dere within the woode, therby to have the better cry with his howndes.”[391] A commission assembled at Oxford in 1550, and met many times at St. Mary’s Church. No documentary evidence of their treatment of libraries remains, but it was certainly most drastic. Any illuminated manuscript, or even a mathematical treatise illustrated with diagrams, was deemed unfit to survive, and was thrown out for sale or destruction. Some of the college libraries did not suffer severely. Most of Grey’s books survived in Balliol, although the miniatures were cut out. Queen’s, All Souls, and Merton came through the ordeal nearly unscathed. But Lincoln lost the books given by Gascoigne and the Italian importations of Flemming; Exeter College was purged. The University library itself was entirely dispersed. One of the commissioners, “by name Richard Coxe, Dean of Christ Church, shewed himself so zealous in purging this place of its rarities ... that ... savoured of superstition, that he left not one of those goodly MSS. given by the before mentioned benefactors. Of all which there were none restored in Q. Mary’s reign, when then an inquisition was made after them, but only one of the parts of Valerius Maximus, illustrated with the Commentaries of Dionysius de Burgo, an Augustine Fryer, and with the Tables of John Whethamsteed, Abbat of St. Alban’s. That some of the books so taken out by the Reformers were burnt, some sold away for Robin Hood’s pennyworths,[392] either to Booksellers, or to Glovers, to press their gloves, or Taylors to make measures, or to bookbinders to cover books bound by them, and some also kept by the Reformers for their own use. That the said library being thus deprived of its furniture was employed, as the schools were, for infamous uses. That in laying waste in that manner, and not in a possibility (as the academians thought) of restoring it to its former estate, they ordered certain persons in a Convocation (Reg. I. fol. 157ª) held Jan. 25, 1555-56 to sell the benches and desks therein; so that being stript stark naked (as I may say) continued so till Bodley restored it.”[393] The only cheerful reference to this period is that by Wood, who tells us some friendly people bought in a number of the manuscripts, and ultimately handed them over to the University after the library’s restoration.[394] But of all the books given by the Duke of Gloucester only three are now in the Bodleian, and only three others in Corpus Christi, Oriel, and Magdalen. The British Museum possesses nine; Cambridge one; private collectors two. Six are in France: two Latin—both Oxford books—and three French manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and one manuscript at the Bibliothèque Ste. Geneviève. The Ste. Geneviève book[395] is a magnificent Livy, once belonging to the famous Louvre Library. It bears the inscription: “Cest livre est à moy Homfrey, duc de Gloucestre, du don mon très chier cousin le conte de Warewic.”[396]
CHAPTER VII
ACADEMIC LIBRARIES: CAMBRIDGE
§I
AS the libraries of Cambridge were mostly of later foundation than those at Oxford, and as the collections were of the same character, it is less necessary to describe them in detail, especially after having dealt fully with the collections of the sister university. Cambridge University does not seem to have owned books in common until the first quarter of the fifteenth century. Before that, in 1384, the books intended for use in the University were submitted to the Chancellor and Doctors, so that any containing heretical and objectionable opinions could be weeded out and burnt. In 1408-9 it was ordered that books suspected to contain Lollard doctrines should be examined by the authorities of both Universities; if approved by them and by the Archbishop of Canterbury, they could be delivered to the stationers for copying, but not before. And in 1480 keepers of chests were forbidden to receive as a pledge any book written on paper.[397] Certain regulations were also made with regard to the status of stationers and others engaged in book-making in the town. But there seems to have been no common library.
About the time when Gloucester made his first gift of books to Oxford University a public library was possibly “founded” by John Croucher, who gave a copy of Chaucer’s translation of Boëthius’ De Consolatione philosophiae. Richard Holme, Warden of King’s Hall, who died in 1424, gave sixteen volumes. At this time the collection amounted to seventy-six volumes. Robert Fitzhugh, Bishop of London, now left two books, a Textus moralis philosophiae and Codeton Super quatuor libros Sententiarum (1435-6). By 1435 or 1440 it had increased to one hundred and twenty-two books: theology accounting for sixty-nine, natural and moral philosophy for seventeen, canon law for twenty-three, medicine for five, grammar for six, and logic and sophistry for one each. Besides Holme’s books there were in this library eight books given by John Aylemer, six given by Thomas Paxton, ten by James Matissale, five each by John Preston, John Water, Robert Alne (1440),[398] and John Tesdale: other benefactors gave one or two or three.[399]
In 1423 one John Herrys or Harris gave ten pounds for the library, possibly for a building, as books do not seem to have been bought with it.[400] A common library is mentioned in 1438.[401] In the same year a grant was made by the king of the manor of Ruyslip and a place called Northwood for a library. The first room was erected between this year and 1457. After 1454 many entries occur in the University accounts for the roof of the new chapel and the library, for the general repairs of the same buildings, for the chaining and binding of books, and for their custody during a fire in the King’s College in 1457.[402] A sketch of the Schools quadrangle drawn about 1459 shows this library, libraria nova, above the Canon Law schools, on the west side.[403] Between the completion of this library