The safety of the monks--of peaceful occupation and mien--and of their possessions--almost wholly literary, even in the periods of disorder and violence--was often due to the supposed sacredness of the roofs under which they were sheltered. And even when these asylums were not respected but seized and plundered, the books which they treasured had little or no value in the eyes of the ignorant and hostile invaders, or were hidden away in recesses of the monasteries beyond the reach of prying eyes. And even when the manuscripts of a single monastery, or the monasteries of a given region, were all destroyed, untold numbers of copies--and largely duplicate copies--by reason of their previous extensive dispersion throughout wide areas and secluded regions, were preserved elsewhere to be again brought to light in more favored times, and, finally, at the revival of learning, which awaited the coming of the printing-press.
The thirteenth century has been called "the greatest of centuries," and, mainly, because it was the beginning period of emergence from the 'Dark Ages' and because the hearts of men were beginning to be thrilled with the anticipatory birth-throes of the coming revival of letters. "There is," says Goldwin Smith, "no more romantic period in the history of the human intellect than the thirteenth century." The Italian renaissance in the fourteenth century brought a deepening interest for the old Latin writings, and this, in turn, revived attention to the Greek classics--the fountain-head of the world's pagan literature. The awakening concern for classic literature led the Humanists in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to ransack the libraries of the monasteries and religious houses in even out-of-the-way places of Europe for all kinds of old manuscripts. Statesmen as well as students gave themselves up to the recovering of the literary and art treasures of Greece and Rome. The Greek empire, the Levant, and all western Europe were ransacked in every nook and corner; and the treasures of the Indies and the libraries of the Levant were bought, says one, "with impartial interest and equal delight."
This was a new and more fruitful kind of crusade, of which Symonds declares, "As the Franks deemed themselves thrice blessed if they returned with relics from Jerusalem, so these new Knights of the Holy Ghost, seeking not the sepulchre of a risen Lord, but the tomb wherein the genius of the ancient world awaited resurrection, felt holy transport when a brown, begrimed and crabbed scrap of some Greek or Latin author rewarded their patient search." And of Petrarch, one of the most enthusiastic searchers for these ancient writings, Myers says: "He made many a long and wearisome journey, with the object of collecting manuscripts. The precious documents were found covered with mold in damp cellars, or loaded with dust in the attics of monasteries. This late search for these remains of classical authors saved to the world hundreds of valuable manuscripts which, a little longer neglected, would have been lost forever." And he says, further, "Libraries were founded where the new treasures might be stored, and copies of the manuscripts were made and distributed among all who could appreciate them."[86] For it was a specific outgrowth of these new intellectual and literary impulses which heralded the passing of the "Dark Ages" that came the beginnings of the Vatican Library at Rome. This renowned library was established by Pope Nicholas V. at about the same date as the invention of printing and concurred with that invention to make effective for all time to come the revival of learning and of letters.