Copy 1

Bibliomania in the Middle Ages or, sketches of bookworms, collectors, Bible students, scribes, and illuminators, from the Anglo Saxon and Norman periods, to the introduction of printing into England ; with anecdotes, illustrating the history of the monastic libraries of Great Britain in the olden time / by F. Somner Merryweather.

  • Merryweather, F. Somner (Frederick Somner), 1827-1900.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bibliomania in the Middle Ages or, sketches of bookworms, collectors, Bible students, scribes, and illuminators, from the Anglo Saxon and Norman periods, to the introduction of printing into England ; with anecdotes, illustrating the history of the monastic libraries of Great Britain in the olden time / by F. Somner Merryweather. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    As a bibliophile, it is somewhat pleasing to trace a deep book-passion growing up in the barrenness of the cloister, ahd to find in some cowled monk a bibliomaniac as warm and enthusiastic in his way as the renowed ‘ Atticus,” or the noble Roxburghe, of more recent times. It is true we can draw no comparison between the result of their respec- tive labours. The hundreds which in the old time were deemed a respectable, if not an extensive collection, would look insignificant beside the ostentatious array of modern libraries, But the very tenor of a monastic life compelled the monk to seek the sweet yet silent companionship of books; the rules of his order and the regulations of his fraternity enforced the strictest silence in the execution of his daily ~ and never-ceasing duties. Attending mass, singing psalms, and midnight prayers, were succeeded by mass, psalms, and prayers in one long undeviating round of yearly obligations; the hours intervening between these holy exercises were dull and tediously insupportable if unoccupied. Conversation forbidden, secular amusements denounced, yet idleness reproached, what could the poor monk seek as a relief in this distress but the friendly book ;—the willing and obedient companion of every one doomed to lonely hours and dismal solitude ? : The pride and glory of a monastery was a well stored library, which was committed to the care of the armarian, and with him rested all the responsibility of its preservation. According to the Consuetudines Canonicorum Regularium, it was his duty to have all the books of the monastery in his keeping catalogued, and separately marked with their proper names.* Some of these old catalogues have been preserved, and, viewed as bibliographical remains of the middle ages, _ are of considerable importance; indeed, we cannot form a correct idea of the literature of those remote times without them. Many productions of authors are recorded in these brief catalogues whose former existence is only known to us by these means. ‘There is one circumstance in connexion with them that must not be forgotten ;—instead of enumerat- ing all the works which each volume contained, they merely _ specified the first, so that a catalogue of fifty or a hundred * Cap. xxi. Martene de Antiquis Ecclesie Ritibus, tom. iii. p. 262.