hall be hindered from the use of
the same."

The scarcity of parchment seems indeed at times to have been a greater
hindrance to the promulgation of literature than even the laborious
and tedious transcription of the books. About 1120, one Master Hugh,
being appointed by the convent of St. Edmondsbury to write a copy of
the Bible, for their library, could procure no parchment in England.
The following particulars of the scarcity of books before the era of
printing, gathered chiefly by Warton, are interesting.

In 855, Lupus, abbot of Ferrieres in France, sent two of his monks to
Pope Benedict the third, to beg a copy of Cicero de Oratore, and
Quintilian's Institutes, and some other books: for, says the abbot,
although we have part of these books, yet there is no whole or
complete copy of them in all France.

Albert, abbot of Gemblours, who with incredible labour and immense
expense had collected a hundred volumes on theological, and fifty on
general subjects, imagined he had formed a splendid library.

About 790, Charlemagne granted an unlimited right to hunting to the
abbot and monks of Sithin, for making their gloves and girdles of the
skins of the deer they killed, and covers for their books.

At the beginning of the tenth century, books were so scarce in Spain,
that one and the same copy of the Bible, St. Jerome's Epistles, and
some volumes of ecclesiastical offices and martyrologies, often served
several different monasteries.

Amongst the constitutions given to the monks of England by Archbishop
Lanfranc, in 1072, the following injunction occurs: At the beginning
of Lent, the librarian is ordered to deliver a book to each of the
religious; a whole year was allowed for the perusal of this book! and
at the returning Lent, those monks who had neglected to read the
books they had respectively received, are commanded to prostrate
themselves before the abbot to supplicate his indulgence. This
regulation was partly occasioned by the low state of literature in
which Lanfranc found the English monasteries to be; but at the same
time it was a matter of necessity, and partly to be referred to the
scarcity of copies of useful and suitable authors.

John de Pontissara, Bishop of Winchester, borrowed of his cathedral
convent of St. Swithin at Winchester, in 1299, BIBLIAM BENE GLOSSATAM,
or the Bible, with marginal annotations, in two large folio volumes;
but he gives a bond for due return of the loan, drawn up with grea