62
LITERATURE.
fouTtli M preserved in the Exchequer, which, although it be an abridfement of the former, consists of a very large volume.
There is preserved in the archives of Exeter cathedral, another Zhonudat/ Book,vsv&0.y called from that circumstance, the Exon Doomtday; which consists of five counties in the western parts of the kingdom, copied from Eang Wilham's survey. Its size is a small folio, naving 532 double pages of vellum.
Other manuscripts called Doonuiay, or those of a similar nature, are the Inquitxtio Elimtu, a register of the property of the monastery of Ely, preserved in the Cottonian library. The Winton Doomsday, a survey made in the reign of Henry I. to ascertain the demesnes of Edward the Con- fessor,in Winchester. The Boldon Book, an inqui- sition into the rents and teuures dueinthebisbopric of Durham, the name of which was derived from the village of Boldon, near Sunderland, by whose inhabitants its contents were furnished.
1091. The celebrated abbey of Croyland des- troyed by fire: thelibrary contained 700 volumes.
When Joffred, abbot of Croyland, resolved to rebuild the church of his monastery in amost mag- nificent manner in the next century, he obtains a bull,<2M;)eiuin^ with the third part of allpen- aneetfor tin, to thniewho contribultd any thing towards the building of the church, and sent monks into every country to publish the condi- tions. " By this means," says the historian, " the wonderful benefits granted to all the contributors towards the building, were published to the very ends of the earth, and great heaps of treasure, and masses of yellow gold, flowed in from all countries, upon the venerable Abbot Joflred, and encouraged him to lay the foundation of his church." Nor was this all; for, upon the day of performing that ceremony, an immense con- course of earls, barons, knights, &c., with their ladies and families, attended, each of whom laid a stone and deposited upon it a sum of money, a grant of lands, tithes, or patronages, or a promise of materials and labour in erecting the church; and it is said that more was that ^y raised in money and grants, than was sufficient to complete the extended building, in the most costly style.
Such were the extraordinary means by which the clergy of those days overcame the minds, and taxed the parses of the credulous laymen. But as there is no earthly good without some alloy, so neither is there any evil without some concomi- tant good. The very avarice of the clergy, and their disposition to munificence and splendour in their monasteries and churches, were the great means of promoting the cultivation of architec- ture, weavmg, embroidery, painting, working in metals, and all the other fine arts. And it is curious to reflect, that the superstition of the people, was the direct means of difiusing a taste for sculpture. The sway which the churchmen also possessed over the mindsof the rich, operated towards the foundation of many seminaries of learning, and the collection of many valuable 'i'>Mries. " I
1096. The llrst army of the Crusaders marched from Europe, for the recovery of Jerusalem.
"What judgment," inquires Mr. Berring^n, in his Literary History of the Middle Ages, " shall we form of the Crusaders, which were more extra- vagant in their origin, more contagious in their progress, more destructive in their consequenses, than all the follies which had hitherto infuriated or depressed the human mind, and which towards the close of this century, took forcible possession of the western world. The scheme originated in the cultivated mindof Gerbert, in the first year of his pontificate; was nourished by Gregory Vll.; and carried into execution by the activity of Urban II. and the eloquence of Peter the Hermit. Jerusalem was taken in 1098." Isjiorance and barbarism marked the progress of the Crusaders, and litera- ture in every form was the object of indifi°eren<^e. Schools and convents felt the general contagion; and if a few employed the remonstrances of wisdom, they were unheeded, or despised.
Cassiodorus, to use the words of Gibbon, "after passing thirty years in the honours of the world, was blessed wiui an equal term of repose in the devout and studious solitude of Squillace." To this place, (the monastery of Mount Cassino, in Calabria) he carried his bwn extensive library, which he greatly enlarged by manuscripts bought at a considerable expense in various parts of Italy. His fondness for literature spread among the monks; he encouraged them to copy manu- scripts; and even wrote a treatise, giving minute directions, for copying with correctness and facilitT. What he did there seems to hare been imitated in the other monasteries of that part of Italy; for fifty religious houses there are mentioned, which afterwards principally supplied the libraries of Rome, Venice, Florence, and Milan, with manuscripts.
1101. Died, Bruno, the celebrated founder of the Carthusian monks, and one of the active
Eromoters of knowledge, by the attention which e paid to the multiplication of books by tran- scription. He was born at Cologne, about the year 1030, and was descended from an ancient and honourable family. Such was his reputa- tion, that he was considered the ornament of the age in which he lived, and the model of good men. After the legal deposition of Manases, archbishop of Cologne, for simony, Bruno was ofi°ered the vacant archbishopric, but preferred a state of solitude. He, with six companions, withdrew into the desert of Chartreuse,* in the diocese of Grenoble, and selecting a barren plain, in a narrow valley, between two cliffs, near a rapid torrent; surrounded with high craggy rocks, almost all the year covered with snow; there, he and his companions built an oratory, and very small cells, at a little distance from each other, similar to the ancient Lauras of Palestine. Such was' the original of the order of Carmusians, which took its name from this desert.
• The name Charlrnue is given to all other convents of this Older, which by some has lieen comiptijr called Carter House, the term now constantly applied to their ancient residence in London.
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