Outside of Paris there are preserved many books of great value that come from this century. One of them, a Bestiarum or Book of Beasts, is in the Ashmoleam Museum at Oxford. This is said to be a very beautiful example of the illumination of the Thirteenth Century, but it is even more interesting because it shows the efforts of the artists of the time to copy nature in the pictures of animals as they are presented. There is said to be an acuity of observation and a vigor of representation displayed in the book which is highly complimentary to the powers of the Thirteenth Century artists.
Even these brief notes of the books and libraries of the Thirteenth Century, will serve to make clear how enthusiastic was the interest of the generations of this time in beautiful books and in collections of them that were meant for show as { 165} well as for practical usefulness. There is perhaps nothing more amusing in the attitude of modern generations with regard to the Middle Ages, than the assumption that all the methods of education and of the distribution of knowledge worth while talking about, are the inventions of comparatively modern times. The fact that libraries were also a creation of that time and that most of the regulations which are supposed to be the first fruit of quite recent science in the circulation of books had been adopted by these earlier generations, is commonly ignored utterly, though it is a precious bit of knowledge that cannot help but increase our sympathy with those bookmen of the olden times, who thought so much of their books, yet wished to share the privilege of their use with all those who would employ them properly, and who, in their great practical way succeeded in working out the scheme by which many people could have the opportunity of consulting the treasures they thought so much of, without risk of their loss or destruction, even though use might bring some deterioration of their value.
[Illustration] DECORATION (XIII. CENT. PSALTER MSS.)
Anyone who has studied even perfunctorily the Books of the Arts and of the Deeds of the Thirteenth Century, who has realized its accomplishments in enduring artistic creations, sublime and exemplary models and inspirations for all after time, who has appreciated what it succeeded in doing for the education of the classes and of the masses, the higher education being provided for at least as large a proportion of the people as in our present century, while the creation of what were practically great technical schools that culled out of the masses the latent geniuses who could accomplish supreme artistic results in the arts and crafts and did more and better for the masses than any subsequent generation, can scarcely help but turn with interest to read the Book of the Words of the period and to find out what forms of literature interested this surprising people. One is almost sure to think at the first moment of consideration that the literature will not be found worthy of the other achievements of the times. In most men's minds the Thirteenth Century does not readily call up the idea of a series of great works in literature, whose influence has been at all as profound and enduring as that of the universities in the educational order, or of the Cathedrals in the artistic order.