Once again we return to these shores, and now we will enquire what
medieval libraries, besides those we have glanced at, have left really
considerable remains. Some few have kept their books _in situ_--the
monastic cathedrals of Durham and Worcester best of all; each has some
hundreds of MSS. The secular cathedrals, Lincoln, Hereford, Salisbury,
come next. Rochester has nothing on the spot, but a great many MSS. in
the old Royal Library in the British Museum. The two great libraries of
Canterbury (Christchurch and St. Augustine's) are well represented, but
their books are much scattered. Winchester, York, Exeter, have few but
precious books.
There are important MSS. from Thorney at the Advocates Library,
Edinburgh; from St. Mary's York, at Dublin; not a few from Cirencester
at Jesus College, Oxford, and at Hereford; St. John's, Oxford, has many
from Reading and from Southwick (Hants). There must, I am sure, be many
Peterborough books to be found, but they are rarely marked as such, and
the character of the catalogue makes identification very hard.
Of all minor libraries, that of Lanthony, near Gloucester, has, I
believe, been best preserved. A great block of it was retained by the
last Prior of the house, John Hart, who retired to a country house near
by, and whose sister married a man of good position, Theyer, in the
neighbourhood. He kept the books together, and had descendants who
valued them and added largely to their number. At the end of the
sixteenth century Archbishop Bancroft conceived the idea of founding a
library at Lambeth for his successors, and he seems to have bought
about 150 Lanthony MSS. from Theyer,[D] which are now at Lambeth. Other
Lanthony books are at Trinity and Corpus Christi, Oxford. A
fourteenth-century catalogue of the books among the Harley MSS. shows
that we possess at least a third of the whole collection.
Examples of the press-marks used by the various houses have been
collected by the New Palæographical Society, and may be seen in their
publications. They are, of course, most useful in cases where the
inscription of ownership has not been inserted or has disappeared. The
second case may be that of any book; the first is common to the
Canterbury libraries, to Dover, the London Dominicans, St. Mary's York,
Fountains, Titchfield, Ely. To the press-marks figured by the Society
more will doubtless be added. I can instance one, that of the
Franciscans of Lincoln, which is of this form: [Illustration: Symbol].