" The result of this was, first the
above-mentioned hemming in of the younger establishment and eventually
its migration to another site in Hyde Meadow. Here while the monastic
buildings suffered much through fires and other disasters, the Rule
remained until 1538, when it was surrendered into the King's hands, and
the abbat, prior, and nineteen monks, the last survivors of this
once-famous foundation, were pensioned.
[37] Dugdale, _Monasticon_.
The scriptorium at St. Alban's, to which the fame of book production in
the Middle Ages very largely reverted, was not founded until nearly
three centuries after the foundation of that abbey. The library began
with twenty-eight notable volumes, and eight Psalters, a book of
collects, another of epistles, and _Evangelia legenda per annum_, two
Gospel-books bound in gold and silver and set with gems, together with
other necessary volumes for ordinary use. Almost every succeeding abbat
contributed something to the library shelves. Geoffrey, the sixteenth
abbat, a Norman who once had a school at Dunstable, and who was both a
popular and liberal ruler, enriched the library with a Missal bound in
gold, another incomparably illuminated and beautifully written, and also
a Psalter richly illuminated, a Benedictional, and others.
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