Libraries in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods | Page 3

"went to the church where the Christians used to
assemble, and spoiled it of chalices, lamps, etc., but when they came into the library
(bibliothecam), the presses (armaria) there were found empty." This language seems to
imply that the sacred vessels and the books were in different parts of the same building.
The instructions, again, of the dying Augustine, who bequeathed his library to the church
at Hippo, lead to the same conclusion. The library of S. Peter's at Rome, though added to
the basilica erected by Constantine, long after its primitive foundation, was on the
ground-floor in the angle between the nave and the north limb of the transept, a position
which may perhaps have been selected in accordance with early usage.
I now pass to the treatment of books in the libraries of the monastic orders. These either
adopted the Rule of S. Benedict, or based their own Rule upon its provisions. It will
therefore be desirable to examine what he said on the subject of study, and I will translate
a few lines from the 48th chapter of his Rule, Of daily manual labour.
Idleness is the enemy of the soul; hence brethren ought, at certain seasons, to occupy
themselves with manual labour, and again, at certain hours, with holy reading....
Between Easter and the calends of October let them apply themselves to reading from the
fourth hour till near the sixth hour. After the sixth hour, when they rise from table, let
them rest on their beds in complete silence; or, if any one should wish to read to himself,

let him do so in such a way as not to disturb any one else....
From the calends of October to the beginning of Lent let them apply themselves to
reading until the second hour.... During Lent, let them apply themselves to reading from
morning until the end of the third hour ... and, in these days of Lent, let them receive a
book apiece from the library, and read it straight through. These books are to be given out
at the beginning of Lent. It is important that one or two seniors should be appointed to go
round the monastery at the hours when brethren are engaged in reading, in case some
ill-conditioned brother should be giving himself up to sloth or idle talk, instead of reading
steadily; so that not only is he useless to himself, but incites others to do wrong.
"Behold! how great a matter a little fire kindleth!" These simple words, uttered by one
who in power of far-reaching influence has had no equal, gave an impulse to study in the
ages it once was the fashion to call dark which grew with the growth of the Order--till
wherever a Benedictine house arose--or a monastery of any one of the Orders which were
but off-shoots from the Benedictine tree--books were multiplied, and a library came into
being, small indeed at first, but increasing year by year, till the wealthier houses had
gathered together a collection of books that would do credit to a modern University.
It is very interesting to notice, as Order after Order was founded, a steady development of
feeling with regard to books, and an ever increasing care for their safe-keeping. S.
Benedict had contented himself with general directions for study; the Cluniacs prescribe
the selection of a special officer to take charge of the books, with an annual audit of them,
and the assignment of a single volume to each brother; the Carthusians and the
Cistercians provide for the loan of books to extraneous persons under certain
conditions--a provision which the Benedictines in their turn adopted. Further, by the time
that the Cluniac Customs were drawn up in the form in which they have come down to us,
it is evident that the number of books exceeded the number of brethren; for both in them,
and in the statutes which Lanfranc promulgated for the use of the English Benedictines in
1070, the keeper of the books is directed to bring all the books of the House into Chapter,
after which the brethren, one by one, are to bring in the books they had borrowed on the
same day in the previous year. Some of the former class of books were probably
service-books, but, after this deduction has been made, we may fairly conclude that by
the end of the eleventh century Benedictine Houses possessed two sets of books: (1)
those which were distributed among the brethren; (2) those which were kept in some safe
place, probably the church, as part of the valuables of the House: or, to adopt modern
phrases, they had a lending library and a library of reference. The Augustinians go a step
farther than the Benedictines and the Orders derived from them, for they