Fig. 59. Piece of the iron bar, with chain, Zutphen.
Another example of such fittings was once to be seen at Pembroke College, Cambridge, in the library above the hall ([fig. 48]). In Dr Matthew Wren's account of that library already quoted there is a passage which may be translated as follows:
I would have you know that in the year 1617 the Library was completely altered and made to assume an entirely new appearance. This alteration was rendered necessary by the serious damage which, to our great sorrow, we found the books had suffered—a damage which was increasing daily—partly from the sloping form of the desks, partly from the inconvenient weight of the chains (tum ex declivi pluteorum fabricâ, tum ex ineptâ mole catenarum)[318].
These desks were copied at S. John's College in the same University. A contract dated 20 June, 1516, provides that the contractor
shall make all the Desks in the Library wythin the said college of good and substanciall and abyll Tymber of Oke mete and convenient for the same Library, aftir and accordyng to the Library within ... Pembroke Hall[319].
Fig. 60. Chained book, from a Dominican House at Bamberg, South Germany.
The Library here referred to was on the first floor to the south of the Great Gate of the college. It is now divided into chambers, but its original extent can be readily made out by its range of equidistant windows. The wall-spaces dividing these are 28½ inches wide, practically the same as those at Queens' College.
At Peterhouse also a similar arrangement seems to have subsisted when the catalogue of 1418 was made. The very first book, a Bible, is said to stand "in the sixth lectern on the west side (lectrino 6o ex parte occidentali)." The word lectrinum is unusual, but it emphasizes the form of the desk more clearly than any other.