ses quibus aequora purget
Et Solymos victos sub sua jura trahat.

PROVIDENTIA. SECURITAS.

[Illustration: Fig. 18. Rough groundplan of the great hall of the Vatican
Library, to illustrate the account of the decoration.]

CHAPTER II.

CHRISTIAN LIBRARIES CONNECTED WITH CHURCHES. USE OF THE APSE. MONASTIC
COMMUNITIES. S. PACHOMIUS. S. BENEDICT AND HIS SUCCESSORS. EACH HOUSE HAD
A LIBRARY. ANNUAL AUDIT OF BOOKS. LOAN ON SECURITY. MODES OF PROTECTION.
CURSES. PRAYERS FOR DONORS. ENDOWMENT OF LIBRARIES. USE OF THE CLOISTER.
DEVELOPMENT OF CISTERCIAN BOOK-ROOM. COMMON PRESS. CARRELLS. GLASS.

The evidence collected in the last chapter shews that what I have there
called the Roman conception of a library was maintained, even by Christian
ecclesiastics, during many centuries of our era. I have next to trace the
beginning and the development of another class of libraries, directly
connected with Christianity. We shall find that the books intended for the
use of the new communities were stored in or near the places where they
met for service, just as in the most ancient times the safe-keeping of
similar treasures had been entrusted to temples.

It is easy to see how this came about. The necessary service-books would
be placed in the hands of the ecclesiastic who had charge of the building
in which the congregation assembled. To these volumes--which at first were
doubtless regarded in the same light as vestments or sacred
vessels--treatises intended for edification or instruction would be
gradually added, and so the nucleus of a library would be formed.

The existence of such libraries does not rest on inference only. There are
numerous allusions to them in the Fathers and other writers; S. Jerome,
for instance, advises a correspondent to consult church-libraries, as
though every church possessed one[115]. As however the allusions to them
are general, and say nothing about extent or arrangement, this part of my
subject need not detain us long[116].

The earliest collection of which I have discovered any record is that got
together at Jerusalem, by Bishop Alexander, who died A.D. 250. Eusebius,
when writing his Ecclesiastical History some eighty years later, describes
this library as a storehouse of historical records, which he had himself
used with advantage in the composition of his work[117]. A still more
important collection existed at Caesarea in Palestine. S. Jerome says
distinctly that it was