end it to any one else, or to use it in common, but to reserve it
especially for his own private reading. The same rule extended to the
singers, who if they required books for their studies, were to apply to
the abbot.[27] The sick brothers were also entitled to the privilege of
receiving from the armarian books for their solace and comfort; but as
soon as the lamps were lighted in the infirmary the books were put away
till the morning, and if not finished, were again given out from the
library.[28] In the more ancient monasteries a similar case was observed
with respect to their books. The rule of St. Pacome directed that the
utmost attention should be paid to their preservation, and that when the
monks went to the refectory they were not to leave their books open, but
to carefully close and put them in their assigned places. The monastery
of St. Pacome contained a vast number of monks; every house, says
Mabillon, was composed of not less than forty monks, and the monastery
embraced thirty or forty houses. Each monk, he adds, possessed his book,
and few rested without forming a library; by which we may infer that the
number of books was considerable.[29] Indeed, it was quite a common
practice in those days, scarce as books were, to allow each of the monks
one or more for his private study, besides granting them access to the
library. The constitutions of Lanfranc, in the year 1072, directed the
librarian, at the commencement of Lent, to deliver a book to each of the
monks for their private reading, allowing them a whole year for its
perusal.[30] There is one circumstance connected with the affairs of the
library quite characteristic of monkish superstition, and bearing painful
testimony to their mistaken ideas of what constituted "good works." In
Martene's book there is a chapter, _De Scientia et Signis_--degrading and
sad; there is something withal curious to be found in it. After enjoining
the most scrupulous silence in the church, in the refectory, in the
cloister, and in the dormitory, at all times, and in all seasons;
transforming those men into perpetual mutes, and even when "actually
necessary," permitting only a whisper to be articulated "in a low voice
in the ear," _submissa voce in aure_, it then proceeds to describe a
series of fantastic grimaces which the monks were to perform on applying
to the armarian for books. The general sign for a book, _generali signi
libri_, was to "extend the hand and make a movement