Libraries -- History; Library architecture -- History; Library fittings and supplies -- History
These provisions savour of the cloister. The "common books" represent the
"common press (_armarium commune_)" with which we are so familiar there;
the double or triple locks with which the book-chests are secured recall
the rules for safeguarding the said press; the annual audit and
distribution of books is directed in Lanfranc's statutes for English
Benedictines; the borrowing under a pledge, or at least after an entry
made by the Librarian on his roll of the name of the book and the name of
the brother who borrowed it, was universal in monasteries; and the setting
apart of certain books in a separate room to which access was readily
permitted became a necessity in the larger and more literary Houses.
Lastly, the commemoration of donors of books is specially enjoined by the
Augustinians[283].
This close similarity between monastic and secular rules need not surprise
us. I have shewn in the preceding chapter how faithfully the Benedictine
rules for study were obeyed by all the Monastic Orders; and I know not
from what other source directions for library-management could have been
obtained. Besides, in some cases the authors of the rules which I have
been considering must themselves have had experience of monastic
libraries. Walter de Merton is said to have been educated in an
Augustinian Priory at Merton; Hugh de Balsham, founder of Peterhouse, was
Bishop of Ely; William Bateman, whose library-statute was so widely
applied, had been educated in the Benedictine Priory at Norwich, and his
brother was an abbat; Henry Chichele was Archbishop of Canterbury, where,
as I have shewn, a very extensive collection of books had been got
together, to contain which worthily he himself built a library.
Secondly, monastic influence was brought directly to bear on both
Universities through student-monks; and at Oxford, which was specially
selected as the University for monastic colleges, the Benedictines founded
Gloucester House, now Worcester College, so early as 1283. This college
had a library, on the south side of the chapel, which was built and
stocked with books at the sole charge of John Whethamstede, Abbat of S.
Albans[284]--whose work in connexion with the library of that House has
been already recorded[285]. Durham College, maintained by the Benedictines
of Durham, was supplied with books from the mother-house, lists of which
have been preserved[286]; and subsequently a library was built there to
contain the collection bequeathed in 1345 by Richard de Bury (Bishop of
Durham 1333-45)[287]. Lastly, Leland tells us that at Canterbury College
in the same University the whole furniture of the library (_tota
bibliothecae supellex_) was transferred from the House of Christ Church,
Canterbury[288]. It is, I submit, quite inconceivable that the fittings
supplied to these libraries could have been different from those commonly
used in the monasteries of S. Albans, Durham, and Canterbury.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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