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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    our purpose, his biographer tells us that he was remarkably skilful in writing and illuminating, and transcribed many books, adorning them with beautiful paintings, whilst in this little cell.*. One of them is preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. On the front is a painting of St. Dun- stan kneeling before our Saviour, and at the top is written ‘* Pictura et Scriptura hujus pagine subtas visi est de propria manu sei Dunstani.”+ But in the midst of these ingenious pursuits he did not forget to devote many hours to the study of the Holy Scriptures, as also to the diligent transcription and correction of copies of them,{ and thus arming himself with the sacred word, he was enabled to withstand the numerous temptations which surrounded him. Sometimes the devil appeared as a man, and at other times he was still more severely tempted by the visitations of a beautiful woman, who strove by the most alluring blandish- ments to draw that holy man from the paths of Christian rectitude. In the tenth century such eminent virtues could not pass unrewarded, and he was advanced to the Archbishopric of Canterbury in the year 961, but his after life is that of a saintly politician, and displays nothing that need be mentioned here. In the year 969,§ Atlfric, abbot of St. Alban’s, was elected archbishop of Canterbury. His identity is involved in con- siderable doubt by the many contemporaries who bore that name, some of whom, like him, were celebrated for their talent and erudition; but, leaving the solution of this difficulty to the antiquarian, we are justified in saying that he was of noble family, and received his education under Ethelwold, at Abingdon, about the year 960. He accom- panied his master to Winchester, and Elphegus, bishop of that see, entertained so high an opinion of A‘lfric’s learning and capacity, that he sent him to superintend the recentiy founded monastery of Cerne, in Devonshire. He there spent all his hours, unoccupied by the duties of his abbatical * W. Malm. de Vita, Dunst. ap. Leland, Script. tom. 1. p. 162. Cotton. MS. Fanstin, B. 13. + Strutt’s Saxon. Antiq. vol. 1, p. 105, plate xviii. See also Hicke’s Saxon Grammar, p. 104. t MS. Cotton, Cleop. b. xiii. fo. 69. Mabd. Acta Sancto, vii, 663. § Saxon Chron. by Ingram, 171.