It
was at this juncture that the death of Richard Holdsworth gave
rise to unlooked for complications.
was at this juncture that the death of Richard Holdsworth gave
rise to unlooked for complications.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v04
vi.
c.
7; ed.
Valentin Rose.
Willis and Clark (Architectural
History of the University of Cambridge, III, pp. 414—6) have given the orientation of
the college libraries of both Oxford and Cambridge.
3 See J. W. Clark's Medieval and Renaissance Libraries, pp. 43, 45 and 48.
## p. 417 (#439) ############################################
>
Monastic Libraries
417
appears, from a catalogue drawn up in the twelfth century, to
have possessed 366 volumes ; that at Croyland, if any credit
attaches to the fifteenth century writer who wrote under the
name of Ingulphus, possessed, at the time of its destruction by
re (1091), 300 volumes and some 400 tracts; that of the neigh-
bouring monastery of St Peter at Peterborough (where the
original library had been destroyed by the Danes in 870) received,
through the good offices of abbot Benedict, secretary of Thomas
Becket, some eighty different works especially transcribed for its
enrichment. At Glastonbury, the collection, at first of but small
importance, contained, in 1247, 500 works in 340 volumes.
The fact that abbot Benedict's gift to Peterborough consisted
entirely of transcriptions, reminds us that another stage had been
reached in the history of monastic libraries; and it is at about the
same time that we find one Henry, a monk of the Benedictine
abbey at Hyde, near Winchester, becoming known for his industry
as a copyist—his transcripts including Terence, Boethius, Suetonius,
Claudian and other classical authors. It is, indeed, to such labours,
far more than to the growth of new literature, that we must
attribute the great increase in the numbers of volumes, in the cata-
logues of monastic and cathedral libraries alike, which becomes
observable throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the
transcriber's toil, from time to time, receiving an abnormal stimulus
from some fire which may have resulted in the entire destruction
of a library in a single night. At Canterbury, the catalogues of
its two monasteries, that of Christ Church, compiled about the
year 1300, and that of St Augustine’s, nearly two centuries later,
afford valuable evidence: the former contains nearly 3000 titles
(or about 1850 volumes), and, while abounding in patristic and
scholastic literature, is characterised as also ‘respectable in science
and rich in history? '; the latter numbers over 1800 volumes,
including a large collection of French, and more especially
Romance, writers. Here the numerous duplicates are another
noteworthy feature, attributable, doubtless, to the desire of en-
abling several members of the community to study the same
author concurrently, and also attesting the increasing activity of
the copyists. The St Augustine's catalogue, however, is obviously
incomplete, and the same may be surmised to be the case with
1
1 Edwards, 1, 62; see, also, for an analysis of the contents of both libraries, the
introduction to M. R. James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover,
Cambridge, 1903.
See Sir F. Madden, in Notes and Queries (2nd ser. ), 1, pp. 485—6.
E. L. IV. CH. XIX.
27
## p. 418 (#440) ############################################
418
The Foundation of Libraries
the catalogue at Peterborough, which, in 1380, contained no more
than 300 volumes. The society at Worcester, although 280 volumes
still remain, is conjectured to have lost more than double that
number, and no contemporary catalogue exists. The Benedictines
at Dover possessed in 1389 some 449 volumes; and their house at
Bury St Edmunds, at the close of the same century, as many as
2000. At Durham, to which, after the Danish invasions of the
ninth century, the devastated monasteries of Wearmouth and
Jarrow had become affiliated as 'cells,' the reserved' library, by
which we are to understand, probably, the collection kept under
especial surveillance in the spendimentum (or bursary), contained,
in 1416, 500 volumes.
A brief account may here be given of a library remarkable
alike for its character and its history. The foundation known as
Syon monastery', some twelve miles from London, at Isleworth,
was one of the Brigittine order, the only one of its kind in England,
its rule being 'planned to suit the needs of religious men and
women serving God together in one church and dwelling in adjoining
houses. ' There were, however, separate libraries for the two sexes,
and the catalogue which has come down to us (now in the library
of Corpus Christi college, Cambridge) appears, by internal evidence,
to be that of the library for men. The value attached to its main-
tenance and increase is indicated by the fact that there was a rule
enjoining that masses should be said for the souls of all donors,
even of a single book, and the librarian himself was charged with
the duty of offering up such intercession or seeing that it was made.
The extent to which the practice of lending books had, by this
time, obtained among monasteries partially accounts for the
numerous losses which the collection had sustained prior to the
dissolution? The binding appears to have been executed without
regard to contents-a Horace, for example, being bound up with
a life of Thomas of Canterbury, and a Rabanus Maurus with a
Latin translation of Homer. No less than 1421 titles were duly
entered in the catalogue, and, of the entire collection, only six
volumes have as yet been traced.
But all such collections, whether those of the monastery,
the friary, or the cathedral, were exposed to special dangers.
Neither Sion college (see post, p. 433), now on the Thames Embankment (formerly
in London Wall), nor the Sion nunnery now existing at Chudleigh, in Devonshire, is in
any way connected with the ancient institution at Isleworth.
* Catalogue of the Library of Syon Monastery, Isleworth. Ed. M. Bateson,
Cambridge, 1898, preface, p. I.
• Ibid. pp. xvii, xviii.
## p. 419 (#441) ############################################
Monastic Libraries
419
At monasteries, the traveller was wont to receive shelter and
hospitality, and, if wealthy, would seek to make some return, his
gratitude not unfrequently finding expression in the gift of an
addition to the library. On the other hand, the opportunity thus
afforded to the outer world of gaining access to the interior itself
rendered the library liable to losses which not even the vigilance
of the guardian of the spendimentum could always prevent. At
friaries, whose members were in closer touch with the laity, owing
to the fact that their houses were generally within the precincts of
some city or large town, and sometimes in a main thoroughfare,
the risk, probably, was still greater. Thomas Gascoigne describes
the house of the Franciscans, as it existed in Oxford in the middle
of the fifteenth century, in the following terms:
They had two libraries in the same house; the one called the convent
library, the other the library of the schools; whereof the former was open
only to graduates; the latter to the scholars they called seculars, who lived
among those friars for the sake of learning 1,
Gottlieb, in commenting on this passage, points out that such a
division of libraries was, probably, a regular custom, and that it
affords an obvious explanation of the fact that not a few of their
catalogues, many of them very old, contain nothing but classical
authors and manuals of instruction? . That, among the mendicant
orders, Franciscans and Carmelites were especially distinguished
by their zeal for learning and energy as book hunters, is well known;
and, as early as 1381, we find them sharing with the university of
Cambridge the dislike of the townsmens. According to Mabillon, a
like arrangement with respect to their libraries existed among the
larger monasteries, especially those of the Cluniac order, on the
continent, one library being that of the choir of the monastery
church, the other that for the exclusive use of the monks—the
libri scientifici et ascetici ; and, in like manner, in the English
cathedrals, the respective duties of the armarius and the praecentor
(also cantor) point to the same distinction, although, at minor
foundations, the duties of each were often discharged by the same
individual. But, at all alike, there would generally be among the
service books one or more beautiful antiphonals, richly illuminated
and adorned with massively embossed covers; and an additional
temptation was thus presented to the despoiler, when the disso-
lution came, besides that of the gold and silver chalices, censers,
Dagdale, Monasticon, vi, p. 1527.
2 Mittelalterliche Bibliotheken, p. 305.
• Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, I, pp. 120–1.
1
27-2
## p. 420 (#442) ############################################
420 The Foundation of Libraries
crosses, ewers and candlesticks which adorned the altar and
the chapels. Such entries, again, as occur in the sales of the
plunder which took place in 1548, of 'fourteen great books in the
quire, 148. ', 'four prycksong mass books of paper,' certainly bear
out the view, that the love of choral song (noted by Erasmus as an
interesting feature in the social life of the English), had been to a
great extent fostered by those monastic or cathedral choirs of
youths and boys, whom he described as “singing, to the accom-
paniment of the organ and with harmonious modulations of voice,
their matin song in honour of the Virgin. '
Generally speaking, however, accounts contemporary with the
reformation are wanting, and we must rely on much earlier
evidence, derived from inventories, for such information as the
following, which relates to the chapel of the collegiate church of
Windsor, where,
in addition to the service books there were (temp. Richard II) 34 books on
different subjects (diversarum scientiarum) chained in the church; among
them a Bible and a concordance, and two books of French romance, one of
which was the Liber de Rosel.
This, however, was an exceptionally wealthy foundation.
The work of destruction that went on at the dissolution of the
monasteries has been dealt with in a previous chapter of this work.
Well might Thomas Fuller, as he bemoaned the havoc, more than
a century later, exclaim
What beautiful Bibles, rare Fathers, subtile Schoolmen, useful Historians,-
ancient, middle, modern; what painful Comments/were here amongst them!
What monuments of mathematics all massacred together-seeing every book
with a cross was condemned for Popish,- with circles, for conjuring? Yea,
I may say that then holy Divinity was profaned, Physics hurt, and a trespass,
yea a riot, committed on Law itself. And, more particularly, the History of
former times then and there received a dangerous wound, where of it halts
at this day, and, without hope of a perfect cure, must go a cripple to the
grave 3.
Cathedral libraries suffered far more serious losses during the
civil war than at the reformation. They were less carefully guarded
than those of the monasteries, there being no regulation requiring
their annual inspection; partly owing to the fact that the collec-
tions were mostly small : it is rarely that, prior to the fifteenth
century, we find evidences of their being catalogued; and, even
1 Victoria County History of Berkshire, 11, p. 109.
? In allusion, perhaps, to the use of symbols, which mathematicians were beginning
to resort to in their works. See W. W. R. Ball, Short History of Mathematics,
pp. 211-215; also his Hist. of Mathematics at Cambridge, pp. 15, 16.
Church History of Britain (ed. Nicholls), 11, pp. 248-9.
## p. 421 (#443) ############################################
Cathedral Libraries
421
where a catalogue existed, the entirety of the library which it
represented was too often left unverified. The Restoration marks
a third stage in their history, when churchmen made an effort to
replace, to some extent, the vanished treasures; and collections,
large or small, were brought in from localities where they were
likely to be less serviceable, the newly-introduced volumes, as at
York and Wimborne, requiring the practised eye of the expert to
distinguish them from the remnants of the original collections.
In the early decades of the seventeenth century, the library of
the minster at York still possessed the MSS brought from the
abbey at Rievaulx, and, in 1628, it received from the widow of
its former archbishop, Tobias Matthew, his valuable collection of
printed books; but the costly volumes relating to liturgic use and
to ritual were not acquired until the eighteenth century. Llandaff,
at this time, still possessed the library which it afterwards trans-
ferred to Cardiff castle for safety, but only to be destroyed
by Cromwell's soldiery. Durham had suffered severely at the
reformation, losing no inconsiderable portion of its fine illuminated
manuscripts, but still owned St Cuthbert's copy of the Gospels
(now at the British Museum), and the editio princeps of Tacitus,
by Vindelin de Spira. Here, the former refectory of the monastery
(rebuilt in 1685) contains the chapter library, while the fine
library presented by Cosin-a thoroughly representative collection
of the Jacobean era, of which the catalogue, on vellum, still exists
-has been transferred to the castle. Rochester has preserved
but few manuscripts of any interest; but, among the printed books,
there is a copy of the first printed English Bible of 1535, and a fine
a
missal (Salisbury use) printed by Regnault in 1534. Lichfield
possesses little that can be considered strictly monastic, its library
dating from the benefaction of Frances, duchess of Somerset, in 1672.
Ceadda's (St Chad's) copy of the Gospels, however, found its way
thither from Llandaff, and the collection also includes a fine MS of
the pocms of Chaucer. Hereford, on the other hand, preserves (but in
a special building) a library which presents, both in its literature and
in its furniture, a singularly pleasing example of a medieval institu-
tion—the catalogue itself chained to the desk, the volumes arranged
according to the then customary classification, while the Mappa
Mundi is of world-wide fame. There is also a copy of Coverdale's
Bible of 1535. None of the preceding, however, could compare in
regard to literature with Salisbury, which can still show an array
of MSS filling one hundred and eighty-seven volumes, remained
intact for a period of four hundred years and included produc-
tions ranging from the ninth to the fourteenth century, among
a
## p. 422 (#444) ############################################
422
The Foundation of Libraries
them the Gallican Psalter of the ninth century, an English version
of the Gospel of Nicodemus, Chaucer's translation of Boethius and
a MS of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The Inventory of the Riches of
the Cathedral Church of Sarum, 'made by Master Thomas
Robertson, Treasurer of the same Church in 1536,' contains a
list of items which attest the wealth of the ancient foundation.
Winchester, on the other hand, did not become possessed of its
fine collection of Bibles, bequeathed by bishop Morley, until 1684.
The collection also includes the early editions of Izaak Walton's
works. At Lincoln, many of the MSS have suffered mutilation;
while, about the middle of the seventeenth century, the ancient
library was greatly injured by fire. There is still, however, to
be seen a MS of Old English romances, collected (c. 1430) by
Robert de Thornton, archdeacon of Bedford. Exeter possesses no
catalogue earlier than 1683. Out of the sixty volumes given by
Leofric, its first bishop, the library can still show its Liber
Exoniensis, to which reference has been made in volume 1 of the
present work. At Wells, there are the five volumes of the Aldine
Aristotle, one of them with the autograph of Erasmus. Ely
possesses no editiones principes, but there is a considerable
number of tracts relating to the history of the Nonjurors. At
Lambeth, the valuable collection (which may be said to have
originated in the bequest of archbishop Bancroft) remained un-
catalogued until the time of Edmund Gibson, bishop of London,
who made a beginning, which was not carried to completion until
the time of Ducarel, its librarian towards the end of the eighteenth
century. At Chichester, the library possesses MSS of the statutes
of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and of an account of the foundation of
Christchurch, Oxford. At Westminster, Hacket tells us that John
Williams, when dean,
converted a waste room . . . into a goodly library, modeld it into decent shape,
furnish'd it with desks and chairs, accoutred it with all utensils and stored it
with a vast number of learned volumes. For which use he lighted most
fortunately upon the study of that learned gentleman, Mr Baker of Highgate,
who in a long and industrious life had collected into his own possession the
best authors in all sciences, in their best editions, which being bought at 500 1.
(a cheap pennyworth for such precious ware) were removed into this store
honsel.
The libraries in both universities sustained irreparable losses
during the period of the reformation.
It is clear, from Leland's Collectanea, that Clare College possessed in his
time a large number of books of which there is no trace now. We have in
print catalogues of the old libraries at Corpus Christi, Trinity Hall, King's,
· Life of Williams, pt. 1, p. 47.
1
## p. 423 (#445) ############################################
Cambridge College Libraries
423
Queens', St Catherine's, and the University. At the present moment [1899]
19 of the University Library books are known to exist out of 330. At Corpus
Christi, 3 out of 75; at Queens', I believe, none; at King's, 1 out of 176; at
Trinity Hall, 1; at St Catherine's none out of about 1001,
On the other hand, most of these libraries had also been receiving
considerable accessions. Perne, who held the mastership of Peter-
house from 1553 to 1589, was distinguished by his efforts on behalf
of the university library and also of the library of his own college.
In relation to the former, Bradshaw says that we may fairly look
upon him as the principal agent in its restoration at this period. '
While, as regards the college, he not only provided for the erection
of the present library, but 'enriched it with a large share of his
magnificent collections? ' None of the colleges (with the exception
of Corpus Christi) bestowed greater care than did Peterhouse on its
books and on their preservation-a tradition, possibly, from those
earlier days, when, as night came on, the town gates were closed,
and the little society without was called upon to trust solely to its
own vigilance, against the marauder and the purloiner. As early
as 1472, the library had been further augmented by the bequest of
the royal physician, Roger Marshall, and a portion of his bequest
had, by his instructions, been placed in apertiori libraria,
evidently with the design of rendering the volumes more generally
accessible, without allowing them to be borrowed. Eight years
later, however, during the mastership of John Warkworth (the
reputed author of the Chronicle), further regulations were enacted,
whereby it was made permissible to lend a volume to a member of
the society for a term of two years, but with the precaution of first
obtaining a valuation of the book so as, in the event of its not being
returned, to mulct the borrower in its full value. At Corpus Christi
college, at the time when archbishop Parker bequeathed his noble
collection, the original library had almost disappeared. He made
it his first care, on succeeding to the mastership in 1544, and
finding many volumes in the library scattered about without any
safe keeping,' to take measures which involved a radical reform.
The earliest catalogue—that compiled by John Botener in 1376
and other records, enable us to realise the serious losses which had
been sustained and also to understand how such experiences may
IM. R. James, The Sources of Archbishop Parker's Collection of MSS at Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, Camb. Ant. Soc. , Octavo Publications, vol. XXXI; Willis
and Clark, Architectural History, etc. III, p. 404.
T. A. Walker. For an account of the original library, see vol. II, obap. xv,
pp. 362—7.
3 See A Catalogue of the Books bequeathed to C. C. College by Tho. Markaunt in
1439, ed. J. O. Halliwell, Camb. Ant. Soc. Publ. vol. 11, pp. 15–20.
a
## p. 424 (#446) ############################################
424 The Foundation of Libraries
well have seemed to him to justify the almost unprecedented
regulations wherewith he sought to guard against their recurrence.
In 1578, the college chapel was rebuilt, and rooms were constructed
over it; and, in a small chamber over the ante-chapel, the famous
Parker MSS were safely housed for some 250 years.
Parker stands at the head of the race of modern book-collectors. As
Archbishop of Canterbury during the early years of Queen Elizabeth's reign,
he had the first pick of the whole of the plunder of the libraries and muni-
ment-rooms of the dissolved religious houses; and his suffragans were only
too ready to gain his favour by almost forcing upon him the treasures of the
Cathedral librariesl.
A series of catalogues, from those compiled by Parker himself to
that drawn up by M. R. James, give proof of what may be described
as a continuously growing sense of the value of the entire col-
lection. Among the chief treasures, the MS of the four Gospels
(no. 286) is asserted to have been one of the volumes that pope
Gregory the Great sent from Rome for the use of St Austin of
Canterbury; two chronicles (nos. 16 and 26) are supposed to have
been composed, written and illustrated by Matthew Paris,
historiographer of St Albans. The collection is also strong in
liturgiology; but it is, perhaps, most widely known by its wealth in
Old English literature, of which there are five distinct classes :
Gospels, Annals of England, Glossaries, Homilies (Aelfric's Lives
of the Saints) and Canons. James has identified no less than
47 volumes as formerly belonging to Christ Church priory, and
26 to St Augustine's abbey, both at Canterbury.
The losses against which Parker had sought to guard his
bequeathed treasures either menaced, or actually overtook, other
colleges, but not until long after his death, and then chiefly
in connection with political events, of which the experience of
Emmanuel college affords a singularly noteworthy but somewhat
complicated illustration. Richard Bancroft, who had been educated
at Christ's college and was, subsequently, a fellow of Jesus, becom-
ing, finally, archbishop of Canterbury, died in 1610, bequeathing a
valuable library to his successors in the see; but his bequest was
accompanied with certain conditions which proved difficult to carry
into effect. Those who were to inherit it were to give security for
its due preservation in its entirety, a requirement which the
enforcement of the covenant rendered impracticable. Failing this
proviso, the collection was to become the property of Bancroft's
projected foundation of Chelsea college, of which the scheme,
1 Bradshaw and Wordsworth, Lincoln Cathedral Statutes, Pt. 1, p. 184.
## p. 425 (#447) ############################################
Cambridge College Libraries
425
however, altogether collapsed. And, finally, the donor, in antici-
pation of such miscarriage, had designated the university of
Cambridge as the recipient. For thirty years, however, owing to
.
certain obstacles, although the collection was augmented by con-
siderable gifts from both archbishop Abbot and his rival Laud, it
remained stowed away in 'the study over the Cloisters at Lambeth,'
until parliament, on being formally petitioned, intervened, and
order was given, in February 1645/6, that the entire collection,
now unrivalled as a source of information with respect to church
history in the Jacobean era, should be sent to Cambridge. It
was not, even then, until after John Selden and others had
used their influence that these instructions were carried into
effect. On the arrival of the books, the imposing array was
described by the academic authorities as evoking no little 'exulta-
tion’; and parliament itself, on learning that the first result had
been to render increased accommodation imperatively necessary,
was induced to grant £2000 ‘for the building and finishing the
Public Library at Cambridge. ' The Lords, although unable to
give their assent, concurred, notwithstanding, in a separate grant
for the purchase from Thomason of a valuable collection of
Hebrew books-noted by Henry Bradshaw as constituting the
nucleus of the Hebrew library of the university. The volumes
given by Abbot and other later donors had not been sent with
Bancroft's, but in the following year (1649) these also arrived.
It
was at this juncture that the death of Richard Holdsworth gave
rise to unlooked for complications. Holdsworth was a distinguished
scholar who had filled the office of public orator with marked
ability, but, owing to his refusal to take the covenant, had been
ejected, in 1644, from the mastership of Emmanuel and, subsequently,
imprisoned in the Tower. He was well known, however, to Man-
chester, the puritan general, and had, consequently, been able to save
his own valuable library from sequestration by declaring his inten-
tion of bequeathing it to his college ; but, at his death, in 1649, it
was found, on opening his will, that he had finally decided to leave
the collection to the university library should the Bancroft collec-
tion ever be reclaimed for Lambeth. When the Restoration came,
it was one of Juxon's first measures as primate to make that demand,
as it was one of his last, to provide for the fit reception of the books
by the erection of the noble building which bears his name. The
university promptly complied; but, when it sought to obtain some
compensation for its loss, by applying for the transfer of Holds-
worth's library (then in London) to its own shelves, the authorities
at Emmanuel contested their claim, and a suit was consequently
## p. 426 (#448) ############################################
426
The Foundation of Libraries
begun in the court of Arches. Eventually, the matter was left to
be dealt with by three adjudicators—the archbishop of York, the
bishop of London and the bishop of Ely-who, in December 1664,
gave a formal award on parchment to the following effect :
(1) Holdsworth’s printed books and MSS were to come to the
public library at Cambridge ; (2) duplicates were to be disposed
of, as Holdsworth had directed in his will; (3) Emmanuel college
was to receive from the university £200 in settlement of its claim,
and also to be repaid its costs, provided the said costs did not
exceed £20.
To St Catharine's belongs the credit of having been the first to
print its entire catalogue, 1771; but that by Stanley, of the Parker
MSS at Corpus, had appeared in 1722; and, in 1827, Queens'
college printed (its catalogue, compiled by Thomas Hartwell
Horne, in two large octavo volumes.
The library of St John's college, Cambridge, affords an ex-
cellent example of both the literature and the architecture of the
period, having been built in 1624, by John Williams, the lord
keeper (whose arms are over the doorway), in the style known
as Jacobean Gothic; the interior, with its white-washed walls,
dark oak ceiling and presses, still presenting very much the same
appearance that it must have done in 1654, when John Evelyn
pronounced it the fairest of that university. ' The presses, more
particularly--each with its sloping top, designed, originally, to serve
as a reading-desk, and list of contents at the end, enclosed under
folding panels—are a good illustration of the medieval arrange-
ments already described! Among the contents to be noted are:
the so-called Cromwell's Bible, printed (on vellum) partly in
Paris and partly in London, and 'finished in Aprill, A. D. 1539'-
a vast folio, splendidly illuminated, bearing the arms of Thomas
Cromwell; the service books used by Charles I and archbishop
Laud at the coronation of the former, and that used by Sancroft
at the coronation of James II; a curious Irish Psalter supposed to
be of the ninth century, with grotesque drawings, and interlined
throughout with Latin glosses written in Celtic minuscules? ; and an
' ¡lluminated book of Hours, an admirable specimen of Flemish art,
containing the autograph of the foundress, the Lady Margaret.
Neither the statutes of Michael house nor those of King's ball
(the two foundations subsequently absorbed in Trinity) contain
any reference to books, and the erection of the magnificent library
i See ante, p. 416.
2 See M. R. James's introduction (p. xciii) to The Ancient Libraries oj Canterbury
and Dover.
## p. 427 (#449) ############################################
are
dos
fis
e Pais
008
Oxford College Libraries
427
of Trinity, of which the plans were first begun by Sir Christopher
Wren in 1676, belongs to a period beyond our present limits.
Among the donors to the Trinity collection, Sir Edward Stanhope,
a fellow of the society, bequeathed fifteen manuscripts and over
300 volumes, among them the Polyglot Bible, known as king
Philip's Bible; and James Duport, vice-master of the society, and
afterwards master of Magdalene, was a liberal donor of 'English
books,' under which denomination the compiler of the catalogue
includes not only works in the English language, whether printed
in the country or abroad, but books which 'though not in the
English language, have a distinct connection with the English
Church, history, or literature? '
The original catalogue of Magdalene college library is still
preserved, 'a volume with an illuminated heraldic frontispiece
bearing the arms of Thomas Howard, a distinguished benefactor
to the society, whom king James had created first earl of Suffolk
in 1603; while, on the opposite page, the names of the earliest
donors to the library appear on the leaves of an olive-tree. The
list begins with the name of Thomas Nevile, of Pembroke college,
whom the earl had appointed master in 1582. A Nuremberg
Chronicon (folio, 1493); an Aesop (de Worde, 1503); a Manuale
ad usum Sarum (Rouen, 1504); a Salisbury breviary (London,
1556), are among the chief rarities?
At Oxford, college libraries had, in most instances, been
unscrupulously plundered by the Edwardian commissioners, and
little of value or importance remained at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. At Balliol, the college of that great patron
of learning, William Grey, bishop of Ely, the newly-built library
possessed, in 1478, two hundred volumes (including a printed copy
of Josephus), by virtue of his bequest ; but, by Anthony à Wood's
time, most of the miniatures in the volumes that remained had dis-
appeared. At Merton, the library retained every structural feature
of bishop Rede's original work, and continued, down to the year
1792, to afford, with its chained volumes, an excellent example of
a medieval interior. Oriel still preserved its catalogue of 1375,
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zisht
1 See Catalogue of the English Books printed before MDCI. now in the Library of
Trinity College, Cambridge, by Robert Sinker, Cambridge, 1885.
? A few words may here be added by way of anticipation respecting the Pepysian
library, which, along with the M8 of the donor's diary (in cipher) he bequeathed to the
college, although they were not actually received until 1724. By his directions they were
placed in a separate chamber, the catalogue having been compiled by himself. Among
the contents are six Caxtons, five folio volumes of old ballads, & splendid Sarum missal
(1620) and a valuable collection of prints, chiefly portraits.
lila
## p. 428 (#450) ############################################
428
The Foundation of Libraries
comprising about 100 volumes arranged according to the tradi-
tional branches of study. Queen's still gave shelter to its modest
collection in the original building—the present fine library being an
erection of the last decade of the seventeenth century. New college
could still boast the possession of its MS copy of the Nicomachean
Ethics as, also, of the first printed edition (1495—8) of Aristotle's
collected works ; but Lincoln had been plundered of the greater
part of the valuable collections given by Thomas Gascoigne and
Robert Fleming. Its catalogue of 1474 shows the college to have
been, at that time, in possession of 135 manuscripts, arranged in
seven presses. Faithful to the traditions derived from Linacre,
the shelves of All Souls were largely laden with that medical
literature which continued to increase throughout the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. It possessed, also, a few volumes of
collection (chiefly theological and of writers on civil and canon
law) given, in 1440, by Henry VI; manuscripts and books given by
cardinal Pole; and, a far more valuable gift, those bequeathed by
his relative, David Pole.
Brasenose, where the library had twice changed its orientation,
was not, as yet, in possession of the tenth century manuscript of
Terence, which once belonged to cardinal Bembo. At Corpus
Christi, the trilinguis bibliotheca, which Erasmus had prophesied
would one day attract more scholars to Oxford than Rome, in his
time, attracted to behold miracles, scarcely fulfilled his sanguine
prediction, but it has been stated that the college possessed, at
this period, the largest and best furnished college library then in
Oxford'. Christ Church, in the room which had formerly been
the refectory of St Frideswide's convent, had stowed away some
early MS copies of Wyclif's Bible, and was possessed of one of the
original transcripts of the life of her great founder by Cavendish,
together with a service book which Wolsey had been wont to use.
St John's could already pride itself on a fine collection of rare
books relating to English history and also on one of pre-reforma-
tion and reformation books of devotion, while its specimens of the
Caxton press still outvie those possessed by any other college.
Although a regard for learning, and, especially, theological
learning, was a marked characteristic of James I, he was by no
means distinguished as a book collector; and, whatever was done
during his reign towards carrying out the designs of his prede-
cessors, in this direction, was chiefly owing to the short-lived
* Corpus Christi College (Oxford), by Thomas Fowler, pp. 34, 255.
## p. 429 (#451) ############################################
>
Thomas Bodley
429
influence of his son, prince Henry, and the mature energy of
scholars like Sir Thomas Bodley and Sir Robert Cotton, whose
names are associated with the great collections at Oxford and in
the British Museum. It was owing to the prince that the royal
library was saved from spoliation, and to Bodley that the ‘Old
library,' in the university of Oxford, which had been completely
dispersed, was re-established to such an extent as to lead convoca-
tion, in 1617, to greet the latter as Publicae Bibliothecae Fundator.
His father, John Bodley, had been one of the exiles who fled from
England during the Marian persecution. In Geneva, Thomas, the
eldest son, read Homer with Constantine (author of the Lexicon
graeco-latinum), and attended the lectures of Chevallier in Hebrew,
of Phil. Beroaldus in Greek and of Calvin and Beza in divinity. On
his return to England, he was entered by his father at Magdalen
college, Oxford, where Laurence Humphry, a scholar of repute,
was president. Before long, Bodley was appointed to lecture on
Greek in the college, and, subsequently, on natural philosophy in
the schools. In 1576, he left Oxford to travel for four years on
the continent, visiting, in turn, Italy, France and Germany, and, also,
acquiring a good knowledge of Italian, French and Spanish. His
autobiography leaves it doubtful how far he succeeded in gaining
access to the libraries of these countries : but it may be well to
recall that the Vatican library in Rome had not, as yet, been
rebuilt by Sixtus V, nor the Ambrosian founded by cardinal
Borromeo in Milan ; that the Laurentian library in Florence had
only recently been made accessible to the scholar, and had long
before been despoiled of some of its greatest treasures; that
Petrarch's choice collection at Arqua lay scattered far and wide,
in Naples, in Pavia, or in Paris ; that, in France, the royal library
at Fontainebleau had not, as yet, acquired the valuable collection
of Greek MSS included in the library of Catherine de' Medici,
and had only recently begun to profit by the enactment whereby
all publishers were required to forward a copy of every work
printed cum privilegio; that, in Germany, the library formed by
the Jesuits at Trier had but just been opened, while that at
Bamberg was not yet in existence. The great Fugger collection,
on the other hand, had just been added to the ducal library at
Munich, and made accessible, in the new buildings, to scholars ;
while, in the north, the ducal library at Wolfenbüttel, although
jealously fenced in by special restrictions, was beginning to attract
numerous visitors, and, at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
numbered some five thousand volumes. But, generally speaking,
the library at this period was an institution either guarded with a
## p. 430 (#452) ############################################
430
The Foundation of Libraries
6
vigilance which made it difficult of access, or with a negligence
that foreshadowed its ultimate dispersion.
After his return to England, Bodley, from 1588 to 1596, filled
the post of English resident at the Hague. But, on coming back
to England in the latter year, although repeatedly solicited to fill
more than one important office under government, he decided to
retire altogether from political life, and his remaining years may
be said to have been almost exclusively devoted to the foundation
of his great library at Oxford.
'I concluded,' he said, “at the last, to set up my staff at the Library Door
at Oxon; being thoroughly persuaded that in my solitude and surcease from
publick affairs, I could not busy myself to better purpose than by reducing
that place (which then in every part lay ruined and waste) to the publick use
of students 1. '
The ancient chamber-originally assigned as the keeping-place
of a lending library, for the use of poor students allowed to borrow
volumes on giving pledges for their safe return-had been a room
to the north of the chancel of St Mary's church, built from moneys
bequeathed by Thomas Cobham, bishop of Worcester, himself the
donor of sundry books ; but, in 1488, this chamber was discarded
for the building erected by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, over
the noble divinity school, and the library named after him, point-
ing east and west, and accessible probably by only one staircase,
was formally opened. The duke, at the same time, presented
numerous books-chiefly Latin classics and versions of Plato and
Aristotle, the chief Italian poets and also a Greek vocabulary-
the library, at his death, numbering, it is said, some 600 volumes.
Only 62 years passed, and then the books so carefully and lovingly gathered
together were destroyed or dispersed. In 1550, the Commissioners for the
Reformation of the University appointed by Edward VI laid waste its
contents. . . . So complete was the destruction that in 1556 the very book-
shelves and desks were sold as things for which there was no longer any use 3.
In the prosecution of his labours, Bodley himself tells us, he
was encouraged by the consciousness that he possessed 'four
kinds of necessary aids--some knowledge of the learned and
modern tongues and of the scholastical literature, ability and money,
friends to further the design, and leisure to pursue it. ' As regards
1 Reliquiae Bodleianae, p. 14.
* For a catalogue of the same, see Anstey's Munimenta Academica, pp. 758–772.
* Pietas O. xoniensis in memory of Sir Thomas Bodley, Knt. , and the Foundation of
the Bodleian Library, 1902. •Erasmus could hardly refrain from tears when he saw
the scanty remains of this library, and, in Leland's day, scarcely a single volume
survived,' J. E. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, vol. 1, p. 321. As
Erasmus died in 1536, this would seem to prove that the chief losses took place prior
to the reformation.
3
## p. 431 (#453) ############################################
The Bodleian
431
the second 'aid,' however, his generosity somewhat exceeded his
resources, for we learn that, in 1611, he was fain to borrow upon
bond and to pawn and sell his plate for a few hundred pounds, in
order to complete his last building of the library, which cost him,
in all, £12001 On 8 November 1602, that library, which now
numbers fully three-quarters of a million volumes, had been
formally opened with about 2,500. One of his earliest measures
had been to cause a massive folio register to be prepared for
entering the benefactions which he was able to place on the
shelves in 1604, a record subsequently kept by John Hales of
Eton; and, as time went on, some of the volumes of the original
library were restored either as a donation or by purchase. The
year 1605 saw the publication of the first catalogue, with a dedica-
tion to prince Henry, and a preface containing memoranda on
the origin and growth of the whole collection. In 1609, Bodley
executed conveyances of land in Berkshire and houses in London
for the endowment; and, in 1610, the Stationers' company under-
took to present to the library a copy of every book that they
published? This latter measure induced Godfrey Goodman, of
Trinity college, Cambridge (afterwards bishop of Gloucester), to
come forward in 1616 to urge upon the vice-chancellor of his own
university the desirability of procuring the like privilege' for that
body. “It might,' he said, 'be some occasion hereafter to move
some good benefactors towards the building of a publick libraries. '
In 1611, the statutes for the regulation of the library were approved
in convocation. And now it was that Bodley's first librarian,
Thomas James, could venture to affirm that 'upon consideration
of the number of volumes, their languages, subjects, condition, and
their use for six hours daily (Sundays and Holy days excepted),
we shall find that the like Librarie is no where to be found. '
He reckons up,'continues the Pietas,'thirty foreign languages (including
“ High-dutch, Lowe-dutch, Un-dutch," and "Scotish”) in which books are
to be found, and gives a list of the nations from which readers had frequented
the place, “French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Danes, Bohemians, Polonians,
Jewes, Ethiopians, and others,” Germans, of course, being here included in
“Dutch. ”'
In the course of the generation succeeding Bodley's death, a
series of gifts further enriched the collection over which he had
untiringly watched and in behalf of which he had disinterestedly
laboured. Foremost among these were the Greek MSS of Giacomo
Barocci, in 242 volumes, presented, in 1629, by William Herbert,
i Pietas Oxoniensis, p. 12.
Wood, Annals, 11, pp. 306—7.
8 Communication by J. E. B. Mayor in Communications of Camb. Ant. Soc. 11,
å
65
pp. 123–4.
## p. 432 (#454) ############################################
432 The Foundation of Libraries
earl of Pembroke and chancellor of the university, whose munifi-
cence was largely owing to the good offices of Laud, his successor
in that office. The archbishop himself gave some 1300 MSS in
eighteen different languages and also his fine collection of coins,
carefully arranged with a view to their use in the study of history.
Other donors were Sir Kenelm Digby, who gave 240 MSS, and
Robert Burton, author of The Anatomy of Melancholy, who,
dying in 1640, bequeathed a large miscellaneous collection of
books. Oliver Cromwell, while chancellor of the university, sent
22 Greek and two Russian MSS, and the executors of John Selden
presented the greater part of that distinguished scholar's library,
numbering about 8000 volumes, and 350 MSS, chiefly Greek and
Oriental.
The public library of the university of Cambridge dates, ap-
parently, from the early decades of the fifteenth century; and John
Croucher, who gave a copy of Chaucer's translation of Boethius,
was regarded by Bradshaw as the founder of our English library.
The earliest catalogue contains 122 titles and, later in the same
century (1473), Ralph Songer's and Richard Cockeram's catalogue
contains 330, classified and arranged. These books were kept in
the First room. The library gained greatly through the generous
benefactions of Thomas Rotheram, both in books and in buildings.
Later benefactors were archbishop Parker and Andrew Perne,
master of Peterhouse, who, at a time when the library (owing to
successive losses) scarcely contained 180 volumes, worked jointly
to increase its usefulness.
In July 1577, we find for the first time a member of the university
appointed librarian, at an annual stipend of £10. The person chosen was
William James, a Peterhouse man . . . [and in) the vice-chancellor's accounts
for 1584–5 is a payment for a carte to bring certayne written bookis from
Peter howse to the schooles, gyven by Mr Dr Perne to the librarye,' and also
'for twoe that did helpe to lade and unlade the samel!
Among these, possibly, may be included the eighth century copy
of the Latin gospels.
The erection and endowment of the Chetham library, by
Humphrey Chetham, a wealthy Manchester tradesman, resulted in
the formation of a collection which may compare, in both its
origin and its design, with that of Bodley. In founding his library
within the town of Manchester for the use of scholars,' and also
directing that 'none of the books be taken out of the Library
at any time, but be fixed or chained, as well as may be,' Chetham
would seem to have profited by the experience of the friaries;
1 Bradshaw, Collected Papers, pp. 191, 192.
6
## p. 433 (#455) ############################################
Chetham Library
433
matini
while his puritan sympathies are shown in his bequest of a special
fund of £200 for the purchase of the works of Calvin, and, also,
of those of two eminent Cambridge divines, Preston and Perkins,
which he directed should be affixed to the pillars in the churches
of Manchester and the neighbouring localities. Chetham died in
1653, and his executors proceeded, forthwith, to carry out his
instructions by purchasing, and placing in fine old shelves, a
considerable collection of the chief English protestant divines,
among whom were Baxter, Cartwright, Chillingworth, Foxe, Jewel,
Joseph Mede and Ussher. In some of the parishes, however, the
collections were allowed to fall into neglect and have altogether
disappeared. In Manchester itself, the main library was stored in
a fine old building known as the Baron's hall, and, before 1664, had
acquired some 1450 volumes.
In 1630, Sion college was founded, as a corporation of all
ministers and curates within London and its suburbs; and, during
the Commonwealth, it gave shelter to the library of old St Paul's
when the latter was menaced with confiscation. With the Restora-
tion, a portion of the collection went back to the cathedral, but
only to be consumed in the Great Fire. Of the portion that
remained in the college, not a few of the volumes are of great
rarity; while, in the reign of queen Anne, the library was admitted
to share in the privilege which had been granted in 1662—3,
whereby every printer was required to
ate
SIN
Bie
ele
.
# Pace
dit
reserve three printed copies of the best and largest paper of every book new
printed . . . and before any publick vending of the said book bring them to
the Master of the Company of Stationers, and deliver them to him, one
whereof shall be delivered to the Keeper of His Majesties library, and the
other two to be sent to the vice-chancellors of the two universities respectively,
for the use of the publick libraries of the said universities 1.
'3
In singular contrast to the numerous collections which have
been dispersed by war, the library of Trinity college, Dublin,
originated in a victory won by English arms. It was in the year
1601, after the rebellion in Munster had been crushed, that the
conquerors at Kinsale subscribed the sum of £700 for the purchase
of books to be presented to the college; and, in 1603, James
Ussher and Luke Challoner were sent to London to expend the
money. While thus employed, they fell in with Thomas Bodley,
engaged in a like errand on behalf of the future Bodleian. The
total fund at their disposal had been increased to £1800, which was
ing
: lila
nu's
beebi
1 Pickering, Statutes at Large (ed. 1763), vsi, p. 147.
E. L. lv.
CH. XIX.
28
## p. 434 (#456) ############################################
434 The Foundation of Libraries
soon invested in purchases ; and, by 1610, the original forty volumes
in the library had been increased to 4000.
Ussher's own library, however, the same that had very narrowly
escaped dispersion after he left Oxford for Wales, and which he
was designing to present to Dublin, had been confiscated by parlia-
ment as a mark of its displeasure at his refusal to recognise the
authority of the Westminster assembly of divines; and it was only
through the intercession of John Selden in his behalf, that he
eventually succeeded in recovering the larger part of the collec-
tion; then it was, that, in order to make some provision for his
daughter, lady Tyrrell, the primate was diverted from his original
intention, and bequeathed the books to her. On his death, her
ladyship received various offers for the same, the king of Denmark
and cardinal Mazarin having been among the would-be purchasers;
but Cromwell forbade the sale, and all that remained of the collec-
tion was ultimately purchased by the parliamentary army in
Ireland for £2200.
‘By the acquisition of Ussher's books,' says Macneile Dixon, 'the library
of Trinity College was at once raised to high rank. Grants from the Irish
House of Commons and the benefactions of many private persons added to
its treasures in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. . . . During the
nineteenth century, the chief increase in the number of volumes has been
due to the act of parliament which, in 1801, gave to Trinity college library
the right to a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom 1. '
In the same year that Holdsworth died, William Drummond,
laird of Hawthornden, also passed away.
He had already pre-
sented, in 1627, a collection of 500 volumes to the university of
Edinburgh, which is still carefully preserved in the university
library. Among them are early editions of some of the following
writers: Bacon, Chapman, Churchyard, Daniel, Dekker, Donne,
Drayton, Heywood, Ben Jonson, Marston, May, the countess of
Pembroke, Quarles, Selden, Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost,
1598, Romeo and Juliet, 1599), Sidney, Spenser, Sylvester and
George Wither. The Latin preface which Drummond himself
wrote and prefixed to the catalogue is worthy of note as embody-
ing a kind of philosophy of bibliography conceived in the spirit of
an educated layman of the time.
As good husbandmen,' wrote the Scotch laird,' plant trees in their times,
of which the after-age may reap the fruit, so should we; and what antiquity
hath done for us, that should we do for Posterity, so that letters and learning
may not decay, but ever flourish to the honour of God, the public utility, and
the conservation of human society? '.
1 Trinity College, Dublin, by W. Macneile Dixon, p. 223.
See Drummond's Works (1711), p. 223; Drummond of Hawthornden, by David
Masson, p. 169. See also ante, chap. IX.
## p. 435 (#457) ############################################
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
CHAPTER I
TRANSLATORS
TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GREEK AND Latin CLASSICS.
Achilles Tatius. The most delectable and pleasant history of Clitophon
and Lucippe, from the Greek of Achilles Tatius by W. B. 1597.
Aelian. Translated by Abraham Fleming. 1576.
The Tactiks of Aelian. . . . Englished by J. Blingham). 1616.
Aesop. Æsop's Fabls in tru Ortography. Translated out of Latin into
English by William Bullokar. 1585.
Appian. An auncient historie and exquisite chronicle of Roman warres . . .
from the death of Sextus Pompeius till the overthrow of Antonie and
Cleopatra.
History of the University of Cambridge, III, pp. 414—6) have given the orientation of
the college libraries of both Oxford and Cambridge.
3 See J. W. Clark's Medieval and Renaissance Libraries, pp. 43, 45 and 48.
## p. 417 (#439) ############################################
>
Monastic Libraries
417
appears, from a catalogue drawn up in the twelfth century, to
have possessed 366 volumes ; that at Croyland, if any credit
attaches to the fifteenth century writer who wrote under the
name of Ingulphus, possessed, at the time of its destruction by
re (1091), 300 volumes and some 400 tracts; that of the neigh-
bouring monastery of St Peter at Peterborough (where the
original library had been destroyed by the Danes in 870) received,
through the good offices of abbot Benedict, secretary of Thomas
Becket, some eighty different works especially transcribed for its
enrichment. At Glastonbury, the collection, at first of but small
importance, contained, in 1247, 500 works in 340 volumes.
The fact that abbot Benedict's gift to Peterborough consisted
entirely of transcriptions, reminds us that another stage had been
reached in the history of monastic libraries; and it is at about the
same time that we find one Henry, a monk of the Benedictine
abbey at Hyde, near Winchester, becoming known for his industry
as a copyist—his transcripts including Terence, Boethius, Suetonius,
Claudian and other classical authors. It is, indeed, to such labours,
far more than to the growth of new literature, that we must
attribute the great increase in the numbers of volumes, in the cata-
logues of monastic and cathedral libraries alike, which becomes
observable throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the
transcriber's toil, from time to time, receiving an abnormal stimulus
from some fire which may have resulted in the entire destruction
of a library in a single night. At Canterbury, the catalogues of
its two monasteries, that of Christ Church, compiled about the
year 1300, and that of St Augustine’s, nearly two centuries later,
afford valuable evidence: the former contains nearly 3000 titles
(or about 1850 volumes), and, while abounding in patristic and
scholastic literature, is characterised as also ‘respectable in science
and rich in history? '; the latter numbers over 1800 volumes,
including a large collection of French, and more especially
Romance, writers. Here the numerous duplicates are another
noteworthy feature, attributable, doubtless, to the desire of en-
abling several members of the community to study the same
author concurrently, and also attesting the increasing activity of
the copyists. The St Augustine's catalogue, however, is obviously
incomplete, and the same may be surmised to be the case with
1
1 Edwards, 1, 62; see, also, for an analysis of the contents of both libraries, the
introduction to M. R. James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover,
Cambridge, 1903.
See Sir F. Madden, in Notes and Queries (2nd ser. ), 1, pp. 485—6.
E. L. IV. CH. XIX.
27
## p. 418 (#440) ############################################
418
The Foundation of Libraries
the catalogue at Peterborough, which, in 1380, contained no more
than 300 volumes. The society at Worcester, although 280 volumes
still remain, is conjectured to have lost more than double that
number, and no contemporary catalogue exists. The Benedictines
at Dover possessed in 1389 some 449 volumes; and their house at
Bury St Edmunds, at the close of the same century, as many as
2000. At Durham, to which, after the Danish invasions of the
ninth century, the devastated monasteries of Wearmouth and
Jarrow had become affiliated as 'cells,' the reserved' library, by
which we are to understand, probably, the collection kept under
especial surveillance in the spendimentum (or bursary), contained,
in 1416, 500 volumes.
A brief account may here be given of a library remarkable
alike for its character and its history. The foundation known as
Syon monastery', some twelve miles from London, at Isleworth,
was one of the Brigittine order, the only one of its kind in England,
its rule being 'planned to suit the needs of religious men and
women serving God together in one church and dwelling in adjoining
houses. ' There were, however, separate libraries for the two sexes,
and the catalogue which has come down to us (now in the library
of Corpus Christi college, Cambridge) appears, by internal evidence,
to be that of the library for men. The value attached to its main-
tenance and increase is indicated by the fact that there was a rule
enjoining that masses should be said for the souls of all donors,
even of a single book, and the librarian himself was charged with
the duty of offering up such intercession or seeing that it was made.
The extent to which the practice of lending books had, by this
time, obtained among monasteries partially accounts for the
numerous losses which the collection had sustained prior to the
dissolution? The binding appears to have been executed without
regard to contents-a Horace, for example, being bound up with
a life of Thomas of Canterbury, and a Rabanus Maurus with a
Latin translation of Homer. No less than 1421 titles were duly
entered in the catalogue, and, of the entire collection, only six
volumes have as yet been traced.
But all such collections, whether those of the monastery,
the friary, or the cathedral, were exposed to special dangers.
Neither Sion college (see post, p. 433), now on the Thames Embankment (formerly
in London Wall), nor the Sion nunnery now existing at Chudleigh, in Devonshire, is in
any way connected with the ancient institution at Isleworth.
* Catalogue of the Library of Syon Monastery, Isleworth. Ed. M. Bateson,
Cambridge, 1898, preface, p. I.
• Ibid. pp. xvii, xviii.
## p. 419 (#441) ############################################
Monastic Libraries
419
At monasteries, the traveller was wont to receive shelter and
hospitality, and, if wealthy, would seek to make some return, his
gratitude not unfrequently finding expression in the gift of an
addition to the library. On the other hand, the opportunity thus
afforded to the outer world of gaining access to the interior itself
rendered the library liable to losses which not even the vigilance
of the guardian of the spendimentum could always prevent. At
friaries, whose members were in closer touch with the laity, owing
to the fact that their houses were generally within the precincts of
some city or large town, and sometimes in a main thoroughfare,
the risk, probably, was still greater. Thomas Gascoigne describes
the house of the Franciscans, as it existed in Oxford in the middle
of the fifteenth century, in the following terms:
They had two libraries in the same house; the one called the convent
library, the other the library of the schools; whereof the former was open
only to graduates; the latter to the scholars they called seculars, who lived
among those friars for the sake of learning 1,
Gottlieb, in commenting on this passage, points out that such a
division of libraries was, probably, a regular custom, and that it
affords an obvious explanation of the fact that not a few of their
catalogues, many of them very old, contain nothing but classical
authors and manuals of instruction? . That, among the mendicant
orders, Franciscans and Carmelites were especially distinguished
by their zeal for learning and energy as book hunters, is well known;
and, as early as 1381, we find them sharing with the university of
Cambridge the dislike of the townsmens. According to Mabillon, a
like arrangement with respect to their libraries existed among the
larger monasteries, especially those of the Cluniac order, on the
continent, one library being that of the choir of the monastery
church, the other that for the exclusive use of the monks—the
libri scientifici et ascetici ; and, in like manner, in the English
cathedrals, the respective duties of the armarius and the praecentor
(also cantor) point to the same distinction, although, at minor
foundations, the duties of each were often discharged by the same
individual. But, at all alike, there would generally be among the
service books one or more beautiful antiphonals, richly illuminated
and adorned with massively embossed covers; and an additional
temptation was thus presented to the despoiler, when the disso-
lution came, besides that of the gold and silver chalices, censers,
Dagdale, Monasticon, vi, p. 1527.
2 Mittelalterliche Bibliotheken, p. 305.
• Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, I, pp. 120–1.
1
27-2
## p. 420 (#442) ############################################
420 The Foundation of Libraries
crosses, ewers and candlesticks which adorned the altar and
the chapels. Such entries, again, as occur in the sales of the
plunder which took place in 1548, of 'fourteen great books in the
quire, 148. ', 'four prycksong mass books of paper,' certainly bear
out the view, that the love of choral song (noted by Erasmus as an
interesting feature in the social life of the English), had been to a
great extent fostered by those monastic or cathedral choirs of
youths and boys, whom he described as “singing, to the accom-
paniment of the organ and with harmonious modulations of voice,
their matin song in honour of the Virgin. '
Generally speaking, however, accounts contemporary with the
reformation are wanting, and we must rely on much earlier
evidence, derived from inventories, for such information as the
following, which relates to the chapel of the collegiate church of
Windsor, where,
in addition to the service books there were (temp. Richard II) 34 books on
different subjects (diversarum scientiarum) chained in the church; among
them a Bible and a concordance, and two books of French romance, one of
which was the Liber de Rosel.
This, however, was an exceptionally wealthy foundation.
The work of destruction that went on at the dissolution of the
monasteries has been dealt with in a previous chapter of this work.
Well might Thomas Fuller, as he bemoaned the havoc, more than
a century later, exclaim
What beautiful Bibles, rare Fathers, subtile Schoolmen, useful Historians,-
ancient, middle, modern; what painful Comments/were here amongst them!
What monuments of mathematics all massacred together-seeing every book
with a cross was condemned for Popish,- with circles, for conjuring? Yea,
I may say that then holy Divinity was profaned, Physics hurt, and a trespass,
yea a riot, committed on Law itself. And, more particularly, the History of
former times then and there received a dangerous wound, where of it halts
at this day, and, without hope of a perfect cure, must go a cripple to the
grave 3.
Cathedral libraries suffered far more serious losses during the
civil war than at the reformation. They were less carefully guarded
than those of the monasteries, there being no regulation requiring
their annual inspection; partly owing to the fact that the collec-
tions were mostly small : it is rarely that, prior to the fifteenth
century, we find evidences of their being catalogued; and, even
1 Victoria County History of Berkshire, 11, p. 109.
? In allusion, perhaps, to the use of symbols, which mathematicians were beginning
to resort to in their works. See W. W. R. Ball, Short History of Mathematics,
pp. 211-215; also his Hist. of Mathematics at Cambridge, pp. 15, 16.
Church History of Britain (ed. Nicholls), 11, pp. 248-9.
## p. 421 (#443) ############################################
Cathedral Libraries
421
where a catalogue existed, the entirety of the library which it
represented was too often left unverified. The Restoration marks
a third stage in their history, when churchmen made an effort to
replace, to some extent, the vanished treasures; and collections,
large or small, were brought in from localities where they were
likely to be less serviceable, the newly-introduced volumes, as at
York and Wimborne, requiring the practised eye of the expert to
distinguish them from the remnants of the original collections.
In the early decades of the seventeenth century, the library of
the minster at York still possessed the MSS brought from the
abbey at Rievaulx, and, in 1628, it received from the widow of
its former archbishop, Tobias Matthew, his valuable collection of
printed books; but the costly volumes relating to liturgic use and
to ritual were not acquired until the eighteenth century. Llandaff,
at this time, still possessed the library which it afterwards trans-
ferred to Cardiff castle for safety, but only to be destroyed
by Cromwell's soldiery. Durham had suffered severely at the
reformation, losing no inconsiderable portion of its fine illuminated
manuscripts, but still owned St Cuthbert's copy of the Gospels
(now at the British Museum), and the editio princeps of Tacitus,
by Vindelin de Spira. Here, the former refectory of the monastery
(rebuilt in 1685) contains the chapter library, while the fine
library presented by Cosin-a thoroughly representative collection
of the Jacobean era, of which the catalogue, on vellum, still exists
-has been transferred to the castle. Rochester has preserved
but few manuscripts of any interest; but, among the printed books,
there is a copy of the first printed English Bible of 1535, and a fine
a
missal (Salisbury use) printed by Regnault in 1534. Lichfield
possesses little that can be considered strictly monastic, its library
dating from the benefaction of Frances, duchess of Somerset, in 1672.
Ceadda's (St Chad's) copy of the Gospels, however, found its way
thither from Llandaff, and the collection also includes a fine MS of
the pocms of Chaucer. Hereford, on the other hand, preserves (but in
a special building) a library which presents, both in its literature and
in its furniture, a singularly pleasing example of a medieval institu-
tion—the catalogue itself chained to the desk, the volumes arranged
according to the then customary classification, while the Mappa
Mundi is of world-wide fame. There is also a copy of Coverdale's
Bible of 1535. None of the preceding, however, could compare in
regard to literature with Salisbury, which can still show an array
of MSS filling one hundred and eighty-seven volumes, remained
intact for a period of four hundred years and included produc-
tions ranging from the ninth to the fourteenth century, among
a
## p. 422 (#444) ############################################
422
The Foundation of Libraries
them the Gallican Psalter of the ninth century, an English version
of the Gospel of Nicodemus, Chaucer's translation of Boethius and
a MS of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The Inventory of the Riches of
the Cathedral Church of Sarum, 'made by Master Thomas
Robertson, Treasurer of the same Church in 1536,' contains a
list of items which attest the wealth of the ancient foundation.
Winchester, on the other hand, did not become possessed of its
fine collection of Bibles, bequeathed by bishop Morley, until 1684.
The collection also includes the early editions of Izaak Walton's
works. At Lincoln, many of the MSS have suffered mutilation;
while, about the middle of the seventeenth century, the ancient
library was greatly injured by fire. There is still, however, to
be seen a MS of Old English romances, collected (c. 1430) by
Robert de Thornton, archdeacon of Bedford. Exeter possesses no
catalogue earlier than 1683. Out of the sixty volumes given by
Leofric, its first bishop, the library can still show its Liber
Exoniensis, to which reference has been made in volume 1 of the
present work. At Wells, there are the five volumes of the Aldine
Aristotle, one of them with the autograph of Erasmus. Ely
possesses no editiones principes, but there is a considerable
number of tracts relating to the history of the Nonjurors. At
Lambeth, the valuable collection (which may be said to have
originated in the bequest of archbishop Bancroft) remained un-
catalogued until the time of Edmund Gibson, bishop of London,
who made a beginning, which was not carried to completion until
the time of Ducarel, its librarian towards the end of the eighteenth
century. At Chichester, the library possesses MSS of the statutes
of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and of an account of the foundation of
Christchurch, Oxford. At Westminster, Hacket tells us that John
Williams, when dean,
converted a waste room . . . into a goodly library, modeld it into decent shape,
furnish'd it with desks and chairs, accoutred it with all utensils and stored it
with a vast number of learned volumes. For which use he lighted most
fortunately upon the study of that learned gentleman, Mr Baker of Highgate,
who in a long and industrious life had collected into his own possession the
best authors in all sciences, in their best editions, which being bought at 500 1.
(a cheap pennyworth for such precious ware) were removed into this store
honsel.
The libraries in both universities sustained irreparable losses
during the period of the reformation.
It is clear, from Leland's Collectanea, that Clare College possessed in his
time a large number of books of which there is no trace now. We have in
print catalogues of the old libraries at Corpus Christi, Trinity Hall, King's,
· Life of Williams, pt. 1, p. 47.
1
## p. 423 (#445) ############################################
Cambridge College Libraries
423
Queens', St Catherine's, and the University. At the present moment [1899]
19 of the University Library books are known to exist out of 330. At Corpus
Christi, 3 out of 75; at Queens', I believe, none; at King's, 1 out of 176; at
Trinity Hall, 1; at St Catherine's none out of about 1001,
On the other hand, most of these libraries had also been receiving
considerable accessions. Perne, who held the mastership of Peter-
house from 1553 to 1589, was distinguished by his efforts on behalf
of the university library and also of the library of his own college.
In relation to the former, Bradshaw says that we may fairly look
upon him as the principal agent in its restoration at this period. '
While, as regards the college, he not only provided for the erection
of the present library, but 'enriched it with a large share of his
magnificent collections? ' None of the colleges (with the exception
of Corpus Christi) bestowed greater care than did Peterhouse on its
books and on their preservation-a tradition, possibly, from those
earlier days, when, as night came on, the town gates were closed,
and the little society without was called upon to trust solely to its
own vigilance, against the marauder and the purloiner. As early
as 1472, the library had been further augmented by the bequest of
the royal physician, Roger Marshall, and a portion of his bequest
had, by his instructions, been placed in apertiori libraria,
evidently with the design of rendering the volumes more generally
accessible, without allowing them to be borrowed. Eight years
later, however, during the mastership of John Warkworth (the
reputed author of the Chronicle), further regulations were enacted,
whereby it was made permissible to lend a volume to a member of
the society for a term of two years, but with the precaution of first
obtaining a valuation of the book so as, in the event of its not being
returned, to mulct the borrower in its full value. At Corpus Christi
college, at the time when archbishop Parker bequeathed his noble
collection, the original library had almost disappeared. He made
it his first care, on succeeding to the mastership in 1544, and
finding many volumes in the library scattered about without any
safe keeping,' to take measures which involved a radical reform.
The earliest catalogue—that compiled by John Botener in 1376
and other records, enable us to realise the serious losses which had
been sustained and also to understand how such experiences may
IM. R. James, The Sources of Archbishop Parker's Collection of MSS at Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, Camb. Ant. Soc. , Octavo Publications, vol. XXXI; Willis
and Clark, Architectural History, etc. III, p. 404.
T. A. Walker. For an account of the original library, see vol. II, obap. xv,
pp. 362—7.
3 See A Catalogue of the Books bequeathed to C. C. College by Tho. Markaunt in
1439, ed. J. O. Halliwell, Camb. Ant. Soc. Publ. vol. 11, pp. 15–20.
a
## p. 424 (#446) ############################################
424 The Foundation of Libraries
well have seemed to him to justify the almost unprecedented
regulations wherewith he sought to guard against their recurrence.
In 1578, the college chapel was rebuilt, and rooms were constructed
over it; and, in a small chamber over the ante-chapel, the famous
Parker MSS were safely housed for some 250 years.
Parker stands at the head of the race of modern book-collectors. As
Archbishop of Canterbury during the early years of Queen Elizabeth's reign,
he had the first pick of the whole of the plunder of the libraries and muni-
ment-rooms of the dissolved religious houses; and his suffragans were only
too ready to gain his favour by almost forcing upon him the treasures of the
Cathedral librariesl.
A series of catalogues, from those compiled by Parker himself to
that drawn up by M. R. James, give proof of what may be described
as a continuously growing sense of the value of the entire col-
lection. Among the chief treasures, the MS of the four Gospels
(no. 286) is asserted to have been one of the volumes that pope
Gregory the Great sent from Rome for the use of St Austin of
Canterbury; two chronicles (nos. 16 and 26) are supposed to have
been composed, written and illustrated by Matthew Paris,
historiographer of St Albans. The collection is also strong in
liturgiology; but it is, perhaps, most widely known by its wealth in
Old English literature, of which there are five distinct classes :
Gospels, Annals of England, Glossaries, Homilies (Aelfric's Lives
of the Saints) and Canons. James has identified no less than
47 volumes as formerly belonging to Christ Church priory, and
26 to St Augustine's abbey, both at Canterbury.
The losses against which Parker had sought to guard his
bequeathed treasures either menaced, or actually overtook, other
colleges, but not until long after his death, and then chiefly
in connection with political events, of which the experience of
Emmanuel college affords a singularly noteworthy but somewhat
complicated illustration. Richard Bancroft, who had been educated
at Christ's college and was, subsequently, a fellow of Jesus, becom-
ing, finally, archbishop of Canterbury, died in 1610, bequeathing a
valuable library to his successors in the see; but his bequest was
accompanied with certain conditions which proved difficult to carry
into effect. Those who were to inherit it were to give security for
its due preservation in its entirety, a requirement which the
enforcement of the covenant rendered impracticable. Failing this
proviso, the collection was to become the property of Bancroft's
projected foundation of Chelsea college, of which the scheme,
1 Bradshaw and Wordsworth, Lincoln Cathedral Statutes, Pt. 1, p. 184.
## p. 425 (#447) ############################################
Cambridge College Libraries
425
however, altogether collapsed. And, finally, the donor, in antici-
pation of such miscarriage, had designated the university of
Cambridge as the recipient. For thirty years, however, owing to
.
certain obstacles, although the collection was augmented by con-
siderable gifts from both archbishop Abbot and his rival Laud, it
remained stowed away in 'the study over the Cloisters at Lambeth,'
until parliament, on being formally petitioned, intervened, and
order was given, in February 1645/6, that the entire collection,
now unrivalled as a source of information with respect to church
history in the Jacobean era, should be sent to Cambridge. It
was not, even then, until after John Selden and others had
used their influence that these instructions were carried into
effect. On the arrival of the books, the imposing array was
described by the academic authorities as evoking no little 'exulta-
tion’; and parliament itself, on learning that the first result had
been to render increased accommodation imperatively necessary,
was induced to grant £2000 ‘for the building and finishing the
Public Library at Cambridge. ' The Lords, although unable to
give their assent, concurred, notwithstanding, in a separate grant
for the purchase from Thomason of a valuable collection of
Hebrew books-noted by Henry Bradshaw as constituting the
nucleus of the Hebrew library of the university. The volumes
given by Abbot and other later donors had not been sent with
Bancroft's, but in the following year (1649) these also arrived.
It
was at this juncture that the death of Richard Holdsworth gave
rise to unlooked for complications. Holdsworth was a distinguished
scholar who had filled the office of public orator with marked
ability, but, owing to his refusal to take the covenant, had been
ejected, in 1644, from the mastership of Emmanuel and, subsequently,
imprisoned in the Tower. He was well known, however, to Man-
chester, the puritan general, and had, consequently, been able to save
his own valuable library from sequestration by declaring his inten-
tion of bequeathing it to his college ; but, at his death, in 1649, it
was found, on opening his will, that he had finally decided to leave
the collection to the university library should the Bancroft collec-
tion ever be reclaimed for Lambeth. When the Restoration came,
it was one of Juxon's first measures as primate to make that demand,
as it was one of his last, to provide for the fit reception of the books
by the erection of the noble building which bears his name. The
university promptly complied; but, when it sought to obtain some
compensation for its loss, by applying for the transfer of Holds-
worth's library (then in London) to its own shelves, the authorities
at Emmanuel contested their claim, and a suit was consequently
## p. 426 (#448) ############################################
426
The Foundation of Libraries
begun in the court of Arches. Eventually, the matter was left to
be dealt with by three adjudicators—the archbishop of York, the
bishop of London and the bishop of Ely-who, in December 1664,
gave a formal award on parchment to the following effect :
(1) Holdsworth’s printed books and MSS were to come to the
public library at Cambridge ; (2) duplicates were to be disposed
of, as Holdsworth had directed in his will; (3) Emmanuel college
was to receive from the university £200 in settlement of its claim,
and also to be repaid its costs, provided the said costs did not
exceed £20.
To St Catharine's belongs the credit of having been the first to
print its entire catalogue, 1771; but that by Stanley, of the Parker
MSS at Corpus, had appeared in 1722; and, in 1827, Queens'
college printed (its catalogue, compiled by Thomas Hartwell
Horne, in two large octavo volumes.
The library of St John's college, Cambridge, affords an ex-
cellent example of both the literature and the architecture of the
period, having been built in 1624, by John Williams, the lord
keeper (whose arms are over the doorway), in the style known
as Jacobean Gothic; the interior, with its white-washed walls,
dark oak ceiling and presses, still presenting very much the same
appearance that it must have done in 1654, when John Evelyn
pronounced it the fairest of that university. ' The presses, more
particularly--each with its sloping top, designed, originally, to serve
as a reading-desk, and list of contents at the end, enclosed under
folding panels—are a good illustration of the medieval arrange-
ments already described! Among the contents to be noted are:
the so-called Cromwell's Bible, printed (on vellum) partly in
Paris and partly in London, and 'finished in Aprill, A. D. 1539'-
a vast folio, splendidly illuminated, bearing the arms of Thomas
Cromwell; the service books used by Charles I and archbishop
Laud at the coronation of the former, and that used by Sancroft
at the coronation of James II; a curious Irish Psalter supposed to
be of the ninth century, with grotesque drawings, and interlined
throughout with Latin glosses written in Celtic minuscules? ; and an
' ¡lluminated book of Hours, an admirable specimen of Flemish art,
containing the autograph of the foundress, the Lady Margaret.
Neither the statutes of Michael house nor those of King's ball
(the two foundations subsequently absorbed in Trinity) contain
any reference to books, and the erection of the magnificent library
i See ante, p. 416.
2 See M. R. James's introduction (p. xciii) to The Ancient Libraries oj Canterbury
and Dover.
## p. 427 (#449) ############################################
are
dos
fis
e Pais
008
Oxford College Libraries
427
of Trinity, of which the plans were first begun by Sir Christopher
Wren in 1676, belongs to a period beyond our present limits.
Among the donors to the Trinity collection, Sir Edward Stanhope,
a fellow of the society, bequeathed fifteen manuscripts and over
300 volumes, among them the Polyglot Bible, known as king
Philip's Bible; and James Duport, vice-master of the society, and
afterwards master of Magdalene, was a liberal donor of 'English
books,' under which denomination the compiler of the catalogue
includes not only works in the English language, whether printed
in the country or abroad, but books which 'though not in the
English language, have a distinct connection with the English
Church, history, or literature? '
The original catalogue of Magdalene college library is still
preserved, 'a volume with an illuminated heraldic frontispiece
bearing the arms of Thomas Howard, a distinguished benefactor
to the society, whom king James had created first earl of Suffolk
in 1603; while, on the opposite page, the names of the earliest
donors to the library appear on the leaves of an olive-tree. The
list begins with the name of Thomas Nevile, of Pembroke college,
whom the earl had appointed master in 1582. A Nuremberg
Chronicon (folio, 1493); an Aesop (de Worde, 1503); a Manuale
ad usum Sarum (Rouen, 1504); a Salisbury breviary (London,
1556), are among the chief rarities?
At Oxford, college libraries had, in most instances, been
unscrupulously plundered by the Edwardian commissioners, and
little of value or importance remained at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. At Balliol, the college of that great patron
of learning, William Grey, bishop of Ely, the newly-built library
possessed, in 1478, two hundred volumes (including a printed copy
of Josephus), by virtue of his bequest ; but, by Anthony à Wood's
time, most of the miniatures in the volumes that remained had dis-
appeared. At Merton, the library retained every structural feature
of bishop Rede's original work, and continued, down to the year
1792, to afford, with its chained volumes, an excellent example of
a medieval interior. Oriel still preserved its catalogue of 1375,
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1 See Catalogue of the English Books printed before MDCI. now in the Library of
Trinity College, Cambridge, by Robert Sinker, Cambridge, 1885.
? A few words may here be added by way of anticipation respecting the Pepysian
library, which, along with the M8 of the donor's diary (in cipher) he bequeathed to the
college, although they were not actually received until 1724. By his directions they were
placed in a separate chamber, the catalogue having been compiled by himself. Among
the contents are six Caxtons, five folio volumes of old ballads, & splendid Sarum missal
(1620) and a valuable collection of prints, chiefly portraits.
lila
## p. 428 (#450) ############################################
428
The Foundation of Libraries
comprising about 100 volumes arranged according to the tradi-
tional branches of study. Queen's still gave shelter to its modest
collection in the original building—the present fine library being an
erection of the last decade of the seventeenth century. New college
could still boast the possession of its MS copy of the Nicomachean
Ethics as, also, of the first printed edition (1495—8) of Aristotle's
collected works ; but Lincoln had been plundered of the greater
part of the valuable collections given by Thomas Gascoigne and
Robert Fleming. Its catalogue of 1474 shows the college to have
been, at that time, in possession of 135 manuscripts, arranged in
seven presses. Faithful to the traditions derived from Linacre,
the shelves of All Souls were largely laden with that medical
literature which continued to increase throughout the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. It possessed, also, a few volumes of
collection (chiefly theological and of writers on civil and canon
law) given, in 1440, by Henry VI; manuscripts and books given by
cardinal Pole; and, a far more valuable gift, those bequeathed by
his relative, David Pole.
Brasenose, where the library had twice changed its orientation,
was not, as yet, in possession of the tenth century manuscript of
Terence, which once belonged to cardinal Bembo. At Corpus
Christi, the trilinguis bibliotheca, which Erasmus had prophesied
would one day attract more scholars to Oxford than Rome, in his
time, attracted to behold miracles, scarcely fulfilled his sanguine
prediction, but it has been stated that the college possessed, at
this period, the largest and best furnished college library then in
Oxford'. Christ Church, in the room which had formerly been
the refectory of St Frideswide's convent, had stowed away some
early MS copies of Wyclif's Bible, and was possessed of one of the
original transcripts of the life of her great founder by Cavendish,
together with a service book which Wolsey had been wont to use.
St John's could already pride itself on a fine collection of rare
books relating to English history and also on one of pre-reforma-
tion and reformation books of devotion, while its specimens of the
Caxton press still outvie those possessed by any other college.
Although a regard for learning, and, especially, theological
learning, was a marked characteristic of James I, he was by no
means distinguished as a book collector; and, whatever was done
during his reign towards carrying out the designs of his prede-
cessors, in this direction, was chiefly owing to the short-lived
* Corpus Christi College (Oxford), by Thomas Fowler, pp. 34, 255.
## p. 429 (#451) ############################################
>
Thomas Bodley
429
influence of his son, prince Henry, and the mature energy of
scholars like Sir Thomas Bodley and Sir Robert Cotton, whose
names are associated with the great collections at Oxford and in
the British Museum. It was owing to the prince that the royal
library was saved from spoliation, and to Bodley that the ‘Old
library,' in the university of Oxford, which had been completely
dispersed, was re-established to such an extent as to lead convoca-
tion, in 1617, to greet the latter as Publicae Bibliothecae Fundator.
His father, John Bodley, had been one of the exiles who fled from
England during the Marian persecution. In Geneva, Thomas, the
eldest son, read Homer with Constantine (author of the Lexicon
graeco-latinum), and attended the lectures of Chevallier in Hebrew,
of Phil. Beroaldus in Greek and of Calvin and Beza in divinity. On
his return to England, he was entered by his father at Magdalen
college, Oxford, where Laurence Humphry, a scholar of repute,
was president. Before long, Bodley was appointed to lecture on
Greek in the college, and, subsequently, on natural philosophy in
the schools. In 1576, he left Oxford to travel for four years on
the continent, visiting, in turn, Italy, France and Germany, and, also,
acquiring a good knowledge of Italian, French and Spanish. His
autobiography leaves it doubtful how far he succeeded in gaining
access to the libraries of these countries : but it may be well to
recall that the Vatican library in Rome had not, as yet, been
rebuilt by Sixtus V, nor the Ambrosian founded by cardinal
Borromeo in Milan ; that the Laurentian library in Florence had
only recently been made accessible to the scholar, and had long
before been despoiled of some of its greatest treasures; that
Petrarch's choice collection at Arqua lay scattered far and wide,
in Naples, in Pavia, or in Paris ; that, in France, the royal library
at Fontainebleau had not, as yet, acquired the valuable collection
of Greek MSS included in the library of Catherine de' Medici,
and had only recently begun to profit by the enactment whereby
all publishers were required to forward a copy of every work
printed cum privilegio; that, in Germany, the library formed by
the Jesuits at Trier had but just been opened, while that at
Bamberg was not yet in existence. The great Fugger collection,
on the other hand, had just been added to the ducal library at
Munich, and made accessible, in the new buildings, to scholars ;
while, in the north, the ducal library at Wolfenbüttel, although
jealously fenced in by special restrictions, was beginning to attract
numerous visitors, and, at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
numbered some five thousand volumes. But, generally speaking,
the library at this period was an institution either guarded with a
## p. 430 (#452) ############################################
430
The Foundation of Libraries
6
vigilance which made it difficult of access, or with a negligence
that foreshadowed its ultimate dispersion.
After his return to England, Bodley, from 1588 to 1596, filled
the post of English resident at the Hague. But, on coming back
to England in the latter year, although repeatedly solicited to fill
more than one important office under government, he decided to
retire altogether from political life, and his remaining years may
be said to have been almost exclusively devoted to the foundation
of his great library at Oxford.
'I concluded,' he said, “at the last, to set up my staff at the Library Door
at Oxon; being thoroughly persuaded that in my solitude and surcease from
publick affairs, I could not busy myself to better purpose than by reducing
that place (which then in every part lay ruined and waste) to the publick use
of students 1. '
The ancient chamber-originally assigned as the keeping-place
of a lending library, for the use of poor students allowed to borrow
volumes on giving pledges for their safe return-had been a room
to the north of the chancel of St Mary's church, built from moneys
bequeathed by Thomas Cobham, bishop of Worcester, himself the
donor of sundry books ; but, in 1488, this chamber was discarded
for the building erected by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, over
the noble divinity school, and the library named after him, point-
ing east and west, and accessible probably by only one staircase,
was formally opened. The duke, at the same time, presented
numerous books-chiefly Latin classics and versions of Plato and
Aristotle, the chief Italian poets and also a Greek vocabulary-
the library, at his death, numbering, it is said, some 600 volumes.
Only 62 years passed, and then the books so carefully and lovingly gathered
together were destroyed or dispersed. In 1550, the Commissioners for the
Reformation of the University appointed by Edward VI laid waste its
contents. . . . So complete was the destruction that in 1556 the very book-
shelves and desks were sold as things for which there was no longer any use 3.
In the prosecution of his labours, Bodley himself tells us, he
was encouraged by the consciousness that he possessed 'four
kinds of necessary aids--some knowledge of the learned and
modern tongues and of the scholastical literature, ability and money,
friends to further the design, and leisure to pursue it. ' As regards
1 Reliquiae Bodleianae, p. 14.
* For a catalogue of the same, see Anstey's Munimenta Academica, pp. 758–772.
* Pietas O. xoniensis in memory of Sir Thomas Bodley, Knt. , and the Foundation of
the Bodleian Library, 1902. •Erasmus could hardly refrain from tears when he saw
the scanty remains of this library, and, in Leland's day, scarcely a single volume
survived,' J. E. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, vol. 1, p. 321. As
Erasmus died in 1536, this would seem to prove that the chief losses took place prior
to the reformation.
3
## p. 431 (#453) ############################################
The Bodleian
431
the second 'aid,' however, his generosity somewhat exceeded his
resources, for we learn that, in 1611, he was fain to borrow upon
bond and to pawn and sell his plate for a few hundred pounds, in
order to complete his last building of the library, which cost him,
in all, £12001 On 8 November 1602, that library, which now
numbers fully three-quarters of a million volumes, had been
formally opened with about 2,500. One of his earliest measures
had been to cause a massive folio register to be prepared for
entering the benefactions which he was able to place on the
shelves in 1604, a record subsequently kept by John Hales of
Eton; and, as time went on, some of the volumes of the original
library were restored either as a donation or by purchase. The
year 1605 saw the publication of the first catalogue, with a dedica-
tion to prince Henry, and a preface containing memoranda on
the origin and growth of the whole collection. In 1609, Bodley
executed conveyances of land in Berkshire and houses in London
for the endowment; and, in 1610, the Stationers' company under-
took to present to the library a copy of every book that they
published? This latter measure induced Godfrey Goodman, of
Trinity college, Cambridge (afterwards bishop of Gloucester), to
come forward in 1616 to urge upon the vice-chancellor of his own
university the desirability of procuring the like privilege' for that
body. “It might,' he said, 'be some occasion hereafter to move
some good benefactors towards the building of a publick libraries. '
In 1611, the statutes for the regulation of the library were approved
in convocation. And now it was that Bodley's first librarian,
Thomas James, could venture to affirm that 'upon consideration
of the number of volumes, their languages, subjects, condition, and
their use for six hours daily (Sundays and Holy days excepted),
we shall find that the like Librarie is no where to be found. '
He reckons up,'continues the Pietas,'thirty foreign languages (including
“ High-dutch, Lowe-dutch, Un-dutch," and "Scotish”) in which books are
to be found, and gives a list of the nations from which readers had frequented
the place, “French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Danes, Bohemians, Polonians,
Jewes, Ethiopians, and others,” Germans, of course, being here included in
“Dutch. ”'
In the course of the generation succeeding Bodley's death, a
series of gifts further enriched the collection over which he had
untiringly watched and in behalf of which he had disinterestedly
laboured. Foremost among these were the Greek MSS of Giacomo
Barocci, in 242 volumes, presented, in 1629, by William Herbert,
i Pietas Oxoniensis, p. 12.
Wood, Annals, 11, pp. 306—7.
8 Communication by J. E. B. Mayor in Communications of Camb. Ant. Soc. 11,
å
65
pp. 123–4.
## p. 432 (#454) ############################################
432 The Foundation of Libraries
earl of Pembroke and chancellor of the university, whose munifi-
cence was largely owing to the good offices of Laud, his successor
in that office. The archbishop himself gave some 1300 MSS in
eighteen different languages and also his fine collection of coins,
carefully arranged with a view to their use in the study of history.
Other donors were Sir Kenelm Digby, who gave 240 MSS, and
Robert Burton, author of The Anatomy of Melancholy, who,
dying in 1640, bequeathed a large miscellaneous collection of
books. Oliver Cromwell, while chancellor of the university, sent
22 Greek and two Russian MSS, and the executors of John Selden
presented the greater part of that distinguished scholar's library,
numbering about 8000 volumes, and 350 MSS, chiefly Greek and
Oriental.
The public library of the university of Cambridge dates, ap-
parently, from the early decades of the fifteenth century; and John
Croucher, who gave a copy of Chaucer's translation of Boethius,
was regarded by Bradshaw as the founder of our English library.
The earliest catalogue contains 122 titles and, later in the same
century (1473), Ralph Songer's and Richard Cockeram's catalogue
contains 330, classified and arranged. These books were kept in
the First room. The library gained greatly through the generous
benefactions of Thomas Rotheram, both in books and in buildings.
Later benefactors were archbishop Parker and Andrew Perne,
master of Peterhouse, who, at a time when the library (owing to
successive losses) scarcely contained 180 volumes, worked jointly
to increase its usefulness.
In July 1577, we find for the first time a member of the university
appointed librarian, at an annual stipend of £10. The person chosen was
William James, a Peterhouse man . . . [and in) the vice-chancellor's accounts
for 1584–5 is a payment for a carte to bring certayne written bookis from
Peter howse to the schooles, gyven by Mr Dr Perne to the librarye,' and also
'for twoe that did helpe to lade and unlade the samel!
Among these, possibly, may be included the eighth century copy
of the Latin gospels.
The erection and endowment of the Chetham library, by
Humphrey Chetham, a wealthy Manchester tradesman, resulted in
the formation of a collection which may compare, in both its
origin and its design, with that of Bodley. In founding his library
within the town of Manchester for the use of scholars,' and also
directing that 'none of the books be taken out of the Library
at any time, but be fixed or chained, as well as may be,' Chetham
would seem to have profited by the experience of the friaries;
1 Bradshaw, Collected Papers, pp. 191, 192.
6
## p. 433 (#455) ############################################
Chetham Library
433
matini
while his puritan sympathies are shown in his bequest of a special
fund of £200 for the purchase of the works of Calvin, and, also,
of those of two eminent Cambridge divines, Preston and Perkins,
which he directed should be affixed to the pillars in the churches
of Manchester and the neighbouring localities. Chetham died in
1653, and his executors proceeded, forthwith, to carry out his
instructions by purchasing, and placing in fine old shelves, a
considerable collection of the chief English protestant divines,
among whom were Baxter, Cartwright, Chillingworth, Foxe, Jewel,
Joseph Mede and Ussher. In some of the parishes, however, the
collections were allowed to fall into neglect and have altogether
disappeared. In Manchester itself, the main library was stored in
a fine old building known as the Baron's hall, and, before 1664, had
acquired some 1450 volumes.
In 1630, Sion college was founded, as a corporation of all
ministers and curates within London and its suburbs; and, during
the Commonwealth, it gave shelter to the library of old St Paul's
when the latter was menaced with confiscation. With the Restora-
tion, a portion of the collection went back to the cathedral, but
only to be consumed in the Great Fire. Of the portion that
remained in the college, not a few of the volumes are of great
rarity; while, in the reign of queen Anne, the library was admitted
to share in the privilege which had been granted in 1662—3,
whereby every printer was required to
ate
SIN
Bie
ele
.
# Pace
dit
reserve three printed copies of the best and largest paper of every book new
printed . . . and before any publick vending of the said book bring them to
the Master of the Company of Stationers, and deliver them to him, one
whereof shall be delivered to the Keeper of His Majesties library, and the
other two to be sent to the vice-chancellors of the two universities respectively,
for the use of the publick libraries of the said universities 1.
'3
In singular contrast to the numerous collections which have
been dispersed by war, the library of Trinity college, Dublin,
originated in a victory won by English arms. It was in the year
1601, after the rebellion in Munster had been crushed, that the
conquerors at Kinsale subscribed the sum of £700 for the purchase
of books to be presented to the college; and, in 1603, James
Ussher and Luke Challoner were sent to London to expend the
money. While thus employed, they fell in with Thomas Bodley,
engaged in a like errand on behalf of the future Bodleian. The
total fund at their disposal had been increased to £1800, which was
ing
: lila
nu's
beebi
1 Pickering, Statutes at Large (ed. 1763), vsi, p. 147.
E. L. lv.
CH. XIX.
28
## p. 434 (#456) ############################################
434 The Foundation of Libraries
soon invested in purchases ; and, by 1610, the original forty volumes
in the library had been increased to 4000.
Ussher's own library, however, the same that had very narrowly
escaped dispersion after he left Oxford for Wales, and which he
was designing to present to Dublin, had been confiscated by parlia-
ment as a mark of its displeasure at his refusal to recognise the
authority of the Westminster assembly of divines; and it was only
through the intercession of John Selden in his behalf, that he
eventually succeeded in recovering the larger part of the collec-
tion; then it was, that, in order to make some provision for his
daughter, lady Tyrrell, the primate was diverted from his original
intention, and bequeathed the books to her. On his death, her
ladyship received various offers for the same, the king of Denmark
and cardinal Mazarin having been among the would-be purchasers;
but Cromwell forbade the sale, and all that remained of the collec-
tion was ultimately purchased by the parliamentary army in
Ireland for £2200.
‘By the acquisition of Ussher's books,' says Macneile Dixon, 'the library
of Trinity College was at once raised to high rank. Grants from the Irish
House of Commons and the benefactions of many private persons added to
its treasures in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. . . . During the
nineteenth century, the chief increase in the number of volumes has been
due to the act of parliament which, in 1801, gave to Trinity college library
the right to a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom 1. '
In the same year that Holdsworth died, William Drummond,
laird of Hawthornden, also passed away.
He had already pre-
sented, in 1627, a collection of 500 volumes to the university of
Edinburgh, which is still carefully preserved in the university
library. Among them are early editions of some of the following
writers: Bacon, Chapman, Churchyard, Daniel, Dekker, Donne,
Drayton, Heywood, Ben Jonson, Marston, May, the countess of
Pembroke, Quarles, Selden, Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost,
1598, Romeo and Juliet, 1599), Sidney, Spenser, Sylvester and
George Wither. The Latin preface which Drummond himself
wrote and prefixed to the catalogue is worthy of note as embody-
ing a kind of philosophy of bibliography conceived in the spirit of
an educated layman of the time.
As good husbandmen,' wrote the Scotch laird,' plant trees in their times,
of which the after-age may reap the fruit, so should we; and what antiquity
hath done for us, that should we do for Posterity, so that letters and learning
may not decay, but ever flourish to the honour of God, the public utility, and
the conservation of human society? '.
1 Trinity College, Dublin, by W. Macneile Dixon, p. 223.
See Drummond's Works (1711), p. 223; Drummond of Hawthornden, by David
Masson, p. 169. See also ante, chap. IX.
## p. 435 (#457) ############################################
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
CHAPTER I
TRANSLATORS
TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GREEK AND Latin CLASSICS.
Achilles Tatius. The most delectable and pleasant history of Clitophon
and Lucippe, from the Greek of Achilles Tatius by W. B. 1597.
Aelian. Translated by Abraham Fleming. 1576.
The Tactiks of Aelian. . . . Englished by J. Blingham). 1616.
Aesop. Æsop's Fabls in tru Ortography. Translated out of Latin into
English by William Bullokar. 1585.
Appian. An auncient historie and exquisite chronicle of Roman warres . . .
from the death of Sextus Pompeius till the overthrow of Antonie and
Cleopatra.
