t
solemnity. This Bible had been bequeathed to the Convent the same year
by his predecessor, Bishop Nicholas de Ely: and in consideration of so
important a bequest, and 100 marks in money, the monks founded a daily
mass for the soul of the donor.

About 1225 Roger de Tusula, dean of York, gave several Latin Bibles to
the University of Oxford, with a condition that the students who
perused them should deposit a cautionary pledge.

The Library of that University, before the year 1300, consisted only
of a few tracts, chained or kept in chests in the choir of St. Mary's
Church.

Books often brought excessive prices in the middle ages. In 1174,
Walter, Prior of St. Swithin's at Winchester, and afterwards abbot of
Westminster, purchased of the monks of Dorchester in Oxfordshire
Bede's Homilies and St. Austin's Psalter, for twelve measures of
barley, and a pall on which was embroidered in silver the history of
Birinus converting a Saxon king.

About 1400, a copy of John de Meun's Roman de la Rose was sold before
the palace-gate at Paris for forty crowns, or 33_l._ 6_s._ 6_d._

In Edward the Third's reign, one hundred marks (equal to 1000_l._)
were paid to Isabella de Lancaster, a nun of Ambresbury, for a book of
romance, purchased from her for the king's use.

Warton mentions a book of the Gospels, in the Cotton Library, as a
fine specimen of Saxon calligraphy and decorations. It is written by
Eadfrid, Bishop of Durham, in the most exquisite manner. Ethelwold his
successor did the illuminations, the capital letters, the picture of
the cross, and the Evangelists, with infinite labour and elegance; and
Bilfred, the anchorite, covered the book, thus written and adorned,
with silver plates and precious stones. It was finished about 720.

The encouragement given in the English monasteries for transcribing
books was very considerable. In every great abbey there was an
apartment called "The Scriptorium;" where many writers were constantly
busied in transcribing not only the Service Books for the choir, but
books for the Library. The Scriptorium of St. Alban's Abbey was built
by Abbot Paulin, a Norman, who ordered many volumes to be written
there, about 1080. Archbishop Lanfranc furnished the copies. Estates
were often granted for the support of the Scriptorium. That at St.
Edmundsbury was endowed with two mills. The tithes of a rectory were
appropriated to the Cathedral convent of St. Swithin, at Winchester,
_ad libros trans