Ricardi de Bury: PHILOBIBLON

UNIVERSIS Christi fidelibus, ad quos tenor praesentis scripturae pervenerit, Ricardus de Bury, miseratione divina Dunelmensis episcopus, salutem in Domino sempiternam, piamque ipsius praesentare memoriam iugiter coram Deo in vita pariter et post fata.

To all Christ’s faithful, to whom the tenor of the present writing shall have come, Richard of Bury, by divine mercy Bishop of Durham, eternal salvation in the Lord, and that his pious memory be presented continually before God both in life and after death.

Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quae retribuit mihi? devotissimus investigat psalmista, rex invictus et eximius prophetarum: in qua quaestione gratissima semetipsum redditorem voluntarium, debitorem multifarium et sanctiorem optantem consiliarium recognoscit, concordans cum Aristotele, philosophorum principe, qui omnem de agibilibus quaestionem consilium probat esse: tertio et sexto Ethicorum.

What shall I render to the Lord for all the things that He has rendered to me? the most devoted psalmist investigates, the unconquered king and most excellent of the prophets: in which question he recognizes himself as a most welcome voluntary repayer, a manifold debtor, and one desiring a holier counselor, agreeing with Aristotle, the prince of philosophers, who proves that every question concerning things to be done is counsel: in the third and sixth of the Ethics.

Sane si propheta tam mirabilis, secretorum praescius divinorum, praeconsulere volebat tam sollicite quomodo grate posset gratis data refundere, quid nos rudes regratiatores et avidissimi receptores, onusti divinis beneficiis infinitis, poterimus digne velle? Proculdubio deliberatione sollerti et circumspectione multiplici, invitato primitus spiritu septiformi, quatenus in nostra meditatione ignis illuminans exardescat, viam non impedibilem providere debemus attentius, quo largitor omnium de collatis muneribus suis sponte veneretur reciproce, proximus relevatur ab onere et reatus conractus per peccantes cotidie eleemosynarum remediis redimatur.

Indeed, if so marvelous a prophet, a foreknower of divine secrets, wished to take counsel beforehand so solicitously as to how he might gratefully refund the things given gratis, what can we—rude re-thankers and most avid recipients, laden with infinite divine benefactions—be able worthily to will? Without a doubt, by skillful deliberation and manifold circumspection, with the sevenfold Spirit first invited, so that in our meditation the illuminating fire may blaze up, we ought more attentively to provide an unimpeded way, whereby the Giver of all, from his conferred gifts, may spontaneously be venerated in reciprocity, the neighbor may be relieved of burden, and the guilt contracted by sinners daily may be redeemed by the remedies of alms.

Hujus igitur devotionis monitione praeventi ab eo qui solus bonam hominis et praevenit voluntatem et perficit, sine quo nec sufficentia suppetit cogitandi solummodo, cujus quicquid boni fecerimus non ambigimus esse munus, diligenter tam penes nos quam cum aliis inquiendo discussimus quid inter diversorum generum pietatis officia primo gradu placeret Altissimo, prodessetque potius Ecclesia militanti. Et ecce mox nostrae considerationis aspectibus grex occurrit scholarium elegorum quin potius electorum, in quibus Deus artifex et ancilla natura morum optimorum et scientiarum celebrium plantaverunt radices, sed ita rei familiaris oppressit penuria, quod obstante fortuna contraria semina tam fecunda virtutem in culto iuventutis agro, roris debiti non rigata favore, arescere compelluntur. Quo fit ut lateat in obscuris condita virtus clara, ut verbis alludamus Boetii, et ardentes lucernae non ponantur sub modio, sed prae defectu olei penitus exstinguantur.

Therefore, being anticipated by the monition of this devotion by him who alone both anticipates and perfects the good will of man, without whom not even sufficiency is supplied for merely thinking, whose gift we do not doubt whatever good we shall have done to be, we diligently, both among ourselves and by inquiring with others, discussed what among the offices of piety of diverse kinds would in the first degree please the Most High, and would rather profit the Church Militant. And lo, straightway to the sight of our consideration there met us a flock of scholars—choice, nay rather elect—in whom God the artificer and nature the handmaid have planted the roots of the best morals and of celebrated sciences; but the penury of household means has so oppressed them that, fortune standing contrary, seeds so fruitful of virtue, in the cultivated field of youth, not watered by the due dew of favor, are compelled to wither. Whence it comes to pass that bright virtue, hidden, lies concealed in the shadows, to allude to the words of Boethius, and burning lamps are not set under a bushel, but for lack of oil are utterly extinguished.

Sic ager in vere floriger ante messem exaruit, sic frumenta in lollium et vites degenerant in labruscas, ac sic in oleastros olivae sivescunt. Marcescunt omnino tenellae trabeculae et qui in fortes columnas Ecclesiae poterant excrevisse, subtilis ingenii capacitate dotati, studiorum gymnasia derelinquunt. Sola inedia novercante, repelluntur a philosophia nectareo poculo violenter, quam primo gustaverint, ipso gusto ferventius sitibundi: liberalibus artibus habiles et scripturis tantum dispositi contemplandis, orbati necessariorum subsidiis, quasi quadam apostasiae specie ad artes mechanicus, propter cictus solius suffragia ad Ecclesiae dispendium et totius cleri vilipendium revertuntur.

Thus a field, flower-bearing in spring, before the harvest is parched; thus the grains degenerate into darnel and the vines into wild grapes, and thus the olives go wild into oleasters. Altogether the tender little beams wither, and those who could have grown into strong columns of the Church, endowed with the capacity of a subtle ingenium, abandon the gymnasia of studies. With hunger alone, acting as stepmother, they are violently repelled from the nectarous cup of philosophy which, when they have first tasted, by that very taste they are the more fervently thirsty: apt for the liberal arts and especially disposed to contemplate the Scriptures, bereft of the supports of necessities, as if by a certain species of apostasy they revert to the mechanical arts, for the supports of mere sustenance alone, to the detriment of the Church and the contempt of the whole clergy.

Sic mater Ecclesia pariendo filios abortori compellitur, quinimmo ab utero foetus informis monstruose dirumpitur, et pro paucis minimisque quibus contentatur natura, alumnos amittit egregios, postea promovendos in pugiles fidei et athletas. Heu quam repente tela succiditur, dum texentis manus orditur! Heu quod sol eclipsatur in aurora clarissima et planeta progrediens regiratur retrograde ac naturam et speciem verae stellae praetendens subito decidit et fit assub!

Thus Mother Church, in bearing sons, is compelled to abortion; nay rather, from the womb an unformed fetus is monstrously torn asunder, and for a few and very trifling things with which nature is content, she loses distinguished pupils, afterwards to be advanced into champions of the faith and athletes. Alas, how suddenly the web is cut off, while the hand of the weaver is just beginning the warp! Alas that the sun is eclipsed in the brightest dawn, and the planet as it advances is wheeled backward retrograde, and, pretending the nature and appearance of a true star, suddenly falls and becomes a meteor (assub)!

Quid poterit pius homo intueri miserius? Quid misericordiae viscera penetrabit acutius? Quid cor congelatum ut incus in calentes guttas resolvet facilius?

What can a pious man look upon that is more wretched? What will penetrate the bowels of mercy more sharply? What will more easily dissolve a heart frozen like an anvil into warm drops?

Amplius arguentes a sensu contrario, quantum profuit toti reipublicae Christianae, non quidem Sardanapali deliciis, neque Croesi divitiis enervare studentes, sed melius mediocritate scholastica suffragari pauperibus, ex eventu praeterito recordemur. Quot oculis vidimus, quot ex scripturis collegimus, nulla suorum natalium claritate fulgentes, nullius haereditatis successione gaudentes, sed tantum proborum virorum pietate suffultos, apostolicas cathedras meruisse! subjectis fidelibus praefuisse probissime!

Further, arguing from a contrary sense, let us recall from past outcome how much it has profited the whole Christian commonwealth, not indeed striving to enervate by the delights of Sardanapalus nor by the riches of Croesus, but rather to support the poor better by scholastic mediocrity. How many we have seen with our eyes, how many we have collected from writings, shining with no brilliance of their births, rejoicing in no succession of inheritance, but only upheld by the piety of upright men, to have deserved apostolic chairs! to have presided most excellently over the faithful subject to them!

superborum et sublimium colla jugo ecclesiastico subjecisse et procurasse propensius Ecclesiae libertatem!

to have subjected the necks of the proud and the exalted to the ecclesiastical yoke, and to have more eagerly procured the liberty of the Church!

Quamobrem perlustratis humanis egestatibus usquequaque caritativae considerationis intuitu, huic tandem calamitoso generi hominum, in quibus tamen tanta redolet spes profectus Ecclesiae, praelegit peculiariter nostrae compassionis affectio pium ferre praesidium et eisdem non solum de necessariis victui, verum multo magis de libris utilissimis studio providere. Ad hunc effectum acceptissimum coram Deo nostra jam ab olim vigilavit intentio indefessa. Hic amor ecstaticus tam potenter nos rapuit ut, terrenis aliis abdicatis ab animo, acquirendorum librorum solummodo flagraremus affectu.

Wherefore, with human indigences everywhere thoroughly surveyed under the regard of charitable consideration, to this at length calamitous race of men—in whom, nevertheless, so great a hope of the Church’s progress breathes—the affection of our compassion has particularly chosen to bear pious succor and to provide for these not only the things necessary for sustenance, but much more, with zeal, the most useful books. For this effect, most acceptable before God, our indefatigable intention has long since kept vigil. This ecstatic love has so powerfully rapt us that, other earthly things having been abdicated from the mind, we burned only with an affection for acquiring books.

Ut igitur nostri finis intentio tam posteris pateat quam modernis, et ora loquentium perversa quantum ad nos pertinet obstruamus perpetuo, tractatum parvulinum edidimus stilo quidem levissimo modernorum—est enim ridiculosum rhetoricis quando levis materia grandi describitur stilo; qui tractatus amorem quem ad libros habuimus ab excessu purgabit, devotionis intentae propositum propalabit et circumstantias facti nostri, per viginti divisus capitula, luce clarius enarrabit. Qui vero de amore librorum principaliter disserit, placuit nobis more veterum Latinorum ipsum Graeco vocabulo Philobiblon amabiliter nuncupare.

Therefore, that the intention of our end may lie open as much to posterity as to the moderns, and that we may perpetually stop the mouths of those speaking perverse things, so far as pertains to us, we have published a little treatise in the very light style of the moderns—for it is ridiculous in rhetoric when light material is described in a grand style; which treatise will purge from excess the love which we had toward books, will make public the purpose of our intent devotion, and will recount, clearer than light, the circumstances of our deed, divided into twenty chapters. And since it chiefly disserts concerning the love of books, it has pleased us, in the manner of the ancient Latins, lovingly to denominate it by a Greek vocable, Philobiblon.

Explicit Prologus.

Here ends the Prologue.

Incipiunt Capitula

The Chapters Begin

Capitulum I

Chapter 1

Quod thesaurus sapientiae potissime sit in libris

That the treasury of wisdom is most especially in books

THESAURUS desiderabilis sapientiae et scientiae, quem omnes homines per instinctum naturae desiderant, cunctas mundi transcendit divitias infinite: cujus respectu lapides pretiosi vilescunt; cujus comparatione argentum lutescit et aurum obryzum exigua fit arena; cujus splendore tenebrescunt visui sol et luna; cujus dulcore mirabili amarescunt gustui mel et manna.

The desirable TREASURE of sapience and science, which all men by the instinct of nature desire, surpasses infinitely all the riches of the world: in respect of it precious stones grow cheap; in comparison with it silver turns to mud and refined gold becomes mere sand; by its splendor the sun and the moon grow dark to the sight; by its marvelous sweetness honey and manna grow bitter to the taste.

O valor sapientiae non marcescans ex tempore, virtus virens assidue, omne virus evacuans ab labente! O munus caeleste liberalitatis divinae, descendans a Patre luminum, ut mentem rationalem provehas usque in caelum! Tu es intellectus caelestis alimonia, quam qui bibunt adhuc sitient, et languentis animae harminia laeticans, quam qui audit nullatenas confundetur.

O value of wisdom not withering from time, ever-verdant virtue, emptying every poison from the one who is slipping! O heavenly gift of divine liberality, descending from the Father of lights, that you may bear forward the rational mind even unto heaven! You are the aliment of the heavenly intellect, which those who drink will yet thirst for, and the gladdening harmony of the languishing soul, which whoever hears will by no means be confounded.

Tu es morum mopderatrix et regula, secundum quam operans non peccabit. Per te reges regnant et legum conditores justa decernunt. Per te deposita ruditate nativa, elimatis ingeniis atque linguis, vitiorum sentibus coeffossis radicitus, apices consequuntur honoris, fiuntque patres patriae et comites principum, qui sine te conflassent lanceas in ligones et vomeres, vel cum filio prodigo pacerent forte sues.

You are the moderatrix and rule of morals, according to which one who acts will not sin. Through you kings reign and lawgivers decree just things. Through you, native rudeness laid aside, with talents and tongues polished, the brambles of vices grubbed up by the roots, they attain the pinnacles of honor, and become fathers of the fatherland and companions of princes—who without you would have melted down lances into hoes and plowshares, or perhaps, with the prodigal son, would be feeding swine.

Quo lates potissime, praeelecte thesaure, et ubi te reperient animae sitibundae?

Where do you lie hidden most especially, choicest treasure, and where will souls athirst find you?

In libris proculdubio posuisti tabernaculum tuum, ubi te fundavit Altissimus, lumen luminum, liber vitae. Ibi te omnis qui petit accipit, et qui quaerit invenit, et pulsantibus improbe citius aperitur. In his cherubin alas suas extendunt ut intellectus studentis ascendat, et a polo usque ad polum prospiciat, a solis ortu et occasu, ab aquilone et mari.

In the books you have without doubt set your tabernacle, where the Most High founded you—light of lights, book of life. There everyone who asks receives you, and he who seeks finds, and to those who knock importunately it is opened more quickly. In these the cherubim stretch out their wings so that the intellect of the student may ascend, and may look out from pole to pole, from the sun’s rising and setting, from the north and the sea.

In his incomprehensibilis ipse Deus altissimus apprehensibiliter continetur et colitur; in his patet natura caelestium, terrestrium et infernorum; in his cernuntur jura quibus omnis regitur politia, hierarchia caelestis distinguuntur officia et daemonum tyrannides describuntur, quos nec idaea Platonis exsuperant nec Cratonis cathedra continebat.

In these the incomprehensible Most High God Himself is contained apprehensibly and is worshiped; in these the nature of the celestials, terrestrials, and infernals lies open; in these are discerned the laws by which every polity is governed, the offices of the heavenly hierarchy are distinguished, and the tyrannies of the demons are described—things which neither the Ideas of Plato surpass nor did the cathedra of Crates contain.

In libris mortuos quasi vivos invenio; in libris futura praevideo; in libris re bellicae disponuntur; de libris prodeunt jura pacis. Omnia corrumpuntur et intabescunt in tempore; Saturnus quos generat devorare non cessat: omnem mundi gloriam operiret oblivio, nisi Deus mortalibus librorum remedia providisset.

In books I find the dead as if living; in books I foresee future things; in books the affairs of war are arranged; from books the laws of peace proceed. All things are corrupted and moulder away in time; Saturn does not cease to devour those whom he begets: oblivion would cover all the glory of the world, unless God had provided to mortals the remedies of books.

Alexander, orbis domitor, Julius et urbis et orbis invasor, qui et Marte et arte primus in unitate personae assumpsit imperium, fidelis Fabricius et Cato rigidus hodie caruissent memoria, si librorum suffragia defuissent. Turres ad terram sunt dirutae; civitates eversae; putredine perierunt fornices triumphales; nec quicquam reperiet vel Papa vel rex quo perennitatis privilegium conferatur commodius quam per libros. Reddit auctori vicissitudinem liber factus, ut quamdiu liber supererit auctor manens athanatos nequeat interire, teste Ptolemao in prologo Almagesti: non fuit, inquit, mortuus qui scientiam vivificavit.

Alexander, tamer of the world, and Julius, invader of both the city and the world, who both by Mars and by art first in the unity of a single person assumed imperium, the faithful Fabricius and the rigid Cato would today have lacked remembrance, if the suffrages of books had been wanting. Towers have been razed to the ground; cities overthrown; triumphal arches have perished by putrefaction; nor will either the Pope or the king find anything by which the privilege of perpetuity may be conferred more conveniently than through books. A book, once made, renders a return to its author, so that as long as the book shall survive, the author, remaining athanatos, cannot perish, Ptolemy being witness in the prologue to the Almagest: he was not, he says, dead who vivified knowledge.

Quis igitur infinto thesauro librorum, de quo scriba doctus profert nova et vetera, per quodcunque alterius speciei pretium limitabit? Veritas vincens super omnia, quae regem, vinum et mulierem supergreditur, quam amicis praehonorare officium obtinet sanctitatis, quae est et via sine devio et vita sine termino, cui sacer Boetius attribuit triplex esse, in mente, voce et scripto, in libris videtur manere utilius et fructificare fecundius ad profectum. Nam virtus vocis perit cum sonitu; veritas mente latens est sapientia absconsa et thesaurus invisus; veritas vero quae lucet in libris omni se disciplinabili sensui manifestare desiderat.

Who then will set a limit by whatever price of another kind upon the infinite treasure of books, from which the learned scribe brings forth things new and old? Truth, conquering over all things, which surpasses king, wine, and woman—whom to prefer in honor before friends the office of sanctity claims—which is both a way without a byway and a life without end, to which holy Boethius attributes a triple being, in mind, in voice, and in writing, seems to abide more usefully in books and to fructify more fecundly unto advancement. For the virtue of the voice perishes with the sound; truth lurking in the mind is hidden wisdom and an unseen treasure; but the truth that shines in books desires to manifest itself to every sense capable of discipline.

Visui dum legitur, auditui dum auditur, amplius et tactui se comendat quodammodo, dum transcribi se sustinet, colligari, corrigi et servari.

To sight while it is read, to hearing while it is heard, it moreover commends itself, in a certain way, even to touch, while it allows itself to be transcribed, bound, corrected, and preserved.

Veritas mentis clausa, licet sit possessio nobilis animi, quia tamen caret socio, non constat esse jocunda, de qua nec visus judicat nec auditus. Veritas vero vocis soli patet auditui, visum latens, qui plures nobis differentias rerum monstrat, affixaque subtilissimo motui incipit et desinit quasi simul. Sed veritas scripta libri, non succissiva sed permanens, palam se praebat aspectui et per sphaerulas pervias oculorum, vestibula sensus communis et imaginationis atria transiens, thalamum intellectus ingreditur, in cubili memoriae se recondens, ubi aeternam mentis congenerat veritatem.

Truth shut up in the mind, though it is a noble possession of the spirit, yet because it lacks a companion, is not found to be jocund, concerning which neither sight judges nor hearing. But the truth of the voice lies open only to hearing, hiding from sight, which shows us more differences of things, and, affixed to a most subtle motion, it begins and ends as if at the same moment. But the written truth of the book, not by snatches but permanent, openly offers itself to sight and, passing through the pervious spherules of the eyes, the vestibules of common sense and the atria of imagination, enters the bridal chamber of the intellect, hiding itself in the bed of memory, where it begets the eternal truth of the mind.

Postremo pensandum, quanta doctrinae commoditas sit in libris, quam facilis, quam arcana. Quam tuto libris humanae ignorantiae paupertatem sine verecundia denudamus! Hi sunt magistri qui nos instruunt sine virgis et ferula, sine verbis et cholera, sine pannis et pecunia.

Finally it must be weighed how great the commodiousness of learning is in books, how easy, how arcane. How safely, by means of books, we denude the poverty of human ignorance without shame! These are the masters who instruct us without rods and ferule, without words and choler, without raiment and money.

Si accedis, non dormiunt; si inquirens interrogas, non abscondunt; non remurmurant, si oberres; cachinnos nesciunt, si ignores.

If you approach, they do not sleep; if, inquiring, you interrogate, they do not abscond; they do not murmur back, if you stray; they know not cachinnation, if you are ignorant.

O libri soli liberales et liberi, qui omni petenti tribuitis et omnes manumittitis vobis sedulo servientes, quot rerum millibus typice viris doctis recommendamini in scriptura nobis divinitus inspirita! Vos enim estis profundissimae sophiae fodinae, ad quas sapiens filium suum mittit ut inde thesauros effodiat—Proverbiorum secundo; vos putei aquarum viventium, quos pater Abraham primo fodit, Isaac eruderavit, quosque nituntur obstruere Palestini—Genesis sexto et vicensimo. Vos estis revera spicae gratissimae, plenae granis, solis apostolicis manibus confricandae, ut egrediatur cibus suavissimus famelicis animabus—Matt.

O books, alone liberal and free, who grant to every petitioner and manumit all who diligently serve you, in how many thousands of ways, in typological figures, are you commended to learned men in the scripture divinely inspired for us! For you are the mines of most profound sophia (wisdom), to which the wise man sends his son that from there he may dig out treasures—Proverbs 2; you the wells of living waters, which father Abraham first dug, Isaac re-excavated, and which the Philistines strive to block—Genesis26. You are in truth the most-pleasing ears of grain, full of kernels, to be rubbed by apostolic hands alone, that the most sweet food may come forth for famished souls—Matt.

dudecimo.

twelfth.

Vos estis urnae aureae, in quibus manna reconditur, atque petrae mellifluae, immo potius favi mellis, ubera uberrima lactis vitae, promptuaria semper plena; vos lignum et quadripartitus fluvius paradisi, quo mens humana pascitur et aridus intellectus imbuitur et rigatur; vos arca Noae et scala Jacob, canalesque quibus foetus intuentium colorantur; vos lapides testimonii et lagenae servantes lampadas Gedeonis, pera David, de qua limpididdimi lapides extrahuntur ut Goliath prosternatur. Vos estis aurea vasa templi, armi militiae clericorum, quibus tela nequissimi hostis destruuntur, olivae fecundae, vineae Engadi, ficus sterilescere nescientes, lucernae ardentes, semper in manibus praetendendae,—et optima quaeque scripturae libris adaptare poterimus, si loqui libeat figurate.

You are golden urns, in which the manna is stored, and honey-flowing rocks, nay rather honeycombs, breasts most abundant with the milk of life, storehouses always full; you the tree and the four-part river of paradise, by which the human mind is fed and the arid intellect is imbued and irrigated; you the ark of Noah and the ladder of Jacob, and the channels by which the offspring of those who gaze are colored; you the stones of testimony and the jars keeping the lamps of Gideon, the scrip of David, from which the most limpid stones are drawn forth so that Goliath may be cast down. You are the golden vessels of the temple, the arms of the militia of clerics, by which the missiles of the most wicked enemy are destroyed, fruitful olives, vineyards of Engadi, fig-trees that do not know how to become sterile, burning lamps, always to be held forth in the hands,—and we shall be able to adapt each of the best things to the books of Scripture, if it please us to speak figuratively.

Capitulum II

Chapter 2

Qualis amor libris rationabiliter debeatur

What kind of love is reasonably owed to books

SI QUIDLIBET juxta gradum valoris gradum mereatur amoris, valorem vero librorum ineffabilem persuadet praecedens capitulum; palam liquet lectori quid sit inde probabiliter concludendum. Non enim demonstrationibus in morali materia nitimur, recordantes quoniam disciplinati hominis est certitudinem quaerere, sicut rei naturam perspexerit tolerare, archiphilosopho attestante—primo Ethicorum. Quoniam nec Tullius requirit Euclidem, nec Euclidi Tullius facit fidem; hoc revera sive logice sive rhetorice suadere conamur, quod quaecunque divitiae vel deliciae cedere debent libris in anima spiritali, ubi spiritus, qui est caritas, ordinat caritatem.

If anything, according to the degree of worth, merits a degree of love, and the ineffable value of books is persuaded by the preceding chapter; it is openly clear to the reader what from this ought probably to be concluded. For we do not rely on demonstrations in moral matter, recalling that it is the mark of a disciplined man to seek certitude only so far as he has discerned the nature of the thing to bear it, the arch-philosopher attesting—in the first of the Ethicorum. Since neither does Tully require Euclid, nor does Tully give credence to Euclid; this in truth, whether logically or rhetorically, we try to persuade: that whatever riches or delights ought to cede to books in the spiritual soul, where the Spirit, who is Charity, orders charity.

Primo quidem quia in libris sapientia continetur potissime, plus quam omnes mortales naturaliter comprehendunt; sapientia vero divitias parvipendit, sicut capitulum antecedens allegat. Praeterea Aristoteles, de Problematibus, particula tertia, problemate decimo, istam determinat quaestionem propter quid antiqui, qui pro gymnasticis et corporalibus agoniis praemia statuerunt potioribus, nullum unquam praemium sapientiae decreverunt. Hanc quaestionem responsione tertia ita solvit: in gymnasticis exercitiis praemium est melius et eligibilius illo, pro quo datur; sapientia autem nihil melius esse potest; quamobrem sap[ientiae nullum potuit praemium assignari.

First indeed because in books sapience is contained in the chief way, beyond what all mortals naturally comprehend; and sapience, in truth, makes light of riches, as the preceding chapter alleges. Moreover Aristotle, in the Problems, third section, problem ten, determines this question: why the ancients, who established prizes for gymnastic and bodily agones, and for the more eminent, never decreed any prize for sapience. He solves this question thus in the third response: in gymnastic exercises the prize is better and more choice‑worthy than that for which it is given; but nothing can be better than sapience; wherefore no prize could be assigned to sapience.

Ergo nec divitiae nec deliciae sapientiam antecellunt.

Therefore neither riches nor delights excel sapience.

Rursus amicitiam divitiis praeponendam solus negabit insipiens, cum sapientissimus hoc testetur; amicitiae vero veritatem hierophilosophus praehonorat et verus Zorobabel omnibus anteponit. Subsunt igitur divitiae veritati. Veritarem vero potissime et tuentur et continent sacri libri, immo sunt veritas ipsa scripta; quoniam pro nunc librorum asseres librorum non asserimus esse partes.

Again, only the foolish will deny that friendship is to be put before riches, since the most wise testifies to this; but the hierophilosopher pre-honors truth above friendship, and the true Zorobabel sets it before all things. Therefore riches are subject to truth. And the sacred books most especially both protect and contain truth—nay rather, they are truth itself written—since for the present we do not assert the book-boards of books to be parts of the books.

Quamobrem divitiae subsunt libris, praesertim cum pretiosissimum genus divitiarum omnium sint amici, sicut secundo de Consolatione testatur Boetius, quibus tamen librorum veritas est per Aristotelem preaferenda.

Wherefore riches are subordinate to books, especially since friends are the most precious kind of riches of all, as Boetius testifies in the second book of the Consolation; yet to these the truth of books, according to Aristotle, is to be preferred.

Amplius cum divitiae ad solius corporis subsidiae primo et principaliter pertinere noscantur, virtus vero librorum sit perfectio rationis, quae bonum humanum proprie nominatur, apparet quod libri sunt homini ratione utenti divitiis cariores. Praeterea illud quo fides defenderetur commodius, dilataretur diffusius, praedicaretur lucidius, diligibilius debet esse fideli. Hoc autem est veritas libris inscripta, quod evidentius figuravit Salvator, quando contra Tentatorem praeliaturus viriliter scuto se circumdedit veritatis, non cujuslibet immo scripturae, scriptum esse praemittens quod vivae vocis oraculo erat prolaturus—Matt. quarto.

Moreover, since riches are known to pertain first and principally to the subsidy of the body alone, whereas the virtue of books is the perfection of reason, which is properly named the human good, it appears that books are dearer to a man using reason than riches. Furthermore, that by which faith might be defended more commodiously, spread more diffusely, and preached more lucidly ought to be more loveable to the faithful. But this is the truth inscribed in books, which the Savior figured more evidently, when, about to do battle manfully against the Tempter, he girded himself with the shield of truth—nay, of Scripture—prefacing “it is written” to what he was about to bring forth by the oracle of a living voice—Matt.4.

Rursus autem felicitatem nemo dubitat divitiis praeponendem. Consisti autem felicitas in operatione nobilissimae et divinioris potentiae quam habemus, dum videlicet intellectus vacat totaliter veritati sapientiae contemplandae, quae est delectabilissima omnium operationum secundum virtutem, sicut princeps philosophorum determinat decimo Ethicorum, propter quod et philosophia videtur habere admirabiles delectationes puritate et firmitate, ut scribitur consequenter. Contemplatio autem veritatis nunquam est perfectior quam per libros, dum actualis imaginatio continuata per librum actum intellectus super visas veritates non sustinet interrumpi.

Again, however, no one doubts that happiness is to be preferred to riches. Now happiness consists in the operation of the most noble and more divine power that we have, namely when the intellect is wholly free for contemplating the truth of wisdom, which is the most delectable of all operations according to virtue, as the prince of the philosophers determines in the 10th of the Ethics; for which reason philosophy too seems to have admirable delights in purity and firmness, as is written subsequently. But the contemplation of truth is never more perfect than through books, when the imagination in act, made continuous by the book, does not allow the act of the intellect upon the truths seen to be interrupted.

Quamobrem libri videntur esse felicitatis speculativae immediatissima instrumenta, unde Aristoteles, sol philosophicae veritatis, ubi de eligendis distribuit methodos, docet quod philosophari est simpliciter eligibilius quam ditari, quamvis in casu ex circumstantia, puta necessariis indigenti, ditari quam philosphari sit potius eligendum—tertio Topicorum.

Wherefore books seem to be the most immediate instruments of speculative felicity; whence Aristotle, the sun of philosophical truth, where he distributes the methods concerning things to be chosen, teaches that to philosophize is simply more choiceworthy than to get rich, although in a case arising from circumstance—for instance, for one lacking necessities—to get rich rather than to philosophize ought rather to be chosen—in the third of the Topics.

Adhuc cum libri sint nobis commodissimi magistri, ut praecedens assumit capitulum, eisdem non immerito tam honorem quam amorem tribuere convenit magistralem. Tandem cum omnes homines natura scire desiderent ac per libros scientiam veterum praeoptandum divitiis omnibus adipisci possimus, quis homo secundum naturum vivens librorum non habeat appetitum? Quamvis vero porcos margaritas spernere sciamus, hihil in hoc prudentis laedetur opinio, quominus oblatas comparet margaritas.

Further, since books are for us the most commodious teachers, as the preceding chapter assumes, it is fitting, not without desert, to render to them both the honor and the love due to a master. Finally, since all men by nature desire to know, and through books we can acquire the knowledge of the ancients—preferable to all riches—what man living according to nature would not have an appetite for books? Although indeed we know that swine spurn pearls, the opinion of the prudent is harmed in nothing by this, so as to prevent him from procuring the pearls that are offered.

Pretiosior est igitur cunctis opibus sapientiae libraria, et omnia quae desiderantur huic non valent comparari—Proverbiorum tertio. Quisquis igitur se fatetur veritatis, felicitatis, sapientiae vel scientiae, seu etiam fidei zelatorem, librorum necesse est se faciat amatorem.

Therefore the library of wisdom is more precious than all riches, and all things that are desired are not able to be compared with it—Proverbs 3. Whoever therefore avows himself a zealot of truth, felicity, wisdom or science, or even of faith, must needs make himself a lover of books.

Capitulum III

Chapter 3

Qualiter in libris emendis sit pretium aestimandum

How the price is to be estimated in the buying of books

COROLLARIUM nobis gratum de praedictis elicimus, paucis tamen (ut credimus) acceptandum: nullam videlicet debere caristiam hominem impedire ab emptione librorum, cum sibi suppetat quod petitur pro eisdem, nisi ut obsistatur malitiae venditoris, vel tempus emendi opportunius expectetur. Quoniam, si sola sapientia pretium facit libris, quae est infinitis thesaurus hominibus, et si valor librorum est ineffabilis, ut praemissa supponunt, qualiter probabitur carum esse commercium, ubi bonum emitur infinitum? Quapropter libros libenter emendos et invite vendendos sol hominum Salomon nos hortatur, Prov. tertio et vicensimo: veritatem, inquit, eme et noli vendere sapientiam.

We elicit a corollary pleasing to us from the aforesaid, yet (as we believe) to be acceptable to a few: namely, that no dearness ought to hinder a man from the purchase of books, when what is asked for them is at his disposal, unless it be to resist the malice of the seller, or to await a more opportune time for buying. For if wisdom alone sets the price for books, which is for men a treasure infinite, and if the value of books is ineffable, as the foregoing suppose, how will the commerce be proved dear, where an infinite good is bought? Wherefore that books are to be gladly bought and unwillingly sold, Solomon, the sun of mankind, exhorts us, Prov. the twenty-third: “buy truth,” he says, “and do not sell wisdom.”

Sed quod rhetorice suademus vel logice, adstruamus historiis rei gestae. Archiphilosophus Aristoteles, quem Averoes datum putat quasi regulam in natura, paucos libros Speusippi post ipsius decessum pro septuaginta duobos millibus sestertiis statim emit. Plato, prior tempore sed doctrinis posterior, Philolai Pythagorici librum emitpro decem millibus denariorum, de quo dicitur Timaei dialogum excerpsisse, sicut refert A. Gellius, Noctium Atticarum libro tertio, capitulo septimo decimo.

But what we recommend rhetorically or logically, let us establish by histories of the deed. The arch-philosopher Aristotle, whom Averroes thinks was given as, so to speak, a rule in nature, immediately bought a few books of Speusippus after his death for 72,000 sesterces. Plato, earlier in time but posterior in doctrines, bought the book of Philolaus the Pythagorean for 10,000 denarii, from which he is said to have excerpted the dialogue Timaeus, as A. Gellius reports, in the Attic Nights, book 3, chapter 17.

Haec autem narrat A. Gellius, ut perpendat insipiens quam nihilpendant sapientes pecuniam comparatione librorum. Et e contrario, ut omni superbiae stultitiam cognoscamus annexam, libet hic Tarquinii Superbi stultitiam recensere in parvipensione librorum, quam refert idem A. Gellius, Noctium Atticarum libro primo, capitulo undevicesimo.

Now A. Gellius relates these things, that the unwise may weigh how the wise reckon money as nothing in comparison with books. And on the contrary, that we may recognize the folly annexed to all pride, it pleases me here to recount the folly of Tarquinius Superbus in the slight-valuation of books, which the same A. Gellius reports, in the Attic Nights, book one, chapter nineteen.

Vetula quaedam omnino incognita ad Tarquinium Superbum, regem Romanum septimum, dicitur accessisse, venales offerens novem libros, in quibus (ut asseruit) divina continebantur oracula, sed immensam pro eisdem poposcit pecuniam, in tantum ut rex eam diceret delirare. Illa commota tres libros in ignem projecit et pro residuis summam quam prius exegit. Rege negante, rursus tres alios in ignem projecit et adhuc pro tribus residuis primam summam poposcit.

A certain little old woman, entirely unknown, is said to have approached Tarquinius Superbus, the seventh Roman king, offering for sale nine books, in which (as she asserted) divine oracles were contained; but for the same she demanded an immense sum of money, to such an extent that the king said she was delirious. She, provoked, threw three books into the fire and for the remaining demanded the sum which she had previously exacted. The king refusing, again she threw three others into the fire and still for the three remaining she demanded the original sum.

Tandem stupefactus supra modum, Tarquinius summam pro tribus gaudet exsolvere, pro qua novem poterat redemisse. Vetula statim disparuit, quae nec prius, nec postea visa fuit. Hi sunt libri Sibyllini, quos quasi quoddam divinum oraculum per aliquem de quindecim viris consulebant Romani, et quindecimviratus creditur officium originem habuisse.

At length, utterly astounded, Tarquinius is glad to pay the sum for three, for which he could have bought back nine. The old woman immediately disappeared, who had been seen neither before nor afterward. These are the Sibylline books, which the Romans consulted, as a kind of divine oracle, through one of the Fifteen Men, and it is believed that the office of the quindecimvirate had its origin therefrom.

Quid aliud haec Sibylla prophetissa tam vafro facto superbum regem edocuit, nisi quod vasa sapientiae, sacri libri, omnem humanam eastimationem excedunt, et sicut de regno caelorum dicit Gregorius: tantum valent, quantum habes?

What else did this Sibyl, the prophetess, instruct the proud king by so crafty a deed, except that the vessels of wisdom—the sacred books—exceed every human estimation; and, just as Gregory says about the kingdom of heaven: they are worth as much as you have?

Capitulum IV

Chapter 4

Querimonia librorum contra clericos jam promotos

Complaint of the books against clerics already promoted

PROGENIES viperarum parentes proprios perimens atque semen nequam ingratissimi cuculi, qui, cum vires acceperit, virium largitricem nutriculam suam necat, sunt clerici degeneres erga libros. Reddite praevaricatores ad cor et quid per libros recipitis fideliter computetis et invenietis libros totius nobilis status vestri quodammodo creatores, sine quibus proculdubio deficissent caeteri promotores.

Brood of vipers killing their own parents, and the vile seed of the most ungrateful cuckoos, who, when it has received strength, kills its nurse, the bestower of strength—such are the degenerate clerics toward books. Return, prevaricators, to your heart, and faithfully compute what you receive through books, and you will find books to be, in a certain manner, the creators of your whole noble status, without which, without a doubt, the other promoters would have failed.

Ad nos nempe rudes penitus et inertes reptastis, ut parvuli loquebamini, ut parvuli sapiebatis, ut parvuli eiulantes implorastis participes fieri lactis nostri. Nos vero protinus lacrimis vestris tacti mamillam grammaticae porreximus exsugendam, quam dentibus atque lingua contrectastis assidue, donec dempta nativa barbarie nostris linguis inciperetis magnalia Dei fari. Post haec philosophiae vestibus valde bonis, rhetorica et dialectica, quas apud nos habuimus et habemus, vos induimus, cum essetis nudi, quasi tabula depingenda.

To us indeed, utterly rude and inert, you crawled; as little children you spoke, as little children you savored, as little children wailing you implored to become participants in our milk. We, straightway touched by your tears, extended the nipple of Grammar to be sucked, which you continually handled with teeth and tongue, until, with native barbarism removed, you began with our tongues to speak the mighty works of God. After these things, with the very good garments of Philosophy—Rhetoric and Dialectic—which we had and have among us, we clothed you, when you were naked, like a tablet to be painted.

Omnes enim philosopiae domestici sunt vestiti duplicibus, ut tegatur tam nuditas quam ruditas intellectus. Post haec, ut alati more seraphico super cherubin scanderetis, quadrivialium pennas vobis quatuor adjungentes, transmisimus ad amicum, ad cujus ostium, dum tamen improbe pulsaretis, tres panes commodarentur intelligentiae Trinitatis, in qua consistit finalis felicitas cujuslibet viatoris.

For all the domestics of philosophy are clothed with double garments, so that both the nakedness and the rudeness of the intellect may be covered. After these things, that you, winged in seraphic manner, might climb above the cherubim, adding to yourselves the four pinions of the quadrivials, we sent you to a friend, at whose door, while nevertheless you were knocking importunately, three loaves might be lent for the intelligence of the Trinity, in which consists the final felicity of any wayfarer.

Quod si vos haec munera non habere dixeritis, confidenter asserimus, quod vel ea per incuriam perdidistis collata, vel in principio desides respuistis oblata. Si hujusmodi videantur ingratis pusilla, adicimus his majora. Vos estis genus electum, regale sacerdotium, gens sancta, vos populus peculiaris in sortem Domini computati, vos sacerdotes et ministri Dei, immo vos antonomatice ipsa Ecclesia Dei dicimini, quasi laici non sint ecclesiastici nuncupandi.

But if you should say that you do not have these gifts, we confidently assert that either you lost those conferred through carelessness, or at the beginning, being idle, you rejected those offered. If things of this sort seem small to the ungrateful, we add greater to these. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation; you, a peculiar people reckoned into the Lord’s portion; you, priests and ministers of God—nay rather, you are called, by antonomasia, the very Church of God, as though laymen were not to be designated “ecclesiastical.”

Vos, laicis postpositis, psalmos et hymnos concinitis in cancellis et altari deservientes, cum altario participantes, verum conficitis corpus Christi, in quo Deus ipse vos solum laicis, immo paulo magis angelis honoravit. Cui enim aliquando angelorum dixit: tu es sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech? Vos crucifixi patrimonium dispensatis pauperibus, ubi jam quaeritur inter dispensatores ut fidelis quis inveniatur.

You, with the layfolk set after, chant psalms and hymns in the chancels and, serving at the altar, participating in the altar; you truly confect the Body of Christ, in which God himself has honored you alone above layfolk, indeed somewhat more than the angels. For to which of the angels did he ever say: “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek”? You dispense to the poor the patrimony of the Crucified, where now it is required among stewards that someone be found faithful.

Vos estis pastores gregis Dominici tam exemplo vitae quam verbo doctrinae, qui vobis tenentur rependere lac et lanam.

You are the pastors of the Lord’s flock, as much by the example of life as by the word of doctrine, who are bound to repay to you milk and wool.

Qui sunt istorum omnium largitores, O clerici, nonne libri? Reminisci libeat, supplicamus, quot per nos clericis sint concessa egregia privilegia libertatum. Per nos siquidem vasa sapientiae et intellectus imbuti cathedras scanditis magistrales, vocati ab hominibus Rabbi.

Who are the bestowers of all these things, O clerics, are they not books? Let it be pleasing to remember, we beseech, how many distinguished privileges of liberties have been granted to clerics through us. Indeed through us, imbued as vessels of wisdom and intellect, you climb magisterial chairs, being called by men “Rabbi.”

Per nos, in oculis laicorum mirabiles velut magna mundi luminaria, dignitates ecclesiae secundum sortes varias possidetis. Per nos, cum adhuc careatis genarum lanugine, in aetate tenera constituti tonsuram portatis in vertice, prohibente statim ecclesiastica sententia formidanda: nolite tangere christos meos et in prophetis meis nolite malignari; et qui eos tetigerit temere violenter anathematis vulnere ictu proprio protinus feriatur.

Through us, in the eyes of the laity marvelous like the great luminaries of the world, you possess the dignities of the church according to various lots. Through us, though you still lack the down of the cheeks, set in tender age you wear the tonsure on the crown, the dread ecclesiastical sentence immediately forbidding: do not touch my anointed ones (my christs), and do not malign my prophets; and whoever shall have touched them rashly and violently, let him be smitten forthwith by the wound of anathema, by his own stroke.

Tandem aetate succumbente malitiae, figurae Pythagoricae bivium attingentes ramum laevum eligites et retrorsum abeuntes sortem Domini praeassumptam dimittitis, socii facti furum; sicque semper proficientes in pejus, latrociniis, homocidiis et multigenis impudicitiis maculati, tam stitia, in manicis et compedibus coarctati, servamini morte turpissima puniendi. Tunc elongatur amicus et proximus, nec est qui doleat vicem vestram. Petrus jurat se hominem non novisse; vulgus clamat justiciario: crucifige, crucifige eum!

At length, as your age succumbs to malice, touching the Pythagorean figure’s bivium you choose the left branch, and going backward you abandon the lot of the Lord previously assumed, made companions of thieves; and thus ever profiting into the worse, stained with robberies, homicides, and impudicities of many kinds, in such a state, constrained in manacles and fetters, you are kept to be punished with a most shameful death. Then friend and neighbor are made distant, nor is there anyone to grieve your case. Peter swears that he does not know the man; the crowd cries to the justiciar: crucify, crucify him!

quoniam si hunc dimittis, Caesaris amicus non eris. Jam periit omnis fuga, nam ante tribunal oportet assisti, nec locus suppetit appellandi sed solum suspendium exspectatur.

since, if you release this man, you will not be a friend of Caesar. Already every avenue of escape has perished, for one must stand before the tribunal, nor is any opportunity for appealing at hand, but only the hanging is awaited.

Dum sic tristitia complevit cor miseri et solae Camenae lacerae fletibus ora rigant, fit balatus angustiis undique memor nostri et ut evitet mortis propinquae periculum antiquatae tonsurae, quam dedimus, parvum praefert signaculum, supplicans ut vocemur in medium et collati muneris testes simus. Tunc misericordia statim moti occurrimus filio prodigo et a portis mortis servum eripimus fugitivum. Legendus liber porrigitur non ignotus et ad modicam balbutientis praetimore lecturam judicis potestas dissolvitur, accusator trahitur, mors fugator.

While thus sadness filled the heart of the wretch, and the Camenae alone bathe their torn faces with tears, there arises a bleating, in straits on every side, mindful of us; and, that he might avoid the peril of near death, he holds forth the small sign of the antiquated tonsure, which we had given, beseeching that we be summoned into the midst and be witnesses of the gift conferred. Then, moved at once by mercy, we run to meet the prodigal son, and from the gates of death we snatch the runaway slave. A book to be read, not unknown, is proffered; and at the slight reading of one stammering from fear, the power of the judge is dissolved, the accuser is dragged away, death is put to flight.

O carminis empirici mira virtus! O dirae cladis antidotum salutare! O lectio pretiosa psalterii, quod meretur hoc ipso liber vitae deinceps appellari!

O wondrous virtue of the empiric’s chant! O salutary antidote of dire calamity! O precious reading of the psalter, which by this very fact deserves henceforth to be called the book of life!

Sustineat laici saeculare judicium, ut vel insuti culleis enatent ad Neptunam, vel in terra plantati Plutoni fructificent, aut Vulcano per incendia holocaustum se offerant medullatum, vel certe suspensi victima sint Junoni; dum noster alumnus ad lectionem unicam libri vitae pontificis commendatur custodiae et rigor in favorem convertitur, ac dum forum transfertur a laico, a librorum alumno clerico mors differtur.

Let them undergo the layman’s secular judgment, so that either, sewn into sacks, they may float out to Neptune, or, planted in the earth, they may bear fruit to Pluto, or they may offer themselves, to the marrow, as a holocaust to Vulcan through the fires, or at least, hanging, be a victim to Juno; while our alumnus is entrusted to custody for the single reading of the pontiff’s book of life and rigor is converted into favor, and while the forum is transferred from the layman, by the books’ alumnus, the cleric, death is deferred.

Caeterum jam de clericis, qui sunt vasa virtutis, loquamur. Quis de vobis pulpitum seu scabellum praedicaturus ascendit nobis penitus inconsultis? Quis scholas lecturus vel disputaturus ingreditur, qui nostris conatibus non fulcitur?

Moreover, now let us speak about the clerics, who are vessels of virtue. Who among you ascends the pulpit or the footstool to preach, with us wholly unconsulted? Who enters the schools to read or to dispute, who is not supported by our endeavors?

Primum oportet volumen cum Ezechiele comedere, quo venter memoriae dulcescat intrinsecus et sic more pantherae refectae redoleat extrinsecus conceptorum aromatum odor suavis, ad cujus anhelitum coanhelent accedere omnes bestiae et jumenta. Sic nostra natura in nostris familiaribus operante latenter, auditores accurrunt benevoli, sicut adamas trahit ferrum nquaquam invite. O virtus infinita librorum!

First, one ought to eat the volume with Ezekiel, whereby the belly of memory may be sweetened inwardly, and thus, after the manner of a refreshed panther, there may redolently breathe outward the sweet odor of the aromata conceived, at whose breath all beasts and cattle pant to draw near. Thus, our nature, working latently in our familiars, the auditors run up well-disposed, just as the adamant draws iron not at all unwilling. O infinite virtue of books!

Jacent Parisius vel Athenis simulque resonat in Britannia et in Roma. Quiescentes quippe moventur, dum ipsis loca sua tenentibus, auditorum intellectibus circumquaque feruntur.

They lie at Paris or at Athens, and at the same time they resound in Britain and in Rome. For, while at rest, they are moved; while they themselves, keeping their own places, are borne all around in the intellects of the hearers.

Nos denique sacerdotes, pontifices, cardinales et papam, ut cuncta in hierarchia ecclesiastica collocentur in ordine, litterarum scientia stabilimus. A libris namque sumit originem quicquid boni provenit statui clericali. Sed haec hactenus: piget enim reminisci quae dedimus populo clericorum degeneri, quia magis videntur perdita quam collata, quaecumque munera tribuuntur ingratis.

We, finally, priests, pontiffs, cardinals, and the pope, by the science of letters establish that all things in the ecclesiastical hierarchy be set in order. For from books, indeed, takes its origin whatever good comes to the clerical estate. But so much for these things: for it irks me to recall what we have given to the people of degenerate clerics, because whatever gifts are bestowed upon the ungrateful seem rather lost than conferred.

Deinceps insistemus parumper recitandis injuriis quas rependunt, vilipensionibus et jacturis, de quibus nec singula generum recitare sufficimus, immo vix proxima genera singulorum. Inprimis de domiciliis clericorum nobis jure haereditario debitis vi et armis expellimur, qui quondam in interiori cubiculo cellulas habebamus quietis, sed proh dolor! his nefandis temporibus penitus exsulantes improperium patimur extra portas.

Next we shall insist for a little while on reciting the injuries which they repay, the vilifications and losses, of which we do not even suffice to recite the individual species of the kinds—indeed, scarcely the proximate genera of the particulars. In the first place, from the dwellings of the clerics, owed to us by hereditary right, we are driven out by force and arms—we who once had little cells of repose in the inner chamber; but, alas! in these nefarious times, utterly exiled, we endure reproach outside the gates.

Occupant etenim loca nostra nunc canes, nunc aves, nunc bestia bipedalis, cujus cohabitatio cum clericis vetabatur antiquitus, a qua semper super aspidem et basiliscum alumnos nostros docuimus esse fugiendum; quamobrem ista nostris semper studiis aemula, nullo die placanda, finaliter nos conspectos in angulo jam defunctae araneae sola tela protectos, in rugam fronte collecta, virulentis sermonibus detrahit et subsannat, ac nos in tota domus suppellecti supervacaneos hospitari demonstrat et ad unumquodque oeconomiae servitiam conqueritor otiosos, mox in captiegia pretiosa, sindonem et sericum et coccum bis tinctum, vestes et varias furraturas, linum et lanam, nos consulit commutandos: et quidem merito, si videret intrinseca cordis nostri, si nostris privatis interfuisset consiliis, si Theophrasti vel Valerii perlegisset, vel saltem quintum et vicensimum capitulum Ecclesiastici auribus intellectus audisset.

For indeed our places are now occupied, now by dogs, now by birds, now by the bipedal beast, whose cohabitation with clerics was in antiquity forbidden, from whom, more than the asp and the basilisk, we have always taught our pupils to flee; wherefore this one, ever a rival to our studies, placable on no day, finally, having caught sight of us in a corner, protected only by the web of a now-defunct spider, the brow gathered into a wrinkle, with virulent speeches detracts and mocks, and demonstrates that we lodge as superfluous among all the furnishings of the house, and complains that for every service of the oeconomy we are idle, forthwith advising that we be exchanged for costly coifs, fine linen and silk and twice-dyed scarlet, garments and various furs, flax and wool: and indeed with reason, if she were to see the inner things of our heart, if she had taken part in our private counsels, if she had thoroughly read Theophrastus or Valerius, or at least had heard with the ears of understanding the twenty-fifth chapter of Ecclesiasticus.

Quapropter conquerimur de hospitiis nobis injuste ablatis, de vestibus, non quidem non datis sed de datis antiquitus, violentis manibus laceratis. Adhaesit pavimento anima nostra, conglutinatus est in terra venter noster, et gloria nostra in pulverem est deducta. Morbis variis laboramus, dorsa dolentes et latera, et jacemus membratim paralysi dissoluti, nec est qui recogitet, nec est ullus qui malagma procuret.

Wherefore we complain of the guest‑quarters unjustly taken from us, of the garments, not indeed not given, but those given in ancient times, lacerated by violent hands. Our soul has adhered to the pavement, our belly is conglutinated to the earth, and our glory has been led down into the dust. We labor under various maladies, our backs and sides aching, and we lie, limb by limb, dissolved by paralysis; nor is there anyone who takes thought, nor is there anyone to procure a poultice.

Candor nativus et luce perspicuus jam in fuscum et croceum est conversus, ut nemo medicus dubitet ictericia nos infectos. Arthriticam patiuntur nonnulli de nobis, sicut extremitates retortae insinuant evidenter. Fumus et pulvis, quibus infestamur assidue, radiorum visualium aciem hebetarunt et jam lippientibus oculis ophthalmiam superducunt.

Native candor and brightness, perspicuous with light, has now been turned to dusky and saffron-hued, so that no physician doubts that we are infected with jaundice. Some of us suffer the arthritic condition, as the twisted extremities plainly intimate. Smoke and dust, with which we are assiduously infested, have dulled the edge of the visual rays and now, with bleary eyes, are bringing on ophthalmia.

Ventres nostri duris torsionibus viscerum, quae vermes edaces non cessant corrodere, consumuntur et utriusque Lazari sustinemus putridinem, nec invenitur quisquam, qui cedri resina non liniat vel qui quatriduano jam putrido clamans dicat, Lazare veni foras! Nullo circumligantur medicamine vulnera nostra saeva, quae nobis innoxiis inferuntur atrociter, nec est ullus qui super nostra ulcera cataplasmet; sed pannosi et algidi in angulos tenebrosos abicimur, in lacrimis cum sancto Job in sterquilionio colocamur, vel, quod nefas videtur effatu, in abyssis abscondimur cloacarum. Pulvinar subtrahitur evangelicis supponendum lateribus, quibus primo deberent de sortibus clericorum provenire subsidia et sic ad nos suo famulatui deputandos pro semper communis victus necessarius derivari.

Our bellies are consumed by hard torsions of the viscera, which ravenous worms do not cease to corrode, and we endure the putridity of both Lazaruses, nor is there anyone found to smear with the resin of cedar or who, crying to the already four-days-putrid, would say, Lazarus, come forth! With no medicament are our savage wounds bandaged, which are atrociously inflicted upon us who are innocent, nor is there anyone to apply a poultice upon our ulcers; but rag-clad and gelid we are cast into tenebrous corners, in tears with holy Job we are placed on the dunghill, or, what seems a nefas to utter, we are hidden in the abysses of the sewers. The cushion is withdrawn that should be placed under the sides of the evangelical, for whom in the first place aids ought to proceed from the portions of the clerics, and thus to us, to be deputed to their service, the necessary common sustenance should be channeled forever.

Rursus de alio genere calamitatis conquerimur, quae personis nostris crebrius irrogatur injuste. Nam in servos vendimur et ancillas et obsides in tabernis absque redemptore jacemus. Macellariis crudelibus subdimur, ubi mactare tam pecora quam jumenta sine piis lacrimis non videmus et ubi millesies morimur ipso metu, qui cadere posset in constantem.

Again we complain of another kind of calamity, which is more frequently inflicted unjustly upon our persons. For we are sold as slaves and maidservants, and we lie as hostages in taverns without a redeemer. We are subjected to cruel butchers, where we cannot behold the slaughtering of both cattle and beasts of burden without pious tears, and where we die a thousand times from fear itself, which could fall even upon a steadfast man.

Judaeis committimur, Sarracenis, haereticis et paganis, quorum super omnia toxicum formidamus, per quos nonnullos de nostris parentibus per venemum pestiferum constat esse corruptos. Sane nos, qui architectonici reputari debemus in scientiis et subjectis nobis omnibus mechanicis imperamus, subalternatorum regimini vice versa committimur, tanquam si monarcha summe nobilis rusticanis calcaneis substernatur. Sartor et sutor et scissor quicunque ac cujuslibet artifex operis inclusos nos custodit in carcere pro superfluis et lascivis deliciis clericorum.

We are committed to the Jews, the Saracens, the heretics and the pagans, whose toxin above all we dread, through whom it is established that several of our kinsmen have been corrupted by pestiferous poison. Indeed we, who ought to be reckoned architectonic in the sciences and to command all the mechanicals subject to us, are conversely entrusted to the governance of subalterns, as if a most noble monarch were laid beneath the heels of rustics. The tailor and the cobbler and whatever cutter, and any craftsman of any work, keeps us shut up in prison for the superfluous and lascivious delights of the clerics.

Jam volumus prosequi novum genus injuriae, quo tam in nostris personis laedimur quam in fama, qua nihil carius possidemus. Generositati nostrae omni die detrahitur, dum per pravos compilatores, translatores et transformatores nova nobis auctorem nomina imponuntur et, antiqua nobilitate mutata, regeneratione multiplici renascentes degeneramus omnino. Sicque vilium vitricorem nobis nolentibus affiguntur vocabula et verorum patrum nomina filiis subducuntur. Versus Vergilii, adhuc ipso vivente quidam pseudoversificus usurpavit, et Martialis Coci libellos Fidentinus quidam sibi mendaciter arrogavit, quem idem Martialis redarguit merito sub his verbis:

Now we wish to pursue a new kind of injury, by which we are harmed as much in our own persons as in our fame, than which we possess nothing dearer. Detracted from our nobility every day, while through depraved compilators, translators, and transformators new names of authors are imposed upon us, and, our ancient nobility having been changed, being reborn by multiple regeneration we altogether degenerate. And thus the names of base stepfathers are affixed to us against our will, and the names of true fathers are withdrawn from the sons. The verses of Virgil, while he himself was still living, a certain pseudo-versifier usurped; and the little books of Martial the Cook a certain Fidentinus mendaciously arrogated to himself, whom the same Martial deservedly reproved in these words:

Quem recitas, meus est, O Fidentine, libellus;

The little book which you recite is mine, O Fidentinus;

Sed male quum recitas, incipit esse tuus. [Epi., i. 38]

But when you recite badly, it begins to be yours. [Epi., 1. 38]

Quid ergo mirum, si defunctis nostris auctoribus suas per nos fimbrias simiae clericorum magnificant, cum eisdem superstitibus nos recenter editos rapere moliantur. Ah, quoties nos antiquos fingitis nuper natos, et qui patres sumus filios nominare conamini, quique vos ad esse clericale creavimus studiorem vestorum fabricas appellatis! Revera de Athenis exstitimus oriundi, qui fingimur nunc de Roma, semper namque Carmentis latruncula fuit Cadmi, et qui nuper nascebamur in Anglia cras Parisius renascemur, et inde delati Bononiam Italicam sortiemur ogiginem, nulla consanguinitate suffultam.

What then is the wonder, if, our authors defunct, the apes of the clerics magnify their fringes by means of us, while, those same still surviving, they strive to snatch us as newly published. Ah, how often you feign us ancients to be newly born, and try to name as sons those who are fathers, and those of us who have created you for the clerical estate you call the forges of your studies! In truth we are by origin from Athens, who are now feigned to be from Rome; for Carmentis was always a petty thief of Cadmus; and we who were lately being born in England shall tomorrow be reborn at Paris, and thence, conveyed to Italian Bologna, we shall obtain an origin propped up by no consanguinity.

Heu, quam falsis scriptoribus nos exarandos committitis; quam corrupte nos legitis et mendicando necatis, quos pro zelo corrigere credabatis! Interpretes barbaros sustinemus multotiens et qui linguarum idiomata nesciunt nos de lingua ad linguam transferre praesumunt; sicque proprietate sermonis ablata fit sententiae contra sensum auctoris turpiter mutilata. Bene gratiosa fuisset librorum conditio, si turris Babel nullatenus obfuisset praesumptio, si totius humani generis unica descendisset sermonis species propagata.

Alas, how you commit us to be written out by false scribes; how corruptly you read us and by mending you kill us, whom you believed, out of zeal, you were correcting! We very often endure barbarous interpreters, and those who do not know the idioms of languages presume to transfer us from tongue to tongue; and thus, with the propriety of speech taken away, the meaning is shamefully mutilated against the author’s sense. Well-favored would have been the condition of books, if the presumption of the Tower of Babel had in no way stood in the way, if a single species of speech, propagated, had descended for the whole human race.

Ultimam nostrae prolixae querelae, sed pro materia quam habemus brevissimae, clausulam subjungemus. In nobis etenim commutatur naturalis usus in eum usum qui est contra naturam, dum passim pictoribus subdimur litterarum ignaris et aurifabris, proh dolor! commendamur nos, qui sumus lumen fidelium animarum, ut fiamus, ac si non essemus sapientiae sacra vasa, repositoria bractearum.

We will subjoin the final clause of our prolix complaint, but, as regards the material we have, most brief. For in us the natural use is changed into that use which is against nature, while everywhere we are subjected to painters ignorant of letters and to goldsmiths—alas!—we, who are the light of the souls of the faithful, are commended, so that we become, as if we were not sacred vessels of wisdom, repositories of leaf-metal.

Devolvimur indebite in laicorum dominum, quod est nobis amarius omni morte, quoniam hi vendiderunt populum nostrum sine pretio et inimici nostri judices nostri sunt.

We are unduly devolved into the dominion of laymen, which is to us more bitter than any death, since these have sold our people without price, and our enemies are our judges.

Liquet omnibus ex praedictis quam infinita possemus in clericos invectiva conicere, si non honestati propriae parceremus. Nam miles emeritus clipeum veneratur et arma gratusque Corydon aratro tabescenti, bigae, trahae, tribulae ac ligoni, etiam omnis artifex manualis hyperduliam propriam suis exhibet instrumentis. Solus ingratus clericus parvipendit et negligit ea, per quae sui honoris auspicia semper sumit.

It is clear to all from the aforesaid how infinite invective we could hurl against the clerics, if we did not spare our own propriety. For the veteran soldier venerates the shield and arms, and grateful Corydon [does so] to the plough that grows worn, the two-horse chariot, the sledge, the threshing-board, and the hoe; likewise every manual craftsman exhibits his own hyperdulia to his tools. The ungrateful cleric alone makes little of and neglects those things through which he always takes the auspices of his own honor.

Capitulum V

Chapter 5

Querimonia librorum contra religiosos possessionatus

Complaint of the books against the possession-holding religious

RELIGIONUM veneranda devotio in librorum cultu solet esse sollicita et in eorem eloquiis sicut in omnibus divitiis delectari. Scribebant namque nonnulli manibus propriis inter horas canonicas, intervallis captatis, et tempora pro quite corporis commodata fabricandis codicibus concesserunt. De quorum laboribus hodie in plerisque splendent monasteriis illa sacra gazophylacia, cherubicis libris plena, ad dandam scientiam salutis studentibus atque lumen delactabile semitis laicorum.

The venerable devotion of the religious is wont to be solicitous in the cult of books and to delight in their utterances as in all riches. For certain persons wrote with their own hands between the canonical hours, seizing the intervals, and they assigned times, suited to the body’s rest, to the fabrication of codices. From whose labors today in very many monasteries those sacred treasuries shine, filled with cherubic books, to give the knowledge of salvation to those studying and a delectable light to the pathways of laypeople.

O labor manualis, felicior omni cura georgica! O devota sollicitudo, ubi nec meretur Martha corripi nec Maria! O domus jocunda, in qua Racheli formosae Lya fecunda nos invidet, sed contemplatio cum activa gaudia sua miscet.

O manual labor, happier than every georgic care! O devout solicitude, where neither Martha nor Mary merits to be rebuked! O cheerful house, in which to fair Rachel fecund Leah begrudges us, yet contemplation with the active commingles its joys.

Felix providentia pro futuro infinitis posteris valitura, cui nulla virgultorum plantatio, nulla seminum satio comparatur, nulla bucolica curiositas quorumlibet armentorum, nulla castrorum constructio munitorum!

Blessed providence for the future, destined to avail for infinite posterity, with which no plantation of shrubs, no sowing of seeds is comparable, no bucolic curiosity for whatsoever herds, no construction of fortified camps!

Quamobrem immortalis debet esse patrum illorum memoria, quos solius sapientiae delectabat thesaurus, qui contra futuras caligines luminosas lucernas artificiosissime providerunt et contra famem audiendi verbum Dei panes non subcinericeos neque hordaceos nec muscidos, sed panes azymos de purissima simila sacrae sophiae confectos accuratissime paraverunt, quibus esurientes animae feliciter cibarentur. Hi fuerunt probissimi pugiles Christianae militiae, qui nostram infirmitatem armis fortissimis munierunt. Hi fuerunt suis temporibus vulpium venatores cautissimi, qui jam nobis sua retia reliquerunt, ut parvulas caperumus vulpeculas, quae non cessant florentes vineas demiliri.

Wherefore the memory of those fathers ought to be immortal, whom the treasure of wisdom alone delighted, who against future glooms most artfully provided luminous lamps, and against the famine of hearing the word of God prepared not ash-baked nor barley nor moldy loaves, but unleavened breads composed from the most pure semolina of sacred Wisdom, with the utmost care, by which hungry souls might be happily nourished. These were the most proven pugilists of the Christian soldiery, who fortified our infirmity with the mightiest arms. These in their own times were the most cautious hunters of foxes, who have now left to us their nets, that we may catch the little foxlets, which do not cease to demolish the flourishing vineyards.

Vere patres egregii, bebedictione perpetua recolendi, felices merito fuissetis, si vobis similem sobolem genuisse, si prolem non degenerem nec aequivocem reliquisse ad sequentis temporis subsidium licuisset.

Truly, distinguished fathers, to be recalled with perpetual benediction, you would deservedly have been happy, if it had been permitted to you to beget offspring like yourselves, if to leave progeny not degenerate nor equivocal for the support of the following time had been allowed.

Sed, quod dolentes referimus, jam Thersites ignavus arma contrectat Achilles ex dextrariorum phalerae praeelectae pigritantibus asinis substernuntur, aquilarum nidis caecutientes noctuae dominantur et in accipitis pertica residet vecors miluus.

But, which we report in sorrow, now the cowardly Thersites handles the arms, the preselected phalerae of Achilles’s destriers are spread beneath slothful asses, in the eagles’ nests near-blind owls dominate, and on the hawk’s perch the witless kite sits.

Liber Bacchus respicitur

Liber Bacchus is respected

et in ventrem traicitur

and is transfixed in the belly

nocte dieque;

by night and by day;

liber codex despicitur

the book codex is despised

et a manu reicitur

and is rejected from the hand

longe lateque.

far and wide.

Tanquam si cujusdam aequivocationis multiplicate fallatur simplex monachica plebs moderna, dum Liber pater praeponitur libro patrum, calcibus epotandis non codicibus emendandis indulget hodie studium monachorum; quibus lasciviam musicam Timothei pudicis moribus aemulam non verentur adjungere, sicque cantus ludentis non planctus lugentis officium efficitur monachale.

As though the simple modern monastic plebs were deceived by a certain multiplied equivocation, while Father Liber is preferred to the book of the Fathers, the zeal of monks today indulges in draining goblets, not in emending codices; to which they do not fear to adjoin the musical lasciviousness of Timotheus, rivaling chaste morals, and thus the monastic office is made a song of playing, not a plaint of mourning.

Greges et vellera, fruges et horrea, porr et olera, potus et patera, lectiones sunt hodie et studia monachorum, exceptis quibusdam paucis electis, in quibus patrum praecedentium non imago sed vestigium remanet aliquale. Rursus nulla nobis materia ministratur omnino, qua de nostro cultu vel studio commendentur hodie canonici regulares, qui licet a geminata regula nomen portent eximium, Augustini tamen regulae notabilem neglexere versiculum, quo sub his verbis suis clericis commendamur: Codices certa hora singulis diebus petantur; extra horam qui petierit, non accipiat.

Flocks and fleeces, crops and granaries, leeks and vegetables, drink and the patera, are today the readings and studies of monks, except for certain few elect, in whom not the image but some vestige of the preceding fathers remains. Again, no material at all is ministered to us by which today the regular canons might be commended in respect of our cultivation or study, who, although they bear a distinguished name from a geminate rule, have nevertheless neglected a notable little verse of Augustine’s Rule, by which under these words we his clerics are commended: Let codices be sought at a fixed hour on each day; whoever seeks outside the hour, let him not receive.

Hunc devotum studii canonem vix observat aliquis post ecclesiastica cantica repetita, sed sapere quae sunt saeculi et relictum aratrum intueri summa prudentia reputatur. Tollunt pharetram et arcum, apprehendunt arma et scutum, eleemosynarum tributum canibus tribuunt non egenis, inserviunt aleis et taxillis et his quae nos saecularibus inhibere solemus, ut non miremur, si nos non dignentur respicere, quos sic suis cernerent moribus contraire.

Hardly anyone observes this devout canon of study after the ecclesiastical chantings have been repeated; rather, to be wise in the things of the age and to gaze upon the plow that has been left is reckoned the highest prudence. They lift quiver and bow, they lay hold of arms and shield; the tribute of alms they bestow on dogs, not on the needy; they devote themselves to dice-games and knucklebones and to those things which we are accustomed to inhibit in seculars—so that we should not marvel if they do not deign to look upon us, whom they would discern thus to be contrary to their own mores.

Patres igitur reverendi, patrum vestorum dignemini remiinisci et librorum propensius indulgere studio, sine quibus quaelibet vacillabit religio, sine quibus ut testa virtus devotionis arescet, sine quibus nullum lumen poteritis mundo praebere.

Reverend Fathers, therefore, deign to remember your fathers and to indulge more earnestly the study of books, without which any religion will waver, without which, like earthenware, the virtue of devotion will dry up, without which you will be able to offer no light to the world.

Capitulum VI

Chapter 6

Querimonia librorum contra religiosos mendicantes

Complaint of the books against the mendicant religious

PAUPERESspiritu sed in fide ditissimi, mundi peripsema et sal terrae. saeculi contemptores et hominum piscatores, quam beati estis, si penuriam patientes pro Christo animas vestras scitis in patentia possidere! Non enim vos ultix iniquitatis inopia, nec parentum adversa fortuna, nec ulla violenta necessitas sic oppressit inedia, sed devota voluntas et electio Christiformis, qua vitam illam optimam aestimastis, quam Deus omnipotens factus homo tam verbo quam exemplo optimam praedicavit.

POORin spirit but most rich in faith, the offscouring of the world and the salt of the earth. contemners of the age and fishers of men, how blessed you are, if, enduring penury for Christ, you know how to possess your souls in patience! For it was not the poverty that avenges iniquity, nor the adverse fortune of your parents, nor any violent necessity that thus pressed you with hunger, but a devout will and a Christiform choice, whereby you have esteemed that life the best which God almighty, made man, proclaimed to be best both by word and by example.

Sane vos estis semper parientis ecclesiae novus fetus, pro patribus et prophetis noviter substituti divinitus, ut in omnem terram exeat sonus vester, et nostris instituti satutaribus doctrinis coram gentibus et regibus promulgetis inexpugnabilem fidem Christi.

Truly you are the new offspring of the ever-bearing Church, divinely and newly substituted in place of the fathers and the prophets, so that your sound may go out into all the earth, and, instructed by our salutary doctrines, you may promulgate before nations and kings the inexpugnable faith of Christ.

Porro fidem patrum potissime libris esse inclusam secundum capitulum supra satis asseruit, quo constat luce clarius quod librorum deberetis esse zelotypi prae caeteris Christianis. Seminare jubemini super omnes aquas, quoniam non est personarum acceptor Altissimus nec vult mortem peccatorum Piissimus, qui occidi voluit pro eisdem, sed contritos corde mederi desiderat atque lapsos erigi et perversos corrigi spiritu lenitatis. Ad quem effectum saluberrimum alma mater Ecclesia vos plantavit gratuito, plantatosque rigavit favoribus, et rigatos privilegiis suffulcivit, ut cum pastoribus et curatis coadjutores essetis ad procurandum salutem fidelium animarum.

Moreover, the foregoing chapter has sufficiently asserted that the faith of the fathers is most especially enclosed in the books, whence it is clearer than light that you ought to be zealously protective of the books before the rest of the Christians. You are bidden to sow upon all waters, since the Most High is not a respecter of persons, nor does the Most Pious will the death of sinners—he who willed to be slain for those same—but he desires to heal the contrite in heart, and to raise up the fallen, and to correct the perverse in a spirit of lenity. To which most healthful effect the nourishing mother Church has planted you gratuitously, and, once planted, has watered you with favors, and, being watered, has underpropped you with privileges, so that, together with pastors and curates, you might be coadjutors for procuring the salvation of the souls of the faithful.

Unde et Praedicatorum ordinem propter sacrae scripturae studium et proximorum salutem principaliter institutum constitutiones pronunciant eorundem, ut non solum ex regula reverendi praesulis Augustini, quae codices singulis diebus jubet esse petendos, verum mox cum earundem constitutionum prologum legerint ex ipsius libri capite ad amorem librorum se noverint obligatos.

Whence the constitutions of the same [Order] also proclaim that the Order of Preachers, principally instituted for the study of sacred Scripture and the salvation of their neighbors, is such that not only from the rule of the reverend prelate Augustine, which commands that codices be requested each and every day, but indeed, as soon as they have read the prologue of those same constitutions, from that book’s very chapter‑heading they may know themselves to be bound to the love of books.

Sed proh dolor! tam hos quam alios istorum sectantes effigiem a paterna cultura librorum et studio subtrahit triplex cura superflua, ventris videlicet, vestium et domorum. Sunt enim, neglecta Salvatoris providentia, quem psalmista circa pauperem et mendicum promittit esse sollicitum, circa labentis corporis indigentias occupati, ut stnt epulae splendidae, vestesque contra regulam delicatae, necnon aedificiorum fabricae et castrorum propugnacula tali proceritate, quae paupertati non convenit, exaltatae.

But—alas!—both these and others who follow their image are withdrawn from the paternal culture of books and from study by a triple superfluous care: namely, of the belly, of garments, and of houses. For, the Savior’s Providence neglected—whom the Psalmist promises to be solicitous concerning the poor and the beggar—they are occupied about the indigences of the passing body, so that there be splendid banquets, and garments delicate contrary to the Rule, and likewise the constructions of buildings and the fortifications of castles, exalted to such loftiness as does not befit poverty.

Propter haec tria nos libri, qui semper eos proveximus ad profectum, et inter potentes et nobiles sedes honoris concessimus, elongati a cordi affectibus quasi inter supervacanea reputamur, excepto quod quibusdam quaternis parvi valoris insistunt, de quibus Hiberas naenias et apocrypha deliramenta producunt, non ad refocillativum animarum edulium, sed ad pruritum potius aurium auditorum.

Because of these three, we books—who have always advanced them to progress, and have granted seats of honor among the powerful and the noble—being removed from the affections of the heart are reckoned as among superfluities, except that they fasten upon certain quires of small worth, from which they produce Iberian dirges and apocryphal deliraments, not for the refocillative nourishment of souls, but rather for the itch of the listeners’ ears.

Sacra scriptura non exponitur, sed omnino seponitur; quasi trita per vicos et omnibus divulgata supponitur, cuius tamen fimbrias vix paucissimi tetigerunt; cuius etiam tanta est litterarum profunditas, ut ab humano intellectu, quantumcunque invigilet, summo otio et maximo studio nequeat comprehendi, sicut sanctus asserit Augustinus. De hac mille moralis disciplinae sententias enucleare poterit qui indulget assidue, si tamen ostium aperire dignetur Ille, qui condidit spiritum pietatis, quae et recentissima novitate pollebunt et sapidissima suavitate auditorum intelligentias refovebunt.

Sacred Scripture is not expounded, but altogether set aside; it is treated as if worn smooth through the streets and divulged to all, whose fringes, however, scarcely a very few have touched; whose depth of letters is also so great that by human intellect, however much it may keep vigil, with the highest leisure and the greatest study it cannot be comprehended, as Saint Augustine asserts. From this one who assiduously indulges will be able to enucleate a thousand sentences of moral discipline, if only He deign to open the door, He who founded the spirit of piety—sentences which will both excel with most fresh novelty and will refresh with most savory sweetness the intelligences of the hearers.

Quamobrem paupertatis evangelicae professores primarii, post utcunque salutatas scientias saeculares, toto mentis ingenio recollecto, hujus se scripturae laboribus devoverunt, nocte dieque in lege Domini meditantes. Quicquid vero poterant a famescente ventre furari, vel corpori semitecto surripere, illud lucrum praecipuum arbitrantes, vel emendis vel edendis codicibus adscripserunt. Quorum contemporanei saeculares, tam officium intuentes quam studium libros eis, quos in diversis mundi partibus sumptuose collegerant, ad totius aedificationem ecclesiae contulerunt.

Wherefore the foremost professors of evangelical poverty, after having, however slightly, saluted the secular sciences, with their whole mental power gathered in, devoted themselves to the labors of this Scripture, meditating day and night in the Law of the Lord. Whatever they could steal from the famishing belly, or pilfer from the half-clothed body—reckoning that the chief profit—they assigned to either buying or bringing out (copying) codices. Their secular contemporaries, regarding both the duty and the zeal, contributed to them the books which they had sumptuously collected in various parts of the world, for the edification of the whole Church.

Sane diebus istis, cum sitis tota diligentia circa quaestus intenti, praesumptione probabili credi potest, si per anthropospatos sermo fiat, Deum circa vos minorem sollicitudinem gerere, quos de sua promissione perpendit diffidere, in humanis providentiis spem habentes. Corvum non consideratis nec lilia, quos pascit et vestit Altissimus; Danielem et Habacuc cocti pulmenti discophorum non pensatis, nec Eliam recolitis nunc in torrente per corvos, nunc in deserto per angelum, nunc in Sarepta per viduam, largitate divina quae dat escam omni carni tempore opportuno, a famis inedia liberatum. Climate miserabili, ut timetur, descenditis, dum divinae pietatis diffidentia prudentiae propriae producit inisum, innisusvero prudentiae propriae sollicitudinem generat terrenorum, nimiaque terrenorum sollicitudo librorum adimit tam amorem quam studium, et sic cedit paupertas hodie per abusum in verbi Dei dispendium, quam propter ipsius solum adminiculum elegistis.

Truly in these days, since you are with all diligence intent upon gains, it can, by a probable presumption, be believed—if by anthropopathic speech it be expressed—that God bears lesser solicitude concerning you, whom He perceives to distrust His own promise, having hope in human providences. You do not consider the raven nor the lilies, which the Most High feeds and clothes; you do not weigh Daniel and Habakkuk, the bearer of a dish of cooked pottage, nor do you recall Elijah—now at the torrent by ravens, now in the desert by an angel, now at Zarephath by a widow—freed from the starvation of famine by the divine largess which gives food to all flesh at the opportune time. Into a miserable clime, it is feared, you descend, while diffidence of divine pity produces a leaning upon one’s own prudence, and leaning upon one’s own prudence begets solicitude for earthly things; and excessive solicitude for earthly things takes away from books both love and zeal, and thus poverty today, through abuse, passes over into a loss of the word of God, which you chose for the sake of its aid alone.

Uncinis pomorum, ut populus fabulatur, puerulos ad religionem attrahitis, quos professos doctrinis non instruitis vi et metu, sicut exigit aetas illa, sed mendicativis discursibus sustinetis intendere atque tempus quo possent addiscere, in captandis favoribus amicorum consumere sinitis in offensam parentum, puerorum periculum et ordinis detrimentum. Sicque nimirum contingit quod qui parvuli discere minime cogebantur inviti, grandiores effecti docere praesumunt, indigni penitus et indocti, et parvus error in principio maximus fit in fine. Succrescit namque in grege vestro promiscuo laicorum quaedam multitudo plurimum onerosa, qui tamen se ad praedicationis officium tanto improbius ingerunt, quanto minus ea quae loquuntur intelligunt, in contemptum sermonis divini et in perniciem animarum.

With hooks of apples, as the people fable, you attract little boys to religion; whom, once professed, you do not instruct with doctrines by force and fear, as that age requires, but you sustain them to be intent on mendicant excursions, and you allow the time in which they might be able to learn more to be consumed in capturing the favors of friends—to the offense of the parents, the peril of the boys, and the detriment of the order. And thus indeed it happens that those who, as little ones, were by no means compelled to learn unwilling, when grown up presume to teach, utterly unworthy and untaught; and a small error in the beginning becomes greatest at the end. For in your mixed flock there grows up a certain multitude of laymen most burdensome, who nevertheless thrust themselves into the office of preaching all the more shamelessly, the less they understand the things which they speak, to the contempt of the divine word and to the perdition of souls.

Sane contra legem in bove aratis et asino, cum indoctis et doctis culturam agri dominici committitis pari passu. Scriptum est: Boves arabant et asinae pascebantur juxta eos; quoniam discretorum interest praedicare, simplicium vero per auditum sacri eloquii sub silentio se cibare. Quot lapides mittitis in acervum Mercurii his diebus!

Indeed, against the law you plow with an ox and a donkey, since you entrust the cultivation of the Lord’s field to the unlearned and the learned pari passu. It is written: The oxen were plowing and the she-asses were grazing beside them; for it is the concern of the discreet to preach, but of the simple to feed themselves in silence through the hearing of sacred eloquence. How many stones you are casting onto Mercury’s heap these days!

quot eunuchis sapientiae nuptias procuratis! quot caecos speculatores super Ecclesiae muros circumire praecipitis!

how many eunuchs do you arrange the nuptials of wisdom for! how many blind watchmen do you command to patrol upon the walls of the Church!

O piscatores inertes! solis retibus alienis utentes, qui rupta vix imperite reficitis, nova vero nullatenus connodatis, aliorurn labores intratis, aliorum studia recitatis, aliorum sapientiam superficialiter repetitam theatrali strepitu labiatis. Quemadmodum psittacus idiota auditas voces effigiat, sic tales recitatores fiunt omnium sed nullius auctores, asinam Balaam imitantes, quae licet esset intrinsecus insensata, lingua tamen diserta facta est, tam domini quam prophetae magistra.

O inert fishermen! using only others’ nets, who scarcely and unskillfully repair the torn, but by no means knot together new ones; you enter others’ labors, you recite others’ studies, you parade others’ wisdom, superficially repeated, with theatrical clamor. Just as an ignorant parrot imitates the voices it has heard, so such reciters become borrowers from all, but authors of none, imitating Balaam’s she-ass, who, although she was inwardly insensate, yet was made eloquent in tongue, a teacher as much to the master as to the prophet.

Resipiscite pauperes Christi et nos libros inspicite studiose, sine quibus in praeparatione evangelii pacis nunquam poteritis debite calceari.

Come to your senses, paupers of Christ, and inspect our books studiously, without which, in the preparation of the Gospel of peace, you will never be able to be duly shod.

Paulus apostolus, praedicator veritatis et doctor eximius gentium, ista sibi per Timotheum pro omni supellectile tria jussit afferri, paenulam, libros et membranas, secunda ad Timotheum ultimo, viris evangelicis formam praebens, ut habitum deferant ordinatum, libros habeant ad studendi subsidium et membranas, quas apostolus maxime ponderat, ad scribendum: maxime, inquit, membranas.

Paul the apostle, a preacher of truth and an outstanding doctor of the nations, ordered that these three things be brought to him by Timothy in place of all furnishings: a cloak, books, and parchments—“the Second to Timothy, at the end”—providing a pattern for evangelical men, that they wear an orderly habit, have books as a subsidy for studying, and parchments, which the apostle especially esteems, for writing: “especially,” he says, “the parchments.”

Revera mancus est clericus et ad multorum jacturam turpiter mutilatus, qui artis scribendi totaliter est ignarus. Aerem vocibus verberat et praesentes tantum aedificat, absentibus et posteris nihil parat. Atramentarium scriptoris gestabat in renibus vir qui frontes gementium Tau signabat, Ezechiel. nono; insinuans figurate quod, si quis scribendi peritia careat, praedicandi paenitentiam officium non praesumat.

Truly the cleric is maimed, and shamefully mutilated to the loss of many, who is totally ignorant of the art of writing. He beats the air with his voices and edifies only those present, preparing nothing for the absent and for posterity. The man who was marking a Tau on the foreheads of those who groaned was bearing the scribe’s inkstand at his loins, Ezekiel. 9; thereby insinuating figuratively that, if anyone lacks skill in writing, he should not presume the office of preaching repentance.

Tandem in praesentis calce capituli supplicant vobis libri: Iuvenes vestros aptos ingenio studiis applicate, necessaria ministrantes, quos non solummodo bonitatem verum etiam disciplinam et scientiam doceatis, verberibus terreatis, attrahatis blanditiis, molliatis munusculis et poenosis rigoribus urgeatis, ut et Socratici moribus et doctrinis Peripatetici simul fiant. Heri quasi hora undecima vos discretus paterfamilias introduxit in vineam; ante sero penitus pigeat otiari. Utinam cum prudenti villico mendicandi tam improbe verecundiam haberetis!

At length, at the heel of the present chapter, the books supplicate you: Apply your youths, apt in native talent, to studies, ministering the necessaries; teach them not only goodness but also discipline and science; terrify them with beatings, draw them by blandishments, soften them with little gifts, and press them with penal rigors, so that they may become at once Socratic in morals and Peripatetic in doctrines. Yesterday, as it were at the eleventh hour, the discreet householder introduced you into the vineyard; before it is late, may it utterly irk you to be idle. Would that, together with the prudent bailiff, you had so unblushing a modesty of begging!

Tunc enim proculdubio libris et studio propensius vacaretis.

Then indeed, without a doubt, you would devote yourselves more eagerly to books and to study.

Capitulum VII

Chapter 7

Querimonia librorum contra bella

Complaint of books against wars

PACIS auctor et amator Altissime! dissipa gentes bella volentes, quae super omnes pestilentias libris nocent. Bella namque carentia rationis judicio furiosos efficiunt impetus in adversa et dum rationis moderamine non utuntur, sine differentia discretionis progressa, vasa destruunt ratloms.

Author and lover of PEACE, Most High! disperse the nations that want wars, which, beyond all pestilences, do harm to books. For wars, lacking the judgment of reason, make furious onsets against what is opposed; and while they do not use the moderation of reason, proceeding without the distinction of discretion, they destroy the vessels of reason.

Tunc prudens Apollo Pythoni subicitur et tunc Phronesis pia mater in phrenesis redigitur potestatem. Tunc pennatus Pegasus stabulo Corydonis includitur et facundus Mercurius suffocatur. Tunc Pallas prudens erroris mucrone conciditur et jocundae Pierides truculenta furoris tyrannide supprimuntur.

Then prudent Apollo is subjected to Python, and then Phronesis, the pious mother, is reduced into the power of phrenesis. Then the winged Pegasus is enclosed in Corydon’s stable, and eloquent Mercury is suffocated. Then prudent Pallas is cut down by the point of error, and the jocund Pierides are suppressed by the truculent tyranny of fury.

O crudele spectaculum! ubi Phoebum philosophorum, archisophum Aristotelem, cui in orbis dominum Deus ipse commisit dominium, scelerosis manibus vinculatum, ferramentis infamibus compeditum lanistarum humeris a sacratis aedibus asportari, et qui in mundi magistratum magisterium atque super imperatorem imperium meruit obtinere, injustissimo belli jure videres subici vili scurrae.

O cruel spectacle! where you would see the Phoebus of philosophers, the arch-sage Aristotle, to whom God himself entrusted the dominion over the lord of the world, bound by criminal hands, fettered with infamous irons, carried off on the shoulders of lanistae from the sacred buildings, and him who deserved to obtain the magisterium for the magistracy of the world and the imperium over the emperor, by the most unjust law of war you would see subjected to a vile buffoon.

O potestas iniquissima tenebrarum, quae Platonis non veretur pessumdare deitatem probatam, qui solus conspectui Creatoris prius quam bellantis chaos placaret litigium, et ante quam hylen endelechia induisset, species ideales obicere dignus fuit, ut mundum archetypum demonstraret auctori, quo de superno exemplo mundus sensibilis duceretur. O lacrimosus intuitus! quo moralis Socrates, cuius actus virtus et sermo doctrina, qui de naturae principiis politiae pro- duxit iustitiam, vitiosi vispilionis addictus cernitur servituti.

O most iniquitous power of the darkness, which does not hesitate to ruin the approved deity of Plato, who alone was worthy to cast before the sight of the Creator—before the quarrel of battling Chaos was placated, and before hyle had put on entelechy—the ideal species, so that he might show to the Author the archetypal world, by whose supernal exemplar the sensible world might be led. O tearful sight! at which the moral Socrates, whose act is virtue and whose speech is doctrine, who from the principles of nature for the polity pro- duced justice, is seen consigned to the servitude of a vicious corpse-bearer.

Pythagoram plangimus, harmoniae parentem, bellorum incentricibus furiis flagellatum atrociter vice cantus gemitus edere columbinos. Miseremur Zenonis, principis Stoicorum, qui ne consilium proderet linguam morsu secuit et exspuit in tyrannum intrepide. Heu, jam rursus a Diomedonte tritus in mortario pistillatur!

We lament Pythagoras, the parent of harmony, scourged atrociously by the inciting furies of wars, to pour forth in place of song dovelike groans. We pity Zeno, the prince of the Stoics, who, lest he betray the plan, cut his tongue with a bite and intrepidly spat it at the tyrant. Alas, now again by Diomedon, ground in a mortar, he is being pestled!

Certe non suflicimus singulos libros luctu lamentaricon- digno, qui in diversis mundi partibus bellorum discrimine perierunt. Horribilem tamen stragem, quae per auxiliares milites secundo bello Alexandrino contigit in Aegypto, stilo flebili memoramus, ubi septinginta millia voluminum igni- bus conflagrarunt, quae sub regibus Ptolemaeis per multa cur- ricula temporum sunt collecta, sicut recitat Aulus Gellius, Noctium Atticarum libro septimo, capitulo septimo decimo.

Surely we are not equal to lamenting with condign grief each individual book that has perished in diverse parts of the world through the peril of wars. Nevertheless we commemorate, in a tearful style, the horrible destruction which befell in Egypt through auxiliary soldiers in the second Alexandrian war, where 700,000 volumes were consumed by fires—volumes which under the Ptolemaic kings had been collected over many courses of time—as Aulus Gellius recounts, in the Attic Nights, book seven, chapter seventeen.

Quanta proles Atlantica tunc occubuisse putabitur, orbium motus omnes, conjunctione splanetarum, galaxiae naturam et generationes prognosticas cometarum ac quaecunque in caelo fiunt vel aethere, comprehendens! Quis tam infaustum holocaustum, ubi loco cruoris incaustum offertur, non exhorreat? ubi prunae candentes pergameni crepitantis sanguine vernabantur, ubi tot innocentium millia, in quorum ore non est inventum mendacium, fiamma vorax consumpsit, ubi tot scrinia veritatis aeternae ignis parcere nesciens in faetentem cinerem commutavit.

How great an Atlantean progeny will then be thought to have perished, encompassing all the motions of the orbs, the conjunction of the planets, the nature of the galaxy and the prognostic generations of comets, and whatever things are done in the heaven or in the ether! Who would not shudder at so ill‑omened a holocaust, where in place of gore ink is offered? where the glowing coals were made to bloom with the blood of crackling parchment, where so many thousands of innocents, in whose mouth no lie was found, the voracious flame consumed, where so many chests of eternal truth the fire, knowing not how to spare, transmuted into fetid ash.

Minoris facinoris aestimatur tam Jepue quam Agamemnonis victtma, ubi pia filia virgo patris gladio jugulatur. Quot labores celebris Herculis tunc periisse putabimus, qui ob astronomiae peritiam collo irreflexo caelum describitur sustulisse, cum jam secundo flammis Hercules sit injectus.

Of a lesser crime is reckoned the victim both of Jephthah and of Agamemnon, where the pious maiden daughter is slain by the father’s sword. How many labors of celebrated Hercules shall we then suppose to have perished, he who, on account of expertise in astronomy, is described as having borne up the sky with an unbent neck, since now for the second time Hercules has been cast into the flames.

Arcana caelorum, quae Jonithus non ab homine neque per hominem didicit sed divinitus inspiratus accepit; quaeque Zoroastes germanus ejusdem, immundorum servitor spirituum, Bactrianis disseruit; quae etiam sanctus Enoch Paradisi praefectus prius quam transferretur de saeculo prophetavit; immo quae primus Adam filios docuit, sicut raptus in ecstasi in libro aeternitatis praeviderat, flammis illis nefandis probabiliter aestimantur destructa.

Secrets of the heavens, which Jonithus learned not from man nor through a man, but received, divinely inspired; and which Zoroaster, his full brother, a servitor of unclean spirits, expounded to the Bactrians; which also Saint Enoch, Prefect of Paradise, prophesied before he was translated from the world; nay, the same which the first Adam taught his sons, as, rapt in ecstasy, he had foreseen in the book of eternity—are probably judged to have been destroyed by those unspeakable flames.

Aegyptiorum religio, quam liber Logostilios sic commendat egregie, politia veterum Athenarum, quae novem millibus annorum Athenas Graeciae praecesserunt; carmina Chaldaeorum; considerationes Arabum et Indorum; caerimoniae Iudaeorum; architectura Babyloniorum; Noe georgica; Moysis praestigia; Josuae planimetria; Samsonis aenigmata; Salomonis problemata, a cedro Libani usque ad hyssopum planissime disputata; Aesculapii antidota; Cadmi grammatica; Parnasi poemata; Apollinis oracula; Argonautica Jasonis; strategematon Palamedis; et alia infinita scientiarum secreta hujus incendii tempestate creduntur sublata.

The religion of the Egyptians, which the book Logostilios thus commends excellently; the polity of the ancient Athens, which preceded the Athens of Greece by nine thousand years; the poems of the Chaldaeans; the considerations of the Arabs and the Indians; the ceremonies of the Jews; the architecture of the Babylonians; Noah’s Georgics; the wonders of Moses; Joshua’s planimetry; Samson’s riddles; Solomon’s problems, most plainly discussed from the cedar of Lebanon all the way to the hyssop; Aesculapius’s antidotes; Cadmus’s grammar; the poems of Parnassus; the oracles of Apollo; Jason’s Argonautica; the stratagems of Palamedes; and other infinite secrets of the sciences are believed to have been borne off by the tempest of this conflagration.

Numquid Aristotelem de circuli quadratura syllogismus apodicticon latuisset, si libros veterum methodos naturae totius habentium permisissent nefanda praelia superesse? Nec enim de mundi aeternitate problema neutrum fecisset; nec de intellectuum humanorum pluralitate eorundemque perpetuitate, ut verisimiliter creditur, dubitasset ullatenus, si perfectae scientiae veterum invisorum bellorum pressuris obnoxiae non fuissent. Per bella namque ad patrias peregrinas distrahimur, obtruncamur, vulneramur et enormiter mutilamur, sub terra suffodimur, in mari submergimur, flammis exurimur et omni necis genere trucidamur.

Would the apodictic syllogism have escaped Aristotle on the quadrature of the circle, if the unspeakable battles had allowed the books of the ancients, possessing methods of the whole of nature, to survive? For neither would he have made the problem of the eternity of the world a neutral question; nor would he, as is plausibly believed, have in any way doubted about the plurality of human intellects and their perpetuity, if the perfect sciences of the ancients had not been subjected to the pressures of hateful wars. For through wars we are torn off to alien homelands, we are hewn down, we are wounded and monstrously mutilated, we are undermined beneath the earth, drowned in the sea, burned up by flames, and butchered by every kind of killing.

Quantum sanguinis nostri fudit Scipio bellicosus, cum eversioni Carthaginis, Romani imperii impugnatricis et aemulae, anxius incumbebat! Quot millia millium praelium decennale Troianum ab hac luce transmisit! Quot per Antonium, Tullio jam occiso, externarum provinciarum latebras adierunt!

How much of our blood did warlike Scipio pour out, when he anxiously bent himself to the overthrow of Carthage, assailant and rival of the Roman empire! How many thousands of thousands did the decennial Trojan battle send forth from this light! How many, through Antony, with Tully already slain, betook themselves to the hiding-places of foreign provinces!

Quot de nobis per Theodoricum, exulante Boetio, in diversa mundi climata, sicut oves pastore percusso, sunt dispersi! Quot Seneca succumbente Neronis malitiae, cum et volens et nolens portas mortis adiret, ab eo divisi retrocessimus lacrimantes et in quibus partibus hospitari possemus penitus ignorantes!

How many of us, through Theodoric, with Boethius in exile, have been scattered into the diverse climates of the world, like sheep when the shepherd is smitten! How many, as Seneca was succumbing to Nero’s malice, when, both willing and unwilling, he approached the gates of death, we, divided from him, withdrew weeping and utterly ignorant in which parts we might find hospitality!

Felix fuit illa librorum translatio, quam in Persas de Athenis Xerxes fecisse describitur, quos rursus de Persis in Athenas Seleucus reduxit. O postliminium gratiosum! O mira laetitia!

Happy was that transference of books, which Xerxes is described to have made to the Persians from Athens, which Seleucus in turn brought back from the Persians to Athens. O welcome postliminium! O wondrous joy!

quam tunc cerneres in Athenis, cum proli suae genitrix obviaret tripudians matricemque thalamum senescenti jam soboli denuo demonstraret. Reassignatis hospitiis veteribus inquilinis, mox tabulata cedrina cum lignis et trabibus levigatis aptissime complanantur; auro et ebore epigrammata designantur camerulis singulis, quibus ipsa volumina reverenter illata suavissime collocantur sic, ut nullum alterius ingressum impediat vel propinquitate nimia fratrem laedat.

what sights you would then have seen in Athens, when the mother met her offspring dancing for joy and once more showed to her now-aging progeny the maternal bridal-chamber. The lodgings having been reassigned to their former tenants, soon the cedar paneling, together with smoothed timbers and beams, is most aptly leveled; with gold and ivory epigraphs are marked out for each little chamber, into which the volumes themselves, reverently borne in, are most sweetly placed, such that none hinders another’s entrance or, by excessive proximity, harms its brother.

Caeterum infinita sunt dispendia quae per seditiones bellorum librorum generi sunt illata. Et quoniam infinita nullatenus pertransire contingit, hic statuemus finaliter querimoniae nostrae Gades, et ad preces a quibus incepimus regiramus habenas, rogantes suppliciter ut rector Olympi ac mundi totius dispensator altissimus firmet pacem et bella removeat ac tempora faciat sua protectione tranquilla.

Moreover, the losses are infinite which through the seditions of wars have been inflicted upon the race of books. And since it in no way is possible to traverse things infinite, here we shall finally set the Gades of our complaint, and we will turn back the reins to the prayers with which we began, beseeching humbly that the ruler of Olympus and the most high dispensator of the whole world may establish peace and remove wars and make the times tranquil by his protection.

Capitulum VIII

Chapter 8

De multiplici opportunitate quam habuimus librorum copiam conquirendi

On the multiple opportunity which we had of acquiring a supply of books

CUM OMNI negotio tempus sit et opportunitas, ut testatur sapiens Ecclesiastes, octavo, jam progredimur enarrare multiplices opportunitates, quibus in adquisitione librorum, nostris propositis divinitate propitia, juvabamur.

WITH EVERY business there is a time and an opportunity, as the wise Ecclesiastes attests, in the eighth; now we proceed to expound the manifold opportunities by which, in the acquisition of books, with divinity propitious to our purposes, we were aided.

Quamvis enim ab adolescentia nostra semper socialem communionem cum viris litteratis et librorum dilectoribus delectaremur habere, succedentibus tamen prosperis, regiae majestatis consecuti notitiam et in ipsius acceptati familia, facultatem accepimus ampliorem ubilibet visitandi pro libito et venandi quasi saltus quosdam delicatissimos, tum privatas, tum communes, tum regularium, tum saecularium librarias.

Although indeed from our adolescence we always took delight to have social communion with learned men and lovers of books, yet as prosperities succeeded, having obtained the notice of royal majesty and been received into his household, we received a fuller faculty of visiting anywhere at our pleasure and of hunting, as it were, certain most exquisite woodland-glades—libraries both private and public, both of regulars and of seculars.

Sane dum invictissimi principis ac semper magnifice triumphantis regis Angliae Eduardi Tertii post conquestum,—cujus tempora serenare dignetur Altissimus diutine et tranquille—, primo quidem suam concernentibus curiam, deinde vero rempublicam regni sui, cancellarii videlicet ac thesaurarii, fungeremur officiis, patescebat nobis aditus facilis, regalis favoris intuitu, ad librorum latebras libere perscrutandas.

Indeed, while, under the most unconquered prince and ever magnificently triumphing king of England, Edward III after the Conquest,—may the Most High deign to make his times serene for long and in tranquility—, we were discharging the offices, namely, of chancellor and treasurer, first in matters concerning his own court, and then indeed the commonwealth of his realm, an easy access was opening to us, by regard of royal favor, to scrutinize freely the recesses of books.

Amoris quippe nostri fama volatilis jam ubique percrebuit, tantumque librorum et maxime veterum ferebamur cupiditate languescere, posse vero queml ibet nostrum per quaternos facilius quam per pecuniam adipisci favorem. Quamobrem cum supra dicti principis recolendae memoriae bonitate suffulti possemus obesse et prodesse, officere et proficere vehementer tam majoribus quam pusillis, affluxerunt loco xeniorum et munerum locoque donorum et jocalium caenulenti quaterni ac decrepiti codices, nostris tam aspectibus quam affectibus pretiosi.

For indeed the winged fame of our love has now everywhere become rife, and we were reported to be languishing with cupidity for books, and most of all for ancient ones, and that anyone of us could acquire favor more easily by means of quires than by means of money. Wherefore, since, supported by the goodness of the aforesaid prince of revered memory, we were able to hurt and to help, to hinder and to make prosper very greatly both the greater and the lesser, there flowed in, in place of guest-gifts and presents and in place of gifts and jewels, filthy quires and decrepit codices, precious to our eyes as well as to our affections.

Tunc nobilissimorum monasteriorum aperiebantur armaria, reserabantur scrinia et cistulae solvebantur, et per longa saecula in sepulcris soporata volumina expergiscunt attonita, quaeque in locis tenebrosis latuerant novae lucis radiis perfunduntur. Delicatissimi quondam libri, corrupti et abominabiles jam effecti, murium quidem foetibus cooperti et vermium morsibus terebrati, jacebant exanimes; et qui olim purpura vestiebantur et bysso, nunc in cinere et cilicio recubantes oblivioni traditi videbantur domicilia tinearum.

Then the cupboards of the most noble monasteries were opened, the scrinia were unbarred and the little chests were unfastened, and the volumes, which for long ages had slept in sepulchers, awaken astonished, and the things which had lain hidden in dark places are bathed by the rays of a new light. Books once most delicate, now become corrupt and abominable, indeed covered with the litters of mice and bored through by the bites of worms, lay lifeless; and those which once were clothed in purple and byssus, now lying in ash and sackcloth, seemed consigned to oblivion, the dwelling-places of moths.

Inter haec nihilominus, captatis temporibus, magis voluptuose consedimus quam fecisset medicus delicatus inter aromatum apothecas, ubi amoris nostri objectum reperimus et fomentum. Sic sacra vasa scientiae ad nostrae dispensationis provenerunt arbitrium, quaedam data, quaedam vendita ac nonnulla pro tempore commodata.

Meanwhile, nevertheless, seizing our opportunities, we took our seat more voluptuously than a delicate physician would have done among the apothecaries’ stores of aromatics, where we found both the object of our love and its fomentation. Thus the sacred vessels of knowledge accrued to the discretion of our dispensation, some given, some sold, and some lent for the time.

Nimirum cum nos plerique de hujusmodi donariis cernerent contentatos, ea sponte nostris usibus studuerunt tribuere, quibus ipsi libentius caruerunt, quam ea quae nostris assistentes servitiis abstulerunt. Quorum tamen negotia sic expedire curavimus gratiose, ut et eisdem emolumentum accresceret, nullum tamen detrimentum justitia sentiret. Porro, si scyphos aureos et argenteos, si equos egregios, si nummorum summas non modicas amassemus, tunc temporis dives nobis aerarium instaurasse possemus.

Indeed, when most saw us content with donatives of this sort, they of their own accord strove to bestow for our uses those things which they themselves more gladly did without, rather than those which they had taken from those attending our services. Nevertheless, we took care graciously to expedite their business in such a way that emolument might accrue to those same persons, yet no detriment should be felt by justice. Moreover, had we loved golden and silver cups, excellent horses, and sums of money not modest, we could at that time have restored for ourselves a wealthy treasury.

Sed revera libros non libras maluimus, codicesque plus dileximus quam florenos, ac panfletos exiguos incrassatis praetulimus palefridis.

But in truth we preferred books, not pounds, and loved codices more than florins, and we set slight pamphlets before fattened palfreys.

Ad haec ejusdem principis illustrissimi sempiternae memoriae legationibus crebris functi, et ob multiplicia regni negotia nunc ad sedem Romanam, nunc ad curiam Franciae, nunc ad mundi diversa dominia, taediosis ambassiatibus ac periculosis temporibus mittebamur, circumferentes tamen ubique illam, quam aquae plurimae nequiverunt exstinguere, caritatem librorum. Haec omnium peregrinationum absinthia quasi quaedam pigmentaria potio dulcoravit. Haec post perplexas intricationes et scrupulosos causarum anfractus ac vix egressibiles rei publicae labyrinthos ad respirandum ,parumper temperiem aurae lenis aperult.

To these things, having discharged frequent embassies for that same most illustrious prince of everlasting memory, and on account of the manifold affairs of the kingdom, now to the Roman See, now to the court of France, now to the world’s diverse dominions, we were sent on wearisome embassies and in perilous times, bearing everywhere, nevertheless, that love of books which very many waters were not able to extinguish. This sweetened the wormwood of all peregrinations like a certain spiced potion. This, after the perplexed intrications and the scrupulous anfractuosities of cases and the scarcely-exitable labyrinths of the commonwealth, opened for breathing ,for a little while the tempering of a gentle breeze.

O beate Deus Deorum in Sion, quantus fluminis impetus voluptatis laetificavit cor nostrum, quotiens paradisum mundi Parisius visitare vacavimus moraturi, ubi nobis semper dies pauci prae amoris magnitudine videbantur! Ibi bibliothecae jocundae super cellas aromatum redolentes, ibi virens viridarium universorum voluminum, ibi prata academica terrae motu trementia, Athenarum diverticula, Peripateticorum Itinera, Parnasi promontoria et porticus Stoicorum.

O blessed God of gods in Zion, how great a river’s rush of delight gladdened our heart, as often as we had leisure to visit Paris, the paradise of the world, intending to stay, where to us always the few days seemed all too few in view of love’s magnitude! There jocund libraries above cells of aromatics, redolent; there a verdant garden of all volumes; there the academic meadows trembling with earth’s motion, the byways of Athens, the Itineraries of the Peripatetics, the promontories of Parnassus and the porticoes of the Stoics.

Ibi cernitur tam artis quam scientiae mensurator Aristoteles, cujus est totum quod est optimum in doctrinis, in regione dumtaxat transmutabili sublunari; ibi Ptolemaeus eplcyclos et eccentricos auges atque geuzahar planetarum figuris et numeris emetitur; ibi Paulus arcana revelat; ibi Dionyslus convicinus hierarchias coordinat et distinguit; ibi quicquid Cadmus grammate recolligit Phoeniceo, totum virgo Carmenta charactere repraesentat Latino; ibi revera, apertis thesauris et sacculorum corrigiis resolutis, pecuniam laeto corde dispersimus, atque libros impretiabiles luto redemimus et arena. Nequaquam malum est, malum est, insonuit omnis emptor; sed ecce quam bonum et quam jocundum arma clericalis militiae congregare in unum, ut suppetat nobis, unde haereticorum bella conterere, si insurgant!

There is seen there Aristotle, measurer as much of art as of science, of whom is all that is best in doctrines, in the transmutable sublunar region only; there Ptolemy measures by figures and numbers the epicycles and eccentrics, the auges and the geuzahar of the planets; there Paul reveals the arcana; there Dionysius the neighbor coordinates and distinguishes the hierarchies; there whatever Cadmus recollects by the Phoenician gramme, the maiden Carmenta represents it all in the Latin character; there indeed, the treasuries opened and the straps of the little purses unloosed, we scattered money with a glad heart, and we redeemed inestimable books from mud and sand. By no means did there resound, “It is bad, it is bad,” as every buyer says; but behold how good and how jocund to gather into one the arms of the clerical soldiery, that there may be supply for us whence to crush the wars of the heretics, if they should rise up!

Amplius opportunitatem maximam nos captasse cognoscimus per hoc, quod ab aetate tenera magistrorum et scholarium ac diversarum artium professorum quos ingenii perspicacitas ac doctrinae celebritas clariores effecerant, relegato quolibet partiali favore, exquisitissima sollicitudine nostrae semper coniunximus comitivae, quorum consolativis colloquiis confortati, nunc argumentorum ostensivis investigationibus, nunc physicorum processuum ac catholicorum doctorum tractatuum recitationibus, nunc moralitatum excitativis collationibus, velut alternatis et multiplicatis ingenii ferculis, dulctus fovebamur.

Moreover we acknowledge that we captured the greatest opportunity by this: that from tender age, with every partial favor set aside, we always joined to our company teachers and scholars and professors of diverse arts, whom the perspicacity of genius and the celebrity of doctrine had made more illustrious; strengthened by their consolatory colloquies—now by ostensive investigations of arguments, now by recitations of the processes of the natural philosophers and the treatises of the Catholic doctors, now by stimulating conferences of moralities—we were, as by alternated and multiplied courses of ingenuity, cherished with sweetness.

Tales in nostro tirocinio commilitones elegimus, tales in thalamo collaterales habuimus, tales in itinere comites, tales in hospitio commensales, et tales penitus in omni fortuna sodales. Verum quia nulla felicitas diu durare permittitur, privabamur nonnunquam luminum aliquorum praesentia corporali, cum eisdem promotiones ecclesiasticae ac dignitates debitae, prospiciente de caelo justitia, provenerunt. Quo fiebat, ut incumbentes sicut oportuit curae propriae se a nostris cogerentur obsequiis absentare.

Such comrades-in-arms we chose in our apprenticeship, such side-companions we had in the bedchamber, such companions on the journey, such table-fellows in lodging, and such, through and through in every fortune, comrades. Yet, because no felicity is permitted to endure long, we were sometimes deprived of the bodily presence of certain luminaries, when for those same men ecclesiastical promotions and the dignities due, justice looking forth from heaven, befell. Whereby it came about that, applying themselves, as was fitting, to their own proper care, they were compelled to absent themselves from our services.

Rursus compendiosissimam semitam subjungemus, per quam ad manus nostras pervenit librorum tam veterum quam novorum plurima multitudo. Religiosorum siquidem mendicantium paupertatem susceptam pro Christo nunquam indignantes horruimus, verum ipsos ubique terrarum in nostrae compassionis ulnas admisimus mansuetas, affabilitate familiarissima in personae nostrae devotionem alleximus, allectosque beneficiorum liberalitate munifica fovimus propter Deum; quorum sic eramus omnium benefactores communes, ut nihilominus videremur quadam paternitatis proprietate singulos adoptasse.

Again we will subjoin a most compendious pathway, by which there came into our hands a very great multitude of books both old and new. For we never recoiled in indignation from the poverty of the mendicant religious assumed for Christ, but admitted them everywhere in the world into the gentle arms of our compassion, and by most familiar affability lured them into devotion to our person, and, once allured, we cherished them with the munificent liberality of benefactions for God’s sake; of whom we were thus the common benefactors of all, so that nonetheless we seemed, by a certain property of paternity, to have adopted each one individually.

Istis in statu quolibet facti sumus refugium, istis nunquam clausimus gratiae nostrae sinum; quamobrem istos votorum nostrorum peculiarissimos zelatores meruimus habere, et tam opere quam opera promotores. Qui circuentes mare et aridam ac orbis ambitum perlustrantes, universitates quoque diversarumque provinciarum generalia studia perscrutantes, nostris desideriis militare studebant certissima spe mercedes.

For these, in whatever state, we became a refuge, for these we never shut the bosom of our grace; wherefore we deserved to have them as the most particular zealots of our vows, and promoters both by deed and by assistance. Who, circling sea and dry land and scanning the circuit of the globe, and also scrutinizing the universities and the general studies of diverse provinces, were eager to soldier for our desires with the surest hope of rewards.

Quis inter tot argutissimos venatores lepusculus delitesceret? Quis pisciculus istorum nunc hamos, nunc retia, nunc sagenas evaderet? A corpore sacrae legis divinae usque ad quaternum sophismatum hesternorum, nihil istos praeterire potuit scrutatores.

Which little hare would lie hidden among so many most acute hunters? Which little fish of these men would now escape the hooks, now the nets, now the seines? From the corpus of the sacred divine law all the way to the quaternion of yesterday’s sophisms, nothing could pass by these scrutators.

Si in fonte fidei Christianae, curia sacrosancta Romana, sermo devotus insonuit, vel si pro novis causis quaestio ventilabatur extranea, si Parisiensis soliditas, quae plus antiquitati discendae quam veritati subtiliter producendae jam studet, si Anglicana perspicacitas, quae antiquis perfusa Iuminaribus novos semper radios emittit veritatis, quicquam ad augmentum scientiae vel declarationem fidei promulgabat, hoc statim nostris recens infundebatur auditibus nullo denigratum seminiverbio nulloque nugace corruptum, sed de praelo purissimi torcularis in nostrae memoriae dolia defaecandum transibat.

If, at the fountain of the Christian faith, the most holy Roman Curia, a devout discourse resounded, or if for novel causes an extraneous question was ventilated; if the Parisian solidity, which now applies itself more to antiquity to be learned than to truth to be subtly brought forth, if the English perspicacity, which, suffused with ancient lights, always emits new rays of truth, promulgated anything for the augmentation of science or the declaration of faith, this was at once poured fresh into our ears, denigrated by no half-word and corrupted by no trifling, but passed from the press of the most pure winepress into the vats of our memory to be clarified.

Cum vero nos ad civitat es et loca contingeret declinare, ubi praefati pauperes conventus habebant, eorum armaria ac quaecunque librorum repositoria visitare non piguit; immo ibi in altisstma paupertate altissimas divitias sapientiae thesaurizatas invenimus, et non solum in eorum sarcinulis et sportellis micas de mensa dominorum cadentes repperimus pro catellis, verum panes propositionis absque fermento panemque angeIorum omne delectamentum in se habentem, immo horrea Joseph plena frumentis totamque Aegypti supellectilem atque dona ditissima, quae regina Saba detulit Salomoni.

When in truth it befell us to turn aside to the cities and places where the aforesaid poor had their convents, it was no trouble to visit their armaria and whatever repositories of books; nay rather, there in the most exalted poverty we found the most exalted riches of wisdom laid up as in a treasury, and we discovered not only in their little packs and small baskets crumbs falling from the lords’ table for the little dogs, but truly the breads of proposition without leaven and the bread of angels holding every delectation in itself, nay rather the granaries of Joseph filled with grain and the whole furnishing of Egypt, and the most wealthy gifts which the queen of Sheba brought to Solomon.

Hi sicut formicae continue congregantes in messem et apes argumentosae fabricantes jugiter cellas mellis. Hi successores Bezeleel ad excogitandum quicquid fabrefieri poterit in argento et auro ac gemmis, quibus templum Ecclesiae decoretur. Hi prudentes polymitarii, qui superhumerale et rationale pontificis sed et vestes varias efficiunt sacerdotum.

These like ants continually gathering for the harvest, and like argumentative bees incessantly fashioning the cells of honey. These, successors of Bezalel, to devise whatever can be wrought in silver and gold and gems, with which the temple of the Church may be adorned. These prudent polymitaries (brocade‑weavers), who make the ephod and the rational (breastpiece) of the pontiff, and also fashion various garments of the priests.

Hi cortinas, saga pellesque arietum rubricatas resarciunt quibus Ecclesiae militantis tabernaculum contegatur. Hi agricolae seminantes, boves triturantes, tubae buccinantes, pleiades emicantes et stellae manentes in ordine suo, quae Sisaram expugnare non cessant. Et ut veritas honoretur, salvo praejudicio cujuscunque, licet hi nuper hora undecima vineam sint ingressi dominicam, sicut amantissimi nobis libri capitulo sexto supra anxius allegabant, plus tamen in hac hora brevissima sacratorum librorum adjecerunt propagini quam omnes residui vinitores; Pauli sectantes vestigia, qui vocatione novissimus praedicatione primus, multo latius aliis evangelium Christi sparsit.

These mend the curtains, the cloaks, and the rams’ skins dyed red, with which the tabernacle of the Church militant may be covered. These are agriculturists sowing, oxen threshing, trumpets sounding, the Pleiades flashing out, and stars remaining in their order, who do not cease to assail Sisera. And, that truth may be honored, without prejudice to anyone, although these have but lately, at the eleventh hour, entered the Lord’s vineyard, as the books most beloved by us, above in chapter six, earnestly alleged, yet in this very brief hour they have added more to the propagation of the hallowed books than all the remaining vinedressers; following the footprints of Paul, who—last in calling, first in preaching—spread the gospel of Christ much more widely than the others.

De istis ad statum pontificalem assumpti nonnullos habuimus de duobus ordinibus, Praedicatorum videlicet et Minorum, nostris assistentes lateribus nostraeque familiae commensales, viros utique tam moribus insignitos quam litteris, qui diversorum voluminum correctionibus, expositionibus, tabulationibus ac compilationibus indefessis studiis incumbebant.

Of these, assumed to the pontifical state, we had several from the two Orders, namely of Preachers and of Minors, attending at our sides and table‑companions of our household, men indeed marked as much by morals as by letters, who applied themselves with indefatigable studies to the corrections, expositions, tabulations, and compilations of diverse volumes.

Sane quamvis omnium religiosorum communicatione multiplici plurimorum operum copiam tam novorum quam veterum assecuti fuerimus, Praedicatores tamen extollimus merito speciali praeconio in hac parte, quod eos prae cunctis reltgiosis suorum sine mvidia gratissime communicativos invenimus, ac divina quadam liberalitate perfusos sapientiae luminosae probavimus non avaros sed idoneos possessores.

Indeed, although by the manifold communication of all the religious we have attained an abundance of very many works, both new and old, nevertheless we extol the Preachers with a special and well-deserved commendation in this regard, because we have found them, above all religious, most graciously communicative of their own without envy, and we have proved them, suffused with a certain divine liberality, to be possessors of luminous wisdom—not avaricious, but apt possessors.

Praeter has omnes opportunitates praetactas, stationariorum ac librariorum notitiam, non solum infra natalis soli provinciam, sed per regnum Franciae, Teutoniae et Italiae dispersorum comparavimus, faciliter pecunia praevolante, nec eos ullatenus impedivit distantia, neque furor maris absterruit, nec aes eis pro expensa defecit, quin ad nos optatos libros transmitterent vel afferrent. Sciebant profecto quod spes eorum in sinu nostro reposita defraudari non poterat, sed restabat apud nos copiosa redemptio cum usuris.

Besides all these opportunities previously touched upon, we procured acquaintance with stationers and scribes, not only within the province of our native soil, but scattered through the kingdom of France, Germany, and Italy, money flying on ahead with ease; neither did distance in any way hinder them, nor did the fury of the sea deter them, nor did coin for expense fail them, but that they would send or bring to us the desired books. They knew indeed that the hope they had placed in our bosom could not be defrauded, but that with us there remained abundant recompense with interest.

Denique nec rectores scholarum ruralium puerorumque rudium paedagogos nostra neglexit communio, singulorum captatrix amoris; sed potius cum vacaret, eorum hortulos et agellos ingressi, flores superficietenus redolentes collegimus ac radices effodimus obsoletas, studiosis tamen accommodas et quae possent, digesta barbarie rancida, pectorales arterias eloquentiae munere medicari. Inter hujusmodi pleraque comperimus renovari dignissima quae, solerter elimata robigine turpi, larva vetustatis deposita, merebantur venustis vultibus denuo reformari. Quae nos, adhibita necessariorum suflicientia, in futurae resurrectionis exemplum resuscitata quodammodo redivivae reddidimus sospitati.

Finally, our communion—wooer of each one’s affection—did not neglect either the rectors of rural schools or the pedagogues of untrained boys; but rather, when it had leisure, entering their little gardens and small plots, we gathered flowers fragrant only on the surface and dug up obsolete roots—yet suitable for the studious and such as could, the rancid barbarism having been digested, medicate the pectoral arteries by the gift of eloquence. Among such things we discovered very many most worthy to be renewed, which, the ugly rust cleverly polished away and the mask of antiquity laid aside, deserved to be reshaped anew with charming countenances. These we, with a sufficiency of the necessaries applied, restored to health, as it were revived to life, as an exemplar of the future resurrection.

Caeterum apud nos in nostris maneriis multitudo non modica semper erat antiquariorum, scriptorum, correctorum, colligatorum, illuminatorum et generaliter omnium, qui poterant librorum servitiis utiliter insudare. Postremo omnis utriusque sexus omnisque status vel dignitatis conditio, cujus erat cum libris aliquale commercium, cordis nostri januas pulsu poterat aperire facillime et in nostrae commodosum reperire cubile.

Moreover, with us in our manors there was always a not small multitude of antiquaries, scribes, correctors, binders, illuminators, and, in general, of all who could usefully sweat for the services of books. Lastly, every condition of both sexes and of every status or dignity, for whom there was some commerce with books, could by a knock very easily open the doors of our heart, and find a commodious couch in our house.

Sic omnes admisimus codices afferentes, ut nunquam praecedentium multitudo fastidium posterorum efficeret, vel hesternum beneficium praecollatum praejudicium pareret hodierno. Quapropter cum omnibus memoratis personis quasi quibusdam adamantibus attractivis librorum iugiter uteremur, fiebat ad nos desideratus accessus vasorum scientiae et volatus multifarius voluminum optimorum. Et hoc est quod praesenti capitulo sumpsimus enarrare.

Thus we admitted all the codices being brought, so that never would the multitude of predecessors produce fastidiousness in posterity, nor would yesterday’s beneficium, conferred beforehand, beget a prejudice to today’s. Wherefore with all the aforesaid persons, as with certain adamantine attractors magnetic for books, we continually made use; there resulted toward us a desired access of vessels of knowledge and a multifarious flight of the best volumes. And this is what in the present chapter we have undertaken to narrate.

Capitulum IX

Chapter 9

Quod licet opera veterum amplius amaremus, non tamen damnavimus studia modernorum

Although we loved the works of the ancients more, nevertheless we did not condemn the studies of the moderns.

LICET nostris desideriis novitas modernorum nunquam fuerit odiosa, qui vacantes studiis ac priorum patrum sententiis quicquam vel subtiliter vel utiliter adicientes grata semper affectione coluimus, antiquorum tamen examinatos labores securiori aviditate cupivimus perscrutari. Sive enim naturaliter viguerunt perspicaciori mentis ingenio, sive instantiori studio forsitan indulserunt, sive utriusque suffulti subsidio profecerunt, hoc unum comperimus evidenter, quod vix sufficiunt successores priorum comperta discutere, atque ea per doctrinae captare compendium, quae antiqui anfractuosis adinventionibus effoderunt.

ALTHOUGH to our desires the novelty of the moderns has never been odious—we, who have always cultivated with grateful affection those who, devoted to studies and adding anything either subtly or usefully to the opinions of the earlier fathers—yet we have desired with a more assured eagerness to scrutinize the examined labors of the ancients. For whether they flourished naturally with a more perspicacious genius of mind, or perhaps indulged a more insistent study, or, supported by the aid of both, made progress, this one thing we have plainly ascertained: that successors scarcely suffice to sift the findings of their predecessors and to grasp, by a compendium of doctrine, those things which the ancients dug out by anfractuous inventions.

Sicut enim in corporis probitate praestantiores legimus praecessisse, quam moderna tempora exhibere noscantur, ita luculentioribus sensibus praefulsisse plerosque veterum opinari nullatenus est absurdum, cum utrosque opera, quae gesserunt, inattingibiles posteris aeque probent. Unde Phocas in prologo Grammaticae suae scribit:

Just as indeed we read that men more outstanding in bodily excellence have preceded than the modern times are known to exhibit, so to opine that very many of the ancients shone forth with more luculent senses is by no means absurd, since the works which they performed prove both alike equally unattainable to posterity. Whence Phocas, in the prologue of his Grammar, writes:

Omnia cum veterumm sint cxplorata libellis,
Multa loqui breviter sit novitatis opus.

Since everything has been explored in the little books of the ancients,
let it be the work of novelty to speak many things briefly.

Nempe si de fenore discendi ac diligentia studii fiat sermo, illi philosophiae vitam totam integre devoverunt; nostri vero saecult contemporanet paucos annos fervidae juventutis, aestuantis vicissim mincendiis vitiorum, segniter applicant, et cum, sedatis passionibus, discernendae ambiguae veritatlis acumen attigerint, mox externis tmplicati negotiis retrocedunt et philosophiae gymnasiis valedicunt.

Indeed, if the talk be about the interest of learning and the diligence of study, those men devoted their whole life integrally to philosophy; but our contemporaries of this age sluggishly apply only a few years of fervid youth, seething in turn with the incitements of vices, and when, their passions calmed, they have touched the acumen for discerning ambiguous truth, soon, entangled in external affairs, they retreat and bid farewell to the gymnasia of philosophy.

Mustum fumosum juvenilis ingenii philosophicae difficultati delibant, vinumque maturius defaecatum oeconomicae sollictudini largiuntur. Amplius sicut Ovidius, primo De Vetula, merito lamentatur:

They skim off the smoky must of juvenile genius for philosophical difficulty, and they lavish the riper, clarified wine upon economic solicitude. Moreover, just as Ovid, at the beginning of De Vetula, rightly laments:

        Omnes declinat ad ea lucra ministrant,
      Utque sciant discunt pauci, plures ut abundent;
      Sic te prostituunt, O virgo Scientia! sic te
      Venalem faciunt castis amplexibus aptam,
      Non te propter te quaerentes, sed lucra per te,
      Ditarique volunt potius, quam philosophari;

        All turn aside and minister to those profits,
      And few learn so that they may know, more so that they may abound;
      Thus they prostitute you, O virgin Science! thus they
      Make you for sale, fit for chaste embraces,
      Not seeking you for your own sake, but profits through you,
      And they wish rather to be enriched than to philosophize;

et infra:

and below:

sic Philosophia
Exilium patitur, et Philopecunia regnat,

thus Philosophy
suffers exile, and Philopecunia reigns,

quam constat esse violentissimum toxicum disciplinae.

which it is agreed is the most violent toxin of discipline.

Qualiter vero non alium terminum studio posuerunt antiqui quam vitae, declarat Valerius ad Tiberium, libro octavo, capitulo septimo, per exempla multorum. Carneades, inquit, laboriosus ac diutinus sapientiae miles fuit; siquidem expletis nonaginta annis idem illi vivendi ac philosophandi finis fuit. Isocrates nonagesimum quartum annum agens nobilissimum librum scripsit; Sophocles prope centesimum annum agens; Simonides octogesimo anno carmina scripsit.

How indeed the ancients set no other limit to study than life, Valerius to Tiberius, in book 8, chapter 7, declares, by the examples of many. “Carneades,” he says, “was a laborious and long-continued soldier of wisdom; for indeed, when 90 years were completed, the same end came to his living and his philosophizing. Isocrates, being in his 94th year, wrote a most noble book; Sophocles, being near his 100th year; Simonides wrote poems in his 80th year.”

A. Gellius non affectavit diutius vivere, quam esset idoneus ad scribendum, teste seipso in prologo Noctium Atticarum.

A. Gellius did not aspire to live longer than he was fit for writing, with himself as witness in the prologue to the Attic Nights.

Fervorem vero studii, quem habebat Euclides Socraticus, reatare solebat Taurus philosophus, ut juvenes ad studium animaret, sicut refert A. Gellius libro septimo, capitulo decimo, voluminis memorati. Athenienses namque cum Megarenses odirent, decreverunt quod si quis de Megarensibus Athenas intraret, capite plecteretur. Tunc Euclides, qui Megarensis erat et ante illud decretum Socratem audierat, muliebri ornamento contectus de nocte, ut Socratem audiret, ibat de Megaris ad Athenas viginti millia passuum et redibat.

But the fervor of study that Euclides the Socratic had, Taurus the philosopher was accustomed to recount, so as to animate the youths to study, as A. Gellius reports in book seven, chapter ten, of the aforementioned volume. For the Athenians, since they hated the Megarians, decreed that if any of the Megarians should enter Athens, he was to be punished with death. Then Euclides, who was a Megarian and before that decree had listened to Socrates, clothed in women’s attire by night, in order to hear Socrates, used to go from Megara to Athens twenty miles and return.

Imprudens et nimius fuit fervor Archimedis, qui geometricae facultatis amator nomen edisserere noluit nec a figura protracta caput erigere, quo vitae mortalis fatum poterat prolongasse, sed indulgens studio plus quam vitae studiosam figuram vitali sanguine cruentavit.

Imprudent and excessive was the fervor of Archimedes, who, a lover of the geometric faculty, did not wish to set forth his name nor to raise his head from the drawn figure, by which he could have prolonged the fate of mortal life, but, indulging study more than life, he bloodied the studious figure with vital blood.

Quam plurima hujus nostri propositi sunt exempla, nec ea quidem transcurrere brevitas affectata permittit. Sed, quod dolentes referimus, iter prorsus diversum incedunt clerici celebres his diebus. Ambitione siquidem in aetate tenera laborantes, ac praesumptionis pennas Icarias inexpertis lacertis fragiliter coaptantes, pileum magistralem immaturi praeripiunt, fiuntque pueruli facultatum plurium professores immeriti, quas nequaquam pedetentim pertranseunt, sed ad instar caprearum saltuatim ascendunt; cumque parum de grandi torrente gustaverint, arbitrantur se totum funditus sorbuisse, vix faucibus humectatis; et quia in primis rudimentis tempore congruo non fundantur, super debile fundamentum opus aedificant ruinosum. Iamque provectos pudet addiscere, quae tenellos decuerat didicisse, et sic profecto coguntur perpetuo luere quod ad fasces indebitos praepropere salierunt

Very many are the examples of this our present thesis, nor does the affected brevity permit us to run through them. But—what we report with sorrow—celebrated clerics these days walk a path altogether different. Laboring under ambition in tender age, and feebly fitting the Icarian wings of presumption to untried muscles, they snatch prematurely the master’s cap, and become little boys, unworthy professors of several faculties, which they by no means traverse step by step, but, after the manner of goats, mount by leaps; and when they have tasted a little of the great torrent, they suppose that they have gulped it all to the bottom, their throats scarcely moistened; and because they are not founded in the first rudiments at the fitting time, upon a feeble foundation they build a ruinous work. And once advanced, they are ashamed to learn what it had befitted the tender to have learned, and thus indeed they are compelled to pay perpetually for having leapt too hastily to fasces not their due.

Propter haec et his similia, tirones scholastici soliditatem doctrinae, quam veteres habuerunt, tam paucis lucubratiunculis non attingunt, quantumcunque fungantur honoribus, censeantur nominibus, auctorizentur habitibus, locenturque solemniter in cathedris seniorum. Prisciani regulas et Donati statim de cunis erepti et celeriter ablactati perlingunt; Categorias, Perihermenias, in cujus scriptura summus Aristoteles calamum in corde tinxisse confingitur, infantili balbutie resonant impuberes et imberbes. Quarum facultatum itinera dispendioso compendio damnosoque diplomate transmeantes, in sacrum Moysen manus iniciunt violentas, ac se tenebrosis aquis in nubibus aeris facialiter aspergentes, ad pontificatus infulam caput parant, nulla decoratum canitie senectutis.

Because of these and things like them, scholastic tyros do not, with so few little lucubrations, attain to the solidity of doctrine which the ancients had, however much they may discharge honors, be rated by titles, be authorized by habits, and be solemnly located in the chairs of the elders. They lick through the rules of Priscian and Donatus, snatched straightaway from the cradle and quickly weaned; the Categories, the Perihermenias—in the writing of which the supreme Aristotle is imagined to have dipped his pen in his heart—the underage and beardless echo with infantile babbling. Having traversed the routes of these faculties by a costly shortcut and a damaging diploma, they lay violent hands upon sacred Moses, and, sprinkling themselves upon the face with the tenebrous waters in the clouds of the air, they prepare their head for the infula of the pontificate, adorned with no hoariness of old age.

Promovent plurimum istam pestem juvantque ad istum phantasticum clericatum tam pernicibus passibus attingendum papalis provisio seductivis precibus impetrata necnon et preces, quae repelli non possunt, cardinalium et potentum, amicorum cupiditas et parentum , qui aedificantes Sion in sanguinibus, prius suis nepotibus et alumnis ecclesiasticas dtgnitates anticipant, quam naturae successu vel doctrinae temperie maturescant.

They promote to the utmost this pest, and they aid toward that phantastic clericate to be reached with such nimble steps, by papal provision obtained (impetrated) through seductive prayers, and likewise by the prayers, which cannot be repelled, of cardinals and of the mighty, by the cupidity of friends and of parents , who, building Zion in blood, anticipate ecclesiastical dignities for their nephews and fosterlings before they mature by the progress of nature or by the tempering of learning.

Isto, pro dolor! paroxysmo, quem plangimus, Parisiense palladium nostris maestis temporibus cernimus jam sublatum, ubi tepuit, immo fere friguit zelus scholae tam nobiIis, cujus olim radii lucem dabant universis angulis orbis terrae. Quiescit ibidem jam calamus omnis scribae, nec librorum generatio propagatur ulterlus, nec est qui incipiat novus auctor haberi.

At this, alas! paroxysm which we lament, we behold the Parisian palladium in our mournful times now taken away, where the zeal of a school so noble has grown tepid, nay almost frigid, whose rays once gave light to all the corners of the orb of the earth. There in the same place now every scribe’s calamus rests, nor is the generation of books propagated further, nor is there anyone who begins to be accounted a new author.

Involvunt sententias sermonibus imperitis, et omnis logicae proprietate privantur; nisi quod Anglicanas subtilitates, quibus palam detrahunt, vigiliis furtivis addiscunt.

They envelop their judgments in inexpert discourses, and are deprived of all the propriety of logic; except that the English subtleties, which they openly disparage, they learn by furtive vigils.

Minerva mirabilis nationes hominum circuire videtur, et a fine usque ad finem attingit fortiter, ut se ipsam communicet universis. Indos, Babylonios, Aegyptios atque Graecos, Arabes et Latinos eam pertransisse jam cernimus. Jam Athenas deseruit, jam a Roma recessit, jam Parisius praeterivit, jam ad Britanniam, insularum insignissimam quin potius microcosmum, accessit feliciter, ut se Graecis et barbaris debitricem ostendat.

Minerva wondrously seems to go around the nations of men, and from end to end she powerfully reaches, so that she may communicate herself to all. We already discern that she has traversed the Indians, Babylonians, Egyptians and Greeks, Arabs and Latins. Now she has deserted Athens, now she has withdrawn from Rome, now she has passed by Paris, now she has happily come to Britain, the most distinguished of islands, or rather a microcosm, to show herself a debtor to Greeks and barbarians.

Quo miraculo perfecto, conicitur a plerisque quod, sicut Galliae jam sophia tepescit, sic ejusdem millitia penitus evirata languescit.

With this miracle accomplished, it is conjectured by very many that, just as Gaul’s sophia now grows tepid, so its militia, utterly emasculated, languishes.

Capitulum X

Chapter 10

De successiva perfectione librorum

On the successive perfection of books

SAPIENTIAM veterum exquirentes assidue, juxta sapientis consilium, Ecclesiastici nono et tricensimo: Sapientiam, inquit, omnium antiquorum exquiret sapiens, non in illam opinionem dignum duximus declinandum, ut primos artium fundatores omnem ruditatem elimasse dicamus, scientes adinventionem cujusque fideli canonio ponderatam pusillam efficere scientiae portionem. Sed per plurimorum investigationes sollicitas, quasi datis symbolis singillatim, scientiarum ingentia corpora ad immensas, quas cernimus, quantitates successivis augmentationibus succreverunt. Semper namque discipuli, magistrorum sententias iterata fornace liquantes, praeneglectam scoriam excoxerunt, donec fieret aurum electum probatum terrae purgatum septuplum et perfecte, nullius erronei vel dubii admixtione fucatum.

Assiduously inquiring into the WISDOM of the ancients, according to the counsel of the wise man, Ecclesiasticus 39: “Wisdom,” he says, “of all the ancients will the wise man inquire,” we have not deemed it worthy to decline into that opinion, namely to say that the first founders of the arts eliminated all rudeness, knowing that the invention of each, when weighed by a faithful canon, makes but a small portion of knowledge. But through the solicitous investigations of many, as if tokens had been given one by one, the vast bodies of the sciences have grown by successive augmentations to the immense magnitudes which we see. For always the disciples, smelting the opinions of their teachers in a repeated furnace, have burned off the previously neglected dross, until there came to be choice gold, tried in the earth, purged sevenfold and perfectly, not tinged by any admixture of error or doubt.

Neque enim Aristoteles, quamvis ingenio giganteo floreret, in quo naturae complacuit experiri quantum mortalitati rationis posset annectere, quemque paulo minus minoravit ab angelis Altissimus, illa mira volumina, quae totus vix capit orbis, ex digitis suis suxit. Quinimmo Hebraeorum, Babyloniorum, Aegyptiorum, Chaldaeorum, Persarum etiam et Medorum, quos omnes diserta Graecia in thesauros suos transtulerat, sacros libros oculis lynceis penetrando perviderat. Quorum recte dicta recipiens, aspera complanavit, superflua rescavit, diminuta supplevit et errata delevit; ac non solum sincere docentibus sed etiam oberrantibus regratiandum censuit, quasi viam praebentibus veritatem facilius inquirendi, sicut ipsemet secundo Metaphysicae clare docet.

For neither did Aristotle, although he flourished with a gigantic ingenium, in whom it pleased Nature to test how much of reason she could annex to mortality, and whom the Most High made a little lower than the angels, draw those wondrous volumes, which scarcely the whole world contains, from his own fingers. Rather, by penetrating with lynx-like eyes he had thoroughly surveyed the sacred books of the Hebrews, Babylonians, Egyptians, Chaldaeans, Persians, and even Medes, all of whom eloquent Greece had transferred into her own treasuries. Receiving what they spoke rightly, he smoothed the rough, pruned the superfluous, supplied what was diminished, and deleted the erring; and he judged that thanks were due not only to those teaching sincerely but even to those wandering, as if by providing a way for seeking out the truth more easily, as he himself clearly teaches in the second book of the Metaphysics.

Sic multi jurisperiti condidere Pandectam, sic medici multi Tegni, sic Avicenna Canonem, sic Plinius molem illam Historiae Naturalis, sic Ptolemaeus edidit Almagesti.

Thus many jurists compiled the Pandects, thus many physicians the Tegni, thus Avicenna the Canon, thus Pliny that mass of the Natural History, thus Ptolemy published the Almagest.

Quemadmodum namque in scriptoribus annalium considerare non est difficile quod semper posterior praesupponit priorem, sine quo praelapsa tempora nullatenus enarrare valeret, sic est in scientiarum auctoribus aestimandum. Nemo namque solus est in quancunque scientiam generavit, cum inter vetustissimos et novellos intermedios reperimus, antiquos quidem si nostris aetatibus comparentur, novos vero si ad studiorum fundamenta referantur, et istos doctissimos arbitramur.

For just as in the writers of annals it is not difficult to observe that the later always presupposes the earlier, without which he would by no means be able to narrate the elapsed times, so it must be estimated in the authors of the sciences. For no one by himself has generated anything in whatever science, since between the very oldest and the very newest we find intermediates—ancient, indeed, if they are compared with our ages, but new if they are referred to the foundations of studies—and we reckon these most learned.

Quid fecisset Vergilius, Latinorum poeta praecipuus, si Theocritum, Lucretium et Homerum minime spoliasset et in eorum vitula non arasset? quid nisi Parthenium Pindarumque, cujus eloquentiam nullo modo potuit imitari, aliquatenus lectitasset? Quid Sallustius, Tullius, Boetius, Macrobius, Lactantius, Martianus, immo tota cohors generaliter Latinorum, si Athenarum studia vel Graecorum volumina non vidissent?

What would Virgil, the foremost poet of the Latins, have done, if he had by no means despoiled Theocritus, Lucretius, and Homer, and had not ploughed with their heifer? What, unless he had at least read somewhat Parthenius and Pindar—whose eloquence he could in no way imitate? What would Sallust, Cicero, Boethius, Macrobius, Lactantius, Martianus—nay, the whole cohort of the Latins in general—have done, if they had not seen the studies of Athens or the volumes of the Greeks?

Parum certe in scripturae gazophylacium Hieronymus, trium linguarum peritus, Ambrosius, Augustinus, qui tamen Graecas litteras se fatetur odisse, immo Gregorius, qui prorsus eas se nescisse describit, ad doctrinam ecclesiae contulissent, si nihil eisdem doctior Graecia commodasset. Cujus rivulis Roma rigata, sicut prius generavit philosophos ad Graecorum effigiem, pari forma postea protulit orthodoxae fidei tractatores. Sudores sunt Graecorum symbola quae cantamus, eorundem declarata consiliis et multorum martyrio confirmata.

Surely they would have contributed little to the treasury of Scripture—Jerome, expert in three languages, Ambrose, Augustine, who nevertheless confesses that he hates Greek letters, nay rather Gregory, who describes that he utterly did not know them—to the doctrine of the Church, if a more learned Greece had furnished nothing to the same. By whose little streams Rome, being irrigated, just as earlier it generated philosophers after the effigy of the Greeks, afterward in equal form brought forth tractators of the orthodox faith. The symbols (creeds) which we sing are the sweats of the Greeks, declared by the counsels of the same and confirmed by the martyrdom of many.

Cedit tamen ad gloriam Latinorum per accidens hebetudo nativa, quoniam sicut fuerunt in studiis minus docti, sic in erroribus minus mali. Arriana nempe malitia fere totam eclipsarat ecclesiam, Nestoriana nequitia, quae blasphema rabie debacchari praesumpsit in virginem, tam nomen quam definitionem Theotokos abstulisset reginae non pugnando sed disputando, nisi miles invictus Cyrillus, ad monomachiae congressum paratus, eam favente consilio Ephesino in spiritu vehementi penitus exsufflasset.

Nevertheless, their native dullness, by accident, redounds to the glory of the Latins, since just as they were less learned in studies, so in errors they were less evil. For Arian malice had almost eclipsed the whole church; Nestorian wickedness, which presumed to rave with blasphemous rabies against the Virgin, would have taken from the Queen both the name and the definition “Theotokos,” not by fighting but by disputing, had not the invincible soldier Cyril, prepared for the encounter of monomachy, with the Ephesian council favoring, utterly blown it away in vehement spirit.

Innumerabiles nobis sunt Graecorum haeresium tam species quam auctores; nam sicut fuerunt sacrosanctae fidei primitivi cultores, ita et primi zizaniorum satores produntur historiis fide dignis. Sicque posterius profecerunt in pejus quod, dum Domini inconsutilem tunicam scindere molirentur, claritatem doctrinae praehabitam perdiderunt totaliter ac novis tenebris excaecati decidunt in abyssum, nisi ille sua occulta dispenset potentia, cujus sapientiam numerus non metitur.

Innumerable to us are, of the Greeks’ heresies, both the species and the authors; for just as they were the primitive cultors of the most-sacrosanct faith, so also the first sowers of tares are put forward by histories worthy of faith. And thus they later progressed into the worse, in that, while they strove to rend the Lord’s seamless tunic, they totally lost the clarity of doctrine once held, and, blinded by new darkness, they fall into the abyss, unless He, by His hidden power, should dispose it—whose wisdom no number measures.

Haec hactenus; nam hic nobis subducitur judicandi facultas. Unum tamen elicimus ex praedictis, quod damnosa nimis est hodie studio Lationorum Graeci sermonis inscitia, sine quo scriptorum veterum dogmata sive Christianorum sive gentilium nequeunt comprehendi. Idemque de Arabico in plerisque tractatibus astronomicis, ac de Hebraico pro textu sacrae bibliae, verisimiliter est censendum, quibus defectibus proinde Clemens quintus occurrit, si tamen praelati quae faciliter statuunt, fideliter observarent.

Thus far these things; for here the faculty of judging is withdrawn from us. One thing, however, we elicit from the aforesaid: that the nescience of the Greek speech is today exceedingly damaging to the study of the Latins, without which the dogmas of the ancients, whether Christian or Gentile, cannot be comprehended. Likewise the same is to be judged concerning Arabic in many astronomical tractates, and concerning Hebrew for the text of the sacred Bible—defects to which Clement V accordingly made provision, if only the prelates would faithfully observe what they readily decree.

Quamobrem grammaticam, tam Hebraeam quam Graecam, nostris scholaribus providere curavimus cum quibusdam adjunctis, quorum adminiculo studiosi lectores in dictarum linguarum scriptura, lectura necnon etiam intellectu, plurimum poterunt informari, licet proprietatem idiomatis solus auditus aurium animae repraesentet.

Wherefore we have taken care to provide grammar, both Hebrew and Greek, for our scholars, together with certain adjuncts, with the aid of which studious readers will be able to be very greatly informed in the writing, reading, and even the understanding of the said languages, although the propriety of the idiom is represented to the soul by hearing alone.

Capitulum XI

Chapter 11

Quare libros liberalium litterarum praetulimus libris iuris

Why we have preferred the books of liberal letters to the books of law

JURIS positivi lucrativa peritia dispensandis terrenis accommoda, quanto hujus saeculi filiis famulatur utilius, tanto minus ad capescenda sacrae scripturae mysteria et arcana fidei sacramenta filiis lucis confert, utpote quae disponit peculiariter ad amicitiam hujus mundi, per quam homo, Iacobo attestante, Dei constituitur inimicus. Haec nimirum lites humanas, quas infinita producit cupiditas, intricatis legibus, quae ad utrumlibet duci possunt, extendit crebrius quam exstinguit; ad quas tamen sedandas a jurisconsultis et piis principibus noscitur emanasse.

OF POSITIVE LAW the lucrative expertise, suitable for dispensing temporal things, by as much as it more usefully serves the sons of this age, by so much the less does it contribute to the sons of light for seizing upon the mysteries of sacred Scripture and the arcana of the sacrament of faith, inasmuch as it disposes one particularly toward friendship with this world, through which a man, James attesting, is constituted an enemy of God. This, to be sure, the human litigations—which boundless cupidity produces—by intricate laws, which can be led to either side, it prolongs more frequently than it extinguishes; and yet it is known to have emanated from jurisconsults and pious princes for the settling of these.

Sane cum contrariorum sit eadem disciplina potentiaque rationalis ad opposita valeat, simulque sensus humanus proclivior sit ad malum, hujus facultatis exercitatoribus accidit, ut plerumque litibus intendendis indulgeant plus quam paci, et jura non ad IegisIatoris intentum referant sed ad suae machinationis effectum verba retorqueant violenter.

Indeed, since the discipline of contraries is the same and the rational power is competent for opposites, and since at the same time the human sense is more prone to evil, it happens to the practitioners of this faculty that they for the most part indulge in pressing suits rather than in peace, and they do not refer the laws to the intention of the Legislator, but violently twist the words to the effect of their own machination.

Quamobrem, licet mentem nostram librorum amor hereos possideret a puero, quorum zelo languere vice voluptatis accepimus, minus tamen librorum civiIium appetitus nostris adhesit affectibus minusque hujusmodi voluminibus adquirendis concessimus tam operae quam impensae. Sunt enim utilia, sicut scorpio in theriaca, quemadmodum libro de Pomo Aristoteles, sol doctrinae, de logica definivit.

Wherefore, although from boyhood the love—indeed the love-sickness (hereos)—of books possessed our mind, in whose zeal we learned to languish in place of pleasure, yet an appetite for books of civil law adhered less to our affections, and we granted both effort and expense less to acquiring volumes of this kind. For they are useful, like the scorpion in theriac, as Aristotle, the sun of doctrine, defined concerning logic in the book de Pomo.

Cernebamus etiam inter leges et scientias quamdam naturae differentiam manifestam, dum omnis scientia jocundatur et appetit quod suorum principiorum praecordia, introspectis visceribus, pateant et radices suae pullulationis emineant suaeque scaturiginis emanatio luceat evidenter; sic enim ex cognato et consono lumine veritatis conclusionis ad principia ipsum corpus scientiae lucidum fiet totum, non habens aliquam partem tenebrarum. At vero leges, cum sint pacta et humana statuta ad civiliter convivendum vel juga principum superjecta cervicibus subditorum, recusant reduci ad ipsam synderesim, aequitatis originem, eo quod plus habere se timeant de voluntatis imperio quam de rationis arbitrio. Quapropter causas legum discutiendas non esse suadet in pluribus sententia sapientum.

We also perceived between laws and sciences a certain difference of nature manifest, in that every science rejoices and desires that the heart of its own principles, with the inward parts inspected, should lie open, and that the roots of its pullulation should stand forth and the emanation of its own spring should shine evidently; for thus, from the kindred and consonant light of the conclusion of truth back to the principles, the very body of the science will become wholly lucid, having no part of darkness. But laws, since they are pacts and human statutes for living together civilly, or yokes of princes superimposed upon the necks of subjects, refuse to be reduced to synderesis itself, the origin of equity, because they fear that they have more from the imperium of will than from the arbitrament of reason. Wherefore the judgment of the wise in many cases counsels that the causes of laws are not to be discussed.

Nempe consuetudine sola leges multae vigorem adquirunt non necessitate syllogistica, sicut artes, prout secundo Politicorum adstruit Aristoteles, Phoebus scholae, ubi politiam redarguit Hippodami, quae novarum legum inventoribus praemia pollicetur, quia leges veteres abrogare et novellas statuere est ipsarum, quae fiunt, valitudinem infirmare. Quae enim sola consuetudine stabilitatem accipiunt, haec necesse est desuetudine dirimantur.

Indeed by custom alone many laws acquire vigor, not by syllogistic necessity, as the arts do, just as Aristotle, the Phoebus of the school, establishes in the second book of the Politics, where he refutes the polity of Hippodamus, which promises rewards to inventors of novel laws, because to abrogate old laws and to establish new ones is to weaken the very constitution—the valitude—of the things that are being formed. For those things which receive stability by custom alone, these of necessity are dissolved by disuse.

Ex quibus liquido satis constat quod, sicut leges nec artes sunt nec scientiae, sic nec libri legum libri scientiarum vel artium proprie dici possunt. Nec est haec facultas inter scientias recensenda, quam licet geologiam appropriato vocabulo nominare. Libri vero liberalium litterarum tam utiles sunt scripturae divinae, quod sine ipsorum subsidio frustra ad ipsius notitiam intellectus aspiret.

From which it is sufficiently clear that, just as laws are neither arts nor sciences, so neither can the books of laws properly be called books of sciences or of arts. Nor is this faculty to be counted among the sciences, which one may name “geology” with an appropriated term. But the books of the liberal letters are so useful to divine Scripture that, without their aid, the intellect would aspire in vain to knowledge of it.

Capitulum XII

Chapter 12

Quare libros grammaticales tanta diligentia curavimus renovare

Why we have with such diligence taken care to renew the grammatical books

CUM LIBRORUM lectionibus foveremur assidue, quos moris erat cotidie legere vel audire, perpendimus evidenter quantum impediat intellectus officium vel unius vocabuli semiplena notitia, dum nullius enuntiationis sententia capitur, cujus pars quantalibet ignoratur. Quapropter exoticorum verborum interpretationes mira sedulitate jussimus annotari antiquorumque grammaticorum orthographiam, prosodiam, etymologiam ac diasyntheticam inconcussa curiositate consideravimus terminosque vetustate nimia caligantes descriptionibus congruis lucidare curavimus, quatenus iter planum nostris studentibus pararemus.

As we were continually being nourished by readings of books—which it was our custom daily to read or to hear—we clearly weighed how much the function of understanding is hindered by the half-full knowledge of even a single word, since the sense of no enunciation is grasped, of which any part, however small, is unknown. Wherefore we ordered the interpretations of exotic words to be annotated with wondrous assiduity, and with unshaken curiosity we considered the orthography, prosody, etymology, and diasynthetic of the ancient grammarians, and we took care to make terms, growing dim through excessive age, lucid by congruent descriptions, so that we might prepare a level road for our students.

Haec est sane summa totalis quare tot grammaticorum antiquata volumina emendatis codicibus renovare studuimus, ut stratas regias sterneremus, quibus ad arte quascunque nostri futuri scholares incederent inoffense.

This is indeed the sum total wherefore we have endeavored to renovate so many antiquated volumes of the grammarians by emended codices, so that we might pave the royal highways, along which toward whatever arts our future scholars might proceed without hindrance.

Capitulum XIII

Chapter 13

Quare non omnino negleximus fabulas poetarum

Wherefore we have not altogether neglected the fables of the poets

OMNIA genera machinarum quibus contra poetas solius nudae veritatis amatores obiciunt duplici refelluntur umbone, quia vel in obscena materia gratus cultus sermonis addiscitur vel, ubi ficta sed honesta tractatur sententia, naturalis vel historialis veritas indagatur sub eloquio typicae fictionis.

ALL kinds of machinations with which the lovers of sole naked truth object against the poets are refuted by a twofold shield-boss, because either in obscene material a pleasing cultivation of discourse is learned, or, where a fictive yet honest meaning is treated, natural or historical truth is investigated under the eloquence of typological fiction.

Quamvis nimirum omnes homines natura scire desiderent, non tamen omnes aequaliter delectantur addiscere, quinimmo studii labore gustato et sensuum fatigatione percepta plerique nucem abiciunt inconsulte prius quam testa soluta nucleus attingatur. Innatus est enim homini duplex amor, videlicet propriae libertatis in regimine et aliquantae voluptatis in opere; unde nullus sine causa alieno se subdit imperio vel opus quodcunque exercet cum taedio sua sponte. Delectatio namque perficit operationem, sicut pulcritudo juventutem: sicut Aristoteles verissime dogmatizat decimo Ethicorum.

Although indeed all men by nature desire to know, nevertheless not all are equally delighted to learn; nay rather, once the labor of study has been tasted and the fatigue of the senses perceived, very many imprudently cast away the nut before the shell is loosened and the nucleus is reached. For there is an innate double love in man, namely of one’s own liberty in regimen and of some pleasure in work; whence no one without cause subjects himself to another’s command, or of his own accord undertakes any work whatsoever with tedium. For delectation perfects operation, just as pulchritude perfects youth: as Aristotle most truly dogmatizes in the tenth of the Ethics.

Idcirco prudentia veterum adinvenit remedium, quo lascivum humanum caperetur ingenium quodammodo pio dolo, dum sub voluptatis iconio deIicata Minerva delitesceret in occulto. Muneribus parvulos ascolemus allicere ut illa gratis velint addiscere, quibus eos vel invitos intendimus applicare. Non enim natura corrupta eo impetu, quo prona se pellit ad vitia, transmigrat ad virtutes. Hoc in brevi versiculo nobis declarat Horatius, ubi artem tradit poeticam, ita dicens:

Therefore the prudence of the ancients invented a remedy, by which the lascivious human ingenium might in a sense be captured by a pious deceit, while under the icon of pleasure the delicate Minerva lay hidden in secret. By gifts we are wont to entice little children, so that they may wish of their own accord to learn those things to which we intend to apply them even if unwilling. For corrupt nature does not, with that same impetus with which, being prone, it drives itself to vices, transmigrate to virtues. Horace declares this to us in a brief little verse, where he hands down the Poetic Art, saying thus:

Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poctae.

Poets wish either to profit or to delight.

Hoc idem in alio versu ejusdem libri patenter insinuat, ita scribens:

He plainly insinuates this same thing in another verse of the same book, writing thus:

Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci.

He has carried every point who has mixed the useful with the sweet.

Quot Euclidis discipulos retrojecit Elefuga, quasi scopulus eminens et abruptus, qui nullo scalarum suffragio scandi posset! Durus, inquiunt, est hic sermo; quis potest eum audire? Filius inconstantiae, qui tandem in asinum transformari volebat, philosophiae studium nullatenus forsitan dimisisset, si eidem contecta voluptatis velamine familiariter occurrisset.

How many of Euclid’s disciples did the Elefuga cast back, like a projecting and precipitous crag, which could be climbed by no support of ladders! “Hard,” they say, “is this discourse; who can hear it?” The son of inconstancy, who at length wanted to be transformed into an ass, would by no means perhaps have dismissed the study of philosophy, if the same had met him in a familiar way, covered with the veil of pleasure.

Sed mox Cratonis cathedra stupefactus et quaestionibus infinitis, quasi quodam fulmine subito repercussus, nullum prorsus videbat refugium nisi fugam.

But soon, stupefied by Crato’s cathedra and by infinite questions, as if suddenly struck back by a certain lightning-bolt, he saw absolutely no refuge except flight.

Haec in excusationem adduximus poetarum; jam studentes intentione debita in eisdem ostendimus inculpandos. Ignorantia quidem solius unius vocabuli praegrandis sententiae impedit intellectum, sicut proximo capitulo est assumptum. Cum igitur dicta sanctorum poetarum figmentis frequenter alludant, eveniet, necesse est ut nescito poemate introducto tota ipsius auctoris intentio penttus obstruatur.

We have adduced these things in excuse of the poets; now we have shown those studying the same with due intention to be to be blamed. Ignorance indeed of a single word impedes the intellect of a very weighty sentence, as was assumed in the previous chapter. Since therefore the sayings of the saints frequently allude to the figments of the poets, it will happen, of necessity, that, when some unknown poem is introduced, the entire intention of the author himself is utterly obstructed.

Et certe, sicut dicit Cassiodorus libro suo, De Institutione Divinarum Litterarum, non sunt parva censenda sine quibus in magna constare non possunt. Restat igitur ut ignoratis poesibus ignoretur Hieronymus, Augustinus, Boetius, Lactantius, Sidonius et plerique alii, quorum litaniam prolixum capitulum non teneret.

And certainly, as Cassiodorus says in his book, De Institutione Divinarum Litterarum, those things without which great things cannot stand are not to be deemed small. It remains, therefore, that with poesies ignored, Jerome, Augustine, Boethius, Lactantius, Sidonius, and very many others be ignored—whose litany a prolix chapter would not contain.

Venerabilis vero Beda hujus dubitationis articulum distinctione declaravit dilucida, sicut recitat compilator egregius Gratianus, plurium repetitor auctorum, qui sicut fuit avarus in compilationis materia, sic confusus reperitur in forma. Scribit tamen sic distinctione septimo et tricensimo, Turbat asumen: saeculares litteras quidam legunt ad voluptatem, poetarum figmentis et verborum ornatu delectati; quidam vero ad eruditionem eas addiscunt, ut errores gentium legendo detestentur et utilia, quae in eis invenerint, ad usum sacrae eruditionis devoti convertant: tales laudabiliter saeculares litteras addiscunt. Haec Beda

The Venerable Bede indeed clarified the point of this doubt by a lucid distinction, as the distinguished compiler Gratian, a repeater of many authors, recounts; who, just as he was sparing in the material of the compilation, so he is found confused in form. Nevertheless he writes thus in the thirty-seventh distinction, Turbat asumen: certain men read secular letters for pleasure, delighted by the figments of poets and the ornament of words; but certain others learn them for erudition, so that by reading they may detest the errors of the nations and devoutly convert the useful things which they have found in them to the use of sacred erudition: such men laudably learn secular letters. Thus Bede

Hac institutione salutifera moniti sileant detrahentes studentibus in poetis ad tempus , nec ignorantes hujusmodi connescientes desiderent, quia hoc est simile solatio miserorum. Statuat igitur sibi quisque piae intentionis affectum et de quacunque materia, observatis virtutis circumstantiis, faciet studium Deo gratum; et si in poeta profecerit, quemadmodum magnus Maro se fatetur in Ennio, non amisit.

Admonished by this salutary instruction, let those who detract from students in the poets be silent for a time , nor let the ignorant desire those acquainted with such things, because this is like the solace of the wretched. Let each person therefore establish for himself the affection of a pious intention, and from whatever material, the circumstances of virtue being observed, he will make a study pleasing to God; and if he has advanced in the poet, as the great Maro confesses himself in Ennius, he has not lost.

Capitulum XIV

Chapter 14

Qui deberet esse librorum potissimi dilectores

Who ought to be the foremost lovers of books

RECOLLIGENTI praedicta palam est et perspicuum qui deberet esse librorum praecipui dilectores. Qui namque sapientia magis egent ad sui status officium utiliter exsequendum, hi potissimum sacris vasis sapientiae propensiorem proculdubio exhibere tenentur sollicitum grati cordis affectum. Est autem sapientis officium bene ordinare et alios et seipsum: secundum Phoebum philosophorum, Aristotelem, primo Metaphysicae, qui nec fallit nec fallitur in humanis.

To one recollecting the aforesaid it is plain and perspicuous who ought to be the chief lovers of books. For those who more lack wisdom for usefully executing the office of their status—these above all are without doubt bound to exhibit toward the sacred vessels of wisdom the more propense, solicitous affection of a grateful heart. Now it is the office of the wise man to ordinate well both others and himself, according to the Phoebus of philosophers, Aristotle, in the first of the Metaphysics, who neither deceives nor is deceived in human things.

Quapropter principes et praelati, judices et doctores et quicunque rei publicae directores, sicut prae aliis sapientia opus habent, ita prae aliis vasis sapientiae zelum debent.

Wherefore princes and prelates, judges and doctors, and whoever are directors of the commonwealth, just as they have need of wisdom more than others, so more than others they owe zeal for the vessels of wisdom.

Philosophiam nimirum conspexit Boetius in sinistra quidem sceptrum et in dextra libros gestantem, per quod universis evidenter ostenditur nullum posse rempublicam debite regere sine libris. Tu, inquit Boetius loquens Philosophiae, hanc sententiam Platonis ore sanxisti beatus fore re publicas si eas vel studiosi sapientiae regerent vel earum rectores studere sapientiae contigisset. Rursus hoc nobis insinuat ipse gestus imaginis, quod quanto dextra sinistram praecellit, tanto contemplativa dignior est activa, simulque sapientis interesse monstratur nunc studio veritatis, nunc dispensatione temporalium indulgere vicissim.

Boethius indeed beheld Philosophy bearing a scepter in the left and books in the right, by which it is manifestly shown to all that no one can duly rule the republic without books. You, said Boethius speaking to Philosophy, sanctioned with your mouth this dictum of Plato, that republics would be blessed if they were ruled either by those studious of wisdom, or if it befell that their rulers study wisdom. Again the very gesture of the image insinuates this to us: that inasmuch as the right excels the left, so much the contemplative is more worthy than the active; and at the same time it is shown to pertain to the wise man to indulge in turn now in the study of truth, now in the dispensation of temporal things.

Philippum legimus diis regratiatum devote, quod Alexandrum concesserant temporibus Aritotelis esse natum, cujus instructionibus educatus regni paterni moderamine dignus esset. Dum Phaeton ignarus regiminis fit currus auriga paterni, nunc vicinitate nimia nunc remota distantia infeliciter administrat mortalibus aestum Phoebi ac, ne omnes periclitarentur subjecti propinquo regimine, juste meruit fulminare.

We read that Philip devoutly gave thanks to the gods, because they had granted that Alexander be born in the times of Aristotle, by whose instructions, being educated, he would be worthy of the helm of the paternal kingdom. While Phaethon, ignorant of governance, becomes the charioteer of his father’s chariot, now by excessive proximity, now by withdrawn distance, he unhappily administers to mortals the heat of Phoebus; and, lest all the subjects be endangered by a too-near steering, he justly deserved to be struck by the thunderbolt.

Referunt tam Graecorum quam Latinorum historiae, quod nobiles inter eos principes non fuerunt, qui litterarum peritia caruerunt. Sacra lex Mosaica, praescribens regi regulam, per quam regat, librum legis divinae sibi praecipit habere descriptum, Deut. septemdecimo, secundum exemplar a sacerdotibus exhibendum, in quo sibi legendum esset omnibus diebus vitae suae. Sane labilitatem humanae memoriae et instabilitatem virtuosae voluntatis in homine satis noverat Deus ipse, qui condidit et qui fingit cotidie corda hominum singillatim.

Both the histories of the Greeks and of the Latins report that there were not among them noble princes who lacked skill in letters. The sacred Mosaic law, prescribing to the king a rule by which he is to rule, enjoins that he have for himself a book of the divine law written out, Deut. 17, according to the exemplar to be exhibited by the priests, in which it should be read by him all the days of his life. Truly God himself, who founded and who daily fashions the hearts of men individually, well knew the lability of human memory and the instability of a virtuous will in man.

Quamobrem quasi omnium malorum antidotum voluit esse librum, cujus lectionem et usum tanquam saluberrimum spiritus alimentum cotidianum jugiter esse jussit, quo refocillatus intellectus nec enervis nec dubius trepidaret ullatenus in agendis. Istud eleganter Joannes Saresberiensis pertractat in suo Policraticon, libro quarto.

Wherefore he wished the book to be, as it were, an antidote to all evils, and he ordered its reading and use to be continually a daily nourishment of the spirit, most health-giving, whereby the understanding, refreshed, might in no way tremble—neither enervated nor doubtful—in matters to be done. This John of Salisbury treats elegantly in his Policraticon, book four.

Caeterum omne genus hominum, qui tonsura vel signo clericali praefulgent, contra quos libri quarto, quinto et sexto capitulis querebantur, libris tenentur veneratione perpetua famulari.

Moreover, every kind of men who shine forth by tonsure or by the clerical sign—against whom complaint was made in the chapters of the fourth, fifth, and sixth book—are held to serve the books with perpetual veneration.

Capitulum XV

Chapter 15

Quot commoda confert amor librorum

How many benefits the love of books confers

HUMANUM transcendit ingenium, quanrumcunque de fonte fuerit Pegaseo potatum, instantis capituli titulum explicare perfecte. Si linguis angelorum et hominum quis loquatur, si in Mercurium transformetur aut Tullium, si dulcescat Titi Livii eloquentia lactea, si Demosthenis suavitate peroret, aut Moysi balbutiem allegabit, vel cum Ieremia se puerum nescientem fatebitur adhuc loqui, vel imitabitur resonantem in montibus altis echo. Amorem namque librorum amorem sapientiae constat esse, sicut secundo capitulo est probatum.

It transcends human ingenuity, however much it may have drunk from the Pegasean fountain, to explain perfectly the title of the present chapter. If someone should speak with the tongues of angels and of men, if he be transformed into Mercury or Tullius, if the milky eloquence of Titus Livius should grow sweet, if he should harangue with the suavity of Demosthenes, or allege the stammering of Moses, or with Jeremiah confess himself a boy not yet knowing to speak, or imitate the echo resounding on high mountains. For the love of books is agreed to be the love of wisdom, as was proved in the second chapter.

Hic autem amor philosophia Graeco vocabulo nuncupatur, cujus virtutem nulla creata intelligentia comprehendit, quoniam vere creditur bonorum omnium esse mater:—Sap. septimo. Aestus quippe carnalium vitiorum quasi caelicus ros exstingulit, dum motus intensus virtutum animalium vires naturalium virtutum remittit, otio penitus effugato, quo sublato periere Cupidinis arcus omnes.

But this love is called, by a Greek vocable, philosophy, whose virtue no created intelligence comprehends, since it is truly believed to be the mother of all goods:—Wis.7. For it extinguishes the heat of carnal vices like a celestial dew, while the intense motion of the animal virtues relaxes the powers of the natural virtues, with idleness utterly put to flight; and, that being removed, all the bows of Cupid have perished.

Hinc Plato in Phaedone: In hoc, inquit, manifestus est philosophus, si absolvit animam a corporis communione differentius aliis hominibus. Ama, inquit Hieronymus, scientiam scripturarum et carnis vitia non amabis. Demonstravit hoc Xenocrates, deiformis in constanta rationis, quem nobile scortum, Phryne nomine, statuam definivit non hominem cum nullis eum valeret illecebris evirare, quemadmodum 0 Valerius libro quarto, capitulo tertio plene refert.

Hence Plato in the Phaedo: “In this,” he says, “the philosopher is manifest, if he absolves the soul from communion with the body more distinctly than other men.” “Love,” says Jerome, “the knowledge of the Scriptures, and you will not love the vices of the flesh.” Xenocrates, deiform in the constancy of reason, demonstrated this—whom the noble courtesan, by name Phryne, declared to be a statue, not a man, since she could not unman him by any blandishments—as Valerius fully reports in book 4, chapter 3.

Hoc ipsum noster Origenes ostendit, qui ne eum ab omnipotenti femina effeminari contingeret, utriusque sexus medium per abnegationem extremorum elegit: animosum quippe remedium, nec naturae: tamen consentaneum nec virtuti, cujus est hominem non insensibilem facere passionum sed subortas a fomite rationis enecare mucrone.

This very thing our Origen shows, who, lest it should happen that he be effeminated by an omnipotent woman, chose the mean of both sexes through abnegation of the extremes: a high-spirited remedy, yet consentaneous neither with nature nor with virtue, whose part is not to make a man insensible to passions, but to slay those arisen from the tinder with the point of reason.

Rursus mundanas pecunias parvipendunt ex animo, quotquot amor affecit librorum, dicente Hieronymo contra Vigilantium, epistola quarta et quinquagensima: non est ejusdem hominis aureos nummos et scripturas probare. Unde a quodam metrice sic dictum est:

Again, they slight worldly money from the soul, all whom the love of books has affected, Jerome saying against Vigilantius, letter 54: it is not the same man’s part to approve gold coins and the Scriptures. Whence by a certain one it has been said metrically thus:

        Nulla libris erit apta manus ferrugine tincta,
        Nec nummata queunt corda vacare libris.
      Non est ejusdem nummos librosque probare;
        Persequitur libros grex, Epicure, tuus.
      Nummipatae cum libricolis nequeunt simul esse;
        Ambos, crede mihi, non tenet una domus.

        No hand stained with rust will be apt for books;
        Nor can moneyed hearts find leisure for books.
      It is not of the same man to approve coins and books;
        Your herd, Epicurus, persecutes books.
      Coin-chasers cannot be together with book-cultivators;
        Believe me, one house does not hold them both.

Nullus igitur potest libris et Mammonae deservire.

Therefore no one can serve books and Mammon.

Vitiorum deformitas in libris maxime reprobatur, ut inducatur omnimode vitia detestari, qui libros dilexerit perscrutari. Daemon, qui a scientia nomen habet, per librorum scientiam potissime triumphatur, cujus fraudes multipliciter flexuosae milleque perniciosi maeandri per libros panduntur legentibus, ne se transfigurans in angelum lucis dolis circumveniat innocentes. Divina nobis per libros reverentia revelatur, virtutes quibus colitur propalantur expressius, atque merces describitur, quam quae nec fallit nec fallitur veritas pollicetur.

The deformity of vices is most of all reprobated in books, so that he who has loved to scrutinize books may be induced in every way to detest vices. The demon, who has his name from knowledge, is most especially triumphed over through the knowledge of books, whose wiles, manifoldly sinuous and the thousand pernicious meanders, are laid open through books to readers, lest, transfiguring himself into an angel of light, he with guiles circumvent the innocent. Divine reverence is revealed to us through books, the virtues by which He is worshiped are more expressly propalated, and the reward is described which the Truth that neither deceives nor is deceived promises.

Imago simillima futurae beatitudinis est sacrarum contemplatio litterarum, in quibus nunc Creator nunc creatura conspicitur, ac de torrente perpetuae jocunditatis hauritur. Fides fundatur potentia litterarum. Spes Iibrorum solatio confirmatur, ut per patientiam et consolationem scripturarum spem habeamus.

A most similar image of future beatitude is the contemplation of the sacred letters, in which now the Creator, now the creature is beheld, and from the torrent of perpetual jocundity one draws. Faith is founded by the power of the letters. Hope is confirmed by the solace of books, so that through the patience and consolation of the scriptures we may have hope.

Caritas non inflatur sed aedificatur per veram notitiam litterarum; immo super libros sacros constat luce clarius Ecclesiam stabilitam.

Charity is not inflated but is edified through the true knowledge of letters; indeed, upon the sacred books it stands clearer than light that the Church is established.

Delectant libri, prosperitate feliciter arridente, consolantur individue, nubila fortuna terrente: pactis humanis robur attribuunt, nec feruntur sententiae graves sine libris. Artes et scientiae in libris consistunt, quarum emolumenta nulla mens sufIiceret enarrare. Quanti pendenda est mira librorum potentia, dum per eos fines tam orbis quam temporis cernimus, et ea quae non sunt, sicut ea quae sunt, quasi in quodam aeternitatis speculo contemplamur.

Books delight, with prosperity smiling happily; they console without fail, when clouded Fortune threatens: they attribute strength to human pacts, nor are weighty judgments delivered without books. The arts and sciences consist in books, whose emoluments no mind would suffice to recount. How highly to be valued is the wondrous power of books, since through them we discern the bounds both of the world and of time, and we contemplate the things which are not, just as the things which are, as if in a certain mirror of eternity.

Montes scandimus, abyssorum voragines perscrutamur, spectes piscium, quos communis aer nequaquam salubriter continet, intuemur codicibus; fluviorum et fontium diversarum terrarum proprietates distinguimus; metallorum atque gemmarum genera et minerae cujusque materias de libris effodimus, herbarumque vires, arborum et plantarum addiscimus, prolemque totam pro libito cernimus Neptuni, Cereris et Plutonis.

We scale mountains, we scrutinize the chasms of the abysses, the species of fishes, which the common air by no means healthfully contains, we behold in books; we distinguish the properties of the rivers and the springs of diverse lands; from books we excavate the kinds of metals and gems and the materials of each ore, and we learn the powers of herbs, of trees and of plants, and at our pleasure we discern the whole progeny of Neptune, Ceres, and Pluto.

Quod si nos caelicolas visitare delectat, suppeditantes Taurum, Caucasum et Olympum, Junonis regna transcendimus, ac septena territoria planetarum funiculis et circulis emetimur. Ipsum tandem firmamentum supremum, signis, gradibus et imaginibus varietate maxima decoratum, lustramus. Ibi polum antarcticum, quem nec oculus vidit nec auris audivit, inspicimus; luminosum iter galaxiae et animalibus caelestibus picturatum zodiacum delectabili jocunditate miramur.

But if it delights us to visit the heaven-dwellers, with Taurus, Caucasus, and Olympus at our disposal, we transcend Juno’s realms, and by cords and circles we measure out the seven territories of the planets. At length we survey the very supreme firmament, adorned with signs, degrees, and images in the greatest variety. There we behold the Antarctic pole, which neither eye has seen nor ear has heard; we marvel with delectable jocundity at the luminous road of the Galaxy and the Zodiac painted with celestial animals.

Hinc per libros ad separatas transimus substantias, ut cognatas intelligentias intellectus salutet primamque causam omnium ac motorem immobilem infinitae virtutis oculo mentis cernat et amore inhaereat sine fine. Ecce per libros adjuti beatitudinis nostrae mercedem attingimus, dum adhuc existimus viatores.

Hence through books we pass to the separated substances, so that the intellect may salute the kindred intelligences, and with the eye of the mind may discern the first cause of all things and the unmoved mover of infinite power, and may cleave by love without end. Behold, aided by books, we attain the reward of our beatitude, while we still exist as wayfarers.

Quid plura? proculdubio, sicut Seneca docente didicimus, otium sine litteriss mors est et vivi hominis sepultura, ita revera a sensu contrario litterarum seu librorum negotiun concludimus hominis esse vitam.

What more? Without a doubt, as we have learned with Seneca teaching, leisure without letters is death and the burial of a living man; thus indeed, from the contrary sense, we conclude the business of letters, or of books, to be a man’s life.

Rursus per libros tam amicls quam hostibus intimamus, quae nequaquam secure nuntiis commendamus: quoniam libro plerumque ad principum thalamos ingressus conceditur, quo repelleretur penitus vox auctoris, sicut Tertullianus in principio Apologetici sui dicit. Carceribus et vinculis custoditi, ademptaque penitus corporis libertate, librorum legationibus utimur ad amicos, eisque causas nostras expedi endas committimus, atque illuc transmittimus, quo nobis fieret causa mortis accessus. Per libros praeteritorum reminiscimur, de futuris quodammodo prophetamus, praesentia quae labuntur et fluunt scripturae memoria stabilimus.

Again through books we intimate to both friends and enemies those things which we by no means securely commend to messengers: since to a book there is for the most part granted admission to the bedchambers of princes, where the author’s voice would be utterly repelled, as Tertullian says at the beginning of his Apologeticus. Guarded by prisons and chains, and with the liberty of the body wholly taken away, we use the legations of books to our friends, and to them we commit our causes to be set forth, and we transmit them thither, where access would become for us a cause of death. Through books we remember things past, we in a certain manner prophesy about things to come, the present things which slip and flow we stabilize by the memory of writing.

Felix studiositas et studiosa felicitas praepotentis eunuchi, de quo Actuum octavo narratur, quem amor propheticae lectionis succenderat tam ardenter, quod nec ratione itineris a legendo cessaret, reginae Candacis regiam populosam oblivioni tradiderat, gazas quibus praeerat a cura cordis semoverat, et tam iter quam currum quo ferebatur neglexerat. Solus amor libri totum sibi vindicaverat domicilium castitatis, quo disponente mox fidei januam meruit introire. O gratiosus amor librorum, qui Gehennae filium et alumnum Tartari per gratiam baptismalem filium fecit regni!

Happy studiousness and studious felicity of the very-powerful eunuch, of whom Acts eight relates, whom the love of prophetic reading had kindled so ardently that not even by the demands of the journey did he cease from reading: he had consigned to oblivion the populous royal court of Queen Candace, had removed from the care of his heart the treasuries which he supervised, and had neglected both the journey and the chariot by which he was being borne. The love of the book alone had claimed entirely for itself the dwelling-place of chastity, by whose disposing he soon deserved to enter the gate of faith. O gracious love of books, which by baptismal grace made a son of Gehenna and a nursling of Tartarus into a son of the kingdom!

Cesset jam stilus impotens infiniti negotii consummare tenorem, ne videatur aggredi temere, quod in principio fatebatur impossibile cuiquam esse.

Let the impotent stylus now cease to consummate the tenor of an infinite business, lest it seem rashly to attempt what at the beginning it confessed to be impossible for anyone.

Capitulum XVI

Chapter 16

Quam meritorium sit libros novos scribere et veteres renovare

How meritorious it is to write new books and to renovate the old ones

SICUT necessarium est reipublicae pugnaturis militibus arma providere Vulcania et congestas victualium copias praeparare, sic Ecclesiae militanti contra paganorum et haereticorum insultus operae pretium constat esse sanorum librorum multitudine communiri.

JUST AS it is necessary for the republic to provide Vulcanian arms for soldiers about to fight and to prepare heaped-up supplies of victuals, so it is held to be worth the effort for the Church militant, against the assaults of pagans and heretics, to be fortified by a multitude of sound books.

Verum quia omne quod servit mortalibus, per prolapsum temporis mortalitatis dispendium patitur, necesse est vetustate tabefacta volumina innovatis successoribus instaurari, ut perpetuitas, quae naturae repugnat individui, concedatur privilegio speciei. Hinc est, quod signanter dicitur, Ecclesiastes, duodecimo: faciendi plures libros nullus est finis. Sicut enim librorum corpora, ex contrariorum commixtione compacta, suae compositionis continuum sentiunt detrimenturn, sic per prudentiam clericorum reperiri debet remedium, per quod liber sacer, solvens naturae debitum, haereditarium obtineat substitutum et simile semen fratri mortuo suscitetur verificeturque statim illud Ecdesiastici tricensimo: Mortuus est pater illius et quasi non est mortuus, similem enim sibi reliquit post se.

But because everything that serves mortals, through the lapse of time, suffers the detriment entailed by mortality, it is necessary that volumes, wasted by age, be restored with renewed successors, so that perpetuity, which is repugnant to the nature of the individual, may be granted by the privilege of the species. Hence it is that it is pointedly said, Ecclesiastes, 12: of making many books there is no end. For just as the bodies of books, compacted from the commixture of contraries, feel the continual detriment of their composition, so by the prudence of clerics a remedy ought to be found, by which the sacred book, paying the debt of nature, may obtain an hereditary substitute, and like seed may be raised up for the dead brother; and that saying of Ecclesiasticus, 30, may be verified at once: His father is dead, and as if he were not dead, for he left after him one like himself.

Sunt igitur transcriptiones veterum quasi quaedam propagationes recentium filiorum, ad quos paternum devolvatur officium, ne librorum municipium minuatur. Sane hujusmodi transcriptores antiquarii nominantur, quorum studia inter ea quae complentur labore corporeo plus sibi placere. Cassiodorus confitetur, De Institutione Divinarum Litterarum, capitulo tricensimo, ita subdens: Felix, inquit, intentio, laudanda sedulitas, manu hominibus praedicare, linguas digitis aperire, salutem mortalibus tacitum dare, et contra diaboli surreptiones illicitas calamo et atramento pugnare.

Therefore the transcriptions of the ancients are, as it were, certain propagations of more recent sons, upon whom the paternal office devolves, lest the commonwealth of books be diminished. Truly, copyists of this sort are called antiquarii, whose pursuits, among those things which are accomplished by bodily labor, are more pleasing to themselves. Cassiodorus acknowledges, in On the Institution of Divine Letters, chapter 30, adding thus: Happy, he says, the intention, praiseworthy assiduity, to preach to men with the hand, to open tongues with the fingers, to give salvation silently to mortals, and to fight against the illicit surreptions of the devil with pen and ink.

Haec ille. Porro scriptoris officium Salvator exercuit, dum inclinans se deorsum digito scribebat in terra, Joh. octavo, ut nullus quantumcunque nobilis dedignetur hoc facere, quod sapientiam Dei patris intuetur fecisse.

So much for him. Moreover, the Savior exercised the scribe’s office, while, inclining himself downward, he was writing with his finger on the earth, John 8, so that no one, however noble, may disdain to do this, since he beholds that the Wisdom of God the Father has done it.

0 scripturae serenitas singularis, ad cujus fabricam inclinatur artifex orbis terrae, in cujus tremendo nomine flectitur omne genu! 0 venerandum artificium singulariter prae cunctis praxibus, quae hominis manu fiunt, cui pectus Dominicum incurvatur humiliter, cui digitus Dei applicatur vice calami functus! Sevisse Dei filium vel arasse, texuisse vel fodisse non legimus; nec quicquam aliud de mechanicis divinam decebat sapientiam humanatam, nisi scribendo litteras exarare, ut discat quilibet generosus aut sciolus, quod hominibus digiti tribuuntur divinitus ad scribendi negotium potius quam ad bellum.

0 singular serenity of writing, to the making of which the craftsman of the orb of the earth inclines himself, at whose tremendous name every knee is bent! 0 art to be venerated, singularly before all praxes which are done by the hand of man, to which the Lord’s breast is humbly bowed, to which the finger of God is applied, functioning in place of a reed-pen! We do not read that the Son of God sowed or ploughed, wove or dug; nor did anything else among the mechanical arts befit the divine Wisdom made human, except to inscribe letters by writing, so that any gentleman or sciolist may learn that to human beings fingers are granted divinely for the business of writing rather than for war.

Unde librorum sententiam plurimum approbamus, qua clericum inertem scripturae censuerunt quodammodo fore mancum, capitulo sexto supra.

Whence we greatly approve the opinion of the books, whereby they judged that a cleric inert in writing would in some manner be maimed, in chapter 6 above.

Scribit iustos in libro viventium Deus ipse; lapideas quidem tabulas digito Dei scriptas Moyses accepit. Scribat librum ipse qui iudicat, Job proclamat; digitos scribentis in pariete Mane Thecel Phares Nabuchodonosor tremens vidit, Danielis quinto. Ego, inquit Jeremias, scribebam in volumine atramento, Jeremiae sexto et tricensimo.

God himself writes the just in the book of the living; Moses received stone tablets written by the finger of God. “Let him who judges write a book himself,” Job proclaims; Nebuchadnezzar, trembling, saw on the wall the fingers of one writing Mane Thecel Phares, Daniel 5. “I,” says Jeremiah, “was writing in a volume with ink,” Jeremiah 36.

Quod vides, scribe in libro, Christus Joanni praecipit caro suo, Apoc. primo. Sic Isaiae, sic Josuae officium scriptoris injungitur, ut tam actus quam peritia futuris in posterum commendetur. In vestimento et femore scrtptum habet Rex regum et Dominus dominantium Christus ipse, ut sine scriptura nequeat apparere perfectum Omnipotentis regium ornamentum.

What you see, write in a book, Christ commands John, his beloved, in the Apoc. first chapter. Thus to Isaiah, thus to Joshua, the office of scribe is enjoined, so that both deed and expertise may be commended to posterity in the future. On his vestment and on his thigh Christ himself has written King of kings and Lord of lords, so that without writing the royal ornament of the Omnipotent cannot appear perfect.

Defuncti docere non desinunt, qui sacrae scientiae libros scribunt. Plus Paulus scribendo sacras epistolas Ecclesiae profuit fabricandae quam gentibus et Judaeis evangelizando sermone. Nempe per libros cotidie continuat comprehensor, quod olim in terrapositus inchoavit viator; sicque verificatur de doctoribus libros scribentibus sermo propheticus Danielis duodecimo: qui ad justitiam erudiunt multos, quasi stellae in perpetuas aeternitates.

Those who write books of sacred science do not cease to teach when they are dead. Paul profited the building up of the Church more by writing sacred epistles than by evangelizing by speech to the nations and to the Jews. Indeed, through books he, now a comprehensor, continues daily what once, placed on earth, he began as a wayfarer; and thus the prophetic word of Daniel 12 is verified concerning teachers who write books: who instruct many unto justice, as stars into perpetual eternities.

Porro polychronitudinem antiquorum, prius quam Deus originalem mundum cataclysmo dilueret, adscribendam miraculo, non naturae catholici decrevere doctores, ut Deus ipse tantum eis vitae concederet, quantum reperiendis et in libris scribendis scientiis conveniret: inter quas astronomiae miranda diversitas, ut experimentaliter visui subderetur, sexcentorum annorum periodum secundum Josephum requirebat.

Moreover, the polychronity of the ancients, before God washed away the original world by the cataclysm, the Catholic doctors decreed was to be ascribed to miracle, not to nature, so that God Himself might grant them only so much life as would suit the discovering of the sciences and the writing of them in books: among which the wondrous diversity of astronomy, in order that it might be subjected to sight experimentally, according to Josephus required a period of 600 years.

Verumtamen non abnuunt, quin terrae nascentia illius temporis primitivi utilius alimentum praestarent mortalibus quam moderni, quo dabatur non solum hilarior corporis euexia sed et diuturnior fiorens aetas; ad quam non modicum contulit, quod virtuti vivebant omnimode, resecato superfluo voluptatis. Igitur quisquis Dei munere scientia est dotatus juxta consilium spiritus sancti, Ecclesiastici octavo et tricensimo: sapientiam scribe in tempore vacuitatis; ut et praemium cum beatis et spatium in praesenti augeatur aetatis.

Nevertheless, they do not deny that the produce of the earth of that primitive time supplied more useful nourishment to mortals than do the modern, whereby there was granted not only a more cheerful well-being of the body but also a more long-lasting flourishing age; to which it contributed not a little that they lived in every way for virtue, the superfluity of pleasure cut away. Therefore, whoever by the gift of God is endowed with knowledge, according to the counsel of the Holy Spirit, Ecclesiasticus 38: write wisdom in a time of leisure; so that both the reward with the blessed and the span of age in the present may be increased.

Caeterum, si ad mundi principes divertamus sermonem, imperatores egregios invenimus non solum artis scribendi peritia floruisse, sed et ipsius operi plurimum indulsisse. Julius Caesar, primus omnium et tempore et virtute, Commentarios reliquit tam belli Gallici quam civilis a semetipso conscriptos; item de Analogia duos libros, et Anticatones totidem , et poema quod inscribitur Iter, et opuscula alia multa fecit.

Moreover, if we turn our discourse to the princes of the world, we find that distinguished emperors not only flourished in the expertise of the art of writing, but also lavished very much upon the work itself. Julius Caesar, first of all both in time and in virtue, left Commentaries both of the Gallic War and of the Civil War, composed by himself; likewise two books On Analogy, and just as many Anticatones , and a poem which is entitled Journey, and he made many other opuscules.

Tam Julius quam Augustus cautelas scribendi litteram pro littera adinvenit, ut quae scriberent occultarent. Nam Julius quartam litteram proposuit loco primae, et sic deinceps alphabetum expendit; Augustus vero secunda pro prima, et pro secunda tertia, et ita deinceps usus fuit. Hic in Mutinensi bello, in maxima mole rerum, cotidie et legisse et scripsisse traditur ac etiam dedamasse.

Both Julius and Augustus devised precautions of writing, letter for letter, so that they might conceal what they wrote. For Julius put forward the fourth letter in place of the first, and thus in succession ran through the alphabet; Augustus, however, used the second for the first, and the third for the second, and so on. He, in the Mutina war, amid the very greatest press of affairs, is said daily both to have read and to have written, and even to have declaimed.

Tiberius lyricum carmen scripsit, et poemata quaedam Graeca. Claudius similiter, tam Graeci quam Latini sermonis peritus, varios libros fecit. Sed prae his et aliis Titus in scribendi peritia floruit, qui cujuscunque volebat litteram imitabatur facillime, unde se profitebatur falsarium maximum, si libuisset, fieri potuisse.

Tiberius wrote a lyric poem, and certain Greek poems. Claudius likewise, skilled in both the Greek and the Latin tongue, composed various books. But beyond these and others, Titus flourished in the expertise of writing, who could most easily imitate the hand of whomever he wished, whence he professed that he could have become the greatest forger, if he had wished.

Haec omnia Suetonius, De Vita Duodecim Caesarum, annotavit.

Suetonius recorded all these things in On the Life of the Twelve Caesars.

Capitulum XVII

Chapter 17

De debita honestate circa librorum custodiam adhibenda

On the due propriety to be applied concerning the custody of books

NON SOLUM Deo praestamus obsequium novorum librorum praeparando volumina, sed sacratae pietatis exercemus oicium, si eosdem nunc illaese tractemus, nunc locis idoneis redditos illibatae custodiae commendemus; ut gaudeant puritate, dum habentur in manibus, et quiescant secure, dum in suis cubilibus reconduntur. Nimirum post vestes et vascula corpori dedicata dominico, sacri libri merentur a clericis honestius contrectari, quibus totiens irrogatur injuria, quotiens eos praesumit attingere manus foeda. Quamobrem exhortari studentes super negligentiis vanis reputamus expediens, quae vitari faciliter semper possent et mirabiliter libris nocent.

Not only do we render obedience to God by preparing the volumes of new books, but we exercise the office of consecrated piety, if we now handle the same without harm, now, when returned to suitable places, commend them to an unsullied custody; so that they may rejoice in purity while they are held in hands, and may rest securely while they are laid away in their own resting-places. Indeed, after the garments and little vessels dedicated to the Lord’s body, the sacred books deserve to be handled more honorably by clerics—upon whom injury is inflicted as often as a foul hand presumes to touch them. Wherefore, being eager to exhort concerning vain negligences, we judge it expedient to address those things which could always be easily avoided and which remarkably harm books.

In primis quidem circa claudenda et aperienda volumina sit matura modestia, ut nec praecipiti festinatione solvantur, nec inspectione finita sine clausura debita dimittantur. Longe namque diligentius librum quam calceum convenit conservari.

In the first place, let there be mature restraint concerning the closing and opening of volumes, so that they be neither undone with headlong haste, nor, once the inspection is finished, left without their due closure. For it is fitting that a book be preserved far more diligently than a shoe.

Est enim gens scholarium perperam educata communiter et, nisi majorum regulis refraenetur, infinitis infantiis insolesat. Aguntur petulantia, praesumptione tumescunt; de singulis judicant tanquam certi, cum sint in omnibus inexperti.

For there is indeed a race of scholars, commonly ill-educated, and, unless it be reined in by the rules of the elders, it grows insolent with infinite infantilities. They are driven by petulance, they swell with presumption; they judge of particulars as though certain, while they are inexperienced in all things.

Videbis fortassis juvenem cervicosum, studio segniter residentem, et dum hiberno tempore hiems alget, nasus irriguus frigore comprimente distillat, nec prius se dignatur emunctorio tergere, quam subjectum librum madefecerit turpi rore; cui utinam loco codicis corium subderetur sutoris Unguem habet fimo fetente refertum, gagati simillimum, quo placentis materiae signat locum. Paleas dispertitur innumeras, quas diversis in locis collocat evidenter, ut festuca reducat quod memoria non retentat. Hae paleae, quia nec venter libri digerit nec quisquam eas extrahit, primo quidem librum a solita junctura distendunt, et tandem negligenter oblivioni commissae putrescunt.

You will perhaps see a stiff-necked youth, sitting sluggishly at study; and while in winter-time the winter is cold, his runny nose, as the cold compresses, drips, nor does he deign to wipe himself with a handkerchief before he has soaked the book set beneath with shameful dew; would that, in place of the codex, the leather of a cobbler were put under him. He has a fingernail packed with stinking filth, most like jet, with which he marks the place with cake-matter. He distributes innumerable straws, which he plainly places in different spots, so that a straw may bring back what memory does not retain. These straws, because neither the belly of the book digests them nor does anyone extract them, at first indeed distend the book from its accustomed joining, and at length, negligently consigned to oblivion, they rot.

Fructus et caseum super librum expansum non veretur comedere, atque scyphum hinc inde dissolute transferre; et quia non habet eleemosynarium praeparatum, in libris dimittit reliquias fragmentorum. Garrulitate continua sociis oblatrare non desinit , et dum multitudinem rationum adducit a sensu physico vacuarum, librum in gremio subexpansum humectat aspergine salivarum. Quid plura?

He does not scruple to eat fruit and cheese over the spread-out book, and to transfer the cup here and there dissolutely; and because he has no alms-purse prepared, he leaves in the books the remnants of the fragments. By continuous garrulity he does not cease to bark at his companions , and while he adduces a multitude of reasons empty of physical sense, he moistens the book, half-spread in his lap, with an aspersion of saliva. What more?

statim duplicatis cubitis reclinatur in codicem et per breve studium soporem invitat prolixum, ac reparandis rugis limbos replicat foliorum, ad libri non modicum detrimentum.

immediately, with doubled elbows he is reclined onto the codex, and by brief study he invites a prolonged sleep, and, for the repairing of wrinkles, he folds back the borders of the leaves, to the book’s no small detriment.

Jam imber abiit et recessit et flores apparuerunt in terra nostra. Tunc scholaris quem describimus, librorum neglector potius quam inspector, viola, primula atque rosa necnon et quadrifolio farciet librum suum. Tunc manus aquosas et scatentes sudore volvendis voluminibus applicabit.

Now the shower has gone and withdrawn, and flowers have appeared in our land. Then the scholar whom we describe, a neglector of books rather than an inspector, will stuff his book with violet, primrose, and rose, and also with a four-leaf clover. Then he will apply watery hands, streaming with sweat, to the turning of the volumes.

Tunc pulverulentis undique chirothecis in candidam membranam impinget et indice veteri pelle vestito venabitur paginam lineatim. Tunc ad pulicis mordentis aculeum sacer liber abicitur, qui tamen vix clauditur infra mensem, sed sic pulveribus introjectis tumescit quod claudentis instantiae non obedit.

Then, with dusty gloves on every side, he will press upon the white membrane, and with his index finger clothed in old hide he will hunt the page line by line. Then, at the sting of a biting flea, the sacred book is cast aside, which, however, is scarcely closed within a month, but swells so with the dust cast inside that it does not obey the urgency of the one closing it.

Sunt autem specialiter coercendi a contrectatione librorum juvenes impudentes, qui cum litterarum figuras effigiare didicerint, mox pulcherrimorum voluminum, si copia concedatur, incipiunt fieri glossatores incongrui et ubi largiorem marginem circa textum perspexerint, monstruosis apparitant alphabetis; vel aliud frivolum qualecunque quod imaginationi occurrit celerius, incastigatus calamus protinus exarare praesumit. Ibi Latinista, ibi sophista, ibi quilibet scriba indoctus aptitudinem pennae probat, quod formosissimis codicibus quo ad usum et pretium creberrime vidimus obfuisse.

But impudent youths are in particular to be restrained from the handling of books, who, when they have learned to portray the figures of letters, straightway—if abundance be granted—begin to become incongruous glossators of the most beautiful volumes; and whenever they have perceived a more ample margin around the text, they equip monstrous alphabets; or some other frivolity, whatever more swiftly occurs to their imagination, the unchastened pen at once presumes to scratch out. There the Latinist, there the sophist, there any unlearned scribe tests the aptitude of the pen—a thing which we have very frequently seen to have harmed the fairest codices both as regards use and price.

Sunt iterum fures quidam libros enormiter detruncantes, qui pro epistolarum chartulis schedulas laterales abscindunt, Iittera sola salva; vel finalia folia, quae ad libri custodiam dimittuntur, ad varios abusus assumunt; quod genus sacrilegii sub interminatione anathematis prohiberi deberet.

There are again certain thieves enormously mutilating books, who, for little sheets for letters, cut off the lateral slips, with the writing alone saved; or they appropriate the final leaves—which are left for the guardianship of the book—for various abuses; which genus of sacrilege ought to be prohibited under the threat of anathema.

Convenit autem prorsus scholarium honestati ut, quotiens ad studium a refectione reditur, praecedat omnino lotio lectionem, nec digitus sagimine delibutus aut folia prius volvat, aut signacula libri solvat. Puerulus lacrimosus capitalium litterarum non admiretur imagines, ne manu fluida polluat pergamenum; tangit enim illico quicquid videt. Porro laici, qui librum aeque respiciunt resupine transversum sicut serie naturali expansum, omni librorum communione penitus sunt indigni.

It wholly befits the propriety of scholars that, whenever one returns to study from refection, ablution should altogether precede reading, and that a finger smeared with grease should neither turn the leaves nor undo the book’s clasps. Let a tearful little boy not marvel at the images of capital letters, lest with a dripping hand he defile the parchment; for he immediately touches whatever he sees. Furthermore, laymen who regard a book just as readily upside-down and crosswise as spread open in its natural sequence are utterly unworthy of any communion in books.

Hoc etiam clericus disponat, ut olens ab ollis lixa cinereus librorum lilia non contingat illotus, sed qui ingreditur sine macula pretiosis codicibus ministrabit. Conferret autem plurimum tam libris quam scholaribus manuum honestarum munditia, si non essent scabies et pustulae characteres clericales.

Let the cleric also arrange this: that the ashen scullion reeking from the pots not touch the lilies of the books unwashed, but that he who enters without stain will minister to the precious codices. It would contribute very much, both to the books and to the scholars, if there were the cleanliness of honorable hands, if scabies and pustules were not the clerical characters.

Librorum defectibus, quoties advertuntur, est otius occurrendum; quoniam nihil grandescit citius quam scissura, et fractura, quae ad tempus negligitur, reparabitur postea cum usura.

To the defects of books, whenever they are adverted to, it must be met the sooner; since nothing grows great more quickly than a scissure (tear), and a fracture which is neglected for a time will afterward be repaired with interest.

De librorum armariis mundissime fabricandis, ubi ab omni laesione salventur securi, Moyses mitissimus nos informat, Deuteron. uno et tricensimo: Tollite, inquit, librum istum et ponite illum in latere arcae foederis Domini Dei vestri. O locus idoneus et bibliothecae conveniens, quae de lignis sethim imputribilibus facta fuit auroque per totum interius et exterius circumtecta!

Concerning book-cupboards to be most cleanly fashioned, where, secure, they may be kept safe from every injury, Moses the most meek instructs us, Deuteronomy 31: ‘Take,’ he says, ‘this book and set it at the side of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God.’ O place idoneous and convenient for a library, which was made of incorruptible shittim-wood and was overlaid with gold throughout, within and without!

Sed omnem inhonestatis negligentiam circa libros tractandos suo Salvator exclusit exemplo, sicut legitur Lucae quarto. Cum enim scripturam propheticam de se scriptam in libro tradito perlegisset, non prius librum ministro restituit, quam eundem suis sacratissimis manibus plicuisset. Quo facto studentes docentur clarissime circa librorum custodiam quantumcunque minima negligi debere.

But our Savior excluded every unbecoming negligence in handling books by his own example, as is read in Luke 4. For when he had read through the prophetic scripture written about himself, in the book handed to him, he did not restore the book to the minister before he had folded the same with his most sacred hands. With this done, students are taught most clearly concerning the custody of books that even the very least things ought not to be neglected.

Capitulum XVIII

Chapter 18

Quod tantam librorum collegimus copiam ad communem profectum scholarium et non solum ad propriam voluptatem

That we have collected so great an abundance of books for the common profit of the scholars and not only for our own pleasure

NIHIL iniquius in humanis perpenditur quam quodea quae geruntur justissime malignorum obloquiis pervertuntur, et inde quis reportat infamiam criminis, unde magis meruit spem honoris. Oculo simplici perpetrantur quam plurima, nec sinistra dextrae se comiscet, nullo fermento massa corrumpitur, neque ex lino vestis lanaque contexitur. Perversorum tamen praestigiis opus pium mendaciter transformatur in monstrum.

Nothing more iniquitous is weighed in human affairs than that those things which are conducted most justly are perverted by the obloquies of the malicious, and from that whence one carries back the infamy of a charge, he had rather deserved the hope of honor. With a simple eye very many things are effected, nor does the left commingle itself with the right; the mass is corrupted by no leaven, nor is a garment woven out of linen and wool. Yet by the delusions of the perverse a pious work is mendaciously transformed into a monster.

Haec est nimirum peccatricis naturae reprobanda conditio. quod non solum in factis moraliter dubiis pro pejore parte sententiat, immo frequenter illa, quae speciem boni habent, nequitiosa subversione depravat.

This, to be sure, is the condemnable condition of a sinful nature: that it not only, in deeds morally dubious, gives sentence on the worse side, but even frequently depraves by wicked subversion those things that have the appearance of good.

Quamvis enim amor librorum in clerico ex objecti natura praeferat honestatem, miro tamen modo obnoxios nos effecit judiciis plurimorum, quorum admirationibus obstrectati, nunc de curiositate superflua, nunc de cupiditate in illa dumtaxat materia, nunc de vanitatis apparentia, nunc de voluptatis intemperantia circa litteras notabamur, quorum revera vituperiis non plus quam caniculorum latratibus movebamur, illius solius testimonio contentati, ad quem renes et corda pertinet perscrutari.

Although indeed the love of books in a cleric, from the nature of the object, proclaims honorableness, yet in a strange way it made us liable to the judgments of the many, under whose animadversions we were assailed—now marked for superfluous curiosity, now for cupidity in that one matter, now for an appearance of vanity, now for an intemperance of pleasure around letters—by whose censures we were moved no more than by the barking of little dogs, content with the testimony of him alone to whom it pertains to search the reins and hearts.

Cum enim voluntatis secretae finalis intentio homines lateat unicoque Deo pateat, cordium inspectori, perniciosae temeritatis merentur redargui, qui humanis actibus, quorum fontale non vident principium, epigramma tam faciliter superscribunt sinistrum. Finis enim se habet in operabilibus, sicut principia in speculativus vel suppositiones in mathematicis, teste Aristotele, septimo Ethicorum. Quapropter, sicut ex principiorum evidentia conclusionis veritas declaratur, ita plerumque in aibilibus ex honesti finis intentione bonitas moralis in opere sigillatur, ubi alias opus ipsum judicari deberet indifferens quo ad mores.

Since the final intention of a secret will lies hidden from men and is open to the one God alone, the inspector of hearts, they deserve to be refuted for pernicious temerity who so easily superscribe a sinister epigram upon human acts, whose fontal principle they do not see. For the end stands in things to be done, as principles in the speculatives or suppositions in mathematics, Aristotle bearing witness, in the 7th of the Ethics. Wherefore, just as from the evidency of principles the truth of the conclusion is declared, so for the most part in things to be done, from the intention of an honest end, moral goodness is sealed upon the work—where otherwise the work itself ought to be judged indifferent as to morals.

Nos autem ab olim in praecordiis mentis nostrae propositum gessimus radicatum, quatenus opportunis temporibus exspectatis divinitus aulam quamdam in reverenda universitate Oxoniensi, omnium liberalium artium nutrice praecipua, in perpetuam eleemosynam fundaremus, necessariisque redditibus dotaremus; quam numerosis scholaribus occupatam, nostrorum librorum jocalibus ditaremus, ut ipsi libri et singuli eorundem communes fierent, quantum ad usum et studium, non solum scholaribus aulae tactae, sed per eos omnibus universitatis praedictae studentibus in aeternum, secundum formam et modum, quem sequens capitulum declarabit. Quapropter sincerus amor studii zelusque orthodoxae fidei ad aedificationem ecclesiae confirmandae pepererunt in nobis sollicitudinem hanc stupendam nummicolis, ut collectos codices undecunque venales neglectis sumptibus emeremus, et qui venumdari non debebant, transcribi honestius facaremus.

But we, from of old, have borne a purpose rooted in the precordia of our mind, to the extent that, the opportune times divinely awaited, we might found a certain hall in the venerable University of Oxford, the chief nurse of all the liberal arts, in perpetual alms, and endow it with the necessary revenues; which, being occupied by numerous scholars, we would enrich with the jewels of our books, so that the books themselves, both collectively and individually, might become common, as regards use and study, not only to the scholars of the said hall, but through them to all students of the aforesaid university forever, according to the form and mode which the following chapter will declare. Wherefore the sincere love of study and the zeal of orthodox faith, for the edification of the Church to be confirmed, have brought forth in us this solicitude, astounding to money-men, that we might buy up gathered codices from wherever they were for sale, costs disregarded, and those which ought not to be sold we would cause to be more honorably transcribed.

Cum enim delactationes hominum ex dispositione caelestium corporum, cui mixtorum complexio frequenter obedit, diversimode distinguantur; ut hi in architectura, illi in agricultura, hi in venationibus, illi in navigationibus, hi in bellis, illi in ludis eligant conversari; cecidit circa libros nostrae Mercurialis species voluptatis honestae, quam ex rectae rationis arbitrio, cujus nulla sidera dominantur imperio, in honorem ordinavimus majestatis supremae ut, unde mens nostra tranquillitatem reperit requiei, inde devotissimus cresceret cultus Dei.

Since indeed the delectations of men, from the disposition of the celestial bodies, to which the complexion of mixed things frequently obeys, are distinguished diversely; so that these choose to occupy themselves in architecture, those in agriculture, these in huntings, those in navigations, these in wars, those in games; our Mercurial species of honorable delight alighted upon books, which, by the arbitration of right reason, over whose empire no stars hold dominion, we have ordained to the honor of the supreme majesty, so that, whence our mind finds the tranquility of rest, thence the most devoted cult of God might grow.

Quamobrem desinant obtrectantes, sicut caeci de coloribus judicare; verspertiliones de luminibus disceptare non audeant, atque trabes gestantes in oculis propriis alienas festucas eruere non praesumant. Cessent commentis satiricis sugillare quae nesciunt et occulta discutere, quae humanis experientiis benevolo, si ferarum venatui, alearum lusui, dominarum applausui vacassemus.

Wherefore let the detractors cease, like the blind, to judge about colors; let the bats not dare to dispute about lights, and, while bearing beams in their own eyes, let them not presume to pluck out others’ straws. Let them stop, with satiric fabrications, to stigmatize what they do not know and to sift occult things—things which would have encountered the benevolence of human experience, if we had given leisure to the hunting of wild beasts, the play of dice, the applause of ladies.

Capitulum XIX

CHAPTER 19

De moduo communicandi studentibus omnes libros nostros

On the mode of communicating to students all our books

DIFFICILE semper fuit sic homines limitare legibus honestatis, quin astutia successorum terminos niteretur praecedentium transilire et statutas infringere regulas insolentia libertatis. Quamobrem de prudentum consilio certum modum praefiximus, per quem ad utilitatem studentium librorum nostrorum communicationem et usum volumus devenire.

It has always been difficult thus to limit men by the laws of honesty, without the cunning of successors striving to leap over the boundaries of their predecessors and to infringe the established rules by the insolence of liberty. Wherefore, by the counsel of the prudent, we have fixed a definite measure, by which we wish to arrive, for the benefit of students, at the communication and use of our books.

In primis enim libros omnes et singulos, de quibus catalogum fecimus specialem, concedimus et donamus intuitu caritatis communitati scholarium in aula N Oxoniensi degentium, in perpetuam eleemosynam pro anima nostra et parentum nostrorum necnon pro animabus illustrissimi regis Angliae Edwardi tertii post conquestum ac devotissimae dominae reginae Philippae consortis ejusdem, ut iidem libri omnibus et singulis universitatis dictae villae scholaribus et magistris tam regularibus quam saecularibus commodentur pro tempore ad profectum et usum studendi, juxta modum quem immediate subjungimus, qui est talis. Quinque de scholaribus in aula preafata commorantibus assignentur per ejusdem aulae magistrum, quibus omnium librorum custodia deputetur, de quibus quinque personis tres et nullatenus pauciores librum vel libros ad inspectionem et usum dumtaxat studii valeant commodare; ad copiandum vero vel transcribendum nullum librum volumus extra saepta domus concedi.

In the first place, all and each of the books, for which we have made a special catalogue, we grant and donate, in consideration of charity, to the community of scholars dwelling in Hall N at Oxford, in perpetual alms for our soul and the souls of our parents, and also for the souls of the most illustrious king of England, Edward III after the Conquest, and of the most devout lady Queen Philippa, his consort, so that the same books may be lent to all and each of the scholars and masters of the university of the said town, both regular and secular, for a time, to the profit and use of studying, according to the manner which we immediately subjoin, which is as follows. Let five of the scholars dwelling in the aforesaid hall be assigned by the master of the same hall, to whom the custody of all the books shall be deputed; of which five persons, three, and by no means fewer, shall have power to lend a book or books for inspection and for the use of study only; but for copying or transcribing we will that no book be allowed outside the precincts of the house.

Igitur cum scholaris quicunque saecularis vel religiosus, quos in praesenti favore ad paria judicamus, librum aliquem commodandum periverit, considerent diligenter custodes an librum talem habuerint duplicatem; et si sic, commodent ei librum cautione recepta, quae librum traditum in valore transcendat judicio commodato memorialis scriptura, continens nomina personarum quae librum tradunt et illius qui recipit, cum die et anno Domini quo continget fieri commodatum.

Therefore, when any scholar, whether secular or religious—whom we judge at present, in our favor, to be on equal terms—shall have sought to have some book lent, let the custodians diligently consider whether they have such a book in duplicate; and if so, let them lend him the book upon receipt of a caution (security), which shall surpass the delivered book in value, together with a memorial writing of the loan, containing the names of the persons who deliver the book and of the one who receives it, with the day and the year of the Lord on which the loan shall happen to be made.

Si vero custodes invenerint, quod ille liber qui petitur duplicatus non fuerit, talem librum nullatenus commodent cuicunque, nisi fuerit de comitiva scholarium dictae aulae, nisi forte ad inspectionem et infra saepta domus vel aulae praedictae, sed non ad ulterius deferendum.

But if the custodians shall have found that that book which is requested has not been duplicated, they are by no means to lend such a book to anyone, unless he be of the company of the scholars of the said hall, unless perhaps for inspection and within the enclosures of the house or of the aforesaid hall, but not to be carried further.

Scholari vero cuilibet praedictae aulae liber quicunque per tres de praedictis custodibus valeat commodari, nomine tamen suo cum die quo librum recipit prius annotato. Nec tamen ipse possit librum sibi traditum alteri commodare, nisi de assensu trium de custodibus supradictis, et tunc deleto nomine primi nomen secundi cum tempore traditionis scribatur.

Moreover, to any scholar of the aforesaid hall, any book whatsoever may be lent by three of the aforesaid custodians, provided, however, that his own name, together with the day on which he receives the book, be first annotated. Nor may he himself lend to another the book delivered to him, except with the assent of three of the above-mentioned custodians; and then, the name of the first being deleted, the name of the second, together with the time of the transfer, shall be written.

Ad haec omnia observandum custodes singuli fidem praestent, quando eis custodia hujusmodo deputatur. Recipientes autem librum vel libros ibidem jurabunt quod eum vel eos ad alium usum nisi ad inspectionem et studium nullatenus applicabunt, quodque illum et illos extra villam Oxoniensem cum suburbio nec deferent nec deferri permittent.

To all these things to be observed, let each of the custodians pledge faith, when custody of this kind is deputed to them. Moreover, the recipients of a book or books there shall swear that they will in no way apply it or them to any other use except inspection and study, and that they will neither carry it or them nor permit it or them to be carried outside the town of Oxford with its suburb.

Singulis autem annis computum reddent praedicti custodes magistro domus et duobus quos secum duxerit de suis scholaribus assumendos, vel si eidem non vacaverit, tres deputet inspectores alios a custodibus, qui librorum catalogum perlegentes videant quod omnes habeant vel in voluminibus propriis vel saltem per cautiones praesentes. Ad hunc autem computum persolvendum tempus credimus opportunum a kalendis Julii usque ad festum sequens translationis gloriosi martyris sancti Thomae.

But every single year the aforesaid custodians shall render an account to the master of the house and to two of his scholars whom he shall have brought with him to be associated; or, if he shall not have leisure for this, let him appoint three inspectors, other than the custodians, who, reading through the catalogue of the books, shall see that all are on hand either in their own volumes or at least by present pledges. For discharging this account we deem the time opportune from the Kalends of July up to the following feast of the Translation of the glorious martyr St. Thomas.

Hoc autem omnino adicimus quod quilibet, cui liber aliquis fuerit commodatus, semel in anno librum praesentet custodibus et suam si voluerit videat cautionem. Porro si contingat fortuito per mortem, furtum, fraudem vel incuriam librum perdi, ille qui perdidit vel ejusdem procurator seu etiam executor pretium libri solvat et ejusdem recipiat cautionem. Quod si qualitercunque custodibus ipsis lucrum evenerit, in nihil aliud quam in librorum reparationem et subsidium convertatur.

We furthermore add altogether that anyone to whom any book has been lent shall, once in the year, present the book to the custodians, and may, if he wishes, view his pledge. Moreover, if it should happen fortuitously that the book is lost through death, theft, fraud, or carelessness, the one who lost it, or his procurator or even his executor, shall pay the price of the book and shall receive the pledge for the same. But if in any manner profit should accrue to the custodians themselves, let it be converted into nothing else than the repair and support of the books.

Capitulum XX

Chapter 20

Exhortatio scholarium ad rependedum pro nobis suffragia debitae pietatis

Exhortation of the scholars to repay on our behalf the suffrages of due piety

TEMPUS jam efflagitat terminare tractatum, quem de amore librorum compegimus, in quo contemporaneorum nostrorum admirationibus de eo quod tantum libros dileximus rationem reddere nisi sumus. Verum quia vix datur aliquid operari mortalibus, quod nullius respergatur pulvere vanitatis, studiosum amorem, quem ita diuturnum ad libros habuimus, justificare penitus non audemus, quin fuerit forsan nobis quandoque occasio alicuis negligentiae venialis, quamvis amoris materia sit honesta et intentio regulata. Si namque cum omnia fecerimus, servos nos inutiles dicere teneamur; si Job sanctissimus sua opera verebatur; si juxta Isaiam quasi pannus menstruatae omnes sunt justitiae nostrae; quis se de perfectione cujuscunque virtutis praesumet jactare, quin forsitan a seipso non poterit deprehendi?

TIME now demands to terminate the tractate which we have compiled concerning the love of books, in which we have rendered an account to the admirations of our contemporaries about the fact that we loved books so greatly. Yet because it is scarcely granted to mortals to operate anything which is not sprinkled with some dust of vanity, we do not dare entirely to justify the studious love which for so long a time we have had toward books, but that perhaps there was for us at some time an occasion of some venial negligence, although the matter of the love is honest and the intention regulated. For if, when we have done all things, we are bound to say that we are unprofitable servants; if most holy Job was afraid of his own works; if, according to Isaiah, all our justices are as the rag of a menstruating woman; who will presume to vaunt himself concerning the perfection of any virtue, but that perhaps he will not be able to be detected by himself?

Bonum enin ex integris causis, malum autem omnifarie—sicut Dionysius, De divinis nominibus, nos informat.

For the good is from integral causes, but evil, however, in all sorts of ways—as Dionysius, On the Divine Names, informs us.

Quamobrem in nostratum iniquitatum remedium, quibus nos omnium Creatorem crebius offendisse cognoscimus, orationum suffragia petituri, studentes nostros futuros dignum duximus exhortati, quatenus sic tam nobis quam aliis eorundem futuris benefactoribus fiant grati, quod beneficiorum nostrorum providentiam spiritalibus recompensent retributionibus. Vivamus in eorum memoriis funerati, qui in nostris vixerunt benevolentiis nondum nati nostrisque nunc vivunt beneficiis sustentati.

Wherefore, as a remedy for our iniquities, by which we recognize that we have more frequently offended the Creator of all, being about to seek the suffrages of prayers, we deemed it worthy to exhort our future students, to the end that they may thus become grateful both to us and to others, their future benefactors, so that they may recompense the providence of our benefactions with spiritual retributions. Let us live, buried in their memories—those who, not yet born, have lived in our benevolences, and who now live sustained by our benefits.

Clementiam Redemptoris implorent instantiis indefessis, quatenus negligentiis nostris parcat, peccatorum nostrorum reatibus pius judex indulgeat, lapsus nostrae fragilitatis pallio pietatis operiat et offensas, quas et pudet et paeniet commisisse, divina benignitate remittat. Conservet in nobis ad sufficiens spatium paenitendi suarum munera gratiarum, fidei firmitatem, spei sublimitatem et ad omnes homines latissimam caritatem. Flectat superbum arbitrium ad culparum suarum lamentum, ut deploret transactas elationes vanissimas et retractet indignationes amarissimas ac delectationes insanissimas detestetur.

Let them implore the clemency of the Redeemer with unwearied instances, so that he may spare our negligences, the pious Judge may grant indulgence to the liabilities of our sins, may cover the lapses of our fragility with the mantle of mercy, and by divine benignity remit the offenses which we are both ashamed and sorry to have committed. May he preserve in us, for a sufficient space for repenting, the gifts of his graces: the firmness of faith, the sublimity of hope, and toward all men a most far‑reaching charity. May he bend proud will to the lament of its faults, so that it may bewail the most vain elations now past, retract the most bitter indignations, and detest the most insane delectations.

Vigeat sua virtus in nobis, cum nostra defecerit, et qui nostrum ingressum sacro baptismate consecravit gratuito, nostrum progressum ad statum apostolicum sublimavit immerito, nostrum dignetur egressum sacramentis idoneis communire.

May His power thrive in us, when ours has failed; and may He who gratuitously consecrated our entrance by holy baptism, who without our merit sublimated our progress to the apostolic state, deign to secure our departure with fitting sacraments.

Laxetur a nostro spiritu amor carnis, evanescat penitus metus mortis, desideret dissolvi et esse cum Christo, et in terris solo corpore constituti cogitatione et aviditate in aeterna patria conversemur. Pater misericordiarum et Deus totius consolationis filio prodigo de siliquis revertenti benignus occurrat, drachmam denuo repertam recipiat et in thesauros aeternas per angelos sanctos transmittat. Castiget vultu terrifico exitus nostri hora spiritus tenebrarum, ne latens in limine portae mortis Leviathon, serpens vetus, insidias improvisas calcaneo nostro paret.

Let the love of the flesh be loosed from our spirit, let the fear of death utterly vanish, let it desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ, and, constituted on earth by the body alone, let us in thought and avidity have our conversation in the eternal fatherland. May the Father of mercies and God of all consolation benignly run to meet the prodigal son returning from the husks, may He receive the drachma found anew and transmit it into the eternal treasuries through the holy angels. May He chastise with a terrifying countenance the spirit of darkness at the hour of our departure, lest, lurking on the threshold of the gate of death, Leviathan, the old serpent, prepare unforeseen ambushes for our heel.

Cum vero ad terrendum tribunal fuerimus advocati, ut cuncta quae corpore gessimus attestante conscientia referamus, consideret humanitas juncta Deo effusi sui sancti sanguinis pretium et advertat divinitas humanata carnalis naturae figmentum, ut ibi transeat fragilitas impunita ubi clemens pietas cernitur infinita, et ibi respiret spiritus miseri ubi exstat proprium judicis misereri. Amplius refugium spei nostrae post Deum virginem et reginam Theotokon benedictam nostri semper studentes salutationibus satagant frequentare devotis, ut qui per nostra facinora replicata meruimus judicem invenire turbatum, per ipsius suffragia semper grata mereamur eundem reperire placatum. Deprimat pia manus brachium aequilibre, quo nostra tam parva quam pauca merita pensabuntur ne, quod absit, praeponderet gravitas criminum et nos damnandos deiciat in abyssum.

When, indeed, we shall have been summoned to the terrifying tribunal, that we may report, with conscience attesting, all the things which we have done in the body, let the humanity joined to God consider the price of His holy blood poured out, and let the divinity made human regard the fashioning of carnal nature, so that there frailty may pass unpunished where clement piety is seen to be infinite, and there the spirit of the wretched may breathe where it is the judge’s very property to have mercy. Furthermore, as the refuge of our hope after God, let them be eager always to frequent with devout salutations the blessed Virgin and Queen Theotokos, so that we who through our crimes repeated have deserved to find the judge disturbed may through her ever-acceptable suffrages merit to find the same appeased. Let a pious hand press down the arm of the balance, by which our merits, as small as they are few, will be weighed, lest—God forbid—the heaviness of crimes should preponderate and cast us, to be condemned, into the abyss.

Clarissimum meritis confessorem Cuthbertum, cujus gregem indigni pascendum suscepimus, omni cultu studeant venerari devote, rogantes assidue, ut suum licet indignum vicarium precibus excusare dignetur et quem successorem admisit in terris, procuret effici consessorum in caelis. Puris denique tam mentis quam corporis precibus rogent Deum, ut spiritum ad imaginem Trinitatis creatum post praesentis miseriae incolatum ad suum reducat primordiale prototypum ac ejusdem concedat perpetuum fruibilis faciei conspectum, Amen.

Let them strive to venerate devoutly with every observance Cuthbert, a confessor most illustrious in merits—whose flock we, unworthy, have undertaken to feed—continually asking that he deign to excuse by prayers his vicar, albeit unworthy, and to procure that the one whom he admitted as successor on earth be made one of the consessors in heaven. Finally, with pure prayers both of mind and of body let them ask God to lead back the spirit—created to the image of the Trinity—after the sojourn of present misery, to its own primordial prototype, and to grant the perpetual fruition of the sight of His face, Amen.

EXPLICET Philobiblon domini Ricardi de Aungervile, cognominate de Bury, quondam episcopi Dunelmensis. Completus est autem tractatus iste in manerio nostro de Aukeland vicesimo quarto die Januarii anno Domini millesimo trecentesimo quarto, aetatisnostrae quinquagesimo octavo praecise completo, pontificatus vero nostri anno undecimo finiente. Ad laudem Dei feliciter et Amen.

Here ends the Philobiblon of lord Richard de Aungervile, surnamed de Bury, formerly bishop of Durham. Now this treatise was completed in our manor of Aukeland on the twenty-fourth day of January in the year of the Lord 1304, with our fifty-eighth year of age precisely completed, and the eleventh year of our pontificate coming to its end. To the praise of God, happily, and Amen.