where
two men are engaged in sharpening a sword upon a grindstone, in
illustration of the text about the wicked, "who whet their tongue
like a sword."

There is evidence of great religious zeal in the exhortations of
the leaders to those who worked under them. Abbot John of Trittenham
thus admonished the workers in the Scriptorium in 1486: "I have
diminished your labours out of the monastery lest by working badly
you should only add to your sins, and have enjoined on you the
manual labour of writing and binding books. There is in my opinion
no labour more becoming a monk than the writing of ecclesiastical
books.... You will recall that the library of this monastery...
had been dissipated, sold, or made way with by disorderly monks
before us, so that when I came here I found but fourteen volumes."

It was often with a sense of relief that a monk finished his work
upon a volume, as the final word, written by the scribe himself,
and known as the Explicit, frequently shows. In an old manuscript
in the Monastery of St. Aignan the writer has thus expressed his
emotions: "Look out for your fingers! Do not put them on my writing!
You do not know what it is to write! It cramps your back, it obscures
your eyes, it breaks your sides and stomach!" It is interesting
to note the various forms which these final words of the scribes
took; sometimes the Explicit is a pathetic appeal for remembrance
in the prayers of the reader, and sometimes it contains a note of
warning. In a manuscript of St. Augustine now at Oxford, there
is written: "This book belongs to St. Mary's of Robert's Bridge;
whoever shall steal it or in any way alienate it from this house,
or mutilate it, let him be Anathema Marantha!" A later owner,
evidently to justify himself, has added, "I, John, Bishop of Exeter,
know not where this aforesaid house is, nor did I steal this book,
but acquired it in a lawful way!"

The Explicit in the Benedictional of Ethelwold is touching: the
writer asks "all who gaze on this book to ever pray that after the
end of the flesh I may inherit health in heaven; this is the prayer
of the scribe, the humble Godemann." A mysterious Explicit occurs
at the end of an Irish manuscript of 1138, "Pray for Moelbrighte
who wrote this book. Great was the crime when Cormac Mac Carthy
was slain by Tardelvach O'Brian." Who shall say what revelation
may have been embodied in these words? Was it in the nature of a
confession or an accusation of some h