This gift may have formed part—it is not certain—of the two valuable hoards existing in the fifteenth century in the same friary, one the convent library, open only to graduates, the other the Schools library, for seculars living among the brethren for the sake of the teaching they could get. In these collections were many Hebrew books, which had been bought upon the banishment of the Jews from England (1290).[117] Such books were not often found in the abbeys, although some got to Ramsey, where Grosseteste’s influence may be suspected.
The White Friars also had a library at Oxford, wherein they garnered the works of every famous writer of their order. They are praised for taking more care of their books than the brethren of other colours.[118] In later times, at any rate, some cause for the complaint against the Grey Friars existed. They appear to have sold many manuscripts to Dr. Thomas Gascoigne (c. 1433). He ultimately gave them to the libraries of Lincoln, Durham, Balliol, and Oriel Colleges. As the friars’ mode of life grew easier and the love of learning less keen, they got rid of many more books. In Leland’s time the library had melted away. After much difficulty he was allowed to see the book-room, but he found in it nothing but dust and dirt, cobwebs and moths, and some books not worth a threepenny piece.[119]
Roger de Thoris, afterwards Dean of Exeter, presented a library to the Grey Friars of his city in 1266.[120] What became of it we do not know. About the same time, in 1253 to be exact, the will of Richard de Wyche, Bishop of Chichester, is notable for its bequests to the friars; thus he left books to various friaries of the Grey Brethren—at
Chichester his glossed Psalter, at Lewes the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John, at Winchelsea the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, at Canterbury Isaiah glossed, at London the Epistles of St. Paul glossed, and at Winchester the twelve Prophets glossed; as well as some volumes to the Black Friars—at Arundel the Book of Sentences, at Canterbury Hosea glossed, at London the Books of Job, the Acts, the Apocalypse, with the canonical epistles, and at Winchester the Summa of William of Auxerre.[121] Such friendliness for the Mendicants was far from common among the secular clergy. Besides the southern places mentioned in this bequest, friaries in the east, at Norwich and Ipswich, and in the west, at Hereford and Bristol, had goodly libraries.
The friary collections in London seem to have been important, especially that given to the Grey Friars in 1225,[122] just when they had settled near Newgate. The Austin Friars may have owned a library before 1364, when two of their number left the London house, taking with them books and other goods.[123] Early in the fifteenth century a library was built and a large addition was made to the books of this house by Prior Lowe, a friar afterwards occupying the sees of St. Asaph and of Rochester.[124] At this time the friars of London were specially fortunate. The White Friars enjoyed a good library, to which Thomas Walden, a learned brother of the order, presented many foreign manuscripts of some age and rarity.[125] The Grey Friars’ library was founded or refounded by Dick Whittington (1421).[126] The room “was in length one hundred twentie nine foote, and in breadth thirtie one: all seeled with Wainscot, having twentie eight desks, and eight double setles of Wainscot. Which in the next yeare following was altogither finished in building, and within three yeares after, furnished with Bookes, to the charges of” over £556, “whereof Richard Whittington bare foure hundred pound, the rest was borne by Doctor Thomas Winchelsey, a Frier there.”[127] On this occasion one hundred marks were paid for transcribing the works of Nicholas de Lyra, a Grey Friar highly esteemed for his knowledge of Hebrew, and “the greatest exponent of the literal sense of Scripture whom the medieval world can show.”[128]