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Rh became even more neglectful of duty, more ignorant and more immoral. The leaders of the friars were men of piety, and some of them, disregarding the precept of the zealous founder of the order, were students and collectors of books; but the inferior clergy, with few exceptions, were extremely ignorant. They not only exerted a mischievous influence upon the people, but they showed to priests of other orders that the knowledge to be had from books was not really necessary. The class of monks who had devoted their lives to the copying, binding and ornamenting of books, imitated as far as they could the example set by the pleasure-loving, ignorant friars, and sought opportunities for relaxation. The care of libraries was neglected for pleasures of a grosser nature. The duties of copyists and librarians passed, gradually and almost imperceptibly, into the hands of the laity.

The business of selling books, which had been given up during the decline of the Roman empire, re-appeared in the latter part of the twelfth century in the neighborhood of the new Italian universities of Padua and Bologna. To have the privilege of selling books to the students, the booksellers were