Hence arose long disputes
between the abbats of the two houses about tithes and other matters.
Among the other matters were included questions of candlesticks and
bindings and gildings of books. The two houses were long at variance on
the right definition of luxury in living, and this variance may to this
day be observed in their separate and distinct styles, both of
architecture and the ornamentation of books. The use of gold was still
continued in the older Benedictine abbeys, but was long forbidden in the
Cistercian, almost all the ornament of the latter being confined to
pen-drawing and the use of coloured inks. The employment of gold for the
text of manuscripts so common in the ninth century became rare in the
eleventh. Only here and there do we hear of such volumes. Where the gold
lettering still lingers, it is confined to the first page or two, and
the same may be said of the purple vellum. A certain monk, Ad?mar, who
died at Jerusalem in 1034, wrote a Life of St. Martial of Limoges
entirely in letters of gold; but it was quite an exceptional volume.
Another example occurs in an Evangeliary, which was probably a copy of a
ninth-century model, as at first glance it might be assigned to that
age, but on closer examination it is found that in one of the borders is
a medallion bearing the name of the Emperor Otho, showing that it cannot
be later than the latter part of the tenth century.
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