Of all these writings those of
Hilary, Basil, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Jerome, and the great
Augustine were most popular. John Cassian, Leo, Prosper,
Cassiodorus, Gregory the Great, Aldhelm, Bede, Anselm,
and Bernard, and the two encyclopaedists, Martianus Capella
and Isidore of Seville, were the church's great teachers, and
their works and the sacred poetry and hymns of Juvencus
the Spanish priest, of Prudentius, of Sedulius, the author
of a widely-read and influential poem on the life of Christ,
and of Fortunatus, were nearly always well represented in
the monastic catalogues, as may be seen on a cursory
examination of those of Christ Church and St. Augustine's,
Canterbury, of Durham, of Glastonbury in 1248, of Peterborough
in 1400, and of Syon in the sixteenth century.
In the earlier libraries the greater part of the books were
Scriptural and theological; to these were added later a
mass of books on canon and civil law; so that the
monastic collection may be characterised as almost entirely
special and fit for Christian service, as this service was
conceived by the religious.
[1] Surtees Soc., vii. 80.
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