Salisbury, not until the fifteenth century was a separate library room built. Two gifts “to the new library” by Bishop Repyngton—who also befriended Oxford University Library—and Chancellor Duffield in 1419 and 1426, fix the date. It was put up over the north half of the eastern cloisters, relatively the same position as at Salisbury and Wells. Originally it had five bays, but in 1789 the two southernmost bays were pulled down: In this room the fine fifteenth century oaken roof, with its carved ornaments, has been preserved, but at Salisbury the roof is modern, with a plaster ceiling. Lincoln’s new library, designed by Wren and erected in 1674, is next to this old room. According to a 1450 catalogue now preserved at Lincoln the library contained one hundred and seven works, more than seventy of which now remain. Among the most important manuscripts are a mid-fifteenth century copy of old English romances of great literary value, collected by Robert de Thornton, archdeacon of Bedford (c. 1430); and a contemporary copy of Magna Carta.
§ VI
In an inventory of St. Paul’s Cathedral, taken in 1245, mention is made of thirty-five volumes.[304] Before this, in Ralph of Diceto’s time, a binder of books was an officer of the church. As at Salisbury, the chancellor’s duties included taking charge of the school books. In 1283 a writer of books was included among the ministers. The two offices were combined in the beginning of the next century. When Dean Ralph Baldock made a visitation of St. Paul’s treasury in 1295, he found thirteen Gospels adorned with precious metals and stones; some other parts of the Scriptures; and a commentary of Thomas Aquinas. In 1313 Baldock, who died Bishop of London, bequeathed fifteen volumes, chiefly theological books.[305] To Baldock’s time probably belongs the reference to twelve scribes, no doubt retained for business purposes as well as for book-making. They were bound by an oath to be faithful to the church and to write without fraud or malice. Æneas Sylvius tells us he saw a Latin translation of Thucydides in the sacristy of the cathedral (1435).[306]
A library room was erected in the fifteenth century. “Ouer the East Quadrant of this Cloyster, was a fayre Librarie, builded at the costes and charges of Waltar Sherington, Chancellor of the Duchie of Lancaster, in the raigne of Henrie the 6 which hath beene well furnished with faire written books in Vellem.”[307] The catalogue of 1458 bears out Stow’s description of the library as well-furnished. Some one hundred and seventy volumes were in the Chapter’s possession; they were of the usual kind, grammatical books, Bibles and commentaries, works of the fathers; books on medicine by Galen, Hippocrates, Avicenna, and Egidius; Ralph de Diceto’s chronicles; and some works of Seneca, Cicero, Suetonius, and Virgil.[308] In 1486, however, only fifty-two volumes were found after the death of John Grimston the sacrist.[309] Leland gives a list of only twenty-one manuscripts, but it was not his habit to make full inventories. In Stow’s time, however, few books remained.[310] Three volumes only can be traced now—(1) a manuscript of Avicenna, (2) the Chronicle of Ralph de Diceto in the Lambeth Palace Library, and (3) the Miracles of the Virgin, in the Aberdeen University Library.[311]
§ VII
Although neither a monastic nor a collegiate church, Wells was already in the thirteenth century a place with some equipment for educational work. Besides the choristers’ school, a schola grammaticalis of a higher grade was in existence. After 1240 the Chancellor’s duties included lecturing on theology. Not improbably, therefore, a collection of books was formed very early. And indeed the Dean and Chapter in 1291 received from the Dean of Sarum books lent by the Chapter, and some others bequeathed to them. Hugo of St. Victor, Speculum de Sacramentis, and Bede, De Temporibus, were the books returned from Sarum; among those bequeathed were Augustine’s Epistles and De Civitate Dei, Gregory the Great’s Speculum, and John Damascenus. We know nothing of the character and size of the library at this time, although it seems to have been preserved in a special room. In 1297, the Chapter ordered the two side doors of the choir screen in the aisles to be shut at night. One door near the library (versus librarium) and the Chapter was only to be open from the first stroke of matins until the proper choir door was opened at the third bell. At other times during the day it was always to be closed, so that people could not injure the books in the library, or overhear the conferences of the Chapter (secreta capituli). This library was most likely on the north side of the church, with the Chapter House beside it, in the north transept, as shown conjecturally in the plan given in Canon Church’s admirable Chapters in the Early History of the Church of Wells.[312] That so early, in a church neither monastic nor collegiate, a school was at work, and a library had been formed, is a specially significant fact in the study of our subject.