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St.Aldhelm and William of Malmesbury. Mrjames

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St.Aldhelm and William of Malmesbury. Mrjames McGILL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY st.Aldhelm and William of Malmesbury. M.R.James. M£GILL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ANCIENT ENGLISH SCHOLARS ST. ALDHELM & WILLIAM oF MALMESBURY Being the first Lecture on the David Murray Foundation in the University_ of Glasgow delivered on 'June 91h, I 9 3I, by M. R. JAMES, O.M. LITT.D., HoN. D.C.L. OxroRD, HoN. D.LITT. DUBLIN HON. LL.D. ST. ANDREWS, F.B.A., F.S.A., ETC. PROVOST OP ETON, SOIOTIME PROVOST OF KING'S CoLLEGB, CAMBRIDGE GLASGOW JACKSON, WYLIE & CO. PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY 1931 GLASGOW UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS XXII TWO ANCIENT ENGLISH SCHOLARS TWO ANCIENT ENGLISH SCHOLARS ST. ALDHELM & WILLIAM oF MALMESBURY Being the first Lecture on the David Murray Foundation in the University of Glasgow delivered on June 9th, I 9 31, by M. R. JAMES, O.M. LITT.D., HoN. D.C.L. OXFORD, HoN. D.LITT. DUBLIN HON. LL.D. ST. ANDREWS, F.B.A., F.S.A., ETC. PROVOST OF ETON, SOMETIME PROVOST OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE GLASGOW JACKSON, WYLIE & CO. PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY DA177 J3 McLennan James , M . R . Two ancient English scholars , st . Aldhelm and Wi .........71803838 I no feel myself exceptionally honoured by being so graciously invited to deliver the first of what we all hope may be a worthy series of lectures u pan the David Murray Foundation. It is my misfortune not to have known personally him whose name is con­ nected with this new enlargement of the sphere of medieval studies, or, as we may figure it, this opening of a new window whence the incredibly wide and varied landscape of medieval life and letters may be surveyed. But I have gratefully learned, from those who were in a position to teach me, something of the life and work of Dr. David Murray; and though I do not propose to preface my lecture-quite long enough as it is-with such a biographical sketch as might more fitly be contributed by another, I feel that I should be sadly lacking in piety if I did not upon this occasion do homage to his memory in a few words. Throughout his long life of eighty-six years Dr. David Murray was indefatigable alike in the service of this University, of which he was a member for over seventy years, in the cause of Archaeology, and in his own profession of the Law. In the first capacity he was well described by your late Prin­ cipal as the Nestor of the Council of the University, the controller of its finance, its historiographer, its benefactor, and the guardian of its traditions. You, I 6 think, must be especially grateful to him for three of his many services-his record of the Memories of the 0 Id College, his successful efforts for the pre­ servation here of the great Hunterian collection of coins, and the gift of his valuable library. For the rest, not Scotland only, but the world at large, owes him a great debt for his defence and care of ancient monuments. The bibliographer and the economic historian have likewise cause to be grateful to him, and so, doubtless, has the lawyer : the list of his legal publications is an impressive one. His Chapters in The History of Book-keeping are full of the most varied and recondite lore, collected with infinite pains from little-known corners of the book-world. Another solid work of his with which I have some acquaint­ ance is that on the History and Use of Museums ; and in his study of the Black Book of Paisley and the other MSS. of the Scotichronicon, I gladly recognize something akin to my own branch of research. No question but that his was a full and a useful and beneficent life, and one that richly deserves to be honoured by gratitude and by imitation. As to the lecture which I am about to deliver : I cannot, as a good Dickensian, fail to be reminded of certain eloquent words of Mr. Micawber, who speaks of his famous indictment of Uriah Heep as " an investigation of which the smallest results have been slowly pieced together amid the pressure of arduous avocations, under grinding penurious appre­ hension, at rise of morn, at dewy eve, in the 7 shadows of night, under the watchful eye of one whom it were superfluous to call Demon." Such, happily, has not been my case : but it is only due to you, my audience, to say that the collection of material has entailed a good deal of examination and copying of manuscripts in the libraries of London, Oxford and Cambridge, as well as of printed sources, and that an appreciable amount of the information it contains is fresh, though I cannot claim that it deserves to be called sensational. My object in saying so much is to satisfy you that I have not for the purpose of this lecture merely used up old material that I had by me, but have done my best to open up ground that has been imperfectly if at all explored. It is a truism to which I hardly like to give utterance that the monasteries of Europe were the principal agents in preserving the literature of ancient times. Has any Latin classic survived except through the medium of some monastic or cathedral library ? None, I believe-apart from a few broken relics from Herculaneum or Egypt. This familiar proposition is in some sort the text of my lecture : but, stated as I have stated it, it is far too vague and general to be interesting. If it is to have any actuality we must be told what part such places as Bobbio, Verona, Corbie, Fulda, Canterbury played in the story. We must take each centre separately and estimate its contribution : and to do that we must find out what ancient books it owned, either by studying the catalogue of its library or by ferreting out the existing remains of that library, or 8 by noting what authors were read by those who lived there. A great deal of research has been carried out along these several paths, but a great deal remains to be done. I have interested myself in the history and contents of English monastic libraries more than a little : and to-day I want to bring to your notice a sample of the kind of knowledge that can be gained by such investigations. I am going to introduce to you the abbey of Malmesbury in Wiltshire. It is a place of which the existing remains amply repay a visit ; for there you may see a considerable part of a magnificent Norman church, and some of the best figure-sculpture of the Norman period in England. It will do you good to decipher the Bible stories carved on the south porch. But it is with the literary aspect of Malmesbury and not with its external history or antiquities that I am to deal. Malmesbury Abbey was the home of two great scholars, separated in time by some four centuries. They were St. Aldhelm who died in 709 and William of Malmesbury who must have died either in I I 42 or I 143. Each of them holds a distinctive and distinguished place in the literary history of England. Aldhelm was the first Englishman who could be called a book-learned man, the first of whom we have any literary remains-William was our first really en­ lightened historian after the Venerable Bede, who died in 735. A great deal has been written about each of them. But there are certain links between them and certain 9 facts about them-especially about William-which have either not been noted or not brought together, and it is my object in this lecture to focus them. In doing so I shall have to employ rather dry-as-dust methods, and discharge upon you little facts about manuscripts and such like-pellets of information which may appear detached and scrappy, but which I hope may eventually prove to have some cohesive qualities. Let me first sketch St. Aldhelm. He was born, it seems, about the year 6 39, and was a close connexion of the famous English king Ine. His first teacher was an Irishman, a monk, Maeldubh, who settled at Malmesbury and opened a school there. It is from his name, later corrupted to Maildulf, and passing through further stages of mutilation, that the place­ name Malmesbury is derived. And this Irish training of Aldhelm is a thing to be noted. It means that, since Ireland had been for about two centuries the most active centre of learning in the West, Aldhelm had the advantage of the best literary training then available. And it is undeniable that the peculiarities of Irish learning and style are very perceptible in much of what he wrote. Without embarking on a description of the Irish manner as it is seen in the Latinity of Irishmen, I will say that it is marked by a fondness for strange and antique words and for a tortuous phrasing which reminds us of the intricacy of the decoration of their works of art, the Book of Kells or the Brooch of Tara. A single sen­ tence (others have picked it out before me) which begins one of Aldhelm's letters will show you how 10 merciless he was in the use-the abuse-of one figure, alliteration. Primitus pantorum procerum praetorumque pio potissimum paternoque praesertim privilegio panagericum poemataque passim prosatori sub polo promulgantes. That is a sentence which Aldhelm would never have written but for his Irish training : and it was, I think, lucky both for him and for his readers that another strain was woven into his education.
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