The Care of Books - John Willis Clark

This catalogue, written on vellum, in double columns, with initial letters in red and blue alternately, records the titles of 1200 mss and printed books; but the number of the latter is not great. It is headed:

Inventory of the books at Citeaux, in the diocese of Chalons, made by us, brother John, abbat of the said House, in the year of our Lord 1480, after we had caused the said books to be set to rights, bound, and covered, at a vast expense, by the labour of two and often three binders, employed continuously during two years [220].

This heading is succeeded by the following statement:

And first of the books now standing (existencium) in the library of the dorter, which we have arranged as it is, because the room had been for a long time useless, and formerly served as a tailory and vestry, ... but for two years or nearly so nothing or very little had been put there [221].

A bird's-eye view of Citeaux, dated 1674, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, shews a small building between the Frater and the Dorter, which M. Viollet-le-Duc, who has reproduced [222] part of it, letters "staircase to the dorter." The room in question was probably at the top of this staircase, and the arrangements which I am about to discuss shew beyond all question that the Dorter was at one end of it and the Frater at the other.

There were six bookcases, called benches (banche), evidently corresponding to the sedilia or "seats" mentioned in many English medieval catalogues. The writer takes the bookcases in order, beginning as follows:

De	prima banca	inferius	versus refectorium		(13 vols.).
In	2^a linea	prime	banche superius		(17 vols.).
In	2^a banca	inferius	de latere	dormitorii	(18 vols.).
"	"	superius	"	"	(14 vols.).
In	2^a banca	inferius	de latere	refectorii	(15 vols.).
"	"	superius	"	"	(18 vols.).

The third and fifth banche, containing respectively 75 volumes and 68 volumes, are described in identical language; but the descriptions of the 4th and 6th differ sufficiently to make quotation necessary:

In quarta	banca	de latere	dormitorii	(24 vols.).
"	"	"	refectorii	(16 vols.).
In sexta	banca	de latere	dormitorii	(25 vols.).
Libri sequentes sunt in dicta sexta banca de latere dormitorii inferius sub analogio				(38 vols.).