One of the precentor’s chief duties was to regulate lending books. At Abingdon he could only lend to outsiders upon a pledge of equal or greater value than the book required, and even so could only lend to churches near by and to persons of good standing. It was deemed preferable to confiscate the pledge than to proceed against a defaulting borrower. In some houses more than a pledge was demanded if the book were lent for transcription, the borrower being required to send a copy when he returned the manuscript. “Make haste to copy these quickly,” wrote St. Bernard’s secretary, “and send them to me; and, according to my bargain, cause a copy to be made for me. And both these which I have sent you, and the copies, as I have said, return them to me, and take care that I do not lose a single tittle.”[248] The extra copy was demanded, not so much for purposes of gain as to put a check upon borrowing, a practice which many abbots did not encourage, on account of the danger of loss. Books, like gloves, are soon lost. We can well understand how uncommonly easy it was to forget to return a coveted manuscript. To help borrowers to overcome the insidious temptation, the scribe sometimes wrote upon the manuscript the name of the monastery it belonged to, and threatened a defaulter with anathema. In some of the St. Albans’ books is the following note in Latin: “This book is St. Alban’s book: he who takes it from him or destroys the title be anathema.”[249]
The prior and convent of Rochester threatened to pronounce sentence of damnation on anyone who stole or hid the Latin translation of Aristotle’s Physics, or even obliterated the title.[250] Apparently no fate was too bad for the thief who took the Vulgate Bible: let him die the death; let him be frizzled in a pan; the falling sickness and fever should rage in him; he should be broken on the wheel and hanged; Amen.[251] Two curious notes are to be found in a manuscript of the works of Augustine and Ambrose in the Bodleian Library. “This book belongs to St. Mary of Robert’s Bridge: whoever steals it, or sells it, or takes it away from this house in any way, or injures it, let him be anathema-maranatha.” Underneath, another hand has written: “I, John, bishop of Exeter, do not know where the said house is: I did not steal this book, but got it lawfully.”[252] In a beautiful manuscript of Chaucer’s Troilus, not perhaps a conventual book, occurs the following:—
“he that thys Boke rentt or stelle
God send hym sekenysse swart (?) of helle.”[253]
All the same, losses were common. About 1290 William of Pershore, once a Benedictine monk, and at the time a Grey Friar, returned to his old order at Westminster, and took with him some books. A big dispute arose over this apostate, and one of the items of the subsequent settlement was that the Westminster monks should return the books.[254]
A similar thing took place in Scotland (1331). A friar of Roxburgh forsook his grey habit for the Cistercian white by entering Kelso Abbey. He made his new associates envious with an account of the goods of the friaries at Roxburgh and Berwick. They persuaded him and two other apostate friars to rob these convents of the “Bibles, chalices, and other sacred books,” and, with the aid of night, the enterprise met with more success than they deserved.[255]
The prior and convent of Ely traced some of their books to Paris. They wrote to Edward III (1332): “Because a robber has taken out of our church four books of great value, viz.—The Decretum, Decretals, the Bible and Concordance, of which the first three are now at Paris, arrested and detained under sequestration by the officer of the Bishop of Paris, whom our proctor has often prayed in form of law to deliver them, but he behaves so strangely that we shall find in him neither right, grace, nor favour:—We ask you to write to the Bishop of Paris to intermeddle favourably and tell his official to do right, so that we may get our things back.”[256] In 1396-7 William, prior of Newstead, and a brother canon, proceeded against John Ravensfield for the return of a book by Richard of Hampole, entitled Pricke of Conscience, “and now the parties aforesaid are agreed by the licence of the court, and the said John is in ‘misericordia’; he paid the amercement in the hall.”[257] Another record tells us of two monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, being sent into Cambridgeshire to recover a book.
The risk of loss owing to the practice of lending books was great—how great may be judged from the fact that of the equal portions of the Peterhouse College library of 1418, 199 volumes of the chained portion remain, but only ten of all those assigned to the Fellows are left.[258] In spite of the risk, lending was extensively carried on. In one year (1343), for example, the unimportant priory of Hinton lent no fewer than twenty books to another monastery.[259] Then again, it was thought to be only common charity to lend books to poor students, and in 1212 a council at Paris actually forbade monks to refuse to lend books to the poor, and requested them to divide their libraries into two divisions—one for the use of the brothers, the other for lending.[260] Whether this ever became a practice in England is more than doubtful. But seculars of position or influence appear to have been able to borrow monastic books. For example, in 1320, the prior and convent of Ely acknowledge receiving ten books from the executors of a rector of Balsham, who had borrowed them.[261] Some years later, at an audit of books of Christ Church, Canterbury, seventeen manuscripts—thirteen of them on law—were noted as in the hands of seculars, among whom was Edward II.[262]
Lending books to brethren in the monastery was conducted according to strict rules, of which those of Lanfranc, based on the Cluniac observances, afford a good example. Before the brethren went into chapter on the Monday after the first Sunday in Lent, the librarian laid out on a carpet in the chapter-house all the books which were not on loan. After the assembly of the brethren, the librarian read his register of the books lent to the monks. Each brother, on hearing his name, returned the book which had been entrusted to him. If he had not made good use of the book, he was expected to prostrate himself, confess his neglect, and beg forgiveness. When all books were returned, others were issued, and a new record made. In some monasteries the abbot would question the monks on the books they had read, to test their knowledge of them, and whenever the answers were unsatisfactory would lend the same books again instead of fresh ones. As a rule only one book was issued at a time, so that the monk had plenty of time to digest its contents. In Carthusian houses two books were lent at a time. Sick brethren were freely permitted to borrow books for their solace, but such books were returned to the library nightly, at lighting-up time.
Among the Cluniacs it was the custom to take stock of the books given out to the monks once a year; while the Franciscans kept a register of their books, and every year it was read and corrected before the convent in assembly.[263]
An excellent example of a stocktaking record made at Christ Church, Canterbury, has been preserved. The inspection took place in 1337. First are recorded the books missing from the two “demonstrations,” as recorded “in magnis tabulis,” e.g.,