"[1]
[1] Dugdale, iv. 405.
This, in brief, is the story of St. Albans' tribute to
learning. In most monasteries the same kind of work
went on, in a more circumscribed fashion, and without the
same distinction of finish, which could probably only be
attained at the big places where expert scribes and illuminators
could be well trained.[2]
[2] For St. Albans see Gesta Abbatum., i. 58, 70, 94, 106, 179,
184; ii. 200, 306, 363; iii. 389, 393
Section II
Fortunately, just when the great houses had attained
the summit of their prosperity, and were beginning the
slow decline to dissolution, learning and book-culture were
freshly encouraged by the coming of the Friars.
The Black Friars settled at Canterbury and in London,
near the Old Temple in Holborn, in 1221. The Grey Friars
were at London, Oxford, and Cambridge in 1224, and by
1256 they were in forty-nine different localities.[1] lt is
strange how the latter order, founded by a man who forbade
a novice to own a Psalter, came to be as earnest in
buying books as the Benedictines were in copying them.
St. Francis' ideal, however, was impossible.
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