Bibliomania
To people of modern times early monachism must seem an unbeautiful and even offensive life. True piety was exceptional, fanaticism the rule. Ideals which were surely false impelled men to lead a life of idleness and savage austerity,--to sink very near the level of beasts, as...
To people of modern times early monachism must seem an unbeautiful and even offensive life. True piety was exceptional, fanaticism the rule. Ideals which were surely false impel...
2. Chapter 2“There are delightful libraries, more aromatic than stores of spicery; there are luxuriant parks of all manner of volumes; there are Academic meads shaken by the tramp of schola...
3. Chapter 3The Conquest wrought both good and evil to literature--evil because the Normans thought books written in the vernacular unworthy of preservation;[90] good because the change bro...
4. Chapter 4“For if hevene be on this erthe . and ese to any soule, It is in cloistere or in scole . be many skilles I fynde; For in cloistre cometh no man . to chide ne to fighte, But alle...
5. Chapter 5To the books of the monastery some human interest clings: we can at once conjure up a picture of the cloister and the scribe at his work; the handling of an old manuscript, the...
6. Chapter 6Probably a few scribes plied their craft in Oxford in early days long before the students began to make a settlement, for the town had been a flourishing borough, one of the lar...
7. Chapter 7As the libraries of Cambridge were mostly of later foundation than those at Oxford, and as the collections were of the same character, it is less necessary to describe them in d...
8. Chapter 8Here it will be convenient to give some account of the regulations for the use of books in colleges, both at Oxford and Cambridge. The University libraries were for reference: t...
9. Chapter 9The cheapening of books has brought many pleasures, but has been the cause of our losing--or almost losing--one pleasant social custom,--the pastime of reciting tales by the fir...
10. Chapter 10Secular makers of books have plied their trade in Europe since classic times, but during the early age of monachism their numbers were very small and they must have come nigh ex...
11. Chapter 11“Some ther be that do defye All that is newe, and ever do crye The olde is better, away with the new Because it is false, and the olde is true. Let them this booke reade and beh...
12. Chapter 12BRISTOL. By Alfred Harvey, M.B. CANTERBURY. By J. C. Cox, LL.D., F.S.A. CHESTER. By B. C. A. Windle. D.Sc., F.R.S. DUBLIN. By S. A. O. Fitzpatrick. EDINBURGH. By M. G. Williamso...
13. Chapter 13[13] Dr. Skene says the Psalter incident “bears the stamp of spurious tradition”; so does the Longarad story; but it is curious how often sacred books play a part in these tales.