Transactions of the Bibliographical Society (Volume 9) - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908. Excerpt: ... THE LIBRARY OF HENRY SAVILE, OF BANKE. By J. P. GILSON. Read 1Sth November, subject in which I propose to try and interest the members of the Society is a small branch of an extensive enquiry; I mean the history and fate of our manuscript books, between the time when so many of them lost their mediaeval homes by the suppression of the monasteries and the time when they began to accumulate in the great collections which have descended to our own times. It is, of course, a matter of common knowledge that the dissolution was a very critical time, and endangered greatly the preservation of all those great stores of classical, patristic, and mediaeval learning, of literature and art, and of historical materials, which were chiefly housed in the monastic libraries. Whether, however, quite so much was actually made away with at the very time of the dissolution as is commonly supposed, I am inclined to doubt. The picturesque account which Cromwell's emissaries gave to him of their proceedings at Oxford has often been quoted and seems to be regarded as typical of the fate of learned books generally, but I question whether this is fair. Their rage, even in that instance, had some degree of method in it, and was directed particularly to a certain class of books, the works of the schoolmen, and seems to have been meant to teach the Oxford scholars a lesson as to what it was good for them to read. I tremble to think how elementary Greek books meant for responsions might suffer at the present day if a certain party of educational reformers were given as free a hand. Moreover, this did not even make a clean sweep of the schoolmen. If Layton and ap Rice did put some copies of Dunce in Bocardo, there still survive more copies of Scotus' works than the plain man cares to r...