in the reading-room and some in the adjacent book stores.
The Christian libraries of later foundation closely followed the
classical prototypes not only in their structure but also in
smaller details. The general appearance of a Roman library
is preserved in the library of the Vatican fitted up by Sextus V.
in 1587 with painted presses, busts and antique vases.
As the number of libraries in Rome increased, the librarian, who was generally a slave or freedman, became a recognized public functionary. The names of several librarians are preserved to us in inscriptions, including that of C. Hymenaeus, who appears to have fulfilled the double function of physician and librarian to Augustus. The general superintendence of the public libraries was committed to a special official. Thus from Nero to Trajan, Dionysius, an Alexandrian rhetorician, discharged this function. Under Hadrian it was entrusted to his former tutor C. Julius Vestinus, who afterwards became administrator of the Museum at Alexandria.
When the seat of empire was removed by Constantine to his new capital upon the Bosporus, the emperor established a collection there, in which Christian literature was probably admitted for the first time into an imperial Constantinople. library. Diligent search was made after the Christian books which had been doomed to destruction by Diocletian. Even at the death of Constantine, however, the number of books which had been brought together amounted only to 6900. The smallness of the number, it has been suggested, seems to show that Constantine’s library was mainly intended as a repository of Christian literature. However this may be, the collection was greatly enlarged by some of Constantine’s successors, especially by Julian and Theodosius, at whose death it is said to have increased to 100,000 vols. Julian, himself a close student and voluminous writer, though he did his best to discourage learning among the Christians, and to destroy their libraries, not only augmented the library at Constantinople, but founded others, including one at Nisibis, which was soon afterwards destroyed by fire. From the Theodosian code we learn that in the time of that emperor a staff of seven copyists was attached to the library at Constantinople under the direction of the librarian. The library was burnt under the emperor Zeno in 477, but was again restored.
Meanwhile, as Christianity made its way and a distinctively Christian literature grew up, the institution of libraries became part of the ecclesiastical organization. Bishop Alexander (d. A.D. 250) established a church library at Jerusalem, and it became the rule to attach to every church a collection necessary for the inculcation of Christian doctrine. There were libraries at Cirta, at Constantinople and at Rome. The basilica of St Lawrence at Rome contained a library or archivum founded by Pope Damasus at the end of the 4th century. Most of these collections were housed in the sacred edifices and consisted largely of copies of the Holy Scriptures, liturgical volumes and works of devotion. They also included the Gesta Martyrum and Matriculae Pauperum and official correspondence. Many of the basilicas had the apse subdivided into three smaller hemicycles, one of which contained the library (Lanciani, op. cit. p. 187). The largest of these libraries, that founded by Pamphilus (d. A.D. 309) at Caesarea, and said to have been increased by Eusebius, the historian of the church, to 30,000 vols., is frequently mentioned by St Jerome. St Augustine bequeathed his collection to the library of the church at Hippo, which was fortunate enough to escape destruction at the hands of the Vandals. The hermit communities of the Egyptian deserts formed organizations which developed into the later monastic orders of Western Europe and the accumulation of books for the brethren was one of their cares.
The removal of the capital to Byzantium was in its result a serious blow to literature. Henceforward the science and learning of the East and West were divorced. The libraries of Rome ceased to collect the writings of the Greeks, while the Greek libraries had never cared much to collect Latin literature. The influence of the church became increasingly hostile to the study of pagan letters. The repeated irruptions of the barbarians soon swept the old learning and libraries alike from the soil of Italy. With the close of the Western empire in 476 the ancient history of libraries may be said to cease.
Medieval Period
During the first few centuries after the fall of the Western empire, literary activity at Constantinople had fallen to its lowest ebb. In the West, amidst the general neglect of learning and literature, the collecting of books, though not wholly forgotten, was cared for by few. Sidonius Gaul. Apollinaris tells us of the libraries of several private collectors in Gaul. Publius Consentius possessed a library at his villa near Narbonne which was due to the labour of three generations. The most notable of these appears to have been the prefect Tonantius Ferreolus, who had formed in his villa of Prusiana, near Nîmes, a collection which his friend playfully compares to that of Alexandria. The Goths, who had been introduced to the Scriptures in their own language by Ulfilas in the 4th century, began to pay some attention to Latin literature. Cassiodorus, the favourite minister of Theodoric, was a collector as well as an author, and on giving up the cares of government retired to a monastery which he founded in Calabria, where he employed his monks in the transcription of books.
Henceforward the charge of books as well as of education fell more and more exclusively into the hands of the church. While the old schools of the rhetoricians died out new monasteries arose everywhere. Knowledge was no longer pursued for its own sake, but became subsidiary to religious and theological teaching. The proscription of the old classical literature, which is symbolized in the fable of the destruction of the Palatine library by Gregory the Great, was only too effectual. The Gregorian tradition of opposition to pagan learning long continued to dominate the literary pursuits of the monastic orders and the labours of the scriptorium.
During the 6th and 7th centuries the learning which had been driven from the Continent took refuge in the British Islands, where it was removed from the political disturbances of the mainland. In the Irish monasteries during this period there appear to have been many books, and the Venerable Alcuin. Bede was superior to any scholar of his age. Theodore of Tarsus brought a considerable number of books to Canterbury from Rome in the 7th century, including several Greek authors. The library of York, which was founded by Archbishop Egbert, was almost more famous than that of Canterbury. The verses are well known in which Alcuin describes the extensive library under his charge, and the long list of authors whom he enumerates is superior to that of any other library possessed by either England or France in the 12th century, when it was unhappily burnt. The inroads of the Northmen in the 9th and 10th centuries had been fatal to the monastic libraries on both sides of the channel. It was from York that Alcuin came to Charlemagne to superintend the school attached to his palace; and it was doubtless inspired by Alcuin that Charles issued the memorable document which enjoined that in the bishoprics and monasteries within his realm care should be taken that there shall be not only a regular manner of life, but also the study of letters. When Alcuin finally retired from the court to the abbacy of Tours, there to carry out his own theory of monastic discipline and instruction, he wrote to Charles for leave to send to York for copies of the books of which they had so much need at Tours. While Alcuin thus increased the library at Tours, Charlemagne. Charlemagne enlarged that at Fulda, which had been founded in 774, and which all through the middle ages stood in great respect. Lupus Servatus, a pupil of Hrabanus Maurus at Fulda, and afterwards abbot of Ferrières, was a devoted student of the classics and a great collector of books. His correspondence illustrates the difficulties which then attended the study of literature through the paucity and dearness of books, the declining care for learning, and the increasing troubles of the time. Nor were private collections of books altogether wanting during the period in which Charlemagne and his successors laboured to restore the lost traditions of
