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A NOTE ON GERALD OF WALES AND ANNALES CAMBRIAE IN ONE of his characteristic gibes at the Cistercian Order made in the latter years of his life, Gerald of Wales related the events surrounding the loss of his precious library. He had come to an abbey which had seemed to him a place of sanctuary, bringing with him his most valued possessions, above all his treasure-store of books which he had so zealously collected from boyhood to his later years Wherefore on the occasion of his third labour, by reason of his suits it became necessary for him to set forth to Rome that he might without fail be present on the day appointed for their hearing, the monks of the rich abbey, seeing that he was anxious to get the money necessary for so costly a journey, devised a plan which, though it began with a show of kindness, ended in fraud, promising unasked that they would lend him money sufficient for his journey on the security of his books of theology; but to this they added the condition, that if he should at any time perchance desire to sell these books, he should sell them to none save themselves and their house. This offer he gratefully accepted, and promises were given on either side. But when, the time for his departure already pressing, he came to the place to get his money, he found the monks converted and perverted to a deed of deliberate wickedness. For they said that in the meantime on looking into their 'Book of Uses" they found that it was lawful for their Order to buy books but not to take them in pledge; wherefore if he was ready to sell his books they would gladly buy them for a fair price. But the book, which they called their 'Book of Uses', might more justly be called their 'Book of Abuses'. So when he accused them on the ground that they had already given their promise and accepted the books in pledge and had given him no warning on the matter, they replied that the prohibition had slipped their memory at the time. So this good man, who desired to walk uprightly and abhorred all double-dealing, seeing that he had been deceived by their guile and wickedly defrauded, and that time so pressed that further delay was impossible, while without the money he could do nothing-seeing this, I say, and being in sore straits, since he could not endure like a coward to abandon the suits which he had thus far pursued so manfully, at last-for necessity knows no law-he left his books for them to do with them as they pleased, feeling as though his very bowels had been drawn out of him, and exchanging for worthless coin that treasure beyond all price, which he had collected through so many years, he did as best he 1 Liber Usuum, first referred to in the Cistercian statutes of 1119 (§3), Statuta Capitulorum Generation Ordinis Cisterciensis, ed. J.-M. Canivez (8 vols., Louvain, 1933-41), I, 3. It is frequently called the Consuetudines ('Book of Customs'), which comprised the Ecclesiastica officia (which dealt with liturgical matters), Usus conuersorum (on the conduct of lay brothers), and Instituta generalis capituli.