Old English libraries

afterwards we hear of fittings, for in 1395 Walter of Ramsbury gave £10 for making the desks. Probably a book-room, which was over the west cloister, was then put up. A long interval elapsed, during which little seems to have been done for the library. But between c. 1516-35 Bishop Booth and Dean Frowcester left many fine volumes. In 1589 the book-room was abandoned and the contents shifted to the Lady Chapel.

A new library was built in 1897. Herein are to be seen what are almost certainly the original bookcases, albeit they have been taken to pieces and somewhat altered before being fitted together again. One of the bookcases still has all the old chains and fittings for the books, and it presents a very curious appearance. Every chain is from three to four feet long, with a ring at each end, and a swivel in the middle. One ring is strung on to an iron rod, which is secured at one end of the bookcase by metal work, with lock and key. For convenience in using the book on the reading slope which was attached to the case, the ring at the other end of the chain was fixed to the fore edge of the book-cover instead of to the back; when standing on the shelves the books therefore present their fore edges to the reader. The cases are roughly finished, but very solid in make.[298]

§ IV

At Old Sarum Church, Bishop Osmund (1078-99) collected, wrote, and bound books.[299] In his time, too, the chancellor used to superintend the schools and correct books: either books used in the school or service books.[300] The income from a virgate of land was assigned to correcting books towards the end of the twelfth century (1175-80).[301] The new Salisbury Cathedral was erected in the thirteenth century; but apparently a special library room was not used until shortly after 1444, when it was put up to cover the whole eastern cloister. This room was altered and reduced in size in 1758. About the time the room was completed one of the canons gave some books, on the inside covers of two of which is a note in a fifteenth century hand bidding they should be chained in the new library.[302] Nearly two hundred manuscripts, of various date from the ninth to the fourteenth century, are now in the library. Among them several notable volumes are to be found: a Psalter with curious illuminations; another Psalter, with the Gallican and Hebrew of Jerome’s translation in parallel columns, also illuminated; Chaucer’s translation of Boëthius; Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain of the twelfth century; a thirteenth century Lectionary, with golden and coloured initials; a Tonale according to Sarum use, bound with a fourteenth century Ordinal; and a fifteenth century Processional containing some notes on local customs.

§ V

Books were given to Lincoln Cathedral about 1150 by Hugh of Leicester; one of them bears the inscription, Ex dono Hugonis Archidiaconi Leycestriae. They may still be seen at Lincoln. Forty-two volumes and a map came into the charge of Hamo when he became chancellor in 1150.[303] During his chancellorship thirty-one volumes were added by gift, so making the total seventy-three volumes: Bishops Alexander and Chesney were among the benefactors. But here, as at

Salisbury, not until the fifteenth century was a separate library room built. Two gifts “to the new library” by Bishop Repyngton—who also befriended Oxford University Library—and Chancellor Duffield in 1419 and 1426, fix the date. It was put up over the north half of the eastern cloisters, relatively the same position as at Salisbury and Wells. Originally it had five bays, but in 1789 the two southernmost bays were pulled down: In this room the fine fifteenth century oaken roof, with its carved ornaments, has been preserved, but at Salisbury the roof is modern, with a plaster ceiling. Lincoln’s new library, designed by Wren and erected in 1674, is next to this old room. According to a 1450 catalogue now preserved at Lincoln the library contained one hundred and seven works, more than seventy of which now remain. Among the most important manuscripts are a mid-fifteenth century copy of old English romances of great literary value, collected by Robert de Thornton, archdeacon of Bedford (c. 1430); and a contemporary copy of Magna Carta.

§ VI

In an inventory of St. Paul’s Cathedral, taken in 1245, mention is made of thirty-five volumes.[304] Before this, in Ralph of Diceto’s time, a binder of books was an officer of the church. As at Salisbury, the chancellor’s duties included taking charge of the school books. In 1283 a writer of books was included among the ministers. The two offices were combined in the beginning of the next century. When Dean Ralph Baldock made a visitation of St. Paul’s treasury in 1295, he found thirteen Gospels adorned with precious metals and stones; some other parts of the Scriptures; and a commentary of Thomas Aquinas. In 1313 Baldock, who died Bishop of London, bequeathed fifteen volumes, chiefly theological books.[305] To Baldock’s time probably belongs the reference to twelve scribes, no doubt retained for business purposes as well as for book-making. They were bound by an oath to be faithful to the church and to write without fraud or malice. Æneas Sylvius tells us he saw a Latin translation of Thucydides in the sacristy of the cathedral (1435).[306]

A library room was erected in the fifteenth century. “Ouer the East Quadrant of this Cloyster, was a fayre Librarie, builded at the costes and charges of Waltar Sherington, Chancellor of the Duchie of Lancaster, in the raigne of Henrie the 6 which hath beene well furnished with faire written books in Vellem.”[307] The catalogue of 1458 bears out Stow’s description of the library as well-furnished. Some one hundred and seventy volumes were in the Chapter’s possession; they were of the usual kind, grammatical books, Bibles and commentaries, works of the fathers; books on medicine by Galen, Hippocrates, Avicenna, and Egidius; Ralph de Diceto’s chronicles; and some works of Seneca, Cicero, Suetonius, and Virgil.[308] In 1486, however, only fifty-two volumes were found after the death of John Grimston the sacrist.[309] Leland gives a list of only twenty-one manuscripts, but it was not his habit to make full inventories. In Stow’s time, however, few books remained.[310] Three volumes only can be traced now—(1) a manuscript of Avicenna, (2) the Chronicle of Ralph de Diceto in the Lambeth Palace Library, and (3) the Miracles of the Virgin, in the Aberdeen University Library.[311]

§ VII

Although neither a monastic nor a collegiate church, Wells was already in the thirteenth century a place with some equipment for educational work. Besides the choristers’ school, a schola grammaticalis of a higher grade was in existence. After 1240 the Chancellor’s duties included lecturing on theology. Not improbably, therefore, a collection of books was formed very early. And indeed the Dean and Chapter in 1291 received from the Dean of Sarum books lent by the Chapter, and some others bequeathed to them. Hugo of St. Victor, Speculum de Sacramentis, and Bede, De Temporibus, were the books returned from Sarum; among those bequeathed were Augustine’s Epistles and De Civitate Dei, Gregory the Great’s Speculum, and John Damascenus. We know nothing of the character and size of the library at this time, although it seems to have been preserved in a special room. In 1297, the Chapter ordered the two side doors of the choir screen in the aisles to be shut at night. One door near the library (versus librarium) and the Chapter was only to be open from the first stroke of matins until the proper choir door was opened at the third bell. At other times during the day it was always to be closed, so that people could not injure the books in the library, or overhear the conferences of the Chapter (secreta capituli). This library was most likely on the north side of the church, with the Chapter House beside it, in the north transept, as shown conjecturally in the plan given in Canon Church’s admirable Chapters in the Early History of the Church of Wells.[312] That so early, in a church neither monastic nor collegiate, a school was at work, and a library had been formed, is a specially significant fact in the study of our subject.

In this position the library remained until the fifteenth century. Two notices occur of it, one in 1340 and another in 1406, in both cases in connection with an image of the Holy Saviour, “near the library.”

But in the fifteenth century a new library was built

over the eastern cloister. Bishop Nicholas of Bubwith, in his will of 1424, bequeathed one thousand marks to be faithfully applied and disposed for the construction and new building of a certain library to be newly erected upon the eastern space of the cloister, situate between the south door of the church next the chamber of the escheator of the church and the gate which leads directly from the church by the cloister into the palace of the bishop.[313] The work was begun by his executors, but certain signs of break in the building suggest some delay in finishing it. This room is probably the only cathedral library built over a cloister which remains in its original completeness. It is 165 feet by 12 feet; now only about two-thirds of it are devoted to the library. When this room was first fitted up as a library no one knows; but tradition fixes the date at 1472. The present fittings were put in during Bishop Creighton’s time (1670-72).

Shortly after the date of Bubwith’s will Bishop Stafford (1425-43) gave ten books—not an inspiriting collection—but he desired to retain possession of them during his lifetime.[314] In 1452 Richard Browne (alias Cordone), Archdeacon of Rochester, left to the library of Wells, Petrus de Crescentiis De Agricultura, and two other books, Jerome’s Epistles, and Lathbury Super librum Trenorum, which were to be kept in the church in wooden cases.[315] Were these cases to resemble the boxes still remaining in Exeter Cathedral? The same will ordered the Decretales of Clement, which had been borrowed for copying, to be restored to this library; two other books were also given back; and the will further notes that there are several books belonging to the library in a certain great bag in the inner room of the treasury at Wells.[316]

Leland only mentions forty-six books in the library in his time. “I went into the library, which whilome had been magnificently furnished with a considerable number of books by its bishops and canons, and I found great treasures of high antiquity.” Among the books he found were sermons by Gregory and Ælfric in Anglo-Saxon, Terence, and “Dantes translatus in carmen Latinum.” Very few books belonging to the old library before the Dissolution have survived. Some are in the British Museum, the Bodleian, and certain collegiate libraries; and several manuscripts remain in the hands of the Dean and Chapter. Among them are three manuscripts known as Liber albus I, Liber ruber II, and Liber albus III, which contain an extremely valuable series of documents.[317]

§ VIII

In the York fabric rolls appear from time to time expenses for writing, illuminating, and binding church books; but we know little or nothing about the Chapter library, if such existed. William de Feriby, a canon, bequeathed his books in 1379. Between 1418 and 1422, a library was built at the south-west corner of the south transept. The building is in two floors, and the upper appears to have been the book-room; it is still in existence. In the rolls are several references to the building.

Haxey was a good friend to the cathedral; and he gave handsomely toward the library. His arms were put up in one of the new library windows.

In 1418 John de Newton, the church treasurer, bequeathed to the Chapter a number of books, including Bibles, commentaries, and patristical and historical works, as well as Petrarch’s De remediis utriusque fortunae.[319] They were chained to the library desks, and were guarded with horn and studs, to protect them from the consequences of careless use by readers.

From time to time a few other bequests were made: thus, Archdeacon Stephen Scrope bequeathed some books on canon law, after a beneficiary had had them in use during his life (1418). Robert Ragenhill, advocate of the court of York, enriched the church with a small collection (1430); and Robert Wolveden, treasurer of the church, left to the library his theological books (1432).[321]

§ IX

The Sacrist’s Roll of Lichfield Cathedral, under date 1345, contains an inventory of the books then in possession of the church. All of them were service books, excepting only a De Gestis Anglorum.[322] Thereafter we cannot discover a notice of the library until 1489, when Dean Thomas Heywood gave £40 towards building a home for the books. Dean Yotton assisted in the good work. By 1493 the building was finished. It stood on the north side of the Cathedral, west of the north door, or “ex parte boreali in cimeterio.”[323] The Dean and Chapter had it pulled down in 1758.

Nearly all the books of the early collection perished during the Civil War; but the finest manuscript, known as St. Chad’s Gospels, was saved by the precentor. Among the other manuscripts in the possession of the Chapter are a fine vellum copy of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, with beautiful initials, and the Taxatio Ecclesiastica, a tithe book showing the value of church property in Edward I’s time.[324]

§ X

Many other churches, some of them small and unimportant, owned books, and received them as gifts or bequests. In the time of Richard II the Royal collegiate chapel of Windsor Castle had, besides service books, thirty-four volumes on different subjects chained in the church, among them a Bible and a Concordance, and two books of French romance, one of which was the Liber de Rose.[325]

The library of St. Mary’s Church, Warwick, was first formed by the celebrated antiquary, John Rous. Before his time we hear only of one or two books. In 1407 there was a collection of fifty service books, and a Catholicon, the latter being perhaps the nucleus of a library.[326] “At my lorde’s auter,” that is, at the Earl of Warwick’s altar, were to be found among other goods and books, the Bible, the fourth book of the Sentences, Pupilla Oculi, a work by Reymond de Pennaforte, Isidore, and some canon law.[327] John Rous seems to have inherited the bookish tastes of his relative, William Rous. William had bequeathed his books to the Dean, charging him to allow John to read them when he came of age and had received priest’s orders.

Among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum is a small volume written on parchment by Humphrey Wanley, which includes a copy of a curious inventory of vestments, plate, books, and other goods made in the time of John Rous, 1464. A portion of this inventory has been printed in Notices of the Churches of Warwickshire, i. 15-16. “It. v bokes beynge in the handes of Maister John Rous now priest whuche were Sir William Rous and bequath hem to the Dean and Chapitre of the forseide Chirche Collegiall under condicōn that the seid maister John beynge priest shulde have hem for his special edificacōn duryng his lief. And after his decees to remayne and to be for ever to the seide Dean and Chapitre as it appereth by endentures thereof made whereof one party leveth with the Dean and Chapitre. That is to say i book quem composuit ffrater Antoninus Rampologus de Janis 2 fo Chorinth 14. It. 1 book cald pars dextera et pars sinistra 2 fo non ð carere. It. 1 bible versefied cald patris in Aurora 2 fo huic opifex. It. 1 book of powles epistoles glosed 2 fo de Jhu qui dr Xtus. It. 1 book cald pharetra 2 fo hora est jam nos de sompno surgere. It. 1 quayer in the whuche is conteyned the exposicōn of the masse 2 fo cois offerim.”

John also seems to have given books as well as a room to house them.[328] An old view of the church, taken before the great fire which destroyed the town in 1694, shows the south porch surmounted with his library, as then standing; but this room was destroyed in the fire, and it seems certain the books were burnt. The present library was founded in 1701, and includes no part of the original collection.[329]

Bequests to churches of service books, such as that to the church of St. Mary, Castle-gate, York (1394), were numerous; they may be set apart with bequests of vestments, plate, and money. Some bequests have a different character. A chancellor of York, Thomas de Farnylaw, leaves books, bound and unbound, to the Vicar of Waghen; a volume of sermons and a “quire” to the church of Embleton; and a Bible and Concordance to be chained in the north porch of St. Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle, “for common use, for the good of the soul of his lord William of Middleton” (1378). A chaplain leaves service books, Speculum Ecclesiae, and the Gospels in English to Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York (1394). A Bristol merchant bequeaths two books on canon law to St. Mary Redcliffe Church, there to be preserved for the use of the vicar and chaplains (1416). In the same year a Canon of York enriches Beverley Church with all his books of canon and civil law. Books were also chained in the church of St. Mary of Oxford. Bishop Lyndwood of St. David’s bequeaths a copy of his digest of the synodal constitutions of the province of Canterbury for chaining in St. Stephen’s Chapel, “to serve as a standard for future editions” (1443). Richard Browne, or Cordone, who has left books to Wells, reserves for the parish church of Naas in Ireland a Catholicon and other manuscripts (1452). To Boston Church a rector of Kirkby Ravensworth bequeaths several books, but one named John Bosbery was to have the use of them for life: among the gifts was Polichronicon (1457). Canon Nicholas Holme leaves Pupilla Oculi to the parish church of Redmarshall (1458). A chaplain bequeaths one book to St. Mary’s Church, Bolton, another to St. Wilfrid’s Church, Brensall in Craven, and a third to All Saints’ Church, Peseholme, York (1466). Sir Richard Willoughby orders church books and a Crede mihi to be given to Woollaton Parish Church (1469). Robert Est, possibly a chantry-priest in York Minster, enriches the parish church of his native Lincoln village, Brigsley, with a copy of Legends of the Saints, Speculum Christiani, Gesta Romanorum cum aliis fabulis Isopi et multis narrationibus, and a Psalter (1474-75). To the church of St. Mary’s, Nottingham, the vicar leaves a Golden Legend, a Polichronicon, besides Pupilla Oculi, and a portiforium to Wragby Church, and a missal to Snenton Church (1476). Sir Thomas Lyttleton befriends King’s Norton Church by leaving it a Latin-English dictionary, and that of Halesowen in Worcestershire by leaving a Catholicon, the Constitutiones Provinciales (possibly Lyndwood’s digest, the Provinciale), and the Gesta Romanorum (1481). A man of Leicester was sued by the church wardens of the parish church of Welford, in the county of Leicester, on a charge of having taken away certain books belonging to the church and sold them (1490). The vicar of Ruddington bequeaths three books, “ad tenendum et ligandum cum cathena ferrea in quadam sede in capella B. M. de Rodington” (1491). Thomas Rotherham, benefactor of Cambridge University Library, gave to the church of Rochester ten pounds for building a library (1500). To Wetheringsett Church a chaplain of Bury carefully reserves “a book called Fasiculus Mors [Fasciculus morum], to lye in the chauncell, for priests to occupye ther tyme when it shall please them, praying them to have my soule in remembraunce as it shall please them of their charite” (1519).[330]

A very little research would add considerably to our list; while, apart from records of gifts and bequests, are numberless references to books in churches. For example: in the churchwarden’s account book (c. 1525) of All Saints, Derby, occurs an entry beginning: “These be the bokes in our lady Chapell tyed with chenes yt were gyffen to Alhaloes church in Derby—

This is a respectable list for such a church. Some sixty years before there were apparently only service books (1465).[332]

From 1456 to 1475 charges occur in the accounts of St. Michael’s Church, Cornhill, for chains to fix psalters, and for writing.[333] At St. Peter’s upon Cornhill there would appear to have been a good library. “True it is,” writes Stow, “that a library there was pertaining to this Parrish Church, of olde time builded of stone, and of late repayred with bricke by the executors of Sir John Crosby Alderman, as his Armes on the south end doth witnes. This library hath beene of late time, to wit, within these fifty yeares, well furnished of bookes: John Leyland viewed and commended them, but now those bookes be gone, and the place is occupied by a schoolemaister.”[334] In 1483 the Church of St. Christopher-le-Stocks, London, seems to have had a collection only of service books; but five years later mention is made of “a grete librarie.” “On the south side of the vestrarie standeth a grete librarie with ii longe lecturnalles thereon to lay on the bookes.”[335] About the middle of the sixteenth century certain inhabitants of Rayleigh held a meeting one Sunday, after service, and, without the consent of the churchwardens, sold fifteen service books, and “four other manuscript volumes,” as well as some other church goods, for forty shillings.[336]

But we might continue for a long time to bring together facts of this kind. Enough has been written to suggest the character and extent of the work done by the churches. Many of these small collections were for use in connexion with the schools; they were formed for the benefit of clergy and the increase of clergy. The few books chained up in the churches for the use of the people were displayed for various reasons. The Catholicon, a Latin grammar and a dictionary, was a large book, obtainable only at great cost, yet for reference purposes all students and scholars constantly needed it. Wealthy ecclesiastics and benefactors would therefore naturally leave such a book for chaining up in the church, which was then the real centre of communal life. The Catholicon was chained up for reference in French churches, and the practice was imitated here, possibly in nearly all the large churches.[337] The Medulla grammatice, left to King’s Norton Church by Sir Thomas Lyttleton, was a book of similar character, and would be deposited in church for a like purpose. Books of canon law would also be useful for reference purposes when chained in the church. Some other shackled books were homiletical in character. Should we be accused of excess of imagination if we conjured up a picture of a little cluster of people standing by a clerk who reads to them a sermon or a passage of Holy Writ? The collection of tales, each with a moral, known as the Gesta Romanorum, would make especially attractive reading. Some books often found in churches and frequently mentioned in this book, as the Summa Praedicantium of John de Bromyarde, Pupilla Oculi, by John de Burgo, and the Speculum Christiani, by John Walton, were manuals for the instruction of priests.

CHAPTER VI

ACADEMIC LIBRARIES: OXFORD

PROBABLY a few scribes plied their craft in Oxford in early days long before the students began to make a settlement, for the town had been a flourishing borough, one of the largest in England. But until the end of the twelfth century we hear nothing about books and their makers or users in Oxford. Then we find illuminators, bookbinders, parchmenters, and a scribe referred to in a document relating to the sale of land in Cat Street. This record is very significant, as it suggests the active employment of book-makers in the centre of Oxford’s student life. St. Mary’s Church was the hub. Cat Street, School Street running parallel with it from High Street to the north boundary, and Schydyard Street, the continuation of School Street on the southern side of High Street, alleys of the usual medieval narrowness and mean appearance, the buildings on either hand almost touching one another, and the way dark—were the haunts of masters and scholars and all those depending on them. Students, old and young, of high station and low, are crowded in lodging-houses, many of which are shabby, dirty, and disreputable. Hence they come forth to play their games or carry on their feuds. Some haunt taverns and worse places. Others eke out their means by begging at street corners. All get their teaching by gathering round masters whose rostrum is the church doorstep or the threshold of the lodging-house. Amid the manifold distractions of this queerly-ordered life the maker and seller of books earns what living he can; his chief patrons being indigent masters, who often must starve themselves to get books, and students so poor that pawning becomes a custom regulated by the University itself.

Not till the University became firmly established as a corporate body could a common library be formed. The beginning was simple. The first books reserved for common use had their home in St. Mary’s Church: some lay in chests, and were lent in exchange for a suitable pledge; others were chained to desks so that students could readily refer to them. These books were almost certainly theological in character, and all were no doubt given by benefactors, now unknown. Such a gift was received early in the thirteenth century from Roger de L’Isle, Dean of York, who gave a Bible, divided into four parts for the convenience of copyists, and the Book of Exodus, glossed, but old and of little value.[338] Possibly some books remained in the church even after an independent library was founded, for as late as 1414 a copy of Nicholas de Lyra was chained in the chancel for public use, where it was inspected by the Chancellor and proctors every year.[339]

To a “good clerk” who had gathered his learning at three Universities—the arts at Paris, canon law at Oxford, and theology at Cambridge—the University library appropriately owes its origin. Bishop Cobham left his books

and three hundred and fifty marks for this purpose in 1327. He had proposed to build a two-storied building, the lower chamber to be the Congregation House, and the upper a library; or perhaps the Congregation House was already standing, and he had the idea of adding another story, for use as an oratory and library. Therein his books would bide when he died.[340] Not till long after his death was the building completed. His books did not come to the University without much trouble. Bequests were elusive in the Middle Ages, for people sometimes dreamed of projects they could not realize while they lived, and sanguinely hoped their executors would win prayers for the dead by successfully stretching poor means to a good end. Cobham died in debt. His books were pawned to settle his estate and pay for his funeral. Adam de Brome redeemed the pledges, and handed them over, not to the University, but to his newly-founded college of Oriel.[341] In peace the books were enjoyed at Oriel until four years after de Brome’s death. The Fellows claimed them, it appears, not only because he redeemed them, but because, as impropriating rectors of the church, both building and library were theirs, they argued, by right. The University was equally persistent in its claim. At last, ten years after Cobham’s death, the Commissary, taking mean advantage of the small number of Fellows in residence in autumn, went to Oriel with “a multitude of others,” and brought the books away by force. Thereafter the University held them, but it took nearly seventy years to settle the dispute about them, and to decide the ownership of the Congregation House (1410).[342]

Long before 1410 the “good clerk’s” books had been made of real service to students. Fittings were put up in the library room (1365). Then regulations for managing the library were drawn up (1367). The books were to be put in the chamber over the Congregation House, marshalled in convenient order and chained. There, at certain times, scholars were to have access to them. Now first appeared upon the scene a University librarian. The University’s means were slender, and £40 worth of the books were sold to provide a stipend for a chaplain-librarian: in place of these books others of less value were bought; probably some of Cobham’s books were finely illuminated, and the intention was to purchase less costly copies in their stead. The chaplain was to pray for the souls of Cobham and of University benefactors; and to have the charge of the bishop’s books, of the books in the chests, and of any books coming to the University afterwards.[343]

We can easily imagine what the library was like. The chamber over the Congregation House is small, scarcely larger than the average class-room of to-day; lighted by seven windows on each side. Between some, if not all, of the windows bookcases would stand at right angles to the wall, forming little alcoves, fit for the quiet pursuit of knowledge. Learning itself was shackled. Chains from a bar running the length of each case secured the books, which could only be read on the slope fixed a few feet above the floor. In each alcove was a bench for readers to sit upon. A large and conspicuous board, with titles and names of benefactors written upon it in a fair hand, hung up in the room.[344] Here then would come the flower of Oxford scholarship to study, any time after eight in the morning. Every student is welcome if he does not enter in wet clothing, or bring in ink, or a knife, or dagger. We like to picture this small room, fitted with solid, rude furniture, monastic in its austerity of appearance; full of students working eagerly in their quest for knowledge—making extracts in pencil, or with styles on their tablets, amid a silence broken only by the crackle of vellum leaves, and the rattle of a chain.

Such a picture would perhaps be overdrawn. Young Oxford was not always quiet, or whole-heartedly studious. The liberal regulations seem to have been liable to abuse. Students soiled and damaged the books. The little room was more than full: it was overcrowded with scholars, and with “throngs of visitors” who disturbed the readers. After 1412 only graduates and religious who had studied philosophy for eight years could enter the library, and while there they must be robed. Even such mature students had to make solemn oath, in the Chancellor’s presence, to use the books properly: make no erasures or blots, or otherwise spoil the precious writing.[345] Under these regulations the library was open from nine to eleven in the morning, and from one to four in the afternoon, Sundays and mass days excepted. Strangers of eminence and the Chancellor could pay a visit at any time by daylight. The chaplain, who was to be a man of parts, of proved morality and uprightness, now received 106s. 8d. a year. The Proctors were bound to pay this stipend half-yearly, with punctuality, or be fined the heavy sum of forty shillings: the chaplain, it is explained, must have no grievance to nurse—no ground for carrying out his duties in a slovenly or perfunctory manner. He, indeed, was an important officer. For health’s sake he must have a month’s holiday during the long vacation. As it was absurd for him to have fewer perquisites than those below him in station, every beneficed graduate, at graduation, was required to give him robes.[346] The finicking character of these regulations suggests that the University statute-maker had as great a dislike for “understandings” as Dr. Newman.

Thus was established firmly, in the early years of the fifteenth century, a University Library, an important resort of students; the proper place, as the common rendezvous of members of the University, for publishing the Lollard doctrines condemned at London in 1411. No town in England was better supplied with libraries than Oxford, for besides the collections of the University, the monastic colleges and the convents, libraries were already formed at Merton, University, Oriel and New Colleges. Such progress in providing scholars’ armouries is remarkable, the greater part of it being accomplished during a period of great social and religious unrest—not the unrest of a wind-fretted surface, but of a grim and far-sweeping underswell—a period when pestilence, violent tempests and earthquakes, seemed bodeful of Divine displeasure; not a time surely when the studious life would be attractive, or when much care would be taken to establish libraries, unless indeed controversy made recourse to books more necessary or the signs of the times gave birth to a greater number of benefactors.[347]

But the University library was to become the richest and most considerable in the town. Benefactors were well greeted. Besides praying for their souls—and some of them, like Bishop Reed, were pathetically anxious about the prayers—the University showed every reasonable sign of its gratitude: posted up donors’ names in the library itself; submitted each gift to congregation three days after receiving it, and within twelve days later had it chained