What was the extent of circulation of books during the manuscript age? For the period before the Conquest we can only offer the merest conjecture, which does not help us materially. The rarity of the extant manuscripts of this age is no guide to the extent of their production. During the raids of the northmen the destruction and loss must have been very great indeed. After the Conquest the indifference and contempt with which the conquerors regarded everything Saxon must have been responsible for the destruction of nearly every manuscript written in the vernacular. But, on the other hand, we find suggestions of a greater production than is commonly credited to this period. Religious fervour to make books was not wanting, as some of our most beautiful relics--works exhibiting much painstaking and skilful and even loving labour, calligraphy, and decoration aflame with high endeavour--belong to the Hiberno-Saxon period and the days of Ethelwold. Nor after Alfred’s day was regard lacking for vernacular literature itself rather than for the glory of a faith: how else are we to explain the precious fragments of Anglo-Saxon manuscript which have been preserved for us, especially the Exeter book and the Vercelli book? That the production was considerable is suggested by the records we have. Think of the Irish manuscripts now scattered on the continent; of the library of York; of Bede’s workshop and the northern libraries; and of those in the south, at Canterbury, Malmesbury, and elsewhere. But the use of such manuscripts as were in existence was restricted to monks, wealthy ecclesiastics, and a few of the wealthy laity.
After the Conquest the state of affairs was the same. The period of the greatest literary activity in the monasteries now began, and large claustral libraries were soon formed. The monks then had plenty of books; wealthy clergy also had small collections. An ecclesiastic or a layman who had done a monastery some service, or whose favour it was politic to cultivate, could borrow books from the monastic library, under certain strict conditions. Some people availed themselves of this privilege; but not at any time during the manuscript period to a great extent.[558]