If then the above facts be securely entrusted to a retentive memory it will be clearly seen in what class, shelf, place and order each book of the whole Library ought to be put, and on what leaf and which side of the leaf the beginnings of the several treatises may be found. For it has been the object of the compiler of this present register [and] of the Library, by setting forth a variety of such marks and notations of classes, shelves, order, pagination, treatises and volumes, to insure for his monastery security from loss in time to come, to shut the door against the spite of such as might wish to despoil or bargain away such a treasure, and to set up a sure bulwark of defence and resistance. And in truth the compiler will not be offended but will honestly love anyone who shall bring this register--which is still faulty in many respects--into better order, even if he should see fit to place his own name at the head of the whole work. In the first part of the register, therefore, we have throughout at the top, between black lines ruled horizontally, first the class-letter, in red, and, following it, the shelf-mark, in black characters (_tetris signaculis_). Then again between other lines ruled in red, vertically: first, on the left a numeral shewing the place of the book in order on its shelf: then the name of the volume: thirdly, the number of the "probatory" leaf; fourthly, the "probatory" words (in the case of which, by the way, reference is made to the text and not to the gloss); fifthly, the number of leaves in the whole volume; and, lastly, the number of the treatises contained in it--all written within the aforesaid lines. In addition there will be left in each shelf of this part, at the end, some vacant space, in which the names of books that may be subsequently acquired can be placed[352]. The meaning of the word "distinction" is the principal difficulty in the way of understanding the above description. I thought at first that it denoted merely difference of subject, and that _gradus_, as in the catalogue of Queens' College, Cambridge, was a side of a lectern. But the statement that the grades are numbered "from the bottom and proceed upwards" can hardly be reconciled with any arrangement of lecterns. _Distinctio_ probably denotes a bookcase or press, divided into 7 grades, and probably placed against the wall, the word _gradus_ here meaning a flat shelf, instead of one set at an angle as in former instances. If this explanation be correct we have here a very early instance of shelves in such a position. My second example of a monastic library fitted up according to the stall-system is the library at Clairvaux. As I have already printed a full description of it[353], I need not do more in this place than translate the passage referring to the fittings: