flavians, 194 ; liis copy of the 
 gospels, 205 
 
 , Abbot of St. Riquiers, his 
 
 gift of the gospels and epistles to his 
 monastery, 208 
 
 Anselm, Bp. of Lucca, 460 
 Archives, provision for their security, 
 265 
 
 Armannis, Prior of CTugni, and Abbot 
 
 of Manlieu, 347 
 Arnold, Bp. of Soissons, 460 
 Arnold, Abbot of Villiers, 405 
 Arnoul, St., monastery of, and others 
 
 at Metz, destroyed in war, 233 
 Asinorum ordo, 145, n. 
 Ass, feast of the, 142 
 Atto, Bp. of Vercelli, his Capitulare, 
 
 154 
 Avalon, church of, its library, 208 ; 
 
 copies of the gospels there, ibid. 
 Aufridus, Bp. of Utrecht, 461 
 Aurea, the Abbess, 95. 101 
 Auxerre, cathedral of, MSS. lost by 
 
 negligence, 272 
 AjTnard, Abbot of Clugni, 303 
 
 Bardo, Archbishop of Mayence, 472 ; 
 his sermon before the Emperor Con- 
 rad, 478 
 
 Beaume, granted to Count Bemo, 297 > 
 its modern state, ibid. 
 
 Beaupr^, modem state of the abbey, 
 227 
 
 Bee, state of the abbey, 178 
 
 Bella diplomatica, 237 
 
 Benedict, St., Rule of, 165 ; the ori- 
 ginal said to have been burned with 
 the monastery of Teano, 234 
 
 Benedictine Order, reformation of in 
 Germany, 329 
 
 Benedictines of St. Maur, 159. 224 
 
 Benedict III., Pope, his gifts to 
 churches, 206 
 
 Benignus, St. church, at Dijon robbed, 
 217 ; church ornaments sold for the 
 poor, 218 
 
 Bernard, St., his apology, 359 ; corre- 
 spondence with Peter the Venerable, 
 365. 423 ; his chamber heated by 
 the introduction of hot air, 404 
 
492 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bernard, Abbot of Marseilles, 330 
 
 Bemo, Count or Abbot, founded the 
 monastery of Gigni, 296 ; obtained 
 a grant of Beaume, 297 ; founded 
 Clugni, 298 
 
 Bemo, Bp. of Hildesheim, gave a 
 glossed Bible to the Ubrary of his 
 see, 198 
 
 Bertin, St., monastery, difficulty of 
 access to the MSS. 289 
 
 Berward, Bp. of Hildesheim, copy of 
 the gospels which he caused to be 
 written, 213 
 
 Beze, a costly MS. of the gospels 
 there, 209 
 
 Bible, knowledge of in the dark ages, 
 188. 193. 260. 455 ; verses on, 199. 
 201 ; expense of copying, 202 ; 
 copies found by literary travellers, 
 290 ; bequeathed by the Bp. of 
 Cambray to the Carthusians of Ma^ 
 cour, 264 ; borrowed by the Bp. of 
 Winchester, ibid. ; of Pontius, Abbot 
 of Clugni, 351 ; of Stephen Harding, 
 Abbot of Citeaux, 356, n. 
 
 Bibliotheca, the bible so called, 194, n. 
 
 Binding of books, costly materials used 
 for, 68. 204 ; leave from Charle- 
 magne to himt iu order to obtain 
 leather for the purpose, 215 ; in 
 more modem times MSS. used and 
 destroyed for the purpose, 278. 280 
 
 Bonus, Abbot, 43 ; his Breve Recorda- 
 tionis, 57 ; gave ten poimds for a 
 Bible, 198 
 
 Books, high price of, 61. 68 ; offered 
 on the altar, 70 ; presented by popes, 
 72 ; costly ones pecidiarly liable to 
 destruction, 217 ; stripped of their 
 covers, 218.220 ; pawned, 218 ; lost 
 by pillage, 262 ; rules of lending at 
 Croyland, 266 ; anathemas agamst 
 those who should steal or injure, 
 270 ; chained to the shelves, 285 ; 
 list of those written by Othlonus, 
 418 ; by Diemudis, 419 
 
 Bourges, state of the MSS. in the Holy 
 chapel there, 274 
 
 Brethwold, Bp. of Salisbury, his gift 
 of the gospels to his church, 210 
 
 Brindler, access to the MSS. there re- 
 fused, 289 
 
 Brioys, Father Paul, 224 
 
 Bromsall, Mr., of Blmiham,a preserver 
 
 . of MSS. during the Rebellion, 288. 
 
 Bi-uno, Bp. of Hildesheim, gave a 
 glossed bible to the library of his 
 see, 198 
 
 Brunwillers, monastery, suffered by 
 war, 233 
 
 C^sariue, Bp. of Aries, I07, n. 
 
 Calefactory, scriptoria built round, 406; 
 
 called Pyrale, 411, n. 
 Calendar, 21, n. 
 
 Calvinists, destmction of MSS. by, 231 
 Cambron, Cistercian abbey of, 282 
 Camisise librorum, 212, n. 
 Candelle, access to MSS. at refused, 
 
 289 
 Canticles, translated by William of 
 
 Bamberg, 189 
 Capella, travelling, 312 
 Capsae libroinim, 212, n. 
 Cave on the mutilation of MSS. 285 
 Cavea evangelii, 212, n. 
 Celle, La, monastery of, 327 
 Cells, what, 180, n. 
 Ceppi, Father, 163 
 Chalons, difficulty of access to MSS. 
 
 there, 289 
 Charity, La, sur Loire, monastery de- 
 cayed, 263 
 Charlemagne, his Capitularj-, 21 ; had 
 
 reading at supper, 340 
 Charta caritatis of Stephen Harding, 
 
 356 
 Chartreuse, La, by Liege, lost its MSS. 
 
 in war, 233 
 Christopher's, St., and St. James's, at 
 
 Stedeburg, list of books belonging 
 
 to, 198 
 Church property in the dark ages, 395 
 CLstercian Order, origin of, 352 ; their 
 
 scriptoria, 405. 413 
 Citeaux, monastery of, founded, 355 ; 
 
 dissensions with Clugni, 358 ; state 
 
 at the time of Bernard's apology, 
 
 366 
 Clairvaux, monastery, founded, 357 
 Clergy, learning and morals of, 17. 32. 
 
 124. 171 
 Qiffe, or Cloveshou, Council of, 20 
 Clotaire, 101 
 Clugni, monastery of, its origin, 294 ; 
 
 invaded by Pontius, 348 ; state of at 
 
 the time of Bernard's apology, 366 ; 
 
 modern state, 227 ', Ulric's book on 
 
 the customs there, 332 ; method of 
 
 reading the Scriptures there, 336 
 Colan, recluses at, 352, 353 
 Cologne, MS. bible at St Pantaleons, 
 
 there, 292 
 Coopertoria librorum, 212, n. 
 Cotton, Sir John, his permission to 
 
 Dr. Smith, 282 
 Coxe, Dr., his proceedings at Oxford, 
 
 284 
 Crassier, Baron de, 278. 280 
 Cross made as a signature, 11. 13 
 Croyland Abbey, some particulars of 
 
 its history and destruction, 240, et scq. 
 
 burned, 252 
 Crusjider, an old one in a monastery, 
 
 305 
 
INDEX. 
 
 49a 
 
 Crypta-ferrata, monai?tery of, state of 
 
 the MSS. there, 277 
 Cupidity, one cause of the destruction 
 
 of MSS. 279 
 
 Dado, St., or St. Owen, 101. 103 
 
 Dagobert, 101 
 
 Damian, Peter, 314 
 
 Danes, destruction of MSS. by, 228 ; 
 of Peterborough Abbey, 229 ; of 
 Croyland Abbey, 243 
 
 Dark Ages, why so called, 1 
 
 Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Casino 
 (afterwards Pope Victor III.), his 
 gift of costly books to his monas- 
 tery, 208 
 
 Diemudis, a nun, a laborious writer, 
 419 
 
 Difficulty of access to collections of 
 MSS. 286 
 
 Dilighen, monastery, destroyed by the 
 Calvinists, 232 
 
 Diplomatica bella, 237 
 
 Dishonesty one cause of the destruction 
 of MSS. 279 
 
 Ditmar's description of himself, 37 
 
 Dodico, Count of Warburg, 131. 
 
 Dolatura, 236, n. 
 
 Donations to churches or monasteries, 
 form of, 73 
 
 Doiiay, MS. Psalter at St. Vaasts, 
 there, 292 
 
 Dunstan, Archbp. of Canterbury, 459 
 
 Durand, Dom Ursin, his literary tra- 
 vels, 225 
 
 Earle, Bp. his translation of Hooker 
 
 destroyed, 277 
 Edgar, king, 15, copy of the gospels 
 
 which had belonged to him, 218 
 Eisterbac, MS. bible there, 292 
 Eloy, St., or St. Eligius, 101. 107, n. ; 
 
 extracts from his homily, 109. 115. 
 
 150 
 Epternac, two MS. copies of the gospels 
 
 there, 293 
 Ethelbald, 239 
 Etheldritha, 241 
 Everhard, Count of Friuli, his bequest 
 
 of a Bible, 196 ; of the gospels, 206 
 Eugenius, subscription to the council 
 
 of C.P. 13 
 Eugenius III., Pope, Peter the Vene- 
 
 rable's letter to, 398 
 Excrustation, 218 
 
 Falsehoods, popular, 48 
 Fatuorum festum, 142, 148 
 Ferriere, monks of, 52 
 
 Ferte sur Gron^, raonaajber\' founded, 
 357 
 
 Fire, MSS. destroyed by, 233 
 
 Fleury, monastery, MSS. destroyed 
 by the Calvinists, 232 
 
 Fools, feast of, 142, 148 
 
 Frock, what, 305 
 
 Frutari, monastery of, 314 
 
 Fulda monastery biu-ned, 235 ; books 
 written for, 418 
 
 Fulk the Good, Count of Anjou, a 
 canon of St. Martin's at Tours, 299 
 
 Fuller, as to the Clxmiacs and Cister- 
 cians, 357, n. 
 
 Gall, St., monastery, burned, 235 ; its 
 MSS. dispersed, 280 
 
 Gallia Christiana, Benedictine edition 
 of, 224 
 
 Gembloux, monastery, MSS. burned, 
 233 
 
 Gemma Animse, extract from, on pro- 
 fane learning, 185 
 
 Gennadius, Bp. of Astorga, 191 ; be- 
 queathed books to his monasteries, 
 197 
 
 Geoffry, sub-prior of St. Barbara's, 
 letter respecting a bible, 199 
 
 Germanus, Michael, 223 
 
 Gerard, Bp. of Csannad, his way of 
 travelling, 307 
 
 Gerald, monk of Clugni, 324 
 
 Gibbon, his misstatement relating to 
 the Hungarians, 292, n. 
 
 Gigni, monastery founded by Count 
 Bemo, 296 ; modem state, 298, n. ; 
 access to MSS. refused, 289 
 
 Gloucester Cathedral, legend on the 
 great bell, 251 
 
 Godehard, Bp. of Hildesheim, orna- 
 mented books, 214 
 
 Godfrey, Abbot of Malmesbury, strip- 
 ped twelve copies of the gospels, 218 
 
 Godfrey, monk of St. Martin's at Tour- 
 nay, a skilful scribe, 414, n. 
 
 Goldbeaters, helped to destroy MSS., 
 280 
 
 Goldsmith, the, 81. 100 ; his foreman, 
 91 ; his god-daughter, 95 
 
 Gospels, costly copies of, 204 ; twelve 
 at St. Paul's in 1295, 211 ; pawned 
 to Jews, 219 ; ten copies stripped at 
 Hide Abbey, 220 
 
 Grandison, John, Bp. of Exeter, 270 
 
 Grandmont, prior of, 37 
 
 Grammar, what in the dark ages, 179 
 
 Grasse, La, MS. of the gospels there, 
 said to have been given by Charle- 
 magne, 291 
 
 Gi-atian, a copy presented by the Bp. 
 of Auxerre to the monastery of 
 Clairvaux, 265 
 
494 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Grecia, Countess of Anjou, 61 
 
 Gregorialis of Alulfus, 414, n. 
 
 Gregory, Pope, his letter to Desiderius, 
 179 
 
 Grimberg, two MS. bibles there, 293 ; 
 its library destroyed by the Hugue- 
 nots, 232 
 
 Grosthead, Bp. of Lincoln, Warton's 
 misstatement respecting, 146 
 
 Guesclin, Du, 16 
 
 Guy Guerra, count of Tuscany, 12 
 
 Hagano, canon of St. Martin's at Tours, 
 subscription to his will, 14, n. 
 
 Haimon's homilies, 61, 192 
 
 Harding, Stephen, Abbot of Citeaux, 
 356 
 
 Hariulf, Abbot of Aldemburg, 460 
 
 Hautvilliers, MS. gospels at, 291 
 
 Heimrad, St., 130 
 
 Heraclius, Abp. of Lyons, 347 
 
 Heribaud, Comte du Palais, 1 1 
 
 Heriman, Abbot of St, Martin's at Tour- 
 nay, his account of its restoration, 
 52. 413 
 
 Herluca, a nun of Eppach, 722 
 
 Henry II., Emperor, or St. Henry, 127. 
 207 
 
 Henry's History of England, misrepre- 
 sentations in, 122 
 
 Hide Abbey, destruction of, 219 
 
 Hincmar, Abp. of Rheims, causing the 
 gospels to be written, 206 
 
 Hirschau, monastery of, 327 
 
 Hirschfeld, monks of, 418 
 
 Honorius, or the author of the Gemma 
 Animse, 184 
 
 Hubert, St., in Ardennes, costly MS. 
 of the gospels there, 209 
 
 Hugh, Bp. of Lincoln, his visit to an 
 old monk, 340, n. 
 
 Hugh, Abbot of Clugni, 312, 345 
 
 Humphrey, duke, his library destroyed, 
 284 
 
 Hunegundis, St., 101, 103 
 
 Hungarians, supposed to be Gog and 
 Magog, 229 
 
 Jacob, a Jew, destroyed Christian 
 
 books, 283 
 Jacobins' monastery at Liege, MSS. 
 
 burned, 233 
 Jacobus, Abbot of Villers, 406 
 Jean aux Bellemains, Abp. of Lyons, 
 
 340, n. 
 Jean, Due, les Heures du, 275 
 Jean de St. Vigores, MS. bible at, 292 
 Jesuits borrowing books, 282 
 Jews at Cambridge, their importance, 
 
 219, n. 
 Ignorance of the clergy, stories of, 138 
 
 Ignorance, one cause of the destruc- 
 tion of MSS., 279 
 
 lUyricus, M. Flacius, his account of 
 Peter the Venerable, 382, 397 
 
 Ina, King, his chapel at Glastonbury, 
 212 
 
 Infirmaries of monasteries, what classes 
 inhabited, 304, n. 
 
 lugulph. Abbot of Croylaud, 252 
 
 John , Bp. of Bath, bequest of the gos- 
 pels, 210 
 
 Abbot of Gorze, 462 
 
 Jones, William, translator of Dupin, 
 362 ; his note on Peter the Venera- 
 ble, 363 
 
 Jordanus, Abbot of Chaise-Dieu, 347 
 
 Jortin, his account of St. Eloy, 108 
 
 Jotsald, biographer of Abbot Odilo, 
 311 
 
 Joiiarre, MS. gospels, 291 
 
 Isidore of Seville, 18. 25 
 
 Iter Burgundicum, 223 ; Germanicum, 
 ibid. ; Italicum, 224 ; in Alsatiam et 
 Lotharingiam, ibid,. 
 
 Ivo, Bp. of Chartres, 25 
 
 Jurare manu, 14 
 
 Justin, Emperor, his present to Pope 
 Hormisda, 205 
 
 Kenulph, first Abbot of Croyland, 240 
 
 Lambert, Abbot of Lobbes, 459 
 Lambert, Val St., MSS. sold or lost, 
 
 279 
 Landlords, ecclesiastical in the dark 
 
 ages, 394 
 Lanfranc, Abp., 178. 189. 252 
 Laurisheim, or Lorsch, monastery, cost- 
 ly books pawned and lost, 218 ; 
 
 burned, 235 
 Legends, Romish, 38 
 Leibnitz, 140 
 
 Leo III., Pope, gifts to churches, 205 
 IV., Pope, gift of books to 
 
 churches, 206 
 Lerins, access to MSS. refused, 289 
 Letters of the dark ages should be 
 
 collected, 383 
 Lewis IV. of France, Fulk, Count of 
 
 Anjou's letter to, 299 
 the Debonnaire, bible presented 
 
 by, 217 ; gifts to the monastery of 
 
 St. Medard, 205 
 
 , monk of Wessobrun, 406 
 
 Libertas Decembrica, 155 
 
 Librorum commercium, carried on 
 
 among the learned in the dark ages, 
 
 440 
 Limoges, state of MSS. at the Abbey 
 
 of St. Martial, 273 
 Literary travels, 222 
 
INDEX. 
 
 495 
 
 Lobbes, access to MSS. refused, 289 
 Locomotion, rate of in the dark ages, 
 
 248 
 Loroy Abbey destroyed by fire, 234 
 Lorsch, Abbot of, 419 ; see Lanresheim 
 Louis XI. bon'owing the works of 
 
 Rasis, 67 
 Lucelle, monastery, library burned, 233 
 Lupicin, St., scripture MSS. there, 290 
 Lupus, Abbot of Ferrieres, 50 
 Lutold, Lord of Rumelingen, 325 
 Luxeuil, scripture MSS. there, 290 
 Lyons, difficulty of access to MSS. 289 
 
 Mabillon, Dom, his controversy with 
 De Ranee on monastic studies, 161 ; 
 Iter Burgundicum, 223 ; Iter Ger- 
 manicum, ibid. ; Iter Italicum, 224 ; 
 Iter Literarium in Alsatiam et Lo- 
 tharingiam, ibid.; found the life of 
 St. Placidus at Monte Casuio, in the 
 binding of another book, 278 
 
 Maclaine, Dr., his account of St. Eloy, 
 108 
 
 Mainerius, Abbot of St. Victor's at 
 Marseilles, a statue of, 265 
 
 Maiolus, or St. Mayeul, Abbot of Clugni, 
 303 ; reading on horseback, 307 
 
 Malmesbury Abbey, library destroyed, 
 281 
 
 Malmidi, MS. bible there, 292 
 
 Mann jurare, 15 
 
 Manual labour of monks, 393 
 
 Manuscripts gone from various monas- 
 teries which had possessed collec- 
 tions, 227, 228. 231 ; hidden for 
 safety, 278 ; loss of by pillage, 262 ; 
 sold or lost, 279 ; stolen by the 
 " curious," 282 ; mutilation of, 284 
 
 Maps, ecclesiastical, wanted, 352, n. 
 
 Marcigni, nunnery at, 325. 346 
 
 Mark, St., Montfaucon's account of a 
 MS. of his gospel, 272 
 
 Martel, Geofi^ry, Count of Anjou, 63 
 
 Martene, Dom Edmund, his literary 
 travels, 224 ; his Thesaurus Novus 
 Anecdotoinim and Amplissima Col- 
 lectio, 225 
 
 Martin, a monk of Moutier-neuf, of a 
 costly copy of the gospels, 213 
 
 , St., de Canigoux, difficulty of 
 
 access to MSS. 289 
 
 -'s, St., at Toumay, monks of, 52, 
 
 {see Heriman) 
 Materials, costly, of books, 68. 72 
 Main-, St., Benedictines of, 224 
 
 , on the Loire, bible at, 1 96 
 
 Meinwerc, Bp. of Paderbom, history 
 
 of his reading " mulis et mulabus," 
 
 for "famulis et famulabus," 125 
 Mennitius, Father, MSS. recovered by, 
 
 278 
 
 Merton College, Oxford, MSS. carried 
 
 away from, 284 
 Metz.MS. Bible at, 291 ; St. Vincent's 
 
 MS. gospels, 292 
 Michael, Emperor, his gifts to the 
 
 church of St. Peter, 206. 
 , St. at Tonnere, monastery of, 
 
 352 
 Michel, St., MS. Greek Psalter at, 291 
 Milner, of Peter the Venerable, 343. 
 
 361 ; of Luther, 469 
 Molesme, forest of, 353 
 Monastic life, 159 ; studies, controversy 
 
 respecting, 161 
 Monks, illiterate, 158 ; learning of, 172 
 Montfaucon, Father, Diarium Itali- 
 cum, 224 
 Moi-imond, monastery founded, 357 
 Mosheim's account of St. Eloy, 101. 
 
 104. 114 
 Moutier-la-Celle, monastery of, 352 
 Munster Abbey, suffered by war, 233 
 Mutilation of MSS. 284. 
 
 Nantes, Council of, 19; laid waste by 
 the Normans, but the Bible pre- 
 served, 195 
 
 Nantua, monastery of, 310 
 
 Niirbonne Cathedral, MSS. there, 273 
 
 Negligence a cause of the loss of MSS. 
 263 
 
 Nicholas, St., aux Bois, monastery, 
 368, n. 
 
 , St. de Tolentino, 163, n. 
 
 , St. Bernard's secretary, 402 
 
 his Scriptoriolum, 404. 422. 433 
 Peter the Venerable's letter to, 435 
 his letter to Peter, 436 ; Peter's let 
 ter to Bernard concerning him, 438 
 his real character, 441 ; what be 
 came of him, 443 
 Nidermunster, monastery of, 419 
 Nigel, Bp. of Ely, robbed of a copy of 
 the gospels, 217 ; pawned the gospels 
 to the Jews, 219 
 Nonantula, the monastery burned, 231 ; 
 
 modem state of, 227 
 Normans, destruction of MSS. by, 228 
 Notker, monk of St. Gall's, 408 
 
 Obcrmunster, monastery of, 419 
 
 Odilo, Abbot of Clugni, 310 
 
 Odo (Abbot of Clugni) tempted to read 
 Virgil, 183; entered at Beaume,297; 
 removed to Clugni, 298 ; his father 
 Abbo, 300 ; succeeded Bemo as Ab- 
 bot of Clugni, ibid. ; anecdotes of, 
 301 ; read on horseback, 307 ; sold 
 the sacred vessels for the poor, 218 
 
 , Abbot of St. Martin's at Tour- 
 nay, his writers, 414 
 
496 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Offa, King, gave a bible to the church 
 
 of Worcester, 194 
 Olbert, Abbot of Gembloux, gift of 
 
 copies of the gospels and epistles to 
 
 his church, 210 ; wrote a bible, 197 
 Omer, St., subscription to his will, 13 
 Orders, examination of candidates for, 
 
 16 
 Othlonus, monk of St. Emmerams, a 
 
 laborious writer, 416 
 Otmersheim Abbey, lost its MSS. by 
 
 war, 233 
 Owen, St., or Dado, 101. 103 
 Oxford, Dr. Coxe's proceedings and 
 
 those of the royal delegates there, 
 
 284 
 
 Paderbom, schools at, 141 
 
 Pandectes, the bible so called, 1 94, n. 
 
 Paraclet, L'Abbaye du, difficulty of 
 access to MSS. 289 
 
 Paul, Abbot of St. Alban's, gift of two 
 copies of the gospels to his church, 
 208 
 
 Paul's, St., books there, 211 
 
 Peter the Venerable, 343. 423 ; his re- 
 ply to St. Bernard's Apology, 373. 
 387. 395 ; represented by Illyricus 
 as a witness against the Papacy, 
 382. 397 ; his letters to the Pope, 
 398 ; his letters to Peter of Poic- 
 tiers, 444 
 
 , Abbot of Moutier-la-Celle, 403 
 
 Abelard on profane learning, 185 
 
 Damian, 314 ; on profane learn- 
 ing, 184 
 
 of Poictiers, secretary of Peter 
 
 the Venerable, 444 
 
 Waldo, 340, n. 
 
 Peterborough monastery burned by 
 the Danes, 229 
 
 Placidus, St., see Mabillon 
 
 Plenarius, 419 
 
 Poggio, MSS. discovered by, 277 
 
 Pont a Mousson, two MS. bibles, 291 
 
 Pontigny monastery founded, 357 
 
 Pontius, Abbot of Clugni, 345 
 
 Vezelai, 347, 348 ; 
 
 his bible, 351, n. 
 
 Popes, presents of books by, 72 
 
 Popular falsehoods, 48 
 
 Porta, Dom Joseph, his account of the 
 controversy respecting monastic stu- 
 dies, 160 
 
 Printing and writing, comparison of, 
 415 
 
 Profane learning, view of in the dark 
 ages, 173 
 
 Proxy, signing by, 13 
 
 Pryel, monastery of, 419 
 
 Psalmody, monkish, 302. 338. 460 
 
 Purpose of the >york, 3 
 
 Pyrale, 411, s^e Calefactory 
 
 Quintilian, discovered by Poggio, 277 
 
 Rabanus Maurus, 22 
 
 Ralph, Bp. of Rochester, gifts to his 
 
 church, 209 
 Ralph de Baldock, Dean of St. Paul's, 
 
 his visitation of the treasury of St. 
 
 Paul's, 211 
 Ranc^, De, 160 ; controversy with 
 
 Mabillon, 161 
 Reading mentioned, 357, n. ; vxU, 23 
 
 at meals, 341 
 
 Rebais, modern state of the monastery, 
 
 227 
 Reculfus, constitutions of, 26 
 Refectory, reading in, 341 
 Reform, church, in the middle ages, 
 
 34, n. 
 Regino Prmniensis, 16. 29. .49 
 Relics in the binding of books, 21 1 
 Rheims Cathedral, archives bm-ned, 
 
 233 ; Scripture MSS. there, 291 
 Riquier's, St., monastery at Centulc, 
 
 return of their property contains 
 
 two bibles, 195 ; books there, 212 ; 
 
 catalogue, 339 ; MS. gospels given 
 
 by Charlemagne, 292 
 Ratpert, monk of St. Gall's, 408 
 Robert, cousin of St. Bernard, 360 
 
 -, fomider of the Cistercian order. 
 
 352 
 
 , King, bequeathed to the church 
 
 of St. Anian six copies of the gospels, 
 210 
 
 Robertson's Charles the Fifth, misre- 
 presentations in, 9. 16. 30. 35. 41. 
 49. 50. 52. 61. 67. 70. 103. 142; 
 monkish reply to, 37 
 
 Rodulf, monk of St. Wast, a scribe, 
 verses by, 267 
 
 Rodulph, King of Burgundy, charter 
 for the monastery of Gigni, 296 
 
 Romans, collegiate church six times 
 destroyed, 262 
 
 Rose, Rev. Hugh J., notes by, 56. 100 
 
 Rossano, Abp. of, his statement to 
 Father Montfaucon, as to the de- 
 struction of the documents of his 
 see, 278 
 
 Rosseauville, difficulty of access to 
 MSS. 289 
 
 Sacros libros, meaning of the phrase 
 as used by the writers of the dark 
 ages, 87 
 Sanctitas vestra, the title used, 424 
 Saracens, irruption into Italy, 231 
 Scarcity of MSS., 222 
 Scriptoria of monasteries, 404 
 Scriptura sacra, meaning of the phi-ase 
 
INDEX. 
 
 497 
 
 as used by writers of the dark ages, 
 
 87 
 
 Scriptures, method of reading at Clugni, 
 336 ; treatment of in the dark ages, 
 203, motto, 220 
 
 Selden, Mr. too free in lending books, 
 282 
 
 Sempecta, what, 305 
 
 Sens, the abbey of St. Pierre le Vif 
 destroyed nine or ten times, 263 
 
 Siegler, M., 278 
 
 Signature, by the sign of the cross, ] 1. 
 13 ; by proxy, 13 ; with consecrated 
 wine, 15 
 
 Signs used by monks instead of speak- 
 ing, 403, n. 
 
 Sindolf, monk of St. Gall's, 409. 424, n. 
 
 Sithiu, monks of, grant of Charlemagne 
 to, 215 
 
 Siward, Abbot of Croyland, 241 
 
 Soissons, St. Medard, copy of the gos- 
 pels presented by Lewis le Debon- 
 naire, 292 
 
 Solomon, Bp. of Constance, 407. 424, n. 
 
 Soucilanges, monastery of, 347 
 
 Soudiacres, 157 
 
 Stephen, Abbot of Beze, gave a bible 
 to his monastery, 198 
 
 Strasburg, access to MSS. refused, 289 
 
 Stripping costly books, 218. 220 
 
 Switzerland, History of, for young per- 
 sons, 48 
 
 Tarbe, documents of the cathedral 
 church burned by the Calvinists, 231 
 
 Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, 1 1. 422 
 
 Teano monastery burned, 234 
 
 Tegemsee, monasterv of, 417. 422 
 
 Theau, St., or Tillo, 101. 103 
 
 Theoderic, Abbot of St. Evroul, address 
 to his monks on writing, 268 
 
 • , junior Bp. of Metz preached 
 
 before the Emperor Conrad, 477 
 
 Theodore, Abbot of Croyland, when in- 
 vaded by the Danes, 243 
 
 Theodulfus, Bp. of Orleans, made a 
 great bible, 194 
 
 Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum, Mar- 
 tene's, 225 
 
 Theudere, St., monastery, its MSS. de- 
 stroyed by the Calvinists, 231 
 
 Thierry, Abbot of St. Evroul, causes a 
 bible to be written, 198 
 
 < St. Hubert's, read- 
 ing on horseback, 307. 460 
 
 Thieto, abbot of St. Gall, 234 
 
 Thoiiars, Abbey of St. John at, its 
 documents dispersed by the Calvin- 
 ists, 232 
 
 Tillo, St., or Theau, 101. 103 
 
 Todd, Dr., his MS. of the GregorialLs, 
 414, n. 
 
 Toledo, VIII. council of, 18 
 
 Trappe, La, 357 
 
 Trithemius, on monks being employed 
 in writing, 271 
 
 Trone, St., access to MSS. refused, 289 
 
 Turgar, his life preserved when the 
 Danes destroyed Croyland abbey in 
 870, 244 ; the youngest of the only 
 three monks who lived there in the 
 year 941, 245 ; his journey to Lon- 
 don in the year 948, 249 
 
 Turketul, Chancellor, 246, et seq.; his 
 division of his monks when Abbot of 
 Croyland, 304 
 
 TutUo, monk of St. Gall's, 408 
 
 Val Dieu, La, MS. bible there, 292 
 Vedastus, S. See Wast, St. 
 Verdun, Abp. of, refused access to his 
 MSS., 288 
 
 -, MS. gospels at, 291 
 
 Veterum Scriptorum, etc. Amplissima 
 
 Collectio, Martene's, 226 
 Vezelai, monastery of, 347 
 Uffenbach, M., his collection, 280 
 Ulric, a monk of Clugni, 313. 321 ; his 
 
 book on the customs of Clugni, 332 
 Voyage litteraire de deux Religieux 
 
 Benedictins de la Congregation de 
 
 St. Maur, 226 
 
 Waldo, Peter, 340, n. 
 
 Walter, Bp. of Rochester, gift of the 
 gospels to his church, 209 
 
 War, destruction of MSS. by, 228 
 
 Warton, his mistake about Bp. Grost- 
 head and the Festum Asinorum, 
 146 ; his misrepresentation respect- 
 ing Gennadius, Bp. of Astorga, 191 ; 
 about Olbert, Abbot of Gembloux, 
 197 ; of a grant of Charlemagne, 
 215 ; respecting the Bp. of Win- 
 chester's borrowing a bible, 264 
 
 Wast, St., monastery six times burned, 
 234 
 
 Wessobrunn, monastery of, 419 
 
 White, Bampton lecturer, his account' 
 of St. Eloy, 108 
 
 Wicbert, Bp. of Hildesheim, wrote a 
 bible for his church, 193. 196 
 
 Wichtlaf, King of Mercia, 241 
 
 Wilfrid, Abp., gift of the gospels to 
 the church of Ripon, 212, n. 
 
 William, Count of Auvergne, patron- 
 ized the founding of Clugni, 298 
 
 de Longchamp, Bp. of Ely, 
 
 pawned thirteen copies of the gos- 
 pels, 218 
 
 -, Abbot of Dijon, charter of 
 
 his respecting a costly copy of the 
 gospels, 207 
 
 Kk 
 
498 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 William, Abbot of Hirschau, 327 ; his 
 twelve writers, 329. 413 
 
 St. Thierry's near 
 
 Rheims, St. Bernard's apology ad- 
 dressed to him, 359. 368, n. 
 
 — — ^ of Bamberg, 1 89 
 
 Willibrod, St., copy of the gospels sup- 
 posed to be his, 293, n. "^ 
 
 Withred, King of Kent, 11 
 Wolphelm, Abbot of Brunwillers, 461 
 Writers, zealous and indefatigable, 416 
 Writing, large sums paid for, 66 ; and 
 
 printing, comparison of, 415 
 Wulgarius, monk of Cisoing, gave a 
 
 bible to his monastery, 196 
 Wulstan, Bp. of Worcester, 460 
 
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