Old English libraries

In large continental houses a bookroom was sometimes needed very early. One of the monasteries of Cassiodorus included a special room for the library, with at least nine presses in it.[232] At St. Gall, a special bookroom was planned, if not actually built, as early as the ninth century. According to the old drawing still preserved at St. Gall, this room was to be on the north side of the presbytery, symmetrically with the sacristy on the south side. It was in two stories. The ground floor was to be arranged as a writing-room,—infra sedes scribentium,—the furniture being a large table in the centre, and seven writing-desks against the walls. The upper story was the library.[233] In England we hear of bookrooms oftenest in the fifteenth century, They were a usual feature in later Cistercian houses. The plan just given shows the position of this room between the church and the chapter-house, and not far from the common claustral aumbry. At Whalley Abbey, also a Cistercian house, there was evidently a separate library room, because an inventory of the house’s goods taken in 1537 refers to the “litle Revestry next unto the lebrary.”[234] Kirkstall and Furness also had bookrooms. On each side of the massive arch of the Chapter House at Furness Abbey is a similar arch leading to a small square room, most likely used for books. The illustrations facing this show the position of these rooms on either side of the Chapter House doorway. An extant catalogue of another Cistercian house, that of Meaux in Yorkshire, clearly indicates the whereabouts of the conventual books. Some church books were before the great altar, others were in the choir, a few in the infirmary chapel, and in the common press and other presses of the church. The bulk of them was in the common aumbry, not apparently in the open cloister, but in a room off the cloister. Over the door, on a shelf or in a cupboard, were four Psalters; thirty-six books were on

the top shelf on the other side of the room; the remainder, to the number of about 270, were on other shelves marked by letters of the alphabet.[235]

At the Premonstratensian Abbey of Titchfield the books were stored in a small room, in four cases, each having eight shelves. We do not positively know that a separate room existed at the Benedictine house of Christ Church, Canterbury, before the fifteenth century, “yet,” as Dr. James says, “the form of Prior Eastry’s catalogue, with its division into Demonstrations and Distinctions, irresistibly suggests that the collection must in his time [1284-1331] have occupied a special room, of which the two Demonstrations represent the two sides. The Distinctions would be narrow vertical divisions of these, and each of them would have its numerous subdivisions into Gradus. As the best English equivalent of Demonstratio I would suggest the word ‘Display,’ which fairly gives the idea of a wall-surface covered with books; and I figure the building to myself as an enlarged example of those Cistercian bookrooms with which Dr. J. W. Clark’s researches have familiarized us. It would thus be no place for study, such as the later libraries were, but merely a storeroom whence books were fetched to be read at leisure in the cloister.”[236] Between 1414 and 1443 a library was built over the Prior’s Chapel by Archbishop Chichele: it was about sixty-two feet long on the north side, fifty-four on the south side, and twenty-two feet broad. This was the room which Prior Selling fitted up with wainscot, and put books in for the benefit of the studious.[237] At St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, there was a bookroom in 1340, for the manuscript of the Ayenbite of Inwyt contains a note that it belongs to the “bochouse.”[238] The form of the catalogue of c. 1497 also suggests that a bookroom was then in use.

At Gloucester a special room was built, probably in the fourteenth century. Durham apparently did without a room until early in the fifteenth century. “There ys a lybrarie in the south angle of the lantren, whiche is nowe above the clocke, standinge betwixt the Chapter-House and the Te Deum wyndowe, being well replenished with ould written Docters and other histories and ecclesiasticall writers.”[239] To this room the books were transferred gradually from the cloister and chancellary: the words “in libraria,” or “Ponitur in libraria,” being written in the margin of the catalogue opposite to the book upon its removal.

The Benedictine houses of Winchester, Worcester, Bury St. Edmunds,[240] and St. Albans also had special bookrooms.

For the safe keeping of the conventual books the precentor was responsible.[241] As he had charge of the armarium or press for storing books, he was also sometimes styled “armarius.” He was required to keep clean all the boys’ and novices’ presses and other receptacles for books; when necessary he was to have these fittings repaired. To provide coverings for the books; to see that they were marked with their proper titles; to arrange them on the shelves in suitable order, so that they might be quickly found, were all duties within his province.[242] He had to keep them in repair: in some houses he was expected to examine all of them carefully several times a year, and to check, if possible, the ravages of bookworms and damp. If necessary, he could call in skilled labour to keep his library and books in order; but usually several brethren were trained in the necessary arts, as at Sponheim. The Abingdon regulations, which are in the usual form, forbade him to sell, give away, or pledge books. All the materials for the use of the scribes and the manuscripts for copying were to be provided by him.[243] He made the ink, and could dole it out not only to the brethren but to lay folk if they asked for it civilly.[244] He also controlled the work in the scriptorium: setting the scribes their tasks, preventing them from idling or talking; walking round the cloister when the bell sounded to collect the books which had been forgotten by careless monks.

As a rule the monks so highly prized their books—saving them first, for example, in time of danger, as when the Lombards attacked Monte Cassino and the Huns St. Gall—that rules for the care of them would seem almost superfluous. Still, such rules were made. When reading, the monks of some houses were required to wrap handkerchiefs round the books, or to hold them with the sleeve of their robe. Coverings, perhaps washable, were put upon books much in use.[245] The Carthusian brethren were exhorted in their statutes to take all possible care to keep the books they were reading clean and free from dust.[246] Elsewhere we have referred to an “explicit” urging readers to have a care for the scribe’s writing: in another manuscript once belonging to Corbie, the kind reader is bidden to keep his fingers off the pages lest he should mar the writing on them—a man who knows nothing of the scribe’s business cannot realize how heavy it is, for though only three fingers hold the pen, the whole body toils.[247]

§ III

One of the precentor’s chief duties was to regulate lending books. At Abingdon he could only lend to outsiders upon a pledge of equal or greater value than the book required, and even so could only lend to churches near by and to persons of good standing. It was deemed preferable to confiscate the pledge than to proceed against a defaulting borrower. In some houses more than a pledge was demanded if the book were lent for transcription, the borrower being required to send a copy when he returned the manuscript. “Make haste to copy these quickly,” wrote St. Bernard’s secretary, “and send them to me; and, according to my bargain, cause a copy to be made for me. And both these which I have sent you, and the copies, as I have said, return them to me, and take care that I do not lose a single tittle.”[248] The extra copy was demanded, not so much for purposes of gain as to put a check upon borrowing, a practice which many abbots did not encourage, on account of the danger of loss. Books, like gloves, are soon lost. We can well understand how uncommonly easy it was to forget to return a coveted manuscript. To help borrowers to overcome the insidious temptation, the scribe sometimes wrote upon the manuscript the name of the monastery it belonged to, and threatened a defaulter with anathema. In some of the St. Albans’ books is the following note in Latin: “This book is St. Alban’s book: he who takes it from him or destroys the title be anathema.”[249]

The prior and convent of Rochester threatened to pronounce sentence of damnation on anyone who stole or hid the Latin translation of Aristotle’s Physics, or even obliterated the title.[250] Apparently no fate was too bad for the thief who took the Vulgate Bible: let him die the death; let him be frizzled in a pan; the falling sickness and fever should rage in him; he should be broken on the wheel and hanged; Amen.[251] Two curious notes are to be found in a manuscript of the works of Augustine and Ambrose in the Bodleian Library. “This book belongs to St. Mary of Robert’s Bridge: whoever steals it, or sells it, or takes it away from this house in any way, or injures it, let him be anathema-maranatha.” Underneath, another hand has written: “I, John, bishop of Exeter, do not know where the said house is: I did not steal this book, but got it lawfully.”[252] In a beautiful manuscript of Chaucer’s Troilus, not perhaps a conventual book, occurs the following:—

All the same, losses were common. About 1290 William of Pershore, once a Benedictine monk, and at the time a Grey Friar, returned to his old order at Westminster, and took with him some books. A big dispute arose over this apostate, and one of the items of the subsequent settlement was that the Westminster monks should return the books.[254]

A similar thing took place in Scotland (1331). A friar of Roxburgh forsook his grey habit for the Cistercian white by entering Kelso Abbey. He made his new associates envious with an account of the goods of the friaries at Roxburgh and Berwick. They persuaded him and two other apostate friars to rob these convents of the “Bibles, chalices, and other sacred books,” and, with the aid of night, the enterprise met with more success than they deserved.[255]

The prior and convent of Ely traced some of their books to Paris. They wrote to Edward III (1332): “Because a robber has taken out of our church four books of great value, viz.—The Decretum, Decretals, the Bible and Concordance, of which the first three are now at Paris, arrested and detained under sequestration by the officer of the Bishop of Paris, whom our proctor has often prayed in form of law to deliver them, but he behaves so strangely that we shall find in him neither right, grace, nor favour:—We ask you to write to the Bishop of Paris to intermeddle favourably and tell his official to do right, so that we may get our things back.”[256] In 1396-7 William, prior of Newstead, and a brother canon, proceeded against John Ravensfield for the return of a book by Richard of Hampole, entitled Pricke of Conscience, “and now the parties aforesaid are agreed by the licence of the court, and the said John is in ‘misericordia’; he paid the amercement in the hall.”[257] Another record tells us of two monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, being sent into Cambridgeshire to recover a book.

The risk of loss owing to the practice of lending books was great—how great may be judged from the fact that of the equal portions of the Peterhouse College library of 1418, 199 volumes of the chained portion remain, but only ten of all those assigned to the Fellows are left.[258] In spite of the risk, lending was extensively carried on. In one year (1343), for example, the unimportant priory of Hinton lent no fewer than twenty books to another monastery.[259] Then again, it was thought to be only common charity to lend books to poor students, and in 1212 a council at Paris actually forbade monks to refuse to lend books to the poor, and requested them to divide their libraries into two divisions—one for the use of the brothers, the other for lending.[260] Whether this ever became a practice in England is more than doubtful. But seculars of position or influence appear to have been able to borrow monastic books. For example, in 1320, the prior and convent of Ely acknowledge receiving ten books from the executors of a rector of Balsham, who had borrowed them.[261] Some years later, at an audit of books of Christ Church, Canterbury, seventeen manuscripts—thirteen of them on law—were noted as in the hands of seculars, among whom was Edward II.[262]

Lending books to brethren in the monastery was conducted according to strict rules, of which those of Lanfranc, based on the Cluniac observances, afford a good example. Before the brethren went into chapter on the Monday after the first Sunday in Lent, the librarian laid out on a carpet in the chapter-house all the books which were not on loan. After the assembly of the brethren, the librarian read his register of the books lent to the monks. Each brother, on hearing his name, returned the book which had been entrusted to him. If he had not made good use of the book, he was expected to prostrate himself, confess his neglect, and beg forgiveness. When all books were returned, others were issued, and a new record made. In some monasteries the abbot would question the monks on the books they had read, to test their knowledge of them, and whenever the answers were unsatisfactory would lend the same books again instead of fresh ones. As a rule only one book was issued at a time, so that the monk had plenty of time to digest its contents. In Carthusian houses two books were lent at a time. Sick brethren were freely permitted to borrow books for their solace, but such books were returned to the library nightly, at lighting-up time.

Among the Cluniacs it was the custom to take stock of the books given out to the monks once a year; while the Franciscans kept a register of their books, and every year it was read and corrected before the convent in assembly.[263]

An excellent example of a stocktaking record made at Christ Church, Canterbury, has been preserved. The inspection took place in 1337. First are recorded the books missing from the two “demonstrations,” as recorded “in magnis tabulis,” e.g.,

Nineteen books were missing from the two “demonstrations,” or displays. Nineteen service books were missing “in parvis tabulis.” No less than thirty-eight books, twenty-eight of them for service, either of the large or the small tables, were wanting: for these deceased brethren had been responsible.[264]

The “large tables” are believed to be boards whereon the borrowers of books had their names and borrowings noted. “I find,” writes Dr. James, “in a St. Augustine’s manuscript a note written on the fly-leaf by a monk, of the books ‘pro quibus scribor in tabula’—‘for which I am down on the board.’ ”[265] Large tables were in use at Pembroke College, Cambridge; probably they were of a similar kind. “And let the said keeper,”—so the statute runs—“have ready large pieces of board (tabulas magnas), covered with wax and parchment, that the titles of the books may be written on the parchment, and the names of the Fellows who hold them on the wax beside it.”[266] Monastic catalogues were sometimes written on such boards. At Cluni, Mabillon and Martène found the catalogue inscribed on parchment-covered boards three feet and a half long and a foot and a half wide—great tablets which closed together like a book.

Besides the example of an audit at Canterbury we have one belonging to Durham, a little later in date (1416). The list of books assigned to the Spendement was evidently read over, and a tick or point was put against every volume found in its place. On a second check certain books were accounted for, and notes of their whereabouts were added to the inventory. Some were found in the cloister, others were in the library; the prior of Finchale had a number; many had been sent to Oxford. In one case a book is noted as given to Bishop Kempe of London.[267]

The catalogue was usually a simple inventory. Sometimes the entries were classified, as in the case of a catalogue of the York library of the Friars Eremites of the Augustinian order. The fifteenth-century catalogue of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, is classified under sixteen headings, but it is probably incomplete.[268] As a rule the entries were only just sufficient to identify the books: all the treatises in a volume were not often recorded, but only the title of the first. This is an entry from a Durham catalogue:—

The letter F was employed as a distinctive mark. The note “II. fo., non surrexerunt” signifies that the second folio began with these words, and was used as the most convenient method of distinguishing two copies of the same book, for it would rarely happen that one scribe would begin the second sheet with the same word as another. In some houses the practice was extended to printed books in the sixteenth century; and consequently no fewer that nearly four hundred editions have been named in the catalogue of Syon monastery.[269] In some other catalogues the information given was fuller. The catalogue of Syon notes first the press-mark in a bold hand; then on the left side the donor’s name, and on the opposite side the words of the second folio; and beneath the description of the book.

The catalogue of St. Augustine’s, already referred to, recorded the general title of the volume, or of the first treatise in it; the name of the donor; the other contents of the volume; the first words of the second leaf, and the press-mark. Where necessary, cross-references were supplied. The press-marks used for monastic books are generally of two kinds: press-marks properly so called, or class-marks. At St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, the distinctions or tiers were numbered, as D 3; and the gradus or shelves of each distinction were numbered, as

G 4. A similar method seems to have been adopted for St. Albans; in one book from that abbey is this mark: “de armariolo 4/A et quarto gradu liber quartus.”[270] But such a mark assigned a book to one particular place and fixed its relation to other books. Consequently, if any large accession were made to the library, the classification of the books in broad subject-divisions could only be maintained by the alteration of many press-marks, both on the books and in the catalogue. At Titchfield each class was marked with a letter of the alphabet, and the shelves bearing it were numbered: thus a book might be assigned to G 2, or class G, shelf 2.[271] This method of marking was more flexible. But at Syon Monastery the books were arranged quite independently of the presses and shelves; each volume receiving a different number, as well as a class-letter.

The most elaborate example of monkish cataloguing comes from Dover Priory, a cell belonging to Canterbury. One John Whytefield compiled it in 1389. The note preceding the catalogue tells of unbounded enthusiasm for the library and a meticulous regard for order. No better proof of the care taken of books by most monks could be found. The catalogue is in three parts. First there is a brief inventory of the books as they are arranged on the shelves. This is a shelf-list designed for the use of the precentor; just the sort of record modern librarians regard as indispensable in the administration of their libraries. Secondly, our industrious monk has provided a catalogue,—a repetition of the shelf-list, but with all the contents of each volume set out. His chief aim in making this compilation is to show up fully the resources of his collection, and to lead studious brethren to read zealously and frequently. Lastly, an analytical index to the catalogue is supplied: it is in alphabetical order, and is intended to point out to the user the whereabouts in a volume of any individual treatise. A similar index, by the way, is appended to the catalogue of Syon monastery.[272] The library seems to have been spread over nine tiers (distinctions) of book-casing, each marked with a letter of the alphabet. A tier had seven shelves (gradus) marked by Roman numeral figures, the numbers beginning from the bottom of the tier. Each book bore a small Arabic figure which fixed its order on the shelf. The full press-mark of a book was therefore A. v. 4. Such marks were written inside the books and on their bindings. On the second, third, or fourth leaf of a book, or thereabouts, the title was written on the bottom margin, with the press-mark and the first words of that leaf. All these marks were copied in the inventory or shelf-list: first the tier letter, then the shelf number, afterwards the book number; followed by the title, the number of the leaf whence the identifying words were taken, then the identifying words, with the number of leaves in the volume, and finally the number of tracts it contains. Here are some entries:—

In the second part, or catalogue following the shelf-list, are set out the tier letter, shelf number, book number, short title; then the number of the folio on which each tract in a volume begins, and finally the first words of the tract itself.[273]

Most books were bound by the monks themselves. The commonest materials used for ordinary manuscripts were wooden boards, covered with deerskin and calfskin, either coloured red or used in its natural tint, and parchment usually stained or painted red or purple. Charles the Great authorised the Abbot of St. Bertin to enjoy hunting rights so that the monks could get skins for binding. In mid-ninth century, Geoffroi Martel, Count of Anjou, commanded that the tithe of the roeskins captured in the island of Oléron should be used to bind the books in an abbey of his foundation. Few monastic bindings have been preserved, because many great collectors have had their manuscripts rebound. Several examples of Winchester work remain. Mr. Yates Thompson has a mid-twelfth century manuscript bound in the monastic style, the leather being stamped with cold irons of many curious rectangular shapes. The manuscript of the Winton Domesday has a binding with stamps exactly like those on Mr. Thompson’s book. “At Durham in the last half of the twelfth century there was an equally important school of binding, with some one hundred and fourteen different stamps. The binding for Hugh Pudsey’s Bible has nearly five hundred impressions.”[274] In Pembroke College library an excellent specimen of twelfth century stamped binding remains on MS. 147. Such stamps were small, and frequently of geometrical or floral design, always rudimentary; but animals of the quaintest form—grotesque birds and dragons—were also introduced. A hammer or mallet was employed to obtain an impression from the stamp. Sometimes the oak boards were not covered with skin but were painted.

If a book was specially prized the binding was often rich. The covers of the Gospels of Lindau, a superb example of Carolingian art, bear nearly five hundred gems encrusted in gold.[275] Abbot Paul of St. Albans gave to his church two books adorned with gold and silver and gems. Abbot Godfrey of Malmesbury, partly to meet a heavy tax imposed by William Rufus, stripped twelve Gospels of their decorations. “Books are clothed with precious stones,” cried St. Jerome, “whilst Christ’s poor die in nakedness at the door.”[276] In spite of the many references to jewelled monastic bindings in medieval records, very few are extant.

CHAPTER V

CATHEDRAL AND CHURCH LIBRARIES

Some collections which later were distinctively church libraries were at first claustral. For convenience’ sake we shall treat all of them as church libraries. The amount of information on medieval church libraries is surprisingly extensive, albeit a great deal more must remain hidden still, for all our cathedral libraries have not been subjects of such loving scholarship as Canon Church has bestowed upon the ancient treasure-house at Wells. Still the material is extensive, and our difficulty in making a selection for such a compendious book as the present is complicated, because we often do not find it possible to say whether the books referred to in the available records are merely service books, or books of an ordinary character. To evade this difficulty we must ignore all material relating to unnamed books, which we cannot reasonably suppose to have been the nucleus of a more general collection, or an addition to it.

Exeter Cathedral Library was a monastic hoard. It originated with Bishop Leofric, who got together over sixty books about sixteen years before the Conquest. His books were a curious collection: among copies of the classics and ecclesiastical works were books of night songs, summer and winter reading books, a precious book of blessings, and a “Mycel Englisc boc”—a large English book, on all sorts of things, wrought in verse. The last is the famous Exeter book, still preserved in the library. A small folio of 130 leaves of vellum, it is remarkable to the student of manuscripts for its bold, clear, and graceful calligraphy, and priceless to the student of literature as the only source of much of our small store of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Some other Leofrican books remain. In the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is an eleventh century copy of Bede’s history in Anglo-Saxon, which was given to Exeter by Leofric, although it is not mentioned in the list of his gifts in the Bodleian manuscript. The inscription in it reads: Hunc librum dat leofricus episcopus ecclesie sancti petri apostoli in exonia ubi sedes episcopalis est ad utilitatem successorum suorum. Si quis illum abstulerit inde, subiaceat maledictioni. Fiat. Fiat. Fiat.[277] A manuscript of Bede on

the Apocalypse, now at Lambeth Palace, seems almost certainly to have come from St. Mary’s Church, Crediton, and it bears the inscription:—“A: in nomine domini. Amen. Leofricus Pater.”[278] Another book given by Leofric, a missal dating from 969, is preserved in the Bodleian Library.[279]

Although the age of these books suggests that the collection has existed continuously since the eleventh century, after Leofric’s time no important reference to the library occurs until 1327, when an inventory of the books was drawn up. Then about 230 volumes (excluding service books) were in the possession of the Chapter.[280] In this same year a breviary and a missal were chained up in the choir for the use of the people.[281] Twelve months later John Grandisson arrived at Exeter to take charge of his diocese. A book-loving bishop, he was a benefactor to the library, maybe to a very praiseworthy extent; but a few words will record what is definitely known about this part of his work. In 1366 he gave two folio volumes, still extant. One contains Lessons from the Bible, and the homilies appointed to be read, and the other is the Legends of the Saints.[282] In his will he gave two other books, perhaps Pontificals of his own compilation, to his successors.[283] He himself owned an extensive library, which he divided principally between his chapter and the collegiate churches of Ottery, Crediton, and Boseham, and Exeter College, Oxford.[284] All St. Thomas Aquinas’ works he bequeathed to the Black Friars’ convent at Exeter. To Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, he gave a fine copy of St. Anselm’s letters, now by good fortune in the British Museum. A Hebrew Pentateuch once belonging to him is in the capitular library of Westminster: is it possible that the bishop was a Hebrew scholar?[285] Among the books of Windsor College was a volume, De Legendis et Missis de B. V. Mariâ, which had been given by him.

A library room was built over the east cloister in 1412-13.[286] Probably the building was found necessary on account of a considerable accession of books, and we hazard a guess that Grandisson’s bequest, received in 1370, formed the bulk of the accretion. At all events, among the accounts for the building are charges for 191 chains for books not secured before. No fewer than 67 books were also sewed or bound on this same occasion, the master binder being paid £6 and his man 36s. 8d. Thus at the beginning of the fifteenth century—the age of library building—the capitular hoard at Exeter was furbished up, newly housed, and arranged. But the interest in the collection seems to have waned. Another chain was bought for sixteenpence in 1430-31 for a copy of Rationale Divinorum, which was given by one Rolder; but such gifts were few and far between. In 1506 the Chapter owned 363 volumes, but 133 more than in 1327,[287] so that few additions besides Grandisson’s were made in nearly two centuries, or many books were lost.[288] According to this second inventory the books were arranged in eleven desks; eight books were chained opposite the west door; twenty-eight were not chained; seven were chained behind the treasurer’s stall (a Bible in three volumes, Lyra also in three, and a Concordance); and fourteen volumes of canon and civil law behind the succentor’s stall.[289] The Dean and Chapter were in a strangely generous mood at the end of this century. In 1566 they gave one of Leofric’s books to Archbishop Parker: it is now in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The collection was despoiled of eighty-one of its finest books to enrich Bodley’s foundation at Oxford, 1602.[290] Although the book-lover does not like to see treasures torn from their associations, yet in this instance the alienation was fortunate. By 1752 only twenty volumes noted in the inventory of 1506 were left at Exeter.[291]

Besides the Exeter Book, one other very ancient and valuable manuscript is preserved in the Cathedral: this is the part of the Domesday Book referring to Devon, Cornwall, and Somerset, which is probably not much later in date than the Exchequer record. Two ancient book-boxes are also to be found there. These are fixed in a sloping position by means of iron supports embedded in the pillars. The late Dr. J. W. Clark was led to believe them to be intended for books by finding a wooden bookboard nailed to the inside bottom of one of the boxes. For the protection of the book each box has a cover, which does not seem ever to have been fastened: a reader would raise the lid when he wanted to use the manuscript, and close it before he went away.[292] Erasmus seems to have seen similar boxes fixed to the pillars in the nave at Canterbury.[293]

§ II

When gifts or bequests were received by a church or monastery, it was a beautiful custom to lay them, or something to represent them, upon the altar: “a book, or turf, or, in fact, almost any portable object, was offered for property such as land; or a bough or twig of a tree, if the gift were a forest.” King Offa’s gift of churches to Worcester monastery in 780 was accompanied by a great book with golden clasps, with every probability a Bible.[294] A gift was made under similar circumstances in c. 1057, about the time Bishop Leofric was founding the library at Exeter, when Lady Godiva, the wife of another Leofric, restored some manors to Worcester, and with them gave a Bible in two parts. Before this, Bishop Werfrith, to whom we have referred before as a helper of King Alfred, had sent to Worcester the Anglo-Saxon version of Gregory’s Cura Pastoralis; the very copy of it is now in the Bodleian Library.

Such were perhaps the beginnings of the library of Worcester Cathedral. We cannot but think that a collection of books was formed slowly and steadily here, as in other foundations of the same kind, although actual records are scanty and meagre. In over forty of the manuscripts now at Worcester are inscriptions on fly-leaves stating where they were procured: sometimes the price is given. The dates of these inscriptions run from about 1283 to 1462, or later.[295] “In 1464,” writes the Rev. J. K. Floyer, in his article entitled A Thousand Years of a Cathedral Library, “we first hear of a regular endowment for the acquisition of books. Bishop Carpenter made a library in the charnel house chantry, and endowed it with £10 for a librarian. The charnel house was near the north porch of the Cathedral, and stood on or near the site of the present Precentor’s house. It was a separate institution from the monastery, and had its own endowments and priests. Bishop Carpenter’s foundation was probably entirely separate from the collection of books kept for the use of the monks in the cloister.”[296] At the same time, the bishop made regulations for the use of the library. The keeper was to be a graduate in theology, and a good preacher. He was to live in the chantry, where a dwelling had been erected for him at the end of the library. Among other duties he had to take care of the books. The library was to be open to the public every week day for two hours before Nones (or nine), and for two hours after Nones. This alone was a most liberal regulation, for making which Bishop Carpenter deserves all honour. But he went still further. When asked to do so the keeper was to explain difficult passages of Scripture, and once a week was to deliver a public lecture in the library. The Bishop’s idea of a library is precisely that embodied in the modern town library: a collection of good books, for the free use of the public, with some personal help to the proper use of them when necessary. Three lists of the books were to be drawn up, one to be kept by the Bishop, the second by the sacrist, and the third by the keeper. Once a year stock was taken, and if a book were missing through the keeper’s neglect, he was to forfeit its value within a month, or in default was to pay forty-shillings more than the value of it, one half of the sum to go to the Bishop, the other half to the sacrist. Unfortunately these and other regulations were not observed with care, and within forty years the Bishop’s work was completely neglected and forgotten.

At the Dissolution the Priory was deprived of much of its church plate, service books and vestments, and probably of many of its books. But the library there suffered a good deal less than those of other houses, and the Cathedral now has in its possession some respectable remains of its ancient collection of books.[297]

§ III

The history of an old library can only be traced intermittently, the facts playing hide and seek like a distant lantern carried over broken ground. Little is known of the early history of Hereford’s cathedral library. An ancient copy of the Gospels, said to have been bequeathed by the last Saxon bishop, Athelstan (1012), is one of the earliest gifts. In 1186 Bishop Robert Folliott gave “multa bona in terris et libris.” Bishop Hugh Folliott also left ornaments and books. Another bishop, R. de Maidstone, although “vir magnae literaturae, et in theologia nominatissimus,” only seems to have given the church two antiphonaries, some psalters, and a Legenda. Bishop Charleton (1369) left a Bible, a concordance, a glossary, Nicholas de Lyra, and five Books of Moses, all to be chained in the cathedral. Very shortly