CHAPTER XI

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE IN LONDON

§ I. THE LIBRARIES OF LONDON

The Libraries in London were few in number, and, according to modern ideas, scanty as to the works they contained. Every monastery had its library: St. Paul’s Cathedral had its library; there were books of devotion belonging to every church, and, indeed, to every house; but of private libraries there were very few. The famous Duke Humphrey had a great collection of books, which he gave to the University of Oxford in two donations, one of two hundred and sixty-four volumes, the other of two hundred and sixty-five. The Duke of Bedford at the same time bought the collection of Charles the Fifth of France, and brought the books over to England. Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, had another great library. The finest libraries in London were those of the Franciscans, whose Library was built for them by Whittington, and the Dominicans, who in their best days were remarkable for their pursuit of learning.

The catalogue of the books presented by Guy Beauchamp to the monks of Bordesley shows what was the lighter reading of the brethren. It is as follows:—

“A tus iceux, qe ceste lettre verront, ou orrount, Guy de Beauchamp, Comte de Warr. Saluz, en Deu. Saluz nous aveir baylè en la garde le Abbé e le Covent de Bordesleye, lessé à demorer a touz jours touz les Romaunces de sonz nomes: ceo est assaveyr, un volum, qe est appelé Tresor. Un volum, en le quel est le premer livre de Lancelot, e un volum del Romaunce de Aygnes. Un Sauter de Romaunce. Un volum des Evangelies, e de Vie des Seine. Un volum, qe p’le des quatre principals Gestes de Charles, e de dooun, e de Meyace e de Girard de Vienne et de Emery de Nerbonne. Un volum del Romaunce Emmonnd de Ageland, e deu Roy Charles dooun de Nauntoyle. E le Romaunce de Gwyoun de Nauntoyl. E un volum del Romaunce Titus et Vespasien. E un volum del Romaunce Josep ab Arimathie e deu Seint Grael. E un volum, qe p’le coment Adam fust eniesté hors de paradys, e le Genesie. E un volum en le quel sount contenuz touns des Romaunces, ceo est assaveir, Vitas patrum ay commencement: e pus un Conte de Auteypt; e la Vision Seint Poll: et pus les Vies des xii Seins. E le Romaunce de Willame de Loungespe. E Autorites des Seins humes. E le Mirour de Alme. Un volum ne le quel sount contenuz la Vie Seint Pére e seint Pol, e des autres liv. E un volum qe est appelé l’Apocalips. E un livere de Phisik, e de Surgie. Un volum del Romaunce de Gwy, e de la Reyhne tut enterement. Un volum del Romaunce de Troies. Un volum del Romaunce de Willame de Orenges e de Teband de Arabie. Un volum del Romaunce de Amase e de Idoine. Un volum del Romaunce Girard de Viene. Un volum del Romaunce deu Brut, e del Roy Costentine. Un volum de le enseignment Aristotle enveiez au Roy Alisaundre. Un volum en le quel sount contenuz les Eufaunces Nostre Seygneur, coment il fust mené en Egipt. E la vie Seint Edwd. E la Visioun Seint Pol. La Vengeaunce n’re Seygneur par Vespasien a Titus, e la Vie Seint Nicolas, qe fust nez en patras. E la Vie Seint Eustace. E la Vie Seint Cudlac. E la Passioun n’re Seygneur. E la Meditacioun Seint Bernard de n’re Dame Seint Marie, e del Passioun sour deuz fiz Jesu Creist n’re Seignt. E la Vie Seint Eufrasie. E la Vie Seint Radegounde. E la Vie Seint Juliane. Un Volum, en lequel est aprise de Enfants et lumiere à Lays. Un volum del Romaunce d’a Alisaundre, ove peintures. Un petit rouge livere, en le quel sount contenuz mons diverses choses. Un volum del Romaunce des Mareschans, e de Ferebras e de Alisaundre. Les queus livres nous grauntous par nos hryrs e pur nos assignes qil demorront en la dit Abbeye, etc.”

The more serious part of these libraries may be gathered from the Glastonbury List, which contains the following classical authors:—

Aristotle Livy Orosius Sallust Donatus Sedulus Virgil, Æneid Virgil’s Georgics Virgil’s Bucolics Æsop Tully Bœthius Plato Isagoge of Porphyry Prudentius Fortuanus Persius Isidore Smaragdus Marcianus Horace Priscian Prosper Claudian Juvenal Cornutus

While the list of Forty Books, collected by Abbot John de Taunton and given to the Library in 1271, is instructive:—

St. Augustine upon Genesis. Ecclesiastical Dogmas. St. Bernard’s Enchiridion. St. Bernard’s Flowers. Books of Wisdom, with a Gloss. Postils upon Jeremiah and the Lesser Prophets. Concordances to the Bible. Postils of Albertus upon Matthew, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah and Others, in One Volume. Postils upon Mark. Postils upon John, with a Discourse on the Epistles throughout the Year. Brother Thomas’ Old and New Gloss. Moralities on the Gospels and Epistles. St. Augustine on the Trinity. Epistles of Paul glossed. St. Augustine’s City of God. Kylwardesby upon the Letter of the Sentences. Questions concerning Crimes. Perfection of the Spiritual Life. Brother Thomas’ Sum of Divinity, in Four Volumes. Decrees and Decretals. A Book of Perspectives. Distinctions of Maurice. Books of Natural History, in Two Volumes. Books on the Properties of Things.

The disposition and arrangement of a mediæval library has been treated by Mr. Willis Clarke in his Rede Lecture for 1894. The books were at first kept in the cloister, but since our climate would very speedily destroy books lying in the open air, there were aumbries, or presses, constructed for them. In course of time the cloister was flagged, and the readers were provided with “carrels,” _i.e._ small wooden pews, or cupboards, closed except in the front, which was open to the light. Each carrel contained a desk on which to lay the books. The next step was the construction of the library. That built by Whittington for the Franciscans was a noble hall, 129 feet long and 31 feet broad. It contained twenty-eight desks and twenty-eight double settles of wainscot. Certain books remained always on the desks for reference, and others were brought out from time to time, and both sorts were chained. In some cases an upright bookcase had an open shelf in front on which books could be read, but they were all chained in their places. This caused the books to be ranged with their backs towards the wall. In some cases when books were embossed on the side, they were not placed side by side but flat on the shelf. The chaining of books in all monastic libraries was the constant rule. Since every monastery had its scriptorium, it is reasonable to believe that copies of books were continually being renewed, when the scribes were not occupied in renewing the books wanted for service in the chapel. In every monastery, also, there were illuminators and painters. Lastly, to show that the much-abused friars made good use of the libraries they possessed, there is a List of Scholars given in Steven’s _Monasticon_,[11] from which it appears that eighty names of learned scholars and writers may be found among the Dominicans, as many as one hundred and twenty-two among the Franciscans, and one hundred and thirty-seven among the Carmelites.

[11] Steven’s edition of Dugdale’s _Monasticon_.—ED.

A good deal of information remains concerning the library of St. Paul’s. It contained, among other treasures, eleven MSS. of the Gospels, beautifully written, and bound with silver covers richly enamelled; there were also five Psalters, eight Antiphonals, twenty books of Homilies, seventeen Missals, Manuals, Graduals, Treposia, Organ books, Epistle books, Gospel books, Collectaria and Capitularia, Pontificals, Benedictionals. There were Bibles and portions of Scripture with glosses. And there was the Chronicle of Ralph de Diceto. There was another library in the precinct of St. Paul’s, and that was founded by Walter Sherington; in it were books on medicine, chronicles, grammars, the Fathers, classical authors, and books on law.

§ II. LONDON AND LITERATURE

The connection of Mediæval London with literature and learning must be considered first in the light of Ecclesiastical History and next from the secular point of view.

How far were monastic institutions in general, and those of London in particular, homes of learning and literature? The question can be answered by inference from what we know of other monasteries, not in London, and by the examples of scholars and writers who sprang from those Houses. In the first place, by far the greater number of scholars and writers, for eight hundred years, worked in the Religious Houses. If we run through a list, however imperfect, we shall see that, especially in the writing of histories, monks and later friars are conspicuous. Such a list is instructive and suggestive.

For instance, Bede was a monk of Durham; Egbert, Archbishop of York, was a monk of Hexham; Alcuin, of York; John Scotus or Erigena was a monk; Eadmer, who wrote the life of Anselm, was a monk of Canterbury; the Saxon Chronicle was carried on by monks; Astern, another monk of Canterbury, wrote the lives of St. Dunstan and St. Alphege; Lucian, monk of Eberburgh, wrote an account of Chester; Colman, monk of Worcester, wrote the life of Bishop Wulstan of that see; Turgot, monk of Jarrow, wrote the history of the Monastery of Durham; the famous Ordericus Vitalis was a monk of St. Evroult, Normandy; the great historian, William of Malmesbury, belonged to the monastery of that town; Geoffrey of Monmouth was a monk in the monastery of the town he is called after; Henry of Huntingdon, another well-known historian, was a monk at Romsey; Ailred of Rievaulx was a Cistercian; Hilarius, who wrote the miracle plays, was an English monk; Walter of Evesham was a monk of that place; Layamon was a priest; Roger Bacon was a Grey Friar—as was also Duns Scotus; Roger of Wendover was a monk of St. Albans; of the same monastery was Matthew Paris; Bartholomew Cotton was a monk of Norwich; Matthew of Westminster was a Benedictine, probably of St. Peter’s; Ralph, or Ranulf, Higden was a monk of St. Werburgh’s; Robert of Brunen was a canon of the Gilbertine Order; Nigel Wireker, author of “Brunellus,” was precentor in the Benedictine Monastery of Canterbury; John of Salisbury, author of _De Nugis Curialum_ was a monk in La Celle, in the French diocese of Troyes; Thomas of Ely, who wrote a Chronicle, was a monk of Ely; Jocelin of Brakelonde was a monk of Bury St. Edmunds; William Newburgh was an Augustinian monk; Roger of Hoveden was at one time under vows, since he was employed to go from one Abbey to another, as a kind of visitor or receiver; Benedict, author of a Chronicle, was Abbot of Peterborough; Ralph de Diceto was Dean of St. Paul’s; Alexander Neckham was Abbot of Cirencester; Gervase, the herdman, was a monk of Canterbury; Robert Holcot, theologian, was a Dominican. This long list, which might be enlarged, is sufficient to prove that the pursuit of learning was encouraged, and held in honour in the monasteries. A few of the names quoted above are those of scholars, most of them are the names of chroniclers, and many of contemporary chroniclers. Now the practice followed in one House was observed in every other House obedient to the same Rule. If at St. Albans we find one monk after another writing contemporary history, it is reasonable to suppose that at Westminster and at Holy Trinity Priory, and at Bermondsey, other monks were employing their time in similar pursuits. We do not, in other words, hear of many learned men coming from the London Houses, but since it is certain that at other Houses of the same Rule there were scholars and writers; since it is certain, for instance, that the Dominicans produced fiery champions for the true faith; since, further, it is certain that some of the greatest men of learning were Franciscans, it seems childish to doubt that the same studies, the same incentives to study, were found in the London Houses. Further, out of the great mass of learned doctors, monks, and friars who preached, wrote, and disputed at Oxford, Cambridge, and elsewhere, since only one or two names have survived, there should be little cause for surprise if, for any given House, not one single man should survive of all those who adorned the Rule and advanced its name for learning during the long centuries of its existence. We must remember that although the monks and friars were savagely attacked for pride, luxury, and incontinence, their enemies seldom ventured to attack them for lack of interest in learning or zeal for study. If it is true that the learned and studious life had become discouraged, or had been allowed to die out, which I cannot believe, there would have been this additional crime alleged against them.

Stanley mildly laments that he can find no mention of any great scholar among the Benedictines of St. Peter’s. The same lament may, with equal justice, be made over the Houses of Bermondsey, the Holy Trinity, the Cistercians of Eastminster, and any other London House. Nay, a similar lament may be made over many a college of Oxford and Cambridge in the present century, where, with every possible encouragement to learning, so few great scholars can be found belonging to any single College. I imagine that these desks, these closed cabins, in the north cloister, of which we read, where the monks sat and studied, were never empty, generation after generation; there must always have been some to whom the quiet of the cloister was a special gift of Heaven enabling them to study; and there must always have been also the majority, who had no gift for scholarship. To them was assigned the practical management of the House, or some other work, to save them from vacuity. In truth, for such men as these, the atmosphere of the House was distinctly prejudicial to study, cut up as the day was by service, by forms, and rules.

And lastly, as regards the monastic learning, we must not forget the masses of papers and parchments destroyed in the Dissolution of the Houses and the Dispersion of the Libraries; we do not know, we can have no conception, what treasures were destroyed and scattered. Bale says, “To destroye all without consideracyon is, and will be unto Englande for ever, a most horrible infamy among the grave seniors of other nacyons. I know a merchante that boughte the contentes of two noble lybraryes for XL shyllyngs pryce, a shame it is to be spoken. Thys stuffe hath he occupy in the stede of paper by the space of more than these X yeares.”

For eight hundred years the monks of St. Peter’s, Westminster, had worked in their cloister. What had they done? Where were the Chronicles, the scholastic disputations, the treatises they had compiled? They were never taken out of the library; they never saw the light at all; they were burned when the House perished. In common candour, let us acknowledge that in all these generations of monks some must have done good work.

As regards the literature of the people, we are not without specimens of their songs, though these do not date, for the greater part, before the fifteenth century. Yet London was always a City for music, song, and dancing. Probably the songs that have been preserved for us had older forms. There are the religious songs, as that in the Annunciation, beginning:

“Tyrle, Tyrle, so merylye the shepperdes began to blow.” There are the moral songs lamenting the vices of the age:—

“Every man in hys degre Cane say yf he avysed be Ther was more trust in sum care Than is now in many on. Thys warld ys now al changed new So many men bene found ontrew That in trewth lyven but few Feythfull to tryst upon.”

And the drinking song:—

“Brynge us in good ale, and brynge us in good ale; For our Blessed Lady’s sake brynge us in good ale; Brynge us in no brown brede, for that is made of branne, Nor brynge us in no whyt brede, for therein is no gaine, But brynge us in good ale. Brynge us in no befe, for ther is many bonys, But brynge us in good ale, for that goeth downe at onys, And brynge us in good ale.”

And there were the songs sung in dancing:—

“Skip it, and trip it, nimbly, nimbly, Tickle it, tickle it, lustily: Strike up the tabour for the wenches’ favour Tickle it, tickle it, lustily.

Let us be seen upon Hygate Greene, To dance for the honour of Holloway: Since we are come hither let us spare for no leather To dance for the honour of Holloway.”

And there is the old song of the folk—the oldest that has come down to us. The pipe plays the air, the tabor beats an accompaniment, the singers march down the street wearing garlands and carrying green branches, to welcome the coming of spring:—

“Sumer is icumen in, Lhude sing cuccu Groweth sed and bloweth med, And springth the wde nu (_wood anew_). Sing cuccu.

Awe bleteth after lomb, Llouth after calve cu, Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth, Murie sing cuccu.

Cuccu, cuccu, wel singeth thu cuccu Ne swik thu naver nu; Sing cuccu, cuccu nu, sing cuccu, Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu.”

(Harley MS. British Museum, 978.)

There is another side to the connection of London with literature. It was in London that modern English poetry began. Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London, the descendant of a long line of Londoners; Gower lived much in London; Occleve was a Londoner; Lydgate knew London well, and lived much in the City. If we were permitted to choose poets to grace the mediæval life of London, we could not select four about whom the City could more fitly pride herself than this illustrious company.

Just as colleges increased and multiplied at Oxford and Cambridge for students in Divinity and Arts, so they increased in London, that great University for Lawyers. There were Inns of Court and Chancery Inns, and an Inn of Serjeants. Here lived the students of law, “of their own private maintenance as being altogether fed either by their places or their practice, or otherwise by their proper revenue, or exhibition of parents or friend: for that the younger sort were either gentlemen or the sons of gentlemen or of other more wealthy persons. There were six of such colleges. Four of them were Inns of Court, viz. the Inner and Middle Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, and Gray’s Inn. Nine were houses of Chancery, viz. Clifford’s Inn, Dane’s Inn, Furnival’s Inn, Barnard’s Inn, Staple Inn, Clement’s Inn, New Inn, Chester’s Inn, and one other whose site is unknown. There was a Serjeants’ Inn in Fleet Street, another in Chancery Lane, and a third called Scroop’s Inn over against St. Andrew’s Church, Holborn. The Serjeants’ Inns were only for Judges and Serjeants. The difference between the Houses of Court and the Houses of Chancery was that the former were set apart for students and graduates of Law only, while the latter received the officers, attorneys, solicitors, and clerks who followed the Court of King’s Bench or Common Pleas. Some young students, however, entered a House of Chancery first, and then, after having performed the exercises of that House, removed to an Inn of Court, where they studied for seven years: frequented “readings, meetings, boltings, and other learned exercises,” including small pleadings before a mock Court, and then, but only by the general consent of the Benchers, who have always been extremely jealous of admission, were called to the upper Bar, with permission to practise in the Courts, and in their chambers. After fourteen or fifteen years at the least, the barrister might hope to be elected a Bencher. From the Benchers were chosen Readers for each House; from the Benchers also were elected the Serjeants, and from the Serjeants the Judges.

This observance dates from the time when ecclesiastics ceased to be judges, and when the legal machinery of the country was framed and ordered. The origin of the Serjeants is the small body of servants—“serjeants”—of the King, who were learned at law and were kept in the pay of the King to plead his cases. Some of these serjeants were Italian canonists. There was a great body of ecclesiastical lawyers. The temporal lawyer grew gradually. He was an attorney, that is, he represented some one, or he was a pleader who was allowed to speak on behalf of a client. It was in the reign of Henry III. that ecclesiastics ceased to be judges. One supposes that the ecclesiastical lawyer, the canonist, continued to exist and to find plenty of employment. (See Appendix VIII.)

§ III. THE PHYSICIAN

The advance of medicine, as of all the sciences, was slow indeed during the centuries under consideration. In earlier times monks were the only physicians: their modes of cure were principally prayer, holy water, relics, and pilgrimages; but they knew the use of herbs. It was forbidden to ecclesiastics to use fire or knife, in other words, to practise surgery, but they treated wounds. They set broken limbs, and on occasion they let blood. They set up everywhere houses or hospitals for lepers, and in all the greater monastic foundations there were rooms for cupping and blood-letting. At the medical school of Monte Cassino, the relics of St. Matthew were relied upon far more than the teaching of the professors. Sisterhoods or associations of matrons and elderly women studied and practised obstetrics. Abelard exhorted nuns to learn and practise surgery. Certain Orders undertook different branches of medical work. The Johannists and the brotherhood of St. Mary gave their attention to epidemics and plagues; the brethren of St. Lazarus treated leprosy, smallpox, and fever; the brothers of St. Anthony and the Holy Ghost studied “St. Anthony’s Fire”—dysentery; the Knights Templars studied ophthalmia; the Knights Hospitallers maintained companies of women as nurses.

It was because the physician was at first an ecclesiastic that surgery was separated from medicine. When the physician was a professional person living by the profession, he pretended to hold surgery in contempt, and refused to operate at all. Lanfranc, however, insisted that medicine and surgery ought to go together. When Henry V. invaded France in 1415, he took with him thirteen surgeons, viz. Thomas Morstede and twelve assistants. On his second expedition he asked the City of London to send him volunteers as assistants. None were forthcoming, and Thomas Morstede was empowered to impress as many assistants as he might require. By this time the blood-letting and the surgery were entrusted to the barbers, who were forbidden to advertise this part of their work by placing a cup full of blood in the window. For the people for whom a physician was not attainable, there were bone-setters and herbalists, the latter of whom, if not the former, are still with us.

If the physician of the ninth century believed in relics and holy water, his successor of the fourteenth century placed his reliance mainly on astrology. He was a learned man; he had read all the authors enumerated by Chaucer; he had also read all that was necessary to make an astrologer. This branch of medical science was of the highest importance. “A Physician”—see Skeat’s _Notes to the Canterbury Tales_, ...—“must take heed and advyse hym of a certain thing, that faileth not, nor deceyveth, the which thing the Astronomer of Egypt taught, that by conjunction of the Moone with sterres fortunate cummeth dreadful sickness to good end: and with contrary Planets falleth the contrary, that is, to evill ende.” The physician therefore treated his patient with reference to fortunate hours. This was “magik naturel” as opposed to magic forbidden. Also when he framed images of wax for his patient, making them at a fortunate moment. He also understood what were considered the four elementary qualities—hot, moist, cold, dry,—the mixture of these qualities determined the nature of a man. The physician, it will be observed, did not keep or sell his own drugs; for that purpose he went to the apothecaries, who were distinguished from the physicians chiefly by their ignorance as to the astrological part of medicine they knew—that is, the power and use of the drugs they imported, collected, and sold, but they did not know the proper moment of administering them. The physician observed diet very carefully; he was dressed in a manner which proclaimed the high opinion he entertained of his importance, and he believed in _aurum potabile_, gold that could be administered as a medicine.

In another place (Knight’s Tale), Chaucer describes in general terms the medical treatment of the time:—

“Al were they sore y-hurt, and namely oon, That with a spere was thirled his brest boon. To othere woundes, and to broken armes, Some hadden salves and some hadden charmes Fermacies of herbes, and eek save They dronken.”

Save (salvia) is sage, still taken by country people in the form of tea. It was greatly esteemed formerly. Hence the proverb of the school of Salerno, “Cui moriatur homo dum salvia crescit in horto?” And still in another place (The Nonne Preestes Tale), Chaucer enumerates some herbs in common use:—

“A day or two ye shul have digestyves Of wormes, er ye take your laxatyves, Of lauriol, centaure, and fumetere, Or elles of ellebor, that groweth there, Of catapuce, or of gaytres beryis, Of erbe yve, growing in our yerd, that mery is: Pekke hem up right as they growe, and ete hem in.”

On this passage Skeat explains that the “gaytres beryes” were probably the berries of the Greek thorn, _Rhamnus catharticus_, which in Swedish is the goat berries tree = (A.S.) treow and goat = (A.S.) gate. The _catapuce_ is the caper spurge. Skeat also quotes a passage from Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_ on the merits of these herbs. “Wormwood, centaury, pennyroyal, are likewise magnified and much prescribed, especially in hypochondrian melancholy, and because the spleen and blood are often misaffected in melancholy. I may not omit endive, succory, dandelion, and fumitory, which cleanse the blood.”

It was the property of every wort or herb to heal a man or to harm him. I have added a few to the list given above. Every herbalist or wise woman knew them and their properties.

Betony dispels nightmare, cures sudden giddiness, and prevents drunkenness Cress cures baldness and scurf Wood lettuce cures dimness of vision White poppy ” sleeplessness Smear wort ” fevers Asterion ” falling sickness Everfern } ” headache and liver Churmel } Water lily ” dysentery Leek wort ” bite of adder Savine ” swollen feet Wood dock ” stiff joints Five leaf } Madder } ” sickness and sores Way-bread ” worms

In the country house the ladies were all herbalists: in the towns, the herbalist kept a shop for the sale of her roots and flowers and leaves, and was the General Practitioner for the craftsmen and their households.