The Monastic Scriptorium.—II

The Monastic Scriptorium.—II. (Continued from page 244). T is not always that we can point out the scriptorium in the I architectural construction of a monastery. We must not imagine a spacious apartment like the refectory or the dormitory, commodious enough for the whole body of resident monks. All the Downloaded from brethren were not engaged in copying, nor in registering passing events, much less in the original composition of literary or philo- sophical works; nor were the writing and illumination always done in a single room. It sometimes happened that the work of transcription and historical compilation was effected in separate http://library.oxfordjournals.org/ cells or " carols," which, as we shall see, were arranged in the cloistral avenues, or incorporated with the conventual buildings. The word scriptorium, indeed, was not invariably a strictly de- fined term, being used not only for a large or a small chamber devoted to writing, but also for cells or small rooms; and sometimes it was applied to larger apartments, which, having no other par- ticular name or use, were, as Dr. Maitland remarks, called scriptoria, even when not actually used, or specially intended for the business of writing. Thus we are told that Arnold, Abbot at Fudan University on May 9, 2015 of Villars, in Brabant, when he forsook office (c. 1250) occupied a scriptorium, where he lived as a private person in his own apartment. One of his successors, Jacobus, who became abbot in 1276, attached similar cells to the outside of the calafectory, and somewhat later two others were added to the sacristan's house. Among the Cistercians the scriptorium was sometimes a private cell for study or recreation, and among the statutes, A.D. 1278, it is required " that monks to whom scriptoria are allowed, studendum vel recreandum, are not to remain in these apartments at times'when they are required to be in the cloister." Properly, however, and in the great abbeys, the scriptorium was a large chamber, duly consecrated, where as many as twelve or even twenty persons were employed in copying and illuminating the Sacred Scriptures, service books, and legends of saints, besides noting music and giving much attention to profane literature. The historiographer usually had his private study away from the other scribes. Artificial light from lamps or candles was not allowed in the scriptorium, lest oil, or grease, or other accident The Monastic Scriptorium. 283 should damage the MSS., and stringent rules were in force to prevent idleness or inattention. Special artists were generally employed to insert the rubrics and design the embellishments, and with what success they did their work a thousand exquisite examples which have escaped the hand of the spoiler testify. The general superintendence of the monks, while engaged in their literary task, was committed to the armarius, who seems to have been very much like a modern librarian, the library, as dis- tinct from the scriptorium, being called thearmarium. Estates were often devoted to the maintenance of the scriptorium; that at St. Ed- Downloaded from mundsbury was endowed with two mills, which were a consider- able source of revenue ; and in 1171 the tithes of a rectory were given to the cathedral convent of St. Swithin's, Winchester, ad libros transcribendos. In like manner Nigel, A.D. 116c, appro- priated two churches to the monks of Ely, ad libros faciendos. http://library.oxfordjournals.org/ One of the works produced at St. Edmundsbury, was Lydgate's Boke of tlie Sege of Troy, an original copy of which, written and illuminated by the hand of " Daun John Lydgate, monke of Bery, atte excitacioun and steryng of the moost worthi and myghty Prynce Kyng Henry the Fyfthe," was lately offered by Mr.Quaritch for £1,720. Another and apparently contemporary copy of this same work is in the City Free Library of Bristol. The scriptorium of St. Albans Abbey was built by Abbot Paulin, a Norman, who caused many bobks to be transcribed there about the year at Fudan University on May 9, 2015 1080, Archbishop Lanfranc supplying the works to be copied. It was afterwards rebuilt at the expense of Thomas, the thirtieth abbot (1349-96) with the oversight of Thomas de Walsingham, cantor and scriptorarius. The very usual conjunction in one person of the offices of leader of the choir and keeper of the MSS., grew naturally enough out of the fact that at first the only books which had to be taken care of were breviaries and other service books. The labours of the monks of St. Albans in the de- partment of English history may be judged by the noble series of volumes from their hand, published in the Rolls' Series, the extant chronicles of their compilation affording the richest of all fields for the searcher into the mediaeval past. Of the St. Albans his- torians, Matthew Paris might be called the Enghsh Herodotus, for though his labours were grounded on the chronicle of Roger Wendover, who had been a monk of the same abbey, he was the first to connect foreign transactions with the events of his own country. His honesty and simplicity, with his power of dramatic narration, were qualities of style that were perhaps 284 The Library. understood by Henry III., who ordered him to commemorate a great celebration of the feast of Edward the Confessor, appointing him a seat near the throne that he might adequately view the scene. Happily Matthew's mental strength did not give way under the strain of his studies, so as to require the severe measures that were applied in the case of one of his brethren, Alexander de Langley, whose much learning had driven him actually mad. Langley was keeper of the abbot's seal, and moreover so ele- gant a scholar that he could write a letter to the pope ; but in Downloaded from his raving he showed himself proud and conceited. The abbot ordered him to the cloister, where he persisted in his vaunting pretensions to superior intellect and scholarship. Much moved by this sad exhibition, his superior cited him to the chapter house, where he caused him to be flagellated till he was bloody (usque http://library.oxfordjournals.org/ ad copiosam sanguinis effusidnem ftagellari), and being still unhum- bled, he sent him to his cell at Bynham. There the unfortunate maniac was retained in solitary confinement and fetters till he died, when he was even buried in his chains (compedibus est sepultus). In another instance the shortcomings of another monkish scribe were of happier termination. He had copied out the whole volume of the divine law, but he was so great a transgressor of the moral law, that after his death there was a sharp contention for his soul: the evil spirits adduced his manifold sins, which at Fudan University on May 9, 2015 even equalled the number of the letters in the volumes he had written save one letter only; but this single letter in excess was the means, on the pleading of the angels on his behalf, of saving his soul alive. If we wish to see the former scriptoria of the monks, we must look for them in the cloisters of the abbeys and of the monastic cathedrals. At Clairvaux, there were eight small cells in the lesser cloister appointed for the scribes engaged in copying works for the library, which was, as usual, placed over the chapter- house. Odo, first abbot of St. Martin's at Tournay, used to exult in the number of writers which the Lord had given him; " for if you had gone into the cloisters, you might, in general, have seen a dozen young monks sitting on chairs, in perfect silence, writing at well-constructed tables. All Jerome's Com- mentaries on the Prophets, all the works of St. Gregory, and everything he could find of St. Augustine, Ambrose, Isidore, Bede, and the Lord Anselm, then abbot of Bee, he caused to be diligently transcribed. Some of these MSS. were believed by Dr. Maitland to be in his time the property of his learned friend The Monastic Scriptorium. 285 Dr. Todd, of Trinity College, Dublin. One of them, since sold for £"20, is entitled Gregorialis; and was compiled by, and is apparently in the handwriting of Alulfus, who during forty-seven years was the armarius or librarian, of the convent, under Odo. In the west walk of the cloisters of the Abbey of St. Werburgh, Chester, are the arched recesses, prepared as studies or carols for the monks, the latter name being obtained from their squareness of section (carrels or quarres). These are continued in the south walk, the ruins of them being yet visible. Each is Downloaded from lighted by a transomed window of two bays, while against the church wall, opposite the cells, were almeries to contain the books. In the destroyed south walk of Chester Cathedral were also many carols, and some remain in a fairly perfect condition at the south end of the west walk. In the cloister of Worcester we find similar arrangements, which are explained in the http://library.oxfordjournals.org/ Durham Rites (p. 70). There the north side of the cloister was thus arranged:—" Each window was of three lights and glazed, and in every window three pcivcs or carrels, where every- one of the old monkes had his carrell severale by himselfe, that when they had dyned they did resorte to that place of cloister and there studyed upon their books, every one in his carrell, all the afternonne unto evensong tyme. All these carrells were finely wainscotted and verie close, all but the forepart, which had carved wourke that gave light in at ther carrell doures of at Fudan University on May 9, 2015 wainscott.

Load more