The libraries were burned, and
Northumbria was overwhelmed in darkness and slavery; and Alcuin wrote
again, 'He who can hear of this calamity and not cry to God on behalf of
his country, must have a heart not of flesh but of stone.'
Benedict Biscop was our first English book-collector. The son of a rich
Thane might have looked to a political career; he preferred to devote
himself to learning, and would have spent his life in a Roman monastery
if the Pope had not ordered him to return to England in company with
Theodore of Tarsus. His first expedition was made with his friend St.
Wilfrid. They crossed in a ship provided by the King of Kent. Travelling
together as far as Lyons, Wilfrid remained there for a time, and Benedict
pushed on to Mont Cenis, and so to Rome, after a long and perilous
journey. On a second visit he received the tonsure, and went back to work
at Lindisfarne; but about two years afterwards he obtained a passage to
Italy in a trading-vessel, and it was on this occasion that he received
the Pope's commands. Four years elapsed before he was in Rome again:
throughout the year 671 he was amassing books by purchase and by the
gifts of his friends; and returning by Vienne he found another large
store awaiting him which he had ordered on his outward journey. Benedict
was able to set up a good library in his new Abbey at Wearmouth; but his
zeal appears to have been insatiable. We find him for the fifth time at
the mart of learning, and bringing home, as Bede has told us, 'a
multitude of books of all kinds.
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