The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury
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Richard de Bury >> The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury
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CHAPTER II
THE DEGREE OF AFFECTION THAT IS PROPERLY DUE TO BOOKS
Since the degree of affection a thing deserves depends upon the
degree of its value, and the previous chapter shows that the
value of books is unspeakable, it is quite clear to the reader
what is the probable conclusion from this. I say probable, for
in moral science we do not insist upon demonstration, remembering
that the educated man seeks such degree of certainty as he
perceives the subject-matter will bear, as Aristotle testifies in
the first book of his Ethics. For Tully does not appeal to
Euclid, nor does Euclid rely upon Tully. This at all events we
endeavour to prove, whether by logic or rhetoric, that all riches
and all delights whatsoever yield place to books in the spiritual
mind, wherein the Spirit which is charity ordereth charity. Now
in the first place, because wisdom is contained in books more
than all mortals understand, and wisdom thinks lightly of riches,
as the foregoing chapter declares. Furthermore, Aristotle, in
his Problems, determines the question, why the ancients proposed
prizes to the stronger in gymnastic and corporeal contests, but
never awarded any prize for wisdom. This question he solves as
follows: In gymnastic exercises the prize is better and more
desirable than that for which it is bestowed; but it is certain
that nothing is better than wisdom: wherefore no prize could be
assigned for wisdom. And therefore neither riches nor delights
are more excellent than wisdom. Again, only the fool will deny
that friendship is to be preferred to riches, since the wisest of
men testifies this; but the chief of philosophers honours truth
before friendship, and the truthful Zorobabel prefers it to all
things. Riches, then, are less than truth. Now truth is chiefly
maintained and contained in holy books--nay, they are written
truth itself, since by books we do not now mean the materials of
which they are made. Wherefore riches are less than books,
especially as the most precious of all riches are friends, as
Boethius testifies in the second book of his Consolation; to whom
the truth of books according to Aristotle is to be preferred.
Moreover, since we know that riches first and chiefly appertain
to the support of the body only, while the virtue of books is the
perfection of reason, which is properly speaking the happiness of
man, it appears that books to the man who uses his reason are
dearer than riches. Furthermore, that by which the faith is more
easily defended, more widely spread, more clearly preached, ought
to be more desirable to the faithful. But this is the truth
written in books, which our Saviour plainly showed, when he was
about to contend stoutly against the Tempter, girding himself
with the shield of truth and indeed of written truth, declaring
"it is written" of what he was about to utter with his voice.
And, again, no one doubts that happiness is to be preferred to
riches. But happiness consists in the operation of the noblest
and diviner of the faculties that we possess--when the whole mind
is occupied in contemplating the truth of wisdom, which is the
most delectable of all our virtuous activities, as the prince of
philosophers declares in the tenth book of the Ethics, on which
account it is that philosophy is held to have wondrous pleasures
in respect of purity and solidity, as he goes on to say. But the
contemplation of truth is never more perfect than in books, where
the act of imagination perpetuated by books does not suffer the
operation of the intellect upon the truths that it has seen to
suffer interruption. Wherefore books appear to be the most
immediate instruments of speculative delight, and therefore
Aristotle, the sun of philosophic truth, in considering the
principles of choice, teaches that in itself to philosophize is
more desirable than to be rich, although in certain cases, as
where for instance one is in need of necessaries, it may be more
desirable to be rich than to philosophize.
Moreover, since books are the aptest teachers, as the previous
chapter assumes, it is fitting to bestow on them the honour and
the affection that we owe to our teachers. In fine, since all
men naturally desire to know, and since by means of books we can
attain the knowledge of the ancients, which is to be desired
beyond all riches, what man living according to nature would not
feel the desire of books? And although we know that swine
trample pearls under foot, the wise man will not therefore be
deterred from gathering the pearls that lie before him. A
library of wisdom, then, is more precious than all wealth, and
all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever
therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom
or knowledge, aye, even of the faith, must needs become a lover
of books.
CHAPTER III
WHAT WE ARE TO THINK OF THE PRICE IN THE BUYING OF BOOKS
From what has been said we draw this corollary welcome to us, but
(as we believe) acceptable to few: namely, that no dearness of
price ought to hinder a man from the buying of books, if he has
the money that is demanded for them, unless it be to withstand
the malice of the seller or to await a more favourable
opportunity of buying. For if it is wisdom only that makes the
price of books, which is an infinite treasure to mankind, and if
the value of books is unspeakable, as the premises show, how
shall the bargain be shown to be dear where an infinite good is
being bought? Wherefore, that books are to be gladly bought and
unwillingly sold, Solomon, the sun of men, exhorts us in the
Proverbs: Buy the truth, he says, and sell not wisdom. But what
we are trying to show by rhetoric or logic, let us prove by
examples from history. The arch-philosopher Aristotle, whom
Averroes regards as the law of Nature, bought a few books of
Speusippus straightway after his death for 72,000 sesterces.
Plato, before him in time, but after him in learning, bought the
book of Philolaus the Pythagorean, from which he is said to have
taken the Timaeus, for 10,000 denaries, as Aulus Gellius relates
in the Noctes Atticae. Now Aulus Gellius relates this that the
foolish may consider how wise men despise money in comparison
with books. And on the other hand, that we may know that folly
and pride go together, let us here relate the folly of Tarquin
the Proud in despising books, as also related by Aulus Gellius.
An old woman, utterly unknown, is said to have come to Tarquin
the Proud, the seventh king of Rome, offering to sell nine books,
in which (as she declared) sacred oracles were contained, but she
asked an immense sum for them, insomuch that the king said she
was mad. In anger she flung three books into the fire, and still
asked the same sum for the rest. When the king refused it, again
she flung three others into the fire and still asked the same
price for the three that were left. At last, astonished beyond
measure, Tarquin was glad to pay for three books the same price
for which he might have bought nine. The old woman straightway
disappeared, and was never seen before or after. These were the
Sibylline books, which the Romans consulted as a divine oracle by
some one of the Quindecemvirs, and this is believed to have been
the origin of the Quindecemvirate. What did this Sibyl teach the
proud king by this bold deed, except that the vessels of wisdom,
holy books, exceed all human estimation; and, as Gregory says of
the kingdom of Heaven: They are worth all that thou hast?
CHAPTER IV
THE COMPLAINT OF BOOKS AGAINST THE CLERGY ALREADY PROMOTED
A generation of vipers destroying their own parent and base
offspring of the ungrateful cuckoo, who when he has grown strong
slays his nurse, the giver of his strength, are degenerate clerks
with regard to books. Bring it again to mind and consider
faithfully what ye receive through books, and ye will find that
books are as it were the creators of your distinction, without
which other favourers would have been wanting.
In sooth, while still untrained and helpless ye crept up to us,
ye spake as children, ye thought as children, ye cried as
children and begged to be made partakers of our milk. But we
being straightway moved by your tears gave you the breast of
grammar to suck, which ye plied continually with teeth and
tongue, until ye lost your native barbarousness and learned to
speak with our tongues the mighty things of God. And next we
clad you with the goodly garments of philosophy, rhetoric and
dialectic, of which we had and have a store, while ye were naked
as a tablet to be painted on. For all the household of
philosophy are clothed with garments, that the nakedness and
rawness of the intellect may be covered. After this, providing
you with the fourfold wings of the quadrivials that ye might be
winged like the seraphs and so mount above the cherubim, we sent
you to a friend at whose door, if only ye importunately knocked,
ye might borrow the three loaves of the Knowledge of the Trinity,
in which consists the final felicity of every sojourner below.
Nay, if ye deny that ye had these privileges, we boldly declare
that ye either lost them by your carelessness, or that through
your sloth ye spurned them when offered to you. If these things
seem but a light matter to you, we will add yet greater things.
Ye are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy race, ye are a
peculiar people chosen into the lot of God, ye are priests and
ministers of God, nay, ye are called the very Church of God, as
though the laity were not to be called churchmen. Ye, being
preferred to the laity, sing psalms and hymns in the chancel,
and, serving the altar and living by the altar, make the true
body of Christ, wherein God Himself has honoured you not only
above the laity, but even a little higher than the angels. For
to whom of His angels has He said at any time: Thou art a priest
for ever after the order of Melchisedech? Ye dispense the
patrimony of the crucified one to the poor, wherein it is
required of stewards that a man be found faithful. Ye are
shepherds of the Lord's flock, as well in example of life as in
the word of doctrine, which is bound to repay you with milk and
wool.
Who are the givers of all these things, O clerks? Is it not
books? Do ye remember therefore, we pray, how many and how great
liberties and privileges are bestowed upon the clergy through us?
In truth, taught by us who are the vessels of wisdom and
intellect, ye ascend the teacher's chair and are called of men
Rabbi. By us ye become marvellous in the eyes of the laity, like
great lights in the world, and possess the dignities of the
Church according to your various stations. By us, while ye still
lack the first down upon your cheeks, ye are established in your
early years and bear the tonsure on your heads, while the dread
sentence of the Church is heard: Touch not mine anointed and do
my prophets no harm, and he who has rashly touched them let him
forthwith by his own blow be smitten violently with the wound of
an anathema. At length yielding your lives to wickedness,
reaching the two paths of Pythagoras, ye choose the left branch,
and going backward ye let go the lot of God which ye had first
assumed, becoming companions of thieves. And thus ever going
from bad to worse, dyed with theft and murder and manifold
impurities, your fame and conscience stained by sins, at the
bidding of justice ye are confined in manacles and fetters, and
are kept to be punished by a most shameful death. Then your
friend is put far away, nor is there any to mourn your lot.
Peter swears that he knows not the man: the people cry to the
judge: Crucify, crucify Him! If thou let this man go, thou act
not Caesar's friend. Now all refuge has perished, for ye must
stand before the judgment-seat, and there is no appeal, but only
hanging is in store for you. While the wretched man's heart is
thus filled with woe and only the sorrowing Muses bedew their
cheeks with tears, in his strait is heard on every side the
wailing appeal to us, and to avoid the danger of impending death
he shows the slight sign of the ancient tonsure which we bestowed
upon him, begging that we may be called to his aid and bear
witness to the privilege bestowed upon him. Then straightway
touched with pity we run to meet the prodigal son and snatch the
fugitive slave from the gates of death. The book he has not
forgotten is handed to him to be read, and while with lips
stammering with fear he reads a few words, the power of the judge
is loosed, the accuser is withdrawn, and death is put to flight.
O marvellous virtue of an empiric verse! O saving antidote of
dreadful ruin! O precious reading of the psalter, which for this
alone deserves to be called the book of life! Let the laity
undergo the judgment of the secular arm, that either sewn up in
sacks they may be carried out to Neptune, or planted in the earth
may fructify for Pluto, or may be offered amid the flames as a
fattened holocaust to Vulcan, or at least may be hung up as a
victim to Juno: while our nursling at a single reading of the
book of life is handed over to the custody of the Bishop, and
rigour is changed to favour, and the forum being transferred from
the laity, death is routed by the clerk who is the nursling of
books.
But now let us speak of the clerks who are vessels of virtue.
Which of you about to preach ascends the pulpit or the rostrum
without in some way consulting us? Which of you enters the
schools to teach or to dispute without relying upon our support?
First of all, it behoves you to eat the book with Ezechiel, that
the belly of your memory may be sweetened within, and thus as
with the panther refreshed, to whose breath all beasts and cattle
long to approach, the sweet savour of the spices it has eaten may
shed a perfume without. Thus our nature secretly working in our
own, listeners hasten up gladly, as the load-stone draws the iron
nothing loth. What an infinite host of books lie at Paris or
Athens, and at the same time resound in Britain and in Rome! In
truth, while resting they yet move, and while retaining their own
places they are carried about every way to the minds of
listeners. Finally, by the knowledge of literature, we establish
Priests, Bishops, Cardinals, and the Pope, that all things in the
ecclesiastical hierarchy may be fitly disposed. For it is from
books that everything of good that befalls the clerical condition
takes its origin. But let this suffice: for it pains us to
recall what we have bestowed upon the degenerate clergy, because
whatever gifts are distributed to the ungrateful seem to be lost
rather than bestowed.
Let us next dwell a little on the recital of the wrongs with
which they requite us, the contempts and cruelties of which we
cannot recite an example in each kind, nay, scarcely the main
classes of the several wrongs. In the first place, we are
expelled by force and arms from the homes of the clergy, which
are ours by hereditary right, who were used to have cells of
quietness in the inner chamber, but, alas! in these unhappy times
we are altogether exiled, suffering poverty without the gates.
For our places are seized now by dogs, now by hawks, now by that
biped beast whose cohabitation with the clergy was forbidden of
old, from which we have always taught our nurslings to flee more
than from the asp and the cockatrice; wherefore she, always
jealous of the love of us, and never to be appeased, at length
seeing us in some corner protected only by the web of some dead
spider, with a frown abuses and reviles us with bitter words,
declaring us alone of all the furniture in the house to be
unnecessary, and complaining that we are useless for any
household purpose, and advises that we should speedily be
converted into rich caps, sendal and silk and twice-dyed purple,
robes and furs, wool and linen: and, indeed, not without reason,
if she could see our inmost hearts, if she had listened to our
secret counsels, if she had read the book of Theophrastus or
Valerius, or only heard the twenty-fifth chapter of
Ecclesiasticus with understanding ears.
And hence it is that we have to mourn for the homes of which we
have been unjustly robbed; and as to our coverings, not that they
have not been given to us, but that the coverings anciently given
to us have been torn by violent hands, insomuch that our soul is
bowed down to the dust, our belly cleaveth unto the earth. We
suffer from various diseases, enduring pains in our backs and
sides; we lie with our limbs unstrung by palsy, and there is no
man who layeth it to heart, and no man who provides a mollifying
plaster. Our native whiteness that was clear with light has
turned to dun and yellow, so that no leech who should see us
would doubt that we are diseased with jaundice. Some of us are
suffering from gout, as our twisted extremities plainly show.
The smoke and dust by which we are continuously plagued have
dulled the keenness of our visual rays, and are now infecting our
bleared eyes with ophthalmia. Within we are devoured by the
fierce gripings of our entrails, which hungry worms cease not to
gnaw, and we undergo the corruption of the two Lazaruses, nor is
there anyone to anoint us with balm of cedar, nor to cry to us
who have been four days dead and already stink, Lazarus come
forth! No healing drug is bound around our cruel wounds, which
are so atrociously inflicted upon the innocent, and there is none
to put a plaster upon our ulcers; but ragged and shivering we are
flung away into dark corners, or in tears take our place with
holy Job upon his dunghill, or--too horrible to relate--are
buried in the depths of the common sewers. The cushion is
withdrawn that should support our evangelical sides, which ought
to have the first claim upon the incomes of the clergy, and the
common necessaries of life thus be for ever provided for us, who
are entrusted to their charge.
Again, we complain of another sort of injury which is too often
unjustly inflicted upon our persons. We are sold for bondmen and
bondwomen, and lie as hostages in taverns with no one to redeem
us. We fall a prey to the cruel shambles, where we see sheep and
cattle slaughtered not without pious tears, and where we die a
thousand times from such terrors as might frighten even the
brave. We are handed over to Jews, Saracens, heretics and
infidels, whose poison we always dread above everything, and by
whom it is well known that some of our parents have been infected
with pestiferous venom. In sooth, we who should be treated as
masters in the sciences, and bear rule over the mechanics who
should be subject to us, are instead handed over to the
government of subordinates, as though some supremely noble
monarch should be trodden under foot by rustic heels. Any
seamster or cobbler or tailor or artificer of any trade keeps us
shut up in prison for the luxurious and wanton pleasures of the
clergy.
Now we would pursue a new kind of injury by which we suffer alike
in person and in fame, the dearest thing we have. Our purity of
race is diminished every day, while new authors' names are
imposed upon us by worthless compilers, translators, and
transformers, and losing our ancient nobility, while we are
reborn in successive generations, we become wholly degenerate;
and thus against our will the name of some wretched stepfather is
affixed to us, and the sons are robbed of the names of their true
fathers. The verses of Virgil, while he was yet living, were
claimed by an impostor; and a certain Fidentinus mendaciously
usurped the works of Martial, whom Martial thus deservedly
rebuked:
"The book you read is, Fidentinus! mine,
Though read so badly, 't well may pass for thine!"
What marvel, then, if when our authors are dead clerical apes use
us to make broad their phylacteries, since even while they are
alive they try to seize us as soon as we are published? Ah! how
often ye pretend that we who are ancient are but lately born, and
try to pass us off as sons who are really fathers, calling us who
have made you clerks the production of your studies. Indeed, we
derived our origin from Athens, though we are now supposed to be
from Rome; for Carmentis was always the pilferer of Cadmus, and
we who were but lately born in England, will to-morrow be born
again in Paris; and thence being carried to Bologna, will obtain
an Italian origin, based upon no affinity of blood. Alas! how ye
commit us to treacherous copyists to be written, how corruptly ye
read us and kill us by medication, while ye supposed ye were
correcting us with pious zeal. Oftentimes we have to endure
barbarous interpreters, and those who are ignorant of foreign
idioms presume to translate us from one language into another;
and thus all propriety of speech is lost and our sense is
shamefully mutilated contrary to the meaning of the author!
Truly noble would have been the condition of books if it had not
been for the presumption of the tower of Babel, if but one kind
of speech had been transmitted by the whole human race.
We will add the last clause of our long lament, though far too
short for the materials that we have. For in us the natural use
is changed to that which is against nature, while we who are the
light of faithful souls everywhere fall a prey to painters
knowing nought of letters, and are entrusted to goldsmiths to
become, as though we were not sacred vessels of wisdom,
repositories of gold-leaf. We fall undeservedly into the power
of laymen, which is more bitter to us than any death, since they
have sold our people for nought, and our enemies themselves are
our judges.
It is clear from what we have said what infinite invectives we
could hurl against the clergy, if we did not think of our own
reputation. For the soldier whose campaigns are over venerates
his shield and arms, and grateful Corydon shows regard for his
decaying team, harrow, flail and mattock, and every manual
artificer for the instruments of his craft; it is only the
ungrateful cleric who despises and neglects those things which
have ever been the foundation of his honours.
CHAPTER V
THE COMPLAINT OF BOOKS AGAINST THE POSSESSIONERS
The venerable devotion of the religious orders is wont to be
solicitous in the care of books and to delight in their society,
as if they were the only riches. For some used to write them
with their own hands between the hours of prayer, and gave to the
making of books such intervals as they could secure and the times
appointed for the recreation of the body. By whose labours there
are resplendent to-day in most monasteries these sacred
treasuries full of cherubic letters, for giving the knowledge of
salvation to the student and a delectable light to the paths of
the laity. O manual toil, happier than any agricultural task! O
devout solicitude, where neither Martha nor Mary deserves to be
rebuked! O joyful house, in which the fruitful Leah does not
envy the beauteous Rachel, but action and contemplation share
each other's joys! O happy charge, destined to benefit endless
generations of posterity, with which no planting of trees, no
sowing of seeds, no pastoral delight in herds, no building of
fortified camps can be compared! Wherefore the memory of those
fathers should be immortal, who delighted only in the treasures
of wisdom, who most laboriously provided shining lamps against
future darkness, and against hunger of hearing the Word of God,
most carefully prepared, not bread baked in the ashes, nor of
barley, nor musty, but unleavened loaves made of the finest wheat
of divine wisdom, with which hungry souls might be joyfully fed
These men were the stoutest champions of the Christian army, who
defended our weakness by their most valiant arms; they were in
their time the most cunning takers of foxes, who have left us
their nets, that we might catch the young foxes, who cease not to
devour the growing vines. Of a truth, noble fathers, worthy of
perpetual benediction, ye would have been deservedly happy, if ye
had been allowed to beget offspring like yourselves, and to leave
no degenerate or doubtful progeny for the benefit of future
times.
But, painful to relate, now slothful Thersites handles the arms
of Achilles and the choice trappings of war-horses are spread
upon lazy asses, winking owls lord it in the eagle's nest, and
the cowardly kite sits upon the perch of the hawk.
Liber Bacchus is ever loved,
And is into their bellies shoved,
By day and by night;
Liber Codex is neglected,
And with scornful hand rejected
Far out of their sight.
And as if the simple monastic folk of modern times were deceived
by a confusion of names, while Liber Pater is preferred to Liber
Patrum, the study of the monks nowadays is in the emptying of
cups and not the emending of books; to which they do not hesitate
to add the wanton music of Timotheus, jealous of chastity, and
thus the song of the merry-maker and not the chant of the mourner
is become the office of the monks. Flocks and fleeces, crops and
granaries, leeks and potherbs, drink and goblets, are nowadays
the reading and study of the monks, except a few elect ones, in
whom lingers not the image but some slight vestige of the fathers
that preceded them. And again, no materials at all are furnished
us to commend the canons regular for their care or study of us,
who though they bear their name of honour from their twofold
rule, yet have neglected the notable clause of Augustine's rule,
in which we are commended to his clergy in these words: Let
books be asked for each day at a given hour; he who asks for them
after the hour is not to receive them. Scarcely anyone observes
this devout rule of study after saying the prayers of the Church,
but to care for the things of this world and to look at the
plough that has been left is reckoned the highest wisdom. They
take up bow and quiver, embrace arms and shield, devote the
tribute of alms to dogs and not to the poor, become the slaves of
dice and draughts, and of all such things as we are wont to
forbid even to the secular clergy, so that we need not marvel if
they disdain to look upon us, whom they see so much opposed to
their mode of life.
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