The Great Book-Collectors | Page 8

'to disseminate the treasures of Benedict.' But he must have possessed a large number of manuscripts while he was writing the Ecclesiastical History, since he has informed us that Bishop Daniel of Winchester and other learned churchmen in the South were accustomed to supply him constantly with records and chronicles.
St. Boniface may be counted among the collectors, though he could carry but a modest supply of books through the German forests and the marshes of Friesland. As a missionary he found it useful to display a finely-painted volume. Writing to the Abbess Eadburga for a Missal, he asked that the parchment might be gay with colours,--'even as a glittering lamp and an illumination for the hearts of the Gentiles.' 'I entreat you,' he writes again, 'to send me St. Peters Epistle in letters of gold.' He begged all his friends to send him books as a refreshment in the wilderness. Bishop Daniel is asked for the Prophecies 'written very large.' Bishop Lulla is to send a cosmography and a volume of poems. He applies to one Archbishop for the works of Bede, 'who is the lamp of the Church,' and to the other for the Pope's Answers to Augustine, which cannot be found in the Roman bookshops. Boniface was Primate of Germany; but he resigned his high office to work among the rude tribes of Friesland. We learn that he carried some of his choicest books with him on his last ill-fated expedition, when the meadow and the river-banks were strewn with the glittering service-books after the murder of the Saint and his companions.
Egbert of York set up a large library in the Minster. Alcuin took charge of it after his friend's death, and composed a versified catalogue, of such merit as the nature of the task allowed. 'Here you may trace the footsteps of the Fathers; here you meet the clear-souled Aristotle and Tully of the mighty tongue; here Basil and Fulgentius shine, and Cassiodorus and John of the Golden Mouth.' As Alcuin was returning from book-buying at Rome he met Charles the Great at Parma. The Emperor persuaded the traveller to enter his service, and they succeeded by their joint efforts in producing a wonderful revival of literature. The Emperor had a fine private collection of MSS. adorned in the Anglo-Frankish style; and he established a public library, containing the works of the Fathers, 'so that the poorest student might find a place at the banquet of learning.' Alcuin presented to the Emperor's own collection a revised copy of the Vulgate illuminated under his personal supervision.
Towards the end of Alcuin's career he retired to the Abbey of St. Martin at Tours, and there founded his 'Museum,' which was in fact a large establishment for the editing and transcription of books. Here he wrote those delightful letters from which we have already made an extract. To his friend Arno at Salzburg he writes about a little treatise on orthography, which he would have liked to have recited in person. 'Oh that I could turn the sentences into speech, and embrace my brother with a warmth that cannot be sent in a book; but since I cannot come myself I send my rough letters, that they may speak for me instead of the words of my mouth.' To the Emperor he sent a description of his life at Tours: 'In the house of St. Martin I deal out the honey of the Scriptures, and some I excite with the ancient wine of wisdom, and others I fill full with the fruits of grammatical learning.'
Very few book-lovers could be found in England while the country was being ravaged by the Danes. The Northern Abbeys were burned, and their libraries destroyed. The books at York perished, though the Minster was saved; the same fate befell the valuable collections at Croyland and Peterborough. The royal library at Stockholm contains the interesting 'Golden Gospels,' decorated in the same style as the Book of Lindisfarne, and perhaps written at the same place. An inscription of the ninth century shows that it was bought from a crew of pirates by Duke Alfred, a nobleman of Wessex, and was presented by him and his wife Werburga to the Church at Canterbury.
It seems possible that literature was kept alive in our country by King Alfred's affection for the old English songs. We know that he used to recite them himself and would make his children get them by heart. He was not much of a scholar himself, but he had all the learning of Mercia to help him. Archbishop Plegmund and his chaplains were the King's secretaries, 'and night and day, whenever he had time, he commanded these men to read to him.' From France came Provost Grimbald, a scholar and a sweet singer, and Brother John of