English monastic libraries. I. A catalogue of the library of the priory of Bretton, in Yorkshire. II. Notices of the libraries belonging to other religious houses / By the Rev. Joseph Hunter.

  • Joseph Hunter
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: English monastic libraries. I. A catalogue of the library of the priory of Bretton, in Yorkshire. II. Notices of the libraries belonging to other religious houses / By the Rev. Joseph Hunter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sea to be used by the bookbinders, “ not in small nombre, but at tymes whole shyppes full, to the wonderynge of the foren nacyons.” Bale, who says that he could scarcely write of the dispersion of these libraries without tears, has a sensible proposal, that there should be established “in every shire of England one solemyne [solemn] lybrary, for the preservacyon of noble workes and the preferrement of good learnynges in our posteryté.” Something of this kind might even now be done for the provinces by government, if governments can be allowed any leisure to attend to affairs such as these. We are far behind, in this respect, the nations of the continent. It is much that the reformers did nothing to preserve the treasures of ancient learning; for there were among them a few men who understood the value of it. But a great part of the work was carried on by ignorant zealots; and the remark of the eloquent writer of the Essay on Sepulchres, is but too just, that the age of the Reformation “was signally a period in which a plot was laid to abolish the memory of the things which had been, and to begin the affairs of the human species afresh.” and no where can we find the result of so much labour lying within what is so manageable a bulk. Many might have de- racter used in successive ages, and thus assisting to deter- mine the age of manuscripts of far greater importance than themselves. Even those which we now esteem of the least
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