[1] Chron. mon. de Abingd., ii. 373.
[2] Hardy, iii. xiii.
[3] Chron. mon. de Abingd., ii. 371; Customary of St. August.,
Cant. (H. Brads. Soc.), introd.
[4] Customary of St. August., i. 96; ii. 36.
As a rule the monks so highly prized their books--
saving them first, for example, in time of danger, as when
the Lombards attacked Monte Cassino and the Huns
St. Gall--that rules for the care of them would seem almost
superfluous. Still, such rules were made. When reading,
the monks of some houses were required to wrap handkerchiefs
round the books, or to hold them with the sleeve of
their robe. Coverings, perhaps washable, were put upon
books much in use.[1] The Carthusian brethren were exhorted
in their statutes to take all possible care to keep
the books they were reading clean and free from dust.[2]
Elsewhere we have referred to an "explicit" urging readers
to have a care for the scribe's writing: in another manuscript
once belonging to Corbie, the kind reader is bidden
to keep his fingers off the pages lest he should mar the
writing on them--a man who knows nothing of the scribe's
business cannot realize how heavy it is, for though only
three fingers hold the pen, the whole body toils.
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