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BF I er Fe ee A a aT a 
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460 
THE ANTIQUARY. 
No. III. 
On the HYSTORY of PRIVATE LIBRARIES 
72 ENGLAND, previous to the DISso- 
LUTION of RELIGIOUS HOUSES. 
T was at firft intended that our prefent 
Number fhould haye been exclufively 
devoted to the hiftory of the Englith Epr- 
TAPH; but the receipt of a letter from an 
unknown correfpendent, 
faithfully to delineate the literary features 
of a former period, altered the determina- 
tion. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ANTIOUARY. 
SIR, | PORE 
Tt has been ufually fuppofed that previ- 
ous to the diflolution of religious houfes, 
private libraries were rarely, if ever, form- 
ed in England. The bulk even of the bet- 
ter fort of the laity are generally reprefent- 
ed as illiterate; and it was the obfervation 
of Lord Orford, in the life of Tiptoft Eari 
of Worcelter, that, “in thofe rude ages, 
when valour and ignorance were the attri- 
butes of zobility, when metapbyfical fo- 
phiftries and jingling rhymes in barbarous 
Latin were the higheft endowments and 
prerogatives of the clergy; when it was 
enough for noblemen’s fons to wind the 
horn, and carry their hawk fair, and /eawe 
Stady and learaing to the children of mean 
people; it is no wonder that our old peers 
produced ns larger, nor more elegant, com- 
vofitions than the infcription on the fword 
of the brave Earl cf Shrewfbury: 
«© Sum Talboti pro eccidere inimicos.”’ 
But the infinuation of their ignorance is 
too general ; for though the turbulent 
times of Henry VI. and-Edward IV. gave 
few nobles to the learned world, abundant 
proofs may be brought forward without 
any laborious refearch, that literature had 
been long cherifhed in their families. 
The Princes both of the Nerman and 
Plantaganet lines had been affiduous en- 
courazers of learning ; the military expe- 
ditions to the Holy Land, and the inter- 
courfe kept up with it by pilgrimage, 
tended much to preferye the little that re- 
mained of ancient {cience; nor can it be 
fuppofed for a fingie moment that the 
founders of fo many houfes dedicated not 
merely to religious. but literary leifure, 
fhenld have been themfelves uniformly and 
at once deftitute of tafte, abilities, inclina. 
tion, and materials, to profecute the inter~ 
etts of literature. Beaty 
Our monaffic libraries were almoft as 
numerous as tne foundations; and their 
yery exillence feems to indicate a fpirit of 
| Lhe Antiquary. 
which fegms_ 
No. LIL (June 1, 
refearch and a love for letters that could 
not fail to extend itfelf beyond the limits 
of monaftic walls; and the proof of this, 
perhaps, is, that thefe libraries were not | 
_exclufively devoted to the prefervation of | 
bodies of fcholaftic divinity, legends of 
faints, the dry fciences, and partial hifto- 
ries of pious kings; but frequently con- 
tained the lighter compofitions, and the 
works of fancy, the lays, the romances 
and the fabliaux, which in thofe times 
mutt have formed fo large a portion of po- 
pular reading: in thefe, gallantry and Ii- 
terature were mixed together; and, ab- 
ftractedly taken, they would have made but. 
poor furniture fora monkith library. Love 
could never have been a favourite theme 
among the clergy ; while, among the laity, 
no poets were ever more foved, admired, 
or cherifhed than the Troubadcurs of Pro. 
vence. ah: a \) 
In an ancient catalogue of manufcripts 
-which once belonged to Peterborough-ab- 
bey, we find the following romances, every 
one of them in the Provengal tongue ; 
Triffrem 5 
Amys et Armilicon ; 
Guy de Burgoyne ; 
Gea Ofuelis; 
<imours ou effis Venus; ana 
Lumer de Lais. sat 
Tn the library of the Leicefter-abbey, the 
original catalogue of which is Rill preferved 
at Oxford,* were : . 
Livre de Drian aad Madok ;, and 
Biviz, de Hampton ; 
Awd ina manu(cript catalogue of another 
monaftic library, the name of which is un-: 
fortunately loft, I remember to have feen 
the well known romances of 
Yewain and Gawain; | 
Lancelst du Lac; and 
Le Lais delOifelet. 
I particularly mention thefe becaufe the 
hiftorical ballads and metrical romances of 
the middle age moft frequently occur in 
the few documents of private libraries that 
have come down to us. may 
Lerd Orford (Woiks, vol. i. p. 290.) 
called «¢ Earl Tiptoft, and Earl Rivers the 
reftorers of {cience in this country.”? Three 
hundréd years before, indeed, our nobili- 
ty, as well as the great body of the people, 
were completely illiterate; in 1164 when 
Henry I. fent an embafly to the Pope, in 
confequence of Becket’s flight, four of the 
preiates who accompanied it harangued. 
are 
* See Nichols’s Leicefterfhire, vol. iis 
part is. Appendix p, 107, Eales 
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