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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    can write, so immeasurable have been the fruits of this little unheeded circumstance. It gave birth to many a bright in- dependent declaration, involving pure lines of scripture in- terpretation, which appear in the darkness of those times like fixed stars before us; to this, in Saxon days, we are in- debted for the labours of A‘lfric and his anti-Roman doc- trines, whose soul also sympathised with a later age by translating portions of the Bible into the vulgar tongue, thus making it accessible to all classes of the people. To this we are indebted for all the good that resulted from those various hetrodoxies and heresies, which sometimes disturbed the church during the dark ages; but which wrought much ulti- mate good, by compelling the thoughts of men to dwell on these important matters. Indeed, to the instability of the fathers, as a sure guide, we may trace the origin of all those efforts of the human mind, which cleared the way for the Reformation, and relieved man from the shackles of these spiritual guides of the monks. | But there. were many cloistered Christians who studied the bible undisturbed by these shadows and doubts, and who, heedless of patristical lore and saintly wisdom, de- voured the spiritual food in its pure and uncontaminating simplicity—such students, humble, patient, devoted, will be found crowding the monastic annals, and yielding good evidence of the same by the holy tenor of their sinless lives, their Christian charity and love. But while so many obtained the good title of an “‘ mator Scripturarum,’ as the bible student was called in those monkish days, I do not pretend to say that the Bible was a common book among them, or that every monk possessed one—far different indeed was the case—a copy of the Old and New Testament often supplied the wants of an entire monastery, and in others, as I have said before, only some detached portions were to be found in their little libraries. Sometimes they were more plentiful, and the monastery could boast of two or three copies, besides a few separate portions, and occasionally I have met with instances where, besides several Biblia Optima, they enjoyed Hebrew codices and translations, with numerous copies of the gospels. We must not forget, however, that the transcription of a Bible was a work of time, and required the outlay of much