on jewelled reliquary, nor church-plate, but on the great Bible which had been used in the cathedral, and which he took on his back and ran off with to the mines, where he remained concealed with some of his companions, until the Normans took their departure. “The fugitives then issued from their hiding place, and returned to Nantes,” says the chronicler, having lost much in _books_, silver and gold, and having saved nothing but their Bible. Sometimes, again, we read of the strange expedients used by the owners of books to conceal them from plunderers. In the abbey of Pfeffers, the books and the church-plate were always hidden together, and on more than one occasion unexpected discoveries were made in aftertimes, of the deposits thus contrived. In the twelfth century one of these secret stores was accidentally brought to light, and contained, besides church plate and vestments, a rich library. Its catalogue included, besides missals and choral books, the works of most of the Latin fathers, and those of Virgil, Lucan, Statius, Sallust, Cicero, and many others. When the great abbey of St. Gall’s was threatened by the Huns, the first thought of the abbot was to send the books across the lake to Reichnau. In some of the Italian convents it was always the custom to bury the books on the approach of the Saracens; and several manuscripts may still be seen in the Library of Florence, bearing traces on their covers of having been so dealt with. Not unfrequently the relics are spoken of as being kept in the library, of which an instance occurs in an anecdote preserved by Martene, concerning the monks of St. Florent. When their monastery was threatened by the Normans, they fled to Tournus, taking with them the body of their patron saint. The danger being past, they prepared to return, but their ungenerous hosts, the monks of Tournus, refused to let them take the body with them. Very disconsolately they bent their steps back to St. Florent without their treasure: but one of their number, named Absalon, devised a scheme for its recovery. “He was,” says the historian, “a very skilful youth, very fond of law-studies, and much given to letters.” His law-studies had possibly sharpened his wits, but the reader must forgive his wiliness, remembering that it was put forth in a just cause. He feigned illness, and remained behind at Tournus, where the monks entrusted him with the offices of scholasticus, librarian, and cantor, and one night, having the keys of the library he effected a quiet entrance, and taking the body of St. Florent from the place where it was deposited, lost no time in finding his way with it back to his own monastery.