Thus in these times a book was a book: some of them cost large sums; the mere transcription into plain black-letter or Old English was toilsome and involved weeks and months of labor; and when it came to illuminated borders, or initials and title-pages with decorative paintings, the labor involved was enormous. There were collectors in those days as now--who took royal freaks for gorgeous missals; and monkish lives were spent in gratifying the whims of such collectors. In the year 1237 (Henry III.) there is entry in the Revenue Roll of the costs of silver clasps and studs for the King’s _great book of Romances_. Upon the continent, in Italy, where an art atmosphere prevailed that was more enkindling than under the fogs of this savage England, such work became thoroughly artistic; and even now beautiful _motifs_ for decoration on the walls of New York houses are sought from old French or Latin manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. And where was this work of making books done? There were no book-shops or publishers’ houses, but in place of them abbeys or monasteries--each having its _scriptorium_ or writing-room, where, under the vaulted Norman arches and by the dim light of their loop-holes of windows, the work of transcription went on month after mouth and year after year. Thus it is recorded that in that old monastery of St. Albans (of which we just now spoke) eighty distinct works were transcribed during the reign of Henry VI.; it is mentioned as swift work; and as Henry reigned thirty-nine years, it counts up about two complete MSS. a year. And the atmosphere of St. Albans was a learned one; this locality not being overmuch given to the roisterings that belonged to Bolton Priory--of which you will remember the hint in a pleasant picture of Landseer’s. _Religious Houses._ If you or I had journeyed thither in that day--coming from what land we might--I think we should have been earnest among the first things, to see those great monasteries that lay scattered over the surface of England and of Southern Scotland;--not perched on hills or other defensible positions like the Norman castles of the robber Barons--not buried in cities like London Tower, or the great halls which belonged to guilds of merchants--but planted in the greenest and loveliest of valleys, where rivers full of fish rippled within hearing, and woods full of game clothed every headland that looked upon the valley; where the fields were the richest--where the water was purest--where the sun smote warmest; there these religious houses grew up, stone by stone, cloister by cloister, chapel by chapel, manor by manor, until there was almost a township, with outlying cottages--and some great dominating abbey church--rich in all the choicest architecture of the later Norman days--lifting its spire from among the clustered buildings scarce less lovely than itself.