One of the earliest English libraries was that of Christ Church, i.e. the Cathedral, at Canterbury. On the authority of the Canterbury Book, a fifteenth century manuscript preserved at Cambridge, this library began with the nine books said to have been brought from Rome by St Augustine. These nine books were a Bible in two volumes, a Psalter, a Book of Gospels, the Lives of the Apostles, the Lives of the Martyrs, and an Exposition of the Gospels and Epistles. This collection was enriched by the magnificent scriptural and classical volumes brought from the continent by Archbishop Theodore in the seventh century. Under Archbishop Chicheley, in the fifteenth century, this library was provided with a dwelling of its own, built over the Prior's Chapel, and containing sixteen bookcases of four shelves each. At this time a catalogue was already in existence, made by Prior Eastry at the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century, and records about three thousand volumes.
The monastery of St Mary's at York owned a library which was founded by Archbishop Egbert. Egbert's pupil Alcuin, whom Charlemagne charged with the care of the educational interests of his empire, soon after taking up his residence at St Martin's at Tours, desired the emperor to send to Britain for “those books which we so much need; thus transplanting into France the flowers of Britain, that the garden of Paradise may not be confined to York, but may send some of its scions to Tours.”
Richard de Bury, the famous old book collector or bibliomaniac to whom reference has already been made, bequeathed his books, which outnumbered all other collections in this country, to the University of Oxford, where they were housed in Durham College, which he had endowed. He has left an interesting account of how he gathered his treasures, which may fitly be quoted here. Aided by royal favour, he tells us, “we acquired a most ample facility of visiting at pleasure and of hunting as it were some of the most delightful coverts, the public and private libraries both of the regulars and the seculars.… Then the cabinets of the most notable monasteries were opened, cases were unlocked, caskets were unclasped, and astonished volumes which had slumbered for long ages in their sepulchres were roused up, and those that lay hid in dark places were overwhelmed with a new light.… Thus the sacred vessels of science came into the power of our disposal, some being given, some sold, and not a few lent for a time.” The embassies with which he was charged by Edward III. gave him opportunity for hunting continental coverts also. “What a rush of the flood of pleasure rejoiced our hearts as often as we visited Paris, the paradise of the world!… There, in very deed, with an open treasury and untied purse-strings, we scattered money with a light heart, and redeemed inestimable books with dirt and dust.” Richard de Bury also furthered his collection by making friends of the mendicant friars, and “allured them with the most familiar affability into a devotion to his person, and having allured, cherished them for the love of God with munificent liberality.” The affability and liberality of the good bishop attained their object, and the devoted friars went about everywhere, searching and finding, and whenever he visited them, placed the treasures of their houses at his disposal. Although the mendicant orders were originally forbidden property of any kind, this rule was afterwards greatly relaxed, especially as regards books, and in Richard de Bury's time the friars had amassed large libraries and were well-known as keen collectors.
In France it was not an uncommon practice for a monastery to levy a tax on its members or its dependent houses for the increase of its library, and in several houses it was customary for a novice to present writing materials at his entry and a book at the conclusion of his novitiate. As early as the close of the eleventh century Marchwart, Abbot of Corvey in North Germany, made it a rule that every novice on making his profession should add a book to the library.
The monastic libraries met their doom at the time of the Reformation and of the suppression of the religious houses. Nearly all the books at Oxford, including the gifts of Richard de Bury, were burnt by the mob, and under Elizabeth the royal commissioners ordered the destruction of all “capes, vestments, albes, missals, books, crosses, and such other idolatrous and superstitious monuments whatsoever.” Since those who ought to have been more enlightened classed missals and books among idolatrous and superstitious monuments, it is not to be wondered at that the ignorant and undiscriminating mob should glory in their wanton destruction. Books that escaped the fire or the fury of the mob were put to various uses as waste paper. They were employed for “scouring candlesticks and cleaning boots,” for the wrapping up of the wares of “grocers and soap-sellers,” and were exported by shiploads for the use of continental bookbinders. On the continent, too, fire, wars, plunder, and suppression dispersed or destroyed many of the monastic collections.
A comparatively recent instance of book destruction caused by the fury of the rabble is afforded by the great losses undergone by Bristol Cathedral library in the riots which took place in connection with the passing of the Reform Bill. The palace was set on fire, and the library, which was lodged in the Chapter-house, was brought out and most of the volumes hurled into the flames. Others were thrown into the river, into ditches, and about the streets, and although about eleven hundred were subsequently recovered from second-hand clothes dealers and marine stores, only two copies and one set remained intact.
As a natural consequence of the revival of learning in the fourteenth century, private libraries began to increase in size and in number, and the collection of books was no longer left to monks and priests. King John of France gathered a little library, some say of only twenty volumes, which laid the foundation of the great Royal Library, now the Bibliothèque Nationale. These he bequeathed to his son, Charles V., who increased the number to nine hundred, for his known fondness for books and reading obtained for him presentation volumes from many of his subjects. His books included works of devotion, astrology, medicine, law, history, and romance, with a few classical authors. Most of them were finely written on vellum, and sumptuously bound in jewelled and gold-bedecked covers. They were lodged in three rooms in the Louvre, in a tower called “La Tour de la libraire.” These rooms had wainscots of Irish [bog?] oak, and ceilings of cypress “curiously carved.” According to Henault, the library of the Louvre was sent to England by the Duke of Bedford while Regent of France, and only a few volumes afterwards found their way back to Paris.
One of the finest libraries of this period was possessed by Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy. It contained nearly two thousand volumes, mostly magnificent folios clothed in silk and satin, and ornamented with gold and precious stones. Books were now the fashion, the fashionable possessions, the fashionable gifts, among those who were wealthy enough to afford them. Louis de Bruges, Seigneur de la Gruthyse, was another famous collector, whose books were no less splendid in their size, beauty and costliness, than those of the Duke of Burgundy. His collection was afterwards added to the Royal Library, and some of its treasures still exist in the Bibliothèque Nationale.
The rich and cultured of Italy were also busily collecting books and forming libraries. A library was made by Cardinal Bessarion at a cost of thirty thousand sequins, and afterwards became the property of the church of St Mark at Venice. Venice already possessed a small collection of books given to it by Petrarch, but the gift was so little thought of that it lay neglected in the Palazzo Molina until some of the volumes had crumbled to powder, and others had petrified, as it were, through the damp.
Of English collectors of this period Richard de Bury was the most famous. As has already been stated, he possessed the largest number of books in the country, and these he bequeathed to the University of Oxford. The Aungervyle Library, as it was called, was destroyed at the Reformation. Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, also had a very fine collection. He preferred romances, however, to theology or law, and his library contained many such works. At his death he bequeathed it to the Abbey of Bordesley, in Worcestershire.