Copying is an excellent means of propitiating Heaven. St. Bernard said emphatically, "Every word which you write is a blow which smites the devil," and Cassiodorus, much earlier, asserted: "By the exercise of the mind upon the Holy Scriptures you convey to those who read a kind of moral instruction. You preach with the hand, converting the hand into an organ of speech--thus, as it were, fighting the arch-fiend with pen and ink."
Parchment, we have said, is a costly article. To provide a single book scores of sheep must die. A new style of writing material, however, is just coming into vogue. Paper, a substance made of linen cloth, now is being produced in small quantities in France, although, as usual, it seems to have been an invention of the Arab Infidels. Some day, perhaps, paper will become so plentiful and cheap that books can be multiplied in vast numbers, but as yet practically everything has to be on parchment, which is certainly far less destructible than paper, whatever the cost.[101]
[Sidenote: Elegant Manuscripts and Binding]
In the cloister alcoves a dozen copyists are pursuing their task with infinite patience. Their question is not "how fast?" but "how well?"--for they are performing "a work unto God." As a rule, they write their sheets in two columns, making their characters either in roundish minuscule or in squarer Gothic. The initials are in bright colors--some with a background of gold. Here and there may be painted in a brilliant miniature illustration. The work of the best copyists is beautifully legible. The scribes put their heart and soul into their productions. They expect the volumes will be memorials to their faithfulness and piety scores of years after they are departed.
When the sheets are completed, the book is bound in leather much the same as in other ages, although sometimes the sides are of wood. In any case, there are likely to be metal clasps and bosses of brass upon the covers. A few of the most precious volumes are adorned with plates of silver or carved ivory. So year by year the library grows. It need not be remarked that every copy is _read_ and _reread_ with devoted thoroughness. What the learning of the Feudal Age, therefore, lacks in breadth is somewhat compensated for by intensity. The older and more studious monks know almost by heart _all_ the facts in their entire collection. The younger brethren revere them as carrying in their own heads practically everything significant in the way of worldly wisdom.[102]