Reading Abbey

The Monks at Work: the Scratch of Pens

The south walkway gave onto the Dining Room and contained wash basins with cupboards for towels for the monks to wash before going in for their meals. The north walkway was the warmest and most comfortable. Here the sun shone through the windows and the monks sat between services for their private prayer, reading and meditation. Here also the writing was carried out which was so vital to the life of the Abbey. Accounts and daily records had to be kept, copies of service books and music had to be made and music was also composed, such as the famous earliest recorded four part harmony in Britain, Sumer is icumen in. 

Copies of the Bible and other religious and scholarly works were produced, in languages of Latin, Greek, French and English, often with elaborately decorated letters starting a chapter, some of which have been used again to head the chapters in this book. This was the time before printing presses could quickly turn out numerous copies of a text and all books were laboriously written out by hand. We can imagine a large cupboard in the north walkway of the Cloister holding some of the books but the library being so extensive that a special room nearby was needed to hold the rest. A catalogue compiled some 70 years after the Abbey was founded records that nearly 300 volumes were used in the everyday life of the monastery, ranging from Bibles to copies of classical texts to music books.

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