[PETERSON] THE ROMANCE OF A MANUSCRIPT 483 
Spain, Lorraine, England, Scotland and Poland. By the 15th 
century, the number had grown to 825. It was under the rule of 
Peter the Venerable, the friend of St. Bernard, that this great Benedic- 
tine foundation attained to the zenith of its prosperity, say in the 
middle of the 12th century. Immediately on his death, a catalogue 
was compiled (1158-1161) of the books in the Library, and it is by the 
help of this catalogue that it has been possible to make with complete 
assurance the identification of which I am speaking to you. 
When the manuscript first came into my hands, I happened to 
notice on the first folio a little dot of black ink, which I thought might 
conceal a library mark. It was a not uncommon practice in former 
times—and one which unjust borrowers of books sometimes imitate 
even now—to obliterate any trace of former ownership by erasing 
such marks of identification. On applying a chemical re-agent to this 
particular writing, letters were revealed which I was able to read as 
“de conventu clun’.’’ There was some difficulty about the third 
word, and it might have been a matter of dispute to the present day, 
were it not for the fact that the same library mark turned up after- 
wards in Paris, when it was read with absolute certainty as ‘“‘Clun’’”’ = 
“‘Cluniacensi.”” Moreover there was the old catalogue, in which under 
No. 498, the compiler gave a statement of the contents which was 
almost exactly applicable to the manuscript I am describing. It is 
written in the simple, round orderly hand called “Carolingian minus- 
cule” because it derives from the great Emperor Charlemagne, being 
in fact his contribution to the revival of letters in his day and gener- 
ation. This script is emphatically a ‘‘bookhand,”’ and may be regarded 
as the direct precursor of our printed type. For us it is interesting 
to recall the fact that Charlemagne was helped in his endeavours 
after a correct and legible script by the Englishman Alcuin of 
York, who became Abbot of the great Monastery of St. Martin at 
Tours (796-804). Tours was one of the chief centres from which, 
beginning with the commencement of the 9th century, there issued a 
wonderful series of great manuscripts written, like the one now under 
consideration, in the reformed Carolingian hand. This hand became 
the literary script of the Frankish Empire, in succession to what we 
know as the Roman semi-uncial hand, and it was because it came to be 
generally adopted in neighbouring countries that it is now recognized 
as having been the fore-runner of our own Roman type. 
This Cluni manuscript is now in Lord Leicester’s Library at 
Holkham in Norfolk. It takes its place among the score of manu- 
scripts still in existence which we are led by internal evidence to 
ascribe to the School of Tours, or at least to copyists connected with 
* that School. 
Sec I & II, Sig. 17 
