By the Rev. Canon Jackson, F.8.A. 



51 



of consent or bargain was gone and the document became useless. 

 It is very rarely indeed that even four hundred years ago you find any 

 name written. The same also with Reading and Arithmetic. Every- 

 thing was done by some one connected with ecclesiastics. Of this the 

 very name of clerk which we still preserve, is a proof ; the assistant 

 in a bank or lawyer's office, being still called a clerk : just as a 

 clergyman in law is described as a clerk. This then being the con- 

 dition of the aristocracy and landed gentry, where was Literature 

 kept alive ? Where was the lamp of Learning kept ever burning 

 and never allowed to go out ? Certainly in the monasteries. 



Every monastery, Malmesbury among the rest, had its library, 

 and its writing room : in which a certain number of the brethren 

 spent their time in composing or transcribing : either writing up 

 some chronicle of the times, or copying such works, chiefly of course, 

 theological, as could be obtained elsewhere. 



This monastery produced one — William of Malmesbury — who is 

 called by some, the chief of our old historians. He left eighteen or 



* nineteen works, now of more or less value. He died about the 

 middle of the twelfth century, A.D. 1143, in the reign of King 

 Stephen : but his history covers a space of about one thousand years 

 ending with his own time. He was brought up in this monastery, 

 became librarian, and might have been abbot, but he declined the 

 honour. He is described as having been fond of books from his 



i youth, and as having visited most of the monasteries in the kingdom, 

 and procured every work he could. 



How many valuable and curious volumes, the result of patient mon- 



i astic toil, are now utterly lost, we know from the celebrated Antiquary 

 John Leland. When the monasteries were broken up, the rage 

 seems to have been to destroy not only the buildings, but everything 

 in and belonging to them. The King took care of the plate and 

 jewels : and there are lists preserved of many of the most valuable 

 collections, that fell into his hands. The list of Glastonbury Plate 

 presents a most wonderfnl assemblage of costly things — not of soup 

 tureens, or venison dishes, or wine coolers, or silver trays, to stand 

 upon the side-board or the dinner table : but of chalices, crosses of 

 gold set with emeralds, eagles of silver gilt, images garnished with 



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