It gives great pleasure to a certain class of writers to blacken the characters of the monks, and to extol Henry VIII. and the favourites and courtiers who surrounded him. But the present age is too critical and well-informed to be misled by the prejudiced and bigoted statements which have no foundation in fact. The monks were no doubt superstitious, and so were the parochial clergy; but the former were not ignorant men, as Judge Blackstone states in his Commentaries. He was much indebted to them for the preservation of ancient charters, laws, and historical annals, which form so important a part of his Commentaries. The various charters of English liberty, wrung from English sovereigns from time to time, were deposited in the monasteries by the barons for safe keeping, where they were carefully and faithfully preserved by the so-called “ignorant and superstitious monks.” In every great abbey there was a large room called the “Scriptorium,” where several writers made it their sole business to transcribe books for the use of the library. They were generally engaged upon the Fathers, Classics, Histories, etc., etc. There was then no printing press. So zealous were the monks in general for this work, that they often had lands given to them and churches appropriated to them for carrying on the work. In all the great abbeys persons were appointed to take notice of the principal occurrences of the kingdom, and at the end of every year to digest them into annals. The constitutions of the clergy in their national and provincial synods, and even Acts of Parliament, were sent to the abbeys, in order to be duly recorded. The choicest records and treasures of the kingdom were preserved in the monasteries. A copy of the charter of liberties granted by Henry I. was sent to some abbey in every county to be preserved. The abbeys were schools of learning and education, for every convent had one person or more appointed for this purpose, and all the neighbours that desired it, might have their children taught certain branches of education free of charge. In the nunneries, also, young women were taught to work, and to read English and Latin also. Most of the daughters of noblemen and gentlemen were educated in those places.