The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1888-06-30
AN OLD ERROR CORRECTED.
The Middle Ages Were Not as Dark as
Protestant Writers Have
Pictured Them.
LIBRARIES HER TREASURES.
A Lecture Bristling With Facts, by One
Who Understands the
Subject.
BRARlES HER TREASURES.
By Rev. Father Meyer, S. J.

By Rev. Father Meyer, S. J.
That the progress of profane litera-
ture was greatly retarded from the
fifth to the tenth century of the Chris
tian era, no man will deny, who is ever
so little acquainted with events of those
times.
The barbarous hordes of the north
swept like a torrent over the fairest
province of Europe. Nothing could
check their headlong career" writes
Archbishop Spaulding; ''they demol-
ished almost everything, and for we'll
nigh centuries they built up nothing.
Franks and Vandals, Goths, Visigoths,
Ostrogoths, Alans, Huns, Lombards,
Danes and Normans, pushing each
other on, as waves driving waves, cov-
cred the face of Europe with deluge
of barbarlsm.
s'They not only arrested agriculture
and pillaged cities. but they often de-
stroyed libraries, and tore or defaced
the finest monuments of literature and
the arts.'' Occasionally, it is true, an
Attila, calling himself 1.-THE scourage
of God,' would pause with awe before
Leo the Great, pleading with divine
energy that his flock might be spared
by the wolf, and even a Totila, the last
ravager of Rome, would quail before
the humble sancity Of Benedict; but
they were only exceptions to a general
rule. In the middle ages it is true,
books could not be ISSUED by thous-
ands, as they are in this day of steam
presses and stereotyping. Yet, I'VE
come, I think, fairly to the idea,'' says
Maitland, ''that although the power of
multiplication at work in the dark age,
was infinitely below that which now
exists, and even though the whole &C.
tual produce of the two periods are not
to be compared, yet, as regards those
which are considered as the standard
works in sacred and secular literature,
the difference was not so extreme as
may have been supposed.
What the Protestant Bishop Tanner
writes OF England and Wales was true
everywhere else. ''In every great atabbey
there was a large room called the scrip
torium, where several writers made it
their whole business to transcribe books
for the use of the library. They some
times, indeed wrote the ledger books of
the house and the missals, and other
books used in divine seryice-but they
were generally upon other works--the
Fathers, Classics, Histories, etc."
Over them was amonk, we'll versed in
all kinds Of knowledge, called the az
marius bibliothecarius, whose business
it was to appoint some good work as a
task for each, and to correct the mis-
takes of those who wrote negligently
Nor was it only the younger and less
distinguished monks that were engaged
at this work, but often those of ad-
vanced years and great celebrity-such
as Alcuin and Dunstan. They were
not simply copyists; they often carefully
collated and corrected the manuscripts
which they were transcribing.
When they had not at hand book
that they priced, they would undertake
distant journeys with the sole object of
transcribing it; or they would engage a
brother monk in another monastery to
do that charitable Office for them. Mu.
ratori and others have published numer-
GUS letters addressed by one monk to
another asking for a copy (transcript)
of Father, a scientific treatise, of a
history or of a favorite classic author,
of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Cicero, Sallust,
Homer and Demosthenes, etc. In fact,
the monks far outdid in their apprecia-
ton of books, the most enthusiastic
modern advocates Of the diffusion Of
literature. Many monasteries had spe-
cial rules relating to that point. Some
required candidates for admission to
present a copy of some rare work, others
obliged the pupils frequenting their
schools to furnish every year two vol
umes Of manuscript copied by them.
selves.
Schlegel shows that from the time of
Charlemagne t'manuscripts were multi
pied in the west with more profusion
than they had ever been in the most
polished times of antiquity, so that the
writings of Greece and Rome were stu
died and comme ented upon in. remote
and desolate regions to which, if it had
not been for the ecclesiastical society,
their fame would have never been
reached
The libraries were regarded by the
Church in the middle ages as among
richest treasures They were some