CATHEDRAL AND CHURCH LIBRARIES
§ I
To the books of the monastery some human interest clings: we can at once
conjure up a picture of the cloister and the scribe at his work; the
handling of an old manuscript, the turning over of finely-written and
quaintly-illuminated yellow pages, throws the mind flashing back
centuries to the silent writer in his carrell. But the church library is
not rich in associations. It was a small “working” collection: one part
for the use of the clergy, the other part--consisting of a few chained
books--for the use of the people. These chained books, which now suggest
a scarcely conceivable restriction upon the circulation of
literature--even theological literature--were, in fact, the sign of a
glimmer of liberal thought in the church. During the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, not only were monastic books issued to lay people
more freely, but many more books were chained in places of worship than
in the sixteenth century, when the proclamation for the “setting-up” of
Bibles in churches was granted unwillingly.
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
[Illustration: _PLATE XVIII_
ANCIENT BOOK-BOX IN EXETER CATHEDRAL]
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. Leofric_us_ 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
[Illustration: _PLATE XIX_
HEREFORD CATHEDRAL LIBRARY: CHAINED BOOKS]
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
[Illustration: _PLATE XX_
THE OLD LIBRARY, LINCOLN CATHEDRAL]
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.
[Illustration: PLAN SHOWING PROBABLE SITUATION OF LIBRARY OF WELLS
CATHEDRAL IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.]
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
[Illustration: _PLATE XXI_
WELLS CATHEDRAL LIBRARY, OVER CLOISTER]
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.
1419. Et de 26_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ de elemosina domini Thomae Haxey ad
cooperturam novi librarii cum plumbo.
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.
1419. In sarracione iiij arborum datarum novo librario per Abbatem
de Selby, 6/8.
1419. Et Johanni Grene, joynor, pro joynacione tabularum pro
libraria et planacione et gropyng de waynscott, per annum, 17_s._
8_d._
In operacione cc ferri in boltes pro nova libraria per Johannem
Harpham, fabrum, 8s.[318]
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.
1421. Johanni Upton pro superscriptura librorum nuper magistri
Johannis Neuton thesaurarii istius ecclesiae legatorum librario,
2_s._ Thomae Hornar de Petergate pro hornyng et naillyng
superscriptorum librorum, 2_s._ 6_d._ Radulpho Lorymar de
Conyngstrete pro factura et emendacione xl cathenarum pro eisdem
libris annexis in librario predicto, 23_s._ 1_d._[320]
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--
In primis one Boke called summa summarum.
Item A boke called Summa Raumundi [Summa poenitentia et matrimonio
of Reymond de Pennaforte of Barcelona].
Item Anoyer called pupilla occuli [Pupilla oculi, by J. de Burgo].
Item Anoyer called the Sexte [Liber Sextus Decretalium].
Item A boke called Hugucyon [see pp. 223-4].
Item A boke called Vitas Patrum.
Item Anoyer boke called pauls pistols.
Item A boke called Januensis super evangeliis dominicalibus
[Sermons of Jacobus de Voragine, Abp. of Genoa, on the Gospels for
the Sundays throughout the year].
Item a grette portuose [a large breviary].
Item Anoyer boke called Legenda Aurea [Legenda sanctorum aurea of
Jacobus de Voragine].”[331]
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.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXII_
ST. MARY’S CHURCH, OXFORD: THE FIRST HOME OF THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY]