Among curious examples of the Explicit may be quoted the following:  “It is finished.  Let it be finished, and let the writer go out for a drink.”  A French monk adds:  “Let a pretty girl be given to the writer for his pains.”  Ludovico di Cherio, a famous illuminator of the fifteenth century, has this note at the end of a book upon which he had long been engaged:  “Completed on the vigil of the nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, on an empty stomach.” (Whether this refers to an imposed penance or fast, or whether Ludovico considered that the offering of a meek and empty stomach would be especially acceptable, the reader may determine.)

There is an amusing rhymed Explicit in an early fifteenth century copy of Froissart: 

  “I, Raoul Tanquy, who never was drunk
   (Or hardly more than judge or monk,)
   On fourth of July finished this book,
   Then to drink at the Tabouret myself took,
   With Pylon and boon companions more
   Who tripe with onions and garlic adore.”

But if some of the monks complained or made sport of their work, there were others to whom it was a divine inspiration, and whose affection for their craft was almost fanatic, an anecdote being related of one of them, who, when about to die, refused to be parted from the book upon which he had bestowed much of his life’s energy, and who clutched it in his last agony so that even death should not take it from him.  The good Othlonus of Ratisbon congratulates himself upon his own ability in a spirit of humility even while he rejoices in his great skill; he says:  “I think proper to add an account of the great knowledge and capacity for writing which was given me by the Lord in my childhood.  When as yet a little child, I was sent to school and quickly learned my letters, and I began long before the time of learning, and without any order from my master, to learn the art of writing.  Undertaking this in a furtive and unusual manner, and without any teacher, I got a habit of holding my pen wrongly, nor were any of my teachers afterwards able to correct me on that point.”  This very human touch comes down to us through the ages to prove the continuity of educational experience!  The accounts of his monastic labours put us to the blush when we think of such activity.  “While in the monastery of Tegernsee in Bavaria I wrote many books....  Being sent to Franconia while I was yet a boy, I worked so hard writing that before I had returned I had nearly lost my eyesight.  After I became a monk at St. Emmerem, I was appointed the school-master.  The duties of the office so fully occupied my time that I was able to do the transcribing I was interested in only by nights and in holidays....  I was, however, able, in addition to writing the books that I had myself composed, and the copies which I gave away for the edification of those who asked for them, to prepare nineteen missals, three books of the Gospels and Epistles, besides which I wrote four service books for Matins.