[2] Abbot Henry of Hyde
Abbey exchanged a volume containing Terence, Boethius,
Suetonius, and Claudian for four Missals, the Legend of
St. Christopher, and Gregory's Pastoral Care.[3] On one
occasion Adam de Marisco tries to get from a brother of
Nottingham the Moralia of St. Gregory, and Rabanus
Maurus. He sends from Oxford to an abbot at Vercelli
an exposition of the Angelic Salutation, and begs for the
abbot's writings in exchange.[4] Adam had studied at
Vercelli,[5]--a new Italian centre with a close English
connexion. About 1217 Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, afterwards
bishop of Vercelli, was granted the church of
Chesterton, near Cambridge, and when he died ten years
later he left all his estate, including the church, and a
number of books which had been collected at Chesterton
or in England, to Vercelli Abbey. Among the gifts were
two service books in English, and the famous Codex
Vercellensis, which is only less valuable than the Exeter
Book as a first source of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The
Vercelli Book is in Italy to this day.[6]
[1] James (M. R.) 10.
[2] Stevenson, Suppl. to Bentham's Ch. of Ely.
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