548 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
that certain books remain continually in the library, chained to their places, for the use of the fellows. This custom was still in vogue in England in the sixteenth century, when copies of the English Bible were kept chained to the reading desks in the churches. The old Benedictine rule was still enforced for the distribution of books. Lanfranc's statutes for the English Benedictines, 1070, required the return of the books by the monks the first Sunday in Lent. They were then to be laid out on the floor and distributed for the ensuing year, one book to each monk. Any one failing to read his book was obliged to fall on his face and confess his neglect.1 The loan of books was not uncommon. Bernard borrowed and lent as did Peter the Venerable.2 The Cistercians pro vided for such loans to outside parties and the synod of Paris, 1212, insisted that convents should not recede from this good practice which it pronounced a work of mercy.
The book-room, or scriptorium, was part of a complete conventual building. It served as a place of writing and of transcribing manuscripts. Sometimes a monk had his own little book-room, called scriptoriolum, or kept books in his cell. Nicholas, Bernard's secretary, described his little room as next to the infirmary and " filled with choice and divine books."3 Peter of Celle, successor to John of Salisbury in the see of Chartres, spoke of his scriptoriolum as filled with books, where he could be free from the vanity and vexations of the world. The place had been assigned to him, he said, for reading, writing, meditating, praying, and adoring the Lord.4
Abbots themselves joined to their other labors the work of the copyist. So it was with Theodoric of St. Evroult, 1050-1057, a skilful scribe who, according to Ordericus
1 Putnam, I. 152. The statutes of Oriel College, Oxford, 1329, ordered the books taken out once a year, Nov. 2, each person, according to age, taking out a single volume. Clark, p. 34.
2 Ep., 88 ; Migne, 182. 219. See Coulton's Salimbene, p. 167.
3 Ep., 35 ; Migne, 196. 1626.
4 Maitland, p. 442.
§ 89. BOOKS AND LIBRARIES. 549
Vitalis,1 left " splendid monuments of his calligraphic skill," in copies of the Collects, Graduale, and Antiphonary which were deposited in the convent collection. Theocloric also secured the services of others to copy commentaries and the heptateuch.2 Convents were concerned to secure expert transcribers. Copying was made a special feature of St. Albans by the abbot Paul, 1077-1093. He secured money for a scriptorium and brought scribes from a distance. In the latter part of the eleventh century, Hirschau in Southern Germany was noted for this kind of activity, through its abbot William, who saw that twelve good copyists were trained for his house. These men made many copies and William is said to have presented books to every convent he reformed. The scribe, Othlo of Emmeram, of the same century, has left us a list of the books he gave away.3
Diligence as a copyist sometimes stood monks in good stead when they came to face the realities of the future world. Of such an one, Ordericus makes mention.4 This monk had copied with his own hand a bulky volume of Scripture, but he was a man of many moral offences. When the evil spirits laid claim to his soul, the angels produced the holy volume which the monk had transcribed. Every letter was counted and balanced against a sin. At last, it was found the letters had a majority of one. The devils tried to scrape up another sin, but in vain, and the Lord per mitted the fortunate monk to return to the body and do proper penance.
Copying was sometimes prescribed as a punishment for cloistral offences and the Carthusian rules withheld wine from the monk who was able to copy and would not ply his art. It seems at times to have been a most confining and wearisome task. Lewis, a monk of Wessobrunn in Bavaria, had some of this feeling when he appended to a transcription
1 III. 3 ; Engl. trans., 1.406. Ordericus frequently refers to copyists. III. 5, IV. 19, etc.
2 The heptateuch included the first seven books of the Old Testament. 8 See his own description, Maitland, pp. 454 sqq.
4 III. 3 ; Engl. trans., I. 407.