Books were loaned quite extensively. This was especially true among the monasteries of the same order. These orders naturally looked to certain of their houses as the leading or mother establishments in various localities. These leading establishments were often the actual mother houses from which others had been created by colonization, besides being the seats of the high officials of the order. Naturally the age and wealth of these central houses enabled them to possess large and valuable libraries. It was their duty to see that the smaller houses were provided with correct copies of the rules and regulations of the order, service books which it used, and other valuable material, as well as to assist them to secure more strictly literary material. Therefore some of these places became veritable circulating libraries for the subordinate houses. In addition to this there was a certain amount of loaning between the orders and persons outside the orders both clerical and, at a later period, lay. These loans were carefully registered and regulated and excepting when occurring in the regular discharge of duty were guarded by the most vigilant precautions. The books were, of course, carefully provided with identification marks. Loan was made a matter of record and pledges were exacted for the safe return of the volume. This pledge was sometimes the deposit of a manuscript supposed to be of equal value, sometimes a mortgage on property, and sometimes a deposit of money or jewels. In spite of all these precautions, however, loans were not infrequently abused. Borrowed volumes were sometimes never returned. Sometimes the identification marks were removed, as existing manuscripts show. Sometimes passages were erased from a borrowed book because the borrower considered them heretical. Ancient borrowers were also addicted to one of the most exasperating of modern literary crimes, the scribbling of their own opinions on the margins of borrowed books. Valuable books were kept chained to the desks which were provided for those who had occasion to consult them. The old library of Durham Cathedral contains many of the old volumes, still chained to their original places. In the early days of Bible translation in England the huge folio Bibles of the period were chained in the churches where all could consult them.