It would be in vain to attempt to trace the state of learning among the Anglo-Saxons before their conversion to Christianity, sometime after which event, schools and seminaries of learning were established in the kingdom of Kent, and soon after the year 635, in that of the East Angles. Previously to this period of our history, the two principal scholars of the Britons were Gildas and Nennius, the first of whom flourished towards the latter end of the sixth century, and the latter in the beginning of the seventh. To Gildas we owe the first lights which are cast upon the troublesome times of the Britons, and of the miseries those wretched people suffered by the invasion and conquests of the Saxons. He has left a short history of Britain and an epistle, in which he heavily accuses the British princes and clergy who were contemporary with him.[9]
To Nennius we owe also a short history of the Britons, and their wars with the Saxons, but the whole is so concise, and so many miracles are crowded into it, that it is no easy matter to separate truth from fiction.
Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, who came into Britain at the latter end of the seventh century, contributed greatly to the improvement of learning. About the same time flourished Aldhelm, a near relation of Ina, king of the West Saxons; he was Abbot of Malmesbury, which monastery himself had founded, and he was afterwards Bishop of Sherborne, where he died in the year 709. Besides other works he left a book on the prosody of the Latin tongue in which he was very expert, being the first Anglo-Saxon that ever wrote in that language both in prose and verse.
On the establishment of Monasteries and Religious Houses in this kingdom, there was a room called the Scriptorium, allotted in all the greater Abbeys, or else some portion of the cloister was appropriately fitted up for the same purpose, where their music and missals, the works of the fathers and other religious books, the latin classics, and such literary works as the monks could obtain, were copied. In the old library in Worcester Cathedral, and in the remaining libraries of some other Cathedral churches, may still be seen the manner of writing music, before the invention of the present notes, and some of the old copies of books.
By means of these Scriptoria, or writing rooms, the monks compiled and preserved, the first annals of Saxon History; without which, however strange the composition of some of them may appear at this time, this would now have been a land of darkness, as to any account of what passed therein, during former ages.
The custom of making this one good use of monasteries and of christian societies, was derived from very early days. About the year 220, Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, built a library there, for preserving the epistles of learned ecclesiastical persons, written one to another; and their commentaries on the holy scriptures. And in what manner Origen was aided to write his admirable works, we learn from Eusebius, who tells us that he had more than seven notaries appointed for him, who, every one in his turn, wrote that which he uttered; and as many more scriveners, together with maidens, well exercised and practised in penmanship, who were to write copies. (Eccl. Hist. of Eusebius Pamphilus, lib. 6. cap. 20 and 21.)
The preservation and progress of science by means of monasteries, is a very curious fact, and the precious estimation in which books were held, when few could read them, is still more so. Some few learned men existed in different parts of Europe throughout those times of darkness and ignorance. Our countryman the Venerable Bede was well versed both in sacred and profane history, as his numerous works testify.
St. Egbert, Archbishop of York, was a disciple of Venerable Bede; he was a man of great learning, and founded a noble library at York about 735, which was casually burnt in the reign of king Stephen, with the cathedral, the monastery of St. Mary, and several other religious houses.
Alcuin, called also Albinus Flaccus, was born in Northumberland; he was the disciple of Archbishop Egbert, whom he succeeded in the charge of the famous school, which that prelate had opened at York. Alcuin was in all respects the most learned man of the age in which he lived; he was an orator, historian, poet, mathematician, and divine. The fame of his learning induced Charlemagne to invite him to his court; and by his assistance that Emperor, founded, enriched, and instructed, the universities of Tours and Paris. In 794 Alcuin was one of the fathers of the synod of Frankfort, and died at his abbey at Tours, in 804. In his epistle to Charlemagne he mentions with great respect his master Egbert, and the noble library which he had founded at York. Towards the latter end of the same century flourished our great king Alfred, who engaged the learned Grimbald, and other foreigners of distinguished abilities in his service.
Eadfrid, who was bishop of Lindisfarne in the year 698, was one of the most learned men of his time. He translated the gospels into latin, which work after his death was highly decorated by his successor with gold and jewels. Bilfrid, a hermit, illuminated it with various paintings and rich devices; and Adred a priest, interlined it with a Saxon version. Before each gospel is prefixed a painting of the evangelist who wrote it, and the opposite page is full of beautiful ornaments, enriched with various colours; then follows the commencement of the gospel, the first page of which is most elaborately ornamented with letters of a peculiar form, and very large, which displays at once the zeal of the writer, and the taste of the age in which the book was written.[10] This curious work is now among the Cottonian manuscripts in the British Museum. It was lost in the sea during the removal of the body of St. Cuthbert in those troublesome times, about the year 876, when the Danes were laying waste the whole country, but it was afterwards found washed up on the shore without suffering any injury. (Hutchinson’s History of Durham, 1. p. 57.) It was under the patronage of the same learned prelate Eadfrid, that the Venerable Bede[11] wrote the life of St. Cuthbert.
The books which Fergus the second, king of Scotland, who assisted Alaric the Goth, had brought with him as a part of the plunder from Rome, had been deposited in the monastery in the island of Iona. From thence they were, by degrees, copied for the use of other monasteries; and besides these, other books were obtained afterwards by means of various journeys to Rome. Benedict Biscop, the founder of the monastery of Weremouth, and the friend of Archbishop Wilfrid, made no fewer than five journeys to Rome to purchase copies of books. These books became deposited in various monasteries. Some such were at Canterbury, where also were books that had been brought from Rome, both by Augustine and Theodore. And the letter of Aldhelm, the very person who founded the monastery of Malmesbury, containing an account of his studies, and progress at Canterbury by the help of such books, is one of the most curious fragments of antiquity. (Angl. Sacra. tom. 2. p. 6.)
The price of these books was at various times enormous. Aldfred, king of Northumberland, gave eight hides of land, that is, as much as eight ploughs could till, for one volume of cosmography; and on this occasion it perhaps ought not to be forgotten, that there is still preserved in the library of Hereford cathedral, an ancient map on parchment, for the illustration of cosmography as known at the period of its being drawn. In the reign of William the Conqueror books were extremely scarce. Grace, Countess of Anjou, paid for a collection of homilies, two hundred sheep, a quarter of wheat, another of rye, and a third of millet, besides a number of martin skins. (Kaimes’s Sketches, 1. 136.)
In these conventual Scriptoria were copied the writings of the fathers and the abstruse works of the first schoolmen; here also were copied little works of genius, sometimes the effusion of fancy and imagination. The fables of Æsop were so much in repute, that we are told king Alfred himself made a translation of them from the Greek. The fanciful devices on the friezes and mouldings of some of our ecclesiastical structures, which have an allusion to Æsop’s Fables, had their first origin amongst pious and ingenious persons, in the peaceful retirement of their conventual retreats. This remark is much confirmed by a curious observation which has been lately made, that even many of the fables themselves that now pass for Æsop’s, seem to have had their real invention and origin in the abodes of the religious. In a very curious memoir concerning the works of Mary, an Anglo-Norman poetess, born in France, who wrote in the French language in the reign of king Henry the third of England, and who among other things translated the fables of Æsop, it is made to appear that there were indeed but few of Æsop’s original fables in her collection, and even those she had borrowed entirely from England, and the greater part, from several allusions in them, evidently shew, that they must have been composed in monasteries, before her time. (See Hume’s Hist. of Eng. vol. 1. 4to. p. 68.—King’s Munimenta Ant. vol. 4. p. 113.—and Archæologia, vol. 13. p. 36-67.)
It is an interesting circumstance, deserving to be mentioned on this occasion, that before the time of Venerable Bede, there lived an Anglo-Saxon poet, of the name of Cædman, or Kedman, of the wondrous powers of whose mind Bede speaks in the highest terms, (Bede’s Eccles. Hist. book 4. ch. 24.) and says he sung of the creation of the world, of the origin of mankind, and of the whole history of the book of Genesis. He died about the year 680, and therefore must have been contemporary with Etheldreda, who founded the monastery of Ely. And it is a very curious fact, little known, that Lye, the author of the Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, translated this poem, and that therein it was found had been introduced, almost exactly, the same idea of the fallen angels, and even the peculiarity of the nine days falling, and of Satan’s assembling his Thanes, on their rousing themselves, which was afterwards introduced by Milton into his Paradise Lost. This account, Mr. King says, he received from Dr. Percy, bishop of Dromore, who had several manuscripts of Lye’s bequeathed to him; and who was well qualified to investigate such curious matters of ancient literature.
It should not be forgotten with regard to manuscripts, the productions of these industrious penmen in their Scriptoria, that king Alfred is said by the Saxon writers, to have first received his eagerness for erudition, in an age when he himself complained of the general ignorance even of the clergy, from his mother’s shewing him a book of Saxon poems, beautifully written, and illuminated, and promising to give it to which ever of her sons should soonest learn to read it.
Until the eleventh century, musical notes were expressed only by letters of the alphabet; and till the fourteenth century they were expressed only by large lozenge-shaped black dots or points, placed on different lines, one above another, and then first named ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, to which si was afterwards added; and they were all expressed without any distinction as to length of time; and without any such things as breves, semi-breves, minims, crotchets, or quavers, &c. The old psalters in many cathedral churches are found thus written; and in consequence of this it was, that the Scriptoria in some other places, as well as at Gloucester, are found so contrived, as to have long ranges of seats, or benches, one beyond another, for the copyists; so that a master or person standing at one end, and naming each note, it might quickly be copied out by all, naming it in succession from one end to the other. Hence the psalters were more easily copied than any other books, and it is not a little remarkable that in the library at Worcester, there is a copy of St. Matthew’s gospel, set to music throughout, with these sort of notes.
In foreign monasteries, the boys and novices were chiefly occupied in these labours, but the missals and bibles were ordered to be written by monks of mature age and discretion. The Scriptorium of St. Albans’s abbey was built by Abbot Paulin, a Norman, who ordered many volumes to be written there, about the year 1080. Archbishop Lanfranc furnished the copies. Estates were often granted for the support of the Scriptorium; that at St. Edmundsbury was endowed with two mills, and in the year 1171, the tithes of a rectory were appropriated to the cathedral convent of St. Swithin at Winchester, ad Libros transcribendos. Many instances of this species of benefaction occur from the tenth century. Nigel, in the year 1160, gave the monks of Ely two churches, ad libros faciendos.
This employment of copying manuscripts appears to have been diligently practised at Croyland; for Ingulphus relates, that when the library of that convent was burned in the year 1091, seven hundred volumes were consumed. Fifty-eight volumes were transcribed at Glastonbury, during the government of one abbot, about the year 1300. And in the library of this monastery, the richest in England, there were upwards of four hundred volumes in the year 1248. More than eighty books were thus transcribed for St. Alban’s abbey, by Abbot Whethamstede, who died about 1400. At the foundation of Winchester college, by William of Wykeham, about 1393, one or more transcribers were hired and employed by the founder to make books for the library. They transcribed and took their commons within the college, as appears by computations of expenses on their account now remaining.
In the monastery of Ely, the Precentor, or Chantor, was the chief librarian, and had within his Office, the Scriptorium, where writers were employed in transcribing books for the library, and missals and other books used in divine service. This officer furnished the vellum, parchment, paper, ink, colours, gums, and other necessaries for limners, used in illuminating their books; and leather, and other implements for binding, and keeping them in repair.
Some of the Roman classics were copied in the English monasteries at a very early period. Henry, a Benedictine monk of Hyde abbey, near Winchester, transcribed in the year 1178, Terence, Boethius, Suetonius, and Claudian. Of these he formed one volume, illuminating the initials, and forming the brazen bosses of the covers with his own hands; but this abbot had more devotion than taste, for he exchanged this manuscript a few years afterwards for four missals, the legend of St. Christopher, and St. Gregory’s Pastoral Care, with the Prior of the neighbouring cathedral convent. Benedict, abbot of Peterborough, author of the latin chronicle of king Henry the second, amongst a great variety of scholastic and theological treatises, transcribed Seneca’s epistles and tragedies, Terence, Martial, and Claudian, to which may be added Gesta Alexandri, about the year 1180.
In a catalogue of the books of the library of Glastonbury, we find Livy, Sallust, Seneca, Tully de Senectute and Amicitia, Virgil, Persius, and Claudian, in the year 1248. Among the royal manuscripts of the British Museum, is one of the twelve books of Statius’s Thebaid, supposed to have been written in the tenth century, which once belonged to the cathedral convent of Rochester. And another of Virgil’s Æneid, written in the thirteenth, which came from the library of St. Austin’s, Canterbury. Wallingford, abbot of St. Alban’s, gave or sold from the library of that monastery to Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, author of the “Philobiblion,” and a great collector of books, Terence, Virgil, Quintilian, and Jerome against Rufinus, together with thirty-two other volumes, valued at fifty pounds of silver. The scarcity of parchment undoubtedly prevented the transcription of many other books in these societies. About the year 1120, one Master Hugh, being appointed by the convent of St. Edmundsbury in Suffolk, to write and illuminate a grand copy of the bible for their library, could procure no parchment for this purpose in England. It is to this scarcity of parchment that we owe the loss and destruction of many valuable manuscripts of the ancients, which otherwise might have been preserved to us. The venerable fathers who employed themselves in erasing the writing of some of the best works of the most eminent Greek or Latin authors for the purpose of transcribing upon the obliterated parchment or vellum the lives of saints, or legendary tales, possibly mistook these lamentable depredations for works of piety. The ancient fragment of the 91st book of Livy, discovered by Mr. Burns in the Vatican, in 1772, was found to be much defaced in this respect by the pious labours of some well-intentioned monk.
The monks of Durham having begun to build a college for their novices at Oxford, about the year 1290, Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, not only assisted, but also partly endowed it. At his decease, in 1345, he left to this college, then called Durham, and since Trinity, college, all his books, which were more in number than all the bishops in England then possessed, in order that the students of that college, and of the University, might, under certain conditions make use of them. After the college came into possession of these books, they were, for many years, kept in chests, under the custody of several scholars deputed for that purpose, and a library being built in the reign of king Henry the fourth, these books were put into pews or studies, and chained to them. They continued in this manner till the college was dissolved by king Henry the eighth, when they were conveyed away, some to Duke Humphrey’s library, where they remained till the reign of king Edward the sixth, and others to the library of Baliol college. Some which remained came into the hands of Dr. George Owen, a physician of Godstow, who purchased Trinity college of Edward the sixth.
The bishop of Durham wrote a treatise containing rules for the management of the library above-mentioned, describing how the books were to be preserved, and upon what conditions they were to be lent out to scholars, and appointed five keepers, to whom he granted yearly salaries. This treatise he called “Philobiblion,” from whence he himself came to be called by the same name, “a lover of books,” and this very justly, if, as he says himself in the preface to it, his love of them was so violent that it put him into a kind of rapture, and made him neglect all his other affairs. He finished it at Auckland, the 24th of January, 1345, being then just 63 years of age. It was printed at Spires in 1483; at Paris, by Badius Ascensius, in 1500; by the learned Thomas James, at Oxford, in 1599, in quarto; and at Leipsic, in 1674, at the end of Philologicarum Epistolarum Centuria una, ex Bibliotheca Melch. Hamingfeldii. It appears also in manuscript in the Cottonian library, in the royal library, and in other libraries in Oxford and Cambridge.
The “Philobiblion,” is written in very indifferent Latin, and in a declamatory style. It is divided into twenty chapters. In chapter 1. the author praises wisdom, and books in which it is contained. 2. That books are to be preferred to riches and pleasure. 3. That they ought to be always bought. 4. How much good arises from books, and that they are misused only by ignorant people. 5. That good monks write books, but the bad ones are otherwise employed. 6. The praise of the ancient begging friars, with a reproof of the modern ones. 7. He bewails the loss of books by fire and wars. 8. He shews what fine opportunities he had had of collecting books, whilst he was chancellor and treasurer, as well as during his embassies. 9. That the ancients outdid the moderns in hard studying. 10. That learning is by degrees arrived at perfection, and that he had procured a Greek and Hebrew grammar. 11. That the law and law books are not properly learning. 12. The usefulness and necessity of grammar. 13. An apology for poetry, and the usefulness of it. 14. Who ought to love books. 15. The manifold advantages of learning. 16. Of writing new books and mending the old. 17. Of using books well, and how to place them. 18. An answer to his calumniators. 19. Upon what conditions books are to be lent to strangers. 20. Conclusion.
In the “Philobiblion” the bishop apologizes for admitting the poets into his collection; quare non negleximus Fabulas Poetarum. But he is more complaisant to the prejudices of his age, where he says, that the laity are unworthy to be admitted to any commerce with books: Laici omnium librorum communione sunt indigni. He prefers books of the liberal arts to treatises of the law. He laments that good literature had entirely ceased in the university of Paris. He admits Panfletos exiguos into his library. He employed Stationarios and Librarios, not only in England, but in France, Italy, and Germany. He regrets the total ignorance of the greek language; but adds that he has provided for the students of his library both Greek and Hebrew grammars. He calls Paris the “paradise of the world,” and says that he purchased there a variety of invaluable volumes in all sciences, which yet were neglected and perishing. While he was Chancellor and Treasurer of England, instead of the usual presents and new year’s gifts appendant to his office, he chose to receive those perquisites in books. By the favour of king Edward the third, he gained access to the libraries of the principal monasteries, where he shook off the dust from various volumes preserved in chests and presses, which had not been opened for many ages.
There were several collections of manuscripts in England before the general restoration of science in Europe, which had at different times been brought hither by those who had travelled into foreign countries; these were chiefly preserved in the two Universities, in the cathedral churches, and in religious houses, but in the fifteenth and sixteenth century several valuable libraries were formed in England.
In the reign of king Henry the sixth, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, fourth and youngest son of king Henry the fourth, was a singular promoter of literature, just at the dawning of science and learning. However unqualified this eminent personage was for political intrigue, and to contend with his malicious and powerful enemies, among whom the Cardinal Beaufort was the principal, he was nevertheless the common friend and patron of all the scholars of his time. A sketch of his character and pursuits, as being closely connected with the progress of English literature, cannot fail of proving interesting, more especially as they are peculiarly associated with the subject of the present inquiry.
About the year 1440, the Duke gave to the University of Oxford a library, containing six hundred volumes, one hundred and twenty only of which were valued at more than one thousand pounds of the money of that day. These books, it need not be observed, were all in manuscript, the art of printing not having then been discovered; they are called Novi Tractatus, or New Treatises, in the University Register, and are said to be admirandi apparatus. They were the most splendid and costly copies that could be procured, finely written on vellum, and elegantly embellished with miniatures and illuminations. Among the rest was a translation into French of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Only a single specimen of these valuable volumes was suffered to remain; it is a beautiful manuscript, in folio, of Valerius Maximus, enriched with the most elegant decorations, and written in Duke Humphrey’s age, evidently with a design of being placed in this sumptuous collection. All the rest of the books, which, like this, being highly ornamented, looked like missals, were destroyed or removed by the pious visitors of the University, in the reign of king Edward the sixth, whose zeal was equalled only by their ignorance, or perhaps by their avarice. A great number of classics, in this grand work of reformation, were condemned as anti-christian, and some of the books, in this library, had even been before this, either stolen or mutilated. In the library of Oriel College, at Oxford, we find a manuscript Commentary on Genesis, written by John Capgrave, a monk, belonging to the monastery of St. Austin, at Canterbury, a learned theologist of the fifteenth century. In it is the author’s autograph, and the work is dedicated to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. In the superb initial letter of the dedicatory epistle, is a curious illumination of the author Capgrave, humbly presenting his book to his patron, the Duke, who is seated, and covered with a sort of hat. At the end of the volume is this entry, in the hand-writing of Duke Humphrey “C’est Livre est a moy Humfrey, Duc de Gloucestre, du don de Frere Jehan Capgrave, quy le me fist presenter a mon manoyr de Pensherst le jour ... de l’an MCCCCXXXVIII.” This is one of the books which Humphrey gave to his new library at Oxford, destroyed or dispersed by the active reformers of the young Edward. He also gave to the same library Capgrave Super Exodum et Regum Libros.
John Whethamstede, a learned abbot of St. Alban’s, and a lover of scholars, but accused by his monks of neglecting their affairs, while he was too deeply engaged in studious employments, and in procuring transcripts of useful books, notwithstanding his unwearied assiduity in beautifying and enriching their monastery, was in high favour with this munificent prince. The Duke was fond of visiting this monastery, and employed Abbot Whethamstede to collect valuable books for him. Some of Whethamstede’s tracts, manuscript copies of which often occur in our libraries, are dedicated to the Duke, who presented many of them, particularly a fine copy of Whethamstede’s Granarium, an immense work, which Leland calls ingens volumen to the new library. The copy of Valerius Maximus, mentioned before, has a curious table or index, made by Whethamstede. Many other Abbots paid their court to the Duke, by sending him presents of books, the margins of which were adorned with the most exquisite paintings.
Gilbert Kymer, physician to king Henry the sixth, and holding, among other ecclesiastical preferments, the Deanery of Salisbury and Chancellorship of the University of Oxford; the latter dignity by the recommendatory letters of the Duke, inscribed to the Duke of Gloucester his famous medical system—Diætarium de Sanitatis Custodia—in the year 1424.
Lydgate,[12] one of the early English poets, translated Boccacio’s book, De Casibus Virorum illustrium, at the recommendation and command, and under the protection and superintendance, of Duke Humphrey, whose condescension in conversing with learned ecclesiastics, and diligence in study, the translator displays at large, and in the strongest expressions of panegyric. He compares the Duke to Julius Cæsar, who, amidst the weightier cares of state, was not ashamed to enter the rhetorical school of Cicero at Rome. Nor was his patronage confined only to English scholars. His favour was solicited by the most celebrated writers of France and Italy, many of whom he bountifully rewarded. Leonard Aretin,[13] one of the first restorers of the Greek tongue in Italy, (which language he learned of Emanuel Chrysoloras,[14]) and of polite literature in general, dedicates to this universal patron his elegant Latin translation of Aristotle’s Politics. The copy presented to the Duke by the translator, most elegantly illuminated, is now in the Bodleian library.
To the same noble encourager of learning, Petrus Candidus, the friend of Laurentius Valla,[15] and secretary to the great Cosmo, Duke of Milan, inscribed by the advice of the Archbishop of Milan, a Latin version of Plato’s Republic. An illuminated manuscript of this translation is in the British Museum, perhaps the copy presented, with two epistles from the Duke to Petrus Candidus.
Petrus de Monte, another learned Italian of Venice, in the dedication of his treatise—De Virtutum et Vitiorum differentia—to the Duke of Gloucester, mentions the latter’s ardent attachment to books of all kinds, and the singular avidity with which he pursued every species of literature.
A tract entitled Comparatio Studiorum et Rei Militaris, written by Lopus de Castellione, a Florentine civilian, and a great translator into Latin of the Greek classics, is also inscribed to the Duke at the desire of Zeno, archbishop of Bayeux. It must not be forgotten that our illustrious Duke invited into England the learned Tito Livio of Foro-Juli, whom he naturalized and constituted his poet and orator. He also retained learned foreigners in his service, for the purpose of transcribing, and of translating from Greek into Latin. One of these was Antonio de Beccaria, a Veronese, who translated into Latin prose the Greek poem of Dionysius Afer de Situ Orbis; whom the Duke also employed to translate into Latin six tracts of Athanasius. This translation, inscribed to the Duke, is now among the royal manuscripts in the British Museum, and at the end, in his own hand-writing, is the following insertion:—“C’est Livre est a moi Homphrey Duc le Gloucestre: le quel je fis translater de grec en latin par un de mes secretaires Antoyne de Beccara ne de Verone.”
An astronomical tract, entitled, by Leland, Fabulæ Directionum, is erroneously supposed to have been written by Duke Humphrey. But it was compiled at the Duke’s instance, and according to tables which he had himself constructed, called by the anonymous author in his preface, Tabulas illustrissimi principis et nobilissimi Domini mei, Humfredi, &c. In the library of Gresham College, however, there is a scheme of calculations in astronomy, which bears his name. Astronomy was then a favourite science; nor is it to be doubted that he was intimately acquainted with the politer branches of knowledge which now began to acquire estimation, and which his liberal and judicious attention greatly contributed to restore.
King Edward the fourth and Henry the seventh greatly assisted the cause of learning, by the encouragement they gave to the art of printing in England, and by purchasing such books as were printed in other countries. William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, purchased many valuable Greek manuscripts which had been brought hither by the prelates and others after the taking of Constantinople by the Turks.
King Henry the eighth may justly be called the founder of the royal library, which was enriched with the manuscripts selected from the scriptoria and libraries of the principal monasteries, by that indefatigable antiquary John Leland.
Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, enriched the library of the college of Corpus Christi, with a great number of ancient and curious manuscripts.
In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Thomas Bodley greatly increased the public library at Oxford, which is now called by his name. This great benefactor to the literature of his country, quitted the court, and applied himself wholly to the purchasing of books and manuscripts both at home and abroad. By these means he had the satisfaction of furnishing that library with 1294 manuscripts, which by the subsequent liberality of many great and illustrious persons, has been since increased to more than eight thousand volumes, including the manuscripts given by Tanner, Bishop of Norwich, and the valuable library bequeathed by the will of Dr. Richard Rawlinson.
Considerable augmentations were made to the libraries of the several colleges in the two universities, as also to those of our cathedral churches, the palace at Lambeth, the Inns of Court, the College of Arms, and others; catalogues of which were published at Oxford in 1697 under the title of Catalogus Manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ.
Bodley’s great contemporary, Sir Robert Cotton, is also entitled to the gratitude of posterity for his diligence in collecting the Cottonian library; he was engaged in the pursuit of manuscripts and records upwards of forty years, during which time he spared neither trouble nor expense.
The noble manuscript library founded by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and greatly enriched by his son Edward, who inherited his father’s love of science, claims a distinguished place in every account which may be given of the literary treasures of antiquity in general, and of this country in particular. Posterity will ever be indebted to her grace the Duchess Dowager of Portland, for securing this inestimable treasure of learning to the public, by authority of Parliament, under the guardianship of the most distinguished persons of the realm, both for rank and abilities, whose excellent regulations have made this library, as also the Royal, Cottonian, Sloanian, and others, now deposited in the British Museum, easy of access, and consequently of real use to the philosopher, the statesman, the historian, the scholar, and the artist.[16]