, or
erudition. We read that when David went to the Isle of Wight, to
Paulinus, to receive his education, he used to sup in the Refectory, but
had a Scriptorium, or study, in his cell, being a famous scribe.[42] The
aged monks, who often lived in these little offices, separate from the
rest of the scribes, were not expected to work so arduously as the rest.
Their employment was comparatively easy; nor were they compelled to work
so long as those in the cloister.[43] There is a curious passage in
Tangmar's Life of St. Bernward, which would lead us to suspect that
private individuals possessed Scriptoria; for, says he, there are
Scriptoria, not only in the monasteries, but in other places, in which
are conceived books equal to the divine works of the philosophers.[44]
The Scriptorium of the monastery in which the general business of a
literary nature was transacted, was an apartment far more extensive and
commodious, fitted up with forms and desks methodically arranged, so as
to contain conveniently a great number of copyists. In some of the
monasteries and cathedrals, they had long ranges of seats one after
another, at which were seated the scribes, one well versed in the subject
on which the book treated, recited from the copy whilst they wrote; so
that, on a word being given out by him, it was copied by all.[45] The
multiplication of manuscripts, under such a system as this, must have
been immense; but they did not always make books, _fecit libros_, as
they called it, in this wholesale manner, but each monk diligently
labored at the transcription of a separate work.

The amount of labor carried on in the Scriptorium, of course, in many
cases depended upon the revenues of the abbey, and the disposition of the
abbot; but this was not always the case, as in some monasteries they
undertook the transcription of books as a matter of commerce, and added
broad lands to their house by the industry of their pens. But the
Scriptorium was frequently supported by resources solely applicable to
its use. Laymen, who had a taste for literature, or who entertained an
esteem for it in others, often at their death bequeathed estates for the
support of the monastic Scriptoria. Robert, one of the Norman leaders,
gave two parts of the tythes of Hatfield, and the tythes of Redburn, for
the support of the Scriptorium of St. Alban's.[46] The one belonging to
the monastery of St. Edmundsbury was endowed with two mills,[47] and in
the church of