The list of monasteries which became in this manner literary and publishing centres would include nearly all the great Benedictine foundations of both Britain and the Continent. There was probably, however, a greater activity during the period between 600 and 1200, in the matter at least of collecting and circulating books, in the monasteries of France than in those of Italy, Germany, or Britain; but more important even than Clugni, Marmoutier, or Corbie, in France, was the great Swiss abbey of St. Gall, an abbey the realm of which reached almost to the proportions of a small municipality. In the shade of its walls, there dwelt a whole nation, divided into two branches, the _familia intus_, which comprised the labourers, shepherds, and workmen of all trades, and the _familia foris_, composed of serfs, who were bound to do three days’ work in each week. Within the monastery itself, there were, in the latter half of the tenth century, no less than five hundred monks, together with a great group of students. In Germany, the most noted of what might be called the literary monasteries during the ninth and tenth centuries were those of Fulda, Reichenau, Lorsch, Hirschau, and Gandersheim. It was in the latter that the nun Hroswitha composed her famous dramas. In France, in addition to those already specified, should be mentioned Fleury, St. Remy, St. Denis, Luxeuil, S. Vincent at Toul, and Aurillac. In Belgium, S. Peter’s at Ghent was, during the tenth century, the most important of the scholarly monasteries. In England, in addition to the earlier foundations, already referred to, of Wearmouth and Yarrow, St. Albans and Glastonbury became the most famous. Before the eleventh century, the literature that came into existence from contemporary writers or reproductions of the works of classic writers outside of the monasteries must have been very trifling indeed. One of the most noteworthy publications which emanated from St. Gall was the great dictionary or _Vocabulary_ bearing the name of Solomon (Abbot of St. Gall and later, Bishop of Constance), a work which was in fact a kind of literary and scientific encyclopædia. This manuscript, comprising in all 1070 pages, was put into print in the latter part of the fifteenth century.[174] The records of the famous library of the monastery have been brought together by later scholars, and it is their testimony that the manuscripts contained in it were among the most beautiful and accurate specimens of caligraphy known. These St. Gall manuscripts were also noted for their exquisite miniatures and illuminations. The parchment used for them was prepared by the hands of the monks, and they also did their own binding.[175] The fame of Sintram, one of the most noteworthy of the copyists, was known throughout all the countries north of the Alps; _Omnis orbis cisalpinus Sintramni digitos miratur_.[176]