There has been much mourning on the part of the scholars over the supposed value of precious classics which may thus have been destroyed, or of which but scanty fragments have been preserved in the lower stratum of the palimpsest. Robertson is particularly severe upon the ignorant clumsiness of the monks in thus destroying, for the sake of futile legends, so much of the great literature of the world. Among other authors, Robertson quotes in this connection Montfaucon as saying that the greater part of the manuscripts on parchment which he had seen (those of an ancient date excepted), are written on parchment from which some former treatise had been erased. Maitland, who is of opinion that the destruction of ancient literature brought about by the monks has been much overestimated, points out that Robertson has not quoted Montfaucon correctly, the statement of the latter being expressly limited to manuscripts written since the “twelfth century.” It is Maitland’s belief that a large proportion of the palimpsests or doubly written manuscripts which bear date during the twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth centuries, represent, as far as they are monastic at all, not monastery writings placed upon classic texts, but monastery work replacing earlier works of the monastery _scriptoria_. Partial confirmation of this view is the fact that so large an interest was taken by monks in all parts of Europe in the preservation and transcribing of such classical works as came into their hands. In fact, as previously pointed out, the preservation of any fragments whatsoever of classical literature is due to the intelligent care of the monks. To the world outside of the monastery, the old-time manuscripts were, with hardly an exception, little more than dirty parchments. It seems probable that a great part of such scraping of old manuscripts as was done was not due to the requirements of the legends or missals, but was perpetrated in order to carry on the worldly business of secular men. An indication of the considerable use of parchment for business purposes, and of instances of what we should to-day call its abuse, is the fact that, as late as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, notaries were forbidden to practise until they had taken an oath to use none but new parchment.[107] The belief that the transcribing of good books was in itself a protection against the wiles of the evil one, naturally added to the feeling of regard in which the writer held his work, a feeling under the influence of which it became not unusual to add at the close of the manuscript an anathema against any person who should destroy or deface it. A manuscript of St. Gall contains the following: Auferat hunc librum nullus hinc omne per ævum Cum Gallo partem quisquis habere cupit.[108] [Let no one through all ages who wishes to have any part with Gallus (the Saint or the Abbey) remove (or purloin) this book.]