The Mohammedan antagonists of the declining Byzantine empire were according to their own accounts, on more than an equal footing with them in regard to libraries. The statements of Arabic historians on this subject seem in fact to belong to the Arabian Nights.' Quatremere, in his Rdcherches sur l'Egypte; quotes several narratives which are altogether incredible as they stand, but which may be taken as grounds for believing the existence of libraries of a size and extent quite different from the contemporary collections of Christen dom. Ibn Aby Tay, according to M. Quatremere, affirms that the library of Cairo contained 1,600,000 volumes, and was the largest in all the Mohammedan empire. M. Quatremere also tells us, on the second hand authority of Ibn Ferat, that Takla Ben-Aby-Tay, which seems to be only another form of the name of the same pseudo-historian, as serted that the library of Tripoli, in Syria, contained 3,000,000 volumes on theology only. The statements, to say nothing of their intrinsic incredibility, contradict each other. Makrizi, a better authority, speak ing of the library of the Caliphs, describes it as filling forty chambers, and as containing 18,000 volumes on the sciences, and 2400 copies of the Koran.
The Arabs in Spain were the most literary of all the Arabs, and in their history we find mention of immense libraries, and also of bibliomania, a disorder of literature which indicates a general flourish ing condition of the patient. According to A1-Makkari's History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain,' translated by Gayangos, the inhabitants of Cordova were renowned, in the 10th century, for their passion for forming libraries. " To such an extent did this rage for collection increase," says Ibnu-Said, an Arabian author, "that any man in power, or holding a place under government, considered himself obliged to have a library of his own, and would spare no trouble or expense in collecting books, merely in order that people might say ' Such a one has a very fine library, or be possesses a unique copy of such a book, or has a copy of such a work in the handwriting of such a one.'" A great library was formed at Cordova by the caliph Al-hakem, who caused all sorts of rare and curious books to be bought by his agents in Cairo, Bagdad, Damascus, Alexandria, and other great. cities of the East, and who was currently reported to have amassed a col lection of not less than 400,000 volumes. The historian Ibnu-l-abbar, to increase the marvel, states that, " to (give an idea of Al-hakcm's immense erudition, it will only be necessary to record a well-ascertained fact—though strange to say neither Ibnu-l-fara.dhi, nor Ibn-Baahkuwal have mentioned it in their works—namely, that not one book was to be found in Al-hakem's library, whatever might be its contents, which the caliph had not perused, writing in the fly-leaf the name, surname, and patronymic of the author, that of the tribe or family to which he belonged, the year of his birth and death ; after which followed such interesting anecdotes about the author or his work, as through his immense reading he had derived from other writers." Even those who
have had no experience in cataloguing will agree that to do this for a collection of 40,000 volumes, not to say 400,000, would require no common share of industry. On the death of the caliph, in A.D. 796, the throne of Cordova was usurped by Al-mansur, who in order to conciliate the favour of the 3Iohammeda,nt heologians, ordered all the books on philosophy and similar subjects to be destroyed, and they were accordingly either burned in the public squares or thrown into the Neils and cisterns of the palace. Finally, on the overthrow of the dynasty of the Ommiades by rebel princes, Cordova was invaded and sacked, the palace of the caliphs was levelled with the ground, and the books of the splendid collection of Al-hakem taken as plunder, and sold in distant countries at the lowest prices.
While the number of books among the Arabs was so incredibly large, among the Christian nations the number was inconceivably small. The instinct of collecting and that of preserving libraries seem in some cases to have been equally deficient. Charlemagne was persuaded by his English librarian, Alcuin of York, to collect a library equal to that which Alcuin had seen in England ; but in his will, the monarch expressly directed that it should be sold, and the proceeds given to the poor. The monastic libraries are usually spoken of as the great literary establishments of the middle ages, but the collections of monks and magnates are on the same scale of distressing poverty. The monastic library of Fulda, which Charlemagne had increased, if not founded, in A.D. 744, was celebrated during the whole middle ages, and in the year 1561 was found to contain 794 manuscripts. In the 12th century, the monastery of Monte Casino contained 90 volumes. The church of Ratisbon possessed in 1251, a library of 500 volumes; the library of the Sorbonne, in Paris, amounted in 1292 to 1000. The chronicler Geoffrey of Beaulieu relates that St. Louis, when on the Crusades, heard of a great sultan of the Saracens who made careful search for books of all kinds, and who had them transcribed at his own expense, and placed them in libraries for the use of the learned. St. Louis resolved, therefore, en his return to his own kingdom, to have copies made of all the books of the Holy Scriptures and general edification that he could find iu the different abbeys, and he collected at the Holy Chapel, still existing at Paris, numerous works of St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and other authors. This library, like that of Charlemagne, was again dispersed at the king's death, and distributed among three religious orders. In 1373, as has already been mentioned, the library of the king of France consisted of only 910 volumes.