In spite of the regulations demanding the greatest care, it is easy to understand that after a time even books written on vellum or parchment would become disfigured and worn under the ardent fingers of enthusiastic students, when comparatively so {154} few copies were available for general use. In order to replace these worn-out copies every abbey had its own scriptorium or writing room, where especially the younger monks who were gifted with plain handwriting were required to devote certain hours every day to the copying of manuscripts. Manuscripts were borrowed from neighboring libraries and copied, or as in our modern day exchanges of duplicate copies were made, so as to avoid the risk that precious manuscripts might be subject to on the journeys from one abbey to another. How much the duty of transcription was valued may be appreciated from the fact, that in some abbeys every novice was expected to bring on the day of his profession as a religious, a volume of considerable size which had been carefully copied by his own hands. Besides these methods of increasing the number of books in the library, a special sum of money was set aside in most of the abbeys for the procuring of additional volumes for the library by purchase. Usually this took the form of an ecclesiastical regulation requiring that a certain percentage of the revenues should be spent on the libraries. Scholars closely associated with monasteries frequently bequeathed their books and besides left money or incomes to be especially devoted to the improvement of the library. It is easy to understand that with all these sources of enrichment many abbeys possessed noteworthy libraries. To quote only those of France, important collections of books were to be found at Cluny, Luxeuil, Fleury, Saint-Martial, Moissac, Mortemer, Savigny, Fourcarmont, Saint Père de Chartres, Saint Denis, Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Saint Corneille de Compiègne, Corbie, Saint-Amand, Saint-Martin de Tournai, where Vincent de Beauvais said that he found the greatest collections of manuscripts that existed in his time, and then especially the great Parisian abbeys already referred to, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Saint Victor, Saint-Martin-des-Champs, the precious treasures of which are well known to all those who are familiar with the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, of whose manuscript department their relics constitute the most valuable nucleus.