afterwards we hear of fittings, for in 1395 Walter of Ramsbury gave £10 for making the desks. Probably a book-room, which was over the west cloister, was then put up. A long interval elapsed, during which little seems to have been done for the library. But between c. 1516-35 Bishop Booth and Dean Frowcester left many fine volumes. In 1589 the book-room was abandoned and the contents shifted to the Lady Chapel.
A new library was built in 1897. Herein are to be seen what are almost certainly the original bookcases, albeit they have been taken to pieces and somewhat altered before being fitted together again. One of the bookcases still has all the old chains and fittings for the books, and it presents a very curious appearance. Every chain is from three to four feet long, with a ring at each end, and a swivel in the middle. One ring is strung on to an iron rod, which is secured at one end of the bookcase by metal work, with lock and key. For convenience in using the book on the reading slope which was attached to the case, the ring at the other end of the chain was fixed to the fore edge of the book-cover instead of to the back; when standing on the shelves the books therefore present their fore edges to the reader. The cases are roughly finished, but very solid in make.[298]
§ IV
At Old Sarum Church, Bishop Osmund (1078-99) collected, wrote, and bound books.[299] In his time, too, the chancellor used to superintend the schools and correct books: either books used in the school or service books.[300] The income from a virgate of land was assigned to correcting books towards the end of the twelfth century (1175-80).[301] The new Salisbury Cathedral was erected in the thirteenth century; but apparently a special library room was not used until shortly after 1444, when it was put up to cover the whole eastern cloister. This room was altered and reduced in size in 1758. About the time the room was completed one of the canons gave some books, on the inside covers of two of which is a note in a fifteenth century hand bidding they should be chained in the new library.[302] Nearly two hundred manuscripts, of various date from the ninth to the fourteenth century, are now in the library. Among them several notable volumes are to be found: a Psalter with curious illuminations; another Psalter, with the Gallican and Hebrew of Jerome’s translation in parallel columns, also illuminated; Chaucer’s translation of Boëthius; Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain of the twelfth century; a thirteenth century Lectionary, with golden and coloured initials; a Tonale according to Sarum use, bound with a fourteenth century Ordinal; and a fifteenth century Processional containing some notes on local customs.
§ V
Books were given to Lincoln Cathedral about 1150 by Hugh of Leicester; one of them bears the inscription, Ex dono Hugonis Archidiaconi Leycestriae. They may still be seen at Lincoln. Forty-two volumes and a map came into the charge of Hamo when he became chancellor in 1150.[303] During his chancellorship thirty-one volumes were added by gift, so making the total seventy-three volumes: Bishops Alexander and Chesney were among the benefactors. But here, as at