Old English libraries

by Ernest Albert Savage

cries Chaucer.[439] Note also the preliminary request for silence and attention at the beginning of Sir Thopas—

“Listeth, lordes, in good entent,
And I wol telle verrayment
Of mirthe and of solas [solace];
Al of a knyght was fair and gent [gallant]
In bataille and in tourneyment,
His name was Sir Thopas.”

At the beginning of his metrical chronicle of England Robert Mannyng of Brunne begs the “Lordynges that be now here” to listen to the story of England, as he had found it and Englished it for the solace of those “lewed” men who knew not Latin or French.[440]

References to these minstrels are common—

“I warne you furst at the beginninge,
That I will make no vain carpinge [talk]
Of dedes of armys ne of amours,
As dus mynstrelles and jestours,
That makys carpinge in many a place
Of Octoviane and Isembrase,
And of many other jestes,
And namely, whan they come to festes;
Ne of the life of Bevys of Hampton,
That was a knight of gret renoun,
Ne of Sir Gye of Warwyke.”[441]

The monks of Hyde Abbey or New Minster paid an annuity to a harper (1180). No less a sum than seventy shillings was paid to minstrels hired to sing and play the harp at the feast of the installation of an abbot of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury (1309). When the bishop of Winchester visited the cathedral priory of St. Swithin or Old Minster, a minstrel was hired to sing the song of Colbrond the Danish giant—a legend connected with Winchester—and the tale of Queen Emma delivered from the ploughshares (1338). Payments to minstrels were commonly made by monks: at Bicester Priory, for example (1431), and at Maxstoke, where mimi, joculatores, jocatores, lusores, and citharistae were hired. A curious provision occurs in the statutes of New College, Oxford (1380). The founder gives his permission to the scholars, for their recreation on festival days in the winter, to light a fire in the hall after dinner and supper, where they could amuse themselves with songs and other entertainments of decent sort, and could recite poems, chronicles of kingdoms, the wonders of the world, and such like compositions, provided they befitted the clerical character. At Winchester College—where minstrels were often employed—and Magdalen College the same practice was followed. Commonly minstrels formed a regular part of the household of rich men.[442]

This part of the subject is so interesting that we feel tempted to linger over it, but it is sufficient for our purpose to observe that minstrelsy, before and after the Conquest—indeed, up to nearly the end of the manuscript period—was the chief and almost the only means of circulating literature among seculars. This fact should be borne in mind when any comparison is made between the number of religious and scholastic books in circulation and the number of books of lighter character. Even books of the scholastic class were read aloud to students in class, and often to small audiences of older people; but this method had obvious disadvantages, and the necessity of studying them personally soon came to be recognised as imperative. Hence such books, and especially those which summarised the subject of study, were greatly multiplied. On the other hand, romances were better heard than read, and only enough copies of them were made to supply wealthy households and the minstrels and jesters whose business it was to learn and recite them. Rarely, therefore, did the ordinary layman of medieval England own many books. The large class to whom romances appealed seldom owned books at all, simply because the people of this class, even if wealthy and of noble rank, could not in ninety cases out of one hundred read at all, or could read so poorly that the pastime was irksome. Among the educated classes, the books needed were those with which a reader had made acquaintance at his university, or which were necessary for his special study and occupation. Yet it is uncommon to find private libraries; and with few exceptions they were ridiculously small. The vast majority of the books were owned in common by monastic or collegiate societies.

Let us bring together the meagre records of three centuries, and some exceptions to the general rule which serve only to show up the general poverty of the land. Henry II, an ardent sportsman, a ruler almost completely immersed in affairs of State, made time for private reading and for working out knotty questions,[443] and very probably he had a library to his hand. King John received from the sacristan of Reading a small collection of books of the Bible and severe theology, perhaps as a diplomatic gift, perhaps as a subtle reminder that a little food for the spirit would improve his morals and ameliorate the lot of his subjects. Edward II borrowed at least two books, the Miracles of St. Thomas and the Lives of St. Thomas and St. Anselm, from Christ Church, Canterbury.[444] Great Earl Simon had a Digestum vetus from the same source. Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (d. 1315), had a little hoard of romances, and some other books. Hugh le Despenser the elder enjoyed a “librarie of bookes” (c. 1321), how big or of what character we do not know. Archbishop Meopham (d. 1333) gave some books to Christ Church, Canterbury; and his successor, John Stratford, presented a few to the same house. Lady Elizabeth de Clare, foundress of Clare Hall, bequeathed to her foundation a tiny collection of service books and volumes on canon law (1355). William de Feriby, Archdeacon of Cleveland, left a small theological library (1378). One John Percyhay of Swinton in Rydal (1392), Sir Robert de Roos (1392), John de Clifford, treasurer of York Church (1392), Canon Bragge of York (1396), and Eleanor Bohun, Duchess of Gloucester (1399), all left Bibles; and small collections of books, much alike in character, consisting usually of psalters, books of religious offices, legends of the saints, Peter of Blois, Nicholas Trivet, the Brut chronicle, books of Decretals, and the Corpus Juris Civilis,—most of it sorry stuff, the last achievements of dogmatism on threadbare subjects. “Among all the church dignitaries whose wills are recorded in Bishop Stafford’s register at Exeter (1395-1419), the largest library mentioned is only of fourteen volumes. The sixty testators include a dean, two archdeacons, twenty canons or prebendaries, thirteen rectors, six vicars, and eighteen layfolk, mostly rich people. The whole sixty apparently possessed only two Bibles between them, and only one hundred and thirty-eight books altogether: or, omitting church service-books, only sixty; i.e. exactly one each on an average. Thirteen of the beneficed clergy were altogether bookless, though several of them possessed the baselard or dagger which church councils had forbidden in vain for centuries past; four more had only their breviary. Of the laity fifteen were bookless, while three had service books, one of these being a knight who simply bequeathed them as part of the furniture of his private chapel.”[445]

A few exceptions there were, as we have said. Not till the fifteenth century do we find that a few books were commonly in the possession of well-to-do and cultivated people; suggesting an advance in culture upon the previous age. But before 1400 several book collectors were sharp aberrations from the general rule. Richard de Gravesend, Bishop of London, owned nearly a hundred books, almost all theological, and each worth on an average more than a sovereign a volume, or in all about £1740 of our money. A certain Abbot Thomas of St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, gave to his house over one hundred volumes.[446] To the same monastery a certain John of London, probably a pupil of Friar Bacon, left a specialist’s library of about eighty books, no fewer than forty-six being on mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.[447] Simon Langham, too, bequeathed to Westminister Abbey ninety-one works, some very costly.[448] John de Newton, treasurer of York, left a good library, part of which he bequeathed to York Minster and part to Peterhouse (1418). A canon of York, Thomas Greenwood, died worth more than thirty pounds in books alone (1421). And Henry Bowet, Archbishop of York, left a collection of thirty-three volumes, nearly all of great price,—copies de luxe, finely illuminated and embellished, worth on an average a pound a volume (1423).

But Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, is at once the bibliomaniac’s ideal and enigma (1287-1345). All accounts agree in saying he collected a large number of books.