Fig. 32. Library of the Grey Friars House, London, commonly called Christ's Hospital. From Trollope's History.
The Franciscan House in London, commonly called Christ's Hospital, had a noble library, founded 21 October, 1421, by Sir Richard Whittington, mercer and Lord Mayor of London. By Christmas Day in the following year the building was roofed in; and before three years were over it was floored, plastered, glazed, furnished with desks and wainscot, and stocked with books. The cost was £556. 16s. 8d.; of which £400 was paid by Whittington, and the rest by Thomas Wynchelsey, one of the brethren, and his friends[230]. It extended over the whole of one alley of the cloister ([fig. 32]). Stow tells us that it was 129 ft. long, by 31 ft. broad[231]; and, according to the letters patent of Henry VIII., dated 13 January, 1547, by which the site was conveyed to the City of London, it contained "28 Desks and 28 Double Settles of Wainscot[232]."
I have recounted the expedients to which the monks of Citeaux were reduced when their books had become too numerous for the cloister. I will now describe their permanent library. This is shewn in the bird's-eye view dated 1674 to which I have already referred, and also in a second similar view, dated 1718, preserved in the archives of the town of Dijon[233], where I had the good fortune to discover it in 1894. It is accompanied by a plan of the whole monastery, and also by a special plan[234] of the library ([fig. 35]). The buildings had by this time been a good deal altered, and partly rebuilt in the classical style of the late renaissance; but in these changes the library had been respected. I reproduce ([fig. 33]) the portion of the view containing it and the adjoining structures, together with the corresponding ground-plan ([fig. 34]).
The authors of the Voyage Littéraire, Fathers Martène and Durand, who visited Citeaux in 1710, thus describe this library:
Citeaux sent sa grande maison et son chef d'ordre. Tout y est grand, beau et magnifique, mais d'une magnificence qui ne blesse point la simplicité religieuse....
Les trois cloîtres sont proportionnez au reste des bâtimens. Dans l'un de ces cloîtres on voit de petites cellules comme à Clervaux, qu'on appelle les écritoires, parce que les anciens moines y écrivoient des livres. La bibliothèque est au dessus; le vaisseau est grand, voûté, et bien percé. Il y a bon fonds de livres imprimez sur toutes sortes de matières, et sept ou huit cent manuscrits, dont la plupart sont des ouvrages des pères de l'église[235].
The ground-plan ([fig. 34]) shews the writing-rooms or scriptoria, apparently six in number, eastward of the church; and the bird's-eye view ([fig. 33]) the library built over them. Unfortunately we know nothing of the date of its construction. It occupied the greater part of the north side of a cloister called "petit cloître" or Farmery Cloister, from the large building on the east side originally built as a Farmery ([fig. 33], B). It was approached by a newel-stair at its south-west corner ([fig. 35]). This stair gave access to a vestibule, in which, on the west, was a door leading into a room called small library (petite bibliothèque), apparently built over one of the chapels at the east end of the church ([fig. 34]). The destination of this room is not known. The library proper was about 83 feet long by 25 feet broad[236], vaulted, and lighted by six windows in the north and south walls. There was probably an east window also, but as explained above, it was intended, when this plan was drawn, to build a new gallery for books at this end of the older structure.