Primo: deficit liber Transfiguratus in Crucifixum, ad quem est in nota Frater W. de Coventre.
Nineteen books were missing from the two “demonstrations,” or displays. Nineteen service books were missing “in parvis tabulis.” No less than thirty-eight books, twenty-eight of them for service, either of the large or the small tables, were wanting: for these deceased brethren had been responsible.[264]
The “large tables” are believed to be boards whereon the borrowers of books had their names and borrowings noted. “I find,” writes Dr. James, “in a St. Augustine’s manuscript a note written on the fly-leaf by a monk, of the books ‘pro quibus scribor in tabula’—‘for which I am down on the board.’ ”[265] Large tables were in use at Pembroke College, Cambridge; probably they were of a similar kind. “And let the said keeper,”—so the statute runs—“have ready large pieces of board (tabulas magnas), covered with wax and parchment, that the titles of the books may be written on the parchment, and the names of the Fellows who hold them on the wax beside it.”[266] Monastic catalogues were sometimes written on such boards. At Cluni, Mabillon and Martène found the catalogue inscribed on parchment-covered boards three feet and a half long and a foot and a half wide—great tablets which closed together like a book.
Besides the example of an audit at Canterbury we have one belonging to Durham, a little later in date (1416). The list of books assigned to the Spendement was evidently read over, and a tick or point was put against every volume found in its place. On a second check certain books were accounted for, and notes of their whereabouts were added to the inventory. Some were found in the cloister, others were in the library; the prior of Finchale had a number; many had been sent to Oxford. In one case a book is noted as given to Bishop Kempe of London.[267]
The catalogue was usually a simple inventory. Sometimes the entries were classified, as in the case of a catalogue of the York library of the Friars Eremites of the Augustinian order. The fifteenth-century catalogue of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, is classified under sixteen headings, but it is probably incomplete.[268] As a rule the entries were only just sufficient to identify the books: all the treatises in a volume were not often recorded, but only the title of the first. This is an entry from a Durham catalogue:—
F. Legenda Sanctorum, sive Passionarum pro mensibus
Februaria et Marcii. II. fo., non surrexerunt.
The letter F was employed as a distinctive mark. The note “II. fo., non surrexerunt” signifies that the second folio began with these words, and was used as the most convenient method of distinguishing two copies of the same book, for it would rarely happen that one scribe would begin the second sheet with the same word as another. In some houses the practice was extended to printed books in the sixteenth century; and consequently no fewer that nearly four hundred editions have been named in the catalogue of Syon monastery.[269] In some other catalogues the information given was fuller. The catalogue of Syon notes first the press-mark in a bold hand; then on the left side the donor’s name, and on the opposite side the words of the second folio; and beneath the description of the book.
| Graunte | P 1m | indutum est |
Biblia perpulcra et completa cum interpretacionibus. | ||
| Woode | P 2 | osce 2º |
Concordancie cum textu expresso. | ||
The catalogue of St. Augustine’s, already referred to, recorded the general title of the volume, or of the first treatise in it; the name of the donor; the other contents of the volume; the first words of the second leaf, and the press-mark. Where necessary, cross-references were supplied. The press-marks used for monastic books are generally of two kinds: press-marks properly so called, or class-marks. At St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, the distinctions or tiers were numbered, as D 3; and the gradus or shelves of each distinction were numbered, as