[3]
[1] Works, ed. Skeat, i. 379.
[2] Mon. Fr., i. 359.
[3] Epp., 8. 69; Sandys, i. 487-488.
Before work could be started in the writing-room, books
for copying had to be obtained. Usually a few books
were bought or borrowed; then several copies were made
of each, the superfluous volumes being sold or exchanged
for fresh manuscripts to transcribe. Benedict Biscop, as
we have seen, obtained his books from Rome and Vienne.
Cuthwin, bishop of the East Angles (c. 750) was of those
who went to Rome, and brought back with him a life of
St. Paul, "full of pictures." Herbert "Losinga," abbot of
Ramsey and afterwards bishop of Norwich, was a zealous
book-collector;--asks for a Josephus on loan from a brother
abbot, a request not granted because the binding needed
repair; and sends abroad for a copy of Suetonius. Robert
Grosseteste got a rare book, Basil's Hexaemeron, from Bury
St. Edmunds in exchange for a MS. of Postillae.[1] At Ely,
in the fourteenth century, when the scribes there were very
active, the preceptor was always on the look-out for "copy."
On one occasion he was paid 6s. 7d. for going to Balsham
to inquire for books (1329).
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