To complete our sketch of the books on which the scholars of the fifteenth century had to rely we may consider two more.  The first is the great encyclopaedia of Vincent of Beauvais, a Dominican friar (c. 1190-1264).  It was printed in 1472-6 by Mentelin at Strasburg, in six enormous volumes; and no one can properly appreciate the magnitude of the work who has not tried to lift these volumes about.  Vincent was not the first to attempt this encyclopaedic enterprise, for his work is based on that of another Frenchman, Helinand, who died in 1229.  In his preface he states that his prior had urged him to reduce his Speculum to a manual; being doubtless an old man, and appalled at these colossal fruits of his friar’s industry.  But this was too much for the proud author after all his labour.  He did, however, consent to cut it up into portions.  The Speculum naturale gives a description of the world in all its parts, animal and vegetable and mineral; the Speculum doctrinale taught how to practise the arts and sciences; the Speculum historiale embraced the world’s history down to 1250; and the Speculum morale, which is perhaps not by Vincent, found room for the philosophies.

But few libraries can have possessed this work in full.  Our other book was much more compassable and more widely circulated.  Its author was a certain Johannes Marchesinus, of whom so little is known that his date has been put both at 1300 and at 1466.  Even the title of the book was uncertain.  Marchesinus names it Mammotrectus or Mammetractus, which he explains as ‘led by a pedagogue’; but a current form of the name was Mammothreptus, which was interpreted as ’brought up by one’s grandmother’.  The book consists of a commentary on the whole Bible, chapter by chapter; and also upon the Legenda Sanctorum, upon various sermons and homilies, responses, antiphons, and hymns, with notes on the Hebrew months, ecclesiastical vestments, and other subjects likely to be useful to students in the Church, especial emphasis being laid on pronunciation and quantity.  It was intended, Marchesinus tells us in his preface, for the use of the poor clergy, to aid them in writing sermons and in reading difficult Hebrew names; and from the sympathy with which he enters into their troubles, it seems clear that he knew them from personal experience.

From its scope the book might be expected to be as large as Vincent’s Speculum, but in fact it can be printed in a quarto volume.  It was not intended to compete with the great commentaries of Peter the Lombard, or Nicholas Lyra, or Hugh of St. Victor, which fill many folios.  It was to be within reach of the poor parish priest, and so must not be costly.  But the surprising part of the book is its triviality.  With so little space available, one would have expected to find nothing admitted that was not important:  but the fact is that it has nothing which is not elementary.  There is nothing historical, nothing theological, only a few simple points of grammar and quantity.  For example, in the story of Deborah, Judges iv, the commentary runs as follows: