ar more attentive to literature when it was no longer
confined to metaphysical theology and canon law. I have already
mentioned the translations from classical authors, made by command of
John and Charles V. of France. These French translations diffused some
acquaintance with ancient history and learning among our own
countrymen.[900] The public libraries assumed a more respectable
appearance. Louis IX. had formed one at Paris, in which it does not
appear that any work of elegant literature was found.[901] At the
beginning of the fourteenth century, only four classical manuscripts
existed in this collection; of Cicero, Ovid, Lucan, and Boethius.[902]
The academical library of Oxford, in 1300, consisted of a few tracts
kept in chests under St Mary's church. That of Glastonbury Abbey, in
1240, contained four hundred volumes, among which were Livy, Sallust,
Lucan, Virgil, Claudian, and other ancient writers.[903] But no other,
probably, of that age was so numerous or so valuable. Richard of Bury,
chancellor of England, and Edward III., spared no expense in collecting
a library, the first perhaps that any private man had formed. But the
scarcity of valuable books was still so great, that he gave the abbot of
St. Albans fifty pounds weight of silver for between thirty and forty
volumes.[904] Charles V. increased the royal library at Paris to nine
hundred volumes, which the duke of Bedford purchased and transported to
London.[905] His brother Humphrey duke of Gloucester presented the
university of Oxford with six hundred books, which seem to have been of
extraordinary value, one hundred and twenty of them having been
estimated at one thousand pounds. This indeed was in 1440, at which time
such a library would not have been thought remarkably numerous beyond
the Alps,[906] but England had made comparatively little progress in
learning. Germany, however, was probably still less advanced. Louis,
Elector Palatine, bequeathed in 1421 his library to the university of
Heidelberg, consisting of one hundred and fifty-two volumes. Eighty-nine
of these related to theology, twelve to canon and civil law, forty-five
to medicine, and six to philosophy.[907]

[Sidenote: Transcription of manuscripts.]

Those who first undertook to lay open the stores of ancient learning
found incredible difficulties from the scarcity of manuscripts. So gross
and supine was the ignorance of the monks, within whose walls these
treasures were concealed, that i