Amongst other services the monks rendered was the cultivation of learning and knowledge. With wonderful assiduity they poured forth works of erudition, of history, of criticism, recorded the annals of their own times, and stored these priceless records in their libraries, which have done such good service to the historians of modern times. The monasteries absorbed nearly all the social and intellectual movement of the thirteenth century. Men fired with poetical imagination frequently betook themselves to the cloister, and consecrated their lives to the ornamentation of a single sacred book destined for the monastery which gave them in exchange all the necessaries of life. Thus the libraries of the monastic houses were rich in treasures of beautifully illuminated manuscripts, which were bound by members of the community. The Abbot of Spanheim in the fifteenth century gives the following directions to his monks:--
"Let that one fasten the leaves together, and bind the book with boards. You, prepare those boards; you, dress the leather; you, the metal plates, which are to adorn the binding."
[Illustration: NETLEY ABBEY, SOUTH TRANSEPT]
Terrible is it to think of the dreadful destruction of these libraries at the time of the spoliation of monasteries and of the priceless treasures which they contained.
We are apt to suppose that the lives of the monks were gloomy, hard, severe, and that few rays of the sunshine of happiness could have penetrated the stern walls of the cloister. But this does not appear to have been the case. The very names of monasteries show that they rejoiced in their solitude and labour. Netley Abbey was called the Joyous Place, _loeto loco_; and on the Continent there are many names which bear witness to the happiness that reigned in the cloister. Moreover the writings of the monks proclaim the same truth. Cluny is called by Peter Damien his _hortus deliciarum_ (garden of delights), and it is recorded that when Peter de Blois left the Abbey of Croyland to return to France he stopped seven times to look back and contemplate again the place where he had been so happy. Hear how Alcuin laments on leaving the cloister for the Court of Charlemagne:--
"O my cell! sweet and well-beloved home, adieu for ever! I shall see no more the woods which surround thee with their interlacing branches and aromatic herbs, nor thy streams of fish, nor thy orchards, nor thy gardens where the lily mingles with the rose. I shall hear no more those birds who, like ourselves, sing matins and celebrate their Creator, in their fashion--nor those instructions of sweet and holy wisdom which sound in the same breath as the praises of the Most High, from lips and hearts always peaceful. Dear cell! I shall weep thee and regret thee always."