Libraries -- History; Library architecture -- History; Library fittings and supplies -- History
Moreover, all the books of the College are to be kept in
some safe room, to be assigned for the College Library,
so that all the Scholars of the College may have common
access to them. We give leave, however, that the poor
scholars of the college may have the loan of books
containing the texts of Canon and Civil Law for their
private use for a certain time, to be fixed at the
discretion of the Master and the three Senior Fellows,
provided they be not taken out of College; but the books
of the Doctors of Civil and Canon Law are to remain
continuously in the said Library Chamber, fastened with
iron chains for the common use of the Fellows[268].
It is evident that this statute was regarded as a full and satisfactory
expression of what was required, for it is repeated, with additions or
omissions to suit the taste of the respective founders, in the statutes of
New College (1400), All Souls' (1443), Magdalen (1479), Corpus Christi
(1517), Brasenose (1521), Cardinal College (1527) and S. John's College
(1555), at Oxford; and in those of King's College, Cambridge.
Among these changes a few are sufficiently important to require special
notice. At New College William of Wykeham allows students in civil law and
canon law to keep two text-books "for their own special use during the
whole time they devote themselves to those faculties in our College,
provided they do not possess such books of their own"; the "remaining
text-books, should any be left over, and also the glosses or commentaries
of the Doctors of civil and canon law, may be lent to the persons
belonging to those faculties by the method of annual selection, as in the
other faculties"; the "books which remain unassigned after the Fellows
have made their selection are to be fastened with iron chains, and remain
in the Common Library for the use of the Fellows[269]"; the wishes of
donors, whether expressed by will or during their lifetime, are to be
respected; and, lastly, the safety of the Library is to be secured by
three locks, two large, and one small, of the kind called "a clickett."
The keys of the two former are to be kept by the Senior Dean and the
Bursar respectively; of the clickett each Fellow is to have a separate
key. At night the door is to be carefully locked with all three keys[270].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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