The Bible, whole or in part,
was copied with such industry that it became the commonest
of manuscripts, as it now is the commonest of printed
books. Peter Lombard's Sentences became a famous book:
the standard of the schools; everywhere to be found side
by side with the Bible, everywhere discussed and commented upon.
A twelfth century author of quite different character had a good
hold upon the people; the number of copies of Geoffrey of
Monmouth must have been considerable, for the British Museum now
has thirty-five copies and Bodley's Library sixteen. "Possibly,
no work before the age of printed books attained such immediate
and astonishing popularity . . . translations, adaptations,
and continuations of it formed one of the staple exercises
of a host of medieval scribes."[1] A glance at the monastic
and academic library catalogues of later date than mid-
thirteenth century will prove more clearly than a shelf full
of books how enormous was the influence of Aristotle. If
such a collocation as the Bible and Shakspere sums up the
present-day Englishman's ideals of spiritual sustenance and
literary power, a similar collocation of the Bible and
Aristotle would sum up, with a greater approach to truth,
the ideals of the medieval schoolman.
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